YouSaid · the spoken record

Laura Geritz

lines on the record: 112
first: 2024-01-21
most recent: 2024-01-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Maybe, maybe. I would love to do that. But anyway, I just want to congratulate you on all your success and the wonderful book you wrote.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I'm envious. I mean, I'm not, I try not to be envious, you know. There's an area where I have not subtracted enough to accomplish what you accomplished.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh no, I've enjoyed your. I actually sported your Pico IR podcast onto a bunch of people I know because, I mean, it's just so good. It got me, I had kind of gotten out of some of my practices during COVID and it really got me back into this sort of intentional reading practice. And, you know, so I really appreciate what you're doing and, you know, the deeper thinking you're enabling us all to enjoy. I really enjoy your podcast. Anyway, I forwarded it all and it was great.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think when I met you, you know, I was in that point in my life where, you know, you know, you're some investment style is in. You are popular and in demand. And as a consequence, you're exhausted. And so like, you know, and you're trying to, I was also at the point in my life where you're sort of coming into this sort of, I don't know whether you want to call it like bigger, what is the bigger purpose of life? So I was in sort of this period of transition. I think I've learned. Actually, yes, I was coming to this conclusion that you practice the art of subtraction. I've gotten even better at it as the years have gone by. So it's, yeah, it's really nice to be kind of content in the moment.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In Japan, I have a place in Japan, you know, on Kushin. My place in Japan is not big. And as you know, my husband works out of it part-time, so it's also kind of this, you know, hybrid. It was hybrid before hybrid was cool. But yeah, we have like a pillow and I'll just go sit and kind of clearse my mind for 20 minutes a day. And it might not be through actual meditation, but cooking to me is also, you know, a form of Zen practice. I don't know if you've ever been making a sauce or something and your husband comes up and asks for your wife or whatever, your kids come up and ask a complex question. I mean, it's impossible to answer a question while you're like trying not to get lumps in whatever it is you're making. My cooking take.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think being in some of those cultures that are better at being an enrollment is really helpful, right? I don't know, you know, you look at just, I mean, this is a bigger topic altogether, but you look at the proliferation of technology in our mental health. I mean, they seem to go side by side, right? And so going to these places that live a different way to me at least teaches me how to balance the best of our culture and the best of theirs, you know. think so If anything, I don't know how often I think you've i heard you say before, you know, you've tried meditation, but to sitting, you know, Soto's in is so uncomfortable, if anything that makes me appreciate everything else during the day.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great. You know what's great? You know, when I was a young, I used to look forward along more anxiety. I was a very poor, I was planning my retirement at age five, you know, like I'm saving and. You know, thinking about retirement, but today I'm actually very content in the moment, you know, it's funny more so than I've ever been in my life. And I think it's because of the removal of all those sort of things that I didn't enjoy. So, you know, it's funny, I don't know, that's sort of a way of being too, right? It's just being in the moment. And so I'm really happy just celebrating the moments today versus, you know, again, always kind of thinking about what does retirement look like, right? Because, I mean, I think of anything, that's another thing COVID taught us, right, is we may not have, you know, 30, 40 years. Now, I'm not, you know, this isn't some yellow mentality, but it's definitely, you know, it's amazing how we evolve as thinkers over time or as human beings.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“White cleansing palate there for creativity. So it's this great place for the imagination. He also talks a lot, I'm going to paraphrase him here, but he talks about like we all have the same amount of time, right? Time is the same for all of us, but each one of us uses our time differently. And, you know, that's such a profound statement to me because I want to spend my time subtracting the things I don't like. I want to do the things I absolutely love because time is finite.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just brilliant. It's about all these different cultures, how they, you know, I guess, you know, in conflict in ways, but all trying to pursue the same goal, which is back to your point about they're focused on what is paradise, finding paradise. And so it's sort of this everyone has the same target, but they're getting there in different ways, different belief systems. And so I think, you know, keeping your eye on the ball around that target is really important. I told you one of my favorite books is Snow Country. And in the beginning of the book starts with, you know, there's this train going through a tunnel and you talked about going through this long tunnel into snow country. And so I'm always sort of trying to find that snow country, right? I mean, Japan is this beautiful place for writing because you've got this white, you know, it's the snowiest place on the earth. So you have this sort of.