Investing Unscripted Podcast 110: When Stocks Make a Comeback with Jason MoserNew Post

Note: All transcripts are edited for clarity. We may earn commissions from some (not all) links. Thanks for the scratch.

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Jason Hall: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Investing Unscripted, where we ask and answer the hard questions about investing. And of course, we love to have great people on to answer those questions with us. We've got a special guest today that we're going to get to in just a minute. I am Jason Hall. He is Jeff Santoro.

He is my dear friend. He's also the voice of the people. Hey, Jeff. 

Jeff Santoro: [00:01:00] Hey, how are you? 

Jason Hall: I'm good. I'm very good. Getting ready for a little summer vacation time coming up. So, uh, excited about that. I'm glad we're, we're getting into a great conversation with a good friend and a longtime colleague of ours. 

Jeff Santoro: Yeah.

This. This worked out perfectly because based on the things we've been talking about the last couple episodes, I thought, and you thought too, that it would be great to have a conversation about those in-between stocks in our portfolios. The one that we, the ones that we can't bring ourselves to add to, but we're not ready to sell yet and how to manage that and how to think about that.

So that'll be part of our conversation. We'll go in some other directions too, uh, looking forward to it. 

Jason Hall: I'm excited to have somebody that actually is an expert at answering these sort of questions with us. Jeff. Somebody I've known for a very long time. The first time I ever went to the Motley Fool's headquarters. Oh man, I guess it's definitely somewhere around a decade ago. Jason Moser, Motley Fool senior analyst is here with us. Hey JMO. 

Jason Moser: Hey buddies. How are y'all? 

Jeff Santoro: We're good. Thanks for coming on. 

Jason Moser: Well, [00:02:00] thank you for having me. I got to say expert is a very strong word. I would never use that describing myself, but I appreciate the, um, the kind of sentiments but yeah, I think Jason, just to your point there, a decade, 15 years, I think it was right around 13 or so years ago, I've been at The Fool going on 15 years, about 14 and a half years now. And we met very early in, um, so yeah, 2012, 12 years ago, it was 2012. There you go. Been a long time. 

Jason Hall: It has, it has. You know what that means? 

Jason Moser: That means a lot of things. 

Jason Hall: It means we're getting older. 

Jason Moser: Yeah, that's right. I was going to say, I mean, every birthday our kids have, they get to remember we have one too, right?

Jason Hall: That's, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Speaking of birthdays. Uh, Jason, you know, I love telling this story. Every time we interact with people, every time we see each other again, and there's other people around, maybe we're introducing to one another. So Jason's father actually delivered, delivered me at birth.

Um, that's a lie. Um, [00:03:00] yeah, Jason's father worked in the hospital that I was born in, in South Georgia, and Jason and I share a birthday. So of course, I conflate that to tell people that Jason's father gave birth to me, which is not true. Um, it sounds good. It's, it's a fun- 

Jeff Santoro: It's a funnier story that way.

That's for sure. 

Jason Moser: Well, the birth, the birthday is one thing. You know, but then when you, when you talk about the hospital, like most people probably have not heard of Moultrie, Georgia or Colquitt County, which is where my father is stationed. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. Colquitt County Medical Center. 

Jason Moser: Yep. Yeah. And, and so my mom and dad have lived down there, I'm not from there originally, but they moved down there or something, I don't know, like 20, 25 years ago, something like that. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jason Moser: Yeah. And, and it, you know, just a small, lovely little town in Georgia, but most people just never heard of it. It's just Southwest Georgia, about an hour North of Tallahassee, Florida.

Um, so when you meet someone with that connection, that, as [00:04:00] Sheriff Buford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit would say, is an attention getter. 

Jason Hall: Well put. Well put. So, that's our weird little connection. Jason, I know your background a little bit. You and I, like I said, we've. A lot of water under this bridge, but let's talk about your origin story.

How you came to investing as a starting point, how you came to the Motley Fool is kind of the next step and kind of the background that you've, that you've built that makes you know, you don't call yourself an expert. We can at least call you a professional. 

Jason Moser: Yeah, professional, I'll go with that. That's good.

I think we're always working to get to that expert level and hopefully, uh, feel like you never quite get there. That means you're always aspiring to be more, but yeah, I mean, investing for me started thankfully at a, at a young age, my father, um, as, as, as we mentioned, he's, he's a physician by trade but he's always enjoyed investing in so specifically, I can look back to my childhood in, um, when I was in eighth grade.

And he would give me a ride to school every [00:05:00] morning because it was on his way to work, uh, back when we lived in Charleston, South Carolina. And he just would talk to me on, on the way to school about investing, about this latest stock that he heard about, you know, he was always talking kind of within his circle of competence as a doctor.

Which I thought was interesting because I learned a little bit more, you know, not only in regard to investing, but also in regard to what was going on in his professional life. But that's where the conversation started. And then as I got older, uh, I think right around 17 or 18 years old, he opened up a brokerage account for me.

I mean, at the time, I think it was Everett Jones, just because those were the options that existed. Uh, there were, there was no online brokerage at the time. And he would start giving me stock as Christmas gifts. I mean, one year he gave me some shares of Dell one year. He gave me some shares of Walgreens.

And the idea was just. Buying stocks that he knew that he felt like would pique my interest and prompt me to learn a little bit more. And I did, uh, you know, I went to college, majored in [00:06:00] economics, got out and did a number of different things for work that ultimately led me to, um, after I got married.

My wife and I, we traveled some overseas with her, uh, job and we were in Kazakhstan of all places, Astana, Kazakhstan, just in the middle of, of the freezing cold there. And it was. I guess it was 2005 or something like that. Uh, yeah, maybe it was 2005, 2006, I guess. And, and, and just we were sitting there in our house in Kazakhstan.

It was freezing outside, so I'm just fiddling around on the internet. And I just ran across an article that was linked to fool.com. I had no idea what fool.com was. I clicked on it. I remember the article was about Joy Global. And clicked on it and then that just kind of got me going down the rabbit hole of what was in this Motley Fool universe.

And I just kind of quickly became hooked. I was just like, wow, this, these are my people. I want to learn more. And so then I started [00:07:00] looking at all the services and, um, and learning more about the different services. And, and so I just stuck with it first and foremost as a member. And, and, um, then believe it or not, the job that, that, uh, we were working had a connection that introduced me to Matty Argersinger, who's, uh, you know, I'm sure of folks out there who know The Fool know him.

And, and so Matty kind of helped light the fire under me to pursue an opportunity with the Analyst Development Program at The Fool. And the rest, as they say, is history. I got the job in 2010 and, uh, just have not looked back. 

Jeff Santoro: That's so interesting that It started at such a young age for you. Cause I laughed at myself because if I try to talk to either of my kids about stocks, they just make fun of me for being such a, such a nerd about it.

