YouSaid · the spoken record

Jon Cukierwar

lines on the record: 71
first: 2025-06-01
most recent: 2025-06-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Market getting bigger. And if you're really like one of the first people to discover these stocks, then odds are eventually more people should discover it along the way as well. So in my experience, when you have a setup like that, it's almost usually leads to multiple expansion. And sooner than later, given discoverability, because look, stocks these days relative to 20, 30 years ago, value gets realized a lot quicker, right? So, you know, when you find something, I guess the bad news is you don't have much time to get up to speed on an exciting opportunity. But the good news is if you do hold something and you think good things will happen fundamentally, it should get recognized sooner by the market, right? So the US, you know, but it's funny, it really depends on the country. There are countries that behave very similarly to the US, right? Australia, Canada, you know, Sweden. Yeah, like a lot of these companies, you know, if really good news happens, yeah, they will see stock price depreciation. And then there's some other countries that can.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's unlimited downside here. When I'm looking at these companies, I don't assume any multiple expansion for the thesis to work out and for us to earn satisfactory returns, right? If you're buying a company that you think should compound its free cash overshare at 15 to 20% for the next three to five years, and you're buying it off a really low free cash flow multiple or earnings per share multiple, assuming that they're roughly similar, let's say of eight times or nine times, right? You're probably not going to lose money in that scenario. And if you just forecast and set your expected returns based on that free cash flow per share growth, then yes, you should earn 15 to 20 percent per year. And that's, to me, that's a very satisfactory return. Now, when you layer on the probability of multiple expansion or multiple contraction, then yes, odds are in these scenarios, you also will experience multiple expansion off of a low base because the company's delivering in a powerful way.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, closing the price to value gap. So I don't typically think of it that way. And I think that isn't. So I think there's two parts of the question here. One is generally referencing the shift in capital that's occurring. And number two is how those valuation, I guess the market valuation behaves in the US relative to other countries. So to kind of tackle the second one first, it's not something I really think about in terms of, okay, is there going to be market discovery? And if it does, how soon will it happen? Because look, when I make investments, right, and the reason why I really prefer lower multiples to start on top of durability, on top of significant growth opportunity is because I'm looking for downside protection here, right? And I'm looking for, you know, if something goes wrong, obviously, how far can this price really collapse relative to expectations, right? And now obviously you don't want something where profits go to zero, where there's just, you know, or something horrible because then, yeah, it doesn't matter what multiple you buy it.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Company has less coverage. And then you kind of move into international countries, then you just really tend to get this niche areas where there's just very, very little coverage, and which kind of is the bottom line with, you know, with these small cap companies, right? And you can even call micro cap companies, of course. And so, you know, when I think about our edge from a small cap standpoint, when we're looking for things along the three pillars of quality growth and value, if you're looking at, you know, things small cap and develop global, you can really find companies that meet all three of these criteria. It's not easy. I think it's still as somebody who does like to sleuth around. It's still very hard. And you might only find one or two of these opportunities a year that really truly check the boxes. But if you find those one or two opportunities a year, that's really all you need because you can do very well on those.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits there, and I do think it really is a chance to describe our edge, our competitive edge here. When you look at small cash in general, it's really well documented that small caps compared to larger caps, you know, mid caps, large caps, mega caps, of course, they just have a lot less analyst coverage and institutional coverage. Now, that's well documented. Everybody knows this. So parlaying onto that is, you know, if you look at the United States compared to other developed countries around the world, emerging markets too, of course, but we stick to developed markets. I've just found that the United States is very competitive, right? Relative to other markets. For every, let's say, 10 sets of eyeballs looking at a company, even in the small or microcap realm, there's far fewer people, whether it's three sets of eyeballs, five sets of eyeballs, two sets of eyeballs in another country, looking at a similar stock. And so I think when you parlay that small cap.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is nobody else. No, but look, in general, I think it is something that you really do just, you know, and this is a hazy area of, you know, it's not something really quantitative, it's more qualitative, but of just kind of judgment of another person, judgment of their character, judgment of can you trust what they're telling you. analysis along these lines so yeah look generally i think you know and i can think back to many instances where yeah like i do feel this person their salesman ship is showing and they're being a little and you have to balance that with okay the credibility of their statements and other things they're telling you so i i don't have like a blueprint answer here but i think like what you're saying like it's very true it's real it is a risk i think it is something you can minimize a lot and i think it's something you just you kind of you evaluate that on balance with you know everything else that you're learning from that ceo”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, look, I think that's a terrific question. The truth is it's very hard to remove bias completely. Maybe impossible to remove, you know, if this one thing I've learned from reading all these books on psychology, how people work, how people operate, and then kind of getting experience in various ways, I'm convinced we're all hardwired to be vulnerable to many different heuristics. And the best you can do is really just try to minimize it, right? So I think you're right. Look, I think it's an advantage usually when you, you know, especially international small cap companies, you're one of the first North American or US investors to visit them. And the typically roll out the red carpet, right? As far as sometimes it's hard to get 30 minutes on the phone with them, they will meet you at headquarters. They will talk to you for four hours. And that can be incredible because you have a list of like 80 questions you want to get to, you know, in order of prayer and you can get to just about all of them. And then, you know, you learn other things. And so it's really good. And again, it's like how many other people have visited? Well, if they're telling you you're the first, then you're the first.