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just critical to be. I've gotten back to, even her team agrees that the things I am the best at are looking at stocks reading, which helps me look at stocks and writing. So I very much focused on those things today. I think the other thing I do reasonably well is talk to clients because I care about them. But I don't know. One of my books on my recent trip to Japan, I just read, finished Pico's new book, The Half Thrill and Life. Oh, it's brilliant. Yeah, it's a lovely book.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I've been doing that. I mean, I mentioned this to you, starting a business is not the best thing for like the art of subtraction, right? I mean, because you get drawn into so many things that you're not particularly exor doing. So or have an interest in doing. So that part at first, I don't think I manage that well in the very beginning. And then I've gotten better at managing it. You know, I've got partnered with people, I think where we all complement each other really well. So we're each good at different things. And I mean, you've probably seen Blake was an exceptionally good writer. He probably gave me credit where credit wasn't due and that white paper. But yeah, you know, we have a team of writers too. So even things like quarterly lettering, we can almost seamlessly remove it from one person to another without the voice being lost. So yeah, I think it's.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Still true today. I mean, and I still think of that covey class and our launch all the time because we were talking about books. I think you had just started your book club. There's always a question when you're with someone that sits with you for a long time and your question about team sat with me for a long time too, you know, why do you have a team of people? And I think there's one secession issues. There's two like, you know, everybody on our team is sort of different. good at different things and you know so we're better as a whole than we are as a yeah i mean i still think that art of subtraction is just it gets more important by the day doesn't it We're just bombard”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“LinkedIn, if you're publishing something, I can trust it. Half the time when you Google something, you don't know if you can trust the information or not. So I did use LinkedIn for that purpose, but I would have probably never been on Facebook or Instagram to begin with. I think my friends forced me at some point when we were out to dinner. You know, we're going to put you on social media. I probably had all of three posts.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's tricky to transmit you is that we think that might be the future direction, you know, particularly LinkedIn of where content is being read, right? You can see that eyeballs are going to LinkedIn and not to your personal website, right? So, I mean, you do want to get your content to where or your thinking to where it is being read. So I think that's one area where we're constantly bound. I personally am battling what should I approach this, you know, because I don't think I'm particularly good at being on social media every day. I mean, I enjoy a lot on social media because in some senses, like at least I know who's publishing what and I can trust the information. So, you know,”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why is it? You know, I don't get as much anymore from rating, you know, this and this report or he's like, well, you're more senior now than most of these things that you're reading, you're focused on the longer term, they're focused on getting you to trade, right? Every industry of investing is absolutely in opposition to investing, right? The industry of investing is to get us to trade and buy something. And in my mind, being a good investor is not doing those things, right? So I'm always trying to not do those things and to not do those things, you really have to tune out what you're being sold on a day-to-day basis.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everything went up in a period of low interest rates or declining interest rates that sort of. Short term thinking or like bombardment with liquidity comments, that even became more pervasive, right? So getting away from it, completely ignoring it.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, quite sophisticated actually in our utilization of technology. I mean, when we early on, when we had consultants come in and look at our technology, they were pretty amazed by what we had accomplished. So, I mean, we literally, I can build a model of thought. Five year forward model in 20 minutes with incredible amounts of detail, cash flow, balance sheets, income statements. Competitor valuations evaluation, the drivers, it's pretty incredible. Technology we've built and used. And then we, I mean, we have the screens that we use from monitoring a portfolio. I think what we try to eliminate all things that are not things where we need our intellect or our thinking. So we try to get rid of all tasks that are very monotonous in not thinking tasks.