Steve Mandel - Investing Behind Change

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode of Invest Like the Best is sponsored by Canalist. Canalist is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. I'd heard of Canalist over the past few years and became more interested after meeting the founder and CEO last year to pick his brain about SaaS businesses.
Founded by a former buy side analyst who encountered friction in sourcing, building and updating models, Canalist is now used by over 300 institutions, including the largest money managers in North America and by a number of guests on the show.
With detailed company-specific models on virtually every investable public equity, Canalist clients are able to react more quickly. If you've been scrambling to keep up with the deluge of IPOs and SPACs these days, Canalist has models on Robinhood, Marketa, Grab, and everything in between. Their pre-IPO models are built as soon as the S1 hits and include all segments, KPIs, and non-GAAP figures. If you're a professional investor and haven't talked to Canalist recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalist for yourself at canalist.com/patrick. That's canalyst.com/patrick.
If you're curious to hear more about Canalist, stay tuned at the end of the episode when I talk to Canalist customer Ryan Cope from American Century Investments to discuss Canalist in more detail. This episode is brought to you by Hall Capital Partners. Hall Capital manages more than $40 billion in global multi-asset class portfolios on behalf of endowments, foundations, and high net worth families with investments managed by distinguished investors, many of whom have been guests on this podcast. Hall Capital is always looking for exceptional investment talent at any stage and size with particular focus on diverse teams, which they believe better drive decisions and outcomes. If you're raising capital or considering doing so, their team is seeking more great investors with which to partner across asset classes. Alternatively, if you're a passionate investor considering a career change, please reach out to Hall Capital to inquire about joining their teams in San Francisco and New York. To learn more, visit hallcapital.com or email invest at hallcapital.com. That's invest at hallcapital.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** (2:35)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is 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 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** (3:00)
My guest today is Steve Mandel, founder of Lone Pine Capital, one of the most successful hedge fund and investment firms of this generation. In our conversation, we discussed how the investing business has evolved since Steve Start in the 1980s, why it's so difficult to drive the alpha by shorting stocks today relative to 20 years ago, and why Steve still loves getting into the guts of a business. Steve shares his lessons through a variety of great stories, which made this such a fun experience. Please enjoy my conversation with Steve Mandel.
Before we transition to my interview with Steve, I'd also like to highlight the newest Colossus show, Business Breakdowns. If you like Steve's idea of getting into the guts of a business, this is the show for you. Please find a list of our episodes at joincolossus.com and subscribe to Business Breakdowns on your preferred podcast player. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Steve Mandel.
So, Steve, an appropriate place to start this, what will be a wide-ranging conversation that I've really been looking forward to is to set the early stage of your career because I think one of the most interesting topics we'll cover is what has changed the most and what has changed the least across your investing career. And when we were talking on the phone in preparation for this, there were some great anecdotes from the mid to late 90s around shorting and the way that information was disseminated through the system and one about Walmart really stood out to me. So I thought that would be an interesting place to start your experience with Walmart, the company, the stock, everything it taught you about investing and about business and how different things used to be back then. So can you talk about your first encounter with Walmart and why that might be an appropriate interesting company to frame our conversation?