David Senra shares Charlie Munger's personal advice on wealth, relationships, and the 'seamless web of deserved trust'

Speaker 2: for that. Put it on the calendar. Let me tell you about Railway. Railway is the all in one intelligent cloud provider. Use your favorite agent to deploy wireless service, get this, and more while Railway automatically takes care of scaling, monitoring, and security. And our next guest is here. We got David Senra, host of David Senra. David. To see you.

Speaker 3: My bad guys. You're good. I'm a little late.

Speaker 2: You're good. You're good.

Speaker 1: You're good. Where are you?

Speaker 2: At least you didn't keep the red ones waiting.

Speaker 3: Can I tell you, I'm in the room that you guys gave this hilarious talk at? I don't know if you remember about Heredicon about that...

Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Should take as much I think PEDs as possible. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It was a bit of a joke. It was a bit of a joke. We were gesture maxing. It's almost like we've been the the class clowns of the industry our whole Two

Speaker 2: years now.

Speaker 1: Going on more like more like 20.

Speaker 2: Yeah. 20.

Speaker 3: The funny part was that most people in the audience didn't get that it was a joke.

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. No. We we we got some people coming up debating us, all sorts

Speaker 3: of stuff.

Speaker 1: Yeah. We had people coming up like trying to make the case for Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is performance enhancing. No. There

Speaker 2: was a girl There's a in front row talking

Speaker 3: about everybody should do ketamine because Elon and I'm just like, oh, no. No.

Speaker 2: We don't like that. No. Still well.

Speaker 1: Anyways...

Speaker 2: Give us some give us some

Speaker 1: more about our characters than than Matt. I I

Speaker 3: put on the stream today and I just started dying laughing.

Speaker 2: Go ahead. That's what we're here for. Honestly,

Speaker 1: when we were set up in the... This morning, John and I were facing each other and every time I would look over and even catch a single glance, I would start laughing so hard that the the the full mask started like peeling off and so I just didn't look at him basically for like three hours.

Speaker 3: You're so ridiculous. I hope you guys filmed it like you did last year.

Speaker 2: You had a great time lapse. We did. We got

Speaker 5: we got

Speaker 2: tons of stuff. It's great.

Speaker 3: Hold on. I should have my phone on D and D. This is bad. Okay. Sorry for that. Oh.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You're

Speaker 1: good. You're good. Alright. It's Friday.

Speaker 2: Yeah. We're hanging out.

Speaker 4: Alright, guys.

Speaker 3: So what do you wanna... What was the question though? The original question before I started laughing about your...

Speaker 2: Favorite quote from the two goats.

Speaker 3: Well, no. Here's actually an

Speaker 1: interesting question to kind of, know, sort of ease into it. I'm curious like, you know, Buffett and Munger, like, their careers are... And their partnership is so like, it's like the most aspirational partnership and and careers that I think most of us can imagine. Right? Just like doing it together until the very end. Like Yeah. So... And I'm almost wondering like, what do you think the longevity of of... Like, do you imagine in the same, you know, recording podcasts in the same way that they do their annual meeting? Like, when you're in your nineties? Or do you think you're you're gonna get to the point where you'll just have those conversations offline with friends?

Speaker 3: Well, okay. So there's a couple interesting things there. When I went to Munger's Health for dinner right before about six months before he died, I... We asked him like, hey, how often do you talk to to Buffett now? And he says, never. And his point was that they talked, they used to talk on the phone, you know, every day for hours. And they got to the point where they just understood how each other thought so deeply. He'd be like, Buffett could like simulate picking up the phone to Munger and ask him a question, he's already gonna know what Munger is gonna say. Crazy. I'm very interested in like building I'm very interested in like building friendships and partnerships. Hold on, I'm at a bar, and they're like, throwing crazy pipes right now. I'm drinking water though. I'm not drinking. But yeah, think, I mean, you guys are definitely in that camp. I think we have a handful of mutual friends that, know, we've been friends for a while, and I hope we have like a... We have deep friendships, we're doing life, we're doing business, you know, together till we die. That was his... I went there, it was me and two other founders that were in their 30s at the time. And Munger's main advice was that your job now is to build a seamless web of deserved trust, because that's one of the things he said. He goes, everybody knows that I was 28 when I met Buffett, and he was 35. He goes, but they don't... He doesn't know there's like a... There's a group of guys, and we did deals and worked together, you know, for the rest of our lives. And I think at that point that I was talking to Charlie, I think he was... Him and Buffett might have been the only one that were still alive, maybe one other guy. But most of it passed on. But he said, you know, that's what really made life valuable. But that was I think one of the main lessons I took from a personal lesson. Obviously, do business with these people, but I think that's the most important thing. We talk about all the time, like we're all going to make more money than we can spend in our lives. So like what really matters is like the relationships that we're building. One of our mutual friends has a great line that your life is your relationships, and I think Munger would would agree with that. And Buffett too.