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Email and I only read it at certain times of the day. And yeah, and I should mention like when I talk about building models, we have harnessed technology as well to our advantage. So we have incredible tools for a firm, our size. So we have this, I would say this sort of, I guess I want to call it like a CFA caliber model where we enter our tick and ticker and our initials and you hit a button. And it literally pulls in all the historic data for a company. I can do, I can compare and contrast like I can enter a ticker, multiple tickers and compare and contrast this business to any business I want in the world on any metric I want. And then all my time is built on the forward thinking in the model. I spend very little time thinking about the past.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I selectively go in at the end of the day and I research. I don't read trading emails because I don't find most trading I don't find insightful right. The original research report might be insightful, but the trading memo isn't all that insightful to me. And then, you know, I really block a lot of”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I hadn't picked up my phone, and I can't tell you the last time I picked up. I have like a few select people who I've marked, you know, where I'll pick up my phone, but I do not randomly pick up my phone and I haven't done that for years. Just because, you know, mainly I'm getting sold. I mean, I am an ardent believer in everything monger and buffet say about how many times you get sold in this industry. So I avoid that at all costs. especially to firm art science can you imagine what we'd be sold you know it couple hundred million nets management so so i i tune all that out um all of my i have a filtering system for all of my emails i created a filtering system or only a few email a day actually conquered in my inbox”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of being able to get away. And Badera, it's called Badera. I shouldn't give that away. There's actually a really expensive hotel on the other side of the island that I've never set foot on. And you can't get to it from these houses because you probably, it's Australia, you get bit by a poisonous spider or snake, you know, going through the jungle. But the island itself, you have a cell tower that's far away. You have no internet. You have these sort of houses that you have to, the boats only come every five days. So you carry your stuff, your groceries, and you get off at the house. And I carry books and some food. And, you know, and I read and meditate. And it's one I typically write a quarterly letter or... It's really lovely for thinking.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My twin, you know, and then it turns out he was from north central Kansas. As I went back and read the book, but you would love it because it has all your favorite authors, you know. It's just littered with all these beautiful thinkers. But yes, you know, yeah, for sure constructed this life of.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was raised on Thoreau, so you know this sort of anti materialism or I guess it's like cheap life as simple as possible so that you can actually enjoy your time or focus on the things you want to focus on whether that's achieving a sort of financial level of comfort that allows you to focus on what you focus on whether you have commented on this yeah i constructed a life you know i have a partner you know that was very intentional and allows me i mean not a lot of people right can disappear from the u.s for months at a time you know without having some sort of commitment back home they have to get to i told you recently you should read i just read that vagabonding by roll thoughts which was absolutely wonderful he's constructed a life that's very similar to mine and i didn't you know you don't look at the biography at the end at the beginning and i i was reading this and i'm like boy this guy could be like”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He really went back to basics. I read all these things that you had wanted to get into but just didn't get to, you know, about companies.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. I mean, we did that right six months before. I think I told you six months before COVID, we downsized. We said, whenever we need this much space, you know, like you're always on the road. I'm on the road. I can go to an office. And then we ended up, COVID hits and we're in a loft condo with both of us doing night calls, right? Like it was not conducive to the environment for work, which is why we rented the house in Idaho. And we didn't stay there. We should have locked that house down because it was funny. We were there early and it was cheap because no one was traveling. It was just the beginning. And then the prices went through the roof because everyone sort of did this staycation sort of thing. But it was, you know, really empty and lovely. And, you know, I read a lot about it. I really went back to basics. I don't know if a lot of people said this about that timeframe, but.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I keep my calendar pretty cream. I don't think I'd still be married. My husband tells, you know, if I put too much on my calendar, I'm a miserable person.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Introverts paradise, right? I mean, because the funny thing about investing, this is above a comment, but he always says, you know, stocks are the easy thing. People are the hard part, right? And so, you know, and I think that that's true for introverts and our industry entracts a lot of that personality type. But yet, you know, the whole corporate culture, right, is corporations are typically led by extroverts. There's this element of sort of misery or distraction that just doesn't work for my personality. So I've kept up, we have an experienced team as well. I think it's different when you have your mentoring or training young people. They need more physical time with a team that's really passionate about stocks and driven. I don't need to sort of bully them into doing their work. They want to do their work.