Team Ritholtz - The Wu Tang Clan of Finance

**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 guests this week don't need to be introduced. In celebration of the one year anniversary of Invest Like the Best, I asked Josh Brown, Mike Batnick and Barry Ritholtz to join me for an hour, during which I spent more time laughing than asking questions. I chose this team because they are the pioneers of mold breaking honesty and personality in our industry. They all figured out that just being themselves yields incredible results. This is a strategy that everyone should try, but very few do. Honesty and transparency require vulnerability, which is hard for most of us. I still struggle with it. But the evidence is in. The Ritholtz team has grown as fast as almost any RIA in the country. Listen to this and tell me you wouldn't want to spend your career working with people this friendly, funny and open. Hell, I want to give them some money just so I have an excuse to drop by more often.
Thank you to everyone who has listened in the past year. We're past one in a quarter million downloads and growing fast.
You own this thing as much as I do because the size helps me penetrate deeper and get the best people, which begets more listeners. This podcast is one hell of a discovery machine, and the first year was just our warm up. We have a ton of new angles, formats and events coming in year two, so stay tuned. But first, time to laugh in celebration of year one. Please enjoy my conversation with Team Ritholtz.
One of the most popular questions the first time that I made up on the spot was asking Josh what stock he was, and he also came up with what stock I was, so I thought I'd have Josh start. So you said I was Google because I'm indexing books, the information in books, and you said you were Twitter or Yum Brands.

**Barry Ritholtz** (2:53)
He asked me Twitter. And we really don't eat fast.

**Josh Brown** (2:56)
Did I say I was Yum Brands?

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:57)
Yes. So Josh's first task is to, Ben's not here, but here in spirit, to assign a stock. What stock is Barry, Mike and Ben?

**Barry Ritholtz** (3:07)
Wow, that's tough.

**Mike Batnick** (3:09)
Barry's a four-time Leonard ETF.

**Josh Brown** (3:13)
Well, that's a great question. So I would say Barry is AT&T.

**Barry Ritholtz** (3:18)
Old school.

**Josh Brown** (3:19)
Because he just does not stop communicating. And he's the old school, he's like the original, we're all spin-offs of Ma Bell, Ma Ritholtz.

**Barry Ritholtz** (3:30)
Mike is Lucent. Pre-bankruptcy.

**Josh Brown** (3:34)
Mike is Bell Labs.

**Barry Ritholtz** (3:35)
Right. That's what Lucent is, became Bell Labs.

**Josh Brown** (3:37)
Oh, so what's what stock is Mike?
I don't know. What do you what do you think?

**Barry Ritholtz** (3:44)
Has to be something recent IPO, something fresh and young.

**Josh Brown** (3:48)
Not Snapchat. Not Snapchat.
No, because he's like up and coming. It's got to be something that's came out and.

**Barry Ritholtz** (3:54)
Like Netflix is already too old.

**Josh Brown** (3:56)
Yeah, Netflix. Right. I don't know. It's a good question. We'll come back to that one. How about Ben?

**Barry Ritholtz** (4:03)
Something from the heartland.
Yeah, for sure. Reducing complexity and. America.

**Mike Batnick** (4:10)
3M.

**Josh Brown** (4:10)
3M. Because. Because. Because. All right. I'll tell you why he's 3M. Then you. Then you give me your answer. Age before beauty.