Bogumil Baranowski's Substack

Jack Schwager & George Coyle: The Edge Moves. So Must You. Zero Evidence, Total Belief. How the Youngest Market Wizards Found Edge Where No One Was Looking

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 04:12:21 GMT

Jack Schwager is the legendary author of the Market Wizards series and one of the most influential figures in trading literature, whose decades of interviewing elite traders have made him the definitive chronicler of exceptional market performance; George Coyle is a hedge fund manager and deep-dive trading historian whose years of original research into the patterns of great traders catalyzed their co-authored Market Wizards: The Next Generation.

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EPISODE NOTES

3:00 — Bogumil shares personal origin story: as a Polish grad student in Paris, Jack’s books gave him the courage to manage money. Jack jokes: “Not the first one.”

5:15 — George on his obsession: years of writing deep-dive papers on Soros, Marcus, Druckenmiller — getting inside feedback that he “hit the nail on the head.”

7:30 — Jack’s biggest surprise from the first Market Wizards: how many enormously successful traders had multiple initial failures before breakthrough.

9:10 — George on the youngest cohort: small-cap shorting is “the last rock you’d flip over” — yet that’s precisely why these traders found edge where no one looked.

11:00 — Jack on edge decay: trend following was transformative in the 60s–80s but got crowded; today, all edges evolve, and no edge is permanent.

14:20 — Advantage of starting young: smaller capital means smaller losses. Simon Russo (pseudonym) and Frohlich both had failures early — with little money — then scaled correctly.

30:33 — Jack: “A good trade is not necessarily a winning trade. A bad trade is not necessarily a losing trade.” The process defines quality, not the outcome.

33:00 — Position sizing as the great differentiator: Gudecker sizes A+ trades 5–10x larger; Marcus did the same. Ed Thorpe proved even a losing game can win with proper sizing.

39:04 — Are trading skills learnable? Jack: Yes — Kulamaji went from $5,000 to $100M learning from others, but molded it entirely into his own methodology.

42:09 — George’s five questions for aspiring Market Wizards: clear goals, process that matches temperament, overcoming detrimental traits, belief in self, persisting despite failure.

50:40 — Jack dismantles volatility as risk proxy: the drunk under the lamppost analogy — measuring what’s easy vs. what’s true.

57:49 — AI debate: Jack argues markets are a complex adaptive system — unlike physics, the rules change constantly, which keeps the door open for human traders.

1:03:52 — Jack’s closing: readers of any Wizards book will get at least one or two things meaningfully beneficial if they’re open-minded. This book adds a rare theme — wizards who stopped to ask: Is this what I really want to do with my life?

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.

Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

100 Year Thinkers, Ep. 8: The Problem with Modern Portfolio Theory | Robert Hagstrom on How Investing Lost Its Way

Bogumil Baranowski — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 20:00:24 GMT

In this episode of The 100 Year Thinkers, Robert Hagstrom explains why modern portfolio theory pulled investors away from business analysis and toward portfolio math.

We discuss Markowitz, beta, efficient markets, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, business-driven investing, owner earnings, benchmarks, and why thinking like a business owner changes how investors understand risk.

The Warren Buffett Portfolio, 25th Anniversary Edition

https://amzn.to/4uz8sZ3

Topics covered:

Why Hagstrom thinks modern portfolio theory changed investing’s objective
The difference between volatility, variance and real investment risk
How Benjamin Graham and John Burr Williams framed risk around intrinsic value
Why beta became the dominant shorthand for risk
How the 1973-74 bear market helped institutionalize modern portfolio theory
Why Berkshire preserved the business owner’s lens
The “cathedral and casino” distinction between owning businesses and trading stocks
Owner earnings, return on invested capital and cost of capital
Why business owners often make better long-term equity investors
Look-through earnings and building a “mini Berkshire”
The difference between making money and beating a benchmark
How benchmarks can distort investor behavior
Why knowing yourself and your clients matters in portfolio construction

Matt Zeigler and I had the privilege of hosting Robert Hagstrom for a special 100-Year Thinkers Edition of the Excess Returns Podcast.

Available now on Excess Returns Podcast and Talking Billions. 🎧

I’m excited to share this episode with you—it’s reposted here with permission and blessing from the Excess Returns team. Don’t miss it! And follow their work, links below.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives, and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

Eric Pachman: The Data America Doesn't Want You to See, From Hypothermia to Purpose — Healthcare, Jobs, Burnout, and Finding Work Worth Doing

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:31:29 GMT

GUEST PROFILE

Eric Pachman is a chemical engineer-turned-data storyteller who exposed hundreds of millions in drug pricing overcharges through his nonprofit 46 Brooklyn Research, and now uses data visualization to reveal hidden truths about jobs, healthcare, and inequality as founder of Data for the People. Find Eric here: https://www.data4thepeople.com/signup

EPISODE NOTES

3:00 – Eric opens with a near-death pacing experience at the Moab 240-mile race — hypothermia, lost in the mountains, 80 miles covered over two days — and how surviving it cracked open the question: what am I doing with my life?

7:00 – Career journey: chemical engineer → ExxonMobil → Harvard Business School → Morgan Stanley (oil & commodities) → buy-side family office → CSX Railroad → pharmacy/drug pricing → 46 Brooklyn Research.

10:05 – Drug pricing exposed: middlemen taking ~33% of every transaction. “Imagine if the stock price was $1,000 and the commission was $333.”

14:03 – His mother’s death from pancreatic cancer. Her mental anguish — the inability to fill an internal void with things and experiences — became “the greatest teaching I’ve ever had in my life.”

22:00 – Harvard Business School as a crucible: the introverted engineer forced to speak without certainty, eventually becoming a speaker at thousand-person maritime conferences.

28:00 – The jobs data reality: outside healthcare, the U.S. economy has been losing jobs. Healthcare was 200% of all job growth in the prior year.

33:20 – Exclusive reveal: 3 states (CA, PA, NY) account for 60% of the most Medicaid-sensitive elder care jobs — and 2027 cuts will hit them hardest.

40:41 – AI and jobs: “Net contraction through attrition is the same thing as firing people to me.”

48:31 – “Maximum efficiency and productivity ends up killing what makes us human, which is creativity.”

58:55 – Burnout: “If you’re only doing something for yourself, you will reach a point of burnout.”

1:08:43 – On success: “What can I do to impact the broader community... and lose all attachment to the outcome?”

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Unfiltered Coffee Q&A, May 2026: Live Now, Invest Wisely: Thoughts on Money, Freedom, and Staying in Motion

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 25 May 2026 04:12:51 GMT

In this monthly Unfiltered Coffee check-in, I start with a lesson I keep learning from wealthy people — live your life now, don’t wait. I share a personal story about buying and riding a red Ducati, and the unexpected memories it created. Sometimes the best investments we make aren’t financial at all.

I answer listener questions, recommend where new listeners can start, and highlight standout recent and upcoming episodes — conversations on historical financial advice, intangible assets, surrounding yourself with good people, microcaps, Berkshire and Buffett, family advising, trading psychology, and execution.

I talk about how I research and track many stocks, and why research itself is a form of motion. Small adjustments beat freezing every time. I share my productivity system — notes, scheduling, a weekly “improve or eliminate” review, and the power of an “undo button” when things don’t work.

We get into outdated money beliefs and why so many people don’t feel wealthy even when they are. Money as freedom. Money as peace of mind. The difference between waiting for permission and finding the courage to act.

I reflect on what I’m learning from studying Li Lu, on staying patient in markets that feel expensive, and on why advisory fees are really an investment in trust and service. We close with thoughts on outsourcing versus doing it yourself, a “forgotten money” exercise that might surprise you, and what it means to keep and pass on wealth with intention.

Subscribe now

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Michael Nicoletti: Sailboats & Telltales, Roads & Motorcycles, Value & Quality, Good People & Generous Mentors

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:12:51 GMT

Mike Nicoletti is the founder and general partner of Top Mark Capital, a concentrated long-term investor who built his firm from a $110,000 seed during business school, drawing on experiences spanning tech consulting in Stockholm, competitive offshore sailing, and startup ventures.

