RWH056: Calm Amid The Storm w/ Christopher Begg

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network

Stig Brodersen

Education, Investing, Business

4.6 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2025

⏱️ 125 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, William Green chats with Christopher Begg, an exceptional hedge fund manager who is the CEO & CIO of East Coast Asset Management. Chris has also taught for many years at Columbia Business School, where he teaches the prestigious Security Analysis course that Warren Buffett took with Ben Graham in 1951. Here, Chris discusses how to stay calm amid market turmoil; how he identifies great businesses; why Tesla could deliver extraordinary long-term returns; & how he builds a balanced life in 7 key areas. IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN: 00:00 - Intro 03:54 - How Christopher Begg handles extreme market turmoil. 04:07 - Why he loves volatility & how he exploits it. 06:27 - What 3 qualities he seeks when identifying an exceptional business. 18:19 - Why temperament is the key to investment success. 28:06 - How Perimeter Solutions embodies what he looks for in a stock. 31:49 - How value investing has evolved to what he calls “Value 3.0.” 42:15 - Why Tesla could deliver “extraordinary” returns over many years. 42:15 - What he thinks of Elon Musk. 01:11:13 - Why the secret of success is “persistent incremental progress.” 01:13:48 - How a 66-day challenge helped Chris to nurture good habits. 01:26:06 - How Buffett & Munger won the investing game with “class & virtue.” 01:34:18 - How to design a balanced, joyful, & spacious life. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join Clay and a select group of passionate value investors for a retreat in Big Sky, Montana. Learn more here. Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, Kyle, and the other community members. Chris Begg’s investment firm, East Coast Asset Management. Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Tanya Luhrmann's How God Becomes Real. Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull. James Carse's Finite & Infinite Games. David Whyte's Consolations & Consolations II. Madeleine Green's song discussed by William & Chris. William Green’s book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – read the reviews of this book. Follow William Green on X. Check out all the books mentioned and discussed in our podcast episodes here. Enjoy ad-free episodes when you subscribe to our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Get smarter about valuing businesses in just a few minutes each week through our newsletter, The Intrinsic Value Newsletter. Check out our We Study Billionaires Starter Packs. Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: SimpleMining Hardblock Found AnchorWatch DeleteMe Fundrise CFI Education Indeed Vanta Shopify The Bitcoin Way Onramp HELP US OUT! Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Spotify! It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it! Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to TIP.
0:02.8	Hi there, welcome back to the richer, wiser, happier podcast.
0:06.6	Our guest today is one of my favorite people in the investing world, an extremely thoughtful
0:11.2	hedge fund manager named Christopher Begg. Chris is the co-founder and chief investment officer
0:17.1	of East Coast asset management, which has produced superb market beating returns over
0:22.1	the last 16 years.
0:24.2	Chris also teaches the prestigious security analysis course at Columbia Business School.
0:29.2	That's the same course that Benjamin Graham taught back in 1951, when the star student in the
0:34.7	class was an aspiring stock picker named Warren Buffett.
0:38.4	Over the last 13 years, Chris has taught more than a thousand students at Columbia,
0:42.8	and his guest speakers in the class have included a who's who of famed investors,
0:47.6	like Nick Sleep, Todd Combs, Howard Marks, and Seth Clarman, along with brilliant thinkers like
0:53.0	Ian McGilchrist and Peter Kaufman.
0:55.8	Chris has an unusual lifestyle, splitting his time between a small town in Massachusetts
1:00.6	and a home in the jungles of Central America, where he spends a fair amount of time surfing,
1:06.3	playing tennis, meditating, reading voraciously, and hanging out with his family and friends.
1:12.0	It's all part of his pursuit of an unusually spacious life that's balanced, joyful,
1:18.2	and rich in the deepest sense of the word.
1:21.3	One reason why this lifestyle is possible is that he owns an extremely concentrated portfolio
1:27.2	of high-quality businesses that he can
1:29.7	typically leave alone for many years, getting out of the way so they can continue compounding
1:35.4	without too much meddling. At the moment, he owns only eight stocks. He's also unusually
	...

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