Speaker 2: Yeah. No. I love it.

Speaker 1: It's... You think it's like, why do you think they never why do you think they never were like, let's live in the same place?

Speaker 3: I mean, you guys both live in Southern California. Would you pick that over? Would you rather live in Omaha, Nebraska?

Speaker 2: So Munger had

Speaker 3: Yeah. He grew up... They both grew up in Omaha. They both worked at Buffett's grandfather's grocery store. They both fucking hated working for Buffett's grandfather's grocery store. And then he comes out, I think... I forgot the exact biographical details, but he comes out, I think they studied meteorology in Southern California. And he's just like, you know, very similar, you guys had Jimmy Ivean on your show a few weeks ago. And Jimmy Ivean tells this great story too, where he had never been on a plane before, never never stayed at a hotel, never left Brooklyn. And he's like 19 or 20, I think he might be 20 years old at the so I worked for John John Lennon flies him out to the Beverly Hills Hotel. Immediately, you know, it's December, it's like 70 degrees, walks downstairs to the doorman, he goes, hey, you regular people live here? And the doorman's like, do mean? I'm a regular person, I live here. He goes, you got docks here? He's like, what do you mean docks? He goes, dad's a longshoreman, works for the docks, he unloads the boats. Does that happen? Goes, port at Los Angeles, one of the biggest ports in the world. Goes back upstairs, calls his mom.

Speaker 2: He's like, how did

Speaker 3: we get this so wrong? Like, how did you guys pick the wrong place to live? So I mean, I think it's why all three of us spend a lot of time in Southern California. It's just like like, where else would you wanna live?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Pasadena, it's undefeated. That's why that's why he lived there. Clearly. You gotta move. You know? You're talking a big game living in the same place. Come over to Pasadena, the home of Charlie Munger. It's a great experience.

Speaker 3: There there is an interesting thing. I put this clip out from one of my latest episodes, it's guy named Ken Ricky who's the founder of Flux Ships. Love that.

Speaker 1: He's a

Speaker 3: very good...

Speaker 1: He's been on the show too.

Speaker 2: Yeah, he's so good.

Speaker 3: He's awesome dude. After the recording he actually... I rode with him to the airport. But he had this very unusual decision to give his wealth away to the kids before, essentially before the value appreciated, very much like Sam Walton did. And one of the clips that is now like spreading around X that is about Charlie Munger's advice about this, where he would... One of the funniest things he said, he's just like, well you know, we both read a ton of the same biographies. You know, he read hundreds of biographies. I've done the same. And I was like, Charlie, you read all the same books as me. There's just always this big problem where it's like in these books these people have been struggling with two hundred years. It's like, I was the son of a poor man, now my kids are the son of a rich man. What do I do? Do I give them the money? Is that going to ruin them? And there's like, you know, this appears in a lot of biographies. And Munger had a very straight no bullshit answer. He was just like, you give them the money. And he was like, why? And he was like, because if you don't they're going to resent you. And he's like, what's point in building all those wealth and building relationships with your kids, and then for at the end of your life for them to resent you? And then the follow-up question was, yeah, but won't that make them less ambitious? And he's like, some of my kids have, you know, a couple $100,000,000. Yes. They're less ambitious. So what? That was like a funny way to... So he's like, yeah, of course. But like, what's the alternative?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that matter of fact response from Munger so often. Like, he doesn't take the bait when somebody is like asking him to fall in line on anything he says. It's great.

