Shane Battier - The No-Stats All-Star

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode of Invest Like the Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. Founded by a former buy side analyst who encountered friction sourcing, building and updating models, Canalyst is now used by over 400 institutions, including the largest money managers globally, and by a number of guests on the show.
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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, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money.
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**SPEAKER_2** (1:35)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO and founding partner of PositiveSum 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 PositiveSum 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 PositiveSum or O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:07)
Today's episode is a special one in a format that may turn into a series. It is a conversation between Ravi Gupta and Shane Battier. Ravi is a partner at Sequoia, one of our most popular past guests and a good friend. Shane is Ravi's friend and one of the most successful basketball players ever, having won championships and awards at the high school, college and NBA levels. I spent 10 years as a purely quantitative investor. So naturally I was obsessed with data and sports. When I was meeting with prospective investors, Michael Lewis' book Moneyball, which chronicled the data analytics revolution in baseball, was my go-to analogy to explain what I did. Moneyball, but for investing. I used that line for years.
I've learned firsthand that it's wise to follow your curiosity, no matter how strange or different it may be. The podcast is just my curiosity tour. And years ago, it led me to Sam Hinkie, who is himself on the Mount Rushmore of analytics and sports.
Sam introduced me to Ravi. Then Ravi sent me Michael Lewis' article written about Shane called The No Stats All-Star. I highly recommend you read it.
All the serendipity around friends, data, investing, and sports gave me an idea. Why not ask Ravi to interview Shane? There were so many valuable ideas in the Michael Lewis article, I thought we'd get even more in a real taped interview with someone that knew Shane well, and that's exactly what happened.
Ravi likes the idea of playing for the front of the jersey, not the back. It's hard to imagine someone that's lived that more than Shane. Shane shares his story, lessons learned from various coaches, and using data as an advantage. He also explains the four kinds of teams that he's encountered, which I found simple and memorable. I hope you enjoy this great conversation, and if you have ideas for other iconic duos we could bring on in a similar format, DM me on Twitter. Thank you so much to Ravi and Shane for kicking off Thanksgiving Week for us all.

**Ravi Gupta** (3:54)
Shane, here we are, podcast. Looking forward to it.

**Shane Battier** (3:59)
I'm so excited. So excited. It's been a long time coming, baby. Let's do this.

**Ravi Gupta** (4:03)
That's right. I can't wait. All right, where to begin? Okay, we're hit a bunch of topics today, but we got to start at No Stats All-Star. And for those of you that don't know, it's an article that the one and only Michael Lewis wrote about my good friend Shane.
And the article is a gold mine. I would encourage everyone to read it, but I'm gonna pick a quote for us to get started.
Here it is. It involves a little diss of you, Shane, but it ends up pretty strong. Here we have a basketball mystery, a player widely regarded inside the NBA as at best a replaceable cog and a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win. I mean, it's a pretty cool sentence. So tell us about the article, tell us about what people typically measure in basketball and tell us what actually matters to winning.