Coburn Ventures Podcast

What do we do when valuations of stocks and markets become so high as to defy our most careful assessment of the value of the business and its future cash flows? Today we are going to present some options for layering in a process or method to use during these times. Our purpose here is to provide a few ways to help you think about  addressing the question directly, especially since valuation is one of the most potent triggers to take our conversation into the world of the abstract, to launch us directly into the mess of our own investment biases, to get into conversations that just swirl around and don't go anywhere, or  to amp up the fear and confusion... all of which get in the way of making great decisions. After listening to this you may come up with your own framework.  The design principle here is to have a process that will keep you on shore, rather than being swept away into the swirl.

John Dillon, a seasoned CEO with experience in both private and public sectors and currently leading Aerospike, shares invaluable insights on corporate leadership. He discusses the critical relationship between shareholders and executives, emphasizing the importance of effective communication and transparency. Delving into the traits of successful CEOs, Dillon highlights how the dynamic of IT departments can offer competitive advantages. Additionally, he shares anecdotes that reveal the power of well-prepared questions in investor relations, driving home the need for genuine engagement.

Part of our job as investors is to find or design uncommon inputs that will lead to uncommon investable insights. One of the important inputs is how we spend our conversations with management teams. At Coburn Ventures we focus so much on designing questions for management because it can meaningfully alter the probability that we will walk away with something insightful to act on. Now you'll hear a bit more about that process, and a few methods you might like to use too.

ESG, or Environment, Social and Governance regarding sustainability, was thought of as an add-on to an investment thesis 5 or 10 years ago. But the world is arriving at the doorstep of ESG investors. Its more than an add on, it is a base layer, a foundational component of investment philosophy. And its rare that we get to take part in forming such a crucial component of investment philosophy. For teams that take on what ESG means to their particular process and philosophy, they may find themselves with a more rounded out look at a company, a more enhanced view of risk, and likely, stronger conviction in real long term competitive advantage. So how do you implement ESG into your process? In this podcast, Pip and I talk about just a few of the 10 greatest hits we published in 2020 on ESG. We’re happy to send you the piece, this is just a starting point. *Just one thing to listen for before we begin: I hope the tactic of pulling away from moral arguments and into exploring the gray zones is particularly helpful. Using this tool, you might be able to lay the groundwork for productive discussions right from the beginning.

Today we’re talking about community and business, and we have with us two business leaders who know loads about this topic: Peter Espersen and Darren Herman. Their experience on the topic runs deep, and both have extensive entrepreneurial experience, but they each have past roles that will help you connect to them - perhaps putting together that you have met them previously at one of our gatherings - and see why we immediately thought of these two for our conversation: Peter Espersen was Global Head of Crowd Sourcing and Online Innovation at Lego, and Darren for his role as VP of Product at Mozilla/Firefox. So I hope you enjoy this conversation between the four of us, now for you, on community in business.

Today, we present just a few of the ideas related to process that we know have helped our team find leverage in what we thought were unmovable parts of the investment process. Some of these changes will sound rudimentary at the onset. I challenge you to listen to these ideas with a "students mind", reviewing your process, how your team works and maybe, just maybe you will find one or two ideas in here that you’ll venture out and explore to increase conviction while saving time. Who knows what will happen?

Elliot Noss, CEO of internet company Tucows for just about 25 years, starts us off with a simple but reverberating statement: “the fundamental compact between employer and employee has changed”. There are so many related mutations of work, as he calls them, to consider. A few up shots that don’t do this conversation justice: Changes that will stick have cultural principles that were already underlying, and people, culture and mission are still the critical focus. Let’s hear more.

Picture a pie chart of your work week: what percent is your job, your vocation, or total waste? Let’s use this model to uncover possible changes in process and decision making.

As more of our work life is digitized, we do know now, or we will know the how, when, why and where of work... where we work best, with whom and for what purpose. But there is so much to understand and experience before we can know what that means for industries across many sectors. Let’s dig in with Greg Parsons.

Growth and value are simply boxes we put around two giant categories. It’s helpful for marketing purposes, and for investment process. So what gives? Well, we have been in a period of disequilibrium for over 25 years, and that disequilibrium has skewed massively to growth. Let’s dig in on what this means for process.