So I'm, this is, I want to ask this question because I've known your voice and you as a podcast guest for As long as I've been interested in investing, the Motley Fool podcasts were one of the first things I kind of came across as I became [00:08:00] interested in this back in 2020. So I know a good amount about what stocks you're interested in from the Motley Fool services side of things, because you've talked about that because that was our Motley Fool podcast, but I'm actually curious.

And I think our listeners who are also Motley Fool podcast listeners might be interested to know a little bit more about. The kind of investor you are personally, like what kind of stocks or sectors you're interested in? Are you all in stock? Do you have index funds? Like as much of that as you're willing to kind of go down and talk about, I think that would be interesting for people to know.

Jason Moser: Yeah, sure. I, I think so for me, One of the things when I first got to The Fool, and I, that was a question I had to sort of ask myself going through the analyst development program was what kind of investor am I, because there was always this, this sort of, well, you're either a growth investor or you're a value investor.

And at the time when I got hired at The Fool, there was a very heavy tilt towards value investing. And, and I didn't know at the time I was like, what am I? So I started [00:09:00] kind of learning more and I found very quickly, one of the things that attracted me to Motley Fool was all of the different services that we had.

Now the service landscape at the time was considerably different than it is now. But at the time, I mean, we had Stock Advisor. Which 

Jason Hall: is considerably different than it was six weeks ago.

Jason Moser: Yeah, exactly. It changes quickly, doesn't it? But at that time, back in 2010, I'm sure a lot of folks, long time fools will remember.

I mean, we were pretty simple. We had stock advisor, rule breakers, income investor, uh, inside value and hidden gems, and so we kind of scratched every little itch there. Whether you were growth, value, general income. small caps. And so what I discovered quickly was that I've always just considered myself a foolish investor.

I like all of it. Now my job today. I mean, I work a couple of different services that focus primarily on immersive technology and, uh, sort of five G mobile connectivity in the economy that's coming from our growing reliance on connectivity. So it definitely [00:10:00] tilts more tech. Today more than it has in the past.

But a lot of that is just kind of the coverage in my job in, in, and many folks might remember that for a few years, I did a podcast called industry focus with Matt Frankel, where we talked exclusively about financials. And that was, that was an area that I really enjoy learning more about, particularly with Matt, because I, I mean, I would, I would put Matt up there with, you know, in expert class when it comes to financials and banks and things like that.

So, what I've really enjoyed. As, as just a, an investor in my job is expanding my circles and learning more about all of that stuff. Now, with that said, the coverage that I might offer on the podcast or in my services, because they're so work specific, they're not fully reflective of my entire portfolio.

I mean, I think today I own probably 35 total companies. I do have an index fund to sort of protect myself from myself. Um, and I've also seen how I've gotten [00:11:00] older. My tastes have expanded a little bit. I certainly have more interest in dividend stocks today. Then I did 15 years ago, right? But I'm also looking at it from the perspective of my retirement portfolio and thinking, Hey, I want to make sure I have some of those income generating investments in my later years that can provide that steady cash.

So I think that's the fun part about investing is it never really stops, right? It's always fluid, always changing. And, and, um, the idea really is to kind of keep on expanding those, those circles. 

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Hey, Investing Unscripted listeners. My name is Brett, one of the hosts of the Chit Chat Stocks podcast. If you love Investing Unscripted, we think you will love listening to Chit Chat Stocks on our show. We research individual stocks, interview investing experts and well, chitchat about investing every week.

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Jason Hall: See, my portfolio is built a little different. I've got 90 some odd stocks. 60 or so of them that I've picked out myself and about 35 that have done really well that others have told me that were really good to protect myself from myself.

Jason Moser: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and that's just it. It's, you, you learn very quickly in this, in this, uh, in this life that we, we don't. We don't get them all right, not even anywhere close. And, and so I think that's one of the things you come to that realization sooner rather than later. And, and it really, really benefits you.

It's not feeling like you have to be so perfect. It's not about perfection. Um, I think it's really, it's more about patience, you 

Jeff Santoro: know? 

Jason Hall: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. I really like that the way you frame that Jason, the, uh, protecting yourself from yourself for that. Because I came to investing in individual stocks so late in my, I don't want to say late in my life, you know, 20 something odd years into my investing life.

[00:14:00] I started for the first time being interested in investing in individual stocks. So just by virtue of all that time that has passed, something like, I don't know, 88 percent of my invested wealth along with my wife's is in index funds and ETFs just because we were just dollar cost averaging into our 401ks and stuff like that.

So, but I don't want to get too far away from that too quickly as I'm still learning because it is a hedge against myself. 

Jason Moser: Well it is. And I think, you know, it's funny because I mean. When you look at the two, the two different styles, I mean, investing in individual stocks is really fun because it's all, you're always learning something new you're, you're making, you're making a little bit more of a decision there, I guess.

And, and, and, you know, in, in picking a specific company and feeling like that, that's got a, an opportunity in front, whereas I mean, a lot of people probably look at ETFs from mutual funds, which are, are tremendous vehicles, they're just not the most exciting, right? It is kind of, you just set and forget it and you keep on going on with life.

And I think that's, that's one of the things about investing is a lot of people [00:15:00] think like you always have to be doing something and I guess I just fortunately learned this early on in my time with The Fool is it just reiterated it. And oftentimes the best action is just inaction. Just kind of keep on moving forward, work your job, keep making money and keep on getting that money, putting that money to work for you.

The nice thing is there are a lot of different ways to do it. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. I think one of the biggest insights that I came to is along those lines and it's something that Jeff and I, we've actually talked a lot about recently on the podcast is, you know, I do think we should always be doing something.

The problem is this, what the something we should be doing almost always has nothing to do with actually making changes in our portfolio. And Jeff described it in this eloquently simple statements. Learn, don't trade. I like that. I like that. Where are you? Where are 

Jeff Santoro: you? It's a way to scratch the itch 

Jason Moser: without clicking the button, right?

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. 

Jason Moser: no, that's a great way to look at it. I [00:16:00] mean, that's really the fun of it. Is that. I look at things that I do in my life today, whether it's golf or watercolor painting or investing. And the nice thing about those is they, you're never going to, you're never going to crack the code. You're never going to have it all figured out.

It is a lifelong endeavor. And so for me, that's, that's, I think that's why I'm so attracted to those types of things because I know that as long as I'm physically Capable. And as long as my mind isn't completely, uh, you know, off, off the reservation, I'm going to be able to do those things and, and have fun doing them.

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. And the other thing too, about the whole ETFs are not as exciting kind of way of looking at it. It goes back to nobody want, not a lot of people are willing to get rich slowly. And, you know, so I'm, I'm, I think about this because as I talk to people in my life, I have very few. Of my friends are interested in investing.

So it's, I have no, this is why I do a podcast because this is, I could have actually find people who want to talk about [00:17:00] investing with me. But what's interesting to me is how many is, is how many people if they are invested, if they are interested in stocks, the people that I know it's because they look at it as a way to get, Money quick.

