primaryresearch

My guest today is Jenny Johnson, President and CEO of one of the world’s largest asset managers, Franklin Templeton. Jenny joined the business in 1988 and has worked in the organization ever since. In early 2020 she became CEO of Franklin, which now manages some $1.5 trillion. I should, of course, note that I met Jenny as our two firms explored a partnership, which we cemented 3 months ago when we announced that Franklin Templeton would be acquiring O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.   During our conversation, we discuss Jenny’s thoughts on leadership, how she manages the needle-moving problem that afflicts many large companies, and the ways in which she sees private markets becoming more accessible to retail investors in the future. Please enjoy this great conversation with Jenny Johnson.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.    Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:03:19] - [First question] - The four P’s of leadership and what she thinks are the most important roles of a CEO  [00:06:00] - The difficulty of finding and recruiting great people and keeping them invested  [00:07:18] - Things she looks for in her senior leadership team [00:07:59] - Knowing when to be more or less involved as a leader [00:09:30] - Her takeaways from working in a family-owned business [00:11:20] - Advice she’d give to families who are building businesses together [00:12:06] - Thoughts on the role technology will play in the asset management industry [00:16:13] - Costs and frictions that blockchains could alleviate [00:18:17] - General views on disruption and considering ones position when thinking about the future [00:20:09] - Knowing when to start a project internally or acquire an existing project [00:23:10] - The hardest things about effective M&A decisions [00:23:42] - Overseeing a hybrid model of singular focus between multiple investment groups [00:28:26] - The pros and cons of active management against passive adoption [00:31:15] - Costs and fees in the industry and how they might change in the future  [00:33:04] - Talking to clients when they don’t have one specific view on strategy [00:36:10] - Formative experiences in her career that has shaped her worldview [00:38:34] - Managing emotions through seemingly chaotic situations [00:39:13] - The impacts on psychology when being a top performer and an average one [00:41:15] - Managing and adapting strategy when faced with highs and lows  [00:42:55] - Acquiring alternative managers and defining what alternative assets are [00:46:26] - Relevant trends on how capital is pooled and their client base over time [00:47:52] - What is under-discussed in the world of asset management today writ large [00:49:01] - Other leaders she’s met or knows that have had her in awe [00:50:30] - What about Cathie Wood has made her story and approach so successful [00:51:38] - How she runs a great board meeting and ways to improve meetings themselves  [00:53:34] - Lessons learned about time management as the leader of a public company [00:54:52] - What purpose means to her  [00:56:18] - Ways we can incentivize young and new people to start investing [00:59:10] - Her favorite things that her dad has taught her and how she’d describe him  [01:00:57] - What has her most excited about the future   [01:01:34] - The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for her

My guest this week is Marissa King, a professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. I was fascinated by Marissa's work after coming across her book, Social Chemistry: Decoding the Elements of Human Connection, earlier this year. Our conversation covers the three types of social networking styles, the surprising impact of COVID on social networks, and what her research tells us about building high-performing teams. This episode covers many topics I haven't explored before that I find fascinating. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Marissa King.      For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ------ This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors.   With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Affirm, Teladoc, Roblox, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit tegus.co/patrick to learn more.   ------ Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:04:04] - [First question] - Origin of her career and topics she is focused on [00:04:06] - Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection [00:04:09] - Priya Parker Podcast Episode [00:05:41] - Why the focus on Autism and some of the trends around it [00:08:07] - Prevalence of mental health and substance abuse vs. raised awareness [00:09:16] - The eureka moment for her in this research [00:10:16] - Pattern in growing large social movements [00:11:43] - The Expansionists group and their role in large social movements [00:14:31] - Acid test for the Brokers group [00:15:35] - How she developed the categories of people that drive social movements [00:17:35] - Most memorable moments of discovery in the development of these categories [00:18:58] - Important categories for overall network science [00:20:20] - Behavioral changes we can make to improve the nature of our social connections [00:23:21] - The pitfalls for each group and how they can invest in their own network [00:25:29] - Conveners and what they need to improve  [00:26:34] - Downside of being a broker [00:27:58] - The attachments styles of secure, anxious, or avoidant [00:30:07] - Velocity of interactions possible today and what it means for research [00:32:02] - How men and women develop networks differently [00:33:55] - What is unique in organizational behavior through the lens of her research [00:36:19] - Best practice for creating high output interactions [00:37:33] - Putting together the perfect team [00:38:42] - Largest pitfalls in putting together a good team [00:40:00] - Role of conversation in effective network building [00:41:15] - Being a great listeners and distractions [00:42:47] - Eric Maddox Podcast Episode [00:43:41] - Good policy for running a network, being attentive to the network [00:46:40] - The power of touch [00:48:39] - How movements become societal and what role technology has played [00:52:46] - How this applies to a business [00:53:34] - Biological underpinnings of Dunbar’s number [00:57:13] - Kindest thing anyone has done for her

My guest today is Tracy Graham, founder and managing principal of Graham Allen Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in acquiring and building technology-enabled businesses. In our conversation we discuss how Tracy ended up playing football at Notre Dame, the key lessons he learned from famed coach Lou Holtz, why Graham Allen believes that businesses in secondary or tertiary US markets are undervalued, and why technology represents a great way to improve old businesses. I hope you enjoy my fun conversation with Tracy. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content check out https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/86798473/graham-investing-in-overlooked-businesses.   This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more.   This episode is brought to you by the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCO). MITIMCO is always on the looking for promising investment managers with the potential to compound our capital for a decade or more. If you think your firm is too small, too young, or too non-institutional, you might just be exactly what we are looking for. Check us out at https://mitimco.org/partner/ or e-mail us at  partner@mitimco.org. Please also see our new page for emerging managers https://mitimco.org/emerging-managers/.   Invest like the Best is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best go to https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes.  Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week.  Sign up here at https://www.joincolossus.com/newsletter. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Follow Colossus on Twitter at @JoinColossus   Show Notes [3:35] – [First question] – Tracy’s origin story [7:17] – Lessons from Lou Holtz [8:58] – Why Lou was so good as a leader [10:32] – His early experience as an entrepreneur [15:45] – Investing principle at Graham Allen and how it was shaped by his experience [18:41] – Types of companies they target for investment [23:09] – Defining a unique and interesting data set [27:14] – Mispricing data sets and the fools gold [29:19] – Overview of a Midwest manufacturing company [31:50] – How data is being generated in manufacturing businesses [36:57] – Data to improve marketing [41:13] – Using data to dissect distribution [45:59] – Valuation of the companies in terms of multiples they are looking at [47:31] – Business values he strongly believes in [50:54] – Significance of Kenneth Allen in the firm [52:23] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

My guest today is Daniel Gross. Daniel is the founder of Pioneer, an extremely unique company which he describes as a “fully remote startup generator” that helps talented people around the world figure out if their idea has legs. You can learn more about it at pioneer.app. Our wide-ranging conversation covers the art of asking great questions, the use of predictive modeling and psychometrics to identify talent, and why psychometrics are probably overrated and not that scientific. We then dive into exciting new frontiers for tech investing ranging from GPT-3 to satellites. I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you will too.   This episode of Invest like the Best is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you'd want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Square, Snowflake, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit https://www.tegus.co/patrick to learn more.   This episode of Invest Like The Best is also sponsored by Assure. Assure is changing the way investors manage private transactions. With Assure, investors can eliminate nearly all the admin cost of private investment. On top of that, they handle all the backend, legal, taxes, accounting, and compliance. All of it, with a straightforward one-time fee. Learn more and try Assure for yourself at https://www.assure.co/patrick.   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes (3:15) – (First question) – His passion for Crank and Whiplash and why movies are great screeners for interviews (6:15) – Overview of Pioneer (7:56) – Defining talent (10:02) – The equivalent page rank when it comes to people (14:10) – Psychometrics and matter to him (18:13) – The importance of persistence (20:23) – The concept of insecure overachievers (22:48) – Fast twitch vs slow twitch capitalism (24:31) – Importance of memes as it relates to human behavior today (26:14) – The landscape of the type of businesses being formed (29:25) – Overview of GPT3 (33:33) - The Power of Ten Playbook (38:08) – Technologies going from a frontier to a utility (42:45) – Why something like a Starlink can’t be regulated (44:58) – Seed vs leech ratio in capital funding             (49:10) – Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success (49:15) – Dissecting Patrick’s usual closing question and good questions for screening people (52:56) – What questions help him get to the bottom of (55:58) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag