TIP601: Junk to Gold by Billionaire Willis Johnson

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network

Stig Brodersen

Education, Investing, Business

4.6 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2024

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s episode, Clay shares his biggest takeaways from reading billionaire Willis Johnson’s book – Junk to Gold. Willis Johnson founded Copart in 1982, and today he is worth over $2.6 billion through his equity ownership in the company. Copart is one of the most impressive businesses we’ve studied. Over the past 30 years, the stock has compounded at over 21% per year, outperforming Microsoft, Adobe, and the majority of other stocks. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN: 00:00 - Intro 08:15 - The key experiences in Willis Johnson’s early life that shaped him. 12:18 - How Willis thought about money and building a business. 14:44 - Willis’s experience fighting in the Vietnam War. 24:51 - What he learned from chasing his dreams and building a successful company. 42:08 - The story of Jay Adair dropping out of college to work with Copart. 45:24 - How Willis sold Wall Street on lending him money to grow and take his company public. 52:01 - What sets Copart apart from the majority of other companies that exist. 54:19 - How Copart strategically utilized technology to grow its business. 01:14:09 - Copart’s four major competitive advantages. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, Kyle, and the other community members. Leandro’s blog: Best Anchor Stocks. Learn more about the Berkshire Summit by clicking here or emailing Clay at [email protected]. Episode Mentioned: TIP593: Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson | YouTube Video. Episode Mentioned: TIP549: 2 High-Quality Compounders | YouTube Video. Follow Clay on Twitter. Check out the books mentioned in the podcast here. NEW TO THE SHOW? Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok. Check out our We Study Billionaires Starter Packs. 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 Linkedin Marketing Solutions NetSuite Fidelity Shopify Toyota TurboTax Babbel American Express Business Gold Card Fundrise Vacasa 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 Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to TIP.
0:03.0	Hey everyone, welcome to the investors podcast.
0:06.0	I'm your host, Clay Fink.
0:08.0	Today's a special episode because I'm going to be covering this book on Willis Johnson called
0:12.4	Junk to Gold.
0:13.8	As our listeners know, we've covered this concept
0:16.4	of quality investing a lot over the past couple of years.
0:19.5	And over that time, a company called Coppart
0:22.3	just continually came up in my various conversations with
0:25.1	investors and with just my research online.
0:28.2	For example, Chris Mayer was asked by our TIP mastermind community what business he felt most comfortable withholding over the next
0:35.2	ten years?
0:36.2	And Chris mentioned two businesses.
0:37.8	One of them was Coppart.
0:39.7	For those not aware, the TIP mastermind community is a paid community that Kyle Grieve and I run and
0:45.2	this is where we talk stocks and we network with like-minded investors and do a bunch of
0:49.2	other things as well. Willis Johnson founded Copar all the way back in 1982 and here at the end of
0:56.1	2023 the company does nearly four billion dollars in revenues and it has a
1:01.0	market valuation of around 45 billion.
1:04.1	I recently came across this table that showed the best performing companies over the last 30
1:08.7	years.
1:09.7	I bet not too many people guessed that Co-part would make that list. They ended up coming in at number 14. It outperformed
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Stig Brodersen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Stig Brodersen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.