EPISODE NOTES

5:00 — Mike’s family origin story: born near Toronto, his grandmother was a Jacuzzi — the family behind the iconic brand. From airplane propellers in WWI to water pumps to hydrotherapy, entrepreneurship ran deep.

12:00 — The Jacuzzi family sold the business in 1979 at a bad time; infighting over share distribution led to the undoing. Mike’s father passed away suddenly when Mike was seven, reshaping his childhood.

16:00 — Stepfather John introduced frugality and discipline. The $1/week allowance ledger, $5 lawn mowing, and a grandfather’s advice — “Sounds like you need some new customers” — sparked Mike’s entrepreneurial instincts.

20:00 — Sailing discovery: learned on a chalkboard, walked onto a college team with zero experience, eventually pursued competitive offshore racing. Sailing opened doors and became a lifelong thread.

27:00 — In New York prepping a sailboat, Mike stumbles into Brian H. Lawrence’s investing circle at Oak Cliff Sailing. Lawrence seeds Top Mark Capital with $100,000; Mike had $10,000.

33:00 — Joel Greenblatt sighting at the Lawrence office. Brian Lawrence Jr. guides Mike through fund setup. “I just did it” — filed Delaware entities, opened Interactive Brokers, built it from scratch.

40:00 — Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: static vs. dynamic quality as a framework for value investing. Value investors hunt for dynamic quality; dogma is dynamic quality that became static.

45:00 — Top Mark’s asymmetry thesis: buy quality businesses with unrecognized option value exposed to long-arc trends. Venture capital’s trend-identification applied to public equities.

53:00 — “Software is eating the world” evolution: from cloud to AI/ML to the current harness phase — Claude Code, Cursor, Perplexity. Enormous infrastructure demand ahead.

59:00 — Healthcare disruption: genomic sequencing costs dropped from $1 billion to ~$200. Diagnostics + AI will reshape the care model before patients even see a doctor.

1:07:00 — Partnerships over transactions. Buffett told Brian Lawrence only 1-2% of world capital is invested this way — and Berkshire is half of it.

1:10:00 — Success defined: Mom’s family had love without wealth, Dad’s family had wealth with problems, the Lawrences had both. “Surround yourself with good people.”

1:12:00 — Restoring what was lost: the Jacuzzi fortune, Polish communism — generational wealth as inspiration, not entitlement.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Kai Wu: Intangible Assets: The Dark Matter of Finance — The Invisible Forces Driving Company Value Why the Balance Sheet Misses Most of What Makes a Business Worth Owning

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 11 May 2026 04:12:52 GMT

Kai Wu is the founder and chief investment officer of Sparkline Capital, a former GMO and Harvard-trained investor whose pioneering research on intangible assets — intellectual property, brand equity, human capital, and network effects — is redefining how value investors measure what companies are truly worth.

2. EPISODE NOTES (1,800 characters)

3:00 – Kai’s upbringing: father a doctor, mother an artist; studied economics at Harvard with a liberal arts mindset across disciplines

5:00 – Walking into GMO during the financial crisis; mentorship under Jeremy Grantham; traveling to Sydney, London, Berkeley to expand the firm’s forecasting

7:00 – Founding Sparkline Capital: “I’m a builder” — intellectual independence to pursue research others wouldn’t, including early work on large language models in 2019

10:00 – The balance sheet as an incomplete map: why traditional metrics miss the majority of corporate value in today’s economy

11:00 – “Black sheep” identity: too growth-oriented for value circles, too value-sensitive for growth investors; bridging both camps

14:00 – The four pillars of intangible value: intellectual property, brand equity, human capital, network effects — “the dark matter of finance”

18:00 – Why capitalizing R&D spending doesn’t solve the problem; moving from historical cost to measuring the actual asset created using alternative data and AI 22:00 – Two economies: tangible ground-level operations vs. intangible businesses that scale globally with minimal physical footprint

27:00 – Reframing Buffett: only 8% of Berkshire investments purchased below book value; three eras from industrial to consumer (Coca-Cola) to tech (Apple) 34:00 – AI: bullish on the technology, cautious on the investment; capital cycle parallels to the dot-com boom and railroad era

38:00 – Who wins tech revolutions: not the infrastructure builders but the users — Google, Amazon, Netflix won the internet, not the telecom companies 42:00 – AI financial analysts: excels at rote tasks, lacks senior judgment; Claude Code now replacing junior analyst work

47:00 – Jobs will transform, not disappear: 60% of today’s jobs didn’t exist in the 1940s; speed of change matters most

54:00 – No single factor wins: “the more factors I can consider, the less blind spots I have”

56:00 – Success defined as intellectual freedom, not money or fame

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

100 Year Thinkers, Ep. 7: The Last Moat | Chris Mayer and Ian Cassel on the Stock Picking Edge AI Can’t Replicate

Bogumil Baranowski — Fri, 08 May 2026 04:12:03 GMT

This episode of 100 Year Thinkers brings together Chris Mayer and Ian Cassel for a deep discussion on long-term stock picking, microcap investing, business quality, AI disruption, management teams, and the behavioral skills that separate great investors from great analysts. They explore why the edge in investing may increasingly come from judgment, presence, relationships, patience, and the ability to hold the right businesses through uncertainty.

Matt Zeigler and I had the privilege of hosting Ian Cassel and Chris Mayer for a special 100-Year Thinkers Edition of the Excess Returns Podcast.

Available now on Excess Returns Podcast and Talking Billions. 🎧

I’m excited to share this episode with you—it’s reposted here with permission and blessing from the Excess Returns team. Don’t miss it! And follow their work, links below.

Resources Discussed

The Last Moat
https://microcapclub.com/the-last-moat/

Stock Picker by Ian Cassel
https://microcapclub.com/stock-picker/

The Investor’s Odyssey by Chris Mayer
https://www.amazon.com/Investors-Odys...

Follow Chris Mayer on Twitter
https://x.com/chriswmayer

Follow Ian Cassel on Twitter
https://x.com/iancassel

Topics Covered

Why being present with management teams may still be an investor edge in the age of AI
How microcap investing differs from small-cap, mid-cap and large-cap investing
Why talking to management can build conviction but also create bias
How Chris Mayer thinks about vertical market software, mission-critical systems and AI disruption
Why AI may become table stakes rather than a durable competitive advantage
How small companies can use AI to improve workflows, sales, inventory and productivity
Why many microcaps have short shelf lives and rarely become true long-term compounders
The role of intelligent fanatics, owner-operators and repeat winners in great investments
Why management transitions can create powerful microcap opportunities
The difference between being a great analyst and being a great investor
Why execution, position sizing, selling losers and holding winners matter more than hit rate
How Matt and Bogumil apply the lessons to AI, business quality and the limits of small business scalability

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Playing the Long Game with Bogumil Baranowski: Morgan on Purpose Podcast

Bogumil Baranowski — Thu, 07 May 2026 04:12:20 GMT

I was honored to join Morgan Ranstrom on his wonderful podcast, Morgan on Purpose. You can find the episode here or on your favorite podcast platform under either Morgan on Purpose or Talking Billions. I highly recommend exploring Morgan’s show—it’s thoughtful, insightful, and well worth a listen.

What does it mean to truly play the long game with your money—and your life?

In this episode, Morgan sits down with investor, author, and “Talking Billions” host Bogumil Baranowski for a \conversation on investing, identity, and the deeper purpose behind wealth.

They explore the idea of an “infinite time horizon” and why the best investors—and families—think far beyond their own lifetimes. From lessons learned during the pandemic while writing Crisis Investing to the role advisors play in moments of uncertainty, Bogumil shares how to stay grounded when the world feels anything but.

Along the way, they unpack the mental models that shape how we think about money—like why building wealth might be less like climbing a mountain and more like rolling a snowball.

If you’re thinking about your financial future, your family, or how to take a more intentional, long-term approach to wealth, this episode is for you.

Thank you for listening!

Find all about Morgan Ranstrom here:

https://morganranstrom.com/

Spotif⁠⁠y⁠⁠ , Apple⁠⁠ , Buzzsprout⁠⁠ , YouTube

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Joseph S. Moore: What 300 Years of Money Advice Taught One Historian About Getting Rich: Capitalism is not a Scam, the American Dream is Alive, Marriage is a Superpower, Hope is an Asset

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 04 May 2026 04:13:00 GMT

Joseph S. Moore is a historian, author, and investor who spent a decade reading nearly every piece of financial advice published in America over the past 300 years, testing those lessons himself, and distilling them into his HarperCollins book How to Get Rich in American History, selected by Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant for their Next Big Idea Club.

