The Business Brew

Craig Fuller stops by The Business Brew to discuss the freight recession. Craig made news when his organization, FreightWaves, wrote an article forecasting a freight recession.  Craig's initial call discussed the trucking sector, but China's lockdowns may create a freight recession throughout the freight industry.

This was a fun conversation.  It's a must listen if you are interested in the freight and logistics markets.

Craig is great on the mic.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.

Craig Fuller is CEO and Founder of FreightWaves, the only freight-focused organization that delivers a complete and comprehensive view of the freight and logistics market. FreightWaves’ news, content, market data, insights, analytics, innovative engagement and risk management tools are unprecedented and unmatched in the industry. Prior to founding FreightWaves, Fuller was the founder and CEO of TransCard, a fleet payment processor that was sold to US Bank. He also is a trucking industry veteran, having founded and managed the Xpress Direct division of US Xpress Enterprises, the largest provider of on-demand trucking services in North America.  Fuller also owns Flying Magazine.

This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.

Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see www.mikeando.com.

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Detailed Show Notes

Open - Intro to freight

11:20 - The state of US inventory levels

19:30 - Will the freight market become very "choppy" for a while?

24:27 - Will the US onshore or nearshore the supply chain?

40:25 - What is it like to move JB Hunt's stock?

47:30 - Is Old Dominion impacted by the freight recession?

52:00 - How did Craig get into freight and trucking?

58:40 - What you should think about as a consumer.

61:30 - How is there oversupply in the trucking market with a trucking shortage?

68:18 - The commonalities between different markets.

72:10 - JB Hunt, and intermodal's, strength

83:40 - Craig's media career

85:30 - The dollar strength

87:30 - What motivated Craig to write

95:00 - Aftershow talk

This episode of The Business Brew is Bill participating in a group discussion about the future of streaming media services.  The forum was Twitter “Spaces,” an open forum where anyone can join the discussion and contribute.  We cover a number of topics over 2 hours of discussion.

Erick Mokaya stops by The Business Brew to chat with Bill about what they have learned as investors.  Erick has an inspiring story of dedication, drive, and learning.  He describes himself as a Kenyan living in Sweden, who has a passion for financial markets.  He is a  regular contributor on Seeking Alpha and also the Lead Author the Transcript, a weekly capital markets newsletter that summarizes earnings calls. He invests in US and Nordic equities and, on a small scale, in small businesses in Kenya.

He was fun to speak with and we hope you enjoy the discussion.  You can find Erick's blog at https://themokaya.com/ and follow him on twitter at @ekmokaya.

This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player.

Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Detailed Show Notes

2:53 - Erick’s background

4:59 - Seeing people struggle

8:45 - Being self driven

12:25 - Having people’s support

15:02 - Erik’s intro to investing

18:26 - Value investing

25:20 - The value of growth (Apple)

29:26 - Cash flows & management

33:10 - Networking via Twitter

38:36 - Learning from Patrick O'Shaughnessy & Chris Bloomstran

41:13 - Adding value to a community

44:35 - Erick’s newsletter

48:28- Restoration Hardware

58:47 - Holding through volatility

1:02:08 - Managing emotion

1:03:49 - Learning every day

1:08:15 - Twitter’s potential

1:14:19 - African Markets

1:17:01 - Activism

1:21:02 - Takeaways from Michael Mauboussin

Josh Horowitz and Liz Gulliver stop by The Business Brew to discuss employer-employee relationships. Josh and Liz co-founded Kunik to help employers build sustainable, scalable cultures that work for everyone, everywhere they are working.

How and where we work has permanently changed. Kunik helps organizations build thriving cultures by fueling the workplace with community and conversation. Kunik Conversations are facilitated, expert-led discussions that deliver intentional moments of connection, learning, and growth inside a company. Whether it’s DEI, hybrid work, leadership, new managers, burnout, or another challenge, Kunik helps its clients, ranging from nonprofits to large multinationals, build better relationships with and among their employees.

Josh and Liz, met at Columbia Business School. Both came from, and returned to, careers in finance before starting Kunik. Josh spent 10+ years on the buyside (Perry Capital, Citi, & Mackenzie Cundill) and graduated from Columbia’s Value Investing Program. Liz worked in corporate finance and consulting. They built Kunik to help companies build the workplace culture they always wanted but could never find.

