Interview with René Sellmann
René, a quality investor, will share his secrets and knowledge right here with you. Take advantage of this!
Welcome back, Fluenteers!
Today, I’m thrilled to introduce you to someone I’ve been following and learning from for quite some time — René Sellman.
René is a quality investor and content creator, sharing insights across X (Twitter), YouTube, and Substack. His work consistently stands out for its clarity, depth, and long-term mindset — all qualities we admire in this community.
In this interview, René shares his approach to investing, his content strategy, and the principles that guide his thinking. I’m confident you’ll walk away with at least one insight that will sharpen your edge.
So grab a pen, open your notebook, and get ready to take notes.
You’re going to love this one.
Connect with René:
Now, let’s dive into René’s world.
Happy compounding!
Let’s start with the person behind the investor. Can you tell us a bit about yourself—where you’re from, how old you are, what your background looks like, and what you enjoy doing outside of investing and creating content?
I'm René Sellmann. I live in Düsseldorf, Germany, where I split my time between teaching at a secondary school and obsessing over investing and content creation.
Outside of investing, I enjoy breaking down and studying mental models, hosting investing Zoom calls, and nerding out over strategy in everything from businesses to stock picking.
I post my content on various platforms, including YouTube, Substack, X/Threads, and a podcast, where I share my thoughts on the craft of investing.
Can you take me back to the very beginning? What drew you into investing, not just as a way to make money, but as something worth dedicating serious time and energy to?
Honestly, I don’t remember exactly what sparked my interest in investing. What I do recall is that, back around 2017, at a friend’s party, people were discussing ETFs in the kitchen (everyone’s favorite spot at a home party, right?), and I must have been intrigued and looked up the concept afterwards. I was already 27 back then. My parents didn’t teach me anything about investing. But as I started earning more serious money, it’s only natural to start thinking about what to do with the cash that starts piling up.
Ever since, I've been obsessed with investing, consuming everything I got my hands on (books, podcasts, YouTube). After three years, in 2020, I began working on the content for a mentorship program that I had planned to launch, and continued working on it for another 2-3 years. This helped me gain confidence in what I know, provided clarity about how I want and don’t want to invest, and I laid out my investing philosophy in great detail in written form, which I still rely on today.
Overall, what turned a casual interest into a deep, enduring passion was realizing how investing could act as a lens through which to understand the world. That’s what I enjoy about this discipline so much. Businesses become stories of human behavior, incentives, culture, competitive environments, and systems thinking. The process of studying businesses rewards humility, encourages patience, and offers compounding returns not just financially, but intellectually. That’s when I knew I was in this for the long haul. Ever since that kitchen conversation, I’ve spent almost every single day thinking about investment processes and related ideas, attempting to become someone who thinks more critically.
You’ve built your philosophy around high-quality companies. What does “quality” mean to you personally, and how did you arrive at that definition over time?
For me, “quality” is about resilience, predictability, and reinvestment opportunities. A quality company can take a punch – whether from competition (e.g. TikTok or Snap’s “attacks” on Meta), macro shifts (e.g. Starbucks leveraging mobile ordering and loyalty apps), or even internal mistakes (Chipotle overhauling its supply chains in light of the E. coli Crisis) – and still emerge stronger. I think that’s something Jamie Dimon recently also stressed during an interview. Great businesses benefit from crises if you can take a step back.
So quality means a durable moat, yes, but also a business model that generates excess cash and has plenty of room to redeploy the cash internally, and finally, there’s a leadership team that allocates it with skill and integrity.
Over time, I’ve become less interested in traditional measures of “growth” and more attuned to how a company grows (remember the compounding formula made up of reinvestment rate + return on incremental investments), how long it can grow at high rates and reinvest at high incremental returns, and why it wins (and will keep winning) over competitors.
Quality also encompasses visibility and predictability, which Dev Kantesaria recently discussed in an interview. He said:
“Judging business quality is essentially finding the perfect intersection between organic growth and predictability. You might see a company growing 30-40% per year, but it could be young, in a new industry, or otherwise unpredictable. You can also find plenty of companies growing at a stable 3% per year. Neither of those situations appeals to us – we want companies with a high organic growth rate, but doing it predictably.”
