Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - The Rule-Breaking Investor: David Gardner's Best Advice for New Investors and Entrepreneurs

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan Alford Join media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.     Resources: Right About Now Newsletter | Free Podcast Monetization Course | Join The Network |Follow Us On Instagram | Subscribe To Our Youtube Channel | Vibe Science Media SUMMARY In this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford interviews David Gardner, co-founder of The Motley Fool. Gardner shares the story behind The Motley Fool’s growth from a small newsletter to a major investment platform, discusses the democratization of investing, and emphasizes the importance of long-term, patient investing in strong brands. He introduces his “rule breaker investing” philosophy, highlights companies like Amazon and Nvidia, and offers practical advice for building wealth. Gardner also recommends lesser-known stocks, discusses entrepreneurship, and promotes his new book, providing valuable insights for investors at any stage. TAKEAWAYS History and evolution of The Motley Fool as a print newsletter starting in 1993. Impact of the internet on investing and access to stock market information. Democratization of stock market access and reduction of trading costs. Importance of long-term investing and avoiding market timing. Investment philosophy centered around "rule breaker investing." Focus on brand strength and value in evaluating stocks. Examples of successful companies with strong brands (e.g., Amazon, Nvidia). Challenges faced during the dot-com crash and lessons learned. Recommendations for diversification and long-term stock ownership. Insights on entrepreneurship and the role of business leaders in society.

On today's episode of Right About Now, I talked to co-founder of The Motley Fool. Yes, that Motley Fool, not the band, but one of the oldest newsletters and one of the best insightful platforms are getting stock tips. David Gardner and I talk all about building Motley Fool, what stock investing looks like today versus the past. And again, it's not what you might think. Just like my advice, it's more practical, but builds and pays over the long term right about now. There's a great line from The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia. He said, we were never trying to be the best at what we did. We were trying to be the only ones doing what we were doing. And there was the Grateful Dead back to the day saying, go ahead, bootleg our concerts. We don't care. Nobody else will let you record live, but you can do it for us. They understood open source decades before that phrase was known. So that's another great example. Great line. We were never trying to be the best of what we'd do. We're trying to be the only ones doing what we're doing. Those are the stocks I'm looking for. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a radcast network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month.

Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always talking about how to get right in business and marketing in line. life today. Not six years ago, not six years from now. We're not prognosticating. We're just telling you how you can learn from some of the best. And there's a bit of nostalgia here for me today.

I saw this name coming across my desk and it was probably the best internet marketing of 15 years ago. And David hopefully share with us everything they're doing today. I still see them. But it was really nostalgic for me as I was starting my investment journey. And then to see this name, which you, if you don't know this name, I'll be surprised. He is a co-frey. founder of Motley Fool. He is, Dave Gardner. What's up, brother? Thank you, Ryan. Really appreciate the invite. Yeah, man. Motley Fool. I remember the name caught my attention back in the day. And then I signed up for the newsletter and got, I don't know how many emails a week. It was one of the only ones I actually read. It was great writing. It was insightful on investment strategies, stocks you should consider,

and validating maybe things I was seeing or thinking about. I've always respected the content and the brand. Thank you very much. For us, just starting with our name, The Motley Fool, which comes from Shakespeare because we love those characters, the court jesters, who could tell the king or queen the truth. They were the only ones in court who could tell the king or queen the truth, and they used humor. We've always taken that seriously at The Fool. We try not to take ourselves seriously. We take our members and, of course, the subject, the stock market seriously.

But I think it's really important to be communicators and to do the best that we can as marketers, but also, of course, as deliverers of advice, which is how we butter our bread. Wisdom. I like it. I didn't realize that you guys. were, do you say 30 plus years old at this point? Yeah, we launched basically as a newsletter, a print newsletter back in 1993, $48 a year. The only people who'd pay us were our parents' friends.

