Yet Another Value Podcast - YAVP AMA hosted by Caro-Kann Capital's Artem Fokin

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Artem Fokin, Portfolio Manager at Caro-Kann Capital LLC, returns to the podcast to do a fun AMA, not as a guest, but putting his hosting skills to the test and interviewing YAVP host, Andrew Walker. For more information about Caro-Kann Capital, please visit: http://caro-kann-capital.com/ Chapters: [1:25] Introduction + Episode sponsor: Alphasense [3:03] Idea/inspiration for launching Yet Another Value Podcast [5:56] 5% that is not "Podcast Andrew" [7:10] YAVP format - how Andrew got to this podcast format [10:56] Sourcing guests [18:07] Interview preparation process [26:29] Interviewer inspiration and how Andrew's interview style have evolved [30:14] Striking a balance between leading guests too much vs. letting guests go on their own paths [32:07] What makes a stock pitch stand out? Good stock idea vs. good stock pitch [36:55] How has being a podcast host made Andrew a better investor? [39:37] Andrew's investment style and philosophy [42:42] How many ideas did Andrew end up investing in post-publishing a podcast [45:02] What Andrew has learned about building a network, a community and connecting with people from the podcast [47:41] Three people in the world Andrew wants to have on the podcast and the funniest moment thus far [53:28] Three companies that Andrew would like to see discussed on the podcast [55:59] Where does Andrew want to see the podcast go Today's episode is sponsored by: Alphasense This episode is brought to you by AlphaSense, the AI platform behind the world's biggest investment decisions. The right financial intelligence platform can make or break your quarter. AlphaSense is the #1 rated financial research solution by G2. With AI search technology and a library of premium content, you can stay ahead of key macroeconomic trends and accelerate your investment research efforts. AI capabilities, like Smart Synonyms and Sentiment Analysis, provide even deeper industry and company analysis. AlphaSense gives you the tools you need to provide better analysis for you and your clients. As a Yet Another Value Podcast listener, visit alpha-sense.com/fs today to beat FOMO and move faster than the market.

This episode is brought to you by AlphaSense, the AI platform behind the world's biggest investment decisions. The right financial intelligence platform can make or break your quarter. AlphaSense is the number one rated financial research solution by G2. With AI search technology and a library of premium content, you can stay ahead of key macroeconomic trends and accelerate your investment research efforts. AI capabilities like smart synonyms and sentiment analysis provide even deeper industry and company analysis. Alphasense gives you the tools you need, to provide better analysis for you and your clients. As yet another value podcast listener,

visit alpha-sense.com slash FS today to beat FOMO and move faster than the market. That's alpha-dash-sense.com slash FS. A quick and somewhat embarrassing note, before this podcast was taped, I unplugged my podcast mic to take a very cute photo of my child with the podcast mic in it, but I forgot to plug the podcast mic back in before recording this podcast. So the audio is from like in my laptop's microphone. It's not the best. I really apologize for that.

But you know, the solutions are either we trash the podcast and nobody gets to hear it or we put the podcast out with kind of subpar audio. So appreciate you bearing with me and we will try we and I mean we. I mean MIDI when I say we will try to do better on the ones going forward. Thanks so much. All right. Hello, welcome to yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. If you like this podcast, it would mean a lot. If you could rate, subscribe, review it, five stars, wherever you get it.

It's been a while. I've been offered paternity leave. It felt a little awkward coming back with that intro. But with me today, I am happy to have my friend, Artem Foken. Arden, how's it going? It's great. Great to be on this podcast today with you, Andrew. You know, I think people hear, oh, Artem's Dawn again, and people think, all right, it's time to talk for it. It's not time to talk for it today, but we'll get there in one second. Just a quick disclaimer before we get started. Nothing on this podcast is investing advice. That's always true, but probably particularly true today because Artem will probably go into a little more detail, but we might talk about a hundred different stocks today. So anyway, I took a brief paternity leave

for the podcast. While I was on the paternity leave, Ardum generally reached out and said, hey, why don't we do an AMA, kind of flip it around, ask you questions that I and the listeners might have as podcast listeners. And Ardom, one of the most popular podcast guests, for those of you who are on the YouTube, he's got the five-timer yet another value podcast shirt. he's wearing. So Artem's going to do an AMA. He's got some questions. We had some questions submit on Twitter. And I'll just toss it over to Artem to hop into it. Sounds good. So, Andrew, and congratulations on becoming a dad. Thank you, sure. All the best things to your rapidly growing family. Your Kegar is very, very impressive. You know, your IRR days through the roof.

Yeah, this year, plus 15%. Wish we could do that every year in the old four pro. Exactly. So congratulations to join in the ranks. And it's really fun to, reverse the tables and talk more about you, both as a podcast host and as an investor. So you've hosted, I believe, 204 podcasts. So today's 205 with reverse tables. So how have you arrived to the idea of launching a podcast? I know you've you had your blog for some time and then you went to two podcasts. How did it happen? What was your inspiration? So the podcast, the podcast The podcast launched, I think, August of 2020, and it was, you know, just a COVID-inspired. Oh, my God, I am sitting around my house, not talking to investors, like, you know, all the, you and I went in, met randomly at a Greek restaurant in, like, 2018 for dinner, right?

Like, those happenstance, I live in New York, investor friends coming through dinners and stuff, coffees, all that weren't happening. Chris DeMuth and I had done the Rangely Capital podcast for a while, but kind of had stopped that in mid-2019. team for the most part. So I had some podcasting experience. And, you know, as I just sat around, I was like, look, this is going to be, I kind of had in my mind, if I do this, it's going to be great networking. It's going to be great brand, brand building both for myself and for my friends who I bring on. I'm going to meet new friends through it and get new ideas. I always knew I wanted the podcast to have more of a focus on individual stocks than investor backgrounds. And we can talk more about how it came to be all individual stocks. But I thought I would get, you know, Ardom's a

you're smart guy. Artem's done a lot of work on this. I'll lure him on to a podcast for an hour and get to ask him all of my questions that I have on his best ideas. Like, that's just fantastic for my own due diligence process. So that was my hope. And honestly, it's delivered in spades on all of those issues.

