Discovering Innovative Companies with Marcelo Lima

In this conversation, 7investing Lead Advisor Matthew Cochrane sits down with Marcelo Lima, the founder and managing partner of Heller House. On the Heller House's website, it states, "As acolytes of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett, we are standing on the shoulders of giants and adapting to a world permeated by software, network effects and zero marginal costs."

Lima describes his evolution from a Warren Buffett-type value investor to an investor who instead seeks out the world's most innovative companies. He even wonders if starting as a Buffett investor hindered him early on in his investment career because he believed Buffett that new technology was too hard to understand.

When studying new technologies, Lima says he approaches everything like he's a student. That can mean purchasing 900-page textbooks on the microbiology of cells or attending developer conferences and trying out new software products.  A few years ago, when studying Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) he toured one of its fulfillment centers. This experience helped him appreciate how advances in robotics would help the e-commerce giant become even more efficient at delivery and logistics.

Lima also discusses the size and valuations of tech giants. He believes the total addressable markets more than justifies some of today's larger market caps but believes valuation must always be carefully weighed with a company's optionality and growth.

Along the way, Lima and Cochrane also discuss the possibility of Miami as the next great tech hub, why Mark Zuckerberg is perennially underrated, and whether virtual and augmented reality is an inevitable platform.