This is reminding me of all the microcaps pitched on X and Substack all the time. You’ll discover some impressive winners with the benefit of hindsight – stocks that went up 100x or even 1,000x – but could you have predicted such an outcome with a high degree of certainty? Sometimes sure. But you also have to be honest with yourself and wonder, “How much of the outcome was driven by ‘luck’?” How high was the probability of a permanent loss of capital? (Think of highly speculative product pharma companies) I don’t think there’s anything wrong with microcaps, just to be clear, but the risk associated with (some of) them is sometimes underdiscussed in my view. So a high-quality business also entails a high degree of certainty that the business will be better ten years from now, which in my view, is a requirement to be able to value a business in the first place – without predictability, there’s no proper valuation work.
My definition of quality has evolved by studying companies that compound somewhat quietly. Wise is a great example: customer love translates into lower churn, which reduces CAC (a very low figure for Wise anyway), leading to solid margins that fund product improvements... and so the flywheel gets going. I’m sure many of the people following me have seen the flywheel illustration shared by Wise’s IR team itself.
That kind of flywheel is hard to disrupt, primarily because it is based on scale economies shared and an internal culture obsessed with sharing scale benefits with customers, which is extremely difficult to establish (and maintain) at a company and management level. I genuinely consider this moat the strongest of all. Consider the German retailer Aldi – I don’t see Aldi being disrupted over the next 20-30 years, as no one can compete with them on price (although I think Aldi has lost market share more recently; this is probably worth researching further).
Similarly, Wise reinvests in “price,” which is a fascinating concept I recently wrote about in a blog. IBKR, another SAS business, also reinvests uniquely: its balance sheet strength.
Another layer of my framework is stakeholder alignment. If the customer, employee, and shareholder can all win simultaneously, you're probably looking at a high-quality business. That’s rare – and often worth paying for, which is something I still need to work on.
I could continue this list for a long time, but I think you get the idea.
In summary, I’d say I no longer view quality as a filter. It’s the foundation. If a business lacks it, no valuation discount is enough to make it interesting to me (unless I start deviating from my core principles, which unfortunately has happened in the past).
I think that’s an idea – the idea of not investing in average-quality enterprises. Chris Hohn also recently discussed this in an interview with Norges Bank Investment Management (I highly recommend this one).
What was your first investment where you truly felt like you had an edge, or at least a thesis you fully believed in? What did that experience teach you?
Interactive Brokers might not be the first company where I felt like I had real insight, but it’s a fairly recent one that comes to mind here – it’s probably not the first one. I always bring up Capri Holdings as my first “homerun-investment,” where I was able to buy it at what I believed was 1- 2x FCF during the Covid panic.
However, let’s return to IBKR and the insights I gained regarding this stock... Many investors around me used it, especially serious investors, but I noticed that it was rarely discussed as a stock. Due to the business's ownership structure, the research terminals have an incorrect margin structure, which may cause this idea to be screened poorly. Most investors were focused on flashy growth names or well-known value plays, while IBKR is quietly executing with high margins (70%+ pretax margins), a founder-led culture, and a moat built on automation and cost leadership.
What gave me confidence was my understanding of the aforementioned scale economies shared model. Peterffy being vocal on earnings calls about how undervalued the stock is also helped. Talking to my buddy Andrew and discussing the idea privately was great too. Rob Vinall owning shares and sharing his thesis in one of his letters may have been another piece. I understood how sticky the product was/is. I could go on forever...
The biggest lesson? You don’t need to outsmart everyone. You just need to notice what others ignore. And often, the best insights are hiding in plain sight. One thing I’ve come to appreciate is that some of the best-performing ideas are also the least noisy. They don’t trend on X, they rarely make headlines. But while others chase what’s loud, real compounding in underlying business value often happens in the quiet, not receiving the media attention it probably deserves.
Looking back a few years, how has your investing style evolved? What changed—and what stayed the same?
In the early days, like most, I was to some extent drawn to the “romanticism” of typical value stocks – digging for statistically cheap stocks that looked “misunderstood” – copying Pabrai’s GrafTech bet comes to mind here (and, of course, it didn't go all too well; at least the downside was fairly protected). However, over time, I realized that “cheap” often comes with a cost: capital intensity, weak moats, management that treats shareholders as an afterthought, and so on.
