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My guest today is Octavian Graf Pilati — a member of an Austrian aristocratic family whose lineage traces back nearly a thousand years, and the founder of The Antifragile Family. At 25, he was handed responsibility for saving his family's centuries-old estate through a devastating financial crisis, a story so instructive that Harvard Business School turned it into a case study — Burning the Sails to Save the Ship. Since then, Octavian has built a body of work around what actually makes multigenerational families endure: governance, conflict, succession, and the human systems that either hold a legacy together or quietly tear it apart. At 25, Octavian Graf Pilati was handed responsibility for saving his family’s centuries-old Austrian estate, a crisis triggered by a bankrupt Costa Rican teak company his father had guaranteed. The story became a Harvard Business School case study: Burning the Sails to Save the Ship. Octavian recalls walking into creditor meetings with an engineer’s mindset, expecting to solve a problem together, only to learn the other side mostly wanted to get paid fast. He reflects on selling a forest and a palace held for 300 years, and why every asset, legacy assets above all, must serve a clear purpose rather than become a burden for the next generation. He traces deeper roots of fragility: the fall of the Habsburg Empire, when the family “became just a wealthy family” and lost its sense of purpose, and 1945, when Soviet occupation scattered the family and the estate came back a decade later stripped of half its forest. He explains why he chose to research his family’s wartime past himself, and recounts a COVID-era scheme in Costa Rica involving a forged passport and a stand-in for his father. Octavian lays out the crisis ladder, from incident to catastrophe, and why family catastrophes almost always combine slow-building internal tension with an external shock. He walks through the five capitals of family wealth, argues that spouses strengthen a family, and offers a line worth keeping: “the currency of love is time.” He closes with what he’d tell his children at 25: understand how your brain works, look after your body, and remember that practice without rest doesn’t make a master. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Chris Davis and Robert Hagstrom explore the tension between holding great businesses and keeping a winning stock from becoming too much of a portfolio risk. Why do two investors who believe in letting winners compound also use 10% position limits?On this episode of 100 Year Thinkers, Chris Davis of Davis Funds and Robert Hagstrom of EquityCompass join Matt Zeigler and Bogumil Baranowski to discuss position sizing, selling mistakes, index concentration and the cost of growth. From Chris Davis’s experience selling Costco to the debate over who will capture AI’s economic benefits, they examine what it takes to hold a business through uncertainty without ignoring risk. Stay for Matt and Bogumil’s closing discussion of the lessons for investors. Available now on Excess Returns Podcast and Talking Billions. 🎧 I’m excited to share this episode with you—it’s reposted here with permission and blessing from the Excess Returns team. Don’t miss it! And follow their work, links below.Topics covered: Why selling a genuinely great business can be an investor’s most expensive mistake How client behavior and fund constraints influence 10% position limits Chris Davis’s concerns about index concentration, momentum and future IPO incentives Robert Hagstrom on trimming positions as the margin of safety shrinks The bull-case pre-mortem: asking what could make selling today a mistake What Chris Davis missed about Costco’s growth and ability to adapt Why identical earnings growth can produce different shareholder returns Whether AI spending builds durable pricing power or delivers more value to users How customer trust and restraint on margins can strengthen competitive advantages Balance sheets, circular financing and the humility required to size a position Chris Davis / Davis Funds https://davisfunds.com/ Robert Hagstrom / EquityCompass / https://www.equitycompass.com/ Chapters:00:00 Holding great businesses and the case for position limits 06:47 Robert Hagstrom on concentration and client risk 12:40 Index concentration, momentum and IPO incentives 19:03 Trimming winners, margin of safety and the Costco lesson 30:09 Valuation, return on capital and the cost of growth 36:01 Is AI’s capital spending cycle temporary? 40:10 AI pricing power: builders versus users 45:35 Competitive advantage, margins and customer trust 51:45 Balance sheets and circular AI financing 55:53 Evaluating the AI investment cycle 01:00:23 Matt and Bogumil’s takeaways: position sizing and AI 01:10:25 Being an AI user versus an AI investor Learn more about the Excess Returns podcast networkhttps://excessreturns.co No information discussed in this podcast should be construed as investment advice. Securities discussed may be held by the hosts and guests, their firms or their clients. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives, and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

Find me on Substack! Today on Talking Billions, I'm joined by Michel Ingenbleek — an investor and writer whose career took an unusual road here: from leading teams in the Dutch Korps Commandotroepen and Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, to two decades running offshore energy projects and corporate strategy at companies like Subsea 7 and Technip. These days he writes Capital and Character, a weekly Substack on the psychology of long-term investing, and his debut book, Staying Intact, turns two decades of his own investment mistakes into a framework he calls the behavioral margin of safety. Episode Sponsor: Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal that gives investors instant access to twenty years of financials, earnings transcripts, and extensive segment and KPI data—use my link for a two-week free trial plus 15% off: https://fiscal.ai/talkingbillions/ Michel's path to investing began a hundred meters down, inside a pumped-dry habitat on the seabed, finishing a days-long weld on a 48-inch pipeline and asking himself, "is this it?" The former Dutch commando and Royal Netherlands Marine went on to project and strategy roles at Subsea 7 and Technip, and chose to invest his offshore bonuses himself rather than hand them to a wealth manager. The mistakes that followed became his book, Staying Intact. At its heart is the behavioral margin of safety. Graham's margin tells you the price at which an asset is worth buying; Michel's tells you the size you can hold without your judgment breaking if the position falls further before you're proven right. He shares the story of selling ASML and Nvidia in 2022, then realizing his follow-up research was really a search for reassurance: "I get fooled so easily basically by feelings." We trace the recurring ingredient of every bubble, from tulip mania to GameStop: not a lie but a truth, until rising prices get mistaken for evidence. Michel applies that lens to AI without pretending to forecast it. He separates loud, fast narrative risk from quiet, slow economic risk, explains why a deliberate pause can save a position better than more information, and revisits Long-Term Capital Management as a lesson in what models can't see. We also talk about red-teaming your own ideas, the strength in saying "I don't know," why "enough" is a horizon rather than a destination, the neglected years of simply owning, and his current work on what happens to investors when intelligence becomes commoditized. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Find me on Substack! My guest today is Neeraj Khemlani, the former president and co-head of CBS News and Stations, a veteran 60 Minutes producer and media executive, and the author of The Coffee Can Investor, A Stock Picker’s Journey to Build Generational Wealth, who uses the story of a Midwestern portfolio manager’s decades-long search for 100-bagger stocks to make the case that patient, concentrated ownership of exceptional businesses can build truly generational wealth.Episode Sponsor: Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal that gives investors instant access to twenty years of financials, earnings transcripts, and extensive segment and KPI data—use my link for a two-week free trial plus 15% off: https://fiscal.ai/talkingbillions/Neeraj Khemlani, former co-head of CBS News and Stations and longtime 60 Minutes producer, grew up in a lower-middle-class immigrant family in New York, where education was his path forward. He wrote The Coffee Can Investor "largely out of mission," wishing someone had taught him the basics of investing much earlier. The book began on an annual call with Matt, a portfolio manager he met in Denver in 1999 and his longtime "Marvin the Explainer." Matt had studied every hundred bagger since 1980. He planned to put $5 million of his own money into potential future ones, untouched for thirty years, as a gift to his three daughters. Neeraj's reaction: "Holy shit, that's a book." The idea traces back to Robert Kirby. One of Kirby's clients had a husband who quietly bought every stock Kirby recommended and never sold. After the husband died, he left behind a coffee can of stock certificates that beat the managed account, including a Xerox position that went to $800,000. Neeraj explains why holding is the hard part through Matt's early sale of Fastenal, which went on to grow roughly nineteenfold: "you don't learn to have patience until you learn what happens when you don't have patience." He shares the chessboard parable of doubling grains of rice. He also walks through Matt's findings: most hundred baggers were founder- or family-run, many grew through acquisitions, and 68% sold to other businesses. Neeraj saw the same pattern firsthand at Hearst, where Fitch became the biggest profit contributor. As he puts it, "the sexiest things are usually the least lucrative." The conversation closes at Thanksgiving, when Matt and his wife told their daughters about the coffee can. "The girls never once asked for anything," Neeraj recalls. The lesson for both fathers: "we already won. They already won." Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

In this Unfiltered Coffee episode, I share some thoughts that have stayed with me through recent conversations, listener emails, books, podcasts, and my own work with investors and families. I reflect on a different kind of urgency—not the manufactured urgency of expiring offers or opportunities that supposedly require an answer by Friday, but the urgency that comes from within. It’s the realization that something in your financial life may need attention today because being off by an inch now can mean being off by a mile five or ten years from now. I explore the difference between benign neglect and costly neglect, the extraordinary effects of compounding over time, and why what got us here may not always be the path forward. I also talk about consistency and what it means to be a constant in someone else’s life. Consistency isn’t perfection. It’s returning to a calm and thoughtful place after life tests us, showing up again, and remaining dependable through changing circumstances. Another recurring theme is family fortune and multigenerational wealth. I share why I increasingly think about family wealth through the lens of stewardship rather than ownership—and why what we inherit, care for, and pass along extends far beyond financial assets. Finally, I return to a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to invest sensibly? Capital can eventually begin doing some of the heavy lifting that once depended entirely on our own efforts. How we put that capital to work is deeply personal, but perhaps we make investing more complicated than it needs to be. Along the way, I revisit recent conversations with Paul Johnson, Lee Freeman-Shor, Alexander von der Vellen, Jan Petke, Jared Dillian, Peter Lazaroff, Ian Cassel, Owen Zidar, and Eric Zwick, and share a few things I’ve been reading and listening to lately. Some of the ideas in this episode: The difference between internal and manufactured urgencyBenign neglect versus neglect that quietly costs us moneyWhy small financial decisions can compound into enormous differencesLuck, risk, and revisiting assumptions that have worked in the pastConsistency as a practice in investing and in lifeWhat it means to be a constant for other peopleFamily fortunes, stewardship, and multigenerational thinkingThe transition from earning money to letting capital do more of the workWhy investing doesn’t have to be unnecessarily complicated I always enjoy hearing from you, so if you have a question, thought, or story to share, write to me at [email protected] not com. Save it somewhere—I’ll only keep it here for a little while. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Find me on Substack!My guest today is Peter Lazaroff, CFA, CFP®—the Chief Investment Officer of the $10-billion-plus RIA Plancorp, chair of its investment committee, host of The Long-Term Investor, and author of Making Money Simple, and a new book The Perfect Portfolio, whose central message is that the best portfolio is not the historical winner but the one tailored to an investor’s goals, capacity for risk, and ability to stay disciplined. Peter Lazaroff's first stock arrived on his twelfth birthday: a single share of Nike from his grandmother. He was disappointed until a one-dollar dividend check showed up in the mail. "I didn't even have to work for this," he recalls, and he was hooked. Today, as CIO overseeing more than $10 billion and author of The Perfect Portfolio, he argues that the best portfolio isn't the historical winner but the one built for your life. He opens his book with a steak dinner, burned on a cheap grill in the backyard of his first home, because the perfect portfolio, like the perfect meal, is personal. He tells the story of a client whose blue chip stocks and mutual funds were chosen to impress others rather than to fund his goals. A portfolio, Peter says, is "a piece of their identity," and it changes over a lifetime as your human capital, balance sheet, and heirs come into view. On market timing, he reminds us that "You do have to be right twice," and that taxes can turn a bad call into a "permanent bear market." Rather than predicting declines, plan on them. He explains exposure therapy for investors, why narratives scare us more than percentages, and why our instinct to run from the rustle in the bushes makes beating the market so hard. Peter reveals his own guardrail, "It's to not do it yourself," shares why bond indexes lend the most to the most indebted, and makes the case for goals-based benchmarks: "am I still on track?" He closes with a controversial plea to read twenty minutes a day, and with the idea at the heart of his book: the perfect portfolio is the one you can stick with. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Find me on Substack! Ian Cassel is the founder of MicroCapClub and CIO of Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management, specializing in underfollowed public companies led by exceptional owner-operators — pairing rigorous, boots-on-the-ground research with the patience to hold rare compounding businesses through volatility. He became a full-time private investor at 28 and has spent his career hunting for undiscovered small public companies, and the founders who run them, before Wall Street ever notices. Today, we discuss his new book, The Stock Picker: How to Develop the Mindset, Temperament, and Strategy to Outperform Wall Street. Episode Sponsor: Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal that gives investors instant access to twenty years of financials, earnings transcripts, and extensive segment and KPI data—use my link for a two-week free trial plus 15% off: https://fiscal.ai/talkingbillions/ Ian Cassel didn’t take the conventional path into investing — he skipped it entirely. Raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania’s blue-collar, Amish-adjacent farm country, Cassel became a full-time private investor at 28, guided for years by a single line he wrote on a napkin at 22: “10K and two ten baggers equal millionaire.” It took six years to make it true. That patience defines everything Cassel does now as founder of MicroCapClub and CIO of Intelligent Fanatics Capital Management. He makes the case for microcaps as one of the market’s last true structural edges — citing research showing 87% of stocks that returned 10x or more over the past decade started as microcaps, and 91% of those were already profitable businesses, not speculative stories. Institutions, he argues, are locked out not by risk but by illiquidity itself. Cassel also opens up about the mentors who shaped him, including a message-board trader named Skip who taught him that a stock is “a buy or a sell,” never a hold — and that if you’re not willing to put your money where your mouth is, you should keep quiet. He’s candid, too, about his own losing streaks, the temptation to double down on losing positions, and a Porsche-and-Rolex purchase he now looks back on with some embarrassment. The conversation closes on something bigger than markets: Cassel’s belief that “the secret to compounding” isn’t just financial — it’s showing up, present, for the people you love, today, rather than waiting for some future payoff. The book: The Stock Picker: How to Develop the Mindset, Temperament, and Strategy to Outperform Wall Street. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Join me on Substack! Look up my name. Today I'm joined by two economists who spent a decade inside a room most of us will never see — the basement of the U.S. Treasury Department — building the first database that ever linked confidential tax records to the individual owners of America's private businesses. Episode Sponsor: Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal that gives investors instant access to twenty years of financials, earnings transcripts, and extensive segment and KPI data—use my link for a two-week free trial plus 15% off: https://fiscal.ai/talkingbillions/Owen Zidar teaches at Princeton, Eric Zwick teaches at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and together they've written a book that completely reframed how I think about wealth in this country: The Everywhere Millionaire. Their argument, backed by data nobody had ever assembled before, is that America's real fortune isn't sitting with the Forbes 400 on the coasts — it's sitting with three million "ordinary" business owners: car dealers, dental practices, gutter manufacturers, hiding in plain sight in nearly every town in the country. They define an "everywhere millionaire" as a private business owner worth $5 million or more, and collectively, these three million households hold thirteen times the wealth of the Forbes 400. We trace the hidden engine behind that wealth, and they share story after story of the individuals who built it. We go beyond the economic power of this group into the political influence it quietly carries too. Their book is eye-opening and genuinely inspiring. It makes the case that the American Dream is very much alive, and that there are far more paths to it than most of us realize. Some readers may even find themselves seeing, for the first time, that they're not alone — that they're part of a much larger, wealthier, more established group than the billionaires who steal all the spotlight. And maybe that's exactly where they want to be: financially successful, politically influential, yet comfortably out of sight, living among the rest of us. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

My guest today is Jared Dillian—former Lehman Brothers index-arbitrage and ETF trader, founder of the 18-year-old professional market letter The Daily Dirtnap, registered CTA, author of seven books, and an unusually multidimensional market thinker whose work joins macro trading, practical personal finance, risk control, writing, mental health, and electronic music. Today, are we talking about his new book The Awesome Portfolio, a simple, stress-free approach to investing. Episode Sponsor: Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal that gives investors instant access to twenty years of financials, earnings transcripts, and extensive segment and KPI data—use my link for a two-week free trial plus 15% off: https://fiscal.ai/talkingbillions/Jared unpacks the origin of The Awesome Portfolio — born from testing model portfolios with a subscriber-turned-advisor, later validated by Nick Maggiulli's own optimization research. Core thesis: "to make people make stupid decisions" is, in Jared's telling, the whole purpose of volatility — Vanguard's own data shows investors rarely capture the returns their funds actually post. Vanguard's "advisor alpha": simply having someone stop you from trading boosts returns by 3%. But Jared argues even a good advisor can't erase the stress of a 50% drawdown. The Awesome Portfolio's worst-ever year: down 12%, versus an 89% max drawdown for the S&P since 1929. "Drawdowns affect psychology." The "life hedge": your job and the market tend to move together, amplifying your life's volatility. The ideal hedge would move opposite — nothing fully does. Risk of ruin, via a $300M Powerball thought experiment: "wealthy people think about the risk of ruin and middle-class people don't." Reflexivity: the top 7 stocks make up 35% of the index, so buying the index means buying concentration. The five 20% slices — stocks, bonds, gold, cash, real estate — rebalanced once a year, deliberately simple. Why crypto got cut: even a small Bitcoin allocation would dominate investor attention and undercut the whole stress-free premise. Stress-tested against a literal nuclear war, Jared still can't find a scenario where all five assets fail together. Closing candor: "Books succeed when they tell people things they already believe" — which is why he expects pushback, not a bestseller. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

My guest today is Professor Paul Johnson, a veteran value investor, long-time Columbia and Fordham professor, and co-author of The Enduring Value of Roger Murray, Pitch the Perfect Investment, and The Gorilla Game. He's taught in the same value investing tradition that runs from Benjamin Graham through Roger Murray, and he brings both a practitioner's and a historian's eye to our conversation today. 02:10 – Origin story: a teenage bet on a gold penny stock turned $250 into $2,500 and hooked Paul on markets with "no physical labor."08:46 – Debut theory: the '73–'74 crash plus the rise of relative performance permanently reshaped investing after Graham.10:54 – Buffett's 1991 letter: value and growth investing are "basically the same thing" — the label "value investing" is redundant.24:54 – Correction for the record: David Dodd, not Murray, taught Security Analysis until 1961.27:04 – Murray's core contribution: rigor and discipline — illustrated by the Leon Cooperman "400-number table" story.33:26 – The magnet metaphor: intrinsic value pulls price toward it over time, though price can overshoot or undershoot.42:28 – Paul pushes back on his own construct: ignoring the future still means betting value stays stable.47:39 – Bruce Greenwald's addition: sustainable competitive advantage, and the 1997 "Competitive Advantage Period" paper with Mauboussin.51:53 – Why growth concentrates in mega-caps: scale, internet infrastructure, and the "optionality" to acquire threats early.58:45 – Framing device: "What if AI is just a normal disruptive technology?" — like electricity or the internal combustion engine.01:16:14 – "I say the key to investment" — a superior value estimate plus the ability to hold through volatility.01:17:33 – A Buffett-adjacent friend rode $10K to $1B because he "didn't want to disappoint Warren." Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Bob Robotti, founder and CIO of Robotti & Company, joins Matt Zeigler and Bogumil Baranowski to explain why bottom-up value investing may be entering one of its best opportunity sets in decades. They discuss AI and reindustrialization, inflation and interest rates, passive investing, capital cycles, private equity, long-term ownership, and why today’s neglected industrial businesses may offer opportunities that the market is missing. I join Matt Zeigler for one more special episode of Excess Returns. I’m excited to share this episode with you—it’s reposted here with permission and blessing from both Matt and Jack. Don’t miss it! And follow their work; links below. Bob Robotti on Xhttps://x.com/BobRobottiRobotti & Companyhttps://www.robotti.com Topics covered How Bob finds misunderstood businesses with latent earnings power Why his “grassroots macro” process starts with company-level supply and demand How AI spending is increasing demand for energy, copper, aluminum, cement and other physical assets Why North America’s natural gas advantage could support a long-term reindustrialization cycle Why persistent inflation could force higher interest rates and lower valuation multiples Why no competitive moat is permanent, even for today’s dominant technology companies How passive investing and shorter time horizons can create opportunities for fundamental stock pickers Why prolonged downturns can improve industry economics through consolidation and reduced capacity Why Bob views himself as an active owner rather than an activist investor Why he is skeptical of today’s private equity model and its expansion into retirement portfolios The NewMarket investment that taught him the cost of selling a great business too early Why he thinks individual company research can outperform indexing over the next decade Learn more about the Excess Returns podcast network: https://excessreturns.coNo information discussed in this podcast should be construed as investment advice. Securities discussed may be held by the hosts and guests, their firms or their clients. Podcast Program – Disclosure StatementBlue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives, and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

My guest today is Jan Petke, a dynastic architect and strategic consigliere to sovereign and leading global entrepreneur families, who designs continuity architectures so that power, capital, and culture compound across generations — not just portfolios. 3:00 — Jan traces his path from a McKinsey-spinoff consultancy through private equity (Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s First State Investments) to advising “centi-millionaires” — first-gen tech entrepreneurs with liquidity events over €100 million. 5:25 — Jan rejects “advisor” and “wealth manager” as labels: “wealth has nothing to do with money” (6:14). 7:35 — The shift from “next generation” to “rising generation,” and from financial capital to human and intellectual capital. 11:04 — The “meteor” metaphor: inherited wealth arrives with a weight of responsibility most heirs are unprepared for (12:55). 20:43 — On the shirtsleeves proverb: “This proverb is real and serious, because that is physics” — though every family has “free will” over whether it repeats (21:45). 25:04 — Jan’s own 100 Year Family Project, built with his four children: “my mantra is I eat my own cooking.” 32:25 — Declining birth rates and families transforming into institutions. 38:53 — New “tribal” dynasties forming around purpose, not bloodline. 2,000–5,000 new dynasties expected within a decade — 40% female-led (41:19). 43:51 — Women as an “underestimated” force in the wealth transfer. 50:43 — Bringing elders into governance through an “elder council”: “you can’t Google wisdom” (54:12). 54:51 — The 1,000-year vision — inspired by Hong Kong’s Lee Kum Kee family and echoed across scripture. 58:42 — Why Jan avoids “legacy” in favor of “lineage impact.” 1:03:20 — On success: “if I can inspire someone to do better.” Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Thomas Chua is a friend, an investor, an investing educator, and the founder of Steady Compounding, where he shares lessons from great businesses and great investors with a global audience. He’s also the author of a brand-new book, The Lunch Break Investor, about how busy people can build wealth thoughtfully in roughly an hour a day. (03:00) Title story: his father pawned his mother’s wedding jewelry; Thomas vows “the lights will never go off again.”(06:00) Library autobiographies over role models; “failure in itself is nothing to be embarrassed about.”(08:00) Singapore’s 4-year bond funded university — career freedom traded for $30K to compound.(11:00) Trader-to-owner shift: prices checked every 15 min, until Buffett’s line on tickers landed.(15:00) “Forgotten money”: Guy Spier’s dislike of trading; Adam Mead forgetting his own login.(17:00) Core thesis: “invest to live and not the other way around” — one hour a day.(20:00) Lynch’s line: “nobody ever wished on their deathbed that they wish they spent more time in the office.”(24:00) Ronald Reid (janitor, $8M) and Anne Scheiber (IRS auditor, left $22M).(28:00) A moat as treasure inside a castle worth defending.(31:00) ROIC and Munger’s “gravity” — a moat’s trajectory beats its size.(33:00) AI capex wave: Meta’s ad growth vs. debt-heavy new cloud entrants.(38:00) Red flag: Peloton’s CFO denied a capital raise days before doing one.(41:00) The “wallet test” for management; Bezos’s “Ouch” letter.(43:00) Buying in three tranches, letting the business prove itself.(44:00) Selling as “an admission that I was wrong” — the Lululemon case.(48:00) One-hour checklist: “why does this business deserve to be bigger five years from now,” plus scanning your card statement for moat clues.(50:00) Writing Steady Compounding publicly sharpened his thinking, built his audience.(53:00) The Malacca trip with his grandmother that never happened; Munger’s tuna regret.(56:00) After 200+ episodes: permission to take the walk, take the trip — you’re safe now. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

I’m reposting today an interview that Matt Zeigler kindly conducted with me recently. It just so happens that today is my birthday, which makes it feel like the right moment to share this deeply personal conversation about a chapter in my life and career when uncertainty was at its peak and the road ahead felt anything but clear. In this impromptu conversation, recorded one summer morning, I reflect on what happened during that time, what I learned from it, and how those experiences continue to shape me today. Along the way, you’ll hear stories and moments I’ve never shared publicly before. I also encourage you to read the thoughtful profile Matt wrote about me on his wonderful Cultish Creative blog, linked here. While you’re there, take some time to explore—and follow—his beautifully written, thoughtfully curated work. I’m grateful for the care and generosity he brings to every conversation and every story he tells. Bogumil Baranowski joins Matt Zeigler to explore why failure is feedback and how persistence can turn rejection, uncertainty, and personal obstacles into life-changing opportunities. Bogumil shares his journey from Poland to a career in New York investing, the green card rejection that nearly ended it, and the unlikely path that eventually led him to ask Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger a question at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting.Topics covered: Why failure should be treated as feedback rather than defeat What Joseph Moore’s struggle to publish How to Get Rich in American History teaches about resilience How personal conviction helps people continue when success appears statistically unlikely Why creating a podcast can preserve valuable conversations and connect overlooked ideas How podcast hosts cross-pollinate insights between investors, authors, and thinkers Bogumil’s decision to leave Europe and build an investing career in New York City The visa challenges and green card rejection that almost forced him to leave America How hope and persistence helped him restart the immigration process The unlikely story of asking Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger a question at Berkshire Hathaway Why obstacles can help people develop strengths that others do not possess How an outsider’s perspective can create an advantage in investing and creative work Why people should embrace the experiences that make them different Timestamps:00:00 Why some goals become things you have to do03:00 Joseph Moore and the history of getting rich06:04 Why location matters when building and preserving wealth08:20 Failure is feedback09:30 Why important ideas often face rejection13:03 Turning private conversations into a public podcast16:40 Learning through other people’s experiences18:08 Cross-pollinating ideas between great investors20:24 Bogumil’s decision to pursue investing in New York21:42 Visa problems and a rejected green card application24:00 Starting the immigration process again26:14 Why persistence matters more than the size of the goal27:46 Asking Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger a question31:42 Why failing is part of trying33:53 The unexpected connection to The King’s Speech35:29 Turning perceived weaknesses into strengths37:29 Where to find Bogumil’s writing and podcastsPodcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.

Lee Freeman‑Shor is a former multi‑award‑winning fund manager turned bestselling author and researcher who has spent years inside the decision‑making of the world’s best investors to uncover how they get it wrong most of the time and still make millions in the markets. He gave 45 elite investors real money and studied 30,000 trades to decode execution. He shares what he learned in the process. Episode Sponsor: Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal that gives investors instant access to twenty years of financials, earnings transcripts, and extensive segment and KPI data—use my link for a two-week free trial plus 15% off: https://fiscal.ai/talkingbillions/ Episode Notes 03:00 — Lee's working-class Nottinghamshire upbringing; didn't know what a stock was until university. 04:11 — Stumbled into fund management after a law degree, then built the "Best Ideas" fund range at Scander Investment Group. 07:07 — The spark: a manager with a 30% hit rate who still made a fortune for the fund. 09:51 — Analyzing 30,000 trades: hit rates cluster near 50% — "it's definitely not about the stock idea." 19:30 — Lee unveils his five investor tribes: rabbits, assassins, hunters, raiders, connoisseurs. 20:30 — Why investors freeze: "you don't want to be a rabbit." 22:42 — The biases behind it: "endowment bias, sunk cost bias... regret aversion bias." 24:15 — His gut-check question for holding a losing name: would you buy it today with fresh money? 25:43 — Averaging down done right — hunters start small so they can "lean into the name." 38:16 — Stock Market Maestros research: the "lumberjack" archetype (John Barr), tiny starting positions, decades-long 100-baggers. 44:54 — "Incrementalists" like Andrew Hall and James Hambro trim and add in small steps instead of exiting outright. 48:34 — Behavioral alpha score and payoff ratio — metrics that predict future manager skill. 53:15 — Takeaway: "when you're losing, do something... try and be an assassin." 58:43 — Lee's personal lesson: "expect to be wrong." 1:00:41 — Closing reflection on what success really means after stepping back from money management in 2018. Podcast Program – Disclosure Statement Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC is a registered investment adviser and the opinions expressed by the Firm’s employees and podcast guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of Blue Infinitas Capital, LLC. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed.