Barry Diller - Building An Entertainment Empire

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
The best operators have a relentless focus on leverage, finding ways to multiply their impact rather than just working harder. But here's what I see happening in finance teams everywhere. Brilliant people getting buried in expense management busywork. If you think about it, you become a finance leader because you love strategic work, modeling scenarios, optimizing capital allocation, finding the insights that actually move the business forward. But instead, you're chasing receipts and categorizing transactions. It's the opposite of leverage. This is exactly why I'm so bullish on what the team at Ramp has built. Kareem and Eric understood that every minute spent on manual expense management is a minute stolen from high-leverage work. So they automated all of it. Automatic categorization, receipt matching, spending controls that actually work. I love the network effect that this creates. When finance teams at companies like Shopify and Stripe automate the mundane stuff, they free up cycles to think bigger, to ask bigger questions, spot patterns others miss, and make the kind of strategic bets that separate great companies from good ones. The math is simple. Get your time back, focus on what matters. Check out ramp.com/invest and see what happens when you eliminate the busy work. Long time listeners of this show will know that AlphaSense is the market intelligence platform I've admired for years. It gives institutional investors access to over 500 million premium sources from company filings and broker research to news, trade journals, and more. Plus over 200,000 expert calls covering the world's most important companies and industries. All of it in one platform so investment teams can move faster, go deeper, and make high conviction decisions with confidence. I'm excited to join AlphaSense at their inaugural Alpha Summit 2025 this October in Brooklyn. I'll be on stage alongside leaders from UBS, Wells Fargo, Accenture, Google, Stripes Group, the Carlisle Group, and more to talk about how AI is reshaping investment research and decision making. Alpha Summit is about showing the real workflows and strategies that top firms are using today. The event features an incredible lineup of industry-leading keynote speakers over three days. You'll hear from these industry leaders, connect with peers across finance and corporate strategy, and be part of the conversations you won't find elsewhere. Join me at Alpha Summit 2025, October 6-8 at the refinery at Domino. To register and to see a complete list of speakers and the full agenda, go to alphasense.com/invest.
In asset management, growth often depends on customization. It's the nature of the beast in our industry, and I know having experienced the problem firsthand as an active manager, it's a competitive differentiator to tailor products and services to clients' preferences. Those of us growing our businesses always want to say yes to customers. It means delivering a tailored portfolio, a tailored report, or a tailored expectation for service. Saying yes leads to growth, and it also leads to customization and a big trade-off. The more you grow, the more complexity you absorb. The more you say yes, the harder it is to scale efficiently and consistently. That's where Ridgeline comes in. Ridgeline automates customization. It gives asset managers the ability to deliver personalized experiences at scale without adding headcount, manual work, or operational risk. Having been an early design partner myself, I saw firsthand the power of taking an entirely clean sheet of paper to building the system we've all been waiting for. A front-to-back platform that combines all the firm's core functions on a single data set. It's how leading firms stop choosing between growth and efficiency and start saying yes to both. I believe the best firms will be built on Ridgeline as their operating system. I also believe there'll be a leading case study in combining the power of systems of record and AI. If you haven't spent time with them yet, I urge you to see what Ridgeline might unlock for your business.
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. If you enjoy these conversations and want to go deeper, check out Colossus Review, our quarterly publication with in-depth profiles of the people shaping business and investing. You can find Colossus Review along with all of our podcasts at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:49)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of PositiveSum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of PositiveSum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of PositiveSum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit PSUMVC.