We hope you enjoy this discussion

This episode is brought to you by Bastiat Partners, a boutique investment banking firm.  See https://bastiatpartners.com/.  Detailed show notes below.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Album art photo taken by Mike Ando. Please see https://www.mikeando.com/

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Detailed Show Notes

2:15 - Liz’s background

2:55 - Josh’s background

6:00 - What does Kunik do?

8:35 - Culture and retaining talent

15:27 - The new employer/employee relationship

18:25 - How to change culture in a big company

28:03 - Customers factoring in culture

37:02 - Facilitating conversations to connect people

42:44 - Retention and the ROI on people

55:47 - T-mobile’s culture

58:28 - Being a founder

1:04:39 - Diversity + Psychological safety

1:09:39 - How to get employees interested

1:24:09 - Managing burnout

1:29:00 - Resilience

1:31:54 - Being vulnerable

Mark S.F. Mahaney stops by The Business Brew to discuss tech investing and his book Nothing But Net.  Mark is a senior managing director and head of the Internet Research Team at Evercore ISI.  He has covered internet stocks for almost 25 years, and has been consistently recognized by Institutional Investor for his research, including 15 years as a “top 3” ranked analyst and five years as a No. 1-ranked analyst.

Dan Katz and Stephen Miran Ph.D. stop by The Business Brew to discuss JSG Investing.  JSG investing is investing that focuses on Jobs, Security, and Growth.  Their firm, Amberwave partners (see https://www.amberwavepartners.com/) helps investors align their portfolios and values, putting their savings to work for the good of American communities.

Dan and Stephen have very interesting bios.  They read as follows:

Steve Miran is a co-founder and lead portfolio manager at Amberwave. Steve has ten years of successful investing experience including as a hedge fund portfolio manager and head of macro strategy, and before that as an analyst at Fidelity Investments. He has invested in major asset classes in both developed and emerging economies.

Before Amberwave, Steve was senior advisor for economic policy at the United States Department of the Treasury, which he entered in April 2020 to assist with fiscal support to the economy. He contributed to the implementation and evaluation of several CARES Act programs, in particular the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided over $800 billion of job-preserving investments in American small businesses and supported over 50 million workers.

Steve holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Boston University, where he studied economics, philosophy and mathematics. His academic work has focused on fiscal policy, and his writing has been published in the American Economic Journal, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and RealClearMarkets.

Dan Katz is a co-founder and portfolio manager at Amberwave. Dan served as a senior advisor at the United States Department of the Treasury from September 2019 to January 2021, where he helped lead the Treasury’s efforts to rescue the U.S. aviation industry during the COVID-19 recession. Dan served as the Chairman of the National Security Loan Program Credit Committee and a member of the Airline Loan Program Credit Committee, which collectively oversaw more than $20 billion of emergency loan transactions. Dan also oversaw the implementation of the Payroll Support Program, which supported hundreds of thousands of jobs in the aviation industry.

Earlier in Dan’s career, he worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. He also served as a policy advisor at Treasury, where he focused on financial threats to U.S. national security, and as an advisor to the commander of U.S. forces in Kabul, Afghanistan. Dan holds a B.A. from Yale College and a J.D. magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from New York University School of Law.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.  Please see https://www.mikeando.com/

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.

Detailed Show Notes

2:48 - What is JSG Investing?

9:05 - Sanctions & their mechanisms

16:33 - Commodities

21:03 - Knowing your supply chain exposure

25:48 - How is JSG measured?

31:14 - The impact of ESG

37:55 - What is “green washing”?

42:58 - Quantitative vs. qualitative

45:03 - Creating growth in the US

48:03 - Shale & energy

49:28 - Working at the US Treasury

56:18 - The cost of time deploying stimulus

57:38 - Moral hazard & airlines

1:07:03 - The “American Recovery Plan” act

1:10:33 - Inflation

1:17:08 - Supply chains

1:20:38 - Asia & semiconductors

1:23:20 - Innovation

1:28:08 - Investing in rural communities

Dave Girouard stops by The Business Brew to discuss how Upstart is attempting to change the way credit is underwritten.  Upstart uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to expand loan underwriting beyond FICO scores.  The company’s goal is to make the underwriting process more efficient; creating a win-win for consumers and lenders.

Dave also talks about Upstart’s early struggles, what artificial intelligence actually does, how First Round Capital stepped up when Upstart really needed them to, and much more. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Thank you for joining the show Dave!