And it's, you know, Oh, I want to get Nvidia now because it's going to go up more or whatever the scenario is. And it's very few people are like, I'm happy to just wait 30 or 40 years. So 

Jason Moser: I think, I think that's the conversation I have with most people who are, who are just looking to learn more and get into it.

It's that, it's that. That common perception of, well, I'm going to get rich quick. And we all know that's not how it works. That's why I've, I've always, I've always argued. I think it is so crucial that you, you teach this stuff to your kids, right? If you're a parent and you have, you have young children, you really should be teaching like saving is a learned behavior.

Investing is a learned behavior. Anybody can do it. All you have to do is kind of know how to do it and then, and then pass it on. And so like with our girls, they're a rising sophomore, rising freshmen in college now. But I got them started [00:18:00] building their own portfolios back when they were like five and six years old.

And we were just kind of doing that, that foolish sort of investing style of finding companies that they were interested in. I mean, they're not, they're not, it's not rocket science. They own Apple. They own Amazon, right? They own Starbucks. They own those companies, Nike, they own those companies. And then it was funny.

I saw my older daughter who is, is. She's, she's working and had some money to do something with. And she opened up this of her own volition. I was really impressed. She opened up an IRA that linked with her brokerage account. And so she was very interested in back to the ETF conversation, getting some exposure to something like an ETF where she could, you know, Become a little bit more diversified, get something that she could continue to add to over the course of the next 40 years.

And, and she's, she's looking at it from that perspective at 19 years old. She sees this as something that she's going to be working on for the next 40 years plus, and, and that as investing nerds, we love to hear that, right? That's a win. Yeah, [00:19:00] that's a win. And I mean, my, my younger daughter. Same path, same thing.

And, and so it's just exciting to see. And, um, but yeah, I think it really just goes to speak to the advantages of getting started young. I was very lucky that my dad just got me started young and interested in, in my wife and I wanted to make sure that we, we took advantage of that with our kids. 

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. I, my kids are, um, 15 and 12 and they both have a little stock portfolios.

My older one has a Roth IRA cause he has a job now. And what I told the older one was. I talk about like building habits early. I said, if you decide right now from this very first paycheck, you're going to put at least 10 percent of everything you make into an investing, an investment account, and you just commit to that now as a percentage, you'll be absolutely fine when you're my age.

Like that's how, that's how I framed it to him because I never thought of it in percentages when I was younger. I thought of it in dollar amounts, which was dumb. [00:20:00] And if I had just picked a percentage, I would have grown with my income and, you know, been in a better position. But the other day I asked him, uh, because he's got his summer job again, and I asked him what he wanted me to do.

Just put it in an ETF or buy some more of his individual stocks. So he looks at his portfolio and he goes like, I want more Costco and Apple. And it's exactly because he goes to Costco and knows it's really popular and people are there and he knows Apple, he loves their products. And I was like, that's exactly.

That David, that David Gardner mentality, just 

Jason Moser: add to those winners. The winners tend to keep on winning. And I mean, that's just such a great way to look at it. And, um, yeah, the, you know, the challenge at that age is just, I mean, you know, when you're that age, you feel you're just immortal. Like you're, it, it, you don't think about time the same way that you think about it 30, 30 years down the road.

Yeah. And, um, that's, that I think is the challenge is, is trying to get people to sort of think that way. Even though really biologically, they're not programmed to think that way at that point in their lives. 

Jason Hall: Delayed gratification [00:21:00] is so difficult. And one of the things I wanted to just touch on quickly before we pivot here is, you've talked before about planting those seeds with your kids of saving.

And putting money aside and like getting them thinking about that because it's like everything else in life. Nobody ever really rises to the occasion. You sink to the level of your training, right? And it's the same way when it comes to money, skills and finance and investing. It's those early seeds that you plant and still in those behaviors that your kids can build on.

And I, you know, I really appreciate that. That's one of the things that. Jason, I've actually learned from you and listening to you on some of the podcasts and stuff over the years. 

Jason Moser: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's exactly it. I mean, it's just, just a little nudge at a young age can really have a profound impact for, for someone over the course of their life.

Jeff Santoro: Yeah, for sure. All right. So here's, here's something, this is the biggest reason I wanted to have you specifically on the show here, Jason Moser. And that's because [00:22:00] We, there's, uh, I have some specific stocks in mind that I know, you know, well, and, and they fit exactly into this category for me, which is I own them.

I don't want to sell them. They're struggling. And so I don't want to add to them either because I'm not quite sure if, if like the struggles are a real thing or just a temporary thing. So I think it'd be fun to have a conversation, you know, with you and, and with my less informed Jason here.

Jason Hall: Let's just call me dumb Jason.

Jeff Santoro: Dumb Jason, other Jason, lesser Jason, whatever. But just like, how do you think through that? Like, what are, what are some of the things, you know, we talk a lot on our podcast about having like the investor toolbox, like, so what are the, some of the things in your toolbox that help you navigate that both from like a mindset standpoint, but also just like, how do you, what do you look at?

How do you track whether it's going to get back on track or never will. And when do you decide to bail? Like that whole thing. I'm just curious how you think about that specific scenario. 

Jason Moser: Yeah, I think so. I will say over, over the years I have become less less prone to bailing. I [00:23:00] tend to adopt a little bit more of that, that Tom and David Gardner sort of mindset.

I mean, Tom, I think came out with something several years back that, that really has stuck with me. Whatever you think you're taught your holding period is for a given stock, double it right off the bat, just double it. So if you think you're going to own it for five years. Double it to 10 and David very much, uh, in similar fashion, David, David will be the first day he just doesn't, he doesn't do a lot of selling, right?

I mean, you understand that this is not a game of perfection, but rather one of patience. And so the losers, as you continue to invest, if you continue to invest in your winners, the losers should become less and less of, of, of a problem in your portfolio now from a, from a service perspective, if I'm running a service, I have to look at it a little bit differently just because they service.

Uh, and idea service is far different than like real life investing. But, but I would just say that as time has gone on, I tend to not be so hasty. I don't sell a whole heck of a lot. [00:24:00] And I'll also go back to one, um, one sort of, uh, axiom. One sort of snippet that stood out to me several years back. And you guys, I know, you know, Tim Hanson Tim used, used to work with us at The Fool and he's, he's off doing other things now, but I just remember him saying one guest on 

Jason Hall: this here podcast.

Jason Moser: Oh yeah. Yeah. That's you know, I, I did see that by the way. That's good. Yeah, Tim. Super nice guy, obviously very well schooled. And I learned a lot from him as a member and then leading into my, my early days at The Fool. Uh, but one thing that he said to me, and just, it sticks out to me today. Still, it was just, he made this new year's resolution one year to not sell a stock.

