The Compounding Equation

My guests this week are Rick Buhrman and Paul Buser. Rick and Paul spent over a decade managing the public equity portfolio at Notre Dame’s Endowment before leaving in 2020 to set up a permanent capital vehicle called Sator Grove. As you’ll hear in this conversation, they know, have studied, or have invested with most of the world’s best capital allocators.

A few years ago, they also set up a class at Notre Dame for 40 of the college’s brightest students, called Art of Investing. The class is devoted to exploring the joys of compounding and each week, they bring in a world class investor or operator to share in detail how they’ve built their lives, portfolios, and businesses around the principles of compounding.

Starting next week, it will be available as a Colossus Podcast so that you too will be able to join their class and learn from the likes of Todd Combs, Andre Perold, Ho Nam and others. I’d encourage you to search Art of Investing in your podcast player and subscribe so you don’t miss the first episode. Now onto my discussion with Rick and Paul.

Art of Investing: Trailer

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

(00:02:30) - (First question) - Shifting from Notre Dame to Sator Grove

(00:06:20) - An overview of Sator Grove

(00:11:39) - Launching in April 2021, they manage $300M for diverse, flexible investments

(00:15:47) - Investing in meaningful projects with trust, long-term focus, and high potential

(00:25:30) - How Mitch Rales embodies insatiable curiosity and lifelong learning

(00:39:33) - Embracing change, adapting, and experimenting for success

(00:41:49) - How investors learn from failed companies

(00:51:59) - Investment success hinges on talent's judgment, character, adaptability, and trust

(00:56:53) - What they found concerning in firms and teams when assessing managers

(01:02:16) - Analyzing asset allocation challenges

(01:07:39) - Fostering disciplined habits for growth

(01:13:06) - The importance of nurturing compounding

(01:21:21) - Creating meaningful connections and providing lifelong lessons

(01:26:58) - Wisdom from their mentors and its impact on their investing philosophy

(01:43:49) - Defining the good life: Quality projects, quality people, and meaningful integration

(01:45:29) - The defining moments of their investing careers so far

(01:47:59) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Rick and Paul