Speaker 3: I mean, could you imagine if you could get... If Munger if Munger had Twitter in his day?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Like, he'd he'd be the best at it. Just like very... I mean, he's very Ben Franklin s.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Totally. Yeah.

Speaker 3: He's just a Ben Frank. He he naturally speaks to Maxims, very precise Yeah. You know, no bullshit.

Speaker 1: He would say take a simple idea and take it seriously, and it would do like 40,000 likes.

Speaker 3: Well, mean, I think you guys, Jordan, I'm pretty sure you've treated that a bunch when people were asking like about this, you know, the This success of is one thing, I hate this because I go on here every time I'm on, and I talk about how talented I think you guys are. Yeah. And I just genuinely believe it. Look, I glanced at this, I told you as soon as I, within two seconds of looking at the stream, was like, this is why all these other fucking livestreamers, they're just hopeless. They're just never gonna catch these guys. It's like they're more talented. It's like...

Speaker 1: Well, we also are willing to be completely insane, but also we realize like a core sort of tenant of everything that we do is just go a 100 times harder than you would assume somebody would do in our situation. So like we have a project in the works now that I don't even think that... I don't even think we've talked with you about, but like it's so... It's it's just like completely ridiculous. And I think people will be very entertained by it. But we're so obsessed with the details and that like, we could... It could release like, you know, next week or something like that. But we're gonna spend another like three or four months on it. One, because we don't feel like crazy urgency because no one else would be insane enough to like do something like this. Yep. But like we're taking that extra time because we're like, we just want to make it as great... Can you give

Speaker 3: me one second, man?

Speaker 1: Mhmm. So...

Speaker 3: Sorry. I'm just on a call. My bad, though.

Speaker 1: So, yeah. Even like Halloween is like, are are we gonna dress up this year? Yeah. We're gonna dress up, but, you know... Fully. Fully.

Speaker 3: But that idea of like, when he did say this, like, you take a... You find a supplier and and take it very seriously. You know, you you guys obviously did that with There's the a second part of that that he says that's awesome, where he says that we oftentimes in business, we find the winning system goes ridiculously far maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: And I think, you know, that's an example, obviously, like I took a very simple idea. We just had a... I just had a ten year anniversary of Founders Podcast. It's like, what's the idea? We'll read a biography Overnight success. There's somebody that had a forty year career, we spent forty hours reading, and I'll give you the best insights that you can listen to in forty five minutes. Like, this is a very, very simple idea. It's just you gotta do it 400 and I think 39 times. Now 440, it's actually working on the episode four forty. I should record it tomorrow. So yeah, it's just like, it's just... You see that happen over and over and over again. It's just... It actually like works very well. When are you guys... I wanna do an episode with you guys on my show. It'll be awesome. When can we record together?

Speaker 1: How about this afternoon?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. She...

Speaker 1: Call Ken Richie.

Speaker 2: We'll we're do it

Speaker 1: we're ready. We're we're... In

Speaker 2: professional makeup already. We look great on camera.

Speaker 3: You know, we shouldn't do that though. We should do it in costume.

Speaker 2: How about how about both of us David Senra makeup?

Speaker 1: We'll do the full David Senra.

Speaker 2: Everyone in the David Senra makeup. Three David Centers talking about the power of podcasting for seven hours. He's gonna get seven views. He's gonna get seven views. One's gonna reach. But in the seven people that watch will be the most important people in the world. Change their life right there.

Speaker 1: I hope I never get to the point where I don't call you or we don't grab lunch because I know what you're gonna say because I Yeah. I I still... Oftentimes, I know what you're gonna say. Yeah. And I still... It's like I needed that every Yeah. Think I need Yeah.

