The Legend Michael Mauboussin on Acquired!

We sit down with the one & only Michael Mauboussin to dive deep into his incredible body of work: untangling skill and luck, measuring moats, persistence of returns in venture capital, decision making and — particularly timely — expectations investing and how to think about valuations in the current 2021 market environment. (!!) Michael’s work is maybe our most frequent carve out on Acquired, so we’re pumped to finally have a chance to interview the man himself. Big thank you to Patrick O’Shaughnessy and Brent Beshore for introducing us all at Capital Camp this year!


If you love Acquired and want more, join our LP Community for access to over 50 LP-only episodes, monthly Zoom calls, and live access for big events like emergency pods and book club discussions with authors. We can’t wait to see you there. Join here at: https://acquired.fm/lp/


Sponsors

- Thanks to SoftBank Latin America for being our presenting sponsor for this special episode. If you are an entrepreneur, employee, other investor or simply someone who’s interested in learning about the best young companies in LatAm right now, get in touch with them at: https://bit.ly/acquiredsoftbanklatam , and tell them that Ben and David sent you!
- You can get learn more about careers at their portfolio company QuintoAndar at https://carreiras.quintoandar.com.br
- Thank you as well to Modern Treasury and to Fundrise. You can learn more about them at:
- https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury (and you can find our reverse interview with them at https://www.moderntreasury.com/acquired )
- https://bit.ly/acquiredfundrise


Jobs!

- Big news — we now have a full Acquired Job Board! It’s a one-stop-shop with all the very best opportunities from the amazing companies in the Acquired community, including folks like Solana, Italic, Pilot, RabbitHole, Modern Treasury, Vouch, Zapier, Levels and more. AND, if you’re more casually open to opportunities, we have a form you can fill out and we’ll handpick the best ones and personally send to you as they come up. Check it out at https://www.acquired.fm/jobs


Links:

- Michael’s wonderful talk at Google: https://youtu.be/1JLfqBsX5Lc
- The new revised edition of Expectations Investing: https://www.amazon.com/Expectations-Investing-Reading-Returns-Heilbrunn/dp/0231203047/
- The Success Equation: https://www.amazon.com/The-Success-Equation-Untangling-Investing/dp/1422184234/
- Measuring the Moat: https://research-doc.credit-suisse.com/docView?language=ENG&format=PDF&sourceid=csplusresearchcp&document_id=1066439791&serialid=4uA2wHojCvFKzqWfwIyDvkSN1pkXRpb43LvyclLcJsk%3D&cspId=null
- Public to Private Equity: https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publication/insights/articles/articles_publictoprivateequityintheusalongtermlook_us.pdf


‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.