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But things that are really only answerable or best answered for yourself. And by the way, a lot of people like to talk about Scuttlebutt and like to quote Buffett, but you'd be surprised at how very few people actually go and do the work for themselves and do the visits for themselves. So I think generally speaking, if you're ever erring on the side of if you should do field research or not do it, and you'll probably collect data points that most of your competitors aren't collecting. So I think that's number one, you know, going in with the hypotheses. And number two is just being open-minded and observing the data points that you didn't know you were going to collect. And eventually, in just about every case, some of these data points end up becoming essential to your thesis, right? Whether that's confirming your thesis or disconfirming your thesis. So those are the two buckets that I generally look for when I'm approaching field research.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's incredibly kind of you. The high praise for the report. And I didn't know that about Chris Mayer. I haven't met him, but incredibly kind of him too, to refer to it. And yeah, the Dino Polsco report, that research was a lot of fun. That trip was a lot of fun. I think generally, and I'm happy to use that trip specifically to give examples here, I think generally, you know, my approach is pretty, I think, straightforward in conductive field research. And if I had to outline it, I think there's just generally two buckets of data points I'm hoping to collect. Number one is you always want to go in with a straightforward hypothesis or hypotheses, right? It doesn't have to be just one thing, but hey, like here's what I'm hoping to accomplish with this trip. Here are the reasons I'm going because I need to confirm is this part of the thesis true is this part of the thesis true is that part of the thesis true, right? And it could be things that, you know, the company's told you can be things that you've found through your own primary research.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Opportunities, but you know, because we're in the stock market, if you want to invest your own money, what are the most likely opportunity costs they would be? And for me, obviously, think of the average mom and pop person, you know, yeah, we'll invest in the S&P or, you know, I think because of our small cap exposure over time, I think the Russell 2000 is another very common index that people would look at, right? Now you can expand it from here and there, but I think just really honing in and narrowing it down, look, the S&P 500 is, I think, the most fair opportunity cost and the most fair benchmark. It has proven to be the toughest speed over time. And so I think going forward, my full intention is to continue using it forever as our partnerships benchmark.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I would argue of all those people, they're a lot more interested in compounding their wealth at a high rate of return over time than seeing, okay, how did your portfolio do against a mirror image factor complete version based on the global market? Because if I were to do that, right, you would have to start globally, you would have to go micro cap, small cap. You'd have to exclude emerging markets. You'd have to exclude much of U.S. exposure because we on average have little U.S. exposure. And so I'm sure that maybe if you really customize that there is some benchmark out there. But then even if you find like the perfect go on, to me it's all right, well, you know, I don't know what exactly we're accomplishing because I'm not choosing those factors because I want those factor exposures. It's a bottom-up process to generate high returns. So I think just at the end of the day, it's a lot more valuable for these people to see, okay, what is the, if we want to invest in the stock market, right? Or they can invest in their own business.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To beat the SP 500, right? And so if you have 90% of managers can't beat something and you can beat it, then you're probably demonstrating some skill and that your vehicle and your way of investing should generate volatility notwithstanding greater returns over a long period of time. And number two is the way I view benchmarks, right? I think there's two trains of thoughts to view benchmarks. And the first is as opportunity cost. And the second is mirroring all of the factors of your investing approach. Now, I think number one is a lot more relevant for us because, you know, when I look at, we're not an institutional product and I have no intention to be. My goal is to compound returns at the highest rate responsibly possible over a long period of time. And we're fortunate to have found many, many high net worth individuals in family offices who have aligned with that vision and who have partnered with us. Over 50 people to date.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's a great question, Kyle. And I think to confirm, I don't believe I've ever held a company inside the SP 500. So the factual statement on your part, though it really is a great question because there's a lot of managers who use many different indices. If you look from day one of our partnership from our founding letter, I gave a lot of thought as to, hey, we're choosing the S&P 500 as our index. And here's why. And at that time, we had no performance and we had no idea if, you know, look, obviously we strive to have great returns if it would be above the S&P 500, below the S&P 500. But, you know, the reasons are kind of twofold why I choose it. Number one is it just really has been for some time and should be the hardest index to beat, right? You know, from an institutional manager standpoint, and I think from retail investors as well, you know, consistently around 90% of managers, of mutual fund managers, asset managers fail.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cheap companies at low multiples, right? I think it very much lives with me today. And my kind of investing approach today is definitely a blend of that statistically cheap approach and also the quality and growth elements of it.