They felt sorry for us. They wanted to get our business going for us. That's how it started. And then the internet showed up. No kidding. God. There's some of angles we could take with that. What's the investment world been watching it for that many years, how it's changed,

the evolution, the internet, all those. That could be a 40-minute or 40-hour discussion, but, You condense it, though, because you've been on a wild ride, I'm sure, was just a company, which I want to talk about, but just investment landscape in general. Yeah, it's been remarkable just how much it's opened up and become accessible to all. Truly, 35 years ago, Ryan, there was not free stock charts that you could just instantly update themselves over the course of the day in your browser. Back then, literally you were paying, I think, $50 a year maybe. I remember paying for a little S&P Standard & Poor's chart guide, which gave me quarter. orderly little stock graphs that I paid 50 bucks a year for to subscribe to. And that's just one simple

example of how information that used to be hard to get and expensive has become incredibly accessible today. I'll give you one more quick example. That is when you trade a stock today. We like to buy at the Molly Fool. We don't sell much. We like to hold long periods of time. That's the way we beat the market. You used to have to pay $50, $100 just to trade a stock, a commission. These days, we're down to a zero commission environment where people don't really have any friction trading costs. And these days, you can also buy fractions of shares. So if you only have $100 and you want to buy Amazon stock or Nvidia stock and it costs more than $100, you can do it today. You can buy two-thirds of a share. Back 35 years ago when we started the fool, you had to buy

round numbers, usually significant, maybe like 50 shares of Nvidia if you wanted to enter a position paying $50 to $100 just to buy it. Now it's free with fractional shares. You can build a diversified portfolio of 20 stocks, which is a good number to start with, in my opinion, for $100. It's crazy how much more accessible with better information than we had 35 years ago. So it's been pretty much all great, I would say. Democratization of everything is what we've seen the last 30 years. The Internet has democratized content, distribution, knowledge. Now AI is doing it on fire.

And that's what it is. And when I think of democratization, it's opening it up to many, making it, freely available, but you nailed the right word, friction removal. We've removed friction from what is a wonderful way to save your money, to invest it, to grow your wealth, which is investing in stock market and equities and all these other things. The internet opened the door. You know, it put Molly Fool, I mean, as one of the brands, though, that has leveraged that door, but it also democratized it with the knowledge that you guys shared. I did pay for a certain point I remember for a couple years of the membership, well worth it, by the way. But all the

knowledge you gave for free in the newsletter was incredible. You guys were at the forefront of that. Well, thank you very much. It's important for us as a business, because that's what we are a for-profit business, to figure out what's the right business model. And we've used several. This is really back in the day. When we launched the Molly Fool, people paid AOL $4 an hour just to be online. And if they came over to our site on AOL, we got 10% of that. So we would get 40 cents an hour for every hour anybody spent on our site. That was an incredible cash flow positive business model from the get-go. And then it all got flat fee. All of a sudden, people are only paying 30 bucks a month for AOL. So we had to shift our model then, and we shifted to a free ad-supported business to really

grow big guns, raising venture capital, et cetera. Eventually, after the dot bomb era ended in 2001, we had to shift one more time. We'd had some serious layoffs. It was a brutal year. I remember Amazon stock, which I had recommended to our members at $3 a share. It went to 95. And then in 2001, it went from 95 to 7. That's really how bad the world was. It was really, really tough. And we shifted back to subscription. And that's really how we make money today most of all is off of those subscription fees. Ryan, sounds like we had you for a couple years. We lost you. I'm sorry, that's on us, not on you. But for us to run a good business, we need to be giving advice that people want to pay attention to, they want to use, they want it to be winning for them. And I'd be the first to say,

if we're not doing that for you, cancel us. Because we're trying to be a value ad for you, just like this podcast is for its viewers and fans. I know you're focused on what's the most value we can create for people in 20 minutes. Yeah, and that's what we want. And to that end, what's good investment in advice today? I know that's abroad because you've got early investors, mid-investors. You've got risk tolerance, all those things. What's the Motley Fool pattern for investment today? First of all, we believe. leave more than anything, you should be investing your whole life. So that means whether you've encountered us today at the age of 19, 39, or I'm 59, it doesn't matter to me. We're all going to be investing