Wonderful. That was actually my inspiration to ask you to do this reverse the table podcasts. Because I thought, wait a second. I was connecting in the airport and I was walking from one flight to another, listening to your podcast. and I thought, Andrew has done tons of these podcasts. He must have a lot of lessons. It would be really fun to learn from him,

but there is no way how I'm going to get you for an hour just to talk to me about your learnings. So I thought, what if I ask you to do it as a podcast and then I can learn as well? It's funny, you know, it's true. You put an hour on the table and you record it and you know it's going out to more than just me and you. And it's easier, like, if you came and asked me

of learnings of podcasts, just me and you, it would honestly be a little embarrassing me for me to tell you something, but because I know this is like a podcast format and it's recorded, I put my podcast personality on a little bit, which, you know, is probably like 95% somewhere to my normal personality, but it is easier to get some of that. And I think you see that on the podcast too when people come on and pitch an idea, like sometimes I'll ask ideas that I would honestly be embarrassed to ask if it was just me and you talking about a stock, but because it's on the podcast, it's like, hey, look, I've got to

maybe not the dumbest listener, right? But we've got to talk like it's people who have no experience with this company. I can ask very silly questions because I can hide by. behind the, hey, I'm just being a good podcast guest and getting the most basic diligence across. I wanted to pull on a thread that you just mentioned. You said that your podcast personality is about 95% you, and I assume doing my Excel model here,

5% is not typical you in day-to-day life. So could you tell me a little bit about that 5%? Oh, I don't know. You know, I just think on the podcast a little bit more, I'm pretty outgoing normally, but probably a little bit more outgoing, a little bit, I always speak fast, but a little bit willing to ask questions, probably listen a little bit better on the podcast than I do in real life, to be honest with you. But most people, I think anybody who knows me would say, this is pretty much me.

Maybe the other thing is podcast I can bring a little bit more energy to, you know, I'm sure, I don't know, I think a lot of people who are very finance-heavy mathematical read a lot. I think it is very easy when I'm with friends and stuff to get distracted if we're just in the moment like winding down. I think the podcast is a nice way where I can just really focus on a conversation versus, you know, sometimes I regret it, but I'll be with three friends. I'll be like, we're not doing anything. I think it's why I love board games so much. There's always something to do if we're not doing. Like, hey, guys, what are we doing? Like, I'm going to go read if we're not going to do anything, you know, but yeah, I think all of that. Okay, interesting. So let's go back. So it's August 2020. It's COVID. You decide to do a podcast.

There are a few investing podcasts out there, and yours is quite different. Other podcasts that I know, and many of them are great and I love them and I love listening to them, but they're more about, tell me about your investment philosophy, how did you become an investor, what's your investment criteria, and all those wonderful things, don't get me wrong. And sometimes there is an idea thrown in, but it's really more of an example. And the host generally, at least it's my impression, is not prepared for which stock the guest will be talking about. so there may be some Q&A, but not much. Your format is very different.

How did you get to that format? There were two ways. First, I always knew I wanted to focus on stocks because if we were just going to come on and talk for, like I can do this one where it's just you and me kind of talking about the history of the podcast, you know, once a year we can take an hour break. But if it was going to be one podcast a week,

which was kind of my original goal, an hour a week and I was going to spend all my time on talking about a guest background, that actually doesn't work for me because that's not really making me much better as an investor. It's not giving me ideas. Like, it just didn't work for me. The podcast is not my primary focus.

It's a really fun side thing that I really enjoy, but it has to work for all of my things. So that was number one. I always knew I wanted to have the focus on the stocks. And then number two, after I'd done about 10 or 15 of them, I specifically remember in like December of 2020, I think it was Dan McMurtry, who I'd love to have as a podcast guest from Tiro Partners, he did a podcast on Bill Brewster's podcast. and it was all about his background and stuff. And I was like, oh, I just couldn't do, I couldn't connect with someone like this.

I couldn't do a background podcast like this. And to be honest, a lot of the stuff, I'm really interested in hearing about my peers about their background, but a lot of the stuff, like, I'm just not that interested in asking and kind of talking to and bantering about. So I was like, why am I doing originally the podcast was the first half was background and the second half was stock? I was like, why am I doing something that I don't think I'm advantaged on that I'm not, I'm not advantaged on, I'm not interested in asking.

I don't think I have any edge in asking. Why don't I just only focus on the part that really excites me, that I really want, that really helps everything else that I'm doing, and that I actually think it's going to shine the best on my guest because I think I can ask the guest questions in an interesting way that probably, not that no one else in the world could, but no one else who's really doing a full-time podcast could. So that was kind of my, if I settled on, only stocks. This is fascinating, because I thought there was some clever analysis of the market of podcasts and figuring out which niche is not cover. While in reality, you just wanted to create a podcast that will be true to who you are, your interest, and your passion. Yeah, it's that. And I will be honest, I think the reason you said, hey, there aren't a lot of podcasts that do it. I think, like, I know you are a loyal listener.

I love doing them. I think the listeners who listen to this are loyal and really enjoy it, or at least I hope they do. But it's not that big a market for people who want to listen to a one hour long dive into an individual stock. Like, that is a very small market. It is generally institutional or high net worth people, like people who have the investing bug, right? There is a very large market for people who want to listen to investors just talk in generalities. So I think one of the reasons you don't see a lot of copycats is because if you want to do a business around a podcast, this is not the format to do it. Like you're just self-limited into a very small niche.

I'm sure it is a very high net worth niche, but you're not going to be able to turn it into a full-time business. Whereas, you know, there are podcasts that interview very famous investors and not to be a business. but only ask them, hey, let's go through your background. Let's go through your philosophy. Very general things. There's a huge audience for that. You could turn that into a business. So I found the right niche.

Got it. That's fascinating. So let's talk about you and your guests. Okay. I bet that sourcing of guests changed a lot over the last two and a half years. What were those changes? What it was like in the beginning and what is it like today? So I would say the first 20 guests were pretty easy, right?

Because it was the depths of COVID. I think people were so desperate. And everyone was going on every podcast. And I think it was pretty easy. So the first 20 guests were pretty easy. And then I'd say the next like 40-ish guests were not hard, but it was tough. You know, I'd have to email people and they'd be like, hey, you know, the COVID was starting to end. Everybody had been on everyone else's podcast.

So they're like, I actually have kind of done three podcasts in the last year. I do think there was before we had, you know, the first one guests were also probably right when I switched over to a full-time stock. So people were doing half background, half stock. I do think there was a little apprehension, oh, am I going to go on a full hour-long stock podcast and just get grilled, right? Like, Andrew's going to come at me and be like, footnote 72 on page 400 of the 10K says this. Like, this is a fraud.

So I think people worried about that. So I think the next 40 were hard. And then after that, like, you know, I do think a lot of the guests are repeat, which I love because I think the guests have are great and the guests repeat because they enjoy it. They get great feedback and a lot of guests have raised money off it. They've built businesses off of it. It's helped them with businesses. Several guests have gotten hired from it.

So I think guest repeat has been great. That's been really helpful. And then as the podcast has gotten bigger, I've had a lot of people who will reach out and be like, hey, I love your podcast. I'm a professional investor. I would look, here's a great idea. I'd love to pitch you. And that's the best.