The shift toward quality came gradually. I started to ask: What kind of business can I confidently own through multiple cycles? What companies could I talk about with conviction even if their stock price was down 30% or more? That shift led me toward high-ROIC businesses, recurring revenue models, founder-led firms, and companies with “ecosystem control” (a concept coined by Dennis Hong, if I remember correctly).
What stayed the same is the curiosity and the belief that long-term thinking is a competitive edge. However, what changed is that I now view investing less as finding statistical bargains and more as identifying excellence that’s worth paying up for – and no, I’m not talking about paying 10 times sales.
Was there a particular investment you got wrong that forced you to reevaluate how you think about businesses or risk? What shifted for you afterward?
Before I discuss some specific mistakes, let me make a general comment here: discussing mistakes can be painful. As human beings, we often dislike facing what is uncomfortable. But you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to turn your costly mistakes into valuable learning lessons.
I recently came across a tweet from Dr. Hugh Akston (@Akston_Capital), who essentially attempted to publicly humiliate himself by tweeting about how he had ignored his own investment principles when taking a stab at UnitedHealth after the recent significant price drop. I found this a remarkable way to deal with one’s mistake.
He tweeted:
“Self-flagellation is a good tool to keep yourself disciplined. Make the dumb mistakes so painful that they get seared into your brain in an attempt to avoid them in the future. Getting ‘unluckyÄ on a good risk/reward is fine, but self-inflicted mistakes are not. This game is too hard to piss away capital on dumb trades.”
And before this, he wrote:
“Tried bottom fishing in $UNH today at $260. Got stopped out at $250. Worst trade implementation of the year. Violated almost all of my rules: 1) Never buy something for 10 mins that you wouldn't be comfortable owning for 10yrs 2) Always scale into positions (went full position right off the bat) 3) Avoid "too hard" ideas 4) Avoid ideas that are totally reliant on the govt.”
I absolutely love this mindset and think more investors should adopt it.
Now, turning to some of the mistakes I’ve made. I’ve started sharing some annual reflections toward the end of the year – sort of a year-end letter. Inspired by Francois Rochon, I’ll include a “podium of mistakes” in each letter. You can read my 2024 reflections here, which include my top three mistakes.
In my 7-8 years of investing, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, of course. Just to list a few:
I experienced my first permanent capital loss in German microcap stock Endor. It’d be easy to blame the management team here or the German insolvency law framework (I could probably write an entire book about the events that I think unfolded here behind the curtains), but I probably could’ve simply dodged this bullet altogether by sticking to my quality filters. Additionally, the thesis began to deteriorate over time, and investors like Luiz Sanchez from LVS Advisory were able to exit this one, I assume at a loss, while I convinced myself that it was “too cheap” to sell.
Overestimating Alibaba’s ability to continue growing in a highly competitive Chinese market.
Selling Apple in late February or early March of 2020 and never reentering.
Who are some of the investors or thinkers that have influenced your approach the most, and how have you made their ideas your own rather than just following them?
There are too many to list, I guess. Phil Town, Geoff from Focused Compound, and Pabrai had a significant early influence on me, and “novice investor René” certainly learned a great deal from their writing and public appearances.
A little later, Nick Sleep was foundational, too. His idea that companies that create more value for the customer than they retain for themselves will outperform over time – that was a major unlock for me. But there are obviously more hidden gems in the Nomad letters.
Rob Vinall taught me the value of patience, flexibility, and direct communication. His letters don’t try to impress – they try to focus on what matters. They are always following a fundamental-first principle. The letters (and, of course, his bets) reflect the flexibility in his approach, oftentimes
causing a great deal of cognitive dissonance on my end (how can a quality-focused investor venture into a Scandinavian oil stock?). He’s a contrarian by nature. And he’s always trying to anticipate where the puck is going. That style seeped into how I invest, how I write on my Substack, and how I document my thinking privately.
Dennis Hong’s idea of ecosystem control has also become a mental model I use regularly. I now ask: “Can this business shape the rules of its niche?” That’s a different question than “Is this company a category leader?” Conducting a stakeholder analysis is also an activity more investors should probably spend time on – I think the investors of Ensemble Capital once wrote a great article, or maybe even a multi-part series, on this topic.
