Scott Becker
Appearances
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're really going to talk about two different things today. We're going to talk about different ways in which people stay healthy, and we're also going to talk about seven stocks taking on the chin today. So I'm going to talk first about seven stocks that are just getting killed today. These include Bausch & Lomb,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
I talked recently to a colleague who's who's off to, I think, Pot bellies or something of that sort and trying to eat healthy at a place like Potbelly is always a challenge, but working at it better than probably Chipotle. And then finally, trying to drink massive amounts of water and stay hydrated, which is one of the great qualities for staying healthy too, but constantly a challenge too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
And there, of course, one of the challenges with drinking a ton of water, if you drink a ton of water, a ton of coffee, and you have to be on stage all the time, this can be a problem because then you have to go to the bathroom and you can't do it when you're on stage all the time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
In any event, this is our great pleasure today to record in person with the team from Executive Podcast Solutions, the best team in the business, and just a lot of fun for me. Again, today's episode, seven stocks that are taken on the chin today, plus some thoughts on health business events. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
Snapchat and Hertz each down more than 10%. Bausch & Lomb on horrendous first quarter earnings, missing their targets and missing their sales targets. Snapchat also deciding not to provide guidance going forward. Hertz itself struggling too. Then you've also got a whole number of other companies Etsy, Starbucks, Hims and Hers, and Hitachi also way down today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
Hims and Hers, of course, is up 23% yesterday, so being down 6% today is not a big deal. Starbucks down 6.5% to 7% based on lower same-store sales and so forth, and Etsy probably in the same sort of area as Snapchat, just finding conditions to be more challenging than they were before. This is in the backdrop of a challenging market that we're seeing out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
One of the things that we're also talking about is...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
people at conferences and trying to maintain their diet and exercise habits and sort of this this wide range and they love to get feedback from people what they try and do whether trying to remain gluten-free for health reasons or for fitness reasons wearables and tracking whether wearing an aura ring an apple watch or whatever they're doing to try and keep track of their steps so even when they're at a conference when they're at a business event
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Tanking Today & Staying Healthy on the Road 4-30-25
They keep their steps up. If you're a regular practitioner of jujitsu or other types of things and you can't use your wearables, then making sure that you're getting out and trying to schedule a class, even though you're busy with conference and business stuff or do whatever you can to maintain your fitness when you're on the road, trying to eat healthy, which is a great challenge during the road.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker private equity and business podcast. This is a special day of recording. We're going to talk to you about eight stories that we're following today, but I get the great pleasure of recording in person at the Becker's healthcare annual meeting. I'm sitting with Jeremy core, the founder and CEO of executive podcast solutions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
But the gap that Novo Nordisk has compared to Eli Lilly is getting larger and larger. But hims and hers jumped on the news that they and some others will be distributing Novo Nordisk, you know, weight loss, diabetes, drugs, GLP-1s, and so forth. Fifth, the markets rose yesterday, but they're down significantly today. Some challenging news in the market today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
The economy contracted for the first time in a few years in the first quarter this year. Jobs, new jobs added were very low in this last month. Inflation was lower in April, but still hot for the quarter. So a number of things are driving the markets down today as people have concerns about where things are going.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
Sixth, mergers and acquisitions activity, which so many banks, investors, lawyers, consultants, accounts watch closely, was really down in the first quarter. Throughout the rest of the world, it was up. In the US, it was down. People just feeling uncertain, and so being cautious about investing too hard in big deals. Finally, seventh, we've got one more after seven.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
Amazon is down nearly 16% year-to-date. It's performing okay compared to some of the other magnificent seven, but still that's down 15% year-to-date. Palantir Technologies remains hot. It's up 53% year-to-date after being relatively flat for a while. It's just been surging. It's up 53% year-to-date. Finally, Hertz. Hurst dropped 13% yesterday, has announced plans to again tap the debt market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
and Chanel Bunger, the best producer in the business. So for me, it's a special opportunity to visit with our team from Executive Podcast Solutions in person, the best in the business in terms of podcast production, recording, and so forth. So here are the eight stories that we're following today. First, China export orders plunge. China's been hit hard by the tariffs so far.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
It already has $6 billion in debt. It's going to tap the markets for another 500 million. The company also issued 500 million in high yield slash junk bonds in December. So it's continuing to rely on debt heavily to make its cashflow and operations work and so forth. And it's always scary for companies. We say often debt kills companies, countries, and families. companies, countries, and families.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
That's what we say. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you again to Jeremy Corr and Chanel Bunger for being here in person along with Grace Keller and the rest of their team. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
Their economy showed its first big signs of damage from the trade war. The Wall Street Journal reported on that today. Second, Starbucks is down more than 7% today. Lots of investors are sort of betting on the talents of Brian Nicole to move Starbucks in the right direction. In the first quarter, visitors were down. Order size was up. Everything's become so expensive there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
And overall, same-store sales were down, and that's a bad sign. Their comparable same-store sales were down about 2%. As they say, coffee drinkers were going to cheaper alternatives like Dunkin' and McDonald's and others. Third, Snapchat's also way down today. Snapchat, you know, I always worry when people in the household are using Snapchat too much, but in any event, down 13% or so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-30-25
They met their earnings, but they said they couldn't give guidance for the next quarter. And whenever a company says that they're no longer gonna give guidance, that scares people a great deal. Fourth, hims and hers jumped 23% yesterday. They signed a deal for distribution with Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk makes Wegovy, which competes with Mongero and Ozempic and these other things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the U.S. economy slows four key points. So here's the deal with the U.S. economy in the first quarter and a couple of key points on it. First, GDP, gross domestic product, dropped by 0.3%. That's not 3%, that's 0.3%. But that's still a big drop in the first contraction in a few years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
Again, four or so key stats today. GDP slowed tremendously in the first quarter to a negative amount. Remember, two quarters in a row is the technical definition of a recession. Second, GDP was 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024, so at least some growth. Third, inflation eased in April, but was still pretty hot for the first quarter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
And finally, fourth, very slow growth, small growth in private payrolls added in the month of April. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
This is down, our second point is, this is down from 2.4% growth in the fourth quarter of 2024. Third, inflation eased in April, but was still ran pretty hot for the first quarter, but eased in April. Finally, fourth, there was a very small gain in jobs in April. Private payrolls added about 62,000 jobs. And when you combine that with government hiring slowing,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
that leads to concerns about the strength of the growth economy from where it was at. So a few things are happening. One, the market is down today as they try and digest it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
Second, the Fed is going to have a hard time trying to figure out whether the concern is a slowing economy or inflation and also doesn't want to be pushed around by President Trump, although I'm not really sure that that comes into play in Chairman Powell's view of the world. He really worries about inflation and the strength of the economy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The U.S. Economy Slows: 4 Key Points 4-30-25
Now, the final thing is, if we're going to have to slow down growth, Let's hope that our deficits start to come down as well. Because running massive deficits and not getting growth, that's horrible. I'm obviously a believer that running massive deficits at any time is a horrible thing. But if you're particularly not getting growth and you have massive deficits, this is a real problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're joined today by a brilliant leader at RSM. We're joined by Matt Wolfe, and Matt watches regularly the intersection of healthcare and private equity. He's going to talk to us today about some of the trends he's watching in the healthcare deal world, the healthcare deal space.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
Matt, let me tee you up and have you take it away. Talk to us about a handful of the trends that you're watching in this area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
Right. And part of the core point is that regardless of the interest rate environment, there's been some softening of it, but very little. But people are really ready to put money back to work. This is what they do for a living. So they're trying to figure it out. And that's what you're starting to see. And what does that delta still look like between buyers and sellers?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
Is that delta between what sellers want to sell it and buyers want? Is that starting to get lower?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
right like so in the true practice management stuff things are staying a little bit tough the margins are tough reimbursement is tough inflationary costs make margins tough so everything's a little bit more challenging there in true reimbursement areas
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
And all the technology, the digital businesses, the healthcare tech businesses selling into all those things, the revenue cycle businesses, they're not quite as labor intensive. And there's where there's just a lot more action and excitement currently. Is that partly a fair statement?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
Thank you. And you folks live right at the middle of this middle market healthcare, private equity investment. What's the tone and the feel at the firm? Does it feel busy? Does it not feel busy? What are you sensing? Because as professional services firms go, you get a real sense of what's going on in the deal world. Tell us what you're seeing there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
And one of the fast things you're talking about there is, We see more and more deals structured in almost two tracks, the first track being this concept of limited diligence to see if there's really commitment, and the second track being the full diligence and the closings. We see more and more of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
Is that becoming more and more of a trend in terms of how people structure their closing of deals or doing deals?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities with Matt Wolf of RSM 1-29-25
No, I think that's right on. We're seeing exactly that in deals. Early stage diligence and fuller diligence once people decide they really do have a handshake on what they're doing. Matt, as always, I want to thank you so much and RSM for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
General Motors, Please Don’t Get Wobbly on Us: 5 Key Points 1-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is General Motors. Please don't go wobbly on me. Five key points. So here's the deal with GM. GM gets constantly watered for the great leadership of Mary Barra and so forth. And God bless her. But here's the reality of what's going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
General Motors, Please Don’t Get Wobbly on Us: 5 Key Points 1-29-25
First, they had a $2.9 billion fourth quarter loss due to restructuring some plant closures that they tried to put the best possible spin on it. They said in the press release they had record pre-tax profits of nearly $15 billion, excluding one-time items. Now, one-time items.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
General Motors, Please Don’t Get Wobbly on Us: 5 Key Points 1-29-25
Charlie Munger, who is the brilliant partner of Warren Buffett, always said, beware of people that talk to you about one-time items. Because one-time items find a way to be other kinds of one-time items that still mess up profitability. Followers of corporate Americans, that's their point, realize that one-time items often find ways to be not one-time items. Four, true net income fell 41%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
General Motors, Please Don’t Get Wobbly on Us: 5 Key Points 1-29-25
So that's, you know, you could talk about whatever you want, but talk to me about cash flow and net income. And that fell 41%. The fifth thing, and when you think about GM, you don't think about this. I always thought of GM as a mid-value brand almost. The average price of a car sold at GM this last year is $50,000. Who the heck saw that coming? Again, GM, General Motors, don't get wobbly on us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
General Motors, Please Don’t Get Wobbly on Us: 5 Key Points 1-29-25
Five key points. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try to make sure you're learning something, we're learning something, and that you're entertained some as well. Here are eight of the stories that we're following this morning. We might give you a couple postscripts as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
And this is partly the effort to commit to one of the things I talk about regularly, which is double down on things or abandon them. Doubling down on Becker Private Equity and Business, which is hitting record downloads, record advertisements, record rankings. Becker Business Minute not doing so well. We're going to focus all the effort on Becker Private Equity and Business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
Eighth, if your company's ever interested in doing a sponsored business-to-business webinar on Becker Private Equity and through our channels, 773-766-5322. Good news is we're completely sold out for the next month or two, but we'd love to try and find a way to fit you in. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
First, the market staged a good rebound yesterday, enough that I wasn't too scared to check the portfolio. Bad days in the market to me, are akin to not wanting to go on the scale after bad eating days. We often avoid it, today at least better or yesterday better. So I looked at the portfolio, not that bad. Futures were fairly flat early, now down this morning. We'll see how that goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
Second, surgery center partners and surgery partners, a really well-run outpatient and short-stage surgery operator, jumped 21% yesterday, basically on news of a deal with Bain Capital. Bain is one of the great healthcare investors, just great at what they do. Third, we did a podcast yesterday on General Motors. GM, don't go wobbly on me. And this is the beauty of corporate accounting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
They said they had record pre-tax profit, excluding one-time items. But real net income dropped 41%. All of us are skeptical of corporate accounting. They dropped 9% yesterday, or nearly 9%. Fourth, Boeing recorded an $11.83 billion loss in 2024 and a $14.3 billion cash burn. That's just horrific. Let's hope they get it back together. Fifth is the seven biggest market cap stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-29-25
The order very quickly, we've got a separate podcast in this, is Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Google, MetaFacebook, and Tesla. Sixth, JetBlue tanked 25% yesterday. 2024 ended fine, but forecasts for this year are down. I've got R spelled wrong in the actual newsletter, but R down, they are down. Seventh, we're officially shutting down the Becker Business Minute podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Product Equity and Business Podcast. And today we're going to discuss a topic that we talk about often, and we're talking about a lot the next couple of weeks, which is this concept of essentialism and cutting down to the core of what you need to do. So one of the great challenges in business and for us as individuals is trying to concentrate
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
is one around essentialism and cutting it quick and really focusing yourself on the top, top priorities, and hopefully one or two priorities versus the numerous, too many I have right now. And then I guess the next question is, do I abandon marketing efforts and focusing on the book? There's no ROI on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
and it's just sort of ego driven and should i just abandon it or do i put a band-aid on it and pay somebody to market it and spend some money with it for the fun of the game to see how it does we would love your feedback in this question quite frankly but the real core is to constantly come back to core core priorities and get out of the life of too many distractions again feel free to anytime contact scott becker 773-766-5322 if you answer the question
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
Should I abandon marketing efforts on the book? And you text me an answer, 773-766-5322. And you're the first person to do so. And you send me a cogent argument one way or the other, a seriously cogent argument one way or the other on should I abandon the book or not? I will send you a $200 Amazon gift certificate. Again, 773-766-5322. Want some insights, some thoughts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
You got to be the first and you got to give me some serious insights and thoughts on whether to abandon this or keep on screwing around with it. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
what are the most important things and working to constantly cut out those things that aren't important and you get into this fine line of compromises of do you do a little bit of x y and z or do you abandon them entirely and and often the right answer is even though it's so hard to do because you've got sunk investment and time cost in them is to eliminate them entirely.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
So one of the decisions that came up this morning is we've had great growth in Becker's Healthcare, great growth at the Marguerite's Healthcare practice. And I've worked a lot on this business and private equity podcast and webinar, and it's become a top-ranked podcast. But I also did something else this past year. I wrote this book.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
It's one of the decisions on the entrepreneur's edge, how to build, grow, and manage a business. And this was sort of a dumb project.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
And one of the questions that came up this morning that led to this discussion is, do I spend more time in that book, other than maybe an ego return, or do I focus much more on our Becker Private Equity, business-to-business webinars, and what we're trying to do there, as well as sort of the Becker's Healthcare and McGuire Woods.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Essentialism & Cutting Down to the Core of What You Need to Do 1-29-25
And of course, the right decision, and I don't know if I'll be able to stick to the discipline of the right decision, is to really just abandon as a mind space, thinking about the book that I wrote, even though I enjoy parts of it and so forth, because it sort of is a distraction from too many core things I'm trying to do already. So the discussion of the day
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is President Trump, Tesla, tariffs, and more. So here's what's going on in the world, and it's fascinating to watch the world of Trump and how it spins, and God bless him. But here's what we're going to talk about today. We'll talk about two really distinct things. First is tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
It's remarkable to see the US actually being able to cut some better trade deals and stabilize some of these trade situations. Literally fascinating. The second thing we'll talk about today is Elon Musk and Tesla and Doge. So here's my perspective. On Doge, the jury is very much still out on whether this is going to have any real impact in the long run.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
I mean, the thing that's clear is they did uncover a ton of waste in government, no question about it, but they can't really touch Social Security and Medicare, which are huge parts of spending. Ultimately, also, to make the federal budget work, we've got to bring down the deficit because we're spending so much money in interest every year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
So I don't know whether at the end of the day, Doge will be window dressing or whether there'll be some real longer benefits that come out of it. Obviously, it did shine a light on a lot of spending that has been done by the U.S. That was a surprise to many of us. In terms of Musk, Doge, and Tesla, the other thing I'll note is that Tesla's back to down 10% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
This is something where they're down 40% earlier this year or more. Their car sales have basically been cut in half in Europe and largely in China, too. They're getting crushed. But it's simply amazing the recovery they're having. And a lot of it's based on the concept that Tesla has so much of these autonomous self-driving tools and technologies and so forth that it becomes so popular.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
When President Trump first came up with the tariff concepts and started to put these trade barriers on other countries, the tariffs and so forth, Many people thought he was nuts and that it was a crazy initiative, even though many people understand that we've been getting crushed in international trade for a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
And also that Elon is going to put more attention back into Tesla. I mean, you could love or hate Elon Musk, but what a force of nature this person is. If any of us had a fraction of the energy that he has, it would be a fascinating world. Maybe not a better world, but it would be a fascinating world. Just a fascinating thing to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
I mean, as usual, so many people took so many shots at the guy, you would think that he was a complete moron.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
Fascinatingly enough, six to eight weeks later, we're at a spot where the headline today in one of the major business newspapers that's not that usually friendly to President Trump was that India and several other countries are doing everything they can to cut trade deals with the United States and get back in the president's good graces and to do a better job under consumer fairness or their tier of fairness with the United States.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
I think it's actually amazing how this guy is willing to sort of break some eggs to get things done. And again, I was sort of very concerned about the tariff move, the quote unquote liberation date. Obviously, the stats that talked about tariff policy seemed ridiculous. Clearly, they talked about the actual tariff scores. But the fact is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tesla, Tariffs, and More 5-28-25
Many countries were imposing tariffs on us in an unfair way, and it was causing trouble here. It had made us a huge deficit nation, a huge consumer nation, and we're always going to be that, but maybe not as fair as we were. So as this has played through, I almost have to give the guy some credit for what's going on with this tier of trade thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to walk through very quickly four stories that we're following today, and some of these will break out into separate podcasts. First, Tempest, the AI cancer research company founded by Eric Lefkowski and Brad Keywell, is down 16% today. But don't worry, it's up 64% or so years to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
Finally, fourth, watching this tariff and trade war thing go on and continue and so forth, and for all the criticism that President Trump took on the tariff initiative, including from myself from time to time, it is amazing to see how this is working out, quite frankly. It is a sign of how important the consumer power of the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
is that countries throughout the globe are working very hard to reduce their tariffs and get into a closer spot with the United States trade-wise. It's really a remarkable thing to watch. The latest satellite today was India and several other countries really bending over backwards to try and get back into the good graces on U.S. trade.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
It's fascinating to watch for all the criticism that the president took in this. He might be smarter than a lot of us give him credit for, including myself. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Again, Scott Becker, anytime you have a question or idea for an episode, reach us at sbecker at beckerstrategygroup.com. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
It also has a market cap currently of about $10 billion. And There, the top five insiders in the company own about 51%, and Eric himself owns about 26%. It's incredible what they've built here. Second, at Stellantis, which is Jeep to us in the United States, or Chrysler Jeep, they are bringing a new CEO on, Antonio Filoso. He'll replace the previous CEO. There's an interim order right now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
The previous CEO, Carlos Tavares, really put Jeep into sort of a dumpster fire, a disaster. Jeep is down 54% over the last 52 weeks. It's also down 22% year to date. Let's hope this helps them move in the right direction. Just a horrendous job by the last CEO. Third, we are watching Tesla, Doge, and Elon Musk. And Tesla's having quite the comeback. It's down 10% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-28-25
Earlier in the year, it was down 40% to 50%. So terrific there. And Doge, I think the jury is very much still out as to whether it's been lots of noise or whether they have a real impact or not. I don't know, and it remains to be seen. So we're watching Doge, Elon Musk, Tesla. Musk says he's going to spend more time at Tesla. We'll see if that helps.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant leader. We're joined today by Dina DiMarco. Dina is the president of Human Private Equity Talent Solutions. They've done an incredible job of building a company and building a division that serves private equity-sponsored companies in the middle market and otherwise.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
So simply amazing. When you look at talent in the work that you do, is it at the middle level, the staff level, the executive level, all of the above? And is it typically with the portfolio company of a private equity funded, sponsored company? Talk to us a little bit about sort of the target and who you closely work with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
Simply remarkable. Before I get started, I'll just make a quick note that the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast is recently surpassed 7 million downloads on the podcast. We're thrilled with that. We're very thankful to our listeners and our guests for helping us do that. Tina, can you take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself and about Human Private Equity Talent Solutions?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
Dino, let me ask you a question because one of the things I understand from having watched you over the years and what you do is that you've got sort of a compelling pricing structure. Can you take a second and tell us about that? Because everybody's trying to make sure they're doing things efficiently and intelligently and they're not spending more money than they have to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
Talk a little bit about how human sort of differentiates itself in the talent space.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
And so Human, private equity solutions in the company, Human, has got this wonderful reputation and great depth today. Talk a little bit about how that pivot came to be into the private equity space. I know back in the day, you were in the healthcare world, worked at University of Chicago, at Baptist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
You also, as an aside, served as the president of the National Brain Tumor Registry, I think, did amazing work there too. That's on the charitable side. But talk for a second about the pivot into private equity several years back and sort of how that's going and what you've learned and some of the trends you're watching.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
That's amazing. And that is fantastic. And I know that original set of funds is a really highly regarded set of funds that sought you out and worked with you on those things. So that's high credibility as a reference organization and one of the best in the business. What trends are you watching in talent and hiring today? Harder, easier to hire a couple of years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
What are some of the trends you're watching?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
And let me ask you a question on AI. I mean, it seems like you would, right now, recruiting and talent back in the day was sort of a lot of networking, a lot of posting ads, a lot of sifting through lots of different candidates to find the right candidates for potential fits. Will AI be something where you plug in the AI, use an AI algorithm to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
And it does a much better job of providing you with 10 possible candidates. But then you still have to reach those candidates to see if they have an interest, to see if there's a fit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
How do you sort of see some of that AI applying to both high-level searches, sort of executive searches, and just massive searches where you're trying to fill lots of spots like the 40 HVAC seasonal workers in a hurry? How do you see some of that applying to it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
Fantastic. And Dina, talk about this. You're somewhat of what I would refer to as a force of nature and just this wonderful, incredibly competent leader, plus incredible personal skills. Talk a little bit about over the last 24 months or so, what are you sort of most proud of, of what you've been accomplishing at Human Private Equity Talent Solutions?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
That's fantastic. And you do a wonderful job of it. Talk for a moment about, Dina, what are you most focused on and excited about the rest of this year and going forward in 2026?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
That's fantastic. And talk for one moment. You've had this phenomenal career, phenomenal growth as a human. Talk a little bit about sort of what advice you would give to private equity-sponsored companies and private equity funds about building out their talent plan, their talent playbook. What advice would you give to people?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
Thank you. I think that is a brilliant take that HR is one role and a critical, critically important role. Recruiting should be another role and a critical, critical role, particularly as you grow as a company. So, so important that you're getting the right people in and then you're making sure they excel and they thrive and so forth. I just love that thought.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
Again, what a fantastic pleasure today to visit with Dina DeMarco, a magnificent leader, the president of Human Private Equity Talent Solutions. Dina, thank you so much for joining us today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Lucid & Rivian 3-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian. So here's what's going on with these three sort of core electric vehicle makers and where they're at. First, Tesla, the granddaddy of them all, or grandmother of them all, just to be politically correct in today's world,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Lucid & Rivian 3-26-25
It's down about 31% year-to-date, and that's a lot, but not as bad as it was. It was down about 40% year-to-date. It sells about a million and eight vehicles a year. Elon has been fast in the game trying to work on President Trump's tariff policy to try and ease the tariff policy because he does a lot of business overseas. So, fascinating to watch what goes on there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Lucid & Rivian 3-26-25
Lucid Group is down about 20%. Again, Lucid Group, one of the core investors is the Saudis. They sell very few cars a year, Lucid Group. We'll see if they could survive, but they got enough Saudi money behind them. They probably will do so down about 20% year to date. Finally, Rivian is somewhere in between, but again, sells only about 60, 70,000 cars a year, but is down about 10% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Lucid & Rivian 3-26-25
They're big into business with Volkswagen, and like Tesla, ultimately gonna make a lot of their money from things other than just selling cars, but from their platform, their operating systems, and so forth and so on. So those are the big three of EV makers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Lucid & Rivian 3-26-25
Tesla's down about 30% year-to-date, Lucid down about 20% year-to-date, Rivian down about 10% year-to-date, and so there's a number of cars sold. Tesla, number one, Rivian, bought by very, very high-end pretentious people, down about 10% year-to-date, but number two in car sales.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Lucid & Rivian 3-26-25
And then Lucid's number three, but owned in large part by the Saudis, and down about 10% year-to-date, but selling very few cars is a big scheme of things. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Changing Exit Market: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 2-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're talking today with one of our most listened to guests, Rick Kess, who's a remarkable leader and partner to RSM, which is itself the leader in sort of private equity and mid-market private equity consulting and advising.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Changing Exit Market: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 2-26-25
thank you very very much and and what do you see i mean the days of multiple arbitrage where people just sort of sold into a rising multiple market seemed at least for the time being to be over although at some point when we get interest rate cuts that money came back so that makes doing deals and exiting at the right price that much harder is that a fair statement just because there's not this multiple arbitrage that people used to have that was part of just rolling up companies putting them together and selling at a higher multiple
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Changing Exit Market: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 2-26-25
Rick, we're in a world where we're still seeing sort of delayed exits or exits that are prices that don't lead to big gains for the private equity funds. what is your sense of what's going on in the exit market? And is this going to, uh, you know, move in the right direction, so to speak, what's your sense of what's happening and, and, and what, what's your perspective?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Changing Exit Market: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 2-26-25
That seems to be, at least for the time being, largely gone. Any sense of that or what you're seeing out there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Changing Exit Market: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 2-26-25
Thank you very, very much. No, I think that sounds about right on. And Rick, anything else that you're watching closely currently? Anything else that's top of mind?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Changing Exit Market: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 2-26-25
Right. Yeah, it's just a fascinating take on it and challenging situation. But absolutely right. Rick, Cass, I want to thank you again for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. It's always great to visit with you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Today we're going to discuss 10 stocks that got crushed yesterday. We'll go through this quickly. It's a great reminder to make sure that you understand your own allocation of assets and the bias towards index funds versus individual stocks. At least that's my take on all of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
I know they've got more bells and whistles, more tools, but I just love using Zoom and love recording with our fantastic producer, Chanel Bunger, through Zoom. She's the best. Ninth, Astero Labs dropped about 8% yesterday. And what is Astero Labs? I really don't know. I ended up owning some Astero Labs directly through a fund I invested in that distributed those shares. A great fund.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
So thrilled I'm an investor in it. Astero Labs went way up and then went way down. And, of course, I have no idea when to sell it. I just have no idea. It is what it is. A lot of these stocks should come with a manual. Don't hold for too long. But Astero Labs is getting crushed. Peloton is down 7.5%. It got crushed yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
Again, Peloton is one of these stocks where I just have no idea what's going to go on with that. If the indication of use of the bikes in our house is any indication, Peloton's in trouble. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, thank you to our producer, Chanel Bunger. Really just the best in the business. Thank you so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
But here's 10 stocks that got crushed yesterday. They ended up down not as bad as they were earlier in the day. But here's 10. First, hims and hers down 20 plus percent yesterday. Second, Tempest AI down around 15 percent yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
Third, Trump media also took it on the chin, but he might be close to resolving some stuff with Ukraine, which is just fascinating to watch the negotiation style and everything else. But Trump media took it on the chin yesterday. Fourth, MicroStrategy, a big Bitcoin investor, was also down significantly yesterday. Fifth, Robinhood also fell nearly 10%. Sixth, Planet Fitness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
I am so out of it and don't know anybody that goes to Planet Fitness. They also got crushed yesterday. Tesla fell 9% yesterday. Now, I'm a huge Elon Musk fan in so many ways. At home, we have a Tesla. It's one of the cars in the household. I cannot stand driving that car, and I don't mean that as a negative on Tesla, but down 9% yesterday. I know it's not because of me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stocks That Got Crushed Yesterday 2-26-25
Eighth, Zoom, also down 9% yesterday. And I have to tell you, I'm a huge Zoom fan. I think it's the easiest platform to use. I love it. We use it every day. When somebody puts me on one of these other platforms, and I won't name names, I just hate it because it makes it more complicated than everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussions is index funds versus individual stocks versus allocation of assets. So here are three core points that we'll make for you. First is the allocation of your portfolio. It doesn't seem very important when everything's going up and everybody feels like a genius and everybody's washed in money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
Somebody the other day said to me, why would you do index funds when you could just pick the winners out of the index fund, just bet on the winners? And I thought this was one of the stupidest things I've heard in years, because if we could do that, we'd all be rich. And this guy wouldn't be giving investment advice. He would just be rich.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
But the idea that we could outperform the market is a fool's errand. And the reality is when it's going well, everybody at the coffee shop, everybody that taxes a brilliant analyst and investor, when it's going poorly, then your allocation is very important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
But also, rather than the Palantirs of the world that went down 50% in the last couple weeks, when I thought it was a genius before that, far better than the index fund that's gone down 5%. It is what it is. And unless you could own a ton, a ton of stocks, probably far, far better off being an index fund.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
So today's discussion is allocation of assets, index funds versus individual stocks, and away we go. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
When the market is going down, your allocation of assets, your treasuries to your stocks, the allocation of all of them, are you 30% in stocks? Are you 70% in stocks? Sure makes a big difference. When the market goes down five days in a row, if you're 80% in stocks, it is hard to panic. In contrast, you're 30% in stocks, you breathe and you move forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
So the first thing to think about, and I'm not suggesting one allocation or another, but I am suggesting allocation strategies. It's critically important. The second key point is this debate over individual stocks versus index funds. Now, I'm a huge fan, not in specialized index funds, but in broad-based index funds like the S&P 500. Fidelity's got one. Vanguard's got one. Everybody's got one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
But by and large, unless you're a genius and you have time to really follow the stock market, in a way that's depthful in a way that most of us don't. Like I follow the stock market, but I wouldn't say that I'm doing deep research like Benjamin Graham would want me to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
So what happens is I come up with a conviction on a stock and I could research it and think through it and believe I've got it right. You know, I bet on Amazon and Microsoft the last several years, believing their cloud business would go great. I bet on Palantir believing that Peter Thiel's a genius. And what you find is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks vs Allocation of Assets 2-26-25
You are so out of your league compared to just investing in index funds because at the end of the day, who can really predict that Palantir is going to get slammed by the Pentagon, that Amazon and Microsoft are going to see their cloud businesses slow down after a big run-up? It all fine in the big scheme of things, but at the end of the day, most of us just can't really do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are eight stories that we're following today. First, is waiting for NVIDIA's earnings to be released today. By the time you hear this, they may already be released. We'll try and get this out early. But due to its size, it's the second largest market cap stock at about $3.1 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
It's, again, the undisputed king, so the Muhammad Ali of market cap stocks. It's at 3.7 trillion. Nvidia's second. Microsoft's third. Barely holding on. Microsoft at 3 trillion. We have a free download long weekend for the book, The Entrepreneur's Edge. Throw away the Valium. Throw away the Ambien. Throw out your edibles. If you need to get to sleep early, read this book.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
In all seriousness, if you buy the book, How to Build, Grow, and Manage Your Business, The Entrepreneur's Edge, leave a review on Amazon. I will send you a hard copy. Thanks for following today. Ukraine and the U.S. are said to be close to reaching a deal that would help smooth the way for improving relationships, and we hope getting closer to an end to the war, the Russia-Ukraine war.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
Now, people may take offense at this, and I don't mean it offensively. I just mean it as an observer. But Zelensky and Trump... are supposed to meet next week. The two of them must have gone to the same negotiation school because they go wild saying different things about the other and then seem to come together on deals. I find it to be literally fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
I bet when they're in private, they have a blast and they do a lot of this for show, but we will see. I may be totally wrong, but I do think the two of them went to the same school of ultimately negotiation. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're back with you tomorrow with a few more episodes. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
And being a bellwether for technology stocks, the market's really eagerly awaiting to see what happened here. The stock is up a couple percent pre-market. It's either a helpful sign or irrelevant. We will see. We'll know more later today. Second, Nissan Motor Company has been cut to junk bond credit status by Fitch & Moody's. When I was growing up, Nissan was a highly relevant brand.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
There's so many lessons here for business. And I will tell you as an aside, one time early on in my career, drove a Nissan Pulsar, which is really the height of embarrassment. And I don't like to admit that lightly or in front of people, but yes, one time I had one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
Nissan is a great reminder to companies, and we'll have a separate podcast on this, that you better be constantly obsessed with both your core and with greatness and getting better. If you don't, it reminds me of Intel and Andy Grove, only the parents survive. You better keep getting better.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
Third, oil companies are returning en masse to gas and oil from all the green ventures and everything else. British Petroleum is the latest. They're calling it Reset BP. They're going back to oil and gas and away from green ventures. Basically, they must be watching Landman and Billy Bob Thornton. And one great scene, he does remind us why we still need fossil fuels.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-26-25
Fourth, the market points up early this morning. Let's hope that that holds. God, we could use a good day in the markets. Fifth, Smith & Nephew had a terrific fourth quarter, and its stock rose nearly 7% yesterday. Seems like it's been a while since healthcare stock has really gone in the right direction. Sixth, Apple's market cap is up at 3.7 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a take on the great Kenny Rogers song. It's from the album, The Gambler, and the concept is... Don't count your money when you're sitting at the table.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
You want to do that sales deal with this particular customer, whether you want to sell this part of whatever it is to this particular buyer, whether you want to sell that piece of real estate or whatever it is, because you get so busy counting your money or counting the money that actually thinking about, is this sensible? Does it make sense? Do I want to work with these people? And a ton more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
So today's topic is. Don't count your money when you're sitting at the table. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You're obviously a big Kenny Rogers fan from back in the day, and that might date me some, so I'm a little embarrassed by that. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
So whether you're trying to in sales and trying to lock up sales or whether you're doing a deal, one of the things that happens with people is they start to count the commission they have coming, the exit they have coming, the capital gain they have coming.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
and they start to get so wound up in all the different accounting intricacies of it and what it's going to mean to their portfolio, what it's going to mean to the company's revenues, what it's going to mean to everything else, that sometimes it can lead to poor judgment. It can lead you to sort of getting so enthralled with the concept of doing the deal
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
that you don't think that much about do you actually want to do the deal. It can get you so enthralled at selling to the customer and feeling so desperate that you need that sale to try and close up the loop for this quarter that you could be desperate in that discussion with the customer, the client.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
So the concept is that I'm a big believer in is how do you find just a little distance from whatever you're doing, whether it's sales, selling a business, whatever business and thoughtful mindset, whether on a sales call, a deal call, whatever you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
And I think a lot of it comes back to, I know that personally, I'm in trouble when I'm looking at a sale, I'm looking at a deal, and I'm so much doing so much time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table 2-26-25
micromanaging specific numbers that in some ways that directly they matter but one bit one direction one bit the other direction wouldn't really matter and when you get so caught up in the micromanagement the micro dissecting of numbers you could end up losing the proper judgment as to whether
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the great divide in America. And so here's the discussion. And this isn't a social justice podcast. This isn't an equity podcast. This is just a reality podcast of where we are as a nation. So when the market goes up and down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
One person on Twitter writes, when we ask about index funds versus stock funds versus other things, quote, Most people don't have the extra dollars a month to invest in anything at all. My husband and I barely have a savings account for emergencies. And again, God bless this person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
This is the reality that we live in, that there is this great divide where 38%, 40% have literally nothing in equity stock, anything. 60% do. And even though that's 60%, a huge amount, you have a relatively small amount. But even those people are probably worried about the market when it goes up or down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
But there is a lot of the capital class that gyrates up and down, wealth spending, wealth effect, how they feel. They don't feel psychologically with the markets. And I think it's a great understanding for all of us that if you're part of that capital class where you've got equities and stocks, I'm not saying give it away. I'm not saying anything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
I'm just saying you ought to be damn grateful that you're in that class. You can worry about these things because there's 40% of us that have nothing in the markets, nothing in equities, nothing in index funds, none of those things, let alone private equity funds and those kinds of things. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope you enjoy this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
We hope you find it interesting. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
There is one class of people that gets very concerned about it and then sometimes can't understand why everybody's not concerned about it. And so this discussion is really about why that is. And here's the concept. About 38% of adults, 42% of households have absolutely zero money in equities, the stock market, the index funds, anything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
They essentially have, for all practical purposes, zero real investments besides maybe a checking account or a savings account, if that. And so if you're part of the capital class versus the class that doesn't have capital, You've got a whole different perspective on this than others do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
So if you're actually in this situation where you have equities and you freak out or get anxious when the market goes up or down and can't understand why on Twitter there's so many people saying who cares? The reason so many people don't care is so many people either literally about 40% or so, 43% of households, 38% of adults or something like that have literally no exposure to equities.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Divide in America 4-23-25
And you might say, well, they should think deeper than that, because if they don't have equities, their job is still at risk if the economy is going poorly. And that may be true, but so many people live paycheck to paycheck. And this is not a negative on them. It's not a negative on society. It's not a negative on anything. It's just an understanding of the great divide we have.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
Fantastisch. Und wie kultivierst du diese Konzentration, diese Führung, diesen Wunsch, das Einnehmen von etwas und das Nicht-Lassen? Wie kultivierst du das?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
That if you're prepared, it's much easier to find it because you're not sort of dawdling all over the place. It's easier to find it if you're prepared and ready to go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
So love that. Tell us what else you could do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to visit with one of our most listened to guests, Liz Hudson. Liz is brilliant. She's by nature and background an engineer, then built her own business, now does that and also is a public speaker. And she's got great insights on so many subjects. Today we're going to talk about tenacity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
Danke. Und ich liebe es, wenn du mit jemandem bist, du diskutierst, du arbeitest mit ihnen, was auch immer du tust, und du bist so zentriert, dass du den Spot finden kannst, um weiter zu gehen und weiter zu gehen. Und du musst zentriert und engagiert genug sein, dass du das kannst, dass du nicht einfach überall bist. Ich liebe das Konzept auch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
I think that's right on. And I think this reality of people are people is Ja, genau. Auch die, die am Anfang am stärksten betrieben sind, müssen diese Aufmerksamkeit periodisch wiederherstellen, wenn sie sich effektiv und nach dem Stopp halten wollen. Ich denke, viele kleine Gewinne sind eine der wichtigsten Wege, um das zu tun, wie du es erwähnt hast, die Selbstvertrauen zu bauen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
and growing interested and getting more excited and so forth. But I just absolutely love the topic, Liz. Again, Liz Hudson with the Stand, the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, one of the most listened to guests we have and just as good as they get. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Tenacity: How to Cultivate Grit and Confidence with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 4-23-25
Sort of drive, grit, etc. Are you born with it? Are you not? If you're not necessarily driven and compelled by stuff to begin with, can you develop it? Liz, let me tee it up and tell us your thoughts here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to give you six of the stories that we're following today. There's, of course, a lot going on in the markets and the news today. We'll just give you a quick synopsis of six of the things we're watching. First, the markets totally surged yesterday. They made up for one of the horrible days they had last week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
And yesterday was one of those days, and today looks like one of those days. Finally, sixth, I am largely an investor in index funds over individual stocks. Two of the individual stocks that I do own, one of them I got through a hedge fund I invested in, Astero Labs. That's down 58% year to date. The other one is Palantir Technologies. That's up about 25% year to date and up again today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
So of those two, I'm still a net loser. And again, it reinforces the issue of there's no reason for me to be invested in individual stocks. I should be sticking to the index funds, generally low cost today, whether Vanguard, Fidelity, whoever you're working with, just that's where I should be going today. Again, these are six stories that we're watching today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
And it looks like today they'll be surging again. We're midway through the day now. They're up about one and a half to two percent. The S&P is an asset up a little bit more. Let's hope that that holds. That's a welcome relief from a market perspective. Second, President Trump. eases up on his volleys after Chairman Powell. He says he's not serious about wanting to fire Powell.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
He probably got enough feedback that it's a bad idea. He also is trying to decelerate the trade war with China. It seems like he's coming around to trying to find a better path to some sort of detente with China and on the trade war side as well. Third, Intel is up today on news that it's going to cut 20% of its employees as it tries to get leaner and more profitable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
So that's what's going on with Intel. It's been fascinating to watch Intel over the last couple of years as they've given up a lot of the advantage that they created over a couple decades. Fourth, Elon Musk tells the markets he's going to spend more time at Tesla, less time on Doge. A lot of people are probably happy about that. Certainly, Tesla investors are happy about that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-23-25
They've taken on the chin some this year. Fifth, RH. RH jumped 10% yesterday. It's also up today. I rail on RH Restoration Hardware for its funky accounting a lot and for its business practices a lot. But one of my colleagues reminded me that when they have an up day, I've got to make the effort to say something positive about them as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is based on a poll we did on Twitter, which is increasingly one of my favorite things to do. Where should you allocate most of your equity side investments? And again, this doesn't talk about your allocation of equities to bonds. This simply deals with the equity side. So bear with me here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
with a more direct response, but I love that response too, because it's telling about where the world's at. Individual stock picking is too risky and requires a lot of time and effort. Better risk reward is to own the whole market, which means essentially to go ahead and own the index funds versus individual stocks. Another person says, the vast majority of people should focus on index funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
If you have a particular insight into a particular industry, individual stocks may be fine, either public or private. And then he also says private equity funds generally tend to be better for the managers than for the actual investors. You know, there are exceptions. Another person says cash and buy ammunition. I don't know if that's a real response. Another person says buy only Bitcoin.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
I have outpoured everything else the last eight and a half years. I'll continue to outperform book market. That's somebody who says they're the Bitcoin person. Then finally, a last person, and I don't think this is a serious answer, but maybe a person who is an anti-capitalist says, quote, up my ass, quote.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
I don't think that is a serious survey response, but it articulates where some people think about what's going on in the world. In any event, I love these polls to give me a sense of what people think. Unfortunately, sometimes they're probably my bias might show by how I ordered the survey responses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
But I still think it's fascinating to see how many people have bought into the concept that index funds are the way to go. I don't even put mutual funds in there because so few mutual fund managers outperform index. index funds and you pay a high percentage to own mutual funds that I've really gone the index fund route.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
We gave people four options and one was the overwhelming favorite. And this might also be a bias towards how I ordered the survey as well. Index funds, 57%. Individual stocks, 21%. I'm glad people are getting that message. Private equity funds, 13%. And again, Very complicated because a lot of people don't have access to private equity funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
And finally, private companies investing in individual companies, 9%. Now, this mirrors my experience. Index funds, I think, is the safest, smartest way to go. The PE funds I've invested have done fine. The private companies, other than the one I founded, have been sort of all over the board.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
Some good, some bad, where I particularly knew the business and knew it well, and the managers better than others. Other ones, just a disaster. And individual stocks, I view as gambling a crapshoot. So I think more interesting than that is some of the answers you get from people about this question. And I'll just give you three or four of the responses we got.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Where Should You Allocate Most of Your Equity Side Investments? 4-23-25
And I love this because they're illuminating about where people see things. So a couple of these are sort of negative, of course. The first one says, I don't understand the investment you speak of between my car, my rent, and insurance. My salary is basically 100% taken up every month. Another person says,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. We try each day to bring you great guests from the business world, from the private equity world and more. We try and make sure that you're learning something, we're learning something. You're with us today on the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Thank you. And talk a little bit about... The specific pain points, the problems that you're trying to solve for customers, and then we'll talk about the categories of those customers. Who is the core type of customer? But talk for a second about the specific pain point you're trying to solve for customers and why, quite frankly, you're so good at it. Can you take a moment to tell us that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Podcast this week is ranked number two out of all Apple Business News podcasts. So we're thrilled to see our listeners engaging. Thank you very, very much. We're thrilled today to be with Dr. Daryl Williams, who's the CEO and founder of Partnership Solutions, known as Partcel. They're one of the leaders in the AI business before there was even an AI business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
That's amazing. And that is critical. So talk about your core niches you work with and maybe an example of what you do for those customers in those niches.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
We're going to talk to Daryl today about what pain points they're trying to solve for customers, what niches they work in, what they're most excited about this year, and a lot more. Dr. Williams. Can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about the development of partnership solutions known as PartSol?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Thank you. And give us an example of where your work calls you as a customer and a use case in this that that's working for you, working for them. Give us an example of a use case or two, if that's OK.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Fascinating. And all of us have been through with the banks, the know your customer type of rule, or even with these new FinTech payment solutions. And it is amazing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
how slow and difficult some of them to work through versus others it's really truly amazing we stopped using one vendor so it's hard to get through with and and went back to using on one particular business paypal versus wave just because we had a hard time getting through the know your customer types of of rules and really simply amazing than this day and age is so challenging
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Take a moment on how could customers work with you? How do they reach Parcel? You know, where can they find you and so forth, Dr. Williams?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk about the release you've got coming up in March and also about what you're most excited about this year, Dr. Williams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
And in a lot of ways, a lot easier to work with the midsize or small firm and getting from point A to point B, as long as that small firm or midsize firm like yours has the goods. Just a lot easier to get going and talk to a person versus getting stuck in sort of
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
you know, the incredible customer service problems that you get at some of the large companies where they're trying to do everything in a certain way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
I mean, that's literally an amazing perspective. Dr. Williams, as always, I want to thank you for joining us on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. It's brilliant what you're doing. Thank you for joining us. And again, thank you to our listeners. I know ranked, I think, second today out of all the Apple Business News Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Real AI Solutions with Dr. Darryl Williams of Partsol 1-22-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast again. Dr. Daryl Williams, scientist, CEO, founder at Parcel Partnership Solutions, known as Parcel. Just a magnificent leader with magnificent AI solutions. Thank you so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try each day to sort of teach and entertain to make sure you're learning that we're learning. Today, we're going to do a discussion of index funds versus individual stocks, a personal odyssey. So here's the deal. There are a handful of individual stocks that we have on our portfolio that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
Now, Astera Labs has had a great run for the last year, so I don't feel bad about that, but that's down about 5.7%. I'll go next to our next winner. Microsoft is a core holding. That's up 5.48%. We're pretty comfortable with Microsoft. They just seem to be extremely bright, like Amazon, like Apple, like some other companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
have such ability to have size and scale and data analytics that what they do, they keep on making good decisions in general. So Microsoft is up. Amazon's up. The S&P 500, again, remember, 3.7% up. Amazon and Microsoft beat that. Estero Lab loses that. We're also a holder in Coca-Cola. And again, it's so embarrassing, but part of my explore strategy was investing in individual stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
I don't do this as deeply thoughtful as I should, and so we've periodically followed Warren Buffett's thoughts and gone into Coca-Cola and Bank of America, which are two of his biggest holdings. So Coca-Cola is down about half a percentage point year-to-date, again, losing to both the S&P 500 and losing in general. The next stock, which is also in that same bucket, but winning is Bank of America.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
Also, it was traditionally a big Warren Buffett holding, not as much anymore, but up 4.8% year to date. Finally, the last stock, and again, it was up a good deal last year, but of course, since I bought it, it's not been up so much. Palantir is up 1.45% year to date. So when you look at this, a portfolio of six stocks, three of them,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
Amazon, Microsoft, and BFA are doing better than the S&P 500 year to date. Three of them Palantir, Coca-Cola, and Astera Labs are doing worse than the S&P year-to-date. Now, I'd have to actually go through in a much more detailed way my holdings and numbers to see what my actual return is, because I don't know that I'm overweighted, particularly in Amazon and Microsoft, though I might be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
But it is fascinating to look at the S&Ps versus your core portfolio, your core other holdings, and see what the difference is. When I look at this, of course, there would be no great reason for me to be investing in individual stocks unless I was going to carry a basket of individual stocks at 20, 30, 40. And there's a reason for that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
We are largely invested in index funds and treasury bonds. And then we have a handful of individual stocks and a handful of other investments in private equity and venture capital funds. And I thought what would be worthwhile is to periodically look at where we have individual positions and how those have done year to date versus the S&P 500, where most of our index investing is in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
Then people are able to periodically work their portfolio to take tax losses and do other types of things that really work for them. And there's all those strategies around that as well. But all things being equal, I would say that I'm probably doing no better or worse on the individual stocks than the S&P index.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
S&P index, I make a lot less choices, get a lot more exposure, and probably all things being equal, I'd probably stick to my core strategy of index funds and treasuries and then a smaller part of the portfolio in individual stocks. Thank you for listening. Again, I just find it fascinating to review this stuff, to think about this stuff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
I am certainly no great stock picker and probably belong more in the index fund category. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
And so I'm going to walk through this very quickly in terms of what's a winner, what's a loser, and so forth. So to give a context for this, the S&P index as of today, and this is probably before today's final results, is up 3.7% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
And with the S&P, you get low cost investing, you get access to the entire 500 different stocks, and you don't have to pick and choose which stocks you're investing in or make decisions as to when to buy or sell those stocks, you just get the whole basket of stocks. So that's up 3.7% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs. Individual Stocks: A Personal Odyssey 1-22-25
And so I'll look at six of the stocks that we held individually in our portfolio from sort of best to worst to give us the context versus that. So first, Amazon is up 6.77%. So if we've just been an Amazon investor, we would be a winner. But of course, that's our biggest winner. Then I'll go to what's our biggest loser year to date, which is Astera Labs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI Surges: A Few Key Points 1-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is about Tempus AI. And Tempus AI is sort of an oncology information services, concierge, consulting firm. You go to Tempest AI to confirm your cancer findings, or if you're a patient, doctors and hospitals use it for that too, and to further dig into what's going on and what the possibilities are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI Surges: A Few Key Points 1-22-25
And I guess congratulations to Nancy Pelosi, who does an incredible job of insider investing, like many Republicans and Democrats do, not just Democrats. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Always great to visit with you. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI Surges: A Few Key Points 1-22-25
You also might go to it as a patient to try and use it as an extra resource to figure out where you should be getting treatment, what you should be doing, and so forth. Now, the stock jumped 35% yesterday on news of them adding an AI concierge service. God only knows what that means, but it jumped like crazy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI Surges: A Few Key Points 1-22-25
The founder of Tempest AI is the richest guy in Illinois, just a brilliant, brilliant founder, investor. He was the guy who founded Groupon. Eric Gavkowski is just simply amazing. And I think now the richest guy in Illinois, particularly now that – Ken Griffin left and JB Pritzker is able to hide a lot of his, you know, assets and services.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI Surges: A Few Key Points 1-22-25
But by far, I think the richest person in Illinois now is Eric Kowalski. But really amazing what he's accomplished. The other thing that they noted in the press release or discussions that was reported. is that Nancy Pelosi is an investor in Tempest AI. And that's actually a fascinating, too, how these Washington insiders end up insiders in all these companies as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI Surges: A Few Key Points 1-22-25
And that's on both sides of the aisle. That's certainly not unique to Democrats. That's for both sides of the aisle. But again, Tempest AI, knocking it absolutely out of the park, and Eric Gavkowski profiting well as well. God bless him, a good guy, a smart guy. Congratulations to him. Congratulations to Tempest AI. We'll see how this plays through.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. The podcast, I think, is ranked number two in the United States in Apple Business News today. So thank you all for listening to the podcast. These are 15 stories that we're following today. It's Wednesday. First, the markets point up today after a solid day in the markets yesterday. Second, Netflix is really...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Sixth, Walgreens Boots Alliance dropped nine point something percent yesterday. A news of a federal opioids investigation. Walgreens sees this like it needs a hole in the head. Seventh, iPhone sales in China dropped 80 percent in December. That's the opposite of a December to remember the old Lexus ad. Eighth, Tempest AI jumped 15%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Thirty five percent yesterday was also announced that Nancy Pelosi has a stake in Tempest. Now, the founder of Tempest AI is the richest guy in the state of Illinois and by far the richest and most successful in the town that we live in in Illinois. You know, since Ken Griffin left to Florida, he's really the richest in Illinois.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Ninth sweet green dropped nine percent yesterday, assuming not as many people are eating salads as they should be, even though it's really still close to the start of the year. Tenth, Astero Labs, which is one of the handful of companies that we hold directly, dropped 6.16% yesterday, but alas, it's still way up since we took the investment in it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Eleventh, when people ask for one's products for free, I'm reminded of the old adage, nobody writes for free. And two other thoughts as well. First, if you're a software company doing pilots of products and so forth, at some point, you got to make sure customers are paying for those pilots and those products.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Second, if you're in a business and you don't have customers, at some point, you have what we call a hobby, not a business. 12th, Our next two webinars, one on investing in early stage companies and AI use cases with Venkat Mukherjee is at capacity and sold out. The same with our healthcare deal trends webinar that's on February 6th.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Again, if interested in business to business webinars, feel free to reach Scott Becker. 13, the Levin Economic Fear Index is showing increased concerns and is at a 5.2%. 14th, the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast ranked number one yesterday in the Apple Business News charts. We love to see that. 15, five stocks to buy and hold for investors business daily.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Meta Platforms, Spotify, ServiceNow, Goldman Sachs, Internet Brokers. I generally don't act on these lists, but I do find them fascinating to look at. Goldman Sachs is rocking and rolling again. Zuckerberg is a genius, whether you like him or not. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
After knocking out of the park in terms of subscriber growth, they had about 20 million subscribers. At some point, I assume the success of these different streaming services will impact Comcast as well. Waiting to see that happen as I get my Comcast bill every month and hate it, but we'll see how that goes. Third question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
President Trump announced a massive partnership, sort of a public-private partnership with Oracle and a few other companies to invest in AI, $500 billion. We'll see how this goes. The thing I'll tell you, if you dislike government spending on the left and deficit spending, then you're better to dislike it on the right as well. It'll be interesting to see what public funds are part of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
Oracle, one of the main leaders in this effort, soared on the announcement. Fourth, limited partners, if I'm any indication of it, are starting to see droves of capital calls as PE and VC funds commit to investments and close investments. Fifth, one of the things we try and remember is that when one of our startup investments turns to a zero, as one of mine did this week,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Stories We Are Following Today 1-22-25
that you need to remember that life goes on after the living is gone. That's an old famous song. Onward and upward. It's why we focus on a core and explore approach to investing and diversification. The core is index funds and treasuries. Then we've got some stuff in these private equity and venture capital investments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Google slash Alphabet and don't bet against Google slash Alphabet. So Alphabet's the holding company name for Google. Google is the cash cow at Alphabet, really 98% of the company, maybe not that much, but pretty much so. So here's the deal. Google's up 5% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
I see on Twitter and X all the time people saying, you know, the days of Google are done, that it's over. You know, they use this, they use this, they use that. Then there are other people that are deeply knowledgeable about the sector saying, no, no, no, no. Google is still very much relevant, very much a leader still, and still magnificent. I don't know what the real answer will end up being.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
But as I watch Google, it again becomes one of those companies that I think it's hard to bet against coming out on top or doing well. Just fascinating to watch. That's it. I would love people's thoughts on where they think Google is going to be in 10 years or five years. If you're the first person to text me an opinion about Google, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
I'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate to thank you for sending your opinion. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
It's down about 9% year to date, but that's better than a lot of the NASDAQ big seven stocks. So the fact that it's down 8%, 9% year to date, and quite frankly, it's going to make us some of that today, isn't a bad sign. Now, what's amazing about Google, you would think with all this AI-powered search,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
an AI-powered analysis that when you plug something in today, you don't have to go through 30 different Google entries to find what you want. The same with Safari, rather something typically summarizes it for you way up front.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
By the way, that's the same way we like to write for people or in the old days when writing memos for law firm clients, have something that summarizes it right up front so people can really get the gist of things without even to go through dozens of pages. But I digress.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
But the point about Google, which I think is fascinating, is I was talking to someone who's deeply into the AI sector about, you know, is Google in trouble now that AI is coming and people could do search in so many different ways and get to the gist of what they want?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Google/Alphabet 5-21-25
And what the person had said to me was, and this is someone I respect greatly in these areas, is that Google had gotten so far ahead of investing in deep tech and artificial intelligence and how they work. They think, quite frankly, Google is going to be able to turn a lot of this into an advantage versus a disadvantage. So I'm always stuck between the two different things here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Target, Lulu, & Nike: It’s Hard to Stay on Top 5-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Target, Lululemon, Nike. It's hard to stay on top. So here's the discussion today. There are these different companies that go through periods of time where they're just so hot and they are it. Target's a great example of this. It was just a few years ago where Target was the place to be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Target, Lulu, & Nike: It’s Hard to Stay on Top 5-21-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you as always to Chanel, our great, great producer. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Target, Lulu, & Nike: It’s Hard to Stay on Top 5-21-25
That red Target thing was every place, and it looked like it was just on the rise. Similarly, Lululemon went through a period of time for years where it was sort of the it store. Another one, Peloton, so hot during COVID. Again, the thing to have for doing your own fitness when you couldn't get to clubs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Target, Lulu, & Nike: It’s Hard to Stay on Top 5-21-25
Nike, similar, enjoyed years and years and years where it was the absolute hit brand on a lot of levels. What's fascinating to me, and Andrew Grove of Intel said this, I think, as well as anybody, only the paranoid survive. This concept, this ability to stay on top for a very long period of time is so hard and so challenging.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Target, Lulu, & Nike: It’s Hard to Stay on Top 5-21-25
And, of course, so much constant creativity in developing the team and working with the team to do so and bringing in smart, driven people and taking chances. It's amazing to me how Amazon has built this company around an ecosystem where they're constantly seeding new initiatives. And to do that, you constantly need to bring in great people to do that. But amazing to me to watch Amazon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Target, Lulu, & Nike: It’s Hard to Stay on Top 5-21-25
So the bloom off the rose at some of these companies, but really it's not really a knock on them. It's more a reflection of how hard it is to stay creative, to stay vibrant, to keep on moving in the right direction. So hats off to Target. Good luck in getting that vibe back. They're not that far away right now getting taken to the woodshed by the people at Walmart.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are nine of the stories that we're following this morning, and thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We recently passed 7 million downloads, thrilled with the listenership, and thank you so much. So let me go through nine quick stories.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
Fifth, NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Wang, recently criticized some of the restrictions selling chips to China. Jensen himself is a force of nature. And whether I agree with him or not, in this period of time where people are so scared to say anything negative about President Trump, I give him great credit for doing so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
I'm not an anti-Trump person particularly, but I am a pro-wag person, and I give him great credit for speaking his mind. Sixth, Peloton Interactive had another horrendous quarter. Its revenues are down. Its subscriber numbers are down. The CEO put the best possible spin he could on the numbers. Here he says, although revenue continues to fall, we did better than we expected.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
So that's always a bad sign. The stock is down 23% year to date, trying to put lipstick on a pig or something like that. Seven, Palantir Technologies is up 66% year to date. No one is smarter than Peter Thiel. I'll stand by that. Eight, Astero Labs, a company I was so proud to own at one point, is now down about 30% year to date. So it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
RH, a company I love to hate, is down 47% year to date and getting just hammered in the financial press. So again, those are nine of the quick stories we're following today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
First, the markets point generally down this morning. It would have been a good morning to stay in bed is my core take there. Second, Target is getting taken to the woodshed by Walmart. It badly missed on first quarter earnings and reduced its guidance for the year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
It's simply fascinating for me to watch how some of these chains that have the it thing going, that have it going on for a period of time. Target's a good example. Lululemon's a good example. Nike, maybe. They're all there for a period of time, and it's just very hard over a long period of time to maintain that vibe.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
Sort of fascinating to watch, but Target right now taking it to the chin, I think down 27% year-to-date. Third, Warby Parker, the eyeglasses place, jumped 16% yesterday almost on a partnership with Google regarding AI-powered smart glasses. To have bet on Warby Parker, you probably would have needed to essentially had insider information to know to double down on that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-21-25
Who would have seen that coming? Fourth, Lucid Motors jumped more than 10% yesterday. Well, its cars are very cool. It's still way below 20,000 vehicles a year and below $1 billion in revenues. Now, it's got the Saudis as a financial partner, so that helps, but it's very hard to build a serious car company without much greater scale. What's it going to get there? The stock is down 2% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
This is Scott Becker with a special combined episode of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant leader and thinker and investor, Truti Vaz. And Truti is going to talk to us about what she's doing, how she looks at healthcare, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Where do you fit in and what type of companies would you look at wanting to help seed and incubate?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Truti, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
and talk to us about what does it mean to incubate? You know, obviously we're familiar with the term from birthing wards and we're familiar with it. Some in venture capital or early stage companies with Y Combinator and others. What is, how do you define incubating? Just because a lot of people like myself are really sure exactly what that means.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Does that mean you're the first founder or hire the CEO, find some seed capital? What does that mean?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Thank you. Now, in addition to being a founder and incubator, you're also a double University of Chicago person, University of Chicago undergrad, University of Chicago business school. And what is the best business school in the country?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
No, I did not. But nothing better than the University of Chicago for business school and just a general academic institution. So brilliant, brilliant, brilliant people. So fantastic. Sort of the home of Milton Friedman and some of the other brilliant, brilliant people from the economics and business perspective. So fantastic. Tell us about Crosswalk and what you all do at Crosswalk.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Yeah. And let me ask you a question there, because I see this now more clearly. So EMS providers If I look at emergency departments, they're just overwhelmed. Recently, I had one of the elderly people in our family in the emergency department, incredibly challenging, even with knowing everybody.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
So in terms of EMS today, are they just overwhelmed with calls because people don't have access to primary care, they don't have access to health care, so EMS just gets overwhelmed today? Is there some of that going on, or how does that look?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Fantastic what you're doing, Dorothy. Just fantastic. Amazing. One more question. When somebody gets into University of Chicago at a high school, they go there to business school, what does that academic household look like when somebody's that brilliant and that intelligent? What does that look like? Give me a sense of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Yeah, tell us a little bit about Crosswalk, but take a moment first and tell us where you're most focused today. What are you most focused on currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
And for those that don't know, I think the Maroons, is it still called the Maroons in Chicago?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
That's right. So best of luck to the Chicago Maroons as well. Truthy, what a magnificent pleasure to visit with you. Fascinating what you do in terms of incubating health care companies, what you're doing with Crosswalk. You've worked with a bunch of different startups, just fascinating career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
Thank you for joining us in this combined episode of the Bank of Health Care and the Bank of Private Equity podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Dhrooti Vyas on Building Crosswalk Health and the Power of Healthcare Incubation 5-21-25
And tell us about that and tell us where that would fit in. Is that at the seed stage? Is that closer to more at the venture stage? How does that look? And what are the different stages when people invest in healthcare companies? Because a lot of our audience is all over the board in this, whether they're familiar with seed stage versus not, versus venture stage, versus PE stage.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing, Intel & Williams Sonoma 3-19-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion we're to discuss very quickly boeing intel and williams sonoma and i know those are three very different companies boeing is up today almost seven percent and really news that their cfo reported that the cash burn is not as bad as it was now boeing is trying to turn the corner they've had a tumultuous several years and it continues along those tracks
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing, Intel & Williams Sonoma 3-19-25
There used to be one near us in the north suburbs of Chicago. Used to love this store. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing, Intel & Williams Sonoma 3-19-25
Second, Intel. Intel has been way up the last few days, but struggling today down about 7%. Again, they had a $19 billion loss in 2024, which seems like a lot. And now the new CEO, a former board member and a leader in the area is making big moves. And this was reported again today in many different places. I'm reading it in Guru Focus.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing, Intel & Williams Sonoma 3-19-25
Slashing middle management, overhauling the company's AI strategy, and doubling down on their foundry business. And the problem with the foundry business is they thought they might sell it. They're not selling it. But they're trying to get leaner, better, stronger. We'll see if they could do that. So that's Boeing and Intel, two long-term stock names in the United States. Big, big names.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing, Intel & Williams Sonoma 3-19-25
The third stock we'll talk about is retailer Williams Sonoma. Williams is down several percent today on news that even though they stem some of the losses in the fourth quarter of 2024, they have a very cautious outlook for 2025. So, again, those are three of the things we're watching today. Boeing. I know you have no choice.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing, Intel & Williams Sonoma 3-19-25
You get on whatever plane you get on, whether it's an Airbus plane, a Boeing plane. I think after the last couple of years, we're all just a little bit more tentative about getting on those planes, but we go on them a lot. Intel, Intel inside, new CEO trying to turn this around. $19 billion in losses last year. That seems like a lot of losses. And finally, Williams-Sonoma.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Morgan Stanely Cutting 2,000 Jobs 3-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's brief discussion discusses Morgan Stanley layoffs. So Morgan Stanley is looking at laying off ultimately what's a small portion of their entire workforce. But what happens with layoffs is, and we say this often,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Morgan Stanely Cutting 2,000 Jobs 3-19-25
A layoff that seems small analytically, 2,000 employees out of about 81,000 employees, is small analytically unless you're the person that loses the job. Then that layoff is very big. And so when we talk about layoffs, we just think it's always very important to understand there's a financial dynamic to it where the bank is trying hard to cut costs and avoid keeping employees.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Morgan Stanely Cutting 2,000 Jobs 3-19-25
employees on that aren't working very hard trying to trim the workforce some uh and at the same time the financial markets are responding well to that stocks up a few percent today but it's tough to say if that's them or just what's going on with the markets today and then also they're down about four percent year to date but again morgan stanley looking at cutting about 2 000 people they're not going to cut any of their financial advisors and again again that's those are revenue
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Morgan Stanely Cutting 2,000 Jobs 3-19-25
producing people but they will cut about 20 and a half percent of their of their workforce and and we'll see how that goes um you know it's also they did comment uh their co-president commented in a news review from this discussion on it that the deal market remains a little bit slow which is always of interest to our private equity audience and who's listening out there
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Morgan Stanely Cutting 2,000 Jobs 3-19-25
Again, Morgan Stanley to cut 2,000 people, never dull. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Let's hope it's not a sign of the times for banks and other financial institutions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell & The Fed 3-19-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussions about chairman powell and the fed so so here's what's going on today the fed essentially held rates steady at their current meeting they also said that they expect inflation to stay sticky but also slower growth and higher unemployment and so this has led to market watchers assessing
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell & The Fed 3-19-25
at least right now, and this could be very volatile on the day of the Fed meeting, as all the market watchers really try and parse through it. But right now, this is leading market watchers to bet more bullishly that interest will come down this year, although I will tell you that as I'm watching the market,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell & The Fed 3-19-25
It is gyrating like a jumping bean constantly, notwithstanding the early prognosis that this is going to be good for the markets and ultimately to lower rates. The lower rate equation, slower growth, and higher unemployment. The higher rate bet would be that inflation doesn't allow the Fed to bring rates down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell & The Fed 3-19-25
Fed Chairman Powell did talk about uncertainty with the tariffs and so forth and what that does for inflation. But what a fascinating perspective to watch what's going on with the markets in light of the Fed meeting today. We'll see how it goes. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast we're thrilled today to be joined by one of our most listened to guests we're joined today by liz hudson and liz wears a lot of different hats uh she's an engineer by background she built a career in sort of marketing branding then built a consulting firm uh focused on private equity funds and and working with their medical device companies and other product companies
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
No, a hundred percent. And, you know, we talk so much like back in the day when, people had these careers and they might stay with their career for 30, 40 years. And today the world is very different. It's very different both because men, the different gender roles have evolved so much where, you know, men switch jobs, do different things throughout their careers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
They're no longer staying at one place for 30, 40 years. And then women compared to when I started in the workplace, when I started in the workplace 40 years ago, women were just fully being integrated fully into the workforce in a very different way than my parents' generation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
And so many women have been able to manage these careers in their lives so beautifully while performing in different ways. And it's been instructive to men as well as the different ways of sort of creating a life that is very different than the traditional role models maybe 50 years ago. And it's left all of us doing multiple different things in multiple different ways.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
And I talk about this with our kids. There's these constant pivots throughout your career in trying to figure out what you're doing for the next several years, but that might not be what you're doing for the next 10 years. Liz, tell us how you're thinking about some of these things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
Yes, but the constant challenge is it's – and we talk about this often. If I am doing too many things, I end up in the spot where we're okay at all of them versus truly excelling at any one of them. So I look at the legal career versus the entrepreneurial career, and in some ways why that works so well is that I really focused for 10 years building the legal practice and building the team there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
She's also turned herself into a professional speaker and has done an incredible job. Talk about that today, today's life where people wear multiple different hats and how they manage those lives and those careers. Liz, let me ask you to introduce yourself and then maybe take it away and talk to us a little bit about how you sort of approach life today with multiple different hats.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
Well, that became 80%, 90% of my time for a very long time. Well, I spent the other 10%, 20% starting to seed the beginnings of the media company, but it wasn't until I was able to transition to the next spot where I didn't have – where the time ended up being focused much more in energy and mental focus on building the media company versus building the law practice.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
So very much a hyphenate where you – where you are, you know, I view myself as a lawyer, entrepreneur, and father, quite frankly. But it's really, though, you can only do so many things at once well. So for a period of time, it was building the business and really being a father were the two main things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
And one of the great sort of complications, and there's so much written about multitasking, is, like, I know myself, when I'm doing tennis, golf, business,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
fitness, business, investing, trying to build another business, trying to pay attention to the two businesses I'm involved in, that at some point you're less effective at everything because you're doing too much, and it's this constant balance of trying to figure out where to focus, how much to focus, how much energy to put into one thing or the other, and how to narrow it down,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
So you're hyphenated, but not so hyphenated, I think, is a constant evolution and challenge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
Right. But the thing is, like, I'm one that applauds it. I think the reality is at one time, you know, I've seen knee surgeons that all they did for 30 years was knee surgery and or primary care physicians, all they saw for 30 years was patients as primary care physicians. The ones that are burnt out, that's what they did.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
The ones that are enjoying themselves had straddled a couple different things. So one's in medical leadership and orthopedics. One's an entrepreneur and orthopedics. And it's exhausting, and it takes energy. But I think it is a prescription against burnout to be doing just a little bit more than just one thing. And I'd look at it and say, like, look, if you're going to be –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
professionally, personally, until you're in your 70s, 80s, and that's my goal is active into the 80s. We talk about, you know, and I still got a long time to get there, so bear with me. But the point is you have to be constantly evolving. So when I see you evolving like you're evolving, I think it's, you know, one good thing is you and your family have the luxury to evolve like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
that you're economically have the will to be able to evolve. And as long as you do so, it's taking on new challenges. Like one of my favorite people in the world is constantly trying to become a public speaker or trying to do other things as well. You know, teaches, has a career, and tries to do other things too. And I just applaud that constant effort to try and get better and to improve people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
And I'm just a huge fan, so I don't look at it. I remember any time I've started a new thing, you're always going to have naysayers, like friends that sort of giggle. What is she doing? Why is she competing in public speaking? And I view it the opposite. I view it as fantastic and a way to keep thriving and growing. And you might not do it for the next 20 years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
In five years, you might be working on the next thing. But you know what? It's okay. It's okay is my perspective, and I think it's fantastic. And I have a friend who does that that's constantly evolving and trying to do different things and goes deep into certain things, not as deep into other things. And I just happen to be the hugest fan of it, quite frankly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
You know, we try to, but we also by nature enjoy it. And then also you have to remember that there are certain people that we work with. You're one of them. Amber Walsh is another one that literally shows up to every podcast. It's just a complete professional with organized thoughts about what they're going to talk about. And so what happens is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
This makes what I do in working with those people just fantastic, fantastic. So I enjoy it tremendously. And it's like so many things in life. There's so many different things where there's a Venn diagram and there's a fit and you just enjoy it working with the people. And you fit in that category. Amber fits in that category. Many other people do as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
But you and Amber stand out as always coming with something thoughtful to speak about, not just, you know, going back and forth. And I do that with a lot of people. Many of them do it fantastically well. So it's not a knock on them. But I particularly enjoy that. the people that make the effort to really think about here's what I'd like to talk about.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Hyphenate Conundrum: Managing Multiple Careers and Identities with Liz Hutson of EGH, LLC 3-19-25
No, it's fantastic. Liz, it is great to visit with you. This discussion, the consult involving and refocusing, I think is an ongoing discussion. We'd love to pick it up with you again in a couple of weeks. It just is. It's a subject we're all working on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to visit with Rick Kess of RSM. RSM is the leader in sort of the middle market private equity consulting world. It's built an incredible franchise in terms of quality of earnings, valuations, all kinds of work advising buyers and sellers in the private equity world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
And fascinating. And what's your sense of the interest environment? People thought it would start to cooperate again, but it doesn't seem like it's going to cooperate again too much in the near future just because inflation is still there and hard to cut rates with relatively full employment and inflation. I mean, that's what people are really, really expecting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
Rick, one of the things that's fascinating, and I know you can't comment specifically on companies, so I'll mention a couple companies, but we'll just use it as a tee-off point for the discussion. Both KKR and Kyle Lyle Group recently disclosed last quarter earnings. And what you're seeing in the private equity world is something that's fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
A huge run up in activity in a 50 to 100 point reduction in interest rates this year. But that seems to be slowing some, at least the interest rates.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
No, I think that's true. And one of the challenges, of course, is if, in fact, you cut deficit spending at all and you keep interest rates still a little bit high, you're going to end up in a spot where exactly what you're talking about, for a period of time, it feels like it will be a bit more of a zero-sum game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
versus the expansive growth you had with low interest rates and insane deficit spending. Not that it's not good to get the deficit under control, but it does mean that some of the artificial growth and artificial opportunities will not be there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
You're seeing the big, big fund companies with higher and higher fees, but not enough profit from exits and delayed exits. So you're seeing sort of their stock price both took a little bit of a dive based on their results, even though they were great results, but they were driven by fees and lending results.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
No, I think that sounds right on. I mean, it's back to sort of fundamentals of business and creating a great business without a lot of fluff and ability to just make money just because there's big tailwinds with you. You better be doing a great job with your management team, your operations, your business, your execution, everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
Rick, I want to thank you as always for joining us on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. I always learn something. And thank you so much for joining us. Just fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity’s New Reality: Delayed Exits, Interest Rates, and Value Creation with Rick Kes of RSM 2-19-25
and and other kinds of fees from lending versus actual exits similarly kkr reported this weekend uh that they're making additional strategic investments in their strategic holdings category which is long-term buy and hold versus traditional buy build and sell what is your sense of what's going on in the private equity world and how much of a challenge is it that people are having trouble getting to the exit line on the last vintage of funds i guess that's a long
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Oh my goodness, we're going to discuss three things today. Hims and Hers, Reinder, and RFK Jr. So here's the deal on this. First, you got Hims and Hers is up 200% year to date. As Hims and Hers business is diversified, it becomes less and less correlated with Grindr. Grindr's up just 1% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
No idea of free speech is you're able to determine whether you agree or disagree, whether you want to press your doctor to the medicine or not. But this concept of banning free speech for advertising for pharmaceutical companies is This is, you know, and again, I'm not an anti-Trump person at all, but this is the worst idea I've heard this week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
And there's a lot of bad ideas that come out of politicians' mouths on the right and the left. But RFK might be enough to keep us busy for years to come with the idiocy that comes out of his mouth. And I don't mean to be offensive to RFK Jr., But this is really dumb and bad on so many constitutional grounds, so many other grounds and so forth. It is what it is. That's our thoughts for today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
Hims and hers, Grinder and RFK Jr. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
Hems and Errs used to be really focused on telemedicine and prescribing of erectile dysfunction and other drugs used for sexual relations, it now is diversified into a whole lot of other areas. So more and more diversified. Grindr, I believe, still remains a site for hooking up for, I think, same-sex couples and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
And at some point, the erectile dysfunction company and the hookup site were correlated. Now, the results, the stock results of hims and hers have just skyrocketed where grinders have been quite flat. Now, the third thing we'll talk about is RFK Jr. RFK Jr., this is really a baffling person. And the latest is one of his concepts is wants to ban pharmaceutical companies from advertising.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, Grindr, and RFK Jr. 2-19-25
And this to me, if you're a believer in free speech, you're a believer in political speech, free speech, commercial speech, is one of the dumbest concepts I've heard in a very long time. I understand the implicit desire and concept behind it that, oh my goodness, pharmaceutical companies can then influence patients. But that's the concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Notes 2-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to give you three quick notes today. First, Medtronic took another chin yesterday for reporting earnings. They dropped about 7.5%. And while their cardiac business is going well, some of their other surgical businesses are not going well. And that's what's going on with Medtronic so far.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Notes 2-19-25
Second concept is when you're struggling at anything, whether it be diet, fitness, golf, business, whatever it is, My first advice is to go back to the basics, maybe meditate a little bit too, but to go back to the basics. If it's diet, make sure you're drinking your water, getting your steps and getting your movement in, watching your eating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Notes 2-19-25
If it's fitness, doing whatever the basics are you do for fitness. If it's investing, get back to index funds and treasuries. Whatever it is that you do, get back to the basics. If it's work, putting in a few good hours in the morning, whatever the basics are for you, get back to the basics when you're struggling. God knows I know the feeling of struggling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Notes 2-19-25
uh third is the concept of for everything in life some inherent core rules and it probably makes sense to write them down for example if you're deciding to say yes or no to something you need some framework some governance principle for how you decide those things and it makes it a lot easier to get through life and to figure out am i saying yes or no to doing this
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Notes 2-19-25
We constantly are developing those principles for what we want to do without overthinking it or overanalyzing it. There's things that we have to learn to say no to because the first goal in life is to manage your own self and your own energy and make sure that you can do that. So again, those are three stories or thoughts we have for today. One, Medtronic, take it on the chin.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Notes 2-19-25
Two, when you're struggling in anything, go back to the basics. And three, Learn your rules for saying yes and no to things so you have governing principles, and that makes life a lot easier to live and a lot easier to manage oneself, manage one's energy. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Have a fantastic day. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Oscar Health, Intel, Walgreens & More 2-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are four of the stories that we're following today, four stories, Oscar Health, Oatly, and a lot more. So first, I'll give you two healthcare stories, or really maybe three even. Oscar Health jumped 17.7% yesterday. It had great 2024 earnings. It's outperformed the insurance sector really well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Oscar Health, Intel, Walgreens & More 2-19-25
Second, Teladocs, which is one of the huge COVID winner, Teladoc Health, dropped 8.5% yesterday. Seven Wire Ventures, Glenn Tolman, were part of the brilliant leadership and founding team of that company, Teladoc. So we've got so far, Oscar Health, insurance company run by Mark Bertolini, the former CEO of Aetna, and Teladoc Health, also one of the big COVID winners, dropped 8.5% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Oscar Health, Intel, Walgreens & More 2-19-25
A couple of things that happened. Intel and Walgreens, which were huge losers yesterday. If you had to show the big losers for stocks, they would have been on it last year. Walgreens jumped 14% yesterday. Intel jumped 16%. Intel is now up 36% year-to-date, and Walgreens is up 18% year-to-date. So both of those are covering well from last year. Finally, Oatly. Oatly produces that oat milk.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Oscar Health, Intel, Walgreens & More 2-19-25
They dropped 12.5% yesterday. Growth has slowed for a lot of these plant-based food companies. But notwithstanding that, it's a minor correction. Their stock has absolutely skyrocketed over the last year or two. So that's what we got going on this morning. Teladoc dropped yesterday. Oscar Health way up. Walgreens Intel rebounding well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Oscar Health, Intel, Walgreens & More 2-19-25
And the boom may be off the rose on some of the plant-based food companies. We'll see how that goes. Oatly itself dropped 12.5% yesterday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to share with you five of the stories that we're following today. And before we kick off, aside from tariffs, negotiations in the Russia-Ukraine war, and the upcoming U.S.-Canada hockey game, there's a lot going on in the business world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-19-25
KKR still down 5% year-to-date, but really rocking and rolling in some other areas. The market's pointing down a little bit today. And SoundTown is down about 42% year-to-date, but it's up 200% over the last year. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-19-25
So let's talk about the business world, and we'll give you five quick stories right now. First, Tempest AI, which has been on fire, dropped 8.5% yesterday, but it's still up 142% year-to-date. Interestingly enough, TipRanks, which is one of the firms that follows Wall Street, says that insiders are dumping Tempest AI as the stock hits record highs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-19-25
So we'll see if that continues on with insiders dropping the stock. Second, Alliance Bernstein said, Great wealth manager, money manager with $810 billion in assets under management. It's down 2.5% or so year to date, but up yesterday and points up today. Third, KKR is down 5% year to date. The thing that's brilliant about the smartest people in the room
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-19-25
they always figure out how to pivot well when their business is under stress uh kkr's assets under management as follows about 40 of their managements are traditional private equity more than that is in private credit then they've got another 80 billion in infrastructure and another 80 billion in real estate so it's amazing how they've moved sort of out of being so focused on private equity into private debt private credit real estate infrastructure it's fascinating to watch
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-19-25
Fourth, the markets point down a little bit today. We'll see if that continues. And finally, fifth, Soundtown rose 4.3% yesterday. It's down 42.3% year-to-date, but it's up over 200% over the last year. So those are five of the stories that we're following today. Again, Tempest AI dropped. Alliance Bernstein up, but down year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
Right. And what are you seeing now? Because again, like B of A just reported very nice numbers for the first quarter and But there's a lot of caution bleeding into the second quarter from everybody, given the trade uncertainty and so forth. What are you hearing directly from investors about deal flow and what they're seeing? Or is there just an abundance of caution?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
But isn't that so interesting that that seems to be the phrase of the day, the pause. That means very different things to different people. If you're a buyer, it may mean a pause. It may mean that you're really walking away.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber's a leader in the healthcare and private equity sector and no great change today. She's going to report to us on what's going on in the healthcare private equity deal market and what she's seeing and what the data is showing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
If you're a seller, it might be the same thing, that this is now time to move on versus is it really, you know, is it, I'm so happy to hear you use that phrase, the pause, because it seems to be a phrase we're hearing all the time right now. And how do buyers and sellers take that phrase?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
Nein, ich denke, das ist wirklich ein interessanter Ansatz darauf. Und ich denke, es gibt, wie viel hören Sie von Rezessionstestungen? Wann immer Sie einen Deal durchführen, schaut jeder immer nach, wie es sich in einer Rezession aussehen wird.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
Und dann, natürlich, wenn Sie einen Punkt haben, wie ein paar Wochen vor, wo der Markt 15 Prozent vergrößert ist, Sie haben eine Veränderung, 20 Prozent, Sie wissen, jetzt hat es einen Rebound. People think, oh my God, the fear is really real. So instead of thinking abstractly, we have to look at this deal in terms of what happens in a recession. How much of that discussion is going on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
No, thank you very, very much. I think that's really the concern. It's not that you're going to have minor changes, but it's going to fall off the edge when things go south. I think that's exactly right. You know, that's exactly right. And Amber, anything else you're seeing that you wanted to comment on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
Amber, why don't you take a second and introduce yourself and then let's dive into what you're seeing in the healthcare private equity deal market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
Thank you very, very much. That's very interesting. You see some of these smaller hospitals, rural hospitals really in trouble and bigger systems more concerned about picking up the pieces, giving stress on their own reimbursements, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Advantage and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity in 2025: Navigating the Pause with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-16-25
Wir sind Theresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
It's almost like you have your family and you spend more time with certain family members because you feel more or less comfortable with them. It's the same concept here. Work with people that you have mutual interest with. Not people that are the richest, not people that are the coolest, not people that are the best handicapped, the best this, the best that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
But pick your friends, pick who you hang with, based on who fills your bucket. There's also a concept on this concept that says, don't water dead plants. And the concept here that I love as well is, Stop chasing the friend or the colleague or the business associate who doesn't reciprocate and doesn't show the equal interest in yourselves.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
So constantly aim for, hang with people that make you feel good and vice versa. And hopefully you make them feel good as well. But don't pick them based on who's cool, who's this, who's that. Go with who makes you feel good. Whose bucket do you fill? Who fills your bucket? That's all we got today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
And thank you to our producer, the best in the business, the Chanel Bunger. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the worst advice you will ever receive. So there's a lot of candidates for this discussion, but I'll start with this one, this concept. There's all this business and personal advice or professional advice out there about the five people you hang out with the most.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
And a lot of it from business preaching and business books goes like this. Pick the five closest people you're going to hang out with the most, because you're going to become more like them. And so you want to pick people that are successful, that are really skinny, that are really rich, that are really this, really that. And then you'll gravitate to be a lot like them. That's the advice.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Worst Advice You Will Ever Receive 4-16-25
Now, I think this is the worst advice ever. So we take the position, but I don't mean any offense to convicts. Aber assuming your friends aren't convicts, and I say that jokingly, pick your close colleagues based on who you have a natural comfort with, a natural affinity with, not who's the most prestigious, but who makes you feeling positive and upbeat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is shock and awe in professional billing. So this ties into a concept that we talk about often and has been, again, come to light as have dealt with some professional services firms.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
some other projects and so forth, where somebody, and I won't mention names, forgot to get an estimate first of what they're going to charge. And so one of my core thoughts in life is, and it takes a lot of discipline to do this because we're all supposed to want to ask the hard questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
And so sometimes I screw up on this as well, but the most recent screw ups were some of my closest colleagues in life and they weren't screw ups. I say that jokingly, but you can't start a project without asking for an estimate. And it's in getting a sense of what it's going to cost and what they're going to do and trying to control a little bit what they're going to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
So what happens is periodically, I would say 90% of the time, if you don't ask for an estimate, it works out fine. Most people are good, good professionals. They're not trying to screw you. They're not trying to run up the bill. They're not trying to take advantage. It's that 10% that leave a lasting impression. Most recently, working with some law firm on something.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
Not that long ago, working on a painter with something. It could be in any place in life. But the core concept is... you get that shock and awe in their bills. Like, wow, who's got the guts to bill like that? That's really impressive, but I hate you. And then second is the advice that comes out of this is don't ever start a project without asking for an estimate first. That's the real concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
Again, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you with a couple more episodes today. We hope you enjoy this and God bless you all for listening. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are five of the stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the podcast. First, the big news today is NVIDIA is down about 6.6% right now. And this is based on potential export restrictions to China. NVIDIA has got itself sort of right in the middle of this trade war.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
So just real, real fun to talk to them. Fourth, on the scales and portfolio side, I finally had some discipline around the weight for a few days. I'm not so scared to go on the scale. It's in the portfolio after a couple really bad weeks, a couple weeks ago. It's been up this week. Still not looking at it that much, but at least moving in the right direction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
Finally, fifth, and I'll give you a PS today, too. We talk about this often. There's all this business of personal advice about picking the five people you hang out with the most. And a lot of it goes like this. Pick your five closest friends, but it's not successful or something they are because you'll gravitate to be a lot like them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
And I've watched this advice given in a million different contexts. And I got to tell you, we've talked about this regularly. I just hate this advice. it leads to an amount of social climbing and social optimization that to me is so distasteful. And so my perspective is, assuming your best friends aren't convicts, and I don't mean this as offense to convicts,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
Pick your closest friends based on who you love being with and who fills your bucket. Who leaves you feeling positive and upbeat, not stressed? Who can you just be yourself with? It's almost like going to golf. I want to golf with people I just enjoy being with versus people trying to make it so competitive or so insane. That's probably because I'm not that great a golfer. But pick people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
based on who you like to be with, who are reliable, great friends, who reciprocates with you, who you could count on, reciprocates that they have an interest in you as well as you in them. Don't pick them based on their net worth, their position in life, their handicap, or any other dumb concept. Do you fill each other's buckets? Do you enjoy each other?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
That's how you pick your friends and who you want to hang with, not on who's going to make you the most successful. A couple of the quick notes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
we did a great discussion yesterday on twitter versus reality if you read twitter you think that everybody has to be an entrepreneur or you're a loser at the end of the day our country is driven and works because there are 90 of the people that do their jobs that have jobs that do a fantastic jobs with them and thank god for them and then there's x percent that are entrepreneurs and thank god for them too but this idea that one is good one is bad is so misguided and so dumb i can't even stand it anymore
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
Finally, the last concept, and it comes really out of two recent scenarios. Don't start a project, and I won't scold the people who got us into this situation, but don't start any project without getting an estimate of what it's going to cost. Most people are going to treat you fairly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
Jensen Wang's one of the most amazing CEOs of our time. He's been leading that company for 30 years. He's outlasted all the other great CEOs. It's amazing what he's done. He'll navigate through this as well. He's really an amazing, amazing leader. Second, China and the United States look like they are circling towards talks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
A few people, you're going to be shocked, like that shock and awe when you get the bill, and you're trying to avoid that. That's what you're trying to avoid, shock and awe and billing. So get an estimate before you start, and then expect your professionals, whoever you work with, whether it's a painter, a lawyer, an accountant, whoever it is, to stick with that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
And on the flip side, there's a few people I work with that are always so darn fair. I love working with them time and time again. So God bless those people. Thank you very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope you have a fantastic day. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
They're all trying to show a little bit of ego in how they do it, but really fascinating to watch. But sort of moving towards trade talks, it is a whirlwind rollercoaster to watch how President Trump negotiates with everybody. You know, it's head spinning, and it is what it is. Third, third.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
It was great yesterday to talk to tennis great Murphy Jensen, and not everybody knows Murphy Jensen, but he and his brother Luke won the French Open a long time ago, the doubles championship of the French Open. Growing up in the Midwest, where I grew up, Luke and Murphy Jensen were heroic figures in terms of the tennis scene, just great athletes, great tennis players.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 4-16-25
Murphy has a story where he then ended up with substance abuse, stress, other kinds of issues. More recently started a company called We Connect with Danielle Tudor and Cameron Chell. And we had the two of them on the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity podcast yesterday. Really inspired to talk to them. And again, Luke and Murphy, heroic players in our area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Run Your Business Like You’re Rich 4-16-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is don't run your business like you're rich and i love this concept it came out of recent discussions with somebody where somebody accused a business owner a business operator of not really watching what's going on that closely and basically the acquisition that they run it like the rich and they can afford to keep pouring money into it
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Run Your Business Like You’re Rich 4-16-25
Don't run your business like a rich person. Thank you very, very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Run Your Business Like You’re Rich 4-16-25
And if that's the case, then the party that is the party to it doesn't want to invest in it. And I thought that was just right on this concept that you can't run a business like you're a rich person. You've got to run it with great concerns about profit and losses. particularly if you want it to be an investable business, not just your own fun hobby or your own family business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Run Your Business Like You’re Rich 4-16-25
This concept that you have to run it where you're really watching what you're spending. We use a different phrase often, which is if you're running a business and trying to get to the spot where revenues equal expenses, then you can't constantly move the goalpost.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Run Your Business Like You’re Rich 4-16-25
And meaning the goalpost means that you're increasing the expenses, but not bringing in a similar amount of revenues to match those expenses. And businesses get into this cycle where they keep on self-funding, sometimes worse with big, big venture capital funding. But I see this more. Wealthy person has a business. It's their second run, their third run.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Run Your Business Like You’re Rich 4-16-25
They're almost running as an advanced hobby versus a business and And it's their dream. It might be their dream, but they're not running it like a real business. They're running it as something where they're pouring money into it, but not necessarily making smart decisions. Love the concept. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
challenges for management teams for sponsors investors and you know we're all kind of navigating it together no and your point is so well taken in the ipo market because that's important quite frankly because it leads to a spot where where it's another exit opportunity for companies in different ways grants are often larger companies some of those are not huge ipos either and it provides another
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
Off-Ramp to at least part of an investment and partly a liquidity event and at least the potential for one going forward. And I think that is fascinating to watch too. And so that's good news.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
And as the stock market rebounds, hopefully as debt costs sort of start to normalize and see a little more certainty as trade deals start to get announced, that the markets do become a little bit easier to navigate and between buy and sell. I mean, the word I've heard so often recently is pause, that people were gearing up for deals and then there was a pause in the markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de. Das ist Scott Becker mit dem Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast. Wir sind begeistert, diese Woche 7 Millionen Downloads zu übernehmen und einen der Top-Podcasts zu ranken. Ich glaube, der Nummer 1 oder 2 in der Apple Business News Kategorie. Gott schütze alle, die den Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast hören.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
And so we'll see if that's a pause or if that becomes elongated.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
No, but one of the points you made is such an important point. Some of these older vintage deals might be provider services deals. And that's of concern. And here's why. The world around aggregating provider services over that six to eight year period has changed dramatically. So even as the capital markets open up and change, some of those businesses, depending on specialty,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
are in a much more challenging spot in terms of sustainable cashflow and growth than they were at some point. So you look at things like certain types of platforms built around obstetrics, for example, OB-GYN, or provider services, or practice management, that at one point there was a relatively rosy forecast for.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
Now, between reimbursement challenges, shortage of doctors, still inflationary costs, the cashflow in those businesses is much tougher than it was expected to be three to five years later. And whenever things get held for a much longer finish than anticipated, the core thesis around the original investment often can change.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
Wir sind begeistert, heute mit Matt Wolf zu sein. Matt ist ein brillanter Analyst, thought leader in this healthcare private equity space, brilliant, brilliant person, one of our most listened to guests. Matt, take a moment to introduce yourself and maybe we could talk about what trends you're watching in private equity currently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
And that's a whole other set of circumstances that causes some concern, depending on how those companies performed compared to a core thesis, because over a longer period of time, those core theses either play out or factors change. And we're seeing a lot of that, I think.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
Hold periods get longer and longer, there becomes less certainty around those theses. Just like if you buy a house in a neighborhood, you know in three to five years that neighborhood is probably still going to be good. Much harder to project what's going to happen in 15, 20 years. And similarly with a lot of these companies bought a long time ago. What a fascinating time in the markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
Matt, anything else you wanted to share with us today before we wrap up?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare PE in a Shifting Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-14-25
We sure hope so. Take one moment and tell us a little bit about Elliott Davis. You moved to Elliott Davis recently this spring. Talk a little bit about Elliott Davis for a second.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is don't bet against Apple for quick points. So here's the deal with Apple. We often do this series of things not to bet against, don't bet against Elon Musk. I guess you could say it, don't bet against President Trump. He's a resilient person, whether you like him or not, or a resilient person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
So at the end of the day, Apple fits in this category of companies not to bet against. Really amazing what they've done. Don't bet against Apple. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
And a special shout out today to the one and only Chanel Bunger, the greatest producer I've ever worked with, just fantastic, who we work with on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
Apple, with the amount of phones they sell and the ecosystem they've built and all the different ways they make money, at the end of the day, I tell you not to bet against Apple either. Now, three or four quick points. First, Apple's down about 15% year-to-date. It's no longer approaching $4 trillion in market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
Second, it's again back to over $3 trillion in market cap, and that's a big deal because there's only two companies above $3 trillion in market cap. Apple's at about $3.17 trillion in market cap. Microsoft's about $3.6 trillion in market cap. Third, Apple – Besides the phones, and the phone sales seem to have sort of equalized or moderated in terms of growth, not even the growth they once had.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
But it still is very hard, particularly in the high-income countries, to switch from Apple to Samsung and change the ecosystem you work on. Now, Apple makes so much money from these different kinds of things in their ecosystem. whether it's the app store, the bookstore, million different in-app purchases. I buy promotional ads on Twitter. I'm paying through Apple.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Bet Against Apple: 4 Quick Points 5-14-25
I mean, they get a piece of everything. They're like the house. So at the end of the day, I think to give you three or four points, yes, Apple's down 50% year-to-date. But yes, it's the only other stock besides Microsoft that's above $3 trillion in market cap. In three, they've built this incredible, incredible ecosystem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Double Down on Your Core Role & Keep Your Eyes Open 5-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is double down on your core role in business and keep your eyes open. So one of the things we talk about is, and I particularly see this with young careerists and just gave a lecture to people that are a lecture, an interview, a discussion to people that are young leaders and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Double Down on Your Core Role & Keep Your Eyes Open 5-14-25
And one of the things I see so often in young leaders is this bifurcated situation. I was just with a young leader, brilliant person at Kauffman Hall, who's been at the same place for seven years and growing and thriving and doing fantastic. Then I see so many young leaders that are bopping and jumping from place to place.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Double Down on Your Core Role & Keep Your Eyes Open 5-14-25
I'm a huge fan of the first one, the person that doubles down on what they're doing, does a fantastic job, and keeps their eyes open and can connect dots. So what I worry about is the young professional that spends half their time on the Rolodex trying to find the next job versus really looking at at doing fantastic at what they do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Double Down on Your Core Role & Keep Your Eyes Open 5-14-25
And I'm a believer that if you do great at what you do, more and more opportunities are likely to open up for you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Double Down on Your Core Role & Keep Your Eyes Open 5-14-25
So we're a huge believer in this concept of do fantastic at what you do, keep your eyes open, connect dots, maintain relationships, but don't ever mistake the concept that you want to spend 89% of your effort doing fantastic work at what you're doing and doing your core job exceptionally well Then both more opportunities come to you. Your mind is engaged. You see more opportunities.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Double Down on Your Core Role & Keep Your Eyes Open 5-14-25
I think there's just so many benefits to that approach to business, to jobs, to life. It's doubled on your core while keeping your eyes open and connecting dots. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for joining us. Today, we're going to go through six thoughts from a speech today. So here's the background. We're invited to give a talk to the Advancement League, the Young Health Leaders Summit. I had a wonderful moderator interviewer, Kayla Epps, Provided to be a bunch of questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
But you might find over time, they're tremendous, tremendous leaders. People like Judy Faulkner of Epic, John Langell, Dr. Langell of Northeast Ohio Medical School, Dr. Chrisman. at Northwestern Medicine. There's just so many people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
It might not originally take as overflowing a room in such a leader, but of this tremendously high motor and are great team builders and could see the future and deal with things. Gene Woods is another example of this. So people that have great internal drive that you might not see when it hits you, you might not see it immediately, but it's there and it's very powerful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
Another question I was asked is, do you ever want to give up on an effort? Maybe, but I find that the key is to change and re-energize over the years. That all of us have peaks and valleys that you go up, you go down. I sort of view the world through three simple prisms. Not busy, depressing and boring. Busy, better than not busy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
And busy with purpose and intention brings one closer to self-actualizing. Over time... Once in a great while, something is going to hit you where you're just excited about it and you're compelled by it. And my advice to people is to lean into that when it happens. It doesn't always happen. But when it happens, lean into it and go with it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
There's also this concept of people that you work with that have peaks and valleys. You need to stick with your very best people through their ups and downs because you want people that are with you for the very long run. Fourth was a couple of thoughts on health care and coverage and access. We ultimately very much need full coverage. Coverage is very different than access.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
Yes, we need to fix the supply problem. That's number one. And yes, technology, GP1s, preventive care are helpful. But we better, at the end of the day, fix the supply problem of doctors and nurses or we're going to be in huge trouble. I have found this huge perspective still in the situation where a hospital is run by a physician. I still think there's an innate problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
Now, as it comes from practicing medicine, that allows you to see the entire care structure in a different way. I've also found hospital leaders largely work very, very hard. Insurance companies, we have our own thoughts on. Fifth, in terms of long-term success, if you want to have long-term success, I've had so many people burn out because they don't have the ability to set some boundaries.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
If you want to excel for the very long term, you've got to be able to set some boundaries. You need to take care of your physical and mental health. It's also much better to build careers with teams and with teammates. The other thing that I find is one of the most predominant concepts of happiness is over the long run, you decided what you want to do versus somebody else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
And so I'm going to go through some of the notes in that talk. Hopefully some of these resonate with people that are listening to this. And a lot of this deals with career development, growth, building businesses, and a lot more. So the first concept is focus first on your core role. The concept being do your core job great and keep your eyes open. Connect dots and keep your eyes open.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
And then I think about, are you in an environment where you could do great work and your team could do great work? Both those are important. You want to be in highly effective organizations. Finally, somebody asked me about assessing opportunities. And I always think it's very hard to whiteboard opportunities. It's much easier to see opportunities when you're deeply involved in something.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
Then I think about opportunities. Can you win in it? Is it worth winning it? We often think of, and we have a webinar coming on this in a few weeks, customers, niches, and teams. But again, I find it's very hard to abstractly decide what's a great business or opportunity. It's more to be deeply involved in things and start to see them
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
And then to double down when they hit you, when you see them, that you double down. But we all talked about cultivating your passion. Periodically in life and your career, you're going to find things that really drive you and excite you. Don't ignore those. Go after those things that ignite your passion. Thank you for listening to this version of the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
But start things with doing your job great. We like to say spend 89% of your energy on excelling at your core job. And this concept comes out of so many people looking all over the place all the time. And we see most people really excel when they do great at what they're doing. And when they see great opportunities, then they want to double and triple down on those.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
But you sort of start with what is your core job and doing great at that and keeping your eyes open and connected eyes. Second concept is great leaders have high internal drive. So some of the best leaders I've watched over the years have high motors and they're great team builders. And they may not look like the traditional, what people thought of as a traditional leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Thoughts From a Speech Today 5-14-25
Like back in the day, people thought of as this tall white patrician people, and I'm not tall or patrician, as sort of those were the leaders. And often those people were no better or no worse than anybody else, but not particularly good. But there was a bias. They looked like leaders. So many people that I see that are hyper successful, you might not notice their drive or their motor immediately.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to be joined by one of our most listened to guests, Matt Wolfe from RSM, the most remarkable sort of mid-market private equity consulting firm. Matt's going to talk today about what's on everybody's mind, tariffs and a lot more. Matt, we're at a spot where deal activity just seemed to be picking up
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
And part of the target that Trump is trying to please, which is manufacturing workers, workers, target workers in some of these swing states where manufacturing in so many places has been shipped overseas. That's who likes him. He sees one stat that factory output is going up and is ignoring a lot of the other consequences. And we'll see how far he pushes this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
At some point, the rest of the American public will. is going to cry uncle, but at some point, until he starts to hear that and see such disastrous roles in other places, it seems like he might keep on pushing this. Just fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
Well, and that's a fascinating point because what happens is you have some of these big companies that seem to be trying to make sure they stay close to the president, making some big announcements about plants and building in the United States. But right, if the next president then reduces those tariffs dramatically, then you end up back to a spot where it's so much cheaper to invest overseas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
Now we've got a little bit of a fly in the ointment, so to speak. This tier of thing is going bananas. What do we make of this? What does it mean for the deal market, for the 10-year, for inflation, and a lot more?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
So it's very hard to make business decisions. based on what a president does, particularly when he does it without building broad alliance and consensus around it. And he may be right that it's the right thing or the wrong thing. I can't judge that. But what I do know is when there's so much anxiety around them and so much talk around them,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
It's hard to get to that point where you have certainty and people could bank on these for the longer run to know that this is what's going to be in place. And that's probably more challenging when you don't build consensus on both sides of the aisle that you get whipsawed as a manufacturer. that you go and build things here or start moving production back here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
But in four years, it becomes a lot cheaper to do it elsewhere. Even in two weeks, if President Trump negotiates new deals with some of these potential partners, then you're up in a spot where you're starting to take actions, but not only the other side, but our own side is back and forth on these things. And that makes it very hard to do predictable business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
Thank you. And what are you seeing with the treasuries? And what's going on with those? And what should we expect?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
It certainly, as it goes up higher, it moves both. It makes financing deals more expensive. It also moves more money to treasuries and bonds away from stocks. And it could be small amounts, but they have an impact on the amount of money put in the stock market as well. So it has multiple different impacts as to where people put their capital as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Uncertainty, and the Deal Market: Insights from Matt Wolf of RSM 3-12-25
No, fascinating to watch. Matt, as always, I want to thank you for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You're one of our most listened to guests. We appreciate you joining us so much. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inflation Falls – Not Enough to Comfort the Markets 3-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is about inflation falling, but that not being enough to comfort the markets. And I'll make three quick points. First, inflation falling gives a lot of comfort to people that are hoping that sooner or later, Chairman Powell and the Fed will be able to reduce rates. So that's good news.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inflation Falls – Not Enough to Comfort the Markets 3-12-25
Second, notwithstanding that, and the fact that the market surged early this morning would have fallen back to about even with the Dow being down right now, the NASDAQ and S&P being slightly up, that could change a lot throughout the day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inflation Falls – Not Enough to Comfort the Markets 3-12-25
Notwithstanding the markets originally surging on the inflation falling, that news, we're still seeing great concerns about the tariff policy and also about ultimately deficit spending and reducing deficit spending and whether that reduction in government spending is going to throw us into a recession. Now, again, if you listen to this regularly, I am not against reducing deficit spending.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inflation Falls – Not Enough to Comfort the Markets 3-12-25
In fact, I believe debt kills companies, countries, families. It's a horrible, horrible thing. We've got to get that deficit under control. But I do believe there's going to be some pain in doing so. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, inflation pause, but not enough to please the markets. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Retail Stores Lie 3-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. And today's discussion is, and bear with me as you work through this, retail stores lie. And so this is, you know, and bear with me on this. I went to buy a jacket at a Canada Goose store, and it reminds me of buying a putter at Golf Galaxy or the PGA Golf Store.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Retail Stores Lie 3-12-25
When you buy a putter on their putting green at the PGA Golf store or the Golf Galaxy store, every putt sort of rolls to the hole and falls in the hole. So the putter feels like it's the best putter in the history of the world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Retail Stores Lie 3-12-25
Similarly, when you buy a coat at Canada Goose, I don't know if it's the mirrors or what they do, but when I put on the coat at Canada Goose, I look taller and thinner and it's a beautiful coat. Then, of course, I come home and it doesn't look as great as it did.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Retail Stores Lie 3-12-25
It's very similar to taking the putter out on the actual golf course and finding it doesn't perform nearly as well as Golf Galaxy does or as it does at the PGA store. So today's concept is retail stores lie. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Retail Stores Lie 3-12-25
And I realize this is not a serious subject, but I do feel like that ball rolls right to the hole when I'm at the golf store and that jacket looks very thinning on me when I'm at the coach store. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to bring you today five stories that we're following. One is sort of a prescript. So the first prescript is that inflation came in a little bit lower than expected.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
A couple other notes, Avis, American Airlines, Expedia all got slammed yesterday. We'll see how today goes. The other thing we'll tell you is in terms of debt and the deficit and deficit trade deficits and deficit spending, We often say debt kills countries, companies, and families.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
And so even though deficit spending may keep us out of recession, we by no means defend deficit spending and federal spending at the levels it's been at. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
the markets like that early this morning but then seem to rebound to the negative a little bit later this morning we'll see how this plays out at the end of the day the lower inflation gives some comfort that power will be closer to lowering rates at the same time still concerns about trade policy and a number of other things that are driving sort of the market to be very soft even with lower inflation and here are five or six stories that were fogged today
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
JP Morgan now says the chances of a recession have increased to 40%. We're not surprised by that. Lower GDP growth, and if we actually cut government spending, we're going to have even lower growth. So we could see that. Second, Goldman Sachs lowers the S&P 500 forecast further. They're still projecting a pretty up year, but not nearly as much as it was going to be, and we'll see how that goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
Third, Porsche. And remember with Porsche, there is no substitute. Their profits and revenues fell, and they announced 3,900 job cuts, again, trying to sort of get themselves leaner and sharper and stronger. Fourth, there's a book by a guy, Brad Jacobs, How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. So he's a few billion dollars ahead of me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
And he says to reframe every day, not to what was going on that day, but what's the best part of your day and to focus on the most positive as much as you can.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-12-25
uh fifth president trump speaking in economy says that the market doesn't really concern him and the market volatility doesn't concern him he essentially says i think we're going to have an economy that's a real economy not a fake economy and as much as people hate president trump i think there's a lot of truth to that because we've been using so much deficit spending to blow up our economy the last few years that it is somewhat of a fake economy
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by your brilliant leader at RSM, Matt Wolfe. Matt lives sort of in the valuation space in the private equity world, just a brilliant person. Matt, take a second and tell us what you're focused on currently. What trends? What are you watching? What's going on in the P.E. deal world?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
No, I think that's so fascinating. You know, so many of the mantras I've had in founding and running businesses, and as I serve on boards and invest is, you know, how do you keep it simple and try and simplify amongst the complexity? And it strikes me as, at one time,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
That seemed just easier than it is today because it seems like the amount of variables coming at you, the changes in tech, where to pick up tech, how to meet your customers where they're at and be useful to your customers, how to grow and scale. It all seems to be more complex than it used to be. And in some ways, we used to think about the legal business as a very simple business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
I'd have great clients on one side and great people on the other side. And all it was about was keeping those two things relatively in tandem. So I had enough great people serving enough great clients. And it was a relatively simple business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
Hired really smart people, cultivated them, developed really close relationships, really close clients, and cultivated them, and just kept on moving them together. And then over the years, as you go up market, the clients are more complicated, the people are more complicated, the competition for both is more complicated, the changes in how people are using technology are more complicated.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
And this is just to talk about the professional services business, the simple business, compared to the media business or software companies and a lot of digital health companies I've invested in, and the complexity there of both getting through to the right person. You know, in the old days, I'll give you something that brings this home to me, what you're saying, Matt, so well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
In the old days, so many companies were built around point solutions. This company did this point solution better than anybody else. And it goes to your thought that you're talking about, about companies running 1,000 different technologies, health systems running 1,000 different apps to go with their 5 to 10 enterprise programs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
And what's really happened in terms of simplicity, nobody wants to be running 1,000, 2,000 apps Thus, consequently, less and less people want a point solution. You know, one person wants a point solution, but a system wants something that serves multiple goals so they don't have to have and manage a thousand different relationships.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
And this complexity and the need to try and trim away the complexity is, you know, when you see great leaders, they're really, really, really, really good at doing this. And that skill has become harder and harder. And so I think this operations survey that your team has put together could not be more right on. Tell us more, Matt, before I just talk and talk and talk. Tell us more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
No, I think you've really hit it. And as the cost per employee goes up, the cost for CapEx goes up. All these things that go up make it harder and harder for a company that's growing to really hit the accelerator and find its product market fit, because there's just less room for error as there's more upfront and bigger expenses that go into the business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
We always talk about this concept in starting a business, growing a business, is don't constantly move the goalpost. And what I mean by that is don't constantly add expenses to what you have to catch up to in profits or revenues to make it work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
And what's happened is it feels like in this complex world, this expensive world, it is harder and harder to keep those goalposts in line so you can get your revenues to beat those goalposts. And so you can't move the goalposts, but it's harder and harder to control it. Matt, I love this subject, increasing complexity of business, what it means for investing and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
Matt Wolf, just brilliant superstar at RSM. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We have the great pleasure of having Matt on a webinar today with three other panelists, Holly Buckley and Bart Walker from McGuire Woods, as well as Craig Costelli from Caber Hill Advisors. So, Matt, we look forward to visiting with you more today as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Increasing Complexity of Business & What it Means for Investors with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-12-25
Thank you for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. These are 12 of the stories that we're following today. And it's midday. And even just at midday, a lot of what's going on in the markets has changed already today. So let's go through these 12 stories. First, the markets are slightly down today, even after a higher inflation report than expected for January.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Fifth, a few of the stocks that really took it to the chin yesterday, Astero Labs, which we're a direct holder of, Sweetgreen, the fast casual restaurant, SoundTown, and Doximity. Now, one of my friends has made so much money off SoundTown that I almost welcome it going down just a little bit because I don't want to hear about how much it's going up all the time since he's bought it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Sixth, Carlyle Group, the big private equity fund, dropped out 3.5% yesterday. Again, the big private equity funds sooner or later have to find some exits again at profits to really thrive in the long run. Seventh, Humana dropped more than 3% yesterday and faces higher medical loss ratios. That's what's going on with Humana. Eighth, Coca-Cola Company beat on earnings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Again, thrilled that I'm a direct owner in Coca-Cola, so that's good news. Rival Pepsi is down 16% year-to-date. Ninth, Intel rose 6% yesterday. It seems like forever since we've reported that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Tenth, we're really thankful to two people, Tim Doody of Allied Digestive Health and Alyssa Whitmore, who were two of our first listeners on the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity podcast and texted me yesterday. Each of them earned their $100 gift certificates there. And thank you so much for being the first to text on those episodes, Tim Doody and Alyssa Whitmore.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
I'll add another concept today. If you're the first to text me at 773-766-5322, I will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. You can't be a listener. Tim, we got it yesterday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. 11 story following, the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast is ranked third today out of all business news podcasts, according to Apple.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Always thrilled to see that. 12th, a Cushnet company. And this is what's going to go off on the stock exchanges. They own Titleist and Footjoy, jumped more than 7% yesterday. But overall, JP Morgan sees them having weaker revenues this year and downgraded them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
That's fairly good news that they haven't cratered based on the higher inflation report. I think the markets sort of got used to the fact that Chairman Powell won't cut rates that quickly. Second, Lyft is down about 3%, which is better than where it was this morning when it was down double digits. It's at a spot where it's got lower bookings than expected, which is bad for their business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
My golf game, not just the sales of Kushnet, are also facing perilous times with a good deal of the problems associated with my putting and short game right now. P.S., as much as I hate losing money in the markets, I really hate losing money to some of my close friends on the golf course. Today's shout out there goes to Gary Cole, who took some of my money yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
He's having an easy time taking my money this year. But don't worry, I'll be back. Right now, I've been useless to my playing partners. It is what it is, but I will be back. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Related to that, Tesla was down 5% pre-market, and it's the worst performing of the max Zips at 7 to date, but it's up currently and moving in the right direction, up a few percent. Again, it's had a tough year so far, but recovering some today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
Third, Fed Chairman Powell, who I think is one of the brightest guys out there, says essentially that mortgages may become impossible to get in certain parts of the country where insurance is almost impossible to get. If you can't get insurance, you can't get a mortgage unless it leaves us with a real problem. Fourth, hedge fund savant Ken Griffin is blasting President Trump over tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
12 More Stories for Today 2-12-25
The beauty of Griffin is he's an equal opportunity articulator of his thoughts. He went after Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, hard in Illinois. He goes after President Trump, what he believes we deserve is going after. And I like that a great deal about Ken Griffin. People that can afford to and are willing to speak their mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-12-25
Thank you for listening to this version of the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We are so thankful to our listeners every day. And quite frankly, thrilled to see the Becker Private Equity Podcast near the very top of the rankings at Apple Businesses. So thank you for that as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-12-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-12-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de. leave the markets believing that the Fed is going to be very scared by its inflation report. The Fed will continue to go slow in cutting rates, but at least not that bad in inflation report. At one point the markets were down almost 1% today. Now they're down just about a third of a percent, and that's much better than being down a full percent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-12-25
A few other stories we're following today. CVS is surging up about 15% today. That's a headline we've not seen in a long time. Third, Heineken. Die Bierfirma ist auch heute um 14 Prozent hoch. Ich weiß nicht, ob jemand noch Heineken trinkt. Ich glaube, es riecht schrecklich. Aber Gott schütze sie, dass sie in die richtige Richtung gehen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-12-25
Und zum Schluss Zillow, die Real-Estate-Firma, ist heute komplett auf der Knie, um 12 bis 13 Prozent hoch. Das sind vier kurze Geschichten. Inflation up, but the market's not getting hammered. CVS way up, Heineken way up, even though it's impossible to drink. CVS, by the way, is an easy store to shop at, so that's better than Heineken. And then Zillow's getting crushed today, down about 13%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today's discussion is Coca-Cola, it's the real thing. Now, for many of you, that slogan, which is the Coca-Cola marketing slogan for a long time, will be lost on you because I am so old, and that's probably before a lot of your generation. But here's what we're saying about Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola beats on earnings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
One of the things that we see out there in companies is constantly raising prices to meet organic growth targets, but sooner or later that comes back to haunt you. Coca-Cola, what they're doing right now is they are raising prices probably a but they're also seeing increased unit sales. Now, unit sales are up a few percent. Prices are up a lot. We'll see if they can continue it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
Their CEO seems to really know what they're doing. Coke is up 7% this year today. It'll be up a little bit more after today. Pepsi is down 16%. So right now, Coke is beating up on Pepsi. We'll talk more about some of these rivalries that are out there. Again, Apple, the Android versus the Apple phone, the Samsung versus Apple, the Verizon versus AT&Ts, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
But thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If I offended you with the phrase, the dildo of consequences often comes unexpected, feel free to text me at 773-766-5322. If you're the first to text me and you're offended, I will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate to help assuage your offense.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
Its stock is up. It is making a mockery of its rivalry with Pepsi Cola. Uh, and it's, it's doing something that is great. You see so many firms, so many companies that just see a rise in organic growth because they hike their prices up to the bejesus at some point. That's a strategy that works at some point till customers, constituents get that gag reflex. Uh, there's a great old quote, the, um,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
dildo of consequences often comes unexpected. I didn't make that quote unexpected.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
up and excuse me for using it but it's a quote that one of my friends uses all the time but it's a famous quote and what happens when companies keep on just rising their prices and don't increase their number of customers sooner or later the consequences are that they start going in the wrong direction should only raise prices for so long so i love the phrase i didn't promise my buddy that i would use it in the podcast i hope nobody's offended
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca Cola: It’s the Real Thing 2-12-25
The dildo of consequences only often comes unexpected. And I know that's a horrible, you know, phrase, but, but I did, it did have shock value when I first heard it. And I did think it's meaningful in some ways saying people don't always expect the consequences coming to their actions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intel Inside on the Upside 2-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Intel, Intel inside, Intel surprises to the upside. So here's the issue. Intel's had its first good day in the markets, and what seems like forever is its stock is up about 6%, 7%. And we'll see if that lasts throughout the day. You'll be listening to this on
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intel Inside on the Upside 2-12-25
Wednesday when we release it, we're recording on Tuesday. But so far, Intel is having a heck of a day. So here is what's driving Intel's success. Intel's success is being driven by the fact that Lyft is going to use Mobileye technology in their vehicles, their effort to have their autonomous vehicles. And why is this big news for Intel?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intel Inside on the Upside 2-12-25
It's big news for Intel because Intel bought Mobileye a couple years ago. Mobileye has struggled under Intel. But now Mobileye, which Intel still owns 88% of, is going to be used by Lyft. And this is going to really propel and accelerate the strength of Mobileye and have huge benefits to Intel, which is the 88% owner of that. So we'll see how that goes. A little excitement there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intel Inside on the Upside 2-12-25
That's Intel inside, Intel up. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly chairs the healthcare department at McGuire Woods. She serves on some boards and she works at the intersection of healthcare and private equity. She also helps to chair the Healthcare Private Equity Conference at McGuire Woods.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
Yeah, no, let me ask you this question. You're at a Women's Leadership Conference in Healthcare, Private Equity, and Private Equity. What's the general tenor? Are people sort of anxious about the market? Are they excited about the market? What's the general tenor? Are people just thrilled to visit either way and learn from each other. Give us a feel for that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
That's coming up May 14th and 15th in Chicago. Holly, there's been a ton of turmoil in the markets recently. What are you seeing and what should we take out of that as to the impacts on the deal market?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
I know Lindsay Burton, who runs that organization, does an amazing job. Give us a sense of what the temperature is and what people are thinking and saying.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
Good, good, good, good, good. And what do you see going forward this year? What's your sense? I know people are busy, but there's a lot of uncertainty in the markets. What's your sense of what we should expect going forward? Does a lot of it depend on if trade deals are done or not?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
Right. It does seem that, quite frankly, we saw today – late yesterday, improved reimbursement for the Medicare Advantage plans, which then pumps more life and errand to Medicare Advantage, even though it's cost the taxpayers a fortune and also is hated by physicians in hospitals.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
But fascinating to see sort of that getting pumped up again by this administration and just literally fascinating to watch where doctors and hospitals are struggling in rates.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
Medicare Advantage is getting a 5% increase, just striking, but is consistent with Dr. Oz's politics and beliefs in Medicare Advantage and at least the Trump administration, the first administration, where they're very pro-Medicare Advantage. So fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
Anyways, a lot to digest currently, Holly. Thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit about the Healthcare Private Equity Conference, May 14th and 15th.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Update with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-9-25
Holly, thank you so much for joining us. What a pleasure. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a Twitter poll. Will you reduce spending, business or personal spending, based on market turmoil? And I love sort of the Twitter responses in some ways because you get people saying unfettered, crazy things, but they're true to them. So even though they might be... I might think they're crazy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
Another one, another job person says, He, he, nope. Terrorists don't affect my job security. In fact, we're busier than ever before since we aren't importing foreign oil. I don't know what that means exactly, but it is what it is. Another person says, buy when the market is down. In any event...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
I think it's fascinating to see the wide array of viewpoints on this issue of how the market turmoil affects different people. There are certain people that aren't part of the capital class, don't own equities, that are quite frankly happy to see others sort of take a little bit of their medicine. All of us should remember the market's put up 80% over the last five years, so don't overly panic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
I do love the unfettered nature of the responses we get on Twitter. Thank you all for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you later today. We're talking to the great Canadian, David Bivnik. And we'll talk to him maybe about Ovechkin taking over Gretzky as the greatest goal scorer of all time. All of us that are Great One fans, the Gretzky, the Great One.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
Might not be thrilled with Ovechkin, the great eight, taking over, but what an amazing thing he has done as well. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
These people believe what they're saying. So here's the response I get. The Twitter question today is, and we got almost 1,900 responses so far, will you cut personal or business spending due to recent market downturns? So far, we got 48% say yes, they'll cut spending. 52% say no. But I think what's most interesting is some of the answers. One person says, called Bronx Conservative,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
I make my money from salary, not the market. Another person says, neither. I won't cut or not cut. You only lose if you cash out. Unless you're retired, there's no need to cash out. Just hold the line. Things will pan out. I think he's probably largely right, but keep on moving forward, and now is the time to invest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: Will You Cut Personal or Business Spending Due to Recent Market Downturns? 4-9-25
Another person says, because I see where this is going, a global realignment of trade around the world that will not only benefit the U.S., but the rest of the world as well. I'm not going to cut spending. Another person says, I'm going to cut down on my personal expenses because I have suffered huge losses. And so you get a bunch of these different discussions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are 14 short notes today that we're following today. First, the markets dropped heavily late yesterday, but the markets aren't down as much today as maybe people feared with these new tariffs going into effect. In fact, the markets are pretty fairly split this morning. We'll see if that holds throughout the day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
So far, the results show essentially 48% of people saying they're going to cut spending About 52% say they're not. Some of the interesting comments are plenty of people that are in the job market that have jobs but don't have equities are pretty... strong-minded about, this doesn't affect me, and I'm glad to see jobs coming back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
And so there is a certain tone of that that you get in the responses on Twitter on this whole market turmoil. And it does show the stark divide in our country between the 50 or so percent that own equities and the 40 percent or so that don't. And those numbers are not exact, but somewhere around there. Ninth, it seems as though President Trump, aside from other motives,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
His intent on forcing two things to happen, Chairman Powell to cut rates and the Chinese to come to him and negotiate. It's fascinating to watch to try and understand his thinking. He has a love-hate relationship, maybe more hate-hate with Chairman Powell, and has wanted to force his hands for a while and control the Fed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
It's a bad idea for the president to control the Fed, but President Trump finds a way to do it regardless. Just fascinating to watch. Tenth, we follow what we call the Levin Fair and Anxiety Index. That is jumping to higher levels than it's been in a while. Reported to me at 7.1 today. Eleventh, I think we're on 11 now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
Leading investor, David Staffman, great investor, is playing the golf of his life and sort of making up for market losses on the golf course. Really playing better than I've seen him play in years. It's somewhat shocking. Twelfth, This is obviously not a serious post, but I need a 12-step program to admit I have no power over my putting. I broke down yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
I bought a new trouble, a new putter. It may be the best medicine for a bad day. You know, I know it's not a real fix. 13th, Warren Buffett says this brilliantly, as always. You can't do good deals with bad people. I feel like recently was trying to force a deal. And so happy didn't happen. You can't fit a square peg into a round hole.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
Second, One Goldman Sachs strategist says, you're starting to see investors buy the dip, but that order book is very soft, very tepid. So we'll see how that goes, too, if people start to buy into this. Third, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who's a really, really bright guy, says we're more likely than not to see us head into a recession that can lead to 2 million jobless.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
Fourteenth, finally, and we did a podcast on this yesterday, life in the big scheme of things is damn good, and be damn thankful for everything that you have. Be grateful and thankful every day, and try and ignore some of the noise out there. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, and thank you, as always, to Chanel Bunger, our tremendous producer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
We'll see how that goes. This is if the trade war continues. Fourth, We're close to what's considered a beer market, where the market's down 20% from its highs. This is a drop from the highs. But fifth, you have to remember, I looked yesterday. The S&P is still up about 80% in aggregate over the last five years. You've got to remember, the markets just don't go up directionally forever.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
They do have ups and downs. And I think you've sort of got to take a deep breath on all this stuff. Sixth. At some point, I think President Trump will start to cut trade deals with some of our bigger trading partners. I don't think he's going to do it with small trading partners because then it's going to sort of show his hand to the bigger trade partners.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Short Notes for Today 4-9-25
When he does start to cut these bigger trade deals, I do think you'll see the markets really start to recover. Seventh, we're thrilled today to feature on our webinar, Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group on growing revenues and a changing economy, a great topic for today. Eighth, we're running a Twitter survey today on whether or not you're going to cut spending based on the market downturn.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Ways of Judging a Leader 3-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is three ways of judging a leader. And this came out of a discussion I had yesterday with Ed Marks, who's a wonderful leader, wonderful speaker, hosted me on his podcast, which is called Digital Voices and just fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Ways of Judging a Leader 3-9-25
And just as a PS, again, I've said it before, I'll say it again. My putting is horrific. My serving in tennis is horrible. I better focus on what I'm better at. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Ways of Judging a Leader 3-9-25
And he asked me about a question I wrote about in a book I did, a very fair book, very okay. But the point was, how do you judge leaders? And we think there's three ways in which you judge leaders. First, how are the results when they're leading? And as unfun as this is, you have to judge a leader by the results. That's one, but it's only one. Second is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Ways of Judging a Leader 3-9-25
How many teammates and partners and leaders have they developed under them? This is the second key to developing a leader. I've seen plenty of leaders who develop no leaders under them. At the end of the day, the organization lives or dies with them, and that's no way to be in an organization. So that's sort of no good.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Ways of Judging a Leader 3-9-25
Good is leaders that judge themselves based on how many other leaders they develop. So that's number two. The third thing we think about is how does the organization do after that leader has left? If an organization thrives after they've stepped back, after they're no longer in the house, then that's a great sign about the leadership and the team and what they've developed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Ways of Judging a Leader 3-9-25
If in contrast, as soon as that leader is done, the company or firm falls off the charts, falls apart, then that leader really didn't do a great job of building that company and being a leader. So those are three thoughts today on being a leader. and how we view it. And thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, three thoughts on judging a leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s All Okay 4-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is, it's all okay. So here's one of the mantras that we live with throughout life is, things are bad, they're good, but at the end of the day, Most of life is up and down, and it's all okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s All Okay 4-9-25
Now, thank you for listening to the Becker's Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'll tell you one thing that's not okay. My tennis serve and my putting in golf. But at the big scheme of things, those are the smallest problems in life, and it's all okay. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s All Okay 4-9-25
And every once in a while, you do come into something that's not okay, but you have to put that in context compared to all the things that are okay. So I'll give you an example. You have so many ups and downs in life. A deal doesn't work out. You don't get what you wanted in school. A relationship messes up. There are so many pieces of life where they are up and down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s All Okay 4-9-25
And at the end of the day, the mindset we try and take is, That it's all okay. And every once in a while, there's something that's just not okay. So a few years ago, lost a nephew to brain cancer. That was extremely sad and not okay. But to put that in context, and we talk about those injuries, not illnesses. I've had a few surgeries in the last year. At the end of the day, that's all okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s All Okay 4-9-25
Those are injuries that are reparable, not fun, but reparable versus someone with a cancer diagnosis, which is brutal and maybe not okay. And so many things in life, this perspective of it's bad, it's good, but it's all okay. And there are a handful of things that just aren't okay. And there's not a lot you could do about some of those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s All Okay 4-9-25
But so much of life, taking this prism of it's up, it's down, but it's all okay. It's how I view the stock market going up and down. It's how I view so many things. And just to view it that way and to move forward with life with that perspective of It's going to be okay is, I think, the best way to try and manage things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
So that's amazing. So you're both an operator, you've been an operator, a founder, a consultant. What an amazing... Congratulations and what an amazing background. So as you assess... Businesses and locations and situations. Talk to us about how you start to look at what you're assessing and where do you start on that? And how you look at locations, is the location thriving and profitable?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Tell us a little bit about how you look at these types of businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Take a moment there. It's so funny you mentioned the term SWOT analysis. I'm of the age and vintage where that was a phrase used all the time, constantly. Just take one moment and explain to the audience, for those that don't use that term as often as I used to or we did in my generation, was eine SWOT-Analyse ist. Und ich vermute, dass die meisten Leute wissen, was eine SWOT-Analyse ist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Aber ich bin nicht sicher, weil ich den Begriff nicht so oft höre. Aber du hast recht, es geht um die Grundlagen. Erzähl uns etwas über eine SWOT-Analyse.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de. Wir sind in einer Zeit, in der Privat-Equity mehrere verschiedene Herausforderungen mit ihren Sponsoren hat, wo sie beide sehr hart arbeiten, um den gleichen Verbrauch, den organischen Verbrauch, das Geschäft in die richtige Richtung zu bringen. Sie können auch auf Akquisitionen und anderen Größern, außerhalb des organischen Verbrauchs, arbeiten.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Let me ask you a question on this, Jennifer. How do you look at the med spot businesses? You're absolutely right, there's been so much growth, so much of it fueled by consumer spend, direct consumer spend versus payer spend. What's the recession resistancy of the med spot space? What do you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Thank you very, very much. And when you look at a MedSpot chain or team and you talk about their team, the team that they're working with, how do you assess their team and how that business looks or how do you help them think about that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Danke. Du bist von, ich nehme es an einem Punkt, von einer Position zu zwölf Positionen gegangen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Erzähl uns ein bisschen darüber, wie Sie sich auf größerer und größerer Ebene bewegen, entweder in einer Position, die sich in einer größeren Position entwickelt, oder in mehreren Positionen, wie wichtig sind die Prozesse und Dokumente und Systeme, um ein Geschäft zu runtern, versus nur gute Leute und wahrscheinlich die Bedürfnisse für beide. Aber wie denkst du darüber nach und beurteile das?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Nehmen Sie einen Moment. Wie haben Sie Ihr eigenes Geschäft angefangen? Wie haben Sie das angefangen? Was war das Genesis? Erzählen Sie uns ein bisschen über diese Geschichte als Founder.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
And talk about today, you're at VMG Health, one of the best consulting healthcare firms in the country. Who do you work with at VMG in these areas today? Is it private equity funds? Is it founders, individual chains? Who do you spend your time with, consulting with now?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Thank you. And when looking at a business, how do you help somebody assess where there's a growing demand for services in their expansion area?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Thank you. And take a moment, Jennifer. You've had this tremendous career as a professional. I want to ask you two more questions. First is, what are you most focused on and excited about this year? What are you most focused on and excited about this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
But the acquisition growth has gotten harder and harder. So we've got more and more people looking at how are operations going? How do we get them better? How do we assess them? Jennifer is going to talk to us today about a lot of that. Jennifer, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and about VMG Health? Sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
And one more question. You've had this great career. Any advice for emerging leaders, founders? Any advice that you give to people as they're looking at these issues or generally moving into leadership?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Evaluating Your Business Journey with Jennifer June of VMG Health 5-7-25
Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Shakeup in the Market Cap Tables 5-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a shakeup in the market cap tables. So here's the issue. Over the last year, Apple has largely been the market cap king or queen, however you want to call it. Recently, that's changed again. Now, Microsoft is the undisputed market cap king or queen at $3.22 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Shakeup in the Market Cap Tables 5-7-25
Apple's number two at $2.96 trillion. NVIDIA's number three at $2.77 trillion. Then you get Amazon and Google and meta platforms and some others. But it is fascinating to see the stayability of Microsoft and the stayability, quite frankly, of Apple and NVIDIA right in there as well. But NVIDIA has gone down a great deal this year. Apple's gone down this year. Microsoft is holding its own.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Shakeup in the Market Cap Tables 5-7-25
And it is the current market cap king or queen. depending on what pronouns you prefer. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is earned media and asking for free stuff. So here's the concept. If you're in the media business or if you're any business, you have connections, friends, colleagues, customers, everybody.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
special and different that the media outlet is honored to have them on. Now, the thing that I would encourage people to do is when you think about that second category, people that are so honored that the media company is so honored to have you on, you should wait for the media outlet to point you to you as that kind of person than think you are that kind of person. So the concept today is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
earned media, supporting friends' businesses, and more. And our concept is that if I have a friend who's in business, I either don't do business with them or I pay full price and I don't ask for free stuff. One of my best, best friends owns a landscape business. The last thing I'm ever going to do is ask that friend for a discount on the landscaping
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
If you want to be supportive, you be supportive. If you don't, don't. But support in other ways. You don't have to be a customer of your friends. By no means am I suggesting that. But don't ask your friends that run businesses for free stuff. If I tell my podcast production team, hey, I want you to do this free this week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
They might feel they're compelled to do it because we do enough business with them, but it would be awfully awful for me to ask that question or ask them to do it. And that's the concept. I hope this resonates with some people. I know I've probably not nailed the topic exactly right, but it resonates with people. If you're going to do business with a friend, support those friends.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
If you're going to do business with companies, support those companies. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
And here's my one piece of advice for a friend, a colleague, a connection who wants to do business with a friend's company. If your friend owns a restaurant, you go and you pay full price and you over tip the servers as a way of supporting your friend.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
You don't go to the restaurant and say to the friend, I want a discount, and then also cheap tip the service staff, the team that's working with you. Rather, you do the opposite. When you show up at your friend's place of business, you either overpay or you don't complain.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
If you don't want to spend the money to show up at your friend's place of business but still want to support them, then you say positive things to other people. You encourage people to use that business. You do that kind of thing. So let me tell you what you don't do. You don't. ask for free passes to the meeting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Earned Media, Supporting Friends’ Businesses, & More 5-7-25
You don't ask for free publicity if the business of the company is providing a media outlet. That's not the concept. Now, of course, earned media. Earned media, I joke, is a phrase I don't know. But the reality is there is earned media, but it goes to people that either spend a lot of money with the company, with the media outlet, or that are so
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are nine of the stories that we're following this morning, and thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, the markets are fairly flat this morning as they sort of wait for the Fed to meet later today and get a sense of where interest rates are going.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
Door to Dash has got declining revenues and doing a ton of acquisitions to try and make up for it. And that's always a problem from what I could tell. Fifth, Disney is up more than 6% today. It reported improved earnings. It beat revenues and earnings for the quarter. And it also saw improved results at its parks. So we'll see how that goes. It's still down 6%, still down 16% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
One of my best colleagues took her five children to the park in the first quarter, and that may have been the difference in the first quarter. Second, if one of my other colleagues who has eight kids goes this quarter, then Disney will have succeeded for this first half of the year. Sixth, there's been a shakeup at the top of the market cap rankings. Microsoft is number one at $3.22 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
Apple is number two at $2.96 trillion, and NVIDIA is number three at $2.77 trillion. Seventh, HIMS and HERS jumped 18% yesterday and it's up more than 300% over the last year. Something amazing what's going on with HIMS and HERS. Eighth, we just passed 7 million downloads on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
And the podcast spent much of the last two weeks ranked first in the Apple Business News ranking. So God bless that. Finally, a couple of short notes. Just an absolute pleasure yesterday to visit with Rochelle Shaw. Rochelle Shaw and Natalie Kearns were building a neurology business. They were referred to me at Barry Tanner, a brilliant, brilliant leader. And so many interesting things going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
Thank you for listening today to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
I will tell you, second, that one of my closest colleagues plans his entire week around the Fed press conference. So again, even the market's relatively flat right now, depending on what Chairman Powell says later today, we either will have a very volatile market or not. We'll see how it goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
And people are waiting to hear what his thoughts are on lowering interest rates, whether he believes that the tariff situation is likely to lead to relatively stagnant inflation or continued inflation. The third concept today, the first two were around the Fed, really, and what's going on with the market. The third one is this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
If a close friend runs a business, runs a business of any sort, and you want to be a good supportive friend, either buy from the friend or encourage the friend, but don't ask for the friend for free stuff or for discounts from the friend. As a side note, the concept of earned media is applies largely to great clients and customers that support the media business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-7-25
It doesn't apply to every Dick, Jane, and Harry PR person that wants to get their client mentioned. But those are some concepts on earned media and doing business with brands. Fourth, the door-to-death spiral. This is overstated, but it's always a big concern to me when a company sees declining revenues and announces huge acquisitions to offset its slowing revenues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're joined today by one of our most listened to guests. We're joined by Holly Buckley, who heads up the healthcare department at McGuire Woods, tremendous leader at the intersection of healthcare and private equity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
Got it. So now I understand. So HIMS and HERS, which is remote telephonic prescribing for a lot of this stuff, that's why their stock tanked on this announcement because the loophole, the leeway they had to manufacture because there was a shortage, now gets eliminated and And now they're not allowed to keep on compounding and doing other things because there's no longer a designated shortage.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
Holly, take a moment and tell us, what are some of the trends that you're watching currently in sort of healthcare and private equity? What are you seeing in the deal market? What's going on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
Spassing. Okay, that's the first story. And now I understand this better, why they had a direct impact on hims and hers and others. Thank you very much. Holly, what's the second story you're watching closely?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
A hundred percent. And what a fascinating situation that you've got this going on. I mean, in addition to what was the federal government attack and healthcare transactions, I've got many states go to private equity transactions, healthcare transactions. What a mess and what a challenge. Holly, thank you for sharing that. So several states on that bandwagon. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. We'll see how that goes. Just so many implications of it. Holly, thank you so much. That's the first I heard about. I know the Walgreens, the schedule, Sigma have been up and down, recently cold, now hot again. Fascinating to hear that. Thank you so much, Holly Buckley, as always, for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Semaglutide, Healthcare Transaction Laws, and Walgreens’ Take-Private Deal with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 3-5-25
Just fantastic today. Thank you for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks That Got Hammered Yesterday 3-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is five stocks that got hammered yesterday. And here's the five stocks. And we'll also talk about the new, new thing in financial reporting and discussing earnings and releases. So the five stocks that got hammered yesterday are well-known names or at the top of the charts, losers yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks That Got Hammered Yesterday 3-5-25
Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks That Got Hammered Yesterday 3-5-25
And not how Donald Trump says, oh, they're a loser. These are stocks that just lost money yesterday in share price. These were Best Buy, Wayfair, KKR, the private equity fund company, Affirm, and Whirlpool. All five took it on the chin yesterday. Now, I don't want to understate this because tariffs will be a problem going forward for companies, and companies will adjust to it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks That Got Hammered Yesterday 3-5-25
It will still be at the tariffs gap and so forth and so on. But the thing I will say, what you're going to see now is every company that struggles in any way is going to now start using tariffs as the excuse for why they're struggling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks That Got Hammered Yesterday 3-5-25
So, for example, if I was running a lemonade stand on a Saturday afternoon, picking up on the political winds, I would say that sales were down that Saturday either because of tariffs or or climate change. Of course, both would be ridiculous. It's almost like a year ago, every company started to talk about, when they're trying to puff up their stock price, how they're adapting to AI.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks That Got Hammered Yesterday 3-5-25
The new, new thing is going to be talking about tariffs, maybe climate change still, maybe AI, but tariffs will be the new excuse for anybody who's not performing as they want to perform, or to sort of sandbag, to sort of expect lower results than what better results be liked by the street. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Larry Fink, BlackRock & the Great Game of Business 3-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Larry Fink, BlackRock, and the great game of business. So here's the story on Larry Fink. Larry Fink runs the CEO of BlackRock. He's one of the founders. He's done a tremendous job of building BlackRock. Now that's the positive. And he's an incredibly talented business person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Larry Fink, BlackRock & the Great Game of Business 3-5-25
But I have to tell you, if I hate it on the left, I hate it as much or more on the right. It makes it feel so hypocritical to watch the whole thing play out. In any event, Larry Fink plays these political wins better than anybody else in the world. It's almost, there's a phrase we use, it's a Shonda, but it's an embarrassment almost to watch how he does it. But it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Larry Fink, BlackRock & the Great Game of Business 3-5-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you understand the word Shonda and text me at 773-766-5322, and you're the first person to do so, We will send you a $50 gift certificate and the MSI gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Larry Fink, BlackRock & the Great Game of Business 3-5-25
It's the largest asset manager now in the world, I believe. But here's the situation. No one works the political winds better than Larry Fink. It's insane to watch how he does this. I don't particularly view this as a compliment. He was sort of the ring bearer, the leader of DEI and ESG under the last administration. And now he's jettisoned all that to become close to the new administration.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Larry Fink, BlackRock & the Great Game of Business 3-5-25
It's truly remarkable to watch it play out publicly, how he sort of says he's going to stop talking about DEI, ESG. He saw the political winds shifting. Now he's gotten close to the Trump administration. And I almost have to laugh as I watch this. He just signed a deal to buy two ports in the Panama Canal through BlackRock and a coalition for about $23 billion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Larry Fink, BlackRock & the Great Game of Business 3-5-25
But it's amazing to see the political wins and losses. And again... I would consider myself a centrist, if anything, maybe center-right, and hate when the Democratic administrations were playing political favors with green business and giving crazy amounts of money to close colleagues that were business-connected in different ways.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker private equity and business podcast. Today's discussion is never complain a mantra for life. And this comes out of a quote I saw on Twitter slash X by a person, Sahil Bloom. I don't know Sahil from Adam, but I love this concept. The concept was don't complain. If you could fix it, fix it. If you can't fix it, don't fix it, but, but no complaining.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
She epitomizes responsiveness, even temperedness, and just great at what she does. So God bless Chanel Bunger today as well. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
And I think this is a mantra for life to me. There's a little more annoying than people that complain a lot. And I feel so bad saying this, because when I complain about people that complain a lot, it feels like I'm complaining. I sound like one of my favorite relatives that says, I don't dislike anybody, but... And there's always a person that comes after that. But it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
But in any event, I do have this mantra, this concept, never complain. It doesn't do you any good. Nobody around you really wants to hear it. If you truly have something that's happened, it's bad. Of course, vent to your friends or family, whoever you vent to your therapist, whoever it might be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
But complaining on a daily basis about every single thing, oh, the menu item that didn't come out right, whatever it might be, it just is at some point it gets very old. So the idea that I love in this tweet, never complain by Sahil Bloom. Don't exactly know how to pronounce it, but love the tweet. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
If you don't like this podcast, just don't listen. Don't complain to me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Complain: A Mantra for Life 3-5-25
thank you very much for listening if you do want to complain but you can't complain if you are the first person to text scott becker at 773-766-5322 about this podcast i will send you a 50 gift certificate but it's got a quote no complaints thank you for listening to the becker private equity and business podcast and thank you to our remarkable producer the best in the business chanel bunger
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to talk today about tariffs, Best Buy, and Walgreens. So bear with me on this. We'll go through these three subjects. So the first thing is tariffs. As we've seen over the last few days, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on China, Mexico, and Canada, at least Mexico and Canada for sure, 25%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
It's up 7.6% today on news that they're very close to circling on a deal that's a $10 billion deal to go private. We'll see if that turns out. Now, you got to remember, Walgreens just a few years ago was worth $100 billion. So it's down to a $10 billion type valuation where a lot of it would be split up. So again, today's discussion, tariffs, Best Buy, and Walgreens, fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
China is supposedly at 10%. And I hate the tariffs. I'm not a big fan of the tariffs. The stock markets also hate the tariffs. The only thing that makes me like the tariffs is as follows, and I know this is somewhat immature, but just the fact that we've got tariffs out there has caused Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, to rail on the United States and talk about how dumb –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
This is now dumb Trump is and so forth. And the only thing that get me like to like tariffs. And I guess this is why people end up in wars is the other country criticizing our country for it. Then I become a fan of the tariffs. And I say that somewhat tongue in cheek. But seeing Justin Trudeau blast Trump and blast the tariffs is enough to cause me to be more pro-tariff than I otherwise would be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
And I ultimately hate the tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Best Buy & Walgreens 3-5-25
second best buy is taking it on the chin they're getting crushed today uh the um they're getting crushed on monday and that's due to potential impact on their business due to tariffs and so forth so that's what's going on as i'm watching this right now best buys down about 12 percent a third stock that we're walking watching and again today's discussion is tariffs best buy in walgreens walgreens seems to be very close to circling on a deal to sell itself to sycamore
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try each day to bring you brilliant business guests, private equity guests, and a lot more. Today, we're joined by Amber Walsh, brilliant leader at McGuire Woods. She follows the healthcare world very closely. She also lives in the private equity world or the intersection of private equity and healthcare.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
Thank you. So let's dive into two of those different subjects. First is Oz and RFK, Dr. Oz and RFK Jr., And then we'll talk about sort of, yes, there was not a lot of talk during the campaign about healthcare, but now there's a lot of talk amongst Doge, Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, about Medicaid spending and talks of a lot of cuts to Medicaid spending.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
I don't know if that's real or if they're able to do that, but some of those sound draconians so far will have a big impact on investors. But take a moment on 13-14 vote. What does that mean? Does that mean it passed 14-13? What does that mean in the Senate Finance Committee, that vote, if anything? And what are people saying about – I mean obviously I have my own opinions about RFK Jr.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
She's going to talk to us today about some of the things we should be watching in the new Trump administration, executive orders, RFK Jr., and a lot more. Amber, why don't you take us away and tell us some of the things that are happening and how we should think about some of those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
and Dr. Oz. But what are people saying about these two nominations, or what does 13-14 mean?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
Thank you. OK, now it's a 1413. Got it. Understood. The next question is the vaccines. Like the childhood vaccines, the polio vaccines, all these vaccines. I know there was this incredible amount of controversy over the COVID vaccines. But these other vaccine programs, they must be overwhelmingly very popular in our country. I take it voters must overwhelmingly be very, very positive about them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Policy Under the New Administration with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 2-5-25
You know, you always hear about the very, very sad situation where somebody says their child's autism or something else was caused by a vaccine. And that may be possible that there's a small, small, small percentage of that. And that's a horrible outcome. But overwhelming vaccines and the vaccine programs, I take it, are incredibly popular in our country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Companies Cutting Jobs 2-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try and follow business and news trends and private equity trends. We try and make sure you're learning that we're learning. Today's discussion. three companies cutting jobs. We always try and watch this to see if it's a trend or if it's not very much of anything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Companies Cutting Jobs 2-5-25
And finally, third, watching what's going on with Julia Spirit Wealth Management Firm. Always wondering if that's a sign of margins getting tougher in the wealth management business. We'll see. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Please feel free to send us topics or ideas at any time. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Companies Cutting Jobs 2-5-25
But here are three companies that just announced they're cutting jobs. And I always find this fascinating to see what people are doing and why they're doing it. And there's different reasons for all of them. First, widely reported yesterday that Estee Lauder, the makeup company, what have you, Glamour, et cetera. I'm not glamorous, but they are. It's cutting 7,000 jobs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Companies Cutting Jobs 2-5-25
Their stock tanked 16% yesterday. Second, Workday, which is this fantastic company in the enterprise space, enterprise software program space, is cutting 1,750 jobs, about 8.5% of its workforce. Again, Workday is more like the Mark Zuckerberg story, trying to look for efficiency than necessarily having big problems they're trying to address. So that's so far Estee Lauder and Workday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Companies Cutting Jobs 2-5-25
The third company that announced that they're cutting jobs is Julius Beer, which is a wealth management firm. And again, they're cutting about 400 positions. They extend their cost cutting program. And again, always interesting to see if this is a trend or one-offs, and that's how we sort of think about these things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Companies Cutting Jobs 2-5-25
Are they things that we should be looking at in a bigger way because there's more challenges there, or are they just sort of one-off? But interesting to see very different companies, a technology company in Workday, a glamour company in Estee Lauder. Again, I don't use the Estee Lauder products, but I know they're fantastic. Just joking.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Stories We Are Following Today 2-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We come to you daily with business episodes, private equity episodes. We try and make sure you're learning, that we're learning, and a lot more. So thank you for listening. Here are the 13 stories we're following today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Stories We Are Following Today 2-5-25
First, the markets had an up day yesterday and are a little bit down today, not as bad as they were early this morning in pre-market. Second, Google missed on revenue and cloud estimates and is now down about 8%. We'll see how that goes throughout the day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Stories We Are Following Today 2-5-25
Both Google and Microsoft are finding the cloud growth slower than they had found it earlier, and that's causing some of the trouble in their profitability and their estimates and their revenues. Third, Estee Lauder, the makeup company and so forth, announced 7,000 job cuts or earnings and dropped 16% yesterday, so a tough day in the makeup world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a discussion about KKR and the regression of private equity. So here's the thesis today. KKR, which is one of the great private equity funds of all time, made famous back in the day, founded by Kohlberg, Kravers and Roberts. The famous movie Barbarians of the Gate really is about KKR.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
and then selling them for a lot more money three to five or six years later, then you end up with this regression, because at the end of the day, fee income is fee income, God bless, it's recurring revenue, everybody loves it, but it's not the home run and the extra basis that you get from buying businesses and selling them at a higher level.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
On top of that, if you can't keep on buying businesses and selling them at a higher level, At some point, all the trillions of dollars that go into private equity, the billions of dollars that go into the funds that KKR manages, and I forget their number today, it's like $800 billion. I know the largest is Blackstone, that's at a trillion dollars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
But what happens is, at some point, you can't actually turn those dollars into winning deals, winning bets. you end up in trouble. So KKR currently has a market cap of $140 billion. It is down today 7-point-something percent. But the more alarming figure is the movement towards making its money from fee income versus deals actually and profits. That's the problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
They reported a record amount of fees, a billion dollars in fees. which is all nice. I'd like a billion dollars in fees. But really where they make their money is the big, big money from investing in companies and selling them. And their business is much more challenging than it should be. And that's what you're seeing in the stock price with KKR, down about 7.5%, 8%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you have any questions, feel free at any time to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
And at that time, the biggest leveraged buyout of all time where they were with, I think it was RJR Nabisco. So let's fast forward to the current time. The current time, KKR is down about 7.5% today. And they had a really good year last year. But most importantly, they had a record year in fees. And when you look at private equity today, It almost reminds me of banks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
When banks start making their money from all the ATM fees and everything else, it's supposed to be the core business. The core business of private equity is investing in things at one price, selling at another price, and taking their 2 and 20 management fees.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and the Regression of Private Equity 2-5-25
when the deal market doesn't work how they want it to work and they can't get out of deals and exit how they want to exit them at some point they end up regressing to being much more reliant on their fee income their two percent in their other fee income in this case it's a lot of fees related to closing loans doing other kinds of stuff as opposed to the core business which is investing businesses
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Teams in Business – 9 Quick Points 2-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This discussion is around building teams in business, nine key points. So bear with me on this and obviously I'd love your feedback on it. 773-766-5322. And I'll go through nine quick points. First, we're going to spell the myth of the solopreneur. We've talked about this a lot. I happen to be a believer in
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Teams in Business – 9 Quick Points 2-5-25
that if you're building anything substantial, you better be building teams. And I don't really see a way around that. It is what it is. Second, double down on your best people and your best leaders. You need great people. You need great leaders. And you need to constantly identify these people, double down on them, and grow around them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Teams in Business – 9 Quick Points 2-5-25
We often say about people, professional relationships, and so forth, double down, stay the course, or abandon. We have a separate podcast on that concept. But double down on trying to take care of and help your best people and your best leaders. Third is always look to promote and raise people and take care of them proactively.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Teams in Business – 9 Quick Points 2-5-25
Don't wait until they're so irritated with how they're getting paid or how they're getting treated that they want to leave for greener pastures. The underpaid person who wants the job, there's also this concept that sometimes you can hire people really cheap, and I would tell you not to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Teams in Business – 9 Quick Points 2-5-25
You better pay them what they're worth, even if they don't think they're worth that, because sooner or later they'll realize it and go elsewhere anyways. The fourth concept we talk about, it goes to the solopreneur concept, is that with teams, you could have great, great success. Any of the great entrepreneurs of our generation or prior generations, none of them are solopreneurs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Teams in Business – 9 Quick Points 2-5-25
They might have big business brands, the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates, the Jeff Bezos, the Elon Musk, but all of them were built and built individually.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're talking today with one of our most brilliant guests. He joins us regularly with David Pivnik, who's a partner at McGuire Woods. He also is the valedictorian of his law school class. He represents healthcare systems, healthcare companies, often in false claims cases, defending them, guiding them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
by being provocative in terms of the actual... But let me ask you a question about that, because I think that's exactly right. It's almost like waving the matador in front of the bull to try and get the bull to go. But is your sense that they don't really care? They're more interested in the excitement and what happens here than they are about what really happens. I mean, it seems like...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
They find that in itself half the fun of it, it seems like to me, at least for part of the pundits. I agree with you 100%. They're going to force Trump to take a harder line so he's not viewed as a chicken or not viewed as sort of pulling back. But what's your sense? I think you're right. It might inflame him. But in terms of the pundits, I guess it's hard to tell.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
But I sense that they don't really care that much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
He also works with private equity funds who invest in healthcare and trying to assess potential claims and challenges. A really bright guy. We're going to go off script today a little bit and talk about some of the issues of the day. We're in a fascinating economic situation. We've got... New jobs created this month, the worst in a long time, but open jobs still pretty high.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
Thank you very, very much. In terms of this concept of – so we talked about tariffs. Where does the tariff thing go? Do you have a sense of that? It seems like ultimately – like we always talk about the economy looking for a soft landing. It looks like ultimately the president is trying to find a negotiated outcome in a soft landing. Do you have a sense of where this is all going?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
At the same time, the stock market is up. There's this new discussion, and today's discussion is really going to be around the four Ts. Taco, Trump, tariffs, Tesla. I really want Elon Musk there, but he's not a T, but Tesla's a T. But David, they've talked about this thing called taco, which is this concept or the narrative putting forth by pundits that President Trump
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
Thank you. We've taken a talk around Paco, Tiras for a second, some on Trump, because it all ties into Trump, and then let's talk about Tesla and Musk. It seems like the new budget that the Trump team has put together, that the House has passed, that the Senate's going through, continues to raise the deficit. In fact, this year,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
We've got a nearly $1.9 trillion deficit projected after about the same last year. Elon Musk, to his credit, has broadly taken shots at this budget as saying, this is exactly what we're not supposed to be doing, and that there's so much waste in this budget, and so on. What is your sense here of Tesla, Trump, the budget? Any initial thoughts on what you're seeing or any thoughts on what you have?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
Trump attacks, then chickens out, and they use that to describe some of these trade negotiations. He makes a lot of noise, but maybe the bark is bigger than the bite. Any sense of this? I mean, you've watched a million negotiators over the course of your career, a lot of negotiators dealing with high-stakes litigation. What's your sense of that? Is that just a bad –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
No, it's simply absolutely fascinating to watch. I mean, we sort of covered Trump, tariffs, taco, Tesla. What about the impact on Tesla? Because when you talk about Musk, in his perspective, as a way to get to Tesla. Any thoughts? I mean, Tesla stocks rebounded a lot this year. They're not selling a lot of cars, not nearly what they were, but they've got all this other technology. Any thoughts?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
And will Elon being more engaged in it help? And what can he really be more engaged in? He's got SpaceX, Starlink, and all these other things going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
No, I think there are fixes. There's all these other technologies they're going to try and make a fortune off of in the 10 MS vehicles and all those kinds of things. But in the Tesla point, it's a fascinating thing. As Elon went right, the original buyer base of Tesla was probably center to center left, who embraced the climate concerns of electronic vehicles early.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
take on what's going on, or is there truth to that? Or do you have any feel for how you view this new narrative, Trump attacks and chickens out? Any thoughts there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
And now that's an audience he has really gotten sideways with. I mean, in France and Europe, their vehicle sales have fallen by more than half, and it is literally fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
It reminds me of back in the day when President Bush wanted to rename French fries, Freedom Fries, And I couldn't agree with that more because we're big fans of Freedom Fries. In any event, David, always great to visit with you again. David Pivnik on tacos, tariffs, Trump and Tesla. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump, Tariffs, TACO, & Tesla with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 6-4-25
Always a pleasure to visit with you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So just to warn you, this is likely to be our least popular podcast in a while, particularly amongst certain circles. Before I get started, a couple notes. Thrilled to be ranked first today in the Apple Business Notes podcast rankings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
I wish we had more presidents who were entrepreneurial and saw an error in what they did and changed course and made pivots. The market, the stock market, which is one barometer, but not the all-in barometer, is already almost entirely back from the panic that came when his initial trade gambits were overdone. When I see him changing and evolving, for better or for worse, I don't love him.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
I don't love or hate him. I think there's all kinds of things wrong with him, all kinds of things right with him. But calling someone who's smart enough and engaged enough who would just a taco, I think is such a bad narrative and characterization. Now, again, I don't love or hate him. But I'm a huge fan of entrepreneurs, of leaders that make adjustments. They see something, they make adjustment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
Came into office being very harsh on Ukraine, very pro-Russia. He finds that Russia is hard to deal with, as President Obama did when President Obama famously said we're going to reset our relationships with Russia and then found it wasn't as possible as he thought. And then he adjusts, and that's what he's doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
So I am thrilled to see a president, for all his warts, for all his challenges, to be more engaged than not. I don't want to compare him to President Biden. President Biden, by all accounts, is a pretty good person. It turns out, as you read all the bios and all the information, that Kamala Harris is actually probably a better person, but who knew? But the fact is, President Biden was not engaged.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
We also recently passed 7 million downloads between this and the other podcasts that we host. We're at about 25 million downloads. So God bless our listeners, our guests, our audience, and our sponsors. Thank you so much. So today's discussion is about the phrase taco. Taco's been used to describe the president.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
So as much as a president is engaged in trying to fix some serious problems and be engaged in the world, they're not. And with that, it's going to come some pivots and some entrepreneurial changes. if people that are pundits want to call it taco, Trump attacks, check it out. I just think it's totally misguided. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal. My guess is this will be one of the most unpopular podcasts. If you have a comment on this and you're the first person to text me with a comment on this, text 773-766-5322. I'd love to hear your opinion. You could hate it. You could like it. I don't care.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
If you're the first person to text, I'll send you a $100 gift certificate to Amazon from Becker Private Equity Business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
It's a concept used by journalists and pundits and political enemies to try and inspire the bull, President Trump, to do dumb things or to try and be derisive towards the president. And taco stands for Trump attacks, then chickens out. You know, if you're talking about a bully, probably no better way to egg him on than to say he attacks and chickens out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
At the end of the day, and here's where this is going to be a horribly unpopular argument, He is dealing with some problems that have been problems for a very long time. And I'll agree, he's doing a horrible job on the federal deficit. I don't think he's doing anything on it. But in terms of the trade war, there are certain countries that tear off us that we don't tear off.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Trump Attacks & Chickens Outs: A Misguided Narrative 6-4-25
It's been an incredible imbalance for a very long time. I don't mind a trade imbalance. What I mind is unfair trade where other countries tear off us. We don't tear them. So what I like about the president is this. and they can call it taco, I would say this. I wish an entrepreneur tests things and tries them back, tests them and tries them back. I'm guilty of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to talk about passion and obsession, and we'll talk about those two things together. So here's the deal, and before I get started, I always like to say, thrilled with our audience.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
And what I would say is the problem with obsession and greatness is when you're obsessed and you're trying to do something great, it is problematic because it puts a lot of stress on a lot of different places in life. It can put stress on family. It can put stress on time. It can put stress on yourself. And so you have to be willing to live with that stress.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
The flip side is the periodic times in life when you become obsessed and you're compulsive about something and really trying to make them great, in some ways, those are the most self-actualizing parts of life. So you don't want to turn that engine off. If anything, you want to try and find some balance with it but you want to embrace that passion and that compulsion and obsession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
Because my own perspective is the only time when I'm able to perform at the level I want to perform at, I had a period of time in high school where I performed at this level and chasing a certain victory in something. But there are periods of life. When I studied for something at one period of time, I also was able to have that obsession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
There are periods of time when that obsession and passion hits you and And notwithstanding all the different negatives to it, I think you have to embrace it and cultivate it and ride that horse while you have it because you don't always have it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
We recently reached number one in the Apple Business News podcast rankings, and so thankful for our listeners, our audience, and our sponsors. Thank you so much. So here's a discussion on passion and greatness and obsession. And I wish this wasn't the case. So here's what I've found throughout my career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
And it's the only thing, at least for me, that leads me to doing things great where everything else gets done sort of in a mediocre way if I don't really find myself compelled and obsessed by something. I hope some people can relate to this. I hope it's inspiring to some.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
I'll give a shout out to my friend, Mark, who is the golfer Abramson who I'm talking about here, who just became obsessed with becoming very good at this and took leaps and bounds above the rest of us. Some of my other buddies never got that good. No offense to them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
Throughout my career, and I think this is true of many people, some people are so smooth and so calm, they could do it without this. That's not been the case for me. So here's the deal. Every time I've had great success, I've been literally obsessed with an effort and really wanted to be great at it and really worked at it. This was the case of building a law practice, building a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
And the flip side is, wherever I've not been nearly that obsessed with greatness and trying to be great, going through the motions, trying to do okay, I've essentially either the business has failed or the effort has never turned into what it should be. So for example, one of my best friends turned himself into a single digit handicap and he spent a summer or two just obsessed with it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
I think he really took a lesson every day, made tremendous progress. And I have to hear about how well he did with it. The flip side for me is – and this is – I think there's a lot of truth to what happened with him is if you're going to be great at something, it's going to take an obsession and greatness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Job Market Implodes in May 6-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll come to you today with three different podcasts. This is the first short episode. This episode is called The Job Market Implodes in May. So here's the deal. What happened in May is the U.S. economy, private payrolls added 37,000 jobs. This is less than the 60,000 in April.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Job Market Implodes in May 6-4-25
We'll see how that goes. We'll see if that ends up being that sort of this uncertainty or if it really means that people are going to be much more careful about hiring. In any event, the job market implodes today. Let's see how this goes. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Job Market Implodes in May 6-4-25
And it's a heck of a lot less than $114,000 that people expected, that analysts and economists expected. You're also in a situation where the federal government is not doing what it did under the Biden administration, which is adding so many jobs that you couldn't really tell if private payrolls were being grown, government payrolls were being grown, or where the growth was coming from.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Job Market Implodes in May 6-4-25
So the fact that the market imploded, and we'll get an unemployment rate soon, offsets yesterday's information that job openings had risen more than expected. Now, what does this mean? It means a lot of different things. It could at some point potentially mean a recession. And I'm not so sure that that's unlikely. But also, it means that the markets are taking this news in stride.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Job Market Implodes in May 6-4-25
They view it as not a disaster, but a further signal that Chairman Powell will at some point need to reduce interest rates. So the markets are taking this quite in stride, notwithstanding the negativity of so few private payroll jobs being added. Another comment on this, some of the The talkers, the public speakers are saying that this is hiring hesitancy based on uncertainty of the economy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker private equity and business podcast. Today's discussion is about mantras, concepts, and thoughts. I'm going to give you 10 more mantras, concepts, and thoughts, and see if you like these. We have a webinar on this coming up May 7th. So if you want to join this, we of course would love to have you join us as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
And people like to say, if you're highly disciplined in this, you'll be highly disciplined in that. And I'm, at the end of the day, a half believer in this. You need to pick in some ways where you really want to excel and to give yourself a break in other areas. So I'm not necessarily a total believer in this concept of how you do one thing is how you do everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
The eighth mantra for the day, and some of these come from other people, and sometimes I forgot to attribute who they come from because I don't have it in my notes, but life is a game. It's not all about winning. You also better have fun while playing, and I'm just a big believer in that as well. The ninth concept goes to marketing versus sales.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
Marketing without a sales team or a sales effort is often a waste of time. The real focus should be on sales, sales, sales. We believe you build sales teams first, and marketing provides air support. When people get way out in front on the marketing but don't have a sales team, it's really negligence and stupidity. Finally, the tenth one for today is marketing. Don't upset the apple cart.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
Don't create conflict where it's not needed. Some people are really good at this. Some people can never let go of an argument and keep on fighting, keep on arguing, and so on. But that's the concepts for today. Ten mantras, concepts, and thoughts that we work with. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy recording it. Again, if you have another mantra or idea, feel free at any time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
So the first mantra today is it takes tremendous discipline, Once you get wealthy to stay wealthy, just like it takes tremendous discipline and effort to stay the leader in something. Once you become the leader in something, for example, Lululemon, we see this sort of the shine coming off the rose there, but it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
But in contrast, you look at Apple, Epic, Amazon, Walmart, who work so hard to stay the leaders in what they do. The second concept we'll talk today is about asset allocation. Asset allocation is critical. It's both optimal for optimal finance. It's also optimal for your behavioral finance. Don't get bullied by an advisor into more aggressive allocation than you could live with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
Third concept today, don't quit your job during a recession. And again, this may go without saying, but don't do it. If you're in a recession, keep your job, do what you can. Fourth, every business meeting or meeting of any sort, show up early. So that's one. Second, if you are organizing a meeting, it should almost always be shorter or short than is the norm. Always make them shorter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 More Mantras, Concepts & Thoughts 4-2-25
Fifth, and this goes sort of along with the last mantra, 80% of success is showing up every day on time. The rest is bright drive and personal skills. Sixth, constant communication is everything. You almost cannot over-communicate unless you're annoying as heck, but generally you can't over-communicate. The next concept, there's this concept of how you do anything is how you do everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is about someone that we'll call Slippery Larry Fink. So here's the deal with Larry Fink. Bear with me on this. And I know Larry Fink's an incredibly accomplished business person. He is the CEO of BlackRock and he's a billionaire and really talented.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
And the record shows some of the alternative assets do better, some do worse. Sometimes it's worth the liquidity difference, sometimes it's not, because you give up liquidity when you go to alternative assets versus typically, traditionally, public equities, public bonds. So Larry Fink is...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
BlackRock moves heavily into the alternative asset area, suddenly puts out the proclamation that investors should move from 50 to 30, 20 from 60, 40. They should move to having 20% of their holdings in alternative assets. And again, he might not be wrong. It's certainly not an appropriate move. allocation for a typical investor. It might be the right allocation for a rich, rich investor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
But the point is there's so much self-interest in it and his inability to explain the self-interest is what leads me to talk about him being called Slippery Larry Fink. Now, again, Larry Fink's fascinating because when DEI and ESG was the thing, he was Mr. DEI and ESG. When the world changed, he became Mr. Donald Trump. And again, I don't, I don't, I'm not an anti-Trump person, a pro-Trump person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
I just find it fascinating how well Larry Fink moves. He's like a cat with nine lives, a leopard that doesn't change his spots. But for this purpose, we'll call him Slippery Larry Fink. I hope somebody enjoys this podcast. I hope it resonates with some people. I find it fascinating how... You could put out things as proclamations that this is the right thing to do without explaining.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
And we have this crazy self-interest in it because we're trying to move ourselves heavily into the alternative asset area. But again, I hope it resonates with people. I hope you find it interesting. My take, 773-766-5322. If you're the first person to respond to this podcast and listen to it, we will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
But here's what he does that earns his nickname, the Slippery Larry Fink.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
he's come out recently and said that investors should move from the traditional 60 40 60 stocks 40 bonds to something he calls 50 30 20 which is more 50 equities 30 bonds 20 alternative assets and the thing about larry fink is he's not wrong but one of the things that is the reality of where i think is he's also got a very strong self-interest behind everything that he does
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
BlackRock, as you might know, is the largest money manager in the world. They're nearly as profitable traditionally, or the market cap traditionally, of some of the big private equity funds like Apollo and Blackstone and KKR that are a tenth of the size of BlackRock, but bigger market cap and higher PE ratios. So BlackRock, over the last few years,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Slippery Larry Fink 4-2-25
has tried to move more and more into what's called alternative assets. And big money managers, private equity funds, love alternative assets because rather than earning a fee of 50 basis points or 100 basis points, they earn a fee of 200 basis points plus a part of the profits. So there's a lot of self-interest in moving towards alternative assets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to quickly go through three of the stories that we're watching today, Tesla, the markets, and a little bit more. So first, the first thing we're talking about today is Tesla. Tesla missed its deliveries badly. The good news is it's only down about 2% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-2-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I hope you enjoyed listening. as much as we enjoy recording. And thank you to our producer, Chanel Bunger. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-2-25
At the end of the day, I think lots of people expected that Tesla was really going to struggle and miss its results. So the stock is only down 2%, though it did get hammered on its deliveries for the quarter down a great, great deal. The second concept that we'll talk about today is the markets. And again, we're recording mid-morning. Right now, the markets are relatively flat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-2-25
notwithstanding the fact that everybody has been really scared today that this is going to be Trump tariff day and that the markets would be an absolute disaster. So, so far in the big scheme of things, not nearly as bad as expected. Again, Tesla's down about 2%. The markets are relatively flat. The third thing I'll mention is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-2-25
the other electronic vehicle companies rivian and lucid and this is notwithstanding one of my best friends wives looking to buy a rivian yesterday are down six percent and five percent i think on the perception that the tremendously challenging deliveries by tesla are likely to be endemic to the to the area not just tesla but that it's not like one's picking up market share from the other
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-2-25
but that all the EV makers are going to see a little bit of the boom off the rose and struggle. So not only is Tesla down, but the delivery's way down. Rivian and Lucid are also way down. Again, so far, the market's relatively flat today. That's just great to see, quite frankly, as people have been really concerned. And the futures start off way, way low today. Let's hope that holds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Market Notes for Today 4-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're coming to you at the end of the day on April 29th, and thank you for listening. We had a record month of downloads this month, so thrilled to have so many listeners, and thank you so much. We're very appreciative. Five quick market notes for today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Market Notes for Today 4-29-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Market Notes for Today 4-29-25
First, the market finished up today a good deal, more than half a percent, almost 0.6% at the S&P 500, which is just great news for investors. Second, Hertz is down 10% today. More and more different issues and concerns there. They had a run-up last week with the expectation that Bill Ackman had taken a big position in Hertz.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Market Notes for Today 4-29-25
They'd also had a run-up recently on the auto tariffs situation, thinking that people would rent a lot more cars if auto tariffs got bigger and bigger, the tariffs got bigger and bigger. Now as the tariff potentially softens some, Hertz is taking it down a notch. They're down 10% today. A few stocks that surged today, hims and hers was up something like 28% when we looked earlier today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Market Notes for Today 4-29-25
Oscar Health and Tenant Healthcare also had good days in the market. Tenant last week had a tough day, this week doing very well as they reported earnings and they beat on earnings and revenues. That's Tenant Healthcare. Fourth, RH, Restoration Hardware, which we can't help but talk about periodically, is now down 53% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Market Notes for Today 4-29-25
And finally, when we talk about HIMS and HERS, we often also touch on Grindr. We know that's so inappropriate and so childish, but Grindr is up 21% year-to-date. So that's what's going on in the markets today. Markets up, HERS down, HIMS and HERS, Oscar Health and Tenant Healthcare all surging. I reached down 53% year to date and Grindr up 21% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to visit with one of our most listened to guests. We're joined by senior market analyst, valuation analyst, and brilliant person, Matt Wolf. Matt is at a firm called Elliott Davis, a terrific firm.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
multiple different types of investors in private equity there's obviously the big institutions such that you're talking about um like yale like the pension funds that have made private equity a core part of their portfolio over the years and then you've got sort of what i would call moderate to higher worth that high net worth individuals that increasingly over the last bunch of years made pe and vc part of their portfolios and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
He's going to tell us a little bit about Elliott Davis, and then he'll tell us what he sees with trends with M&A. Is it almost ready to bounce back? What's he expecting and what's he seeing? Matt, can you take a moment, tell us about yourself, tell us about Elliott Davis, and then let's talk about what you're seeing and what's going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
For the institutions that are adults in the room, at least to an extent, they take the ups and downs with a grain of salt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
I feel like some of the high net worth individuals finally felt like they arrived and can invest in PE and VC and felt like it was almost like a status symbol, like the richest of the rich by sports teams, the next richest by, you know, joint 10 golf clubs, the next richest that are often pretending to be rich by really fancy cars so people could see that they're doing well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
And then there's all cadre people that felt like, oh, my God, we made it. We've invested in private equity funds. We've been invited to the dance only to see that we felt like the dog who caught the car, the dog that was chasing the car and catches the car and thinks, oh, this isn't as great as I thought. So what's your sense of this? Where does this go from here?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
Is private equity going to remain this critically important asset class? Are we all in trouble on this? And what we all hope for, like the dog catching the car, is not as good a car as we want it to catch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
So I'll ask you a question. And again, you can answer this. There's probably only one answer you could get. Every quarter from the private equity VC funds I'm invested in,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
I get the valuation, the updated valuation of my stake in it, you know, and how much can I trust those valuations that that really feels like long-term the reality of it, or is that just it doesn't really matter because they're not being sold at this point, so it doesn't really matter?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
Yeah, no, I think that's right on. I think that's literally great advice. It's directional more than absolute. I think that's right on. I just love that. Absolutely. A hundred percent. I think that's right on. Like, you know, it's not going to be exact. You shouldn't go out. I shouldn't go out and mortgage the house based on what my fund says that it's up, but I should look at as directionally.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
Does it make sense? Does not make sense. And so forth. I think that's right on. It's great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
Yeah, don't go and buy those Ferraris quite yet, Scott. It's already bought. No, I'm just kidding. I won't do so, and I wouldn't do so anyway. It's not because I wouldn't think it's cool to have a Ferrari, just because it's a little ostentatious, but it's okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
But the concept of the maintenance and the insurance and the headaches that come with a Ferrari leads me away from going down that direction. But the bigger point is, don't bet the farm base on the valuations you're getting until the cash is in hand. That's how I really look at it. Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity at a Crossroads: Trends, Valuations & What’s Next with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 4-29-25
And congratulations on joining great firm Elliott Davis. Just fantastic. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is titled Five Rules for Business. And this is in part business and partially leadership. Part of it's based on a discussion that I had yesterday with Coach Nick Saban, one of the great college football coaches of all time. So here are five quick rules for business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
And again, I've never seen anybody really be that successful as a solopreneur without building teams around the person and the business and what you're trying to build and thrive. Okay. And so I look at that. It doesn't have to be that they're W2 employees. It could be 1099. It doesn't matter. But you have to build a team if you want to do great. Fourth concept is you need to commercialize early.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
You can't constantly build, build, build, build. And we see this constantly with software firms that are building the next beautiful software, but not commercializing early enough to get customer and client and market feedback to see if anybody really wants it as well. Finally, the fifth concept that we talk about often is you need to move constantly with urgency.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
And that's a core concept as well that we think about often is moving with urgency. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
First, you need to keep on evolving as a leader. And here, one of the things that Saban said, which I thought was fascinating, you can be sort of a laissez-faire, hands-off leader, You could be a transactional leader where you're just really trying to get results and focused on results.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
Or third, you could be what he calls a transformational leader, which is probably some mix of transactions and trying to really help people grow and thrive and learn. But at the end of the day, the evolution is to try and become a transformational leader where you're really making your teams and people better through an ongoing process versus simply trying to get the results that day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
The second concept, which is not particularly a Sabin concept, But this concept that you have to work very hard and essentially be obsessed to become great at whatever you're going to do. This is a concept we talk about regularly. You can't just obsess in your mind. You've actually got to obsess and practice and work stuff to get better at it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
So that's sort of the second concept, obsessed to be great. The third concept is if you wanna go any place in business, in any seriousness, you need to build great teams of highly talented and highly effective people. In my experience, there's no other way around it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Rules for Business 4-29-25
There's all this discussion today of the iconic superhero, the Mark Cuban, the Steve Jobs, but the real trick is all teams run them too. There's all this discussion on Twitter or X, whatever you call it today, as to being a solopreneur.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7,000 Podcast Episodes & Counting 4-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today's discussion is 7,000 podcast episodes and counting. So I was interviewed last week on somebody else's podcast, and when they did an AI search of me, it showed that essentially I'd recorded something like 7,000 podcasts over the last several years, 7,000 episodes. Now, mind you, many of those are short episodes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7,000 Podcast Episodes & Counting 4-29-25
So here is my take on this. When I heard the stat, I was somewhat blown away that we've done that much. I also have to be incredibly thankful to Chanel Bunger and Grace Keller who have had to sit through a huge percentage of those episodes. I mean, God bless them for not falling asleep on the job listening to me talk.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7,000 Podcast Episodes & Counting 4-29-25
But the point that I thought, when I thought about this, on one hand, I'm thrilled with that sort of drive determination to do 7,000 episodes over the last several years. The flip side is all I could think about is, oh, my goodness, I should be spending more time – on the business than in the business, figuring out the business model than recording so many podcasts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7,000 Podcast Episodes & Counting 4-29-25
In any event, we love doing this. One of my favorite things that we do every day is record alone and record with people and keep on moving forward. So God bless that. And thank you to Strategic Pete. for interviewing me and finding me that stat of 7,000 episodes. He didn't find it for me. He found it to interview me on. I was blown away by it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7,000 Podcast Episodes & Counting 4-29-25
But I am thankful for everybody that's been so helpful in doing this. We're thankful for how well they're received in the Apple News rankings and so forth. But also we do think that it leads me to think, oh my goodness, I got to record a little bit less and think a little bit more. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try and bring you every day brilliant people in business, private equity, and more. Today, we're going to talk about one of the subjects of the day, which is this deep seek and what it means, and to give us some insight on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So I'm glad I got this opportunity to stand on my soapbox and sort of talk about where I think the AI economy is going and how DeepSeek is going to affect it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Thank you. For people that aren't familiar, Bobby's a graduate student. He was an undergraduate in computer science philosophy, graduate degree now in computer science. Talk to us for a second. So what does DeepSeq mean? Why did it pull up in the video? Tell us a little bit about what DeepSeq is. We've all read a little bit about it the last couple of days.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
We've seen more about some of these terms we had never heard of if you're not in the computer science world, like Javon's paradox or Javon's rule, whatever it is. But tell us what some of this means.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So DeepSeq had two main, well, there's a lot of different things that they did, but to simplify it, they had two main architecture improvements over the standard process of training and designing large language models in America. The first one was their pre-training process. And this is the bulk of the process of making a language model.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
If you use ChatGPT, how it knows what different words are is because it was trained on a bunch of bunch of data. And this was considered in America kind of just a bottleneck of costs that people didn't really go after trying to make it more efficient. And that work actually came out a month ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And we're joined today by the brightest person I know in the software computer engineering world. And that's Robert Becker, who I have to disclose is also, in addition to being a graduate student in computer sciences, my son. So when I say that he's the brightest person I know he is, but it's also, I want to make sure people know that I've got a bias here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And they found that they could train their models on around 120th the compute than we thought we could train models at the same strength. So that was a huge architecture improvement. And that's why there is a lot of worry about particularly NVIDIA on if their stock was overvalued because these big tough – So talk about that for a second because I think that's really informative.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
not heard it said like that 1 20th of the cost or computer power to get to the same place in terms of advanced sort of learning or ai learning and what that means there's been all this investment this is now i'm starting to understand this was all this investment in super fast chips and all this structural engineering power and grids that need to be built for all that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
all that power computing power but if you do the same thing with you know d batteries versus super special batteries it makes the cost structure a lot less and so a lot of this investment in grids and everything else in all this infrastructure and then the video super super chips may not be as necessary as people thought. Is that sort of the business situation that's going on or the discussion?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Yes, I think you're outlining quite well. Now, I think it is important to note that in the long-term view, there is always efficiency being made on the hardware of computers, and there's always going to be need for more computes. So NVIDIA, they make amazing chips, so they're always going to be in business long-term. They're fine. But Will there be a short-term correction in the market?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Because in the short term, especially with, if you saw the Stargate announcement, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison, and the SoftBank guys saying they're going to invest $500 billion to build all these data factories, just all this very short-term people throwing money into it, that might not be as high. So there could be a correction there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Fascinating, fascinating. And what does DeepSeek mean for the average company, like an average mid-market company or larger company? Is this going to make it easier for some of these companies to utilize some of these tools because it's not quite as expensive to do so?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Are there potential benefits to us to go with some of the negatives to the NVIDIAs and some of the players that have really made so much money and grown a bunch of market cap from this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Well, so DeepSeek, obviously they're a company operating in China and there's some censorship issues with their model. But as within the bounds they're operating under, they seem to be as good faith and as committed to doing good research of a company as you can be. So one of the great things about DeepSeq is they did completely publish all of their research.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So people at Meta yesterday, people at OpenAI, people at Anthropic, they're all completely dissecting every single thing that DeepSeq did to improve their models. And they're going to incorporate that into their next wave. So ultimately these means these models will be cheaper to deploy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
In any event, Bobby, take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself. And then let's talk about deep seek and what it means. I mean, we saw yesterday, NVIDIA dropped by $600 billion, which I'm not a math guy, but 600 billion seems like a lot of money. The NASA cost a trillion dollars, some rebound today. But what is DeepSeek? What is it? What does it mean?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
If you want it to have a software product that includes an LLM, that's going to be a lot cheaper to get a much more intelligent model. And then that also means that now the barrier to entry, if you're a startup who wants to have their own front, they call these, you know, the main models, the foundational frontier models, um,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
