Zurich-based author and investor Guy Spier (@GSpier), the founder and CEO of Aquamarine Capital, joins Julia La Roche one episode 78.

In 2008, Guy and his friend Monish Pabrai bid just over $650,000 for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett. That meal with the Oracle of Omaha was a transformative experience for Guy, which he wrote about in his book, “The Education of a Value Investor,” which has sold more than 40,000 copies and has also been translated into Hebrew, German, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Mandarin and Spanish.

Guy completed his MBA at the Harvard Business School, class of 1993, and holds a First Class degree in PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics) from Oxford University, where he studied at Brasenose College with British Prime Minister David Cameron. After completing his MBA, Guy started the Aquamarine Fund, an investment vehicle inspired by the original 1950s Buffett partnerships and run with a close replication of the original Buffett partnership rules. The focus is on investing for long-term capital appreciation and capital preservation by running a portfolio of equity investments with the goal of acquiring companies with outstanding long-term economics at a reasonable price and where there is a sufficient margin of safety between the company’s market price and its intrinsic value. Typical investors include high net-worth individuals, family offices, and private banks.

0:00 Show open

1:50 Welcome, Guy Spier

3:00 Started as a Gordon Gekko wannabe, found a ‘lifeline’ through Buffett

6:13 Reading about Warren Buffett

9:47 The pilgrimage to Omaha

11:00 Power of sending thank-you notes

17:00 Handwritten notes from Buffett

18:09 Bidding on lunch with Buffett

22:30 Lunch with Buffett was “transformational.”

27:44 The inner scorecard

30:00 Deep fear ahead of meeting Buffett

34:06 How much does the macro matter?

37:28 Siren songs of the hyped stocks

40:25 Writing with William Green

44:26 Why he changed his mind about not talking to company management

49:20 New investment process checklist items

54:15 Debt

57:10 Buffett spends time thinking about the downside

1:01:20 Content diet for investing

1:08:40 Surrounding yourself with a mastermind group