Speaker 3: I think our friend Patrick O'Shaughnessy has this great... Because he grew up Catholic, and he has this great line that he learned from Catholicism, is like, repetition doesn't spoil the prayer. Mhmm. And my version of this on on the show is like, repetition is persuasive. It's just like, everybody's searching for the new ideas. Well, I'm searching for the ideas that don't change. I'm searching for the enduring ones that you can build a life and a career around. And I take way more inspiration from growing up in these kind of like... I mean, they're somewhat psychotic. The churches my mom would go to, you know, mom was basically a fundamental Christian. I've told a story before, but unfortunately like when she got breast cancer ten years ago, she tried, she was so fundamentalist, tried to pray her cancer away, which is devastating. She died you know, younger than she needed to as a result. Mhmm. But there is something, the fact that I was forced to go to these like super evangelical churches you know, every Sunday and most Wednesdays, and there's something to be taken away from the fact that you know, they study you know, one leader, one book, you know, and they go over the lessons in that book, you know, every week for their entire lives. I think there's a reason that, you know, religions endure more than almost any other thing that that, you know, mankind has created.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan. So... And there's also like always like little different wrinkles, like me and Jordy just had lunch what, like two weeks ago, a week ago? Mhmm. You know, there's all kinds of stuff that you were going through that day that that that was new.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Always.

Speaker 2: Has there been any big

Speaker 1: This is new. You've never seen that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Answer this question. Buffett Munger, they're so rich, but I've never seen them do a money spread. Do you think it actually broke? Is that possible that they're actually broke? Because I've never seen them do money. They're always talking about like, oh, yeah. Your dollar saves is a dollar earned. It's like maybe you don't have enough...

Speaker 1: Yeah. Some people, you know, Morgan House all likes to say wealth is what you what you don't see but I just...

Speaker 2: Yeah. Sometimes it's what you see. This is movie money by

Speaker 3: the way. I guess he

Speaker 2: would just say...

Speaker 1: To be clear, this is prop money.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But it looks good.

Speaker 3: Dude, I I went to... I've been to Mr. Beast's place in in North Carolina or South Carolina

Speaker 2: incredible, a few times. Prop money. Right? We we actually record...

Speaker 3: Oh, shit. We recorded an episode for the new show. It'll December. What?

Speaker 1: I think you swore. What what did you say?

Speaker 3: No. I said

Speaker 2: There we go.

Speaker 3: Dagnabbit. There you go. I'm cursing way less by the way.

Speaker 1: I've been cognizant of it.

Speaker 2: You can't teach an old man any tricks.

Speaker 3: I I went to... How dare you call me old?

Speaker 2: I went to... I trust as a 100

Speaker 3: year old

Speaker 2: man. We

Speaker 3: we we shot in this crazy... Let me tell you this story because you know, I mean people... You just had mentioned about like finding somebody and taking it very seriously. You guys had this idea, you're like, okay, we're not going release next week, we're going to freaking spend four more months. It's going be like absurd that we do this. Yeah. For for Beast Games, the show that he does for

Speaker 2: for

Speaker 3: Amazon Prime, man, he built an entire city. Yeah. And like I went to the city. There's like I think 2,000 people working there. Like the production is insane.

Speaker 2: They shot with like 1,500 cameras. They had a single camera on every... It's insane.

Speaker 3: We... So he he was talking about all the data that that that produces everything. It's on... It's in the episode, so I I don't wanna like ruin that part. But what was cool was that we shot it in like, you built... Looked like a almost like a coliseum. Like It's like where the contestants like... A lot of them live, and a lot of like the contests take place there. But in the shot should be, I think it was like a five... I forgot how much it was, like $5,000,000. It's like a pyramid of like $5,000,000 cash. So, yeah, that that I think is prop money that he's has, but that would be hilarious if like you rolled up to... If I rolled up to Munger's house and you just had, you know, a pyramid of cash instead instead of you know, You giant should

Speaker 1: you should make a... You should create, you know, Disneyland for... An invite only Disneyland for podcasters. It's sort of city a city on its own.

