Hope you’re healthy and staying safe.

Announcements and Gratitudes

* Admired Leadership Digital (can’t miss course and can’t miss episode)
Randall Stutman and his team’s online course shares 100 behaviors of top leaders, broken down into digestible 5-10 min segments of 10 behaviors in each of 10 categories. In a word, it’s awesome!

* Behind the Episode – Premium Content
Premium subscribers receive the library of transcripts and a weekly email describing the backstory, takeaways, and top quotes of each episode, along with coming attractions on the show. Click here to subscribe. Thank you for the support; I am very grateful for it.

Reading (Ordered by reading time: tweets first, books last, and blog posts and articles in between) 

Quote from Eric Jorgenson on Twitter rings a chord:  “School: Asking other people for the answers is cheating.  Life: Asking other people for the answers is a superpower.”

1. My tweetstorm on race, A preview of the Diversity & Inclusion mini-series that kicks off August 10th.

2. Investment consultants taking PPP loans. Kudos to Lawrence Delevingne at Reuters for nailing this one. I’m sure some smaller consultants justifiably needed PPP loans, but the big guys Lawerence mentions with steady recurring revenues have some explaining to do.

3. Jim Grant, Powell Has Become the Fed’s Dr. Feelgood. Jim compares the current monetary policy to a pharmaceutical addiction.

4. Verdad Capital, Asset Allocation Beyond the Zero Bound. Nick Schmitz and Greg Obenshain at Verdad present a case study of Japan over the past twenty years. Low starting yields (unlevered FCF on stocks, bond yields, cap rates) were highly indicative of low future returns. Small-cap value led the way in what was an uninspiring long slog for financial assets.

5. Morgan Housel, Here We Are.  Morgan’s eloquent take on five stories that got us into our current predicament.

Listening

Capital Allocators

Special thanks:

Episode 146:  Sustainable Investing 8: Lauren Taylor Wolfe – Activist Perspective  Lauren describes Impactive Capital’s integration of an ESG lens on activism.

Episode 147:  Sustainable Investing 9: Reuben Munger – Private Capital Perspective.  One-time Baupost star Reuben describes his sustainable real asset investing.

Episode 148:  Sustainable Investing 10: Hiro Mizuno – Changing the Game. Hiro ran the largest pool of capital in the world (Japan’s GPIF), developed the concept of universal owner, and sought to make all companies better through a sustainable investing lens.

First Meeting Episode 21: Adam Fisher – Blending Global Macro and Real Estate at Commonwealth Asset Management. Fun FM episode with a great macro thinker.

Episode 149: Taimur Hyat – After the Great Lockdown.  From atop PGIM’s $1.3 trillion in AUM, Taimur reflects on the trends and investing opportunities arising out of the pandemic.

Episode 150:  Randall Stutman – Admired Leadership. A can’t miss episode with perhaps the top executive coach in the world.  Randall is Tony Robbins without the bluster.

Best of the Rest

The Prof G Show with Scott Galloway. Longtime entrepreneur and NYU professor, Scott Galloway is equally insightful and irreverent, and highly entertaining.

Have a good one,

Ted