3:00 — Joseph’s working-class South Carolina roots: mother born into a home with no flush toilet, father’s family led the famous Gastonia mill strike in the 1920s, grew up in a household that voted communist.

5:00 — Bogumil shares his parallel experience growing up in communist Poland and watching the country transform after embracing free markets.

8:00 — The church basement class that saved Joseph from the 2008 crisis: bought a house as a grad student, a Dave Ramsey budgeting class revealed the danger, sold the house one week before the market froze.

11:00 — The American Dream: people have declared it dead since the 1670s. Joseph introduces “Big Woe” — the despair industrial complex of journalists, politicians, and academics incentivized to sell doom.

17:00 — Upward mobility data: in the 1800s, 20-30% moved from bottom to middle class; today, 60% escape the bottom, 10% go all the way to the top. “We have more economic mobility than we’ve ever had.”

23:00 — Dismantling financial shibboleths: compound interest only recently became powerful (people didn’t live long enough), stocks didn’t reliably beat bonds until after WWII, real estate stayed flat for a century in most cities.

31:00 — Old ideas in new packaging: latte factor advice dates to the 1800s, crypto mirrors 10,000 self-issued currencies before the Civil War (”all self-issued currencies eventually go to zero”), Airbnb reimagines the oldest mortgage payoff strategy.

37:00 — Fast time vs. slow time: most of life is lived in slow time — the daily decisions about career, marriage, savings that determine whether you can seize opportunities when fast time arrives. Story of Norman McGee buying foreclosed homes during the Depression.

42:00 — Women as unsung financial heroes throughout American history. Agnes Taylor, a beat cop’s wife, paid off a New York brownstone by renting rooms. “Capitalism is a team sport. Marriage is a superpower.”

51:00 — Hope as a financial asset: CFPB studies found a positive attitude plus saving habit outpredicted income and inheritance for financial wellness.

56:00 — FIRE movement as the “crossfit of personal finance” — financially independent people throughout history only thrived when they found meaningful work to do.

1:04:00 — Generational wealth doesn’t last: 90% of top 1%’s grandchildren are not wealthy. “Tutors outperform trust funds.” Human capital is 30x the value of the stock market.

1:09:00 — Joseph’s definition of success: a great marriage, raising good kids, getting good enough at something that people trust you. “The money could go away and I’d have all those other things.”

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Unfiltered Coffee Q&A, April 2026: Finding Compounders, Building Conviction, and Navigating AI, Careers, and Wealth Across Generations

Bogumil Baranowski — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:00:38 GMT

I share a wide-ranging monthly Q&A on long-term investing and the human side of money, from finding compounding opportunities and building conviction in uncertain markets to portfolio construction and idea generation. Tune in, enjoy listen here or on your favorite platform.

I explain my approach: treat stocks as ownership of businesses, focus on value versus price, use structured checklists alongside experience-based intuition, keep a living wishlist, and use market turmoil to buy good businesses at better prices. I discuss position sizing and timing (often gradual, sometimes fast in panics), what I do when a stock falls, why holding great businesses long enough matters, and why I use valuation ranges rather than precise targets.

I also cover how AI helps with information processing while judgment and conviction remain human, reflect on career decisions and non-traditional paths into investing, offer views on private equity and the role of a CEO, and discuss wealth across generations, family dynamics, housing, succession, and balancing ambition with fulfillment.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

The Road to Omaha: A Reading & Listening Companion

Bogumil Baranowski — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:03:43 GMT

Twenty conversations and essays about Buffett, Munger & Berkshire Hathaway — to prepare for the annual meeting, enjoy on your flight, or listen to on a long walk.

As the Berkshire meeting approaches, I wanted to gather all my posts about Buffett, Munger, and Berkshire in one place — organized not by date, but by the threads that connect them. Whether you’re heading to Omaha or attending in spirit, I hope this companion helps you revisit old favorites and discover ones you might have missed.

I. Inside Berkshire

The definitive histories — from whaling capital to a trillion-dollar conglomerate, told by authors who spent years inside the numbers and the culture.

Adam Mead: 850 Pages of Berkshire — What the Numbers Don’t Tell You 🎧

Adam returns with the second edition of his monumental financial history of Berkshire Hathaway. We cover why a new edition was necessary — the pandemic, Apple’s rise to half the portfolio, the Allegheny and Pilot acquisitions, the Japanese trading houses financed with 1% yen debt, losing Charlie, and Buffett’s retirement. Adam walks through a sum-of-the-parts valuation arriving at roughly one trillion dollars of intrinsic value, and explains why recent S&P underperformance says more about the index than about Berkshire. $72 billion in share repurchases between 2020–2024 was the real “elephant” — and AI won’t replace the conviction that deep work builds.

Adam Mead: Discussing the Art of Investing 🎧

Adam’s first appearance covers the emotional texture of Berkshire — attending annual meetings as a community ritual, treating shareholders with respect, the curiosity that drives investing, and the empathy required when managing other people’s money. Resilience in investing is developed through experience and deep understanding of the businesses you own.

Daniel Pecaut & Corey Wrenn: University of Berkshire Hathaway 🎧

Two insiders who’ve attended Berkshire meetings since the 1980s — Corey spent nine years as an internal auditor at Berkshire itself. They recall when meetings drew 50 people at the Red Lion Inn, the peculiar nature of insurance float, Buffett’s views on inflation and taxes, and the advice Buffett reserves for young audience members just starting out. Dan coined the term “University of Berkshire Hathaway” — he arrived at the Joslyn Art Museum with 20 handwritten questions, shaking like a leaf.

Todd Finkle: Warren Buffett — Investor and Entrepreneur 🎧

Professor Finkle reframes Buffett not just as an investor but as an entrepreneur — someone who built a global conglomerate through creative deal-making and the imaginative deployment of financial instruments. The conversation traces the entrepreneurial paths that shaped Buffett’s career. Buffett estimates he lost a potential $400–500 billion by not shutting down the textile business earlier — but he has a soft heart and didn’t want to hurt people.

Brett Gardner: Buffett’s Early Investments 🎧

A fresh investigation into the ten investments Buffett made in the 1950s and 1960s — the decades that earned him his first millions and his best percentage returns. Brett uncovers Buffett’s emotional decision-making alongside his analytical rigor, the influence of both Graham and Munger, and case studies including American Express and British Columbia Power.

II. Investment Philosophy

Practitioners who’ve distilled Buffett and Munger’s thinking into their own frameworks — from Sun Tzu to Stoic philosophy, from hurdle rates to infinite games.

Alex Morris: Quality, Trust, and Patience — Buffett and Munger Unscripted 🎧

Alex distilled three decades of Berkshire annual meeting transcripts into a book, and this conversation extracts the essence: value as the only kind of investing, the shift from ticker-watching to an ownership mindset, the distinction between volatility and permanent loss, and interest rates as gravity for asset values. He calls himself “a value buyer and a growth holder” — get a deal when you buy, then stay when the business shows continued growth.

Peter Gustafson: The Warren Buffett Path to Your Financial Freedom 🎧

A Danish investor who spent 2,200 hours writing a book born from 15 years of market-beating returns. Peter introduces a six-category framework for mapping businesses from bad to great using return on capital and growth rate. He reveals the 10% pre-tax hurdle rate he pieced together from Buffett’s letters, and explains why for high-growth companies, the growth itself becomes the margin of safety. His biggest mistake? A 6-bagger that should have been 46x — selling a Norwegian insurance company during an operational problem and never re-entering.

Tobias Carlisle: Warren Buffett as Warrior — 13 Laws of Strategic Advantage 🎧

Toby’s latest book connects Buffett’s strategic thinking to Sun Tzu’s Art of War. We explore Buffett as risk-taker rather than risk-avoider — deploying capital at moments of maximum advantage like 2008, attacking weakness with strength, and seizing the initiative. A surfing analogy captures it: experienced investors ride the right wave at the right spot. “If I’m just a little bit more patient, I know that there is a bigger wave coming.”