Speaker 3: So you wanna hear a funny story that's gonna go counter... No, I'm not gonna do anything other than podcasting. I had Ari Emmanuel on the show. Mhmm. And he got there ninety minutes early, so we were hanging out talking, and it was just like, it was incredible to be able to like pick that guy's brain. He's like unbelievably still extreme. He's like, yeah, you know I took DMT and Ayahuasca, and I'm a lot calmer now. And I'm like, Ari, you were just yelling at somebody in the bathroom. Like, I could hear you in that door. But afterward, then we did the episode, and then I was talking to him about his podcast that he's doing. And then we went into like, you know, all the stuff that I know about podcasting. And he goes, hey man, can we like get you signed for WME or whatever? And I look at him, and we're we're out front in in the yard, where you guys been? And I go, are you? I go, there's not a god there's not a goddamn thing I can learn from you about podcasting. And I'm not doing any and and I'm not doing anything else. He just laughed and laughed

Speaker 1: and laughed.

Speaker 3: I was like, he's like, will you take

Speaker 1: the call?

Speaker 3: I like, yeah, take the call. It's fine. It's like, I'm not doing anything other than podcasting. So somebody else is gonna have to build Founders Disneyland. Okay. Or you know, that Mecca, know, everybody going to the to to... I do wonder what like our generation's version of the Berkshire shareholder meeting will be. Sure.

Speaker 1: Yeah. The TBPN shareholders meeting.

Speaker 2: Yeah. We've been thinking about that. That might be good.

Speaker 1: Yeah. We we've we've been thinking about a conference just for shareholders that's hosted annually.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 3: I mean, if you think about what they did

Speaker 4: up there, they they

Speaker 3: basically were live streamers for a day. Just like... And you guys already mastered this craft. Like, couldn't you do that? Yeah. We can definitely do

Speaker 2: come with them actually. Tons.

Speaker 1: Most mostly in the the sort of looks part.

Speaker 3: That's hilarious.

Speaker 2: It's great. Well, have a...

Speaker 1: Sorry to interrupt your your day. We know you gotta get back to your own podcast.

Speaker 3: This is... I I feel really bad. My phone's always on D and D and I don't have any... I think I had one thing on my calendar this week, the whole week. So you guys know I don't use calendar and my phone's on D and D and I'm like, fuck. I looked at my text message and Dylan... You... And Dylan's like, yo, where are you? Yeah. Classic.

Speaker 2: You gotta trust the process for sure. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 1: Great to

Speaker 3: see Love you guys.

Speaker 2: Enjoy the... Excited to do

Speaker 1: your show soon. Love you.

Speaker 2: Have a good one.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Let's do it like next week.

Speaker 1: Goodbye. You're the man.

Speaker 2: Let me tell you about console. Console built AI agents that automate 70% IT, HR and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. Reddit is down. You saw this? Reddit's selling off. I think Will mentioned it. The the quotes from the earnings call are a little rough. Google is crawling us as hard as ever. The reality is AI mode does not drive traffic. So people go, they used to just say, site Reddit, click on the Reddit, click... See some of those ads over there. Now, people are getting the answer directly in AI mode. Not for us and not to anybody as far as I know, so traffic is way down. Used to be a traffic driver, now it's not. People still want Reddit. It's just Google is not sending them to Reddit the way they used to. Huffman says Reddit isn't counting on Google traffic returning. We don't control Google. We only control Reddit. And so they're going log in only. You can only use the service if you're logged in. So they're putting up a paywall basically or so

Speaker 1: It's a social network.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Registration wall. Yeah. It's a social network which It's

Speaker 4: probably an intranet.

Speaker 2: The the natural form of this. Also, Salesforce bought Rune Technologies.

Speaker 1: Yeah. This is cool. We've had Rune on the show before. Seemed like a smart

Speaker 2: business.... For this one?

Speaker 1: Munger Gong.

Speaker 2: Munger Gong. The Munger nator.

Speaker 1: Oh, great stuff. Great stuff. Oh. But, yeah, it seems like it was a fantastic outcome for the Rune team.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Very excited.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And, I can see how it makes sense in Salesforce's business. Yeah. You know, Benioff and Karp have this incredible tension. And, and... Yeah. Looks like Salesforce wants to try to eat more of their lunch.