We will be on break for 1-2 months following this show.  “See” you in April/May.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.  Please see https://www.mikeando.com/

Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production.

Detailed Show Notes

2:15 – Intro to Dave

7:40 – The problem Upstart is looking to solve

12:45 – What will machine learning do for the world?

16:35 – Dave’s history at Google

19:33 – Upstart’s history as a company

22:21 – Upstart’s financing problem as a young company – Shoutout to First Round Capital!

27:15 – Who held the credit risk when Upstart’s loans were first funded

30:45 – Upstart’s relationship with Cross River Bank

37:15 – How Dave thinks about operating for growth vs. profits

40:42 – The right team is necessary

47:53 – Running Upstart through COVID and remotely

55:45 – How does Dave thinks about Share Based Comp

58:46 – What it’s like to manage when a stock is super volatile

1:02:00 – Will Upstart begin to hold credit risk?  Hint: No.

Simeon Siegel is a Managing Director and award-winning Senior Analyst specializing in Retail and E-commerce. Simeon began his career at Goldman Sachs and has since worked on the #1 ranked Retail franchise at JPMorgan, Nomura | Instinet and BMO Capital Markets.

Dubbed "one of the more intellectual students of retail on Wall Street" by WWD, Simeon has been named a Top Retail Influencer by RETHINK Retail, a Top Stock Picker by StarMine, a Rising Star of Wall Street by Institutional Investor, a Rising Star of Equity Research by Business Insider, and a Top Earnings Estimator by Thomson Reuters and Refinitiv. He has worked on the Institutional Investor #1 ranked All America Research Team for Specialty Retail and the Wall Street Journal's "Best on the Street" list of top analysts.

Simeon is in constant dialogue with investors and C-Level Management across the industry, analyzing and advising on the ever-evolving retail landscape. He has guest lectured at Harvard Business School and NYU Stern School of Business and has been featured in a Harvard Business School case study. Simeon is a regular guest on CNBC and frequently quoted across the media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Women's Wear Daily, The Business of Fashion, Barron's, Bloomberg and others.

Simeon received a BA from Columbia University in Economics and Philosophy and is a CFA® charterholder. He serves on the Boards of the Hebrew Free Loan Society and the UJA Entertainment, Tech & Lifestyle Board and is Vice Chair of the UJA Retail, Fashion & Lifestyle Division. He previously served on the Board of Read Ahead.

Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosaic sponsor copy and thank yous.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process.  Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries.  Today, https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week. 70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. Visit

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Business Brew. I'm your host, Bill Brewster. Signing on real quick to let you know that we hit a compliance snag this week. Couldn't get it remedied so we're going to take this week off. The episode is great, you'll hear it next week.   And then the one following is pretty awesome as well so I am looking forward to dropping them, but we do need approval to do so and I appreciate your patience. Will try to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Until next week, enjoy yourselves, invest responsibly, and go spend some time with your family.

Have a good one.

Michael Green stops by The Business Brew to discuss his inelastic market theory, the outlook for inflation, why the market might be too excited about rate normalization, and much more.  Michael is a frequent contributor to Real Vision and has done some phenomenal interviews, which can be found on YouTube.

He has been a student of markets and market structure, for nearly 30 years. His proprietary research into the shift from actively managed portfolios and investment funds to systematic passive investment strategies has been presented to the Federal Reserve, the BIS, the IMF and numerous other industry groups and associations.
Michael joined Simplify in April 2021 after serving as Chief Strategist and Portfolio Manager for Logica Capital Advisers, LLC. Prior to Logica, Michael managed macro strategies at Thiel Macro, LLC, an investment firm that manages the personal capital of Peter Thiel. Prior to Thiel, Michael founded Ice Farm Capital, a discretionary global macro hedge fund seeded by Soros Fund Management. From 2006-2014, Michael founded and managed the New York office of Canyon Capital Advisors, a $23B multi-strategy hedge fund based in Los Angeles, CA, where he established their global macro strategies, managing in excess of $5B of exposure across equity, credit, FX, commodity and derivative markets. In addition to his work as a market theorist and portfolio manager, Michael has been noted for his work as a public speaker and financial media participant. He is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a CFA holder.

Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous.

Please leave us a rating in your favorite podcast player!

This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process.  Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries.  https://streamrg.co/BB features over 300 expert interviews per week.  70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on https://streamrg.co/BB. 

Visit