So January 1st, my new year's resolution is I'm not going to sell any stocks this year. And that kind of lines up with that Tom and David mentality. I was, I was mentioning earlier. And then, and then also that, that old Buffett saw that. You know, he says, Hey, buy, buy a business that you'd be happy to own over the next 10 years of the market [00:25:00] closed tomorrow.

Now, do they all work out? No, right. That's, that's just the nature of the game. But I think that, you know, when we're looking at it from an analytical perspective, you're looking at businesses for meaning that every company has metrics that matter. Right. And so following just those numbers, those metrics, whether it's.

Revenue growth or whether it's margin expansion or whether it's the installed base or the recurring revenue. Those to me, I mean, I think following those metrics on a quarterly basis, I'll always give you a good idea as to, to how a business is doing, whether it's, whether it's actually making progress or not, uh, you can get an idea as to whether they're gaining market share, look at some of their competitors and see other competitors are doing.

I also, I keep a very, a very good eye on what management says they're going to do. Uh, I, I don't really worry so much about the, uh, what Wall Street's expectations are. I mean, those are all just, you know, average analyst expectations and everybody's got an opinion, but none of them actually work for the company.

So, I, I really care more than the company. More importantly, 

Jason Hall: their, their, their actual core [00:26:00] job is not really tied to the things that they publish that they put out for public consumption. Exactly, 

Jason Moser: exactly. So, I mean, you think about those Charlie Munger incentives quotes and that kind of gives you a little bit more to think on there, right?

Um, yeah, I mean, I like to see that management is doing what they say they're going to do. I think if you see over the stretch of several quarters where, where they are not. Or they're changing their tone or they're changing their narrative. Then you start to get some ideas as to maybe these guys aren't fit for this job.

Maybe the CEO isn't the right person in the role. And then you start asking yourself the question, well, is this a good business with poor leadership? And is it really leadership that's holding the business back? And if a change in leadership could make a difference those are, those are things to keep in mind as well.

Um, and, and so, so that's, that's generally how I look at it. I don't get too terribly worked up on. Selling these days. But but there are situations where you have a business that you're sitting there hanging on [00:27:00] to it. You know, I mean, I'll use I think a great one that I actually put it on hold in in one of our in the services that I work on.

I mean, when we talked about a million times of the podcast before Teladoc health. I mean, I think that stands out as a terrific example of a company that in the early days. Had this tremendous opportunity and was building up this, this brand recognition in this, in this nascent space. I, as a user just had seen the benefits there of, of, um, of, of virtual health care and, and that's not a fad.

I mean, more and more companies are working. 

Jason Hall: Well, I want to say, I want to say, uh, JMO, that when you say the early days, you don't mean April of 2020, we're talking multiple years before the pandemic. 

Jason Moser: Yeah. I'm talking about well before that. I mean, I, I was following care about health when it IPO'd. So I think that, that dated maybe back to 2015 or 17, I'm not sure which one.

Yep. 

Jason Hall: No, that's exactly right. The, the, the, all of the demographic trends with aging population, the healthcare system losing a lot of skilled workers, hospitals closing, [00:28:00] the consolidation in that industry pushing out so many of smaller hospitals and that kind of stuff. People being, you know, six hours away from a specialist, all of those things, cost of care going up.

Like it directly pointed at this, this company. Like their core value being exactly what the healthcare industry needed and what consumers of health care. 

Jason Moser: Yes. Scaling healthcare. I mean, one of the bigger challenges but something that absolutely is going to need to be done. But, but you could start to see in, in, in really the, the peak of this was when.

They made the acquisition of Livongo. Now I'm not necessarily knocking, acquiring Livongo, but I am absolutely knocking what they paid for it. That was just, that was criminal. 20 billion. It was something like 13 and a half billion dollars. It was a large, very large number. Yeah. Utterly criminal. And, and I don't hold just the CEO accountable because I mean, I have to believe the board played, played a role in that as well.

But I mean, I remember thinking at the time I was like, man, that's insane. The only, the only thing I could think [00:29:00] was, well, maybe I mean the chronic conditions, the, the, the neat thing about chronic conditions is they are chronic. They need full and lifelong attention. So maybe there's something there that we're missing.

And then it just became very clear as time went on. And when I put the company on hold several months back, I said, you know what? I think this is a business with a lot of potential. I don't dismiss the market opportunity, right? Scaling healthcare is something that absolutely is going to have to be done and will be done.

And I also didn't want to take away from the fact that they made an acquisition of BetterHelp back in the day for something like 30 million and they turned that into a 1 billion revenue business. But that Livongo deal wiped all of that out and then some. And the point I noted in my hold piece after listening to one final earnings call, I said there is no way in my mind that this CEO is fit for this role.

He seems completely over his head and just has no clue what to do. And lo and behold. A few weeks later you know, obviously I'm not saying I had anything to do with this, but a few weeks later, CEO's [00:30:00] gone, he's out, and now they have a new CEO. And, um, I think, uh, Rick, Rick Davida or something, Davida is the last name, but, but regardless you know, they have new leadership in place and then we will be able to at least assess right from there.

Okay. I'm going to give new leadership a chance. 

Jason Hall: Leadership or business, right? Which is it? Right. 

Jason Moser: I mean, I think there's, there's, there's a business there. But, but clearly you need, you need the vision of leadership. And I think there are other examples out there, whether it's DocuSign or, or Twilio. Right.

I mean, good businesses that maybe leadership was a little bit beyond what they could do. And sometimes you just need new leadership in there to be able to take a business to the next level. 

Jason Hall: I have a chart that I'm gonna bring up on the screen for us. Of course, charts are amazing for podcasts, podcasts, charts, really amazing.

Um, but we'll have it on the YouTube channel for anybody that wants to check it out, but I just, I love this chart because this is maybe one of my favorite charts of all time. This is [00:31:00] Goodwill for Teladoc jumping from, I don't know what exact number it was, probably $200 million, $300 million in 2021. Jumps to $14 billion, $13, $14 billion.

Jason Moser: I mean, think about that. That's, that's, that's laughable almost. This was that one deal. This was how much in excess way. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. Yeah. But they didn't even make it two years. 

Jason Moser: No, they, they started writing that stuff down almost immediately. 

Jason Hall: Yeah, yeah, it was just exceptionally quick that they started writing it down, but I'll describe the chart and the best way to describe it is that it looks like Teladoc is flipping you off.

Jason Moser: Yeah, it's, it's the, it's a message to its shareholders. Yeah, cup cup and handle candlestick. Well, that's the middle finger pattern, right? Exactly. That's what that is. And so, yeah, I mean, I, and the, and the other thing I will say too, and I want to make sure I get this point across, because. It, it, you couple this, I think, with the fact that, you know, you're not going to get everything right.