More recently, I’m chatting a lot with Tiho Brkan via WhatsApp, exchanging ideas. I think he’s sort of seeing a mentee in me. He’s heavily leaning into the domain of behavioral finance, and always thinking about how and where to gain a behavioral edge to add a few percentage points of alpha to your overall performance. I’ve written a bit about this here:
I’m much more fundamental-focused, but if I can adopt a few of his ideas and learn to better read the market’s pulse, this could certainly add a nice one or two percentage points here and there.
If you have the time, I recommend listening to our 3-part podcast conversation – here’s part 1:
The common thread across all of these thinkers is that they each helped me build a more transparent lens. However, I always remix those ideas to align with my personality and temperament, my circle of competence, and my personal values. I think that’s an important point worth stressing. You have to find what works for you.
Is there a commonly accepted investing idea or principle you’ve moved away from over time? What led you to question it?
Yes—“buy what you know.” It sounds great at first, especially for beginners. The idea is to invest in companies you interact with regularly so you understand the product or service. And, of course, that idea is not wrong; my investing buddy, Andrew Letendre, 100% sticks to it, and he’s doing very well for himself.
I’m also not questioning the power of being exclusively focused on companies whose value proposition you 100% understand from a customer point of view. I think that’s an excellent filter to have. However, over time, I personally found it slightly limiting. Just because you’re not a customer doesn’t mean you cannot understand the business model, the capital intensity, the competitive dynamics, or the management quality. Additionally, B2B businesses tend to be more successful on average than consumer-facing ones.
So I’ve shifted toward “buy what you CAN understand.” Research what excites you. That subtle difference opens the door to much richer opportunities. It allows me to study businesses and industries I don’t personally interact with – like HR software (e.g., Paycom) or cloud providers (e.g., DigitalOcean) –or businesses that are operating in geographies outside of Germany, and still form a valid, high-conviction thesis. Some of the best ideas are things you’d never encounter as a consumer, but which play a massive role behind the scenes. You don’t need to “know” the company from your daily life (which doesn’t harm, of course). You just need to understand how it works and why it wins.
How do you think about conviction? When you size up a position or stick with an idea through volatility, what’s going through your mind?
Conviction, for me, is earned through preparation. It’s easy to feel confident when a stock is going up. But true conviction is tested when everything is red, headlines are scary, and you’re alone in your thinking. That’s when process matters most.
And of course, I size positions based on the depth of my understanding, the quality of the business, and my comfort with the downside, not just the upside potential. The downside risk is what actually matters.
I also think of conviction in layers. First…
Is the business model sound and resilient? Is it understandable (also on a unit level)?
Are the incentives aligned?
What’s management’s capital allocation track record?
Do I understand the risks well enough to sit through pain?
Finally, price plays a critical role. It’s much easier to have conviction in a stock that’s down 50% and now trading at 5x free cash flow vs. a stock that was cut in half but still trades at 7x sales.
If I can answer those with clarity, I can endure volatility. But if the thesis is shallow or built on borrowed conviction (e.g., from other investors I admire), you probably shouldn’t have invested in the first place.
Some of my mistakes stemmed from imbalance. I either moved too fast, fueled by borrowed conviction, or stayed too passive, despite knowing better, or I acted but bet too small. Research and conviction are two sides of the same coin. Without the former, you're gambling. Without the latter, you're just dabbling. Real investing demands both. It’s what makes investing so hard.
Finally, conviction isn't just about courage. It’s about filtering ruthlessly. If you’re only going to act a few times a year, the bar for pulling the trigger has to be extremely high. That’s what makes those few actions meaningful and what makes it easy to have high conviction in them. Anything less, and the whole philosophy breaks down.
What’s the most challenging part of your process to get right consistently, and how are you working on improving it?
Sizing. Without a doubt. Getting the idea right is one thing – getting the weight right is another game entirely. It’s one of the sources of outperformance.
You can have an outstanding thesis and still underperform if you size it too small. I read this online the other day:
“If your best idea isn’t good enough to size up, it’s not good enough to own at all.”
Or, worse, you can size something too large out of excitement, only to realize later that your conviction wasn’t as solid as you thought.
In public markets, I’ve found that true durability at a great entry price – the kind you can underwrite with conviction – is rare and deserves concentration. That’s where the fundamental asymmetry lies.
What makes sizing hard is that it’s not just about math (the Kelly formula sounds good in theory, but it cannot be properly applied in investing due to limited sample sizes and incomplete information) – it’s about self-awareness: what’s a position size I can emotionally handle that still gives me the most possible upside if I’m right? You have to understand your emotional bandwidth. How much volatility can you handle in a prominent position before you start second-guessing yourself?