Robert Karas: Beyond Returns — What Buffett’s Partnership Letters Really Teach 🎧

The Chief Investment Officer of Austria’s oldest private bank revisits Buffett’s early partnership letters and finds the forgotten detail: unlimited personal liability for losses. We explore Buffett’s revolutionary fee structure, why he dissolved the partnerships to escape managing other people’s emotions, and the power of simple, authentic communication that builds trust across generations. Berkshire becomes something shareholders want to pass to their children — transforming from a stock into a legacy vehicle.

Christopher Begg: High-Quality Investing & Playing the Infinite Game 🎧

A surfer, professor, and long-term investor who teaches Ben Graham’s Security Analysis course at Columbia. Chris discusses the evolution from Graham’s deep value to what he calls “Value 3.0,” the infinite game mindset in investing, and how nature — particularly the ocean — informs his investment philosophy. The best investing frameworks, like surfing, require reading conditions, positioning precisely, and having the patience to wait for the right set.

III. Next-Generation Voices

The investors carrying these ideas forward — learning directly from Buffett, Munger, and the generation around them, and adapting the philosophy for new markets and a new era.

Monsoon Pabrai: The Woman Who Learned from Buffett, Munger, and Mohnish Pabrai 🎧

At age 12, Monsoon attended the legendary Buffett lunch alongside Guy Spier, where Buffett’s advice was disarmingly personal: “the most important decision is who you marry.” Now a fund manager investing globally with a focus on India, she combines generational wisdom with a rigorous four-part framework: business quality, margin of safety, capital allocation, and alignment of interests — that last one crucial in emerging markets where 60–70% of listed companies are untouchable due to fraud risk. In March 2020, colleagues with decades of experience broke emotionally and sold at the bottom. Temperament trumps experience.

Guy Spier: What Really Counts in Life — Beyond Wealth and Returns 🎧

The man who paid $650,000 alongside Mohnish Pabrai for a charity lunch with Buffett reflects on what truly matters. Drawing from work on ergodicity, Guy argues that survival matters more than speed — the fastest skier who gets injured loses all remaining races. He stopped tracking his net worth years ago. His definition of success: dying with many people who are genuinely glad he existed. Investing is like planting vineyards — not all vintages will be fantastic, but you’ll always have wine to drink.

IV. Markets & Valuation Today

What Berkshire’s cash mountain signals, why the S&P may be riskier than it looks, and the capital cycle lessons from AI spending — timely analysis for 2026.

Chris Bloomstran: Why He Won’t Own the S&P 500 at These Levels 🎧

Released just days before the Berkshire meeting, this special episode with Justin Carbonneau features Chris soon after his famous annual letter. He makes the case that extreme Mag 7 concentration creates hidden risks for passive investors, that AI capex may become a classic capital cycle with poor returns, and that Berkshire’s $300B+ cash position signals both discipline and future opportunity. The conversation draws parallels to past bubbles — railroads, fiber, and the Nifty Fifty.

Christopher Bloomstran: Value, Patience, and Trust 🎧

Chris’s first appearance covers the full arc — childhood influences, mentors, the importance of understanding price, holding cash reserves while waiting for opportunities, Apple’s significance in Berkshire’s portfolio, and the inspiring story of an unknown investor who successfully navigated multiple market downturns through patience and discipline alone. Trust and relationships define success — the true lesson from a lifetime studying Buffett and Munger.

V. The Pilgrimage

My own reflections on the annual journey to Omaha — the friendships, the 4 a.m. lobby conversations, the taxi drivers with Berkshire stories, and what keeps drawing us back.

Wisdom from the Berkshire Chronicles 🎧📝

A special compilation weaving together the most profound insights from eight conversations about Buffett and Munger. From the pre-Buffett era — whaling capital flowing into textiles — through memories of 50-person meetings at the Red Lion Inn, Buffett’s accidental acquisition triggered by a 12.5-cent price dispute, and the importance of capital allocation. Packaged for your journey to Omaha, or a walk around the neighborhood.

Wisdom from Omaha: Timeless Lessons from Buffett’s Farewell Address 📝

I stand among friends in a packed arena as Buffett announces his retirement. The crowd goes silent — then erupts when he says he won’t sell a single share. This essay traces the serendipitous path from discovering Peter Lynch’s book in a tiny Brussels bookshop to standing in Omaha twenty years later. Trade should never be weaponized. Discussing market fluctuations adds no value. America has weathered countless storms.

20,000 Watched in Silence. Then Buffett Dropped the Bombshell (Excess Returns with Matt Zeigler) 🎧

A special episode on the Excess Returns podcast with Matt Zeigler, capturing one of the most emotional moments in financial history — Buffett’s surprise retirement announcement at the 2025 Berkshire meeting. Featuring clips and commentary from John Candeto, Adam Mead, Eric Markowitz, and Ted Merz alongside my own reflections, we explore what it felt like inside the arena, why Buffett’s delivery was masterful, and what the “Buffett shield” means for Greg Abel and Berkshire’s future. Part tribute, part honest discussion about succession, culture, and what makes a business truly endure.

The Berkshire Pilgrimage: Reflections on Principles That Endure 📝

A Sudanese taxi driver shares his journey up the Nile, and the annual Berkshire experience begins. Principles that sound simple — focus on value, think long-term, act with integrity — require regular immersion to become truly ours. Buffett’s investment journey paralleled America’s most challenging periods, and the Salomon Brothers crisis demonstrated that reputation remains the ultimate asset.

One More Day with Charlie 📝

The first meeting without Charlie Munger. A very young audience member asks Buffett: “If you had one more day with Charlie, how would you spend it?” — and tens of thousands respond with heartfelt silence. I capture the 4 a.m. lobby encounters, a hotel attendant named Sunshine, a retired couple from Illinois who never sold a single share, and the fairy-tale quality of Omaha returning to its quiet self when midnight strikes.

The Annual Pilgrimage 📝

What draws intellectually independent investors — people who normally avoid crowds — to converge on a Nebraska city each May? I trace my own path from reading about Buffett under old trees in a Parisian park, to absorbing Munger’s wisdom in a walk-up studio on the Upper East Side, to the annual pilgrimage that nurtures a global brain trust two decades later.

Return on Kindness 📝

I stand on a platform at the Berkshire meeting, microphone in hand, beam of light in my face, and say to Buffett: “Thank you for making our lives better.” This essay captures the spirit of the gathering — investors who wrote books about outsmarting crowds standing shoulder to shoulder, the Return on Kindness as the true metric, and the last meeting with both Warren and Charlie together.

VI. Beyond Returns

The deeper lesson beneath all the numbers — stewardship, kindness, and what it means to live a rich life.

The Billionaire as Steward: Why True Ownership Matters 📝

When Buffett announced he wouldn’t sell a single share of Berkshire, the crowd roared. This essay explores the profound difference between transactional ownership and true stewardship. Growing up in communist Poland where private ownership was illegal, I learned a truth captured by an old Polish proverb: “It’s the eye of the owner that makes the horse fat.” Genuine wealth isn’t accumulation — it’s guardianship.

All episodes are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and right here on Substack. I hope this guide serves you well as we head into another Berkshire weekend. Enjoy Omaha!

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Disclosure:

Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser. The information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

Adam Mead: 850 Pages Of Berkshire: What The Numbers Don't Tell You | Why Trust, Conviction, And Liability Management Matter More Than Spreadsheets

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 04:12:49 GMT

Adam Mead is a professional investor, CEO of Mead Capital Management, and author of the 850-page second edition of The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway — one of the most exhaustive chronicles of Warren Buffett’s conglomerate ever written.

