Dhani Jones - Adventures in Sports, Business, and Investing

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:04)
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, methods, stories, and of strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. You can learn more and stay up to date at investorfieldguide.com.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:24)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is a principal and portfolio manager at O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:46)
My guest this week is unique. As you'll hear early and often, he is programmed to go his own way, to, as he says, go one way when everyone else is going another. His name is Dhani Jones, a name I knew as a Notre Dame football fan because he won a championship with our arch rivals, the University of Michigan in the late 1990s. Dhani went on to a long and successful career in the NFL. But even more interesting are his many pursuits in business and investing outside of football. Like my conversation with Tim Urban, I'll remember this conversation as a reminder to use a first principles mindset. Dhani seems to have this fresh mindset baked into his character, and as you'll hear, it has led to many a great adventure. Please enjoy my conversation with athlete, businessman, investor, philanthropist, movie buff, and bowtie wearer, Dhani Jones.
Let's maybe start with the concept of hard work, so, or just how you think about how hard you are working. You've got one of the most interesting histories and combination of experiences of anyone that's been on this.
Maybe you could, I don't normally do introductions, but given the range of things that you've done, you could start by giving a brief kind of history or outline of some of the things you've done, and we'll dive into each.

**Dhani Jones** (1:53)
Well, that's the thing, I'm trying to streamline all those different things. So when I introduce myself, people might think, oh man, he's doing a lot. But I guess in my mind, it's not. In my mind, it's sort of this beautiful equation of both sports as well as investing, as well as relationship building, as well as just having a good time and living sort of a synchronistic lifestyle. And so sometimes when I sort of expose all that, people just say to themselves, yeah, yeah, it looks like a harbordachery in the middle of Marrakesh and I can't figure out exactly what I want.
I guess I'm giving away the punchline, but it's intentional. And I think at the same time, it's not, because I think there's some very real moments in life where you just have to sort of identify the breeze and move towards it because it's something that's coming. And you wanna be the first one. I think everybody in the investing world always wants to be the first one.
But no one in the investing world wants to take a chance. Right, it's kind of, right?

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:56)
Very well put.

**Dhani Jones** (2:57)
It's like, I wanna be the first one, I'll be the first one. I don't know what's really going on, I don't wanna be the first.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:04)
Everyone wants all the return and none of the risk is what I would put in.

**Dhani Jones** (3:06)
Exactly, so I played in the National Football League for 11 years and I have to say, first, I went to the greatest university in the world, University of Michigan.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:15)
Second greatest.

**Dhani Jones** (3:16)
It's actually the greatest, 1817 We have presidents, we have CEOs, we have chair persons. I mean, we own everything. We basically, I know a lot of people love Buffett, I love Buffett too, but Munger, it's Michigan, just to let you know. I'm just giving you some, the dynamic is pretty amazing. So I'm quite bullish on my university. And I went to the University of Michigan, both my parents were at the University of Michigan, I played football there and it was an amazing experience. Won the National Championship in 1997 And everybody's gonna be like, oh yeah, 97, that was Tom Brady. Yeah, Tom Brady was there, he was on the team. Greasy was the quarterback, just to let you know.
And Tom hadn't come into his own. And it's really amazing to see him do so well and all the different championships. I mean, do so well is kind of an understatement. He might be the greatest all time, the greatest quarterback all time.