Chris Bloomstran - Taking Principled Stances

This week Chris Bloomstran stops by The Business Brew to catch up.  Part of this conversation are a bit scary.  Parts you may disagree with.  Regardless, it's very apparent that Chris thinks A LOT about what he is investing in. Chris is the President and Chief Investment Officer of Semper Augustus Investments Group. He is best known for his annual letters; most of which have an incredibly detailed analysis of Berkshire Hathaway. See https://www.semperaugustus.com/clientletter We hope you enjoy the discussion.  Detailed show notes below the Koyfin sponsor and thank yous. Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store.   This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing platforms for financial data and analytics to research stocks and understand market trends. Check out Koyfin.com to see what a Bloomberg-lite, with tons of high-quality fundamental data and a powerful graph engine looks like. Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.  Please see https://www.mikeando.com/ Thank you to Mathew Passy for the podcast production.  You can find Mathew at @MathewPassy on Twitter or at thepodcastconsultant.com In this episode Chris and Bill discuss: 0:34 - Chris' wine hobby 7:34 - Chris setting weight lifting records in high school 11:33 - Playing football against Barry Sanders 17:04 - Pivot to investing 17:47 - What about today rhymes with the late 90s 25:00 - Chris' warning about Twitter, Shopify, and Tesla 28:00 - What rhymes between ARK and Janus 30:54 - How Chris thinks about today's multiples 38:25 - Why Chris has positions in energy companies 43:00 - Chris' use of Twitter and his Twitter threads 50:31 - Chris' love for teaching 53:03 - Bill and Chris discuss Berkshire 60:45 - Berkshire Hathaway Energy and how it fits within the renewable energy landscape 1:04:45 - Discussion about opportunity cost and value traps 1:08:45 - Why Chris is lukewarm on Big Tech 1:10:00 - Chris' take on the idea of never selling a great business 1:16:10 - Chris discusses Costco vs. Amazon and concludes the opportunity cost discussion at 1:18:52 1:22:00 - More energy (in the context of opportunity cost)