[00:32:00] Position sizing matters, right? And I, and I think that's really important for people to remember. And just to give you some quick guidelines as to, to the way I look at position sizing and the services that I run at work we talk about, you break these ideas down into your stalwart type companies, but you're real solid, just, just bedrock companies that you can rely on.

You got sort of your middle ground, what we call proven winners. And there are companies that are succeeding and kind of making that way, making their way towards stalwart status. And then you've got your high flyers, which are kind of those rule breaker style ideas, which. Typically smaller companies, but they're just, they're not fully proven yet, but they have a lot of 

Jason Hall: potential and they're exciting.

They're probably disrupting something. And if they disrupt it, there's a ton of money that they can make. 

Jason Moser: That's exactly right. And so when you look at something like a stalwart company, we would, we would, we would say you could have five or 6 percent of your overall portfolio in that business. And with a proven winner, you can have three or 4 percent with a high flyer idea.

And, and let's be very clear. Teladoc, Twilio, DocuSign, those types of [00:33:00] companies. Those are high flyer ideas. You don't want any more than one or 2 percent of your portfolio, right? Because if something works out, then, then that's great. If it doesn't work out, it won't be fatal. And that I think is just something for people to remember is that position sizing really does matter.

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. I, I loved all of that, that you just went through there. And the thing that stuck out to me, cause it's. It was affirming for me because it I think this is the way I think about the selling thing is I try to see if there's still some story that I can believe in for the future. Yeah. And if there is, I'll just wait and be patient.

Yeah. Um, I, and it's funny also that you mentioned Tim Hanson's, uh, New year's resolution to not sell a stock for the whole year. Cause now I have to confess to our audience that I, I too made that commitment to myself for this year. We've talked about it before, but I broke it. I broke it last week because I did sell one stock, but, but I hold on.

I want to defend myself. It's a stock he needed to sell. I wanted, I want to defend myself to, to both [00:34:00] you, you, Jason Moser, who doesn't know this background, but also to our audience who might. I, I have a lot of stocks in my portfolio. I bought when I was. Brand new, just completely because they were a recommendation in like stock advisor.

And I just blind blindly, like it was Thursday at 11 and I hit by right. And I'm, the reason I felt okay with this breaking of my new year's resolution for this one particular company is I, I spent a much longer time than I normally do thinking about whether I wanted to sell or not. And it met a couple thresholds for me, which was, it was a company I'd never really had conviction in.

At all, because I bought it just because someone told me to, and I couldn't see a path forward. Like I, I didn't believe that I saw a clear enough way for this company to be successful in the future. So I kind of felt okay there. Cause in the past I've done, I've sold for all sorts of stupid reasons and some of them have worked out and a lot of them have not.

So if you don't mind, I want to ask about a couple specific ones that I think you're, I know too that you're probably familiar with and maybe the [00:35:00] third. So I'm dying to hear your thoughts on Outset Medical. Yeah. Because it's one I've talked about on this podcast a lot. I probably, the audience is tired of hearing about it, but they're going to suffer.

Jason Hall: We just, we just, we just in the background, if you listened, you would have heard the sound of dozens of people groaning. 

Jeff Santoro: You know what? I don't care. They already downloaded it. It counts. As a little fast forward. Um, 

Jason Hall: Ad money. Cha ching.. 

Jeff Santoro: So here's my quick thing on, on outset, Jason, and then I'm curious what you think that the reason I keep holding is because the growth metrics I watch seem to still be heading in the right direction.

Yes, they're not profitable. Yes, they're burning cash. Yes, revenue has slowed, but it seems like adoption of their device. It's still heading in the direction, especially considering the fact that they had that, that hold on their, the one version of their device for so long. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. 

Jeff Santoro: And I think if it just to use your way of describing it, I think it absolutely falls into that high flyer category and it's a tiny piece of my portfolio.

I'm not. Backing up the truck for this company, but I also in the back of my [00:36:00] mind think to myself, I could be totally wrong about this because I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I don't work in the medical industry. But I guess it's like I, I, to, to crib something we've been stealing from our friend, Tyler Crowe.

I have enough conviction not to sell. Yeah. So I'm just curious, like where your head is on that company specifically. And if that fits into that bucket for you of like the things you look for are heading in enough of the right direction that it's worth not selling yet. 

Jason Moser: Yeah, I like that enough conviction not to sell.

I think outsets another very absolutely right as a high flyer. So position sizing there, it shouldn't be something that makes up a whole heck of a lot of your portfolio. Um, and it's one that they have suffered. The company has suffered from sort of a confluence of events here. Some unforced. Self inflicted errors, right?

Some self inflicted sort of unforced errors. And then also this, this tidal wave of, of, of the implications of what GLP 1 drugs could potentially do. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. 

Jason Moser: And I remember when I, When I put it on hold [00:37:00] initially in the service, and it's not on hold anymore. I took it back off of hold because ultimately the reason why I put it on hold, those, those reasons have been more or less resolved.

They had, right, the Tableau cart, that, that part of the device you're, you're referring to that, that is, is part of that Tableau device, that hemodialysis machine. And, and it wasn't the first time they had done this. Sometimes they kind of. They kind of shoot first and aim second, right? Or they, they ask for forgiveness later.

Um, when it comes to the FDA with a business like this, there's clearance stuff that really does, that really does come into play. It's a 

Jason Hall: suboptimal approach, one could say. 

Jason Moser: It can be, it can be. But the encouraging thing is that those clearances all came, right? Right. So it's not like they were putting devices out there that were questionable or that they didn't feel like, I mean, they, they, Whether it was, whether someone forgot the dot and I and cross a T or whether it was just intentionally, we're going to file this paperwork later, but we need to get this thing out there.

Now, I think Jeff, you're right. [00:38:00] When you look at the, the, the core of the business, they continue to build that installed base out. I mean, I think one of the encouraging things about this business, and it's a little bit like, uh, another company I follow Massimo, which is in the pulse oximetry, but they benefit from that razor and blade model, right?

They get those, those machines into. The centers, whether it's a hospital or whether it's, uh, you know, a dialysis partner that they're working with. I mean, the general value proposition is pretty significant, right? They're bringing the costs, um, and the difficulties of dialysis for most patients.

Down, they're making it easier for you to go ahead and do that. And for a lot of people, unfortunately, it's a treatment that they have to do often three, three times a week and not more. And so a lot of the reasons why I took it up whole, because those problems have been resolved. I think the GLP stuff I mean, they're clearly.

There are clearly areas where that will help, right? But, but I think when you look at, when you look at the population by and large, this isn't something that's going to eliminate dialysis from, from [00:39:00] being needed, right? I mean, dialysis is going to continue to be necessary for, for many, many people. And, and so with, with Tableau without said, I mean, they've, they've built this, this machine.

It's the first one with two ways, cellular communication, uh, So that you can have, you could be, you know, having dialysis at home and communicating with your doctor's office constantly. Uh, so, so to me, it was, it was kind of one of those easy high flower ideas where I have enough conviction not to sell. I don't have some huge position where my life's going to end if, if they screw something up, but it seems like they have, they have gotten the business back on path and yeah, while they're not, while they're not profitable now, they also, and that most recent call.

Demonstrated some concerns there, some cost saving measures, and they, they have stated, and this kind of goes back to making sure management's going to do what they're going to, they're doing what they say they're going to do. Um, I mean, they, they have stated through this, this sort of restructuring plan that they will be able to get to profitability without having to tap capital markets anymore.

Now that's a bold [00:40:00] statement for a business like this. And if a year from now, they go back on that, well, that gives us something to look back and say, you know what you guys flat out did not execute on what you said you would do. And, and sometimes that's just what it is, is you have to go back and say, well, they said they were going to do one thing.

They didn't do it. We got this one wrong. You know, you just keep moving forward. 

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. No, I, I think the thing, the other piece of this that plays into like psychology with investing to me is like. You know, we've talked on the podcast about story stocks, stocks were like, we love the story behind it. And if that can blind you towards, you know, missing out on, on some negative thing that you really should have seen.

And I do wonder about that with this company. Cause I know people who have had dialysis and I know what a, You know, awful existence that can, that can cause for you. So the idea of like, Oh, just sit at your couch at home and take care of this in an easy way is so appealing to me. Um, but I like your idea of just, you know, they like that using that example of like not needing to tap the capital markets anymore.

Right. That's, that is a tangible thing to hold [00:41:00] them accountable for over the course of the next year or so. 

Jason Moser: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, if we, if we see them continue to just spread out, Put devices out there and sort of ignore, ignore getting clearance. I mean, that, that could tell you something too. I mean, it's like, maybe you do it once or twice.

You, we can, we can maybe explain that, but that's something that a company is just doing on a consistent basis. Then you kind of have to wonder like, yeah, why do you keep doing this? And maybe that's a question that you, you know, you call into the earnings call and you ask them, I guess. I don't know, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's one of those things where, again, I mean, I, I.

You never like to be a desperate seller in anything, whether it's a house or a stock. And I mean, I'm just not in a position where I'm a desperate seller. And, and so I, I like to have. Some exposure to a company like that, even if it doesn't materialize for another 10 years, because it's exciting to follow.

I mean, my, my life isn't, isn't pegged to that one holding. And if along the way we get some, some clues there [00:42:00] that management really isn't doing what they say they're going to do, then Uh, then, then it's very reasonable to go ahead and just, uh, sell it, move on. 

Jeff Santoro: Hey everybody, we'll be right back, but first, a word from our sponsors. Earlier in the show, you heard us talk about investing platform Public.com. That's where you can trade options with no commissions or per contract fees, and you get a rebate of up to 18 cents per contract traded. NerdWallet recently gave Public five out of five stars for options trading.

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Jason Hall: A couple of things you talked about earlier talking about your own process and the idea of patience and doubling your, your investing timeframe.

I think it's really valuable because it, when we get this, these little tiny pieces of information that incrementally add up to a more informed understanding of these businesses. I think our [00:43:00] tendency is to make two mistakes of action from that. The first one is like the sunk cost fallacy. We're constantly looking for some and we're biased, right?

We're looking for the, that confirmation that things are getting better or they're working. And then the sunk cost fallacy comes in. It's like, okay, I can get back that money. It's time to buy more. Yeah. Instead of being patient and saying, okay, that's pretty good. That's better information. Things are looking better, but it's not binary where we have to act on every piece of information beyond just continuing to wait for evidence that it's actually working out.

The way that our thesis originally was built. 

Jason Moser: Yeah. And I think that just, a lot of that just goes back to patience. I mean, so many people just don't want to give it time to work. And, and I mean, investing for a lot of people, it's kind of a gotcha world. People love to love to tell you that you were wrong.

Um, they hope that you screwed that one. Oh, well, sorry. I didn't, you know, people love to tell [00:44:00] you that you're wrong. And, and. So, you know, you, you get past that, I can't, I can't, uh, encourage people enough to just not, not worry about that. If someone loves to play gotcha, just don't care. It doesn't matter because this is, again, this is not a game of perfect.

And anybody who's, who's been in it for a while knows that. Um, and it made me think of one other thing I like to do. So when we talk about companies that just aren't, aren't, they're not cutting it. Jeff, maybe five years from now, we look at Outset Medical and you know what? They've kind of gotten back to the middle of the road, but we see signs that they're just not really doing it.

And it's just not a business we want to own anymore. And so we would say, well, that's been a loser for us. If I'm going to sell it, one thing I, I really try to hold myself to anytime I sell a loser. Is to add it to an existing winning position, because I've already got that company that has a track record of demonstrated long term success.

And the one thing with selling a company, people say, well, sell it and put it into a good idea. Well. You better make sure that next idea is a good [00:45:00] one because there's no guarantee that it will be. 

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. Whenever Jason Hall and I are texting about the idea of selling something, Jason, the lesser, the lesser that's the question we ask each other, like to buy water.

What are you going to do with the money? You know, just to sort of put that check in place. Absolutely. That's the 

Jason Hall: thing, right? Because when you decide to sell a stock, you don't, you're not just trying to make one right decision. Now you have to make two right decisions. 

Jason Moser: That's right. 

Jason Hall: You know, there's the sell. Is this the right decision to sell? Okay. What am I going to do with it? And then make that, make that right decision. And I love exactly what you said there about. The idea of, of just reinvested in something that's been a winner for you. Yeah. Because you, you start small with these less clear, higher risk, more binary companies and you buy more of them when they show that they're, that they're doing it.

That's one of my favorite things to do again, to crib the David Gardner winners keep winning and averaging up. Um, some of the, my bet, my, my biggest overall winner of my portfolio [00:46:00] is Mercado Libre. It's my largest stock by cost basis and actual value. I invested significantly more dollars in it. After it was a proven winner than I did when I started with it, when it was less clear that it was going to be a winner, yet it continues to create enormous, enormous value.

You can be late to these companies and still do really damn well. Dude, look at, I 

Jason Moser: mean, look at, look at where all of these big tech names are now. I mean, we're talking about companies that are two and three plus trillion dollar market cap. I mean, 10 years ago, we, we all would have been looking at that as just kind of pie in the sky, but now we're having the discussions of.

Who's going to get to four, who's going to get to five first and on it goes. And, uh, yeah, I think that was one of the more, one of the more impactful lessons I got from David Gardner early on, uh, was having that comfort to average, to average up, to add to winners because they've, they've built that track record over time.

I mean, they, they tend to keep winning. It doesn't mean they [00:47:00] always will. I mean, new leadership can get in there and screw things up with the best of them. So you guys, you got to keep an eye on that stuff, but, but just, yeah, I think generally speaking, having that skillset to be able to average up, to add to your winners is a really valuable one.

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. And I love the idea of knowing what you're going to put the money towards before you sell it. Cause like I was looking at just the other day at all, I have a. Anytime I sell anything, I move it to a spreadsheet so I can kind of see how it's done since I sold it. Yeah, yeah, I like that. But what I don't know is what I did with that cash, right?

So, like, maybe I put that into NVIDIA three years ago. And then, in which case, good job, me. That's right. 

Jason Hall: He didn't. 

Jeff Santoro: I have an epically large Nvidia position of, I think like $300 cost basis.. 

Jason Moser: Wow. 

So one more I wanted to ask about, uh, PayPal, because I feel like it's, it's another one that has underwhelmed, but for different reasons than, than, uh, Outset, to me, it's a company that.

Was directionless for a while and maybe hopefully now has some [00:48:00] direction. But I also, I was saying this to, to the lesser Jason recently, it's that's Jason, the lesser, whatever. I'm going to play what I want. Um, because then someone will complain to me about how we're mean to each other. And that makes me, that makes me laugh.

But I was thinking about they've, they've had, they've had, They've only been public for, did they come public in 2019 or 2016? Something like that. Like nothing 

Jason Moser: like that when they were spun off from eBay. Right. Yeah. 

Jeff Santoro: But that's the whole thing. Like there was like, I feel like the eBay thing hung over them for a pretty long time, and then that went right into the pandemic, which went right into like.

all of the craziness after the pandemic when you're trying to normalize everything. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. 

Jeff Santoro: So the optimist in me is like, great brand, PayPal and Venmo are used by people everywhere. And they've really never had a multi year run without some sort of weird disruption. And again, it's like, Enough conviction for me not to sell, but curious what you think about where they are right now, especially with the new new management.

Jason Moser: Well, and I think that's just it. I think that PayPal, they, they, they bought in a little bit to their own [00:49:00] hype. It was, it was former leadership, I think, made some, some directionally https: otter. ai Correct. And I think the one thing that stood out to me was when you started hearing all this language of a super app.

And maybe you remember back, I think it was 2019 2021. They really felt like, okay, it's time to capitalize on this. Right. They're directionally correct in the digital movement of money that isn't going away and that is the way it is done now. I mean, I can't tell we use, I use PayPal and Venmo every day virtually now.

It's how I get money back and forth to my kids and all sorts of other ways. So they're directionally correct in that regard. But I think this, this idea of building a super app was something that really took their eye off the ball. I mean, once I heard them start talking about. Well, we want to give you the ability to buy and sell stocks in your PayPal app.

You know, I thought about why the hell do you want to do that? There are a [00:50:00] million other choices out there to do that. And I'm not closing down you know, a brokerage account just so I can go do it in my PayPal. Like, I mean, Square did the same thing, right? Do you really need to be doing that? And that's just one example.

I think I'm just, just sort of missing the mark there. Right. And so I think ultimately with PayPal, it is going to boil down to new leadership. Uh, Alex, Chris, I think it's, it's nice to see. Um, his enthusiasm in there and, and, and really wanting to focus on the core brands in, in PayPal and Venmo making sure that they can monetize those brands to their fullest, sort of cutting out the, the, you know, one of the metrics that matters with, with a company like PayPal is just that network of users.

Right. How many active users you have. And what you can see was that there were, there were a lot of, there's a lot of dead weight there. You know, a lot of users that really weren't users. And so they ultimately weren't contributing to the value in the network and in the business itself. So I think that was one of the things when you could see when they started when they started shutting down [00:51:00] those sort of inactive accounts and you saw that user number start going down.

Understandably, the market's going to become very concerned with that. Also with the fact, I think that generally the long term direction with moving money, the costs of doing that continue just to come down, down, down, right? It's not something where a business has a lot of pricing power to say, well, I'm going to charge you more to be able to Venmo Jeff money.

Most people want to be able to do it. And, and what that caused to come down. And, and so then, you know, they have to figure out other ways to do that. And they do that with their merchant solution side of the business and what they do with Braintree and sort of the unbranded checkout, um, and yeah, I think weaning themselves off of, off of the eBay model that that was something that took a while to do But again, you know, I think with PayPal, I mean, number one, I think you have to give, if you, if you're an owner in the stock or you're a believer in the stock, I think you have to at least be fair and give Alex, Chris some time to, to, to work.

Uh, his magic there and execute on, on his vision. They seem to be very focused on getting the financials back in [00:52:00] order. So they're a little bit more granular with some of the data that they give us. Yeah. Uh, putting a lot of that cashflow back to work, repurchasing shares. And so I think there's a lot of potential there.

Again, it's not one where I have some huge. Outsized position, but given the market opportunity and kind of given the nature of, of how money is moving these days, it sure feels like PayPal and Venmo are going to be a big part of that future. And so I'm okay with being patient with that one as well.

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. It just seems to me like they're so ubiquitously used that it's worth at least waiting to see what, if they can. Yeah. I mean, 

Jason Moser: And that's just it. It's like, it kind of goes back to that, that Buffett thing. Sometimes it takes 10 years. I mean, I know that's hard for people to believe, but let's, I mean, use NVIDIA as an example, right?

I think David Gardner, I mean, NVIDIA has been a recommendation and stock advisor for a very long time, but that thing did nothing. Yeah, that stock did nothing for like a decade plus, just nothing. So did you [00:53:00] have the patience just to kind of put it in the back of your portfolio and just get on with life?

Because if you did, you're feeling pretty good about that today. If you didn't, you're probably saying, dang it, I should have held on to it. And that's just it. Sometimes it takes that mentality and, um, and, and not everybody wants to do that. 

Jason Hall: Okay. Jason, we're getting close to the end here. I want to have a little fun.

I want to do Jeff. We haven't done a lightning round in a while. I want to do a lightning round. Yeah. So I got three questions that I'm going to ask you. The goal is to answer them quickly and concisely. So I can ask them quickly. I can never answer them quickly. So, all right. So here's what I'm going to do.

And you, you saw a couple of these on the outline already, but I've got one that is completely out of nowhere. You ready? 

Jeff Santoro: It is Investing Unscripted. So. 

Jason Hall: Yeah. Yeah. So let's do this. I'm going to start with the one that's completely unscripted and I'm going to ask two different versions of it and you can answer the one that, you know, Is easier or harder for you to answer.

You get to make that decision here. So the whole idea of the show [00:54:00] that we talked a lot about is the ability to have enough conviction to not sell and focus on the business to like give it time to pay off. Right? So can you think of a stock that at some point in your investing past that you screwed up and you lost patience because of that?

And you didn't hold and you missed the big win or if you can't think of one because you're such an excellent expert investor that you're really proud of the returns that you earn by being able to hold through the time when the stock wasn't doing what you thought the business could deliver. 

Jason Moser: I think I could come up with one of each.

And so the first one there, one where I feel like I. Had enough and pulled the trigger. And it was one of my very first investments as a foolish investor. It was a company called Dyax, uh, ticker was DYAX. It was just this little tiny bio, uh, you know, biotech that was working on a solution for hereditary angioedema, which is like a skin condition.

And I had done all [00:55:00] this research and really kind of felt like I knew the business. And I just didn't really, I wasn't a biotech investor. I mean, I didn't know anything really. Um, I was way over my skis. And it just time and time again, it was phase two, phase three trials, all this news came and I finally just gave up, I said, you know what, a couple of years in, I said, this is nuts, I sold it for, I don't know, maybe a small, tiny gain, 10, 15%, something like that, had I just held on for like the next several years, I mean, it would have been a 10 plus bagger.

Um, so that was one where I feel like, well, dang it, I, uh, I missed that one. One that I, I feel like I was proud to be able to just kind of put my convictions behind it and say, you know what, this thing is going to be okay. Uh, it was Chipotle. I think that's pretty obvious for a lot of folks. I think Chipotle, 2016, 

Jason Hall: 2017, all the norovirus stuff.

Jason Moser: At the time, it was very easy to rip on Chipotle left and right. And I mean, there were, there were websites. thisfoodmademadesick.com or something like that, where you could go in and just read these, just [00:56:00] this litany of posts about, about Chipotle. I, I don't know, man, it just struck me.

I was like, I'm still going there all the time. I go there and I see that plate of lines still out the door. I'm hanging on to this one. I mean, I think, I think I trimmed a little bit of it just to, just to kind of give myself this core position and give myself exposure that I felt comfortable with and then I, then I held onto it and I've held onto it ever since.

I still own it today and it's just been, I mean, it's just been a monster for my portfolio. 

Jason Hall: How about Brian Nichol? He's done an incredible job there. 

Jason Moser: Yeah. And that's a good example of sometimes you just need to get leadership in there to help take that business to the next level. It's not to be little, what Steve Ells did to get that business to where it was, but Ells just didn't seem like he had that skill set to be able to deal with what the company was going through and then ultimately to scale it to that next level.

And that that's really what nickel brought to the table and, uh, they did a terrific job hiring. 

Jeff Santoro: Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Before you ask the question, I just want to. I want to piggyback on that because that's something I think a lot about with [00:57:00] management. I, I, I, I heard this phrase once and I really liked it that a person is the reason that this company has gotten to where it is, but it's also the reason it won't get any further.

Jason Hall: Yeah. 

Jeff Santoro: And yeah, I think that's, that's the case with a lot of, especially founders at some point for certain businesses. So I think that's, that's worth thinking about. All right, back to the lightning round.

Jason Hall: Okay. Second question here. As, as a big part of your professional life, uh, you, you go out and identify companies that have opportunity for either disruption or just massive tailwinds because of some large. technological trend or other trend that's, that's driving a lot of money in a certain direction where there's an opportunity to profit.

I want to ask you. Artificial intelligence, you think about where we are, bubble, inflection point, both, neither. Give me your best 30 second answer. 

Jason Moser: I mean, AI is clearly something that's going to matter to us for the rest of our lifetime. I think it's worth asking, where are we on the hype [00:58:00] cycle? For those who are familiar with the hype cycle, it feels to me like maybe we're at the peak of inflated expectations somewhere in that general vicinity.

I mean, it's fascinating to see what it can do. But, but kind of like GLPs, it feels like a lot of people think this is just going to change everything. And it's clearly going to change a lot of things, but I think it's going to take a lot of time for us to really learn that. It's not going to 

Jason Hall: change 

Jason Moser: everything next 

Jason Hall: week.

Jason Moser: Yeah, and it's not going to be a straight lineup, right? So I feel like maybe we're going to enter some sort of trough of disillusionment. 

Jason Hall: NVIDIA's free cash flow, it's pretty much been a straight lineup for the past 

Jason Moser: 18 months. Let's see how long that lasts, I don't know. Right. But I mean, again, also, I mean, NVIDIA is just one company, right?

I mean, I think, um, yeah, we're going to learn a lot about AI, uh, over the coming decade plus as to what it can do and how it can make our lives better. I don't think that'll be a straight line up. I think we're probably going to enter some trough of disillusionment at some point to a degree. But the good news is when that happens, typically, uh, opportunities arise.

Jason Hall: Love it. So I just got two really good band names [00:59:00] out of that trough of disillusionment and opportunities arise. It's Okay. All right. Here's, here's my last question here and we'll, we'll wrap things up after this one. Talking about big trends, what is on your radar right now that you think is interesting or that you're really paying close attention to?

Jason Moser: Yeah. So I, like I said, uh, earlier, the services that I work on at work are focused specifically on immersive technology and then also just, uh, connectivity and mobility. And, I think immersive technology is fascinating. I think what I've learned over the last five years in that space is that it's still very much.

Um, An opportunity in its infancy. And I, I don't know that I would expect as an investor, some aha moment. To, to pop up over the, over the next, uh, several years in regard to, to immersive technology and how it, how it can impact us in the masses. But I do think when you consider the mobility economy, and I think, you [01:00:00] know, we've been talking a lot about 5g with the service and the neat thing about 5g is it ultimately 6g.

Which is on the way, and then after 6G, it'll be 7G, and it just keeps on going. Uh, to me, I think just that trend, that mobile connectivity, the speed and the robustness of the data that we're getting from that stuff, I think that is going to be fascinating to follow. The digital economy that springs up from all this stuff.

So, the fun part about that, again, It's not just 8 and on. I mean, that's going to be something that probably plays out for the rest of our lifetime. So, uh, that'll be a, that'll be a fun story to follow. 

Jason Hall: Jason Moser. It's been awesome having you on our little podcast. 

Jason Moser: Well, guys, thank you so much for the invitation.

It was great to join you. And this was, this was just a lot of fun. So thanks. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. 

Jason Hall: Accomplished golfer, watercolor artist, and sometimes stock picker, Jason Moser. Jason, we'll see you next time. 

Jason Moser: Yes, sir. I'll be back anytime y'all ask. 

Jason Hall: Okay, everybody. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Jason Moser. I have known him for a long time and, [01:01:00] um, always get some insight and enjoyment when we get a chance to talk. Jeff, what did you think? That was great. I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah.

A little teaser here. We've got some other content with Mr. Moser in the works for this fall. So be sure to keep your eye out for that. And, um, I think it's a conversation that will build on other conversations we've had with other people, um, that'll bring some value here.

So. Until then, that is, that's it. We did it, right?

Jeff Santoro: We're done. We did it.

Jason Hall: All right. And as always, we love to give our answers to these hard investing questions. Have great guests like Jason Moser on our podcast to give their answers. It is always up to you to find your answers to these hard investing questions. I, Jason the lesser, believe in you.

All right, Jeff, we'll see you next time.

Jeff Santoro: See you next time.