I always say, like, I just want in-bounds. My dream would be every investor who's a good investor, they get a new idea, they fully size it, and they email me and they're like, hey, I want to like plant my flag on this stock. I want to come on the podcast, send it out to all my LPs, let everybody know how I'm smart I am. And then two years later, I'll go and send the podcasts around as a victory lap when the stock inevitably doubles or triples. Interesting. As your sourcing of guests changed, and as some people now come to the podcast who may not have a pre-existent relationship with you, a long friendship, do you run into situations where someone wants to pitch a stock and that does just not resonate with you? And what do we do? It's really hard. So I have a lot of people

who reach out and want to come on the podcast and, you know, it's a junior in college. And not that a junior in college can't be sharp, but generally the stock pitches aren't like of the quality that I would defer podcast. So I tend to, I mean, I've had one or two college students on. Generally, if they win a contest, kind of, I think it's fun. I think it's good promotion. I want to be supportive, but generally tend not to, but my rule has been, look, if you get paid in some way to invest, so you run a fund or you run a substack that, you know, is kind of your life's work, you're focused, if you have a stock idea that fits with what I'm trying to do, so it can't be technical analysis, right? It can't be insider trading, obviously,

but it can't be technical analysis. It can't be momentum. It has to be value based. It value or event-based in some form. But if other people are paying you to do this, who am I to say that your analysis is not like my quality? So I generally will take about anyone who is doing this what I call professionally, and professionally is you are getting paid to invest in some way, shape, or form. Interesting. And by the way, speaking about college students, to be clear, this is not a way to discourage them. If you have a really brilliant idea, they still should reach out to you. No, I'd be a really good one. I absolutely would, but it's just, you know, generally a college student, like most of the college

pitches I see are one of two things. It's, hey, this company trades for six times PE, all the peers trade for nine times PE. I think it's straight for nine times PE, so it's going to go up 50%. It's like, hey, that's, that's fine starting, but there is a lot more to invest in that. Or it's Artem had a great pitch, and I've basically regurgitated Artem's pitch. You know, so I'm not saying no, but I would generally prefer, like, I've given a lot of, of juniors, MBA students, all of that feedback. I generally prefer give me the idea. I'll give you feedback. Go launch a substaff. Like I am, not that I'm the best investor in the history of the world, but like writing online has helped me so much in terms of both brand building and as an investor.

Go, if you're a junior, go launch a substack, write for six months. You're going to be shocked by how much you're going to grow because people are going to give you feedback on your ideas. you're naturally going to become better as an investor as you write all these ideas up. Go do that for six months. And then in six months, bring me your best idea and let's talk. I think that would actually be the best way. And hopefully that were for both of us. Like they would be, I think would be becoming a better investor.

And six months later, maybe they would be podcast worthy. I think it's great advice. And I also think that your podcast and your blog, as well as the number of other podcasts, they really are doing a tremendous job of democratizing access to knowledge. and talent development. When I went to business school, learning how to pitch stocks was very difficult.

You really talk to your classmates who did by side before and they teach you something and there are workshops and here and there. But, you know, there's only so much you can accomplish by doing so. In your case, somebody who wants to learn what good analysis is like,

you have 204 episodes and people can watch them and learn and apply to their knowledge building and hopefully apply it hopefully will help them in their careers later on. So you're doing a tremendous job for those people who want to learn. Look, I really appreciate that.

And I do think, like, it's not just my podcast, but I do think you're right. Like when I graduated from college in 2010, so, you know, when I was kind of starting as investor 2011 to 2013, like, seeking alpha was just starting. Obviously, Vic was there. So there was some, but if you rebound even five years prior to that,

like if you wanted to become investor, How did you find Ed His? How did you learn what to do? Like, you could go read a few books out there, but there really wasn't a lot. And, you know, in 2010 to 2013, you could go read seeking Alpha and Vic. That was great. That was obviously exponentially more than there was five years before. But if you wanted to your stock pitches, there really weren't a lot of them, right? Like every now and then Bill Ackman would have one maybe, but that was it.

And as you said today, like, if you're a college student who wants to learn how to pitch stocks, all this type of stuff, it's out there, right? You can listen to this podcast. You can listen to, like, there are other places where there's lots of stock pictures. You can read plenty of online substacks of really successful investors who are putting this stuff out there. So I do think there's been a democratization, and it's a lot easier to get up to speed and learn ideas quickly. Yeah, makes sense. And now a quick break to remind you that this episode is brought to you exclusively by AlphaSense,

the AI platform behind the world's biggest investment decisions. AlphaSense gives you the tools you need to provide better analysis for you and your clients. As yet another value podcast listener, visit Alpha-Sense.com slash FS today to beat FOMO and move faster than the market. That's alpha-dash-sense.com slash FS. Okay, so you've got a guest. The guest is coming. Now, interview prep. How do you prepare?

What's your process? So my process is, again, every guest I try to treat with respect because, again, in general, the guests are people who are getting paid to do this, right? So they are professional investors. and they are saying, hey, Andrew, this is an idea that I often am deeply invested in. I have my funds in it. I have my client's funds in it if they run client money or, you know, I've put my reputation on the line on a substack post. So I think this is a great idea that I'm willing to plant my flag in, go on Andrew's

podcast, which reaches dozens of listeners and tell them that this is one of my best idea. So I treat that like kind of with the respect to deserves. And I try to do on every idea at least half a day of work. So in general, that would mean. reading, you know, in the morning, I open up the 10K, I read the 10K. And look, you know, there's a difference between reading the 10K, like, this is going to be a 20% position. I'm going to read the 10K with a fine tooth comb. You don't have to read like footnote 72 of the 10K

when you're, but I'll read the 10K. I'll read the most, generally the most recent two earnings calls. If they've got an analyst day, I'll read the analyst day. That often increases the time because analyst days can be long. Read the 10K, read the most recent 10Q, build a very simple financial model and know if they've got a very obvious peer kind of flip through their earnings releases so that way I'm at least up to speed on the company and can talk to them some companies you know one of the tough things with the podcast is I could do a half day on a you and I were mentioning a serial company before this you can do a half day on a serial company and be pretty knowledgeable on them one of the tough things we might talk about this later

you know if somebody wants to pitch a very cyclical chemical company doing a half day on them might, you know, maybe I'll understand the, maybe I'll know the words that analysts are asking them, but not understand them. So there is that tough, but generally about a half day of prep, and that's generally what it looks like. Would you read other pitches, whether it's some zero, well, investors club, maybe other substacks? Would you read those as well to prepare and know the thesis? I go back and forth on it. And in general, the answer is yes, because I'm like, look, smart people are writing this off, especially I love reading, you know, if you're going to come on and you pitch Burford on here three times, right? I think the money waters,