I’m working on tying position size more explicitly to a framework that includes clarity of thesis, downside protection, moat durability, and management trust. I’ve also started documenting my “pain points” per position – what specific outcomes would make me trim or hold? Which key KPIs do I need to track? So I have a more precise map when stress hits.
Sizing is still part art, part science. But I’m learning to treat it like portfolio architecture, not just random betting.
You create content on X, Substack, and YouTube. How has that public work shaped or sharpened your investing approach?
Creating content has made me a better investor because it forces me to teach. To teach something well, you must understand it at a deeper level.
Moreover, writing and speaking publicly sharpens my thinking in a way that silent research never could. I must structure arguments, anticipate objections, and simplify without compromising clarity.
It also introduces accountability. Once you publish an idea – whether it’s a stock thesis, a mental model, or a portfolio update – you open yourself to feedback. That’s humbling, but incredibly useful.
Some of the best improvements in my process have come from thoughtful pushback in the comments or someone asking a question I hadn’t considered. You can create a beautiful feedback loop: when I publish something and others share their insights or related resources, it expands my perspective. Posting content isn’t just a form of self-expression (which is rewarding in and of itself), but it’s also leading to collaboration with a “global brain trust” of like-minded people in a way.
What’s your intention behind your content? Education, community, accountability, something else? What does success look like for you on that front?
All of the above, but especially community and clarity. I want my content to be a place where thoughtful investors feel less alone. The journey of long-term investing can be a lonely one. You often feel like the only one not chasing the latest hype, the only one still holding through drawdowns, or the only one who cares about reading footnotes in annual reports. My goal is to give people “a voice of reason in a world of noise.” That’s a tagline I came up with and included in a banner in some of my videos.
Metrics like views or subscribers don’t just define success. It’s when an individual tells me: “That post helped me reframe my thinking,” or “You made me curious about something I’d ignored.”
What’s a company in your portfolio that you’re particularly proud of owning, not just because it worked out, but because it reflects your way of thinking?
One company I’m particularly proud to own is Meta Platforms (although pride in ownership can lead to poor decision-making in the future). Not just because the investment worked out financially, but because it reflects my broader investment philosophy: conviction through volatility, the willingness to be early and wrong before being proven right, and the discipline to hold through noise.
I started adding heavily to my Meta position during the drawdown in 2022 and 2023, when sentiment was profoundly pessimistic. Most of my purchases were in the $100–$180 range, and I even made some below $90, which was close to the bottom. At the time, headlines were dominated by talk of Zuck’s metaverse obsession, the TikTok Threat, Apple’s tracking changes, and runaway spending. But I saw a misunderstood asset with immense cash generation, world-class ad infrastructure, and optionality in AI and messaging. The market was focused on recent costs, while I focused on the underlying engine and long-term potential. I think with the benefit of hindsight, you were able to buy Meta at something like 4x 2Y-forward EBIT. That’s absolutely nuts and shows how irrational markets can become at times.
Importantly, I didn’t just buy at the lows. I also added back at $400, after a weaker quarter, which I think shows another layer of discipline: I didn’t anchor to my previous buys. Overcoming that kind of psychological bias is something I take real pride in. Similarly, I held through to $700, even as many around me, including respected investors, were trimming or calling to “take profits” at $200, $300, $400, and so on.
I tweeted in August 2024 that while Meta was Pat Dorsey’s most prominent position, his biggest mistake may have been selling it every single quarter since Q1 2023. If he had held, his stake would now be around 62% of his AUM.
What do you think your most significant edge is as an investor today, and how did you come to recognize it?
My most significant edge today is time arbitrage, the ability to look further ahead than most market participants. In a world obsessed with the next quarter, I focus on the next three to five years, or perhaps the next ten years.
That edge is behavioral. It stems from structuring my process, environment, and mindset in a way that enables me to remain patient when others are compelled to act. I recognized this edge by observing how often great businesses are mispriced due to short-term noise – missed quarters, shifting narratives, or misunderstood investments.
I just mentioned Meta, which is a great example. When the market panicked over near-term spending and headwinds (Meta posted one quarter without any free cash flow back then), I was buying aggressively, because I was thinking about where the business could be in 2027 or 2030, not what the next earnings call would look like. That’s not about predicting the future perfectly, but being directionally right.