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm very intentional about focusing on the stocks that we screen, reading about the environment that those companies are operating in. So if it's a Japanese company, I want to know a lot about Japan. And then writing for me helps me invest, helps me sort of encourage my brain. So it's writing a synergistic to investing. So for me.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Someone will come to talk to me every however many minutes, right? And they say every time you get interrupted, that's 24 minutes that it takes your brain to get back to focused on the task at hand, right? I mean, and we know that about ourselves too. Like when we're interrupted, it takes a long time to get back to that state. And so, yeah, I mean, I try not to take on very much. I've learned to say no. I stay to myself a lot. I moved again during COVID. You know, Utah has become, I love Utah. I love the friends I've made there, but it's become more popular investment destination. And I don't want to be called, you know, by a broker every day, even though some of them are my greatest friends, you know, with a company coming through that doesn't fit my process. I just don't think that's a good use of time.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I come from a culture where it's hard to see, and I know as well, like we, you know, I grew up in this place where you just, you want to help people. I think for me, I'll tell you, you know, COVID-19 was this horrible thing and almost this personal great thing for an introvert. You know, it was introverts paradise, right? Like offices never work for me. Office works for people who I think when people are afraid of you, office works. When you're not approachable office works, right? But when people are not afraid of me, they've never been afraid of me. So you put me in an office, you know, and.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It may I think that's right. So, I mean, that's resilience, you know, that's resilience to keep, you know, practicing your craft when nobody has an interest. So if I look at our team in general, everyone's really passionate about stocks. I mean, I don't feel like I've ever gone to work a day in my life. Or at least since I've been in the investment industry.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Keep going back to Harvard Marks, but I was kind of big event. It was the Ivy Value Conference. It was held in person this hearing, Toronto. Marx was the keynote speaker, but he said, you know, I was on some panel, but he said he was speaking about his writing in the 90s. And he said, you know, that was a period of time for, I think it was the 90s. I'm going to forget the exact periods, but I'm going to paraphrase what he said because it's sort of this similar moment for me. But he said there was this period of time where he was writing and he didn't even know why he was doing it because it was so out of favor nobody was reading. And then all of a sudden, voila, you know, his memos became red and people asked him questions, but he said he went through like this decade where no one asked him a thing.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. Maybe this goes back to the talking about, you know, sort of Zen philosophy and Zen practice. I mean, there's all sorts of things other than just meditation that are like mindfulness training. I think breeding is one of them. Travel is one of them. Sort of takes you out of your comfort zone, takes you away from your daily, you know, routine. It expands your mind. And I think also it helps you. I don't know, focus on things are bad, things are good. You know, there's things we can't control, right? That's just, I can't control this, so I'll focus on controlling what I can control. You know, I'll run the process. Someday the process will come back in favor again. The worst thing I can do is change the process, you know? So, I mean, I can make up, we don't make the process better. We can get better at our craft, but the basic elements of the process of identifying a good company haven't changed.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In turns that I had the done translation, so my colleague had a really good translation. I didn't have a very good one, so we were, you know, those are some of the things we do. And for us, I think, I mean, I think as time goes by, if anything, the thing that you're spending, you know what the good companies are throughout the world? I know today they fairly well, what are the good companies, right? It's having the discipline and the behavior and the philosophical mindset to not do something stupid. That's what I find myself, you know, as I get older and older. It's just as much about, you know, you're just disposition for investing to stomach the bad times. I don't celebrate the good times like I used to because I know that the bad times will come. Investing is hard.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, we had gotten out of the habit a little bit during COVID, so we've been getting back into the habit again. But I mean, and one of the things we've been doing is listening to more podcasts as a team as well, you know, I think COVID brought about a lot more really good podcasts. So that was something we did. We did EDX and Coursera. Last year, we all studied the CFA ESG. Curriculum together. So that was what we did as a group last year. It was a little different than normal. This year we were reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead together.