piece at this point. There were obviously some great pieces and some great points in there. At this point, it's very dated. But, you know, if you were going to come on and Muddy Waters had just done a short piece, absolutely, I'm going to read the short piece and ask questions about the short thesis. So I love reading divergent opinions on it. I've gone back and forth because, you know, if you're pitching something and then I go read a bullish vit pitch on it, you can very much bias yourself to the bull thesis and kind of ignore other things. But I've kind of found, hey, read all the information you can the both thesis is smartly summarized and you can kind of dig around and think about counterpoints and questions from that got and during your 204 podcasts

have you found yourself in situations where during the conversation with a guest you have this thought in your head oh boy I know this company a lot better than my guest so once or twice you know sometimes when I've got a company it is I don't think listeners it's not a secret if I've got a big position in a company I'll often like go go trolling for someone to come on the podcast to pitch it so I can talk to them about it and talk about like a position I'm passionate on sometimes when that's happening I think I know at least as much as the guess once or twice I will give one example so one time I had someone who was pitching you know let's say they did editing tools for it actually might be they did say they did something that, you know, a larger company was tangential to a larger company. Oh, actually, a great one would be Expel right now, right? I know this is a company you know well. There's a short thesis that, hey, Expell makes a paint film for cars. And a big revenue source for them is films for Tesla, right? And a piece of the short case is Tesla is going to make their own film, right? If I had you on the podcast, the most obvious question I would answer is, I would ask you

is, hey, what do you think about Tesla making film for cars, right? And you would have three answers. You would have clearly thought about it. And you would say, here's why I don't think Tesla would. Here's why. If Tesla does, I think it would be a disaster. Or you could say, hey, I don't think Tesla will. If Tesla does, it will disprove my thesis and here's the downside, right? But you will have at least thought through this. One time I asked someone a question that was very similar to the obvious risk of Tesla making their own film. And the person said, I don't know. And I thought to myself, oh, my God, this person is on this podcast pitching this idea, the most obvious risk. It is like the number one risk factor.

In this case, it was the number one or maybe number two risk factor in their 10K. And the person just said, I don't know. I haven't thought about it to this risk. I was like, oh, my God. But no, in general, my guests are very sharp. I mean, I think I can ramp up on a company quickly. But I would say 98% of the time the guests are going to know more about the company to me. Okay.

So let's flip the question. Do you remember situations when you had the opposite thought, where you felt that you are underprepared, not unprepared, but underprepared? It goes back to a lot of times the specialty chemicals companies, the pharmaceutical companies. I'll give like Dave from Calligan has come on a few times, and he's a great guest. And they do fantastic work in specialty pharma and bio and that. And it's just, you know, the only way I'd be able to really ramp up on that, is if I went back to college and got my chemistry degree is what I feel a lot of times,

you know, because he does such great work on the molecules and the things. And for him, I'll generally try to do extra work, like kind of instead of a half day, a day, a day and a half. But ramping up on these specialized biopharm and pharma companies is just so, it's so hard. And actually, I said have to go back to college and get a chemistry degree. Like, I don't think that's quite true. I do a lot of stuff in the legal world and legal special situations of this. I don't have a law degree. But, you know, I think I can just. generally analyze legal case now and that, but it's just taken a lot of time. If I spent the next two years only doing biopharm or for the most part only looking

at pharma companies, I think I could do a lot more. But whenever those come on, I feel like I'm really overwhelmed by it. And the other one, which is interesting, every now and then I'll have an industrial company come on and I'll have a great discussion. And then somebody will email me after and be like, hey, that was a great discussion. But there's this huge regulatory shift that's happened that you guys didn't even talk about. and that's like going to generate all of the economic profit or that's going to swing everything in this industry.

And sometimes it's just tough to grab that like future regulatory shift or underlying regulatory shift when you've only done about half days work. Yeah, that makes sense. And I've noticed that I believe that you do it every time, but if not, please correct me. Almost every time you will go on Twitter and post so-and-so will be coming to my podcast on Wednesday, pitching this company.

We'll be talking about this company. Do you have questions for my guest? Yep. Do you receive a lot of valuable input from that post and comments, or little or it varies? What have you noticed? It definitely varies, but sometimes it is just worth it because if I don't like any of the questions,

I can just ignore them. But I'd say 50% of the time, the questions that people ask are the questions that I was going to ask anyway. 25% of the time, somebody will throw, you know, it'll be somebody who's followed the sock forever and they will throw an unbelievable question out there that will like reframe how I'm thinking about the company that will reframe everything. So it's just worth it for me because if it's only questions that I was going to ask anyway, no downside. And if like some of the

questions can be really spicy, really interesting, you know, like the Burfer podcast we did. Every now and then I'd ask any questions and somebody will throw out like a really interesting legal argument I hadn't considered, or, you know, they, their, Burford's got 700 cases. Somebody would throw out, hey, is this case? Is this going to be the next billion-dollar case? And who knows? But you can get some really interesting questions from it. So, okay, so we believe, we are believers in collective wisdom of crowds. Absolutely. Got it. Interviewing. Are the interviews out there who inspire you or inspired you in the past

and may have impact on your style. Maybe it's Larry King, maybe it's Patrick O'Shaughnessy, maybe someone else. I really like Patrick. I listen to, it depends. Invest like the best business for all these other. I'll say quote unquote competitive podcasts, though. I do think we're filling niches. Like the way I listen to them is I don't listen to every episode.

I only listen to it if I'm really interested in the guest and the guest's thesis. Or if everybody's just hitting me up like, man, you've got to listen to this. Like, you know, earlier this year, the podcast, Patrick did with the Valentine Strong guy. Everybody's like, you've got to listen to this Sunday to stand pod shops. Or there was one in February of 2022, I remember, where I can't remember who the guest was, but he went on and pitched long, like the Magnificent Seven and Long Alcoa. And I remember everyone was like, oh, my God, this Alcoa pitch, you've got to listen to it.

So I really like Patrick. I think he's been great. Business Breer, I think they've been great. So I listen to them. I don't know. You know, maybe I need to spend more time, spend more time. but in general, I just want to have a good discussion about a stock. So I think I know how to do that.

Oh, the other thing is it's given me, maybe I haven't like gotten huge idols in it, but it has given me investigative journalists who go on and ask like really hard questions. It's given me so much respect for them because it's hard for me to be like, hey, Artem, like, you know, you said earnings last year were a dollar, but I think they were actually 50 cents. I think you're wrong. Or like, you know, next year I think you're not looking at like that alone is hard. but investigative journalists you go on and be like, Artem Fokin, you've been texting with North Korea

and you've sold state secrets like... To be clear, I have not. I chose something as ridiculous I could to that. But, you know, it's given me a lot of respect for them. But I don't know if there's anything else other than that. And how do we think your style as an interviewer evolved over 200 plus podcasts? I think active listening. And I know you mentioned earlier, might mention it again,

But, you know, the first few podcasts, I was really eager to come out and show to everyone how smart I was and really talk. And I probably talk a lot on the podcast still. But I think I've gotten a lot better. Like, you know, the ultimate goal for this podcast is to show how smart the guests are and for the guests to show off their idea. So I think I've gotten a lot better about just asking questions and then listening to them. And, you know, I have my list of questions that I want to ask about a company. But, you know, just listening to them. And a lot of times, I think the best moments in the podcast and best.

conversation will be when I ask a question and something that the guest says is really interesting or reminds me of something else I've seen in the past and I can follow up with that question. I think I've just gotten a lot better with that over time. Okay. So I guess for our listeners, I would say this. If you want to see how smart Andrew is, go listen to the first 10 podcasts. If you want to see how smart guests are, go listen to the remaining 194. You know, The first 10 podcast, I don't even know if you'd see how smart it was. It was, uh, if you wanted to show that. Yeah.

