Jim O’Shaughnessy - Premeditated Success

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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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_2** (0:59)
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** (1:21)
My guest this week is my father, Jim O'Shaughnessy. I debated whether or not to do this interview, but many people have asked for it and I'm glad that I did. I had never heard a few of the stories he tells, which is a testament to the power of this kind of interview. My dad was a pioneer of quantitative equity research, part of an early group of explorers that studied factors which predicted future stock returns. While many of his peers were academics, he was pure practitioner from day one. Along with others at our firm, we've been through a lot together professionally, and everyone would agree that the guy has ice water in his veins and unwavering discipline, two traits that can bring you far as an investor. For those looking for a discussion of factor investing, look elsewhere. Because we agree on just about everything in the world of investing, we chose to instead discuss what has been a fascinating career, chock full of business and life lessons.
What's most interesting about our relationship is that he's taught me very few things in particular. Instead, he's opened the doors which have allowed me to learn and experience so much more on my own than I ever could have hoped to learn under his direct tutelage. It's the model for fatherhood that I am using with my kids, and I couldn't be more thankful for the example he has set.
We talk about premeditation, business, learning, books, and his wild experience during the tech boom. For show notes on this episode, visit investorfieldguide.com forward slash Jim. And now, please enjoy my conversation with Jim O'Shaughnessy.
First, thanks for hiring me as a quant intern when I had never even used Excel.

**Jim O'Shaughnessy** (2:54)
Yes, of course. Nepotism at its finest.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:56)
Even though I was really only putting together chairs and desks in the office.

**Jim O'Shaughnessy** (3:00)
That's right. We didn't let you anywhere near a real computer for a while.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:02)
Looking for office space for a while.
This is going to be fun. We will focus as much as we can on hopefully stories people haven't heard beyond just the basic common belief in factors, which we've written about ad nauseum. So I thought a fun place to start would be with the James J. Hill Public Library in St. Paul, Minnesota.

**Jim O'Shaughnessy** (3:23)
And this is also fun for me because I didn't even know you had a podcast. So this is kind of cool.
So James J. Hill is a research library in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I grew up. And as you know, my grandfather had been very successful in the oil business, ended up giving away probably 90% of his money during his own lifetime. But the balance went into a foundation, and my uncles and aunts would come to St. Paul once a quarter to discuss grants and also investments. And I was allowed, when I was a teenager finally, to sit in on these dinners.
And what interested me the most, I think, was listening to my dad argue with my uncle about whether IBM was a good stock or not. And it was all about personalities. It was all about things that didn't seem to resonate with me at all. And I kind of thought, well, IBM is a good or bad company based not on who the chairman is, but there's got to be some measurement like PE or whatever.