Speaker 2: We'll see

Speaker 1: how that goes. The account odd stats has some odd stats for us today. Mhmm.

Speaker 2: Give it to us. What you got?

Speaker 1: Odd stats says, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, here's the list of every time in QQQ history where it gapped down two and a half percent or worse on a Friday. It's currently down almost three and a half percent following a negative 1% day and it happened three times in 2001. Once in June 2002. October 2008. Twice at the beginning of COVID. And then Liberation Day, and possibly today. And of course, that has turned out to be the case. And, yeah. Crazy, crazy day in the markets.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You gotta have a margin of safety in this time.

Speaker 1: I think so.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Never been a better time to go brush up on your your Buffett and Munger, understand the greats.

Speaker 1: Yeah. When your favorite holding period is forever, it tastes like today.

Speaker 2: Not really that scary. When you're in the value investor mode.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Buy something that has cash flow, has value.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Price is what you pay, value is what you get. Exactly.

Speaker 2: Couldn't have said it better myself. Yeah. Fantastic.

Speaker 1: I think that's our show.

Speaker 2: I I I think Chad was asking for a Greg Abel money spread. We wanted to see if Greg Abel was breached and in fact,

Speaker 1: he is.

Speaker 3: Looks like he is.

Speaker 2: You've never seen a Greg Abel money spread, but now you have. We got Ten months into the job. Breached. Thoroughly breached. Oh. Let me tell you about Cisco. Critical infrastructure for the mumbo jumbo era. Unlock seamless real time experiences of new value with Cisco. Well, seamless experiences for the AI era, first and foremost tech show, but we like to imagine the the...

Speaker 1: You said mumbo jumbo, but, you know what, Charlie once said?

Speaker 2: What'd he say?

Speaker 1: You got to have models in your head. So I think what he meant like that, he was traveling to the future Large language saying like, exfiltrate the weights Sure. Upload memorize them. Yep. Distill them. Distill them

Speaker 2: To yourself.

Speaker 1: Down into something that you can use yourself Yeah. And deploy them.

Speaker 2: That makes sense. Should we check-in... The pumpkin harvest.... Contest.

Speaker 3: Who wins? We have three pumpkins.

Speaker 2: Okay. What do you got?

Speaker 3: I'll I'll showcase mine first Brendan can get in with his. Yes. So I have a heart here with c and w Okay. For Charlie and Warren.

Speaker 2: Love it.

Speaker 3: You can see that

Speaker 2: over there. That's very cute. That's That's decades in the making. I think this one's supposed to say TBPN.

Speaker 1: Pretty... Is that like covered in mold? What's going

Speaker 2: on there? Yeah. What happened on the side of that pumpkin?

Speaker 3: You got a different ankle.

Speaker 2: Okay. A rough on that one.

Speaker 3: Have to disqualify that pumpkin. That looks a

Speaker 1: little succulent.

Speaker 2: Up to the top. Yeah. And then the last one, the Christmas tree pumpkin because of course, we're only

Speaker 3: There we go.

Speaker 2: Three years away. That is perfect.

Speaker 1: You guys you guys both win incredible work with the moldy pumpkins.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You guys did good job.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What a show. What a show. Yeah. Good show. I... Yeah. The last thing I would say is is, you know, we've been joking around today but I think Buffett and Munger are two of the greatest role models Truly. That the business community could ever have. Yeah. And as as much fun as we're having, we we we know, wanted to honor them. A 100%. In our own little TBPN way.

Speaker 4: A 100%.

Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: So go grab a Coca Cola, go grab some C's candy, enjoy yourself this...

Speaker 1: Sign up for GEICO. Sign up for... Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

Speaker 2: Send some freight on the Burlington Northern Railroad.

Speaker 3: Why not?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Why not? Why not? Tyler or Greg, can you take us out with with a a troop?

Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcast.

Speaker 1: Have a wonderful weekend. Be safe out there this weekend. We love you. We'll see you Monday.

Speaker 2: And we will see you on Monday. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Speaker 5: Boeing flashbang.