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the United States, Royal Rankers stayed high for a long time. You had innovation in an industry that isn't very innovative. And we drove down the cost of producing a barrel of oil or producing oil in the United States. And we ended up in the US running, we run a trade deficit for a long time. And when you're sending money to the Middle East for oil, these are countries built on sand and oil, and they don't have a lot of other things. They're not producing nicotine issues. You know, they're not producing food. Those dollars percolate out to the rest of the world when they go to the Middle East. So when we started producing oil and when we stopped having a trade deficit, this was a pivotal change in the global economy because the dollar strengthened the dollar became hard to get for the rest of the world. So to me, that was just this weird sort of connecting the dots thing that you get from reading.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sometimes you bite on more than you can chew, right? Russia is a big topic. Oil was a small topic, you know? I mean, Marx was asking in that recent leather too about what are the sea change events? To me, oil, that was a sea change for emerging markets and international investing because if you go back in US history the last few years of history anyway when the US was importing oil from the Middle East see this these are topics that I get from my book that I don't think I would get from reading young you know you know sell side analysts who are focused on a quarter but you look and you think okay just from travel from reading from doing 10 Qs and K's and working at companies we were exporting dollars to the Middle East when we were not you know when we didn't have our own when oil shale and shale oil wasn't working at a profitable”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We also talk about every year when you think about portfolio management, right? It's like Jane Annie painting a picture as well. So one of the things like reading and changing topics and travel does is, you know, I like to think about starting every year with a blank piece of paper. Would it look the same today? Would I paint it differently? I mean, I certainly think it invest a craft. You know, how every year, how...”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We haven't talked about this, but the older I get to feel, you know, there's this compulsion in America to do something to trade. So sometimes reading just like distracts you from your worst compulsion too, right, which is the trade. So there's this element of just slowing down to do deeper research, to think, I think when you're thinking about these craftsmen too, it helps you think about what really makes a great business as well. What is it about these craftsmen that, you know, parallel to these great businesses in Japan? Because a lot of the great businesses there too started as some form of crap. So that's something I pulled from these books, but it also makes you think a lot about that environment of investing too. It's this slower process. That was my topic next year is historical fiction. So I've already picked it out. It's a bunch of meaty books.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This year it was, and it still is, I've been getting more collected in multidisciplinary, but it started sort of, I mean, it does almost always tie into my interest in the markets. You know, I see value in Japan, you know, you see this great intersection of high quality in value. So I started with reading about craftsmanship. In Japan and cooking, because I've read almost all the literature in Japan, so we moved on to the new topic. So, you know, I was reading these beautiful books about, you know, craftsmen in Japan. So, and cooking, you know, there's this, you know, a lot of, I think a lot of the investors you spoke to and what struck me about your book was how many of us sort of hold this philosophy of Zen. And so I was reading, you know, the art of Zen cooking”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just those, you know, when your mind is free, when you have white space, when you're reading, that's when the best epiphanies come from that have nothing to do with actually what you're doing.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So read your travel books and novels and mysteries set in all these magical places, politics. And what I learned about the countries from those books, often, you know, one book set in Malaysia could be better than spending tons of time there or even just what you learned from reading nonfiction. So I think reading these, you can, I think, go back and you think about Moby Dick and I think about Kansas and they're talking about Tradle and Moby Dick and he said, well, I can't remember who makes the reply, but he says, well, I can see a lot or I can see the whole world from where I'm standing. And I think there's an element to that is what reading does for us. I mean, when you grow up in Kansas too, right, you can really see the world. You can see the curve of the earth from western Kansas. So anyway, I don't know how to explain it very well. It's hard to articulate your rate.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To go on their tour, you know, I was telling him, you know, my reading, I've been too stuck kind of in finance, and he was a global traveler. His background was very similar to yours, actually, UK, Hong Kong. But he said, I would recommend that you read mystery novels set in these wonderful places.