“If you're right 55% of the time, you are one of the best investors in the world. But when you're wrong, they're right. How you deal with that is important because a lot of people just put their head in the sand and wait for the world to pass them by. In reality, those moments count the most.” - Lee Ainslie on Invest Like the Best

Best of the Week

95%-ile isn’t that good (Article | 35 mins)

Learn why we plateau in our pursuit of excellence, why deliberate practice is essential, and some practical techniques for improving any skill.

Pair with: Our conversation with David Epstein on the nature of human performance.

Twenty Years of Marginal Revolution! (Video | 67 mins)

Doing anything every day for 20 years is remarkable. Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen have done just that by writing on their blog, Marginal Revolution, for over 7300 days straight. See how that consistency has compounded for them.

Pair with: Our discussion with Tyler on identifying talent.

Plaid: Finance’s Next Great Network (Article | 60 mins)

Not many companies would turn down an offer from Visa. Learn the story of Plaid, which walked away from a $5.3b deal and is now thriving on its own as it grows into a multi-product enterprise.

Pair with: Our conversation with Plaid CEO Zach Perret on his business philosophy.

Live show in NYC. This October, Patrick O’Shaughnessy and David Senra will share their favorite ideas and stories on what they call ‘Founder Mentality’ from hosting Invest Like the Best and Founders. The microphone will also be open for an audience Q&A. Move quickly - tickets are selling fast.

Invest Like The Best - Lee Ainslie

Guest: Lee Ainslie – Founder & Managing Partner of Maverick Capital 

Listen to an investing legend. Discover what it takes to build an enduring investment business as one of the most talented and successful hedge fund managers of the past 30 years shares the wisdom he’s accumulated over the journey.

Pair with: No Holds Investing (Article | 22 mins)

A superb written interview with Lee, covering his approach to reassessing investments, risk-taking, and the value of moving quickly.

Invest Like the Best is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. Tired of running your own expert calls to get up to speed on a company? Tegus is the gold standard for research, delivering unmatched access to timely, qualitative insights through the largest and most differentiated expert call transcript database. With over 60,000 transcripts spanning 22,000 public and private companies, investors can accelerate their fundamental research process by discovering highly-differentiated and reliable insights that can’t be found anywhere else in the market. As a listener, drive your next investment thesis forward with Tegus for free at tegus.co/patrick.

Business Breakdowns - Casey’s General Stores

Guest: Markus Hansen – Portfolio Manager at Vontobel Asset Management 

From humble beginnings in the Midwest, Casey’s has evolved into the third-largest convenience store in the nation. Perhaps, more surprisingly, it’s the fifth-largest pizza chain in the US. Markus explains all the details you need to know about the convenience store industry and how Casey’s fresh food approach is delivering both margin and revenue growth.

Pair with: Interview with Darren Rebelez, President and CEO of Casey’s (Video | 21 mins)

Hear CEO Darren Rebelez talk about how Casey’s business model has evolved over the years, its digital transformation initiatives, and how private labels are supercharging growth.

Business Breakdowns is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors, and provider of Canalyst. Tired of calculating fully-diluted shares outstanding? Access every publicly-reported datapoint and industry-specific KPI through their database of over 4,000 driveable global models handbuilt by a team of sector-focused analysts, 35+ industry comp sheets, and Excel add-ins that let you use their industry-leading data in your own spreadsheets. Tegus’ models automatically update each quarter, including hard-to-calculate KPIs like stock-based compensation and organic growth rates, empowering investors to bypass the friction of sourcing, building and updating models. As a listener, you can trial Canalyst by Tegus for free by visiting tegus.co/patrick.

What Our Listeners Are Saying:

Founders - Ed Catmull

Episode 317: Ed Catmull: Creativity, Inc.

Steve Jobs once said, "The only time I ever saw an entire company of ‘A’ players was the early days of Pixar." This episode uncovers the secrets behind a band of highly talented creative mavericks that achieved unprecedented success.

Pair with: David On Stage (Live Show | October 19)

Join David and Patrick in a live show on October 19th in New York City. Get your tickets here.

Founders is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Get the best sleep of your life and unlock more energy with the Pod 3. Go to eightsleep.com/founders to learn more.

Making Media - David Law

Guest: David Law – co-founder of The Tennis Podcast

Learn what it takes to make it as a podcaster. David and his co-hosts persevered with "The Tennis Podcast" without earning a penny for the first five years. More than a thousand episodes later, it’s now the biggest podcast in tennis. Growth, monetization, hosting, and above all - persistence - this episode has it all.

Pair with: Inside the Ropes with No Laying Up (Colossus | 97 mins)

David Law called this an "absolutely fantastic interview." Tune in as Neil Schuster deconstructs the different elements of his golf media business; covering content, commerce, and community.

Making Media is brought to you by Scribe. Scribe is the magic behind Colossus transcripts. And we are not alone. Scribe is the transcription service that powers all of S&P Global - like CapIQ - and the client list includes our friends at Tegus. Go to joincolossus.com/scribe to unlock 150 minutes of free transcription and test their capabilities.

Web3 Breakdowns - Jack Neureuter

Guest: Jack Neureuter – Senior Research Analyst at Fidelity Digital Assets

This week, we tackle some of the hottest topics in the world of digital assets. Where are we in the Bitcoin Cycle? What are the implications of the Bitcoin ETF, the XRP ruling and the Taproot upgrade? What is the institutional sentiment on Crypto right now? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

Pair with: Building on Bitcoin (Article | 87 mins)

This paper explores all efforts in scaling the Bitcoin network, why these efforts matter, and what achieving scale would mean for the future of Bitcoin.

Web3 Breakdowns is sponsored by OKX. Want to stop paying trading fees? You can now trade for free for two months with OKX. Over 20 million traders and institutions choose OKX when they want to trade. You can join them by signing up at OKX Trader Series to start your two months of fee-free trading today.

#ListenHere

September is on the horizon. Where are you enjoying Colossus this last week of August? Share where you listen to our podcasts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram using #ListenHere, and we’ll feature our favorites.

Pioneer Program

Thanks to John Rodriguez, Mohammad Ruhul Kader, Erick Mokaya and Jefferson
Rumanyika for their help and research this week.

Want to get involved in Colossus? We are always on the lookout for pioneers to help grow our content library. If you are interested - let us know here.