EPISODE NOTES

3:00 – Adam explains why a second edition was necessary: the pandemic, Apple’s rise to 50% of the portfolio, Allegheny and Pilot acquisitions, Japanese trading houses, losing Charlie Munger, and Buffett’s retirement

5:58 – Berkshire’s underlying philosophy hasn’t changed — it’s the world that changed; living through history feels more intense than researching it on the page

8:25 – Why Buffett sold the airlines: as largest shareholder, Berkshire could have blocked bailout funds, putting the airlines’ survival at risk

11:28 – New investment cases rhyme with the past; patient capital allocation works; $72B in share repurchases between 2020–2024 was the real “elephant”

15:22 – Japanese trading houses financed with 1% yen-denominated debt — currency-insulated and opening future partnership opportunities

17:56 – The new chapters are Buffett’s final years; succession to Greg Abel was methodical, not sudden; Greg made material improvements visible in the financials

22:01 – Global expansion under Greg Abel could be Berkshire’s next chapter, following Fairfax’s playbook

23:50 – Sum of the parts walkthrough: $373B cash (~$320B deployable), $234B equities (after Apple adjustment and deferred taxes), BNSF $80-90B, BHE ~$70B, MSR businesses ~$205B, insurance underwriting ~$42.5B, minus $22.5B holding company debt = just over $1 trillion intrinsic value

44:41 – S&P underperformance is more about the index going “nuts” than Berkshire missing something

48:47 – Cash buildup is confluence, not structural: Apple gains, expensive market, Berkshire shares at/above intrinsic value — like a water balloon filling up

56:41 – Berkshire’s edge: de-emphasize information, emphasize continual learning, patience, and underappreciated liability management

1:00:54 – AI won’t replace conviction; if it could be done by clicking a button, the advantage negates itself

1:10:15 – Conviction requires deep work; shallow roots won’t hold through volatility

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

We Asked Chris Bloomstran Why He Won’t Own the S&P 500 At These Levels — And What He Does Instead

Bogumil Baranowski — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 20:01:21 GMT

I joined Justin Carbonneau for one more special episode of Excess Returns.

We spoke with Chris Bloomstran soon after his famous annual letter release, and right before the Berkshire meeting in Omaha.

Available now on Excess Returns Podcast and Talking Billions. 🎧

I’m excited to share this episode with you—it’s reposted here with permission and blessing from both Justin and Jack. Don’t miss it! And follow their work, links below.

This episode features Chris Bloomstran of Semper Augustus discussing market concentration, AI capital spending, Berkshire Hathaway, and the risks facing today’s equity investors. The conversation explores whether we are at a secular valuation plateau, how AI investment may reshape returns, and why passive investors may face more risk than they realize.

Semper Augustus Investments

https://www.semperaugustus.com

Topics covered:

Why extreme market concentration in the Mag 7 may create long-term risks
The concept of a “secular plateau” vs a market peak
How AI capex could become a classic capital cycle with poor returns
Why hyperscaler spending may not translate into shareholder profits
The hidden risks of leverage both on and off balance sheets
Why buy-and-hold investing is harder than it seems in practice
How valuation discipline drives long-term investment outcomes
Berkshire Hathaway’s cash position and what it signals about opportunity
Why capital allocation matters more than growth narratives
Lessons from past bubbles including railroads, fiber, and the Nifty Fifty
The fragility of life and how it shapes investing priorities
The importance of independent thinking in the age of AI

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:12 The “Both Sides Now” framework and AI theme
09:03 Secular peak vs secular plateau in markets
13:08 Leverage risks and balance sheet quality
17:42 Why passive investors are more concentrated than they think
21:12 The limits of long-term compounding and disruption risk
25:06 Why valuation matters more than “forever stocks”
29:10 Portfolio construction and return on capital differences
33:18 AI capex boom and capital cycle parallels
37:05 Why hyperscaler spending may not generate adequate returns
41:12 The math problem behind AI investment returns
45:10 Competition, redundancy, and pricing pressure in AI
49:02 Is AI an existential risk for big tech?
52:06 Berkshire Hathaway’s cash and Apple sales
56:08 Capital allocation lessons from Coca-Cola vs Apple
59:20 What Berkshire’s cash signals about future opportunities
01:02:10 The fragility of life and investing priorities
01:05:28 Final lessons for investors: reading, skepticism, and independent thinking

See my earlier conversation with Chris Bloomstran here.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Becoming a Better Investor: Sharpen the Craft, Filter the Noise, Deepen the Network — Lindbergh's Engine, Newton's Peace, Darwin's Letters

Bogumil Baranowski — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:30:46 GMT

For the busy reader:

Becoming a better investor isn’t about hitting a number or reaching a level — it’s a direction you commit to for life. I think about that continuous improvement across three dimensions: the craft of analysis, the environment you create for thinking, and the people you surround yourself with. None of them is static. All of them compound.

The technical side has never been more powerful — checklists, dashboards, AI-assisted pattern recognition across years of recorded thinking. But the real edge isn’t the tools. It’s building systems that keep you closer to the truth, so that when the rare opportunity arrives, you see it clearly instead of missing it.

The quieter advantages are harder to build but matter just as much. A deliberate information diet — less noise, more signal — creates the mental space that good decisions require. A network built on genuine curiosity rather than mutual agreement becomes a source of perspective you can’t manufacture alone. The best insights rarely confirm what you already believe. They arrive slowly, almost imperceptibly — until one day you notice that your view has widened, your vision sharpened, and what once seemed unclear has finally come into focus.

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The Invisible Scoreboard

Some might think that becoming a better investor shows up on the scoreboard — returns, rankings, and an outstanding year.

I’ve come to think it shows up somewhere else entirely.

It shows up in how you make decisions when no one is watching. In how you react when you’re wrong. Whether your thinking is actually your own.

The longer I invest, the more convinced I become that getting better isn’t a destination you arrive at after ten or twenty or fifty years.

It’s a direction you commit to — a North Star you diligently follow. Same principles, but ever better execution. Something you compound.

Time alone won’t get you there, though. When I was learning to scuba dive a quarter of a century ago, someone told me: you can do the same dive a hundred times, or you can do a hundred different dives and learn from each one. Investing is no different. You either repeat the same steps indefinitely, or you evolve — decision by decision, mistake by mistake, always growing.

Warren Buffett calls Berkshire Hathaway his Sistine Chapel. But if you study Michelangelo’s trajectory, you’ll see a clear arc. Over his lifetime, he didn’t just evolve technically — he redefined what sculpture was for. The craft deepens only if you let it.

I think about that deepening across three interlocking dimensions: the technical, the environmental, and the human. None of them is static. All of them are in motion. Michelangelo’s sculptures leave me in awe for many reasons — but what strikes me most is their honesty. Those figures don’t idealize. They strain, they struggle, they reveal. That’s what I’m after too.

Part One: The Craft — Getting Sharper at the Work Itself

Serious investing demands rigor — not occasionally, but systematically.

There’s a story told about Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. During preparations for his transatlantic flight, a mechanic dropped a wrench and damaged a small piece of a cooling fin. The damage was minor. No one would have known. Lindbergh insisted it be fixed anyway.

The lesson, as it’s usually told: someone else might not know — but I will know.

That’s the standard I try to hold myself to.

Over time, I’ve built a checklist that lets me move quickly through the quantitative picture of a business: leverage, profitability, growth, consistency, the durability of success. Done well, this kind of structured analysis lets you scan dozens of companies and identify the one or two that genuinely deserve your full attention. The rest can wait — or be ignored entirely.

But the checklist isn’t the edge. The edge is what happens around it.

What’s changed dramatically in recent years is the toolkit. The analytical depth, the speed, the ability to move between altitude levels instantly — it would be unrecognizable to someone who learned the trade even a decade ago.

I use dashboards that show the whole landscape at once: holdings, a universe of companies worth watching, key metrics, heat maps, color-coded signals. At a glance, they look like an impressionist painting — but every color carries meaning. Every view has a purpose.

Behind that sits something more important: a written record of thinking.

Every company I hold or track has a living file — write-ups, earnings notes, reflections, decisions made at specific points in time. Not because it’s tidy, but because memory is unreliable. Over time, patterns emerge that I wouldn’t otherwise see: businesses that looked cheap but weren’t; management teams that said the right things, then didn’t do them; decisions that felt right in the moment but were driven by subtle pressure — time, narrative, price movement.

AI has made this more powerful. I can now query years of my own thinking, cross-reference decisions, and surface inconsistencies. It doesn’t make me immediately smarter — but it keeps me closer to the truth.

And that’s where most investors quietly fail. Not because they lack information, but because they don’t build systems that expose their own blind spots.

The goal of all this infrastructure isn’t complexity. It’s precision in the service of patience — knowing what you own, why you own it, and what would have to change to act.