But yeah, I was just trying to talk. I think I was trying to talk more and I've gotten better aside in this podcast where it is about me, but it's gotten better about letting the guests go and really following up. Because if you're, if you're really thinking about what you want to say next and what you want to ask next, and I can certainly fall on this to trap, but, you know, I might ask you ask you a question and then you made a great point. And if you're really thinking about what to say next, you just go to your next question. And I think the best moments again are when you said something.

that triggers like, you know, you say something about Burford and I say, oh, that reminds me of this legal case I saw. What do you think about that? Do you think parallels? And then you say something on that and then we're like kind of ripping off that. Interesting. And how do you strike the balance between leading your guests too much versus letting your guests wander and go their own paths, which may be rumbling or going in a very unstructured way? Because realistically speaking, you've done half day work, maybe more, depending on a particular situation, particular company. So you have probably your mental checklist in your head, or five, six, seven areas that you want to hit. So what is that balance when you switch gears versus

letting your guest just go? You know, it's tough because, again, the goal is for the guests to do something like, I want every guest to do the podcast, and then I want them to want to send it to all their LPs and say to their LPs, look how smart I am. Here's a lot. this great idea. You should invest more money with me because this is the idea that I, this is one of the ideas that I've generated. This is what our portfolio looks like. Or, hey, I'm a sub-sacker. All my stuff's behind a paywall. But you should sign up for me because here's an example of the type of work I do. So I generally want the guests to go on their own. But it is funny, Ardenfolk, the man who I still get people laughing about when

we were doing the bird for podcasts. And you said, just one more thing. I was like, Ardum, I've got to go. It is funny. You ask me about rambling. But, you know, generally let them go. I think anything about an investment topic is pretty relevant. Like, you know, again, we've self-selected for professional investors. If they're talking about something, they have to think it's pretty relevant to the category. And I'll let it go as far as I think it's interesting. Okay. And, yes, and I do remember that it was, I think, second Burford podcast. No, no, no, no, third. I think third. Yes, podcast number three. I think. Well, I just remember because A, it was so funny. And V, obviously,

It was with guests because it is the thing I get the most where every now and then somebody will DM me and be like, oh, I'll, I will quite laugh. Yeah, that was a funny moment. Okay, so let's talk about idea, about ingredients of a good pitch. So you listen to 200 plus. What in your opinion makes a pitch stand up? So it is funny, a good pitch and a pitch that stands out is actually very different than a good stock idea. And I think people think all the time that a good stock idea, you know, look, I've won a few idea contests in my day.

And a lot of times the stuff that wins the idea contest, now maybe it's because the idea contest rewards high volatility. But a lot of times the stuff that wins the idea contest is not what I think are my best ideas. and they're not the ideas that perform the best. A good stock idea, if you came on and said, Andrew, I have found this company, it has sitting in a tanker, it owns the oil tanker, and sitting in this oil tanker, it has 30 million gallons of oil. And oil is at $100 per share, so that's what, $3 billion worth of oil, which would be crazy. Admittedly it would be a lot of oil, but it's got $3 billion worth of oil.

And it trades on the stock exchange for $30 million, and it's going to liquidate. That's a thousand bagger right there, a hundred bagger, whatever. that's a great stock idea, right? That's not a great stock pitch. You come on it, we have a podcast, that's a 50-second podcast, right? What questions am I going to ask? I'm going to ask you about corporate governance. I'm going to ask you about the oil price, and you're going to say, hey, this is a

liquidating trust that's going to return everything to shareholders, and we're done. There's nothing else. That's not a great pitch, right? So, curiously, that would be the best idea in history, but it's not a great pitch. A great pitch tends to be a company that has a lot of questions you can ask about them, right? A lot of different strategies. I think it's one of the reasons media companies make for great pitches because everyone knows a media company.

You come on and ask pitch Disney. I can ask you questions about theme parks. I can ask you questions about movies. I can ask you any questions. And everyone knows their products. So it makes for a great podcast. You know, the toughest podcasts are going back to the earlier ideas. Biopharm and industrials are the ones that are hardest just because especially industrials, it tends to be, hey, this company is trading for a billion dollars.

And I think their mid-cycle earnings are $5. million, and it should trade for five times mid-cycle earnings, right? Like, that's a pretty popular industrial pitch. It's really hard for me to ask questions on that because basically what I can ask is, hey, how do you get to your mid-cycle earnings number and how do we know this company's not going away? After that, it's really hard. So, yeah, I think the best stock pitch has the right blend of listeners and me can

grasp it in our heads. There's a lot of interesting questions you can ask, but it might not be the best stock idea, if that makes sense. it does so i've always been taught that there is a difference between good business and good stock idea now i've learned that there is a difference between good business good stock idea and good pitch on podcast or any other media or it doesn't a lot of times good stock idea and good pitch overlap right because there is a there's good thinking there is interesting questions and most stock ideas aren't as simple as hey they've got three billion dollars of assets and they

trade for 30 million like generally the best ideas i found have some you've got a diversion view of the market, right? You know, I think about Burford. People were, when we did our first Burford podcast, people were saying YPF is a zero. You'll never collect from Argentina. People still might say you'll never collect from Argentina. But you had a version of you and you had done a lot of work. And the great thing about the podcast was you could ask questions, I could ask you questions, rebuddy those thesis and everything. Like most great stock ideas are going to have those questions. But some, you know, the asset values, the mid-cycle, the cyclicals, they're just not going to have those questions. That makes sense. And obviously, I must

met you as an investor and we became friends as two fellow investors. When did we meet? It must have been, was it the Liberty, was it that Liberty spinoff that did the name is, I'm missing the name, but it was it the Liberty spinoff that did Commerce Up, Commerce Hub? No, so we met with you first briefly in the fall of 2015 in Philadelphia. There was a microcap conference. That's right. That's right. Okay. It was the first time. and then we met, I think we met virtually because of TripAdvisor. Okay. Or maybe like remat.

No, no, no, that's not true. No, TripAdvisor was later. I think we touched up on-commerce hub. There were probably a couple of other stocks that you and that. And we had the big connection and others, but yeah, it's funny how you forget. Yes, and then we had dinner in New York. It wasn't actually Greek, but dinner was in December 2017. Okay, got you.

So that's, that goes back. So obviously, so I met you first as an investor, as a fellow investor, and that's how we connected and kept in touch. And then I got to know you as a podcast host a lot later. So you're waiting two heads, both as an investor and as a podcast host. So how has conducting 200 plus podcasts made you a better investor? Okay, so better investor. I mean, look, I get to have, you know, there have been repeat guests,

but about 130 to 150 smart investors on the podcast to walk me through what are generally their best ideas and answer all of my questions. You know, that's an extra 130 companies that I've researched. I probably would have researched them anyway because, again, it's smart investors had that. But I just think those conversations have been really helpful. And, you know, a lot of times now when I'm researching a company, I will kind of think, like, hey, if I was interviewing me on the podcast, like, what are the basic risks that I would ask? And this is one of the reasons I tell starting investors, you should just start writing and putting your writing down out publicly because I would also do the same thing like, every now and then I would have an idea.

It's very easy to have an idea and there's a risk and you're like, uh, kind of ignore it and put it to the side if you're doing everything in your head. But when you write it down, when you start writing down, a lot of times there'll be a risk and it'll be like a dangling thread at the end of the paragraph, right? And you can't ignore that risk. You have to follow through your thoughts. You have to follow through and put a paragraph of why that risk isn't a big deal. sometimes what will happen is this risk that you're kind of like, whatever, whatever, I'm getting paid for it. It's the dangling risk, whatever. Sometimes when you start writing, you'll realize that the risk is much bigger than you thought.

And, you know, so I've always had that a little bit, but I'll do it on the podcast. And I'll do it when I'm looking at investment. I'll say, hey, here's this risk. If I was going to ask a question, what would the question on the risk be? And how much would I be focused on it? If I get a good one line that was, you know, this risk, I think it's manageable. It's containable for X, Y, or Z reason. Would I, as a podcast host, would I be okay with that thing?

or would I kind of think to myself, oh my God, this guy is way underestimating, you know, like this is the Titanic risk. This guy's way underestimated. So I think it's helped me there. I think the conversations have really helped. And honestly, I think networks really helped. Like I maybe don't have the best network, but I've met so many people through this. I feel like I've got a great network.

I've got a lot of friends, you, a lot of other people, me and another podcast guests are starting. I've started to put on a little bit of a dad bod. So we're starting a fitness and health challenge over the next month. We're doing that. Just made a lot of friends to the podcast. So it's been awesome. There were a number of questions on Twitter that your followers posted

and thank you so much for providing good ideas for questions. And what I did not fully realize while I was preparing for podcast today is that many people would like to learn more about Andrews and investor. Because to me, it was obvious. I know you.

You and I talk offline. For many other people who follow your work as a podcast host, it's less obvious. They don't know you. Would you mind taking some time to talk about your investment style, investment philosophy? Well, sure. So look, I'm a value investor. I think it ebbs and flows over time.

I run pretty concentrated, as I think most value investors do. That ebbs and flows over time as well. I think the thing I always pull apart in debate, and I think if you follow the blog and the podcast in full, you can see is like, you know, I kind of intersect at the where value and event-driven investing, that's kind of my intersection, value and event-driven investing, right? And event-driven investing is there's a hard catalyst, there's some, obviously, event that you think is going to change the stock.

You know, the classic example would be a biofarm, phase three trial. Is a phase three trial going to succeed or fail? If it succeeds, the stock's up 200% if it fails, the stock's down 90%. I love the events and I love value investing. And I think the thing I tend to blend back and forth, and I don't know if I go back and forth between them too much is the classic value investing is the expel that we talked about earlier, right? They've got this great product. They've got a founder CEO. It's going to compound for years at a really attractive rate. I did a post earlier today about Academy Sports. There is absolutely no

event there, right? That is just a company that if my post and my thesis there was right, that they are trading at seven times EPS and they have 270 stores and they can successfully open 170 stores over the next five years and they can do that at 30% ROICs. Well, the math gets really insane there. That is a classic compounding value investing. You've got a divergent thesis because the stock trades for seven times EPS because people are worried about COVID fall-throughs and people might say, oh, you know, the company hasn't grown new store accounts in 10 years.

What's different this time? Like you can have a divergent thesis there. That's one end. And then the other end is the event thesis, you know, I think people, the Twitter investment where Elon Musk is buying Twitter. I think Elon Musk is going to get forced by Twitter because he's going to. got a merger contract or a lot of people remember the GTX prefers back in the, sorry, GTX back in 2020. They filed for bankruptcy. And if you read all the bankruptcy dockets,

there was an auction process that was almost certainly to lead to well in excess of equity value. So I'm rambling, but I guess I tend to intersect at event driven where you read that and there's one event that will unlock value and compounding. And depending on the day is, hey, am I more of a compound investor or event driven investor? But I like to have both skill sets. I do kind of think if I'm being honest over time, I've probably, I've certainly had more success on the event side. And I think I'd probably lean a little more eventy these days, just maybe because I've had more success, maybe because compounding is, it is hard, right? Like a compounder that fails, I think of something like cable, it's really tough to be stuck in it for two years and be like, I'm pretty sure I'm right. Everything I'm seeing is pretty confirmatory.

Maybe there's one or two philosophy diseases, but pretty confirmatory. But you're just sitting there like waiting for the value to go up, waiting for the markets agree with you. Anyway, I reamble there. Thank you for sharing. Obviously, I knew most of that, but I'm sure those listeners, especially those who ask these questions, would appreciate you sharing a little bit about you.

And 200-plus podcasts, presumably 200-plus ideas. How many have you ended up investing after you heard the pitch? Not invested before, and then you had a guest who also likes this talk and showed you had a great passion conversation. But brand-new ideas, and then you listen to the pitch, and you said, well, that's great. it is actually not many. I think Burford, no, no, there's, Burford is one and Blackstone Mineral, BSM, which I did

with my friend Andrew Carri-on, who's fantastic, who is also, well, I don't want to, I think it's obvious. He's written in multiple times. He's also invested in Burford too, but Burford and Blackstone Mineral are, I think, the only two that I've listened to a podcast and eventually ended up investing in. And Burford, I invested in pretty soon after our first podcast. And, you know, obviously hindsight's 2020, probably wish I'd done it harder. But blacks and mineral is actually, I wish I'd done it much harder because that's been a killer.

But I think those are the only two I can remember investing in after hearing a podcast pitch that I wasn't invested in before. And then I will throw one other, the only other one that like comes to mind is Tidewater. I was invested in and I did a podcast with the management team. And I remember as soon as I got off the, as soon as the podcast. was done, I bought a little bit more Tidewater because I was like, I knew this story, but this management team is unbelievable. And obviously, there was no MMPI. We're just talking through industry trends, but I was like, this management team sees the ball so clearly, I'd like them so much. They laid out the thesis so well. That's the only other one I can really remember doing

that with. Well, that's interesting. You clearly have a very high bar. 200 plus stock ideas and invested only in three. That's 1.5% based on my rough math. I wouldn't be surprised if Jeremy Raper got me into one or two, but at the same time, I don't know if I had like done it before, talked to him, gotten involved and then bought it. But yeah, it's really, look, I run pretty concentrated and it is a high bar. You know, as I say, I love everything I've invested in. And, you know, if I'm going to sell, if I'm going to invest in something new, I've got to sell something I own.

And there's not a lot in my portfolio that I look at. I'm like, yeah, I'd love to sell that thing today to buy something new. I think all of it's, you know, quite undervalued and going up. understand you mentioned a few times that you've built a network around the podcast and i as guest and a friend benefited from that i was on your podcast four times with two different stock ideas and after that you introduced me to a few people in your network who reached out to you and asked for introductions to me because they wanted to continue a conversation offline And similarly, I watched, I wouldn't say I watched 204 episodes, but I watched a lot of Andrew Walker.

And the number of ideas resonated with me quite strongly. And in some situations, I was actually already owning the stock. And I wanted to connect with a fellow investor who clearly very, very smart because, hey, he owns the same stock as I did, right? And we were generous enough to facilitate those introductions, both to me and from me to someone else. So I want to ask you this, what have you learned about building the network? building can anything and connects in people. It's been great. I'll be honest, I'm not, I'm pretty outgoing normally,

but I'm not a natural networker with this. And, like, again, I'm pretty focused on, like, what is there to do? And going to drinks and asking about the weather is not my thing. But getting introduced to people and just being like, Hey, Artem, you did the stock pitch. I love it. Let's talk about the stock pitch. I read the 10K.

I'd love, like, that's my jam, man. It's been great. I think, yeah, in terms of, building community, I do think as investors, we generally love what we do. I hope most of us love what we do. And I found people are so responsive, even if they don't want to come on the podcast. But one thing the podcast has encouraged me to do is whenever I, not whenever, because there are obviously some I forget or I get too lazy or I can't find the person's email. But generally, whenever I read a pitch now, I hope people are insulted. But if I read a pitch and I think it's really

smart, I'll just send the person know and be like, hey, I really like this pitch. I'd love for you to come on the podcast and I've made so many new connections, so many new friends. And it's great for me to hear, I'm glad you later about your example, because one of the things I love about the podcast is, as you said, somebody will be, you know, I'll have some quirky names on here. And somebody will come on and pitch a quirky name and three people will reach out and be like, I didn't know that there were any other investors looking at this or I didn't know this guy. I'd love a connection. And like, that's what the podcast is for, man. I'd love to connect every investor and every friend I have with everyone else who's interested in what they're investing in.

I'm sure many, many members in the community and your guests really appreciate that. So from me, thank you. I'm sure other people will echo my thank you. Let's move into Blitz. So I will ask a few questions, and they will be quite short. Your answers can be short or long, your choice, whatever you wish. What are three people in the world whom you would like to invite to the podcast to pitch us stock and why why those three so i think we'll eliminate you know i put right

when i was doing the paternity leave i was like hey if you've got any investors you'd like to come on or people you think i should interview send them over and two people emailed me and said hey i'd love you to have warren buffett on the podcast i was like yeah i'd love to have warren buffett too but you know andrew i would like to listen to you interview war on bucket as well just whatever it's it would be great i'd love that but you know let's be really but anyway if i was dreaming you I'd love to have Warren Buffett right before we start recording Charlie Munger, the news passed that he passed away. I had huge respect to him, so I'm very sad about that.

But obviously, he lived a very long and full life. So the three people I would really be interested in. So the first is not investing related, but Lena Khan at the FTC. I just, she did an Oblots podcast. She is so well spoken. And her views on antitrust are so diametrically opposed to mine. People who have listened to the podcast for a long time will know, you know, like the Microsoft Activision stuff, Horizon Amgen.

her views are so diametrically opposed. I would love to have Ron for a like honest discussion of her antitrust views and kind of like horizon and what were you seeing there? Like I kind of don't understand. So I'd love to discuss that with her. And she is very well spoken. I know I don't agree with her policies. I know a lot of people don't agree with her policies. But it's not like she's, you know, some mouth drooler putting these out. She's extremely well-smoken and extremely smart. Bill Ackman, I, you know, I know he can be controversial, but I think he's incredibly smart. I'd love to have him on to discuss any of his stock ideas. For a while, Persian score taunting was a big focus mine. And I think he was going to come on when the UMG deal was going to go through. And then

the UMG deal fell through and that fell through. But I'd love to have him. And then, you know, I'd love to have Greg Maffa, because I have soured on Greg Maffa from Liberty Media so much over the past five years. I used to be a huge fan of his. And I have just soured so much as he has bungled capital structures and I think run a few businesses into the ground and collected $30 million per year from Liberty Media. I'd love to have him on for, you know, most of these podcasts are friendly, but I'd love to have him on for a little grilling because he gets pretty protected. And I'd love to talk to him about like, hey, you know, you did a rights offering at Liberty

Serious right at the bottom to bail out Formula One. Like, how is that fair to all your shareholders? Or, hey, you swap Berkshire into Liberty, Serious shares into Liberty Series at Nav in late 2021. Like, how was that fair to minority shareholders because you didn't do anything there? How is, like, how do you justify the paycheck? but he's also a smart guy. I'd love to discuss stuff with media. I'd love to discuss something. So John Malone, I'd love to have him on. I think he's kind of slowing down, but I've got huge

respect for John Malone. I don't know. I feel bad that I just pitched a mean podcast with Greg Mathay, but you know, I do think pull up the share price of almost all of the Liberty stuff. Like, you know, I've talked about TripAdvisor before. I think TripAdvisor was a very unique asset. I think they were very slow to change the management team and the management team needed to be changed. And I think a lot of the strategy there has been detrimental. And, you know, Greg is, Greg controls trip advisor. So I think the buck kind of has to stop with him. So yeah.

Interesting. Interesting choices. So I hope that at least some of them, hopefully all of them, will come to your podcast one day. I will definitely watch them either on YouTube or iOS. You know, the other thing I would add is one thing that the podcast has done that I want to get more into, but it is very difficult is I think two of the best podcasts I've done were the interview with the tidewater management team. and the interview with Cable 1 CEO, and I would love to start having more CEOs on. It is really difficult because CEOs don't understand what we're doing.

It's tough to get them, and you've got to go through layers, but I think the CEO interviews have been really interesting, and if we can get more going, I would definitely love to do a few more of those. Well, I hope you will be presented that opportunity, because indeed it will be fun. You know, I've tried to get John from Burford on here, John and Chris, I've tried to get them on, but I got gated by the IR people there, but maybe one day, who knows? So, next question. Three funniest or most ridiculous moments during your 200-plus podcasts.

There's only one. It's the Burford podcast where I had somewhere to go. And I was like, all right, we've got to go. He said, one more thing, one more thing. And I said, Autumn, come on. That's the only one that jumps to mine. You know, a lot of, they've been a lot of fun, but they all do start blending together. It's hard to remember a specific moment, but in general, they do tend to be more fun, free-flowing

conversations, but yeah. Well, I do feel special that in the category, the three funnest moments, you're like, Artem, it's only you, nobody else comes to us. Well, it's you, because it's the only one that people still, once a month or once every other month, somebody would be like, I was just looking at Berthford Stock and the Artem comment and the Artem podcast came back to me. So it's the only one that has that. There is a journalist outside of the U.S.

She's a foreigner, and she does a lot of YouTube streams as well with various guests. And she's very famous for saying, last question, last question. And then she already makes jokes herself saying like, yeah, I know. When I say last question, it means I have 10 more. And now a quick break to remind you that this episode is brought to you exclusively by AlphaSense, the AI platform behind the world's biggest investment decisions. Alpha Sense gives you the tools you need to provide better analysis for you and your clients. As yet another value podcast listener, visit Alpha-sense.com slash FS today to beat FOMO and move

faster than the market. That's alpha-dash-sense.com slash FS. Okay, so last question in Blitz. I've asked you already about three investors or non-investors you would like to invite to your podcast. Let's reverse it. What are three companies that you would like someone, to come on and discuss with you.

Okay. This is tough. It's hard because, you know, again, I, the whole goal of the podcast is, it's not about what I want. It's about the guess, right? If you said, hey, my best idea is this company. Again, I don't want to say, oh, I don't, I'm not really interested in that company because you're a smart guy, you're a professional investor.

I want to have you come on talk about the company and maybe me learn why, like I'm dismissive and you're saying, this is a great company, this is an interesting idea, all that sort of stuff. So that is a tough question, but I will say, so retail, I think retailers are really interesting. You know, floor and decor, FND has been getting a lot of buzz. I want to do a plus on them because I kind of, you know, I just did this whole series on retail, so maybe I've got the retail on my mind.

But retail has, gets a tough name and rightly so. Like, I've got some scars from 2022 that show like investing in retailers are really hard and retailers can, their fortunes can swing really fast. But there have been a lot of really big winners in retail. AutoZone, I think, is the best example because it's a good business. I don't think anybody would say it's the best business in the history of the world, but its stock is one of the best in the history of the world because they've done everything correct with capital allocation.

They had some competitive advantage, all this. Like, I'd love to have someone come on and discuss AutoZone with me so I could really understand how they won and I could start applying that mental model better to other things. I think Academy Sports, which I mentioned on the podcast, I just did a post on the day. I think that's really fascinated. I'd love to have somebody who can really come on and break down the sporting good industry and tell me, hey, is Academy Sports a winner? Why is Academy Sports a winner? Like, there have been some big time bankruptcies, Models, Sports Authority. Like, what separates academies, what separates Dix, which has been a fantastic sock from

sports authority? What separates Academy, what potentially separates Academy Sports? So I'd love those, floor and decor, AutoZone, or something I love. And then what else? You know, there's one or two, I think refinery really interesting. I think you know how interested in refineries, but I'd love to have a sector expert in refining come on and talk refining and then, yeah, I think that's it. I mean, but again,

whatever, if smart people who have money behind the ideas think it's a good podcast topic, I just want to hear it. I want that to tell me why it's a good podcast topic and I want to talk to them about it. When we talk after another 200 podcasts, where do you want your podcast to be, both quantitative

So look, the podcast works for me as is right now. I love the podcast to stay the same format, basically. I'd love not to have any extra grades on my head. I'd love to stay the same format, have great guests, smart guests come on and pitch great ideas. I wouldn't mind, as I said earlier, if the podcast, you know, if we could get some good CEOs, I think the cable discussion with the cable one CEO, the oil offshore discussion with Tibero CEO, I thought those were great. I think Burr for discussion, or I've tried to have a few others, getting CEOs would be great, but that's hard.

That does go into the quantitatively, like, look, I'd love to get the numbers up. I said at the beginning of the pod, the people who want to listen to an hour-long deep dive into a stock are a passionate group, but they're on a ton of them, but I'd love to get the numbers up. You know, if the viewership and listenership for the podcast doubled, I think that would really open up a lot of doors for in terms of, you know, we've done some sponsored podcasts, where Stream is the current sponsor the podcast has sponsored an expert. There was a Coinbase podcast where an expert who came on and talked about the Coinbase case. And I thought that was a great podcast. We got great feedback on it. If we have double the listenership, I think Stream is a lot more likely to throw in a few more expert podcasts to do.

And we can do any of them, right? I did a expert interview series on Burford. When Burford was really, I think it's still quite interesting, but when Burford was really interesting, we could have, if the listenership's bigger, we could have a Burford expert. come and talk about the YPF. Right now, I'm doing a lot with the Spirit JetBlue. If it's bigger, we can have a former DOJ person paid for by a sponsor, come in and talk about the DOJ case.

Just, you know, I'd love to get the listenership up because the CEOs will, if I say 50,000 people listen versus 10,000 people, I think that attracts a new quality of audience, opens up new doors for sponsors to really throw some resources behind us. noted and I hope that future that you envision will come reality so and hopefully pretty soon and we are approaching our time timeline any other things you wish I asked you but I didn't

no look this has been great as you know I was a little apprehensive to do this coming on just I don't mind going on other people's podcasts and rambling on about myself, but to do it on my own was a little different. But this has been great. I hopefully, you know, as I tell everyone, you don't have to listen to every podcast I do. If it's an idea you like or a person you like, listen, if not, no big deal. Hopefully people who want to they, you know, more insight into how I think about the podcast,

how I think of all the world, they love it. And if people just want stock ideas, well, number 206 is coming tomorrow. So no worries. They'll be up there for you. Sounds good. Andrew, I know you've been a little bit apprehensive indeed. It took a little bit of persuading. to, from my part, for you to agree to do that.

I enjoyed our conversation. I've learned a number of things. I hope our listeners and views did too. So thank you so much. Look, I appreciate. And as you said, we're at 205, number 400. We're having you back on. And we'll get everybody to follow up questions

and we'll see where the podcast is gone to. Sounds good. Thank you, Andrew. A quick disclaimer. Nothing on this podcast should be considered investment advice. Guests or the host may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. please do your own work and consult a financial advisor. Thanks.