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think there are certain books that just resonate with you in life, right? Just for your own personal enjoyment or fulfillment. I mean, for me, the Quiet American is the one. I love, I think a lot of people who have lived in the West for a long time also love a river runs through it. I mean, that passage at the end where you have the river running over these rocks and it's reminding him of the passage of time. It brings even all the, you know, it brings people the tears, that last passage. But I think there are certain passages and that you just be read just for the pure beauty of the language. And it just resonates with you. Another one for me is Snow Country, the opening Japanese novel, but Japanese novels we talk a lot about. They have a lot of white space. You know, it's a culture where people don't have to be speaking all the time. You don't have to feel empty space. And so you have these beautiful novels. But back to someone gave me the advice a long time ago.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cry in codes that really think passages or passages that really mean something to you I don't know that help you identify with thinking about the world in a different way. Again, I mean, I think if we're trying to generate alpha, I mean, you have to be different at the right time. So we have a culture. I always find it interesting that we have this culture of reading. We all sit back and we read the greatest investors and the greatest investors tell us things like don't trade, you know, the greatest investors tell us plant seeds. But yet culture, our culture is quantity over quality, more over less, surface level over deep thinking. And so I think in some ways you have to sort of rebel against the culture in order to actually be a good investor.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whatever I can find, so you know, I haven't, it's a very odd, almost compulsive habit of, so I'm actually going or traveling with my husband on a business trip. My business trips for the first time ever, actually. He's going to Australia for work in a couple of weeks. And I'm joining his trip. You know, I'll be working healthy, but I went out and bought, I will buy whatever book I haven't read on Australia. And I will, you know, it's a joke. My husband always asks, you know, do you have enough clothes in your suitcase or is it just full of bugs? But every country I go to, I bring a minimum three books. I like to leave ruin my suitcase for discovering other books. And just like you, William Marie physical books still because I fold them, I highlight them. There's a purposeful reading. It's intentional reading.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Blake went to, he was in China and I think he was in Indonesia this quarter, last quarter. He was in the Philippines. I was in Japan between a couple weeks and it wasn't, my epiphany was like, oh, you know, these, you know, the finance industry may have interesting business models again because there is leverage. And I think the strong are going to survive so that you might have consolidation in Japan that you weren't going to expect. So it's always something different that you discover on a trip. And it's not what you think you're going to discover that you discover.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think a lot of it, too. The more I read, I mean, you can take, I'm just one person in a complex world. There's only so much I can know. So by picking up a book, I can still harness somebody else's knowledge, a different personality type too. So they may be seeing the world in a different way. And I think, you know, like not reading or not traveling. And I do all the fundamental work too. I mean, during COVID, I read more tin Q's and K's than I was loving it than, you know, you can imagine I build models, but you look and you think it's sort of like when you check into an Airbnb and you see a puzzle and it's snowing and I think the other way to think about it is like you get like partially done with the puzzle and then you realize like 10 pieces are missing so it kind of drives you crazy so to me traveling and reading is kind of discovering those missing puzzle pieces and I walked I was I was my colleague went to”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I might only be on the first, but yeah, and now I mean a world is a complex place. I mean, I think it's one of the reasons I avoid complexity in businesses at all costs. One, I don't think I'm very smart, so I stick to simple businesses. But I mean, understanding a simple business in a complex world is something I believe tremendously. And I feel like, you know, with each trip, you discover something new. And it's not what you think you're going to discover when you go. So like, it's always a surprise to me what it is I find out on a trip.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm wrong all the time. You know, there's just this immense sense as time goes on of not knowing all the things I want to know. So anyway, I think that sort of level of humility and nuance of culture is important. I always tell people in Japan, you know, yes, may me, no. I will try means no. Maybe means no perhaps means no. And if you get them to say no, then you really said something wrong. So it's just a different world. And I think a lot of North Asia, it's in that mode as well, you know. And I was surprised, I was surprised when I traveled to Africa how much sort of the culture of group or community was more pervasive there. It almost felt Asian in nature, you know, versus Western, I guess, if we're using Western.”
2024-01-21 · We Study Billionaires · RWH040: Go Global w/ Laura Geritz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT