What are the 10 best investing podcasts for you as a value investor, and how should you go about listening to them?
There are tons of podcasts out there, but the main danger is that you could end up wasting a lot of time. That’s why I’ve made a list of the best investing podcasts out there that can make you a better investor.
I have selected specific episodes that focus on value investing.
The Best Investing Podcasts Are Often About Something Else
There are some inherent problems with investing podcast. First of all, sometimes they get very nerdy and geeky because we’re dealing with people who are very specialized in a topic.
If the interviewer is also specialized, the conversation can become dry and even difficult to understand as they’ll use a vocabulary that is not accessible to outsiders to the industry.
This kind of nerd-interviewing-nerd podcast is brilliant if you have trouble falling asleep. But you don’t learn that much.
That’s why some of the best investing episodes take place on podcasts that are not usually about investing, such as Lex Fridman, Tim Ferriss and even a podcast about home decor… as you will find below.
Another problem is that a long podcast series can feel like dull homework.
I’ve actually made the mistake of trying to listen to ALL the episodes of a particular series. It’s frustrating and a waste of time. I have, among other things, attempted that with The Investor’s Podcast (TIP), but that didn’t make me happy, because I couldn’t keep up (they now have over 600 episodes on the main series and have expanded to a total of 7 different podcast series.)
The list I have put together for you here will take you directly to some of the absolute best episodes featuring relevant interviews with investors who can really teach you something.
Let’s dive in…
1. Bill Ackman on the Lex Fridman Podcast (Episode #413)
Lex Friedman’s podcast started out as a podcast about artificial intelligence, but he branched out, and his podcast has become incredibly popular with millions of listeners. Over time, he has interviewed countless celebrities such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
His style is calm and considered, and you sense that he comes prepared. A podcast typically lasts 2-3 hours, so it’s almost equivalent to reading a book.
Don’t miss his interview with the famous value investor Bill Ackman. Ackman is, in my opinion, the most talented value investor after Warren Buffett.
In addition to providing investing wisdom, it’s also a touching interview, with Ackman openly talking about divorce, a hostile takeover attempt, and falling in love again with MIT professor Neri Oxman, who hit the media with pictures with Brad Pitt and rumours of an affair…while Bill Ackman was dating her.
You can find it on YouTube here, on Apple here and on Spotify here.
2. Ted Weschler on I am Home
I am Home is usually a podcast about home, decorations and interior design. I can imagine the team behind the podcast must have wondered what hit them when they got a huge scoop in the form of an interview with Ted Weschler.
Who?
Okay, let’s rewind.
As you know, Warren Buffett is an old man, approaching 100 years of age. Nobody lives forever… who will invest for his company Berkshire Hathaway when he dies? It will probably be “Ted and Todd”.
Wait? Who? Yes, they are not household names yet. That’s Ted Weschler and Todd Combs. Warren Buffett once said that Ted and Todd are not on the panel at the annual meeting in Omaha because he considers them to be trade secrets.
Therefore, these two trade secrets rarely give interviews.
Ted Weschler probably thought it was pretty harmless to be interviewed on I Am Home about living in one place and working in another (he commutes from one state to another).
Fortunately, he also talks about meeting Warren Buffett and generally about his career, and he touches on various investment decisions.
The episode is originally from April 22, 2022, but doesn’t age. You can listen to it on Apple here or Spotify here.
3. Todd Combs on I am Home
When I am Home realized that the downloads exploded with Ted, they followed up with an interview with Todd.
The podcast series is usually about thermostats and pillows, and that means the discussion is pretty broad. Todd Combs talks about how he became an investor, how he held meetings with Charlie Munger and later Warren Buffett without realizing that they were screening him to work for Berkshire Hathaway.
At one point, Todd Combs says something about selling put options far out of the money, and the interviewer doesn’t understand what he’s saying, which is deeply frustrating for a listener like me who wants to hear more about it. I’d be dying to ask if he uses any kind of option trades as part of his investment strategy. But they quickly move on.
Todd Combs explains that the financial crisis was difficult for him personally because he worked 100 hours a week and lost the desire to run his own fund. That probably made it easy for Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett to lure him over to their team.
One important point he makes is how you get good at something. He says you shouldn’t focus so much on whether you get 1,000 or 10,000 hours of training (a point that comes from Malcolm Gladwell’s blockbuster book Outliers: The Story of Success), but focus instead on the quality of the hours, especially on whether it’s passive or active learning.
Passive and active? What does that mean?
Listening to podcasts and reading books are passive hours. When you dive into the material, open 10Ks and research companies, it’s active learning.
In other words, listening to podcasts is fine, but you have to realize that you learn far more from getting invested and doing the work (and diving into the companies and analyzing them is exactly what we do at The Value Investor Mastermind.)
You can listen to the interview on Apple here or Spotify here.
4. Todd Combs on Art of Investing
The folks at I am Home are not the only ones to get their hands on Todd Combs – so has the investing podcast Art of Investing. In this podcast, we learn more about how he trained as an investor, and how mother, his education, and his first jobs influenced his career and thinking.
One of his points is that you need to have broad knowledge to be a good investor, but you also need to dig deep and have specific knowledge about the company in which you invest.
Of the two interviews, I think the one from I am Home is better, but you can’t get enough Todd Combs and there is very little about him out there.
You can listen to the episode on Apple here or Spotify here.
5. Value Investing Fundamentals with John Huber on TIP (Episode #634)
I’m a little hesitant to mention the behemoth of all investing podcasts, TIP – The Investor’s Podcast – because there is a serious risk of you going down the rabbit hole of trying to listen to more than 600 nerdy episodes (like I did).
The Investor’s Podcast has sub-podcasts. The main one is called We Study Billionaires, but they have six others, including one about real estate, Silicon Valley and investing for millennials.
One way to approach TIP could be to select the sub-series called Richer, Wiser, Happier, hosted by author William Green, who interviews the best investors in the world. It’s a smaller series and much more manageable – and it’s definitely one of the best investing podcasts in the world. (By the way, I really recommend William Green’s book, Richer, Wiser, Happier. It is one of the best investment books I have read.)
One specific episode from the main series We Study Billionaires that is very much worth your while is episode #634 with John Huber, because in a single hour he actually explains quite well what value investing is all about.
One of the wise things that John Huber says is that you will get more out of practicing analyzing companies than reading yet another investment book. It kind of rhymes with Todd Comb’s point about active and passive learning. I totally agree. It is about diving in and learning to analyze companies. You have to dig in and get dirt under your nails, really doing the work.
You can listen to the interview with John Huber on Apple here or Spotify here.
You can find TIP’s own homepage here, and Richer, Wiser, Happier with William Green here.
6. “Selling Out” on The Memo with Howard Marks
Value Investor Howard Marks, who runs the hedge fund Oaktree Capital Management, hosts a podcast he calls The Memo.
A bit of background: Howard Marks also writes a newsletter, and Warren Buffett once said that he stops everything he’s doing when an email from Howard Marks hits his inbox because his newsletter is that good.
Warren Buffett once wrote a letter to Howard Marks urging him to write a book and offered to write the introduction to it. Marks took him up on the offer. He has since written two books.
However, the problem with the best money managers is often that they are geeky professionals who love jargon and sometimes have trouble communicating with ordinary people like you and me. That being said, I think Howard Marks is doing a pretty decent job explaining himself.
One specific episode worth a listen could be “Selling Out”, which is about when you should sell your shares. His main point is that you should NOT just sell because the stock is going up or down, which is what most people do as a reflex.
You can listen on Apple here or Spotify here and get wiser about selling stocks.
You can also find the podcast on Oaktree’s own homepage here.
7. Howard Marks on The Tim Ferriss Show (Episode #338)
The Tim Ferriss Show is probably my favorite podcast, but it’s usually not about investing.
Tim Ferriss, the author behind the bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek, focuses on entrepreneurship, efficiency and the good life.
One of my favorite episodes – which isn’t about investing at all – is podcast #694 with Sam Corcos because it’s bursting with ideas on how to be efficient and live a good life. Sam Corcos specializes in hiring personal assistants, so he talks a lot about outsourcing and being efficient. My brain almost flew out of my ears when Corcos explained that he doesn’t follow the news or engage in social media at all – he has an army of assistants to handle that sort of thing for him. One easy little tip from that specific episode: he says that the best productivity hack for regular people who are not about to hire an assistant is to learn all the keyboard shortcuts – so there’s a little task for you today. But let’s get back to investments…
Tim Ferriss, who has a slow and thorough podcast style with very long conversational questions, interviewed the famous value investor Howard Mark in episode #338.
The episode actually dates back to 2018, but it will never age, as he talks about the difficult psychological aspects of investing. Howard Marks also talks about how you can identify bull and bear markets. He says that if you turn on the news and listen, you should take note on the general mood. Is it negative or positive overall? This can be one of several landmarks.
He says, “when the recovery is old, the bull market is old, the psychology is elevated, the valuations are high, then you should know that the odds are not on your side, and you should take some money off the table and behave in a more cautious way, and vice versa.”
You can listen to the interview with Mark Howards on Apple here or Spotify here. Or YouTube here. Tim Ferriss provides great notes and a transcript here.
8. Mohnish Pabrai on My First Million (Episode #586)
Mohnish Pabrai is sometimes called the Indian Warren Buffett.
Pabrai actually has his own podcast, Chai with Pabrai, which – if you ask me – is unbearable to listen to because the sound quality is poor and it often consists of unedited lectures.
It’s better to catch Mohnish Pabrai on other podcasts where the audio is good and where a skilled interviewer can ask clarifying questions.
You can check out Mohnish Pabrai on My First Million episode #586.
You can listen on Apple here, Spotify here. Or the podcast’s own website here.
9. Novo Nordisk On Acquired
The investing podcast Acquired analyzes companies and interviews CEOs and founders. The style is thorough, entertaining and well prepared.
Look through the list to see if they made an episode with a company you own shares in or are considering investing in. They have, among others, discussed Starbucks, LVMH and Microsoft on the podcast.
Because I’m Danish, I am going to point you to the episode they made about the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.
They start the podcast with a history lesson, and I learned a lot about the origins of Novo Nordisk – about how it was created to save a scientist’s wife, about how diabetes in the old days was a death sentence, about how insulin was extracted from leftovers from animal produce, and how Novo and Nordisk initially were two rivals who hated each other. Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal are good storytellers and convey everything in a rather entertaining way.
You can find the Novo Nordisk episode on Apple here or Spotify here.
As a side note, there is also an interview with Ben and David on another podcast, Art of Investing. You’ll find that interview on Apple here or on Spotify here.
10. Value Investing with Legends from Columbia
Columbia Business School – where Warren Buffett studied to become a value investor under Professor Ben Graham – has its very own investing podcast called Value Investing with Legends. Here, they interview giants such as Todd Combs (but now we already have him on our list twice), Mohnish Pabrai and Howard Marks. You can pick any of them.
A warning is due here. Remember, we’re dealing with Ivy League professors interviewing money managers. It gets so nerdy your ears might bleed.
You’ll find Columbia’s investing podcasts series on Apple here or Spotify here.
How Should You Listen to these Best Investing Podcasts?
Don’t waste too much time on these investing podcasts. Try to consume them fast and while you’re doing something else.
Listen while you’re driving, walking the dog, or doing the dishes. Increase the speed a little, to 1.25 or 1.5 so it goes a little faster.
Please promise me that you will not attempt to listen to all the podcasts in a series, like I attempted to with TIP. You will waste time and your life will fly by.
Pick the best ones. The risk is that you’ll waste time on “passive hours” instead of active hours where you actually analyze companies and get invested.
If you want to listen to a podcast every day to stay informed, I would suggest Wall Street Breakfast, which you can find on Apple here or Spotify here.
Do you feel like something is missing in the podcast world? I’ve been thinking about creating my own podcast for a long time now.
How do you know if the price of the stock is reasonable? If you want to learn how Warren Buffett calculates the value of companies, you are welcome to download my free e-book here.