The preparation is invisible. When the moment comes, you either see it clearly, or you miss it.

Part Two: The Environment — Creating Space to Think

For a long time, I underestimated how much the environment shapes the investor.

I spent years in New York immersed in stimulation — conversations, events, constant information flow. It was energizing. But there were moments when I couldn’t tell whether a thought was actually mine or something I had absorbed earlier that day at an idea lunch.

That distinction matters more than it seems.

The modern information environment isn’t just noisy — it’s engineered for immediacy. A handful of headlines can dominate an entire day’s attention, regardless of whether they matter.

Most investors don’t have an information problem. They have a filtering problem.

I sometimes flip the equation and ask: what didn’t make the top five headlines today? It’s a useful exercise. You quickly realize how much of reality sits just outside the spotlight — often quieter, sometimes more relevant, occasionally more important. The fire in the garbage can is real. It’s just not the whole picture.

In 1666, Cambridge closed due to the plague. Isaac Newton retreated to his family farm at Woolsthorpe and spent nearly two years away from the noise and pace of university life. During that period of enforced quiet, he developed the foundations of calculus, his theory of optics, and his early thinking on gravity. He later called it the most intellectually productive stretch of his life. Removal from stimulation wasn’t lost time. It was the condition under which his deepest thinking became possible.

I think about that whenever the pull toward constant engagement feels overwhelming.

I think about Sir John Templeton too — moving to the Bahamas, where newspapers arrived a day or two late. He considered that delay an advantage. It forced reflection. It broke the reflex between news and action.

Today, we’ve engineered the opposite. Everything is immediate. Everything is urgent. And most of it doesn’t deserve either.

Attention, I’ve come to believe, is one of the most valuable assets we manage. Not just how much of it we have, but where we direct it.

I once experimented with an information fast — no daily news, just earnings, long-form research, books, podcasts. It helped, but it wasn’t sustainable. What works better is a diet, not a fast. Not ignoring the world, but being deliberate about what you consume and in what proportion. My real-time inputs lean heavily toward things that compound understanding: company-level developments, long-form writing, the occasional interview with a deep thinker on a matter that actually deserves the attention.

Less reaction, more signal.

I don’t check prices daily. I have alerts set for conditions that matter. In between, I read, I think, and I let investments breathe.

This sounds simple. It isn’t.

Because inactivity feels like falling behind — even when it’s the right decision.

As Charlie Munger put it, the discipline is to be patient — and then aggressive when the opportunity is real. That requires something most environments actively erode: the ability to sit with uncertainty without acting on it.

Holding a stock over the long run is a skill. It takes effort, conviction, and above all a suitable environment — and it’s not something the system rewards instantly or visibly.

Part Three: The People — Eyes in a Thousand Places

The third dimension is the one I understood least early on.

I was fortunate to start my career around experienced investors — people who had lived through multiple cycles, who had learned directly from earlier generations. From them, I absorbed things no model can teach: how to read management, how to sit with ambiguity, how to separate a business from the market’s opinion of it. They passed on an intellectual heritage I cherish.

But I grew curious about a broader, more current perspective.

With every stock purchase or sale, there is a willing buyer or seller on the other side. I never forget that. What is someone else seeing that I’m not? What assumptions am I carrying that haven’t been tested? Why do they so easily part with shares I’ve grown eager to own?

Over time, that curiosity evolved into something more valuable than I expected: an ecosystem.

Darwin maintained an extraordinary network of correspondence with scientists, naturalists, pigeon breeders, and farmers scattered across the world. He sought out perspectives far removed from his own immediate circle, deliberately. He credited some of his most important refinements to evolutionary theory, not to solitary insight but to unexpected voices from distant corners of his network. The breadth mattered as much as the depth.

And the most useful perspectives often came from people furthest from his own field.

I’ve found the same to be true.

The podcast is the visible part, but the real value sits beneath it — conversations with people across disciplines, geographies, and experiences. And beyond that, a broader network: readers, listeners, business operators, families with long histories of multigenerational wealth made, lost, preserved, and multiplied.

They’ve shared stories that don’t appear in case studies: fortunes built slowly, almost invisibly; wealth that created tension instead of freedom; decisions made decades ago that shaped everything that followed. These perspectives expand my sense of what’s possible — and what’s fragile.

But there’s a subtle trap here. Networks can just as easily reinforce your thinking as challenge it. It’s easy to surround yourself with people who sound smart and agree with you. That’s not an edge. That’s a comfort.

The real value comes from entering every conversation with a simple assumption: I might be wrong about something here. Not performatively. Genuinely.

That posture changes what you hear. It makes you more attentive to disconfirming evidence, more open to nuance, and less attached to being right.

At this point, I have hundreds of people I can reach out to directly, and a much broader circle beyond that. But the value isn’t the scale. It’s the diversity of perspective — a thousand different vantage points on the same reality.

The best insights rarely come from confirming what I already believe. They come from the slow realization that there is a better way to look at something.

A Closing Thought: The Discipline of Remaining a Student

Across all three dimensions — technical, environmental, human — there’s a common thread.

Not a method. A posture.

I consciously choose to remain a lifelong student.

It shows up in small ways: listening closely in a cab, talking to someone in an airport lounge, paying attention to how people think about money — not just how they invest it, but how they earned it, lost it, protected it, misunderstood it. These are all data points. Most investors ignore them.

Over time, they compound into something more valuable than any single insight: a deeper sense of what tends to work, what tends to fail, and how fragile conviction can be if it isn’t continuously tested.

Passion is what makes this sustainable. The work feels like a never-ending puzzle worth solving — the reading, the waiting, the revisiting of old decisions to see whether they were right for the right reasons. From the outside, it can look effortless. It never is. The preparation is just invisible.

Becoming a better investor isn’t something you complete. It’s something you practice — daily, quietly, often imperfectly.

And if you’re doing it right, you never arrive.

You just let what’s hiding in the marble reveal itself — slowly, over decades of effort, care, and patience. And one day, you look up and realize what emerged: not just a portfolio, but a way of seeing. A craft. A life’s work that turned out to be worth more than you knew when you began.

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Disclosure:

Ethan Starr: What 250 Billionaires Taught Him About Success and Failure, The Human Stories Behind America's Biggest Fortunes

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 04:12:38 GMT

Ethan Starr is a researcher and author of Billionaire Trivia, who spent years studying over 250 American billionaires, uncovering the surprising personal stories, pivotal moments, and unconventional paths behind their extraordinary wealth.

EPISODE NOTES

3:00 — Ethan’s upbringing in Amherst, MA — a small college town with no super wealthy residents, shaping his careful attitude toward money.

5:00 — The human side of billionaires: “Here’s something that money can’t fix” — Ethan on billionaires who’ve lost a child, showing no amount of wealth can shield from tragedy.

8:00 — The self-made myth examined: Howard Schultz grew up in public housing; his father’s injury and lost health insurance inspired Starbucks’ employee benefits. “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”

11:00 — Childhood traits of future billionaires: Jeff Bezos’s intense focus, Michael Dell’s obsession with shortcuts, Bill Gates reading books at dinner. Yet “I don’t think there are any specific childhood traits that consistently predict who’s going to become a billionaire.”

15:00 — Getting fired as a launchpad: Bernie Marcus dropped his lawsuit, co-founded Home Depot. Bloomberg’s $10M severance funded Bloomberg LP. “To make billions, you have to own a business.”

19:00 — The power of pivoting: one billionaire switched from running an airline to leasing planes; Daniel Lubetzky created KIND Bars from a snack he wished existed.

22:00 — Naming and luck: Google was originally “BackRub.” Mark Cuban’s broadcast.com sale to Yahoo for $5.7B at the dot-com peak.

25:00 — Being unreasonable: Eli Broad’s philosophy. Todd Graves limits Raising Cane’s to five menu items while Michael Dell offered infinite customization — both unconventional, both successful.

27:00 — Collector psychology and obsessive focus: Spielberg and Lucas collected Norman Rockwell paintings as fellow storytellers.

30:00 — The space race: Bezos, Musk, Isaacman — pushing frontiers but risking everything, including their lives.

38:00 — Political ambitions: Bloomberg as NYC mayor; billionaires deploying management skills in public service.