I hope for decades. Take that approach. Most people don't. They think you're supposed to buy low and sell high. Those are four of the most harmful words in the English language. I've written a new book called Rule Breaker Investing, where I basically take that to task early on in the book. We shouldn't be selling or trying to time our ways out of the market. We should just be adding and adding and more and realizing one year and three on average, the stock market will lose value. That's history. And we respect it. And if I'm fully invested my whole life, which I have been, that means one year and three, I'm going to be like, man, not a good year, tough year. And the other two years it goes up. And on average, it goes up nine to 10 percent annualized. Over the course of your life, if you do

the math, the earlier you get on that train, the better off you're going to be. You should stay on that train, in my opinion, visit every depot, every stop, and take it to early retirement, which is where I think a lot of people focus their investing. That's their hope. That's the dream to retire or retire early. And there's a big movement around that today. But I think the stock market is the surest. And yet it's often perceived Ryan to be a gamble or crazy. But it's actually, if you just look at history and math, you'll see it really is the surest way to get rich slowly. We're not talking about silly meme stocks or some crypto scheme that we're dreaming up here. What we're talking about is real companies like Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Netflix. These are all companies that are active recommendations

of ours for years and years. And what we do is we buy and we buy some more and we keep holding. That's like my timeless Motley Fool advice for you in terms of how to invest. It's interesting talking with David Gardner. He is the co-founder of Motley Fool. Rollbreaker investing. The funny thing is, you just gave a lot of practical wisdom. And it's funny, but practical is rule blanking now because it's come full circle. That is it, my friend. I'm glad you said that because part of the irony and humor and keep in mind you're tied to a fool today and that's what fools do, they try to make people laugh.

And part of the irony and humor is that what is actually daringly unconventional advice today is be patient, find greatness and keep adding to it and that will work. And you'd think that I'd be offering something much more challenging, the idea you have to jump in, jump out or what are the exact things you shouldn't buy or these kinds of things. And the truth is that if most of us treated our portfolios like we treat our sports team, that's a key analogy for me in Rule Break or investing. Here we are NFL season. People go to the home stadium with the home jersey on and whether their team wins that game or loses that game, they're going to keep the jersey on. And whether their team has a good season or not, they're going to keep that jersey

on. But with their money, with their investing, they don't do that so many of them. They They like jump in and jump out and they don't just stay faithful and loyal and build up strong association with something they love. In this case, their NFL team, but I would say you should love the company's Chipotle for some of us. Awesome company, great stock, great product. For women, Lululemon, although men too these days, another great example of a great brand. Starbucks, these aren't just iconic brands.

These are the best stocks that you could have owned over the last 25 years. And it's this same thing that works over the next 25 years, which is why I'm glad we're talking today. It's so funny, an ad agency called Radical. I think I'm a rule breaker to a degree. I bet you are. Most entrepreneurs are, my friend. But if you go really watch my videos and if you watch my strategies and you see me on

the floor with Fortune 100 companies 15 years ago and now, start up some medium size now, there's a practicalness to my approach that is bold. And I challenge brands. But there's this practical reality of tried and true in marketing with human behavior. and triggers and hooks and things. There's a lot of practical in the radical. And so I relate to that, brother. That's really well said.

And I'll just say, brother, as a fellow entrepreneur, that this is a great news for you and your investing life as well. Because not only is that your professional life, Ryan, where you're providing that advice for people, and you're basically trying to create great brands and great marketing, that is exactly the kinds of companies that we're looking to buy. Here's a great brand. This is a private company.

You can't buy stock. But if I could have bought stock in Chick-fil-A over the last 20 years, Oh my, I would have. But that's a great example.