My guest this week is Carl Kawaja. It’s the second time I’ve had Carl on the show and my first conversation with him is one I go back to often. Carl is a portfolio manager at Capital Group, where he’s quietly overseen a huge portfolio for decades. He is one of the top investors operating today as well as one of my favorite people. The investing world has changed quite a bit since Carl and I first spoke in mid-2021 so this was a great chance to use Carl’s curious mind and wide range of experiences to discuss the regime change taking place across capital markets. In true Kawaja fashion, we go all over the map and discuss Apple, the Amazonian rainforest, baseball, the oil & gas industry, Muhammad Ali, and more. Please enjoy my great discussion with Carl Kawaja.   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, the modern research platform for leading investors. I’m a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I’ve been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus’ mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus’ maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.   -----   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 [00:02:44] - [First question] - What the market feels like to him today [00:06:00] - The pros and cons of the cost of capital and experimentation [00:09:09] - Things we can learn from Oil & Gas stocks and resource commodities in general [00:14:38] - Pulling apart the key lessons from Berkshire’s purchases of IBM and Apple [00:20:37] - The practical implications of wanting to land more soft-wins in investing that aren’t apparent out of the gate [00:25:52] - How he approaches and considers products and product cycles writ large [00:31:10] - The Systems Bible [00:33:15] - Thoughts about making money from value based strategies  [00:38:31] - His methodology to go about finding the next diamond in the rough  [00:42:48] - A New Innings [00:45:13] - The Arc of Boxing; Lessons from Muhammad Ali fighting Cleveland Williams [00:48:54] - Someone he thinks is an exemplar in both business and the world [00:54:37] - Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes [00:59:41] - The role fossil fuels play in the energy transition and the current regime change  [01:07:35] - What we can learn from uncontroversial transitions in the past

Today’s conversation is one of my all-time favorites, with someone I’ve come to respect deeply in the field of investing. My guest is Carl Kawaja, who has served as a portfolio manager at Capital Group for decades. Capital Group is among the most respected shareholders in the world, with over $2T of assets, and listening to Carl, you’ll hear why.   In our conversation, we cover Carl’s criteria for building conviction around long-term holdings, why he views uncertainty and ambiguity as healthy, and why tolerating failure is key to great investing career. Throughout our discussion, Carl connects his lessons through a variety of direct experiences, personal analogies, and broader frameworks. I love his ability to talk in the weeds about his investments in Vale and TSMC and then quickly shift to his broader thematic views like “The Empire Strikes Back.” I hope you enjoy this great conversation with Carl Kawaja.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ------   This episode is brought to you by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. If you've been scrambling to keep up with the deluge of IPOs and SPACs these days, Canalyst has models on Robinhood, Marqeta, Grab, and everything in between. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/patrick.   ------   This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep's new Pod Pro Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at your perfect temperature. Simply add the Pod Pro Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. To embrace the future of sleep and get $150 off your new mattress go to eightsleep.com/patrick or use code "Patrick".   ------   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 [00:03:38] - [First question] - The two companies he has owned the longest and what they’ve taught him as an investor  [00:16:37] - Discussing his investment style through the lens of simplicity   [00:24:35] - A time where he worked to try and create a simplified equation but couldn’t  [00:30:59] - Discussing his investment style through the lens of echolocation and ambiguity  [00:36:03] - Thoughts on whether buying well or holding well is more difficult [00:40:40] - Capital Group’s history and his river-rafting analogy in regards to the company [00:47:48] - What he means by “The Empire Strikes Back” and relevant market themes [00:54:50] - A brief summary of “The Empire Strikes Back” [00:58:42] - Common reasons that he may have gotten something really wrong  [01:03:34] - Impressions made on him by the poet Rilke [01:09:00] - The work of Brunello Cucinelli and the nature of quality  [01:13:08] - Advice for new investors who want to step into the field and set themselves up for success [01:13:54] - The Visual Display of Quantitative Information  [01:17:39] - What he’s learned about kindness [01:19:54] - The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for him

Carl Kawaja, a portfolio manager at Capital Group, offers a deep dive into the rising trend of weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. He discusses their revolutionary effects on appetite, consumer habits, and the food industry, including surprising impacts on cravings for unhealthy products. The podcast also touches on the healthcare implications, highlighting how these medications can reduce obesity-related diseases and even modify behaviors around alcohol and cigarettes. It's a fascinating exploration of innovation reshaping health and markets.