42:00 — A world without billionaires: Ethan’s take on wealth redistribution vs. wealth creation, and the slowing giving pledge.

48:00 — Future billionaires: high-margin businesses, software, consumer products. “Start a business that can serve a lot of customers.”

52:00 — Defining success beyond money: “Success is making a positive difference” — Ethan’s tribute to his fifth-grade teacher who left a lasting legacy.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Lupin Rahman, PhD: What Sovereign Debt Reveals About the World, Can You Trust a Government to Pay You Back? Why the Risk-Free Rate Is Not Risk-Free — Inside the Mind of a Sovereign Debt Investor

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 04:12:47 GMT

Lupin Rahman, PhD is a senior macroeconomist, sovereign debt specialist, and former head of sovereign credit and emerging markets portfolio manager at PIMCO, with over 25 years of experience across the IMF, World Bank, and global capital markets, and author of The Sovereign Debt Investor (Wiley Finance).

EPISODE NOTES

3:00 — Lupin recalls growing up with her grandmother in Bangladesh, a powerful matriarch who managed rice markets, bargaining, inventory timing, and informal community insurance — an early blueprint for sovereign economics.
5:00 — The mindset shift from IMF/World Bank policymaker to PIMCO investor: “Policy advice lives in a world of intent and markets essentially price outcomes.”
7:30 — Sovereign debt has survived thousands of years because it bridges the gap between government spending today and tax collection over time — productive use strengthens economies, unproductive use “starts borrowing from the future.”
9:15 — Guided tour of the sovereign debt landscape: borrower type, currency risk, instrument structure, legal framework, investor base, and collateral.
13:45 — How sovereign credit analysis differs from equities: analyzing tax capacity, monetary policy, political constraints, institutional frameworks — and the unique power governments hold over creditors.
17:15 — Bond valuation essentials: yield, duration, and convexity explained. “Maturity is not the same as duration.”
20:00 — Return of capital vs. return on capital — and how modern bond trading evolved from “clipping the coupon” to active portfolio management.
24:00 — Why a 100-year bond doesn’t mean a 100-year holding period.
27:20 — Credit ratings: useful for benchmarking and regulation, but markets move well before rating changes. Investors should do their own analysis.
33:25 — Policy credibility: measured not by speeches but by tradeoffs — incentive alignment, willingness to accept short-term pain, and institutional strength.
37:15 — Sovereign debt restructurings as political coordination problems, not just financial engineering exercises.
40:50 — Is the risk-free rate obsolete? Credit risk vs. supply absorption risk in advanced economies.
47:50 — Fiscal dominance, financial repression, and Japan’s 260% debt-to-GDP challenge.
51:40 — AI can process data and identify patterns, but hasn’t replaced judgment — understanding politics and incentives remains human work.
54:06 — Lupin defines success through the Japanese concept of Ikigai: doing what you’re good at, what the world needs, what aligns with your values, and what you can get paid for.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Kevin Koharki, PhD: What Stock-Based Compensation Really Costs -- The Billions That Never Show Up on the Books

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 04:12:43 GMT

Kevin Koharki, MBA, PhD, is the founder of CAE Consulting (Capital Allocation Enhancement), associate professor of accounting at Purdue University, and expert financial analyst with a 20-year career — including M&A analysis — who consults with and advises Fortune 100 companies on understanding the true economic cost of stock-based compensation.

The episode is sponsored by TenzingMEMO — the AI-powered market intelligence platform I use daily for smarter company analysis. Code BILLIONS gets you an extended trial + 10% off.

https://www.tenzingmemo.com/

EPISODE NOTES

3:00 — Kevin traces the origins of stock-based comp to the 1990s dot-com era; originally meant to conserve cash at startups and align employee incentives with shareholders.

5:00 — The shift from stock options to RSUs and PSUs; accounting still at the expensing stage from 2002 FASB rules.

7:00 — Why stock-based comp is concentrated in the tech sector, particularly Mag-7 companies — the very firms that don’t need to conserve cash.

10:00 — Kevin walks through the mechanics: 100 RSUs granted at $30, expensed over three years, but if sold at $90, the $60 gap never appears on the P&L.

14:00 — Cash flow distortion: compensation paid in shares shows up as a financing activity, not an operating expense — inflating free cash flow.

17:00 — Why employees don’t truly become owners: tax liabilities force selling, and short-term vesting creates a “what’s my vest date?” mentality.

19:00 — The Berkshire model: Greg Abel buys shares with after-tax salary. No stock-based comp. Buffett’s emphasis on intrinsic value per share.

23:00 — Psychological toll: employees hired at the peak face crushing drawdowns; companies respond by issuing even more shares.

28:00 — Real-world example: a company with $102B in operating cash flow shows $6.4B in GAAP SBC — but $7.9B just in tax withholdings. The tax cost exceeds the recorded expense.

35:00 — Second example: 90% of a $26.3B share buyback was simply to offset dilution. True free cash flow drops from $46B to roughly $4B.

42:00 — The private company test: “If you bought the whole company, you’d still have to pay those employees in cash.”

50:00 — The IRS treats SBC as cash-basis: the $90 exercise price gets the deduction, not the $30 GAAP cost.

58:00 — Kevin: “I just think there’s kind of a mass delusion going on right now.”

1:03:00 — Wall Street Journal coverage and Nvidia’s disclosure change; the conversation is shifting.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Monthly Summary — March 2026

Bogumil Baranowski — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:01:19 GMT

11 posts: 5 Podcast Episodes · 1 Essay · 3 Collaborations · 1 Interview with Bogumil · 1 Monthly Q&A

A few things on my mind this week —

In the March Q&A, someone asked me about the “why” behind all my investment ideas. I offered an answer in the moment — but the truth is, I’ve been thinking about it more since. It’s one of those questions that keeps unfolding. I’ll share more soon.

Another great question came up that I haven’t fully answered yet — what do I do during drawdowns?

Simply put — I look for ideas.

I review my holdings. I ask where I can add, and where I might need to trim. I revisit my wish list — the businesses I’ve been watching and admiring from the sidelines. And then I zoom out even further, scanning the whole investable universe, wondering what else might be sufficiently on sale.

It’s a bittersweet time. But I enjoy the treasure hunt. And I know — from experience — that it pays off in the long run.

One more thing —

I’m opening up some time slots in the coming weeks for 1-on-1s and small 3-on-1 group conversations with me, your host. If you’re interested, sign up here — [FORM LINK] — and I’ll share more details as this idea takes shape.

Thank you for being here.

Bogumil

Mark McCartney: What Does a Good Life Actually Look Like?

March 2, 2026 — Podcast Episode

An Irish-born coach and host of the What Is a Good Life? podcast with nearly 300 conversations joins Talking Billions to explore what a meaningful life actually looks like beyond professional achievement — from ringing the bell at the NYSE to walking away and finding something deeper.

Read / Listen →

The Question No One Asks | What Great Investors Taught Us About Portfolio and Purpose

March 6, 2026 — Collaboration (Excess Returns Pod)

A special Excess Returns episode with Matt Zeigler, exploring the most overlooked question in investing — what is the purpose of your portfolio? Through clips and reflections from Aswath Damodaran, Meb Faber, Ben Hunt, Cullen Roche, Corey Hoffstein, Daniel Crosby, Larry Swedroe, Wes Gray, and others.

Read / Listen →

Matt Reustle: What Makes a Business Last Centuries?

March 9, 2026 — Podcast Episode

The former CEO of Colossus and architect of the Business Breakdowns podcast, who spent a decade at Goldman Sachs mastering business dissection, discusses compounders, stewardship, and why the best investors change their minds. Sponsored by Tenzing Memo.

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Vitaliy Katsenelson on Investing Amid Extreme Uncertainty: Survival First. Returns Second

March 13, 2026 — Collaboration (Excess Returns Pod)

A special Excess Returns episode with Matt Zeigler featuring Vitaliy Katsenelson, CEO of Investment Management Associates and author of Soul in the Game. The conversation explores how value investing is evolving in a world shaped by AI, rapidly changing economic dynamics, and historically high market valuations — and why humility and diversification matter more than ever.

