Dialogue. Business Frameworks from Thousands of Hours of Investing

Alex (0:06)

Welcome to The Synopsis, a Business and Investing Podcast. We're back with another week, and today we're talking about Drew's latest business concepts. Some he has plagiarized and expounded on, others he's created completely out of his own and created analogies that I will say are very original. And how do you say about it? What do you think about that, Drew?

Drew Cohen (0:29)

Interesting the plagiarization claim right off the gate.

Alex (0:33)

Well, listen, I'll say, you're standing on the shoulders of giants and peeking over mountains. How about that?

Drew Cohen (0:40)

Well, I don't know the reference. All right.

Alex (0:42)

Well, you know, okay, well, that's fine. I'll explain the reference later. But today I'm happy because we had our AI discussion last week, and now we're talking more general business concepts, which I think I'm always very fascinated and interesting in trying to get frameworks that can help us understand businesses and investment theses. And I don't think any single one of these is like an ace in the hole, if that makes sense. Oh, yeah, this person's really hitting on the consumer hierarchy of preferences, and that's companies going to go to the moon or something. But I think it allows you to think about situations, circumstances, businesses in unique way as you try to develop differential insights and, you know, differential insights.

Drew Cohen (1:27)

Yeah, well, I actually really like this neuroscientist, kind of turned philosopher Ian McGillchrist, and he does a lot of research on the different hemispheres of the brain. And you wouldn't think that this would be something that is really relevant to this topic here. But it turns out that the right hemisphere of the brain is basically where we kind of understand general ideas, and it kind of helps us understand what's happening in the world. Whereas the left hemisphere of the brain often is where we're processing language, but it's a little bit more specific than that. It's more like it's the part of the brain that cuts things up in the world into more specific categories, if you will. And the reason why I'm bringing this up right now is because what he found was that whenever you hear something that it becomes a cliche, because you've heard it so many times, even if it's true, it stops getting processed in the right side of the hemisphere, and instead gets processed in the left. And as a result of that, you don't actually think through the words that are being said.

And so I think what ends up happening is that over time, certain people come up with business lessons, and the lessons are there, and then we stop thinking about them because they just seem so obvious to us over time. And at that point, we actually need new language and new metaphors in order to reconnect with them and actually think through them again for the first time. And this is like one of my explanations as to why I think these frameworks are helpful, even though you could broadly say there's something similar with the Piton Network, which we'll talk about in like maybe value chain analysis, or even just generally the idea of trade-offs, and then something with the consumer hierarchy preferences definitely very similar to Clay Christensen's job frameworks. I think these are both different frameworks in some respects, and they could do things these older frameworks don't, but broadly speaking, I will admit there's definitely some similarities there. But I think it's still useful to hear new metaphors because when you hear it in this new language, your understanding clicks for the first time ever. Because in the past, if it's something you've heard before, you're not actually processing it. And that was something that Ian McGillchrist actually proved, which was quite interesting.

Yeah.

Alex (3:47)

And I do like you flexing on a couple philosophers and other artists.

I do appreciate that you demonstrate to the audience. It's not just all about creatine and working out behind you. But you do have that bookshelf backdrop where you can... You've read some of the books, which I like.

Drew Cohen (4:03)

Not many books in this background. Got to buff that up.

Alex (4:05)

Not many books in that background. And listen, people are going to think I'm homeless, I'm traveling. So I'm always in a different background. But yeah, I think...

Drew Cohen (4:13)

They weren't thinking you're homeless, but now they are.

Alex (4:15)

You're right.

Drew Cohen (4:18)

I'm around. They weren't thinking about you at all until then.

Alex (4:21)

Yeah, now I've drawn attention to it. So what am I going to do? Listen, I do have a home, so don't worry about me. But let's talk about...