Investing Unscripted

207. Missing Fads with Brian Stoffel

Investing Unscripted

Show Notes

In this episode of Investing Unscripted, Jason and Jeff are joined by longtime friend and investing educator Brian Stoffel. Brian shares his fascinating journey from a middle school writing teacher in Washington, D.C., to discovering Warren Buffett in Costa Rica, and eventually becoming a prominent writer for The Motley Fool. The trio dives deep into Brian's investing evolution—blending the extreme optimism of David Gardner with the anti-fragility of Nassim Taleb—and the painful valuation lessons learned during the 2022 bear market. They also tackle the burning question: "Will AI kill SaaS?", exploring the protective moats of high switching costs, physical world connections, and mission-critical proprietary data.

01:47 Dave Ramsey Story

04:00 From Teacher to Fool

07:25 Buffett Book and Costa Rica

11:56 Berkshire Meeting Takeaways

18:33 Evolving Investing Style

25:30 AI and SaaS Moats

29:15 SaaS Winners in Selloff

29:47 Shopify and Toast Moats

31:56 Physical World Edge

32:54 Proprietary vs Synthetic Data

34:23 Leadership and SaaS Evolution

36:17 Margins TAM and Volume

37:23 Compute Costs and Jevons

43:16 AI Everywhere Anecdotes

45:58 Investor Mindset Rules

47:32 Fads Position Sizing

52:33 Luck Skill and Plugs

56:51 Closing Thanks Disclaimer

Check out Brian’s work: https://www.stockinvestingmentor.com

Companies mentioned: AMZN, AXON, CRM, CRWD, DDD, GOOG, GOOGL, NET, NFLX, NVDA, SHOP, SSYS, TOST, TTD

Find where to listen & subscribe, portfolio contests, and contact information at https://investingunscripted.com

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