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you may be getting higher growth rates. I did take a course. There was a very kind professor at Columbia's executive MBA program, and he was very kind to let me audit his course. His name is Tom Treforos. And very influential figure to me over the years. And his course was called a study of the elements of great businesses. And, you know, so if I had to point to maybe one other item that influenced me, it was probably that course and just kind of what I learned from there and use as my foundation for how I view the investing world. And then ever since then, it's, you know, because if I had to look at today, I definitely have this quality growth element, but I'm also want my cake and eat it too. And I want to find companies on the very low end of the valuation spectrum. So it's not for naught, you know, what I learned at Robati and the margin of safety and downside protection that can come from buying very statistically.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My journey, and I was looking at all sorts of different companies, and for one reason or another, and investing can be very personal as to what you're comfortable with, what excites you. And for me, over time, those sort of high quality companies, you can call it growth at a reasonable price, but really just the kind that Buffet might teach, Buffet might talk about a lot of it in his letters. And the later letters, of course, the partnership letters were a different story. But that really kind of, for one reason or another, just, you know, attracted me more. And again, look, there's so much money to be made in statistically cheap names and cyclical companies. Just at the end of the day, after spending, you know, like a couple of years just kind of drinking from a fire hose at all ends of the spectrum, it was really more the quality, the growth, the long-term holdings. That's what attracted me more. So you're paying further up the multiple spectrum, of course, but free cash flow as an average may be more durable.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's a great question because you're absolutely right. I think statistically cheap companies, and especially with kind of a bias for maybe not bias, but just pension where the opportunity is for cyclical companies, right? Home building, energy, those have been successful themes for Robotian company. And for me, I think part of it was really having the freedom to”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thinker he has, I would call a behavioral advantage. I know a lot of people like to think they do, but I think he truly does. Just as far as his ability to, without stubbornness or blindness, with conviction, just go against the tide when the market's increasingly disagreeing with him. And then eventually, you know, may take years, but he's proven right in a big way with a lot of his picks. So yeah, a lot of great lessons I took from Rabatian Company. And it's one of those things, right? You read all your, you know, you're in college and you read your buffet, you read your monger, you read your Phil Fisher, you read everything, and all these principles that I just described, you know, all the greats communicate. Then you go to Roboti, you think, oh yeah, well, obviously this is how investors should think. And then afterwards, you see the rest of the investing world. Wait a minute, this is not normal at all. That was certainly the exception, right? So anyhow, look, terrific firm, great people, even better investors, definitely learned a lot of great lessons.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Year, you know, 40,000 people fly to Omaha. They come to see Warren speak. And they hang on to every word and they buy the cherry coke and Doritos and so on. But if you look back at Warren's career, his most important lesson was to think for yourself, right? Because if so much of what he did was really, you know, ahead of his time. And so, yeah, so I think independent thinking was a critical thing. You know, obviously there's other lessons. valuation. I don't even think anyone there is open Microsoft Excel, you know, the senior folks at least. Every valuation can be done in an eight and a half by 11 inch piece of paper. But the point being, you know, the number should hit you over the head like a baseball bat, right? And that should not be, if you need 100s of lines of Excel to tell you if something is a good investment or not, it probably, you probably don't have much. And yeah, aside from those, Bob himself, I've noticed is a very good behavioral.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“CNBC. There is a Bloomberg, but almost nobody ever uses it. I think the back office really uses it more than anybody. And, you know, look, there's no brokers. I never saw a single broker who came in there to pitch stocks. They don't subscribe to basically any sell side research that I can think of. Look, they just want to get the facts from the bottom up. They want to get the data, see what companies are trading cheap and mispriced on a statistically cheap basis. I think it's the only office I've seen those old school value lines, the actual printout versions, right, where you can flip through hundreds of companies. But yeah, you know, they were not interested in what other people thought. You know, managers, you go to the rest of Wall Street. They wanted all the sell side initiation reports. They want to talk to their other manager friends to see what they think about stocks. But, you know, they want to come to conclusions on their own. And I think, you know, that is really powerful. And as one of the managers there once told me who I really admire,”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. Oh man, that was 2016. I was 22 years old. And yes, the work for free, well, can be exactly for free because of wage laws and regulations, but think of it as close to it as you can get. And in hindsight, that was by far the best investment I've made in myself and my career. So a decision I'd make again 100 times over. Yeah, it's interesting. I think back and there really were some powerful lessons from working there, being exposed in that environment at Rabati and Company with Bob Rabati. You know, I think the most important takeaway from me there was that they truly are independent thinkers. I would say almost radically independent thinkers. And it's something you appreciate more when you leave the environment and just see how the rest of Wall Street thinks. There's obviously you go in their office, there's no TVs playing.”
2025-06-01 · We Study Billionaires · TIP726: From Obscurity to Opportunity: Jon Cukierwar’s Investment Edge · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT