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Financial Freedom with Real Estate Investing

MB518: Invest Like a Billionaire: Start with the Operator or the Deal? - With Bob Fraser

Financial Freedom with Real Estate Investing

Michael Blank

Business, Entrepreneurship, Investing

4.7 • 577 Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Michael sits down with Bob Fraser, CFO and Chief Macro Strategist at Aspen Funds and author of Invest Like a Billionaire. Bob shares why billionaires invest very differently than most people—and why relying solely on stocks and bonds may be limiting your ability to build long-term wealth.

The conversation explores alternative investments like multifamily, private credit, industrial real estate, oil and gas, and private equity. Bob explains how to think through market cycles, why diversification across uncorrelated assets matters, and how investors can position themselves to benefit from long-term tailwinds instead of chasing the latest trend.

Key Takeaways

  • Billionaires don’t rely on a traditional 60/40 portfolio—they allocate heavily to alternative investments and uncorrelated assets.
  • There is always an asset class that is working, even when another is struggling, which is why diversification across market cycles matters.
  • Private credit can provide equity-like returns with lower risk by acting as the lender instead of the owner.
  • Investors should focus on long-term macro tailwinds like reshoring, industrial real estate, and energy demand rather than chasing short-term narratives.
  • Great operators are defined by how they perform during difficult market cycles, not just during boom years.
  • You don’t need to master every asset class yourself—joint ventures and partnerships can help you gain exposure to new opportunities.

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For full episode show notes visit: https://themichaelblank.com/podcasts/session518/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, dealmakers, welcome to the show where it's all about financial freedom with real estate.

0:03.8

Let's do this.

0:12.3

Today on the show, I have Bob Frazier.

0:14.5

He's the author of the bestselling new book, Invest Like a Billionaire,

0:17.6

where he kind of talks about why public markets fail, basically the ability

0:22.2

to build wealth.

0:23.7

And we're talking about that here, is how do you really build wealth like a billionaire?

0:27.6

He's currently a CFO and chief macro strategies of Aspen funds.

0:30.8

It's a private fund sponsor.

0:33.2

I've been around 12 plus years.

0:35.3

They have over $700 million in assets under management across

0:38.8

private credit, so debt, commercial real estate, distret debt, energy. And just like myself,

0:44.6

Bob's got a background in computer science. He actually created a dot com was super exciting.

0:49.3

We talk about that as well on how he lost everything kind of like I did, more like in restaurants, and then how

0:55.4

he built up Aspen over time, and really why he's getting into different asset classes,

1:00.1

as well as how he does it, right? So because it's difficult for you to operate every single

1:05.9

asset class, he operates some, but how does he do it, and then how does he get into new ones as well? So we really talk about that and the importance of paying attention to market cycles and different asset classes, paying attention to which ones perform and which ones perform a little less and knowing when to pivot from one to another. So with the latest downturn, multi-family, that's been more and more important as well.

1:28.8

And shining a light on that is super important.

1:30.6

He's a keynote speaker.

1:31.5

In fact, I spoke with him in a best-ever conference here a little while ago.

1:35.0

He's been on a bunch of conferences and podcasts.

1:38.8

Great guys, been around.

...

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