The Business Brew

Tom Morgan stops by The Business Brew for a wide-ranging conversation.  Tom is the Director of Content and Communications at The KCP Group.  His writings can be found at https://thekcpgroup.com/insights.  Tom describes himself as a curious sherpa.  He's always looking to find interesting people and ideas.  You can find Tom at @tom_morganKCP on Twitter. No detailed show notes on this one.  Just listen. This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a new breed of investment and merchant bank that specializes in primaries, secondaries, and co-investment opportunities in the private markets.  Bastiat caters to a unique coverage universe of 250+ family offices, VCs, and crossover hedge funds. While sector generalists, the Firm specializes in fast-growing technology and technology-enabled businesses, advising companies on primary capital raises and creating liquidity events for founders and early investors via secondary transactions. The Firm also advises fundless sponsors and GPs on co-investment opportunities. Bastiat Partners was founded nearly a decade ago by Nader Afshar, a former senior investment banker at J.P. Morgan, and is headquartered in Los Angeles. Securities offered by Hollister Associates, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC.  Bastiat Partners and Hollister Associates, LLC are not affiliated companies. See https://bastiatpartners.com/.

William Green, best-selling author and podcast host extraordinaire, comes back to The Business Brew to have a very real conversation about life.  William's first appearance was part of the launch of Richer, Wiser, Happier, which you can find at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=richer+wiser+happier+william+green&i=audible&sprefix=richer%2Caudible%2C84&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6.  This conversation is more focused on William's career and lessons he has learned. This was a conversation that really put a smile on Bill's face and it is one The Business Brew is very proud to feature.  Hopefully this conversation shows a unique side to William Green; the side Bill got to see when they first met. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as Bill enjoyed recording it. This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes: Beginning – Where William and Bill “are” right now 9:30 – Structuring a portfolio to support your personality and advice from Peter Lynch 13:40 – What can come from the sense of being lost 17:40 – The difference between how investing is covered and reality for most people 22:10 – Bill and William talking about identity 24:20 – William’s career background 32:10 – The gifts from hard times 34:10 – Try to flood the body with good emotions 40:25 – Dealing with the feeling of unworthiness 48:10 – Accepting your beautiful monsters 53:40 – Munger’s insight about Richer, Wiser, Happier 1:03:40 – The power of looking to help others 1:09:40 – One of William’s takeaways from the Berkshire meeting 1:15:40 – Going strong vs. going weak 1:20:40 – Internal vs. external scorecards 1:22:30 – William’s experience with audio interviews 1:26:10 – Picking up on body language 1:30:40 – How Richer, Wiser, Happier is doing Books mentioned: Richer, Wiser, Happier (BUY IT!) https://www.amazon.com/s?k=richer+wiser+happier+william+green&i=audible&sprefix=richer%2Caudible%2C84&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6 Power vs. Force https://www.amazon.com/Power-vs-Force-Dr-David-R-Hawkins-audiobook/dp/B000KZRMCO/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=CjwKCAjw-8qVBhANEiwAfjXLrrQaA5rWgk4cxmKB0DXcwEZ7Pzzm2qwPAXcEfK93MJdhuzhebTDEtxoCxzsQAvD_BwE&hvadid=548152874877&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=90

Jordan Noone stops by The Business Brew to discuss his experience founding Embedded Ventures and Relativity Space.  At the age of just 22 years old Jordan co-founded Relativity Space, which 3D prints rockets!  Yes, rockets.  See https://www.relativityspace.com/. Following his time at Relativity Space, Jordan co-founded Embedded Ventures, a venture capital firm. Embedded has an interesting goal of using "clean capital" to enhance the security of the US while generating investor returns.  See below for the official bios on both of Jordan's companies. We hope you enjoy the conversation! ABOUT EMBEDDED VENTURES - See https://www.embedded.ventures/ -  Launched in 2020, Embedded Ventures is a next generation venture capital firm investing in dual-use space startups beyond launch. Best described as “the skunkworks of Venture Capital” because of their unique investment approach and backgrounds, Embedded has a first-of-its-kind partnership with the United States Space Force. Co-Founders Jenna Bryant and Jordan Noone both have atypical industry experiences and strong passions for the communities they represent. The firm invests in the pre-seed and seed stage startups focused on space operations, digital engineering, and advanced manufacturing. To date, Embedded Ventures has announced investments in Chromatic 3D Materials, Inversion, KittyCAD, Slingshot Aerospace and Skyryse. ABOUT JORDAN NOONE Jordan Noone is the Co-Founder, CTO, and General Partner at Embedded Ventures, the skunkworks of deep tech venture capital. Launched with his Co-Founder Jenna Bryant. Jordan is Relativity’s Co-Founder and founding CTO - as of 2020, Relativity is the world’s second most valuable private space company. As Relativity's CTO, Jordan focused on technical direction and engineering design, including: developing printing technology, launch vehicle design, propulsion design, software development, infrastructure development, and government affairs. Jordan also led many Relativity initiatives including: expansion of Relativity’s Stargate Factory into the rest of aerospace manufacturing, Relativity’s strategy for expanding printing technology off-planet; and the ability of Relativity’s factory flexibly scale to a wide range of rocket sizes. Jordan has had a lifelong interest in aerospace, including the design and build of spaceflight hardware at the age of 18 while at the University of Southern California, and becoming the first student and youngest individual in the world to get Federal Aviation Administration clearance to fly a rocket to space (150 kilometer altitude) while leading USC’s Rocket Propulsion Lab. In 2015 he started Relativity when 22 years old. He has been chosen for “30 Under 30” by Forbes, Business Insider, and Inc. Magazine. He received a BS in Aerospace Engineering, and dropped out of a BS in Biophysics, both from University of Southern California. Outside of Relativity, Jordan is active in promoting STEM education worldwide with the US Department of State. This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes: Open – Jordan’s background 7:25 – What down rounds do to everyone 9:20 - What it was like to start Relativity at 22 years old 17:00 - How to prove students can launch rockets without killing anyone 24:00 - The benefits of 3D printing for manufacturing 30:30 - How VCs, specifically Mark Cuban, helped Relativity 33:00 - What Embedded Ventures is doing, and why

Cem Karsan stops by The Business Brew to discuss the lens he views markets through.  Cem's viewpoint is unique compared to many guests on this program because he looks at how options dealers are positioned and considers what flows may result from that positioning.  Many guests on this show view equity valuation as the present value of the discounted cash flows available to equity.  While Cem would likely agree with that, he argues in this episode that an equity's valuation is really an output derived from the options market (which expresses probabilistic views of discounted cash flows).   We hope this episode gives you something to think about! Cem Karsan formed Kai Volatility Advisors after two decades of experience building industry-leading derivatives businesses.  From 1999 to 2002, he worked as a volatility trader as part of RBC Dominion Securities/ Derivatives Arbitrage Group.  From 2002 to 2005, he worked under renowned Wall St. investor John Mulheren at Bear Wagner Specialists, where Cem helped expand the firm's fledgling derivatives arbitrage business into a competitive force within the industry.  In 2005, Cem took a select group from the firm's proprietary trading arm and founded Precision Capital Management, specializing in equity index volatility arbitrage.  The firm became a significant SPX market maker reaching, at its peak, a high of ~13% of daily trading volume.*  In 2010, Cem divested his stake in Precision and fouded AEGEA Capital, the precursor to Kai Volatility Advisors. *Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Follow Cem on Twitter https://twitter.com/jam_croissant Learn more about Kai: https://www.kaivolatility.com/contact   This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes: Open – Cem’s background 7:25 – How Cem thinks about what matters to capital markets 13:10 – Valuations have no predictive value, short term 14:10 – What happened in 2017 and why did the market seem to go up every day? 21:40 – The counterintuitive conclusion of buying and selling volatility 23:10 – Why equities are derivatives of “derivatives” 27:10 – Why options are potentially better instruments for expressing a view 32:45 – Gamma squeezes explained 38:25 – Cem’s thoughts on where we are from a macro perspective 46:10 – The wealth gap and why 49:40 – Why we may be in a fundamentally inflationary environment 54:50 – The impacts of monetary policy and which generations have been hurt and helped by policy 1:00:40 – Why some medicine today may end up better in the long run 1:02:10 – The tension between utopia and the current (efficient) system 1:06:40 – Evolution and iteration will hopefully lead to better incomes 1:10:55 – The coming risks may come from exported inflation to emerging markets 1:13:10 – The winners of tomorrow used easy money to plant seeds over the past years 1:15:10 – More background on Cem

Amanda Agati stops by The Business Brew to discuss her investment outlook going forward. Amanda is Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist for the PNC Financial Services Group. In this role, she oversees all investment strategy-related activities for the Institutional Asset Management, Wealth Management, and Hawthorn (ultra-high-net-worth) businesses. In addition, she leads the team that establishes overall strategic and tactical asset allocation guidance of client portfolios, manages the evolution of investment processes, provides thought leadership on key investment issues, and is the author of numerous publications. She also performs research and analytics that help drive the overall investment recommendations of the firm while also managing the firm’s asset allocation models. Amanda is a self described optimist.  Her opinions are nuanced and thoughtful.  This conversation touches on a number of topics and is quite balanced.  There is even some stuff in here for dog lovers.  We hope you enjoy! Follow Amanda on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmandaAgatiPNC Find out more about Amanda's views at: https://www.pnc.com/insights/authors/amanda-e-agati.html This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes: Opening - General discussion 12:40 - Thoughts on the economy 14:55 - Stagflation? 16:40 - Importance of diversification 22:10 - Energy discussion 26:05 - Career path 29:30 - Quality growth for the long term 34:10 - Thinking opportunistically in this market 41:30 - Impact of supply shortages 44:25 - Investor whiplash 51:40 - The need for supply chain diversification 55:40 - Does an illiquidity premium make sense? 58:10 - Crypto winter (for now) 1:07:10 - What Amanda attributes her success to

Description -  Sean Stannard Stockton, President and CIO of Ensemble Capital Management, stops by The Business Brew for a repeat appearance. Sean discussed his process on his first appearance (see Season 1). In this episode he discusses how he is sticking to his process and managing a portfolio in an uncertain world. Please forgive the lack of time stamps in the show notes. We will follow up and update. In the meantime, enjoy the entire episode. It’s a good one. This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

J Mintzmyer,  a renowned maritime shipping analyst who directs the Value Investor's Edge ("VIE") research platform on Seeking Alpha, returns to The Business Brew to give an update on the state of the shipping industry (and the associated stocks).  This episode is meant to be listened to in conjunction with Craig Fuller’s episode in order to provide the listener with a more robust understanding of what is happening in supply chains. In this episode J discusses many shipping specific ideas.  If you are interested in J’s analysis consider subscribing to his work at Value Investor’s Edge on Seeking Alpha. You can find a presentation J recently did at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be5-IDIpTJw During the conversation the following paper is mentioned: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13428/w13428.pdf This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes: 3:30 - The setup for shipping 7:15 - Oil tanker overview 18:10 - Is this a uniquely good time for shipping? 19:30 - How J is thinking about a recession and the risk to shipping 25:30 - How J manages risk. 27:30 - ZIM discussion 34:30 - DAC and GSK - the leasing cos 38:00 - ZIM IPO'd at $15 and paid out more than that in dividends within a year. 41:30 - How congestion impacts shipping 46:30 - Supply side is doing the heavy lifting in shipping 53:30 - General inflation/closing discussion

Tim Laehy stops by The Business Brew to discuss his career as a CFO.  Tim, who served as Coinbase's first interim CFO (from 2017 to 2018), is often hired to come in and professionalize emerging companies' finance departments; setting them up to go public. Some examples of Tim's work include: organizing and developing robust accounting controls & capabilities, building & growing an international tax function,  establishing global treasury functions, and developing budgeting and reporting capabilities. Tim is a technology executive based in San Francisco. His experience spans multiple industries, including crypto currency brokerage & exchange, SaaS, enterprise software, and service. He has extensive experience as a public & private company CFO and has deep capital markets experience. He has managed three successful IPOs, three successful sell-side mergers, raised over $3B of capital at increasing valuations, managed significant revenue growth from pre-revenue to $1B annual revenue. During his career he has helped create more than $20B of value for multiple companies and investors. He has extensive buy-side and sell-side M&A experience serving public, private, domestic, and international companies. This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Craig Fuller stops by The Business Brew to discuss the freight recession. Craig made news when his organization, FreightWaves, wrote an article forecasting a freight recession.  Craig's initial call discussed the trucking sector, but China's lockdowns may create a freight recession throughout the freight industry. This was a fun conversation.  It's a must listen if you are interested in the freight and logistics markets. Craig is great on the mic.  We hope you enjoy the discussion. Craig Fuller is CEO and Founder of FreightWaves, the only freight-focused organization that delivers a complete and comprehensive view of the freight and logistics market. FreightWaves’ news, content, market data, insights, analytics, innovative engagement and risk management tools are unprecedented and unmatched in the industry. Prior to founding FreightWaves, Fuller was the founder and CEO of TransCard, a fleet payment processor that was sold to US Bank. He also is a trucking industry veteran, having founded and managed the Xpress Direct division of US Xpress Enterprises, the largest provider of on-demand trucking services in North America.  Fuller also owns Flying Magazine. This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com. Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Detailed Show Notes Open - Intro to freight 11:20 - The state of US inventory levels 19:30 - Will the freight market become very "choppy" for a while? 24:27 - Will the US onshore or nearshore the supply chain? 40:25 - What is it like to move JB Hunt's stock? 47:30 - Is Old Dominion impacted by the freight recession? 52:00 - How did Craig get into freight and trucking? 58:40 - What you should think about as a consumer. 61:30 - How is there oversupply in the trucking market with a trucking shortage? 68:18 - The commonalities between different markets. 72:10 - JB Hunt, and intermodal's, strength 83:40 - Craig's media career 85:30 - The dollar strength 87:30 - What motivated Craig to write 95:00 - Aftershow talk

This episode of The Business Brew is Bill participating in a group discussion about the future of streaming media services.  The forum was Twitter “Spaces,” an open forum where anyone can join the discussion and contribute.  We cover a number of topics over 2 hours of discussion. We hope you enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/. Detailed show notes below. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player! Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/ Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!