Gavin Baker – Tech and Consumer Growth Investing - [Invest Like the Best, EP.149]

My guest this week is Gavin Baker, the founder, and manager of Atreides Management. I met Gavin in the same way I meet many of the most interesting people, on twitter. His focus is on consumer and technology growth investing, which is the topic of our conversation. We discuss many of the largest trends in these sectors, several fascinating investment cases, and also explore the videogame industry in detail—which I found especially interesting. Please enjoy my conversation with Gavin Baker.

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Show Notes

1:16 – (first question) – His unique view on the markets

4:00 – Distilling Apple as a growth investment

6:44 – What is the most important lever for Apple looking forward

9:01 – His view on Intel

11:03 – Most important technological changes that may dictate his investing strategy

16:20 – How do you look at a big idea, like AR, and then apply to an individual business

            18:21 – Fortnite isn't a game, it's a place

            18:26– Fortnite Is the Future, but Probably Not for the Reasons You Think

18:56 – His insight into video games and their ability to control attention

28:36 – How do you invest in the gaming sector

40:06 – Favorite video games

32:07 – Why gaming and customer sector allows him to find Alpha richness

34:17 – Being in the top 1% of knowledge before investing in a company

36:24 – His view on value investing today and, in the future,

41:15 – Increase of regulatory capture 

42:01 – Headwinds to the tech companies today

43:50 – Thoughts on the Chinese internet market and how it impacts US markets

45:36 – How often companies look at China for ideas

46:21 – Role of alternative data in his process

49:36 – Big trends today we should be paying attention to

54:20 – the most interesting company he does not own

58:48 – Advice for new investors

1:00:17 – Non-obvious tech resources - TechMeme

1:00:50 – Favorite sci-fi character

1:01:19 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'shaughnessy asset management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of O'shaughnessy asset management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Clients of the podcast guest’s firm may also maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.