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Arie van Gemeren: What 2,000 Years of History Teach Us About Building Wealth Today

March 16, 2026 — Podcast Episode

A CFA, Goldman Sachs veteran, and CEO of Lombard Equities Group translates two millennia of wealth-building history into actionable modern investment and real estate strategy — the investing mistakes empires and billionaires keep repeating. Sponsored by Fiscal AI.

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Money Is Never Just Money with Bogumil Baranowski

March 18, 2026 — Interview with Bogumil (What is a Good Life? #165)

Bogumil is the guest on Mark McCartney’s What is a Good Life? podcast, exploring why money is one of the most emotionally charged forces in our lives and why being truly present may be the most undervalued skill of our time. Reposted with permission.

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Napkin Portfolios, a Forest You’ll Never See, and Forgotten Money

March 19, 2026 — Essay

The quiet transformations that separate investors from stewards. Every serious investor eventually faces three shifts — from managing it all alone, to investing for generations you’ll never meet, to the move from getting rich to staying rich. Each one requires letting go of something in exchange for something deeper.

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Peter Gustafson: The Warren Buffett Path to Your Financial Freedom

March 23, 2026 — Podcast Episode

A Danish investor, former business journalist, founder of Prospect Family Office, and author of The Business Investor — a book born from 2,200 hours of writing and 15+ years of market-beating returns — on hurdle rates hidden in plain sight and why intelligence alone won’t make you rich.

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Unfiltered: Coffee w/ Bogumil, Monthly Q&A w/ the Audience

March 25, 2026 — Monthly Q&A

The monthly listener Q&A — raw, unscripted, and personal. Covering what kind of money we’re talking about, the “why” behind the holdings, a podcast production secret, and much more.

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100 Year Thinkers, Ep. 6 | Chris Mayer & Robert Hagstrom: Most Stocks Don’t Matter & The Outliers That Break Base Rates

March 28, 2026 — Collaboration (100 Year Thinkers)

Matt Zeigler and Bogumil host Robert Hagstrom and Chris Mayer to explore how investors should think about base rates, extreme outcomes, and long-term wealth creation. Drawing on Michael Mauboussin’s work, the conversation challenges conventional ideas like mean reversion and highlights why a small number of companies drive most stock market returns.

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Ryan Bunn: Why the Best Investors Think Like Collectors, Not Traders

March 30, 2026 — Podcast Episode

The lead portfolio manager at Reference Equity in Denver — a Northwestern-trained engineer and Kellogg MBA with 15+ years of global equity experience — on Philip Carret’s legacy, what a 99-year-old investor taught Warren Buffett, and the mindset that builds generational wealth.

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Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

Ryan Bunn: Why the Best Investors Think Like Collectors, Not Traders, What a 99-Year-Old Investor Taught Warren Buffett & The Mindset That Builds Generational Wealth

Bogumil Baranowski — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 04:12:41 GMT

Ryan Bunn is the lead portfolio manager at Reference Equity in Denver, a Northwestern-trained engineer and Kellogg MBA with 15+ years of global equity experience who implements a first-principles quality-value philosophy focused on businesses in non-competitive situations.

EPISODE NOTES

3:00 — Ryan’s Midwestern upbringing outside Cincinnati; his mother taught him investing in elementary school; his family of savers focused on dividend yields and long-term wealth building.

5:00 — 30-year investing evolution: private equity consulting training revealed wide range of business quality; reading Graham and Buffett cemented value conviction; experimented with options, angel investing in India, due diligence in Moscow, NFTs.

7:00 — The NFT experiment: bought digital art in summer 2021, sold for 25x return in six weeks, watched it crash 95%+. Lesson: “It showed me that I’m not a growth investor… it was so stressful even as prices were going up.”

9:00 — First principles of quality investing: competition is capitalism’s first principle; sustainable high returns require non-competitive scenarios. Challenges the broad definition of “quality” in today’s market.

13:00 — Philip Carret’s legacy: founded Pioneer Fund in 1928, compounded ~13% annually over 60 years, wrote The Art of Speculation in 1930. Met Buffett in early 1950s — before Munger. Framework of “men, materials, and money” underlies all fundamental investing today.

19:00 — Intellectual heritage: ideas passed between generations compound like capital. Carret appeared at the 1995 Berkshire meeting at age 99.

22:00 — Generational wealth: someone must be the first generation to save and sacrifice. Modern retirement planning models spending to zero — the opposite of wealth transfer.

27:00 — Capital vs. currency: truly long-term investing requires a pool of capital you never touch. Focus on yield, not the capital base itself. Bogumil shares his “forgotten money” account untouched for 20+ years.

33:00 — Collecting mindset: Berkshire shareholders collect shares, not dollars. Reframing investing as collecting removes short-term anxiety.

44:00 — Why value investing works structurally: cheaper stocks get more powerful buybacks; low multiples protect against destructive M&A; boring companies let management focus on operations, not investor relations.

55:00 — Global small caps: 5,000+ stocks, ~150 meet Ryan’s non-competitive filter, 3-5 per year reach attractive valuations. International investing rewards those who understand what US-quality governance looks like.

1:01:00 — Reference equity concept: European “reference shareholder” families as long-term partners to businesses. Ryan’s mission is to bring this model to the US public markets.

Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement

100 Year Thinkers, Ep. 6 | Chris Mayer & Robert Hagstrom: Most Stocks Don’t Matter & The Outliers That Break Base Rates

Bogumil Baranowski — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:03:34 GMT

This episode brings together Robert Hagstrom and Chris Mayer to explore how investors should think about base rates, extreme outcomes, and the realities of long-term wealth creation in markets. Drawing on Michael Mauboussin's work, the conversation challenges conventional ideas like mean reversion and highlights why a small number of companies drive most stock market returns—and what that means for portfolio construction.

Matt Zeigler and I had the privilege of hosting Robert Hagstrom (The Warren Buffett Way) and Chris Mayer (100 Baggers) for a special 100-Year Thinkers Edition of the Excess Returns Podcast.

Available now on Excess Returns Podcast and Talking Billions. 🎧

I’m excited to share this episode with you—it’s reposted here with permission and blessing from both Matt and Jack. Don’t miss it! And follow their work, links below.

Chris’ New Book
https://shop.generalsemantics.org/pro...

Robert’s Book: Investing: The Last Liberal Art
https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Libe...

https://excessreturnspod.com/

Topics covered

• Why markets are driven by extreme outcomes and power laws, not averages
• The Best & Bessembinder research showing a handful of stocks create most wealth
• Base rates vs outliers and when to trust historical probabilities
• Why the 100 bagger framework focuses on studying winners, not predicting them
• Portfolio construction as a way to capture asymmetric upside
• Buffett’s approach to consistency, durability, and long-term operating history
• Inside view vs outside view and how narratives distort investing decisions
• Why AI may be breaking traditional base rate assumptions in software and tech
• The limits of mean reversion and why it can lead investors astray
• Return on invested capital and how competition erodes excess returns over time
• Identifying durable moats and why most advantages eventually get attacked
• Winner-take-all dynamics and how they shape long-term investing outcomes
• The twin engines of returns: earnings growth and multiple expansion
• Return on incremental capital as a key driver of long-term compounding
• Intangible assets and why accounting understates true business value
• Amazon as a case study in misunderstood profitability and reinvestment
• AI CapEx cycle and why current spending may not be sustainable long term
• Why great businesses matter more than great management in long-term investing

Timestamps

00:00 Why extreme outcomes drive stock market returns
01:00 Base rates vs studying 100 baggers
03:00 Power laws and why markets are a game of outliers
05:00 Just 46 companies created half of all market wealth
07:00 Buffett on consistency and long-term operating history
10:00 How to think about base rates in AI, energy, and macro cycles
12:00 Does AI invalidate historical base rates?
15:00 Inside view vs outside view in investment decision making
19:00 Buffett’s “certainty at a discount” framework
23:00 How often investors should evaluate businesses vs prices
29:00 Mean reversion myths and where it breaks down
33:00 Return on invested capital and competitive pressure
36:00 Moats, winner-take-all markets, and long-term dominance
41:00 Twin engines of compounding: growth plus multiple expansion
43:00 Return on incremental capital and forecasting future returns
47:00 Intangibles and why accounting distorts real business value
50:00 Amazon, CapEx cycles, and hidden profitability
53:00 AI infrastructure buildout and the future of returns