RWH042: Survive & Thrive w/ Guy Spier: Part 1

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network

Stig Brodersen

Education, Investing, Business

4.6 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2024

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, William Green chats with renowned hedge fund manager Guy Spier, who has run the Aquamarine Fund since 1997. This conversation has been split into two episodes. Here, in Part 1, Guy discusses the art of compounding wealth over decades, drawing on lessons he’s learned from Warren Buffett, downhill ski racers, & his own mistakes. This is an unusually candid conversation between William & Guy—old friends who collaborated on Guy’s classic book, “The Education of a Value Investor.” IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN: 00:00 - Intro 04:07 - Why it’s so intense for Guy Spier & William Green to collaborate 10:19 - How telling the truth changed Guy’s life 17:53 - Why the Global Financial Crisis terrified him 24:52 - Why it’s hard to invest rationally in the real world of chaos & confusion 29:25 - How Guy deals with his emotions when making investment decisions 35:03 - Why his default position is to hold his stocks indefinitely & resist meddling 38:48 - Why he didn’t sell his stake in Alibaba 42:01 - Why he’s pleased with & disappointed by his investment returns 46:32 - Why his mission is long-term compounding without catastrophe 55:06 - What Guy learned from investing in a company that went bankrupt 57:57 - What the fastest skiers can teach us about success & survival 1:00:02 - How excessive risk destroyed a fund manager he once knew 1:04:13 - What we can learn from Warren Buffett about financial resilience Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Related Episode: William Green’s 2023 interview with Guy Spier | YouTube Video. Related Episode: William Green’s 2022 interview with Guy Spier | YouTube Video. Guy Spier’s book, “The Education of a Value Investor" – read reviews of the book. Subscribe to Guy Spier’s free newsletter. Guy Spier’s podcast and website. Guy Spier interviews William Green about his book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier”. Read Gandhi: An Autobiography – The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Luca Dellanna's book, "Ergodicity". David Hawkins' book, “Power vs Force”. William Green’s book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – read the reviews of this book. Follow William Green on X (AKA Twitter). Check out all the books mentioned and discussed in our podcast episodes here. NEW TO THE SHOW? Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Stay up-to-date on financial markets and investing strategies through our daily newsletter, We Study Markets. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: River Toyota Wise NetSuite Fidelity TurboTax NDTCO Linkedin Marketing Solutions Fundrise Vacasa NerdWallet Babbel Shopify HELP US OUT! Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to TIP.
0:02.0	Hi there, welcome back to the Richer Weiser Happier podcast.
0:06.0	I'm your host William Green, recording this on the first wonderfully warm and sunny day of the year here in New York.
0:13.0	It's a special pleasure to bring you today's guest, Guy Spear,
0:17.0	a well-known hedge fund manager who runs the Aquamarine Fund.
0:20.0	This was a particularly memorable conversation for me because we recorded it in person at Guy's beautiful house in the heart of Closters, which is a gorgeous ski resort in the Swiss Alps.
0:32.0	We were sitting together beside a log fire in his living room, looking
0:36.2	out on the mountains covered in snow. Guy is one of my closest friends and I just spent a week with him.
0:43.0	So what you're listening to here is an unusually personal and candid conversation
0:48.6	between two friends who know each other incredibly well and have built up a great deal of trust over many years.
0:55.8	A decade ago, I helped guide a write his memoir, The Education of a Value Investor,
1:01.2	during an intense period when I more or less lived with him and his family
1:05.1	for several months at their home in Zurich. I also edit Guy's annual report every year and I've
1:10.6	been an investor in his fund for something like 23 years.
1:15.0	Guy launched the Aquamarine Fund back in 1997.
1:19.0	By the end of February 2024, the fund had returned a total of 932%.
1:26.3	To put that in context, this means that he's beaten the S&P 500 index by 157 percentage points and the MSCI global index by
1:37.0	396 percentage points over the last 26 years or so.
1:41.0	That record puts Guy in a tiny minority of fund managers who have
1:45.6	outperformed the market over more than a quarter of a century. It also
1:49.6	means that $1 million invested in the Aquamarine Fund back when Guy launched it
1:54.6	has now grown into more than ten million dollars which gives you a very tangible sense
	...

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