I wrote about this idea in greater detail here:
What type of business do you naturally gravitate toward, even if it’s not the most apparent winner on paper? What’s the pattern you tend to trust?
I tend to fall in love with “quiet compounders” – companies that don’t grab headlines but steadily build value through customer love, operational discipline, smart capital allocation, and long-term thinking. We’ve addressed many of these concepts already. Ideally, they might even operate in a relatively unexciting industry, increasing the chances that other investors will overlook them. So yeah, they might look boring at first glance.
However, you might question whether my current portfolio actually aligns with that fundamental belief. I’m certainly also very interested in “techy” names in disruptors. Think: AI infrastructure, specialty software, payment rails, or mission-critical logistics.
First and foremost, I am interested in reinvestment opportunities. If a company pays out 50% of its profits as a dividend, this immediately turns me off a bit. This doesn’t mean I reject the idea altogether, because if it reinvests the remaining 50% at attractive rates (or perhaps it requires very little reinvestment to grow in the first place), investors can still achieve a great outcome, especially if purchased at a low price. But fundamentally, if all else is equal, I prefer companies that can redeploy A LOT of capital at high returns.
These businesses often look “expensive” to people using the wrong lens. But once you understand the compounding mechanics, they’re actually cheap on a decade-long horizon.
How do you protect yourself from falling in love with a company? Where’s the line between admiration and bias for you?
It starts with acknowledging that bias is inevitable. I will get attached to stories, founders, and ideas… It’s human. However, I try to systematize my approach to it. First, you need to study and understand all the biases that exist. Then reflect on your own behavior. Another method is writing a “pre-mortem” for each investment: what could realistically go wrong here? Why is someone else selling his shares to you? Spend a lot of time on the bear case. That’s not a natural thing to do, and it will create discomfort. But you have to do it.
Another tool I use is external challenges. I’ve built a community of thoughtful investors who don’t hesitate to challenge my thinking. If I can’t defend the thesis against an intelligent skeptic, it’s probably time to reassess.
Finally, I’ve learned that admiration should never override accountability. If management starts allocating poorly, culture declines, or the moat erodes, I sell, no matter how much I used to love the business. Respect is earned continuously. Love is for relationships, not for stocks. Another tagline I believe in is: the more robotic you are in your decision-making, the better your investment outcomes. And robots don’t feel emotions.
What’s a belief or assumption you hold today that you’re still questioning or evolving? Something you haven’t fully resolved yet.
One belief I’m still wrestling with is how much weight to give to macroeconomic context in bottom-up investing. I’ve long subscribed to the idea that you can ignore macro and focus solely on business fundamentals. That was Buffett’s approach, and it’s echoed by many long-term investors I admire.
However, the last few years – marked by COVID shocks, rate hikes, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical shifts – have somewhat challenged that view, at least to some extent. I still believe you can’t predict macro. But I’m starting to think that you can’t completely ignore it either. Some businesses are far more sensitive to rate environments, regulatory shifts, or energy prices than their past earnings might suggest.
So now, I’m trying to strike a balance. I still prioritize microanalysis, but I also ask: “What external variables could undermine this thesis… not because the company failed, but because the world changed?” I haven’t fully resolved it, but I’m more comfortable saying: I don’t need to be a macro expert, but I also can’t afford to be blind.
What are you still trying to master or understand better when it comes to investing? Where do you feel you’re still early in your journey?
Selling. It’s deceptively hard. Entering a position feels easy to me: you’re building a thesis, you’re courageous when others are fearful, the price is just “too cheap” ... ideally, it’s so cheap that you start questioning yourself: what in the world am I missing?
Selling a stock that has done well for you, on the other hand, is really hard for me. There are once again all sorts of biases involved here, clouding your judgment.
Ian Cassel once introduced the metaphor of renting versus owning stock. I’m a strong believer in adopting a business owner's mindset when investing. Sort of counterintuitively, the beauty of public market investing is that you can exit an investment at any point in time. That’s why they often trade at a “liquidity premium” in the first place. At times, opportunistically, it makes sense to utilize that liquidity to your advantage. This is especially true when there are clearly animal spirits in the market. So you rent a quality business when it’s trading at an excellent rental yield, to stick with the metaphor. However, if the price of the home starts skyrocketing, buyers will be knocking at your door every day (Buffett’s Mr. Market), bidding prices up and up, driving the rental yield down. At some point, you should absolutely sell. You have too, fully embracing that more buyers willing to pay even more may very well show up at the door for another year, making you feel like a fool for selling too early. You have to lean into the behavioral edge that you have over competitors.
