Sam Hinkie, Boyd Varty, Charlie Songhurst - Trail Magic

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. I'm a long time user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I've been so consistently impressed with that last fall, my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20 million to support Tegus' mission to expand its product ecosystem to unify and streamline investor research processes. In addition to the library of 55,000 transcripts, Tegus now combines at-cost, on-demand calls with a full suite of financial workflows, whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls, Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4,000 fully drivable financial models. Tegus' maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high quality alpha driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.
Before we transition to the episode, I want to highlight the Founders Podcast, which is part of our Colossus Network. David Senra, who hosts Founders, has devoted his life to learning from history's greatest entrepreneurs, and every week he distills the lessons of a different founder. If you want an entry point, I highly recommend starting with episode 136 on Estee Lauder or episode 288 on Ralph Lauren.
I hosted David on Invest Like the Best last summer, and it's hard not to walk away insanely energized after listening to any episode with him. You can find a link to founders and those episodes in the show notes of this conversation. You can also search all past transcripts on our website, joincolossus.com.
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. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:09)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO and founding partner of Positive Sum and the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum or 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 Positive Sum or O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:39)
Hello everyone. Today's episode is a little different. Rather than share a new conversation, I have put together a few of my favorites from the past six and a half years of doing this show. I often listen back to these for inspiration, energy, and their timeless ideas on life and investing. Internally, we call these forever episodes because they'll likely still be as relevant and popular a decade from now as they were when they first aired.
Each of these is a significantly shortened version of the original episode. The first conversation you'll hear is with Sam Hinkie. Sam worked for more than a decade in the NBA, helping pioneer the use of data and analytics, originally with the Houston Rockets and finishing off as the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers. In life after basketball, Sam has launched his own venture capital fund, 87 Capital. Sam's approach to everything is about finding great people and he has taught me more about that topic than just about anybody else.
The second discussion is with Boyd Varty. My original conversation with Boyd way back in 2017 had a huge impact on me and I'm sure you'll hear why. He grew up in the South African wilderness, living amongst and tracking wild leopards. He talks about the art of tracking and how the same strategy for pursuing animals in the wild can be applied to all aspects of our lives. Rather than following well-trodden paths, we should all explore and look for original experiences. Listen for it because he might still have the best answer I've ever heard on the podcast.
The last conversation you'll hear is with Charlie Songhurst. Charlie is the former head of strategy at Microsoft and a prolific investor, having personally invested in nearly 500 companies through his career. Within one minute of meeting Charlie, you can tell that his mind is sparkling with ideas and curiosity. It's no wonder he was among the most commonly requested guests. Charlie would always come up when I asked top investors and CEOs who I should have on the show, and he often still comes up as people's favorite guest.