Ten years from now, if someone looks back at your body of work and your portfolio, what do you hope stands out most, not the returns, but the thinking?
I hope they say, “This person thought clearly and acted deliberately.” Not just that the portfolio compounded well, but that each decision reflected a coherent worldview. That most of the businesses I owned were not only financially sound but also philosophically aligned with long-term value creation for all stakeholders, not just shareholders (as we discussed before).
In terms of content, I want the body of work – on YouTube, X posts, Substack, podcasts – to reflect more than commentary. I want it to feel like a slow-building curriculum: not teaching “how to beat the market over 12 months” but how to think better, ask sharper questions, and build your own framework, which then will inevitably lead to a great outcome.
If someone binge-watches or binge-reads what I’ve put out and walks away thinking more clearly – not just about investing, but about life choices, opportunity cost, incentives, and trust – then I’ll consider that a win.
I also hope there’s consistency. That I didn’t veer wildly with every market cycle, but instead stuck to a few key principles (even during periods of poor performance): long-termism, quality, and curiosity. And that I did it all with a healthy mix of rigor, humility, and joy.
What advice would you give someone just starting their investing journey, based on your experience?
Start small, stay curious, find a mentor, and document everything. When you're starting out, it’s tempting to chase the next big idea or overreact to news flow. Resist that. The real edge comes from building a feedback loop. Write down every thesis, every reason for buying or selling, and revisit those notes.
Focus less on finding the perfect stock and more on developing your personal investing framework. What kind of businesses resonate with you? What risks keep you up at night? What time horizon
suits your temperament? What level of portfolio concentration can you deal with? These answers are more important than any hot tip.
It’s like finding the right diet. The best diet is one you can stick with for an extended period of time. The most expensive mistake in investing is quitting. So find a style that enables you NOT to quit.
Also, ignore the pressure to have strong opinions about everything. It’s okay to say, “I don’t know enough to invest here.” In fact, that humility will probably save you from your worst losses. And finally, seek out other thoughtful investors – not to copy them, but to sharpen your thinking. Investing doesn’t have to be a lonely experience. You’ll go further if you learn in public, ask good questions, make news friends, and never stop refining your process.
Quick Fire Round Questions
What is the most overrated investing concept, and which company is the most overrated?
Overrated concept: "Buy the dip." It’s become a meme more than a strategy. Sometimes the dip is a signal, other times, it's just a business in decline. Without a thesis, you’re not buying a dip, you’re catching a falling knife.
Overrated company: Probably some tech company with excessive stock-based compensation and a structurally broken business model. There are too many to list here.
One stock you’d hold for the next 10 years—no selling allowed?
Wise. I’m still in the process of assessing the disruption risk associated with stablecoins. I’ll write a post on this soon. However, if that risk doesn’t materialize, I believe—and hope—that Wise shareholders will do well over a multi-decade timeframe.
Morning routine or night owl research sessions—why?
I’m most productive early in the morning with a cup of coffee next to me (9-11 am is probably the sweetspot)
One book every investor should actually read cover to cover—and why?
100 Baggers by Chris Mayer. It’s simple, inspirational, and reminds you of what really matters: time, returns on capital, the “twin engines,” and the discipline to hold through noise. You can finish it in a weekend and spend the next decade trying to apply it. That’s my kind of book.
What’s your guilty pleasure outside the investing world?
I probably spend a bit too much time on Counter-Strike with a group of online friends. There’s another mentally stimulating online, 1-on-1, sort of chess-like board game I’d recommend looking into (if you’re into these kinds of things) called Summoners Wars Online. I probably play 1 or 2 matches per week.
Thank you for reading.
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Ideas you’d like covered in future posts.
What are your takeaways from this post?
I read and respond to every comment! :-)
And remember…
Great investments don’t shout—they compound quietly.
- Yorrin
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Disclaimer
René holds shares in some of the mentioned stocks in this interview.
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