The cost of barrier to entry has moved to $100 million of compute, obviously more for research and operating costs and this and that, but $100 million to $5 million. So we could see a lot more smaller players coming out with strong foundational models that don't have to rely on using OpenAI's API and stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
no and that's absolutely fascinating we've seen so much of that in the healthcare sector where originally certain robotics could only be bought by hospitals and health systems but then the cost was went down so surgery centers and other lower cost providers could utilize some of that technology too and it seems like and you've seen a lot of this in the fintech world where so much technology has gotten better and better it's more available to mid-market players and smaller players
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And it sounds like the impact of this might be that more and more of this is available to midsize and smaller companies that just otherwise couldn't afford to play into level with this level of artificial intelligence tools and so forth. Is that part of the business hypotheses here or theory here?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Yeah, I think that that's definitely a possibility. So I think something that's important to note is companies like particularly OpenAI and Google, their focus over the past couple of years was trying to make the most intelligent model that they could possibly come up with and then turn it into a product.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And especially with OpenAI, about a couple of months ago, they showed a demo for O3 where they had a model think through and solve the most impressive, the most difficult math problems that math PhDs could come up with. And it solves a good percentage of that. But the compute cost of just solving those problems was like $500,000.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So that has been the main focus on the big players in the AI economy has been what is the most possible thing we can come up with? And then as a secondary focus for them, they're like, okay, how can you make this more efficient so people can use it? But I think definitely now that there is more work in making it efficient, that decentralizes it a little more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
That's a lot of people are talking about the difference between open source, which is what DeepSeek did, which is closed source, which is what OpenAI did in terms of not wanting to share all your research findings. And this is definitely a bigger win to the open source world of people publishing their research, their code, so it can be reproduced by everyone else with way less barrier to entry.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And why does a company decide to do open source? Is it because they want to become the sort of main platform for everything? Because it seems like they're giving up a lot to be open source. But obviously, it makes you much more available to everybody and is a tool to build on. Why do people make that choice? Give us a moment on that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So DeepSeek, actually, they're not planning to make money off of their products. They're actually part of a hedge fund. And this was a... funded by the hedge fund to do independent research, but it's not, they're not exactly aimed toward profitability.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And take a moment and introduce yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
And I think one of the, you know, there's a lot of ways that, and we can talk about this a bit more if you want to, there's a lot of ways that I think Americans should be confident in our engineering ability and our science.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Yeah, thank you so much for the introduction. I think bias is going to be one of the biggest questions here. But I'm Bobby, I'm your son, and I'm currently studying computer science at Tulane. And a lot of my research actually involves studying the historical networks that are embedded into large language models.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
But one of the things where I think this makes us question our assumptions is in the American economy, there's been a lot more intermingling between the research and development side and the commercialization side. And obviously, in many cases, that's great. You know, for example, Chachi PT, that technology was around for a while before Chachi PT came out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
But it wasn't until they released that they realized this could be they could turn the research into a marketable product that people can use. But there is also and I've talked to people at Google who said this, there's increasing pressure where every single piece of research that people are doing has to be tied into some sort of product or some sort of path to commercialization.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
But sometimes the pure research in development allows people to. make more foundational improvements in research and overall just lead to greater advancement. And that leads to, you know, that doesn't lead to, you know, Google publishing great papers might not directly be to the being more profitable, but it does improve their credibility and respect as a company.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So one other question, and we'll have you back on. I'd love to discuss this more in the next week or two, just more about both AI and also just what's going on here with DeepSeek and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So the next question is, would you still invest in NVIDIA at this point, or do you view it as a real question mark now as to where you invest in it when it's at a $3 trillion market cap versus $3.6 trillion a couple days ago? Do you invest in NVIDIA still or not right now?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Well, I am of the school of thought of don't be a stock picker. So I think whether NVIDIA will go up or down in the short term is an open question. I think... I'm of the school of thought that just have an index fund and just wait long term and be patient with the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
But if you are, you know, if you are devoting some amount of money to do stock picking just for the fun and the as like I'd say more of a hobby than an actual financial strategy, I would say that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
i probably would not buy nvidia right at this moment you know i think that it's already skyrocketed to the number one stock in the world and you know it went down 10 and obviously people are freaking out about that but i think for the longer term view that's okay not every stock has to go in infinity and up and up and up um sometimes there are going to be corrections and i think there is a real risk of a short-term correction in nvidia
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
But again, I want to reiterate that long term, there's always going to be the need for better GPUs, better CPUs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
I want to thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Just a phenomenal guest. Thank you so much for joining us. You know, a great learning experience about NVIDIA. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
Thank you so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Robert Becker on DeepSeek and the AI Economy 1-28-25
So like ChatGPT, DeepSeq, Cloud, there's a bunch of others of these chatbots people talk to, and they each have a different model of history. And that is one of my areas of research. So there are a lot of PhD level experts on AI, machine learning, large language models. But I do think I have a pretty good grasp on how they work and where everything's heading.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing Gets Hammered Again 1-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You know, we try and constantly watch what's going on in the business world. We're focused a lot on this Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, which has become a very top-ranked podcast. Today, we're going to talk about, you know, this Boeing. Boeing gets hammered again. And here's where Boeing's at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing Gets Hammered Again 1-28-25
And I think this is sort of fascinating if you ask me. Boeing recorded $11.8 billion loss for 2024 and a $14.3 billion cash burn.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing Gets Hammered Again 1-28-25
Kelly Ortberg, who's the new CEO, is 30 years in the aviation industry, a really bright guy, a really bright engineer, a University of Iowa Hawkeye grad, and we love the Hawkeyes, both because they're Big Ten, because of the great children's hospital, and because my CEO and partner at Becker's Healthcare is a Hawkeye. We just love the Hawkeyes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing Gets Hammered Again 1-28-25
I also have a great, great sister, Lynn Wise, I can't call her a favorite sister because it pisses off the other sister, who also is a University of Iowa grad, so we cheer for the University of Iowa and Kelly Ortberg. Revenues dropped 34%, 31% in the fourth quarter. And they had a $14.3 billion cash burn, which again, I don't know numbers like that, but that seems like a lot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing Gets Hammered Again 1-28-25
So again, Boeing taken down on the chin, four key points. Good luck to Kelly Ortberg, the CEO from the University of Iowa. God bless you. My favorite producers, my favorite producers in the world, Jeremy Corr, Chanel Bunger, Grace Keller, all are also at University of Iowa Hawkeyes. So to Kelly Ortberg, we wish you the best of luck. To Boeing, let's get better.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Boeing Gets Hammered Again 1-28-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to talk through the seven largest market cap companies. This is one of my favorite topics, just watching what's going on with the big, big companies in the market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
Again, Mark Zuckerberg all over the news. He is a brilliant person and not afraid of his own shadow, not one of those people. Fascinating, fascinating person. You could do a study and a documentary on Mark, documentary to documentary, and probably learn a lot from watching his drive and resilience.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
Reminds me a little bit of Michael Dell, who stayed with us forever and keeps on at it and keeps on leading. Amazing, literally. Tesla is at $1.3 trillion, $1.274 trillion. Again, the company that Elon Musk built. It's amazing how many of the people that are associated with these companies you're so familiar with because they've become such rock stars in our public persona.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
And again, Apple number one, Microsoft number two, Nvidia number three, Amazon number four, Google number five, Meta Platforms number six, Tesla number seven. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Again, feel free at any time to provide us Comments, ideas, topics, 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
And it's always interesting when there's more change than usual, as there's been recently, as NVIDIA took it on the chin yesterday, down 70%. and reshuffled some of this order. So let me go through the seven largest companies by market cap. And these are as of this morning. So this will change today as some of these go up and down and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
But number one, back in the driver's seat is the company that Steven Jobs built, Apple. They're at $3.45 trillion in market cap. Again, just last week, they were number two behind NVIDIA. Number two is Microsoft. The company that Bill Gates built and Satya Nadella runs and is a driven, bright, smart person. Amazing what Microsoft's doing. They're at about $3.23 trillion in market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
Number three is Jensen Wang's baby. They took it to the chin yesterday. Went from $3.5 trillion to $2.9 trillion. A $600 billion wipeout yesterday. They're at $2.9 trillion in market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Largest Companies by Market Cap 1-28-25
fourth is amazon uh you know the the the company built by jeff bezos 2.45 trillion uh potentially closing the gap with the video but we'll see if that ends up being the case fifth is google 2.36 trillion continues to to crank along and it's fascinating for me to see how much stronger and higher a bigger market google has than meta platformers facebook Meta Platform's Facebook at 1.665 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about Kenny Rogers, Astero Labs, and NVIDIA. And here's the tying these things together. Kenny Rogers is the famous sort of country musician, almost country rock, folksy, but fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
And you'll hear this on Tuesday, day after day, so I don't know how that'll end exactly. But I can assure you, it's not going to be a good day for Astera Labs. It's one of these companies that's getting... eaten up in this, you know, this, this sell-off that deals with essentially this deep seek and everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
So that's a steer to labs and you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them. You know, now I feel like I'm sort of in this for the duration, so I'm not folding, but it is what it is. And I have no real clarity about what to do about it. Oh my goodness. The next stock, which I'm not an individual investor in, is NVIDIA, and NVIDIA is down 17.5% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
And again, the things I've been watching this year, NVIDIA, Apple, and Amix, I've thought about stretching individual positions in. And again, when the market is going up, we all feel like geniuses when we take individual positions. But when it's going down, we realize, oh, index investing and being down 2% is better than being down 17%. I presented with NVIDIA.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
The good news is I did not invest very much in NVIDIA. The bad news is I am a holder in Astera Labs. Astera Labs is down 30%. I do not remember the last time, besides being a card table, where I've seen something go down 30% that quickly. I just don't really remember that. It is what it is. In any event, thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
Again, I won't sing it, but you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them. I did not know when to fold them. It is what it is. For one of my close colleagues who commented on the podcast, podcast we did last week that talked about Grindr grinding out gains.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
At some point, I will again check to see how Grindr is doing and whether they continue to be up and sort of immune to this AI stuff. Again, again, I guess that's really the take-home point. Grindr's down 1.6% and sort of does not seem to be overly impacted. by this artificial intelligence war that's going on between China and the US.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
So today's take home message is index funds, you gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them. Grindr is doing okay and not falling as much as are NVIDIA and Astera Labs. Of course, I'm not invested directly in Grindr. I am invested directly in Astera Labs, which is down 30%. I am not in NVIDIA, so God bless. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
And one of his famous songs from The Gambler, which if anybody grew up my generation, the sticks in your head is, you have to know when to hold them, you have to know when to fold them. And the concept being, if you're playing cards, you got to know when to stop putting money in and to sort of give up on that hand. And it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
Again, our goal is to teach and entertain, and God bless you for listening. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
And one of the things I constantly come back to is being an index fund investor versus an individual stock investor. And I'll tell you, I got a stark reminder of that today. I recently received, six months ago, shares in a company called Astera Labs, which has been nothing but a home run since.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
But there's going to be a take home to this that's going to be self-deprecating and negative, which I'll get to in a second. So, Astero Labs, you know, I got this through an investment I had made. Then they spun it out, and those of us that invested in it got shares in it. And just terrific. That was Astero Labs. And it goes to this point, if you've got no one to hold them, no one to fold them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Kenny Rogers, Astera Labs & NVIDIA 1-28-25
So, today, I look at my individual stocks versus my index funds. The index funds are down whatever amount today. You know, a couple percent are going to be down as the market's down a couple percent, I think. The, you know, the NASDAQ's down about 3.6%. The S&P is down about 1.81% or something like that. But Astera Labs, which I hold individually, is down 29.43% as I look at it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So today's discussion is the five largest companies by revenues in the U.S. And so we're to go through these pretty quickly. It is fascinating to see how many of these companies have stayed up there for a very long time. They're all at 370 to 400 billion plus and all tracking it much higher than that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
I can't tell you enough how big a fan we are of what he's done over the long run. If I was that good a buy and hold investor, I would be just rich, rich, rich. And, you know, like there's an old song from Fiddler on the Roof. If I were a rich man, if I invest like Warren Buffett, I would be that rich man. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
What great fun. And thank you for listening. Send us ideas. 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
Walmart's at the 650, 700. Amazon's a little bit below that. Then Apple, then United, then Berkshire Hathaway. But here's where we're at. And it doesn't seem like any of these are really slowing down. Walmart's number one in the five largest companies by revenues in the U.S., Amazon's number two. We're a direct investor in Amazon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
Most things we invest in are through the S&P 500 index, but we love to watch these things. Amazon's down a little bit today on this AI situation with China and DeepSeek. You'll get this on Tuesday, but that's what's going on there. Apple, number three, just keeps on rocking and rolling through all these different changes, all these different things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
It's back to the number one market cap company today as NVIDIA has taken it on the nose and it's down to about $3 trillion. Apple's number one, Microsoft's number two, and then NVIDIA's down to number three.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
the fourth largest company by revenues united health group and right behind that cvs health and fascinating to see these two juggernauts right there um united very heavily obviously in the insurance business but also the provider business cvs which is right after it but but not in the top five Heavy in the pharmacy business, the PPM business, and the Aetna insurance business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 1-28-25
United has seemed to traverse a lot of this better than others, but also starting to struggle some, too, because of its earnings and everything else. And then finally, number five is Berkshire Hathaway. And again, Berkshire Hathaway, amazing what Warren Buffett has built and still building. The guy's 99%. What an American hero. What a fascinating guy to watch. God bless him.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're visiting with Matt Wolfe. Matt is a brilliant leader at Elliott Davis. He watches the healthcare area closely and just a really gifted person. Matt, what are you watching currently? What's going on in the private equity and healthcare space? What are you watching?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
Right. I mean, there's so many things there that you just started to unpack, and they're fascinating. One is that the era of add-ons, what I've seen over the last several years is add-ons have been just more and more challenging for more and more investors, private equity funds, as interest rates have been up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
Yes, people have been having a hard time making the margins on some of these add-ons and so forth. It's led, of course, back to a premium on organic growth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
And it's also led to a premium on companies that have been able to deliver organic growth because they look pretty good if they're not in all this debt where so much of this debt was added on without having a consequent success with the add-on. So I think your point on, of course, the era of add-ons will come back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
But in the current moment, it does seem that there's a bit of softness on people driving everything towards add-ons for sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
Yes. No, absolutely fascinating, quite frankly, that you see that. They say the deficit will go to $40 trillion. Quite frankly, if it only went up $4 trillion in the last decade, we'd probably view that as a win. That's what this tax bill projects. But it's hard to believe with the amount of growth we've had over the last several years that it would only go up that much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
And again, ultimately, we've got to either have a great growth economy to take care of that, Or we got to start figuring a way to pay down that debt. And of course, nobody wants to do that because that can lead to a recession. What a fascinating situation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
Exactly. What a frightening situation. The era, the end of add-ons and more. So much to unpack still in these tax bills and what's going on. Matt, I want to thank you again for joining us on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Take a moment and tell us about Elliott Davis, please.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Transition: Market Shifts, Growth Strategies & Fiscal Headwinds with Matt Wolf of Elliott Davis 5-27-25
Thank you very, very much. Matt, just congratulations to you and continue good luck. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion revolves around consistency in your efforts. And I think this is just a great topic and so meaningful. What I have found through life that certain areas, it's really easy for me to be consistent day in, day out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
And just I'd say I'm pretty consistent about them, but I'm not as consistent about the intentionality and the real focus of them, which would make them perform at a higher level with them. I'd say similarly with the children, a fantastic job, an A, A- trying to stay connected and And then probably a P in trying to stay very intentional in how I do so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
So as you look at this, and I think I use this as a lens, myself as a microcosm, only because I think everyone can relate to it in some ways or another. And I do feel part of the trick for me would be to be more intentional about things. Like I know when I'm practicing my tennis at my best, I'm going to every practice with an intention. Here's what I'm really working at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
Here's what I'm really trying to get better at. And other times we're just out there hitting and the hitting is fine. It's good exercise. It's moving around. It's all those things, but it's nowhere near as good for improvement and actually getting better. And it's very similar with the golf practice, the fitness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
If I'm very intentional about what I'm trying to do, the results are so much higher and Whereas if I'm just floating through the motions, I'm better off being busy with it than not. But I don't improve nearly as much if I don't have consistency with intention and a plan. In any event, I find this a fascinating subject. I hope you do too. This subject came to us from our studio audience today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
So we're very thankful for that magnificent audience today. And just we're so thankful for the growth in the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Thank you for listening. And thank you to our magnificent producer, Chanel Bunger. The very best in the business. When I talk about consistency, there is no one as reliable and consistent as Chanel Bunger as a producer. The very best.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
In some ways, these might be the areas that you're naturally focused on, that you're naturally sort of comfortable with and so forth. So when it comes to my writing every day and those kinds of things, I find it really easy to be consistent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
In other parts of life, I think this is probably the case for most of us, trying to improve my diet, my fitness, my golf, my tennis, multiple other things, trying to give daily good guidance to my children without being overbearing and annoying. Trying to find that consistency can be so challenging.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
I generally plug along in the right direction, but I do feel like if I was one bit more intentional and clear about really developing the plan, here's what I'm trying to do, here's how I'm trying to do it, I would be much more consistent about some of these things. In contrast, I find myself sometimes going through when fits and starts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
So I'll go through long periods of time where I'm really working on my golf game, really working at it, where I'm really good about my training, really good about my water, really good about my diet. Then I'll go through periods of times where I'm not as good. And I would say that in terms of overall judging,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Consistency, Planning, & Intention 5-27-25
At the situation I'm at, the level I'm at, stuff like that, I give myself an A- on my consistency. A, consistency at work, writing, doing things I have to do, investing in those kinds of things. Not that I do them that well, but I'm very consistent about them. And then the second level things that are more sort of the sports, the hobbies, and all those kinds of things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We were thrilled recently to hit 7 million in downloads and thrilled for that. So thank you to our listeners and our audience and our guests. Today's discussion is adult children and direction. So here's the topic today. Many of the people in the audience either are adult children.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
I think it's largely wasted on your adult children, much rather that you – Let them make strong, intelligent decisions and then try and support whatever they want to do. And then you hold your breath a little bit. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. If you in any way, shape or form could relate to this, you send me a text at 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
And if you're the first person to do so, we'll send you a $50 gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
That's probably any of us are adult children. If you're an adult and you're a child of somebody or you have adult children. And one of the great fasting challenges about adult children is by the time they're in their 20s. They choose what they are going to do, regardless of what grandparents say, regardless of what you say and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
And so I'll have people say to me, how do you let him do that or who do that or whatever they're doing? And largely, I am generally with my children, adult children, so proud of what they're doing and the direction they take. And I've grown largely to let them choose that direction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
There's every once in a while, they're choosing a direction, like a son a couple years ago decided to go to Ukraine during the middle of the war. And I thought, well, that's not a good direction. But of course, that son didn't tell me until after he'd already gone to Ukraine. And similarly with your kids, as they try to do different things, I've largely found they are very, very smart.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
They're very, very on top of their games. They have their head on a swivel. And they've got to make choices to what they want to do. And I think this concept of parenting as your children become older and older, you can nudge a little bit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Adult Children & Direction 5-27-25
You could try and give thoughts periodically, but at the end of the day, you're sort of stuck in this position of really embracing whatever they're doing and trying to support the heck out of them regardless of what it is. So the concept of threats or withholding things or other kinds of things, well, if they do this, I'm not going to do that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to recently pass 7 million downloads and be ranked this week in the top 10 in the Apple Business Podcast News ranking. So a terrific week and thank you to our listeners and to our guests. We're going to walk through nine stories that we're following today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
Strikes me, and not to be political, wrong to target a specific company's products versus generally. But we'll see how this goes. Great book recommended to you this week by Dave Staffman, president of his own investment firm today, called Apple in China, about a deep relationship Apple has in China. Fifth, Apple's down nearly 22% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
It's fallen behind Microsoft and NVIDIA in the market cap wars. We'll see how that goes. Sixth, Russia and Putin are proving to be more difficult to negotiate with than either President Obama back in the day or President Trump thought they would be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
Remember, President Obama famously tried to reset relationships with President Putin or Prime Minister Putin in Russia and found it much more difficult than he expected. President Trump is finding the same thing. He's finding Russia to be much more difficult than he expected. He's trying to get them to move towards peace or a ceasefire with Ukraine. He's having a hard time getting there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
He's talking about sanctions on Russia. I believe that both President Obama and President Trump have this largely right. We need to be involved in diplomatic efforts with them, but it doesn't seem right now to be reaping rewards that we'd like to see. Seventh, Salesforce, which is the largest sort of CRM company in the world, is nearing an $8 billion deal to buy Informatica.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
They were due to do this a year or two ago. Now the price is lower. It will be the company's second largest deal ever. Salesforce is run by Marc Benioff, brilliant, brilliant person. They're down 18% year to date. A great piece on ambient technology and physicians offices of the Wall Street Journal today, That article is called why AI may be listening on your next doctor's appointment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
First, the markets are surging today as President Trump walks back some of his potential tariffs and pauses some of his tariffs on the EU. The EU in total is the U.S. 's biggest trading partner. So the markets view that as very good news as he looks to delay the tariffs from June 1st to July 9th with the hopes of getting the EU to the table where he wants them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
That's already happening. A couple of companies mentioned prominently in the article, both Microsoft and a bridge. A bridge is ran by the brilliant CEO and founder, Shiv Rao, Dr. Rao. Finally, ninth, Tesla sales have dropped 50% in the first quarter in Europe. That's a big number. Nevertheless, the stock price has rebounded greatly over the last month or two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
There's just a great deal of hope and promise for Tesla's overall technologies, particularly related to self-driving cars and a lot more. So we'll see how that continues to play out. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
Second, the markets had a tough week last week. The NASDAQ remains down about 3% year-to-date. The S&P down about 1.34% year-to-date. They look to make that up today as the markets rebound some as the president takes his foot off the gas on the tariffs. Third, NVIDIA is down about 2% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
This week, NVIDIA reports on its earnings on Wednesday, and we'll see what the markets are really looking for here is how much the restrictions on selling to China will hurt NVIDIA's sales. Jensen Wang says it could impact up to 15 billion of sales a year to China. Four, Apple is this week's scapegoat for the president or attack dog. The president has Apple in its crosshairs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Jump, Nvidia, Tesla, the EU, Russia and Apple in the News – 9 Stories We Are Following This A.M. 5-27-25
Apple apparently employs about 3 million people in China. The president would like some of those jobs and manufacturing going back to the U.S. Apple's worked hard to become less reliant on China moving jobs to India and some to the U.S., but from the president's perspective, not nearly enough. He's trying to put 25% tariffs on iPhones that are imported.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
Sometimes that passion for those priorities comes very naturally
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
and other times it's just a war to find but that constant focus on focusing on one's priorities really defining those top two or three priorities and then working on bringing passion and motivation to those is I think the real concept that we aim for and need to aim for and it is a constant effort to try and bring oneself back to here are the top priorities currently here's what we're working on this month the next couple months and just those versus being all over the board
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I know this is short. We hope it resonates with somebody. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you to our producer, Chanel Bunger. Literally could not do this without her. Just fantastic to work with. Fantastic intelligence, responsiveness, best attitude ever. Love working here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
Thank you, Chanel, very much for all that you do. And thank you all for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de. whatever you're doing, is the idea of setting a few core priorities and bringing passion to those. If you have priorities without passion, very hard to really have success. If you've got passion without priorities, also very hard to have success.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
Though I guess if I had one or the other, I'd take the passion without priorities just to run through life with enthusiasm and accomplish what you can. But the real combination is some amount of constant focus and sharpening that focus and clarity. Here are the big priorities right now. Here are the big, here's what we're trying to accomplish. And that can't be too long a list.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus & Passion 3-26-25
We're almost certainly likely to take all your efforts and end up with Bs on everything versus really excelling. So the first concept is always focusing on your priorities. The second concept is finding real passion and excitement for those priorities. And for me, it's trying to do so without a tremendous amount of caffeine intake day to day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to discuss eight stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the Private Equity Podcast. First, the markets surged yesterday in hopes that President Trump would ease up on tariffs on the tariff war. That's the basic concept that people are looking at. We'll see how this plays out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
Dr. Daniel Choi, a brilliant spine surgeon, shared thoughts this weekend on Twitter, reflecting the ACA, and I thought his thoughts were brilliant on it. Fourth, Rick Newman, a Yahoo Finance writer, editor-in-chief that we watch or read a decent amount, has a good piece on Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, this weekend, and he criticizes their
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
the concept that cuts to the IRS will hurt tax collections and further increase, not help the federal deficit. Here, even though I don't like the IRS, I don't want the IRS to have more people auditing and all that kind of stuff, he's probably largely right in his perspective on it. Fifth, the markets today, at least midday, are relatively flat. We'll see how they end too early to tell. Sixth,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
Two upcoming webinars coming up. First, both at Becker Private Equity Business with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group. He does a lot of work for private equity-sponsored companies there on go-to-market strategies, growing revenues, and a lot more. That's April 9th. May 7th, I'll do a solo webinar on 20 business partnerships. We hope you enjoy that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
To register for either of those, please feel free to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. Seventh, four of the companies that jumped yesterday, more than double digits at least, Tesla having a bit of a recurrence, Rebound, Tempest AI, Wayfair, and Carvana all jumped 12% to 15% yesterday. Finally, eighth, the Walt Disney Company company
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
despite one of my colleagues and her husband taking all five kids there, remains down year to date. Disney's down about 10% year to date. And this is despite my colleague partner taking five of her sons there to Disney World recently, or Disney Cruise, one of the two, still down about 10% year to date. Those are eight of the stories that were following today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
We'll talk in a second about what the markets are doing today. Second, the co-CEO of Samsung died suddenly yesterday of a heart attack at 63. He is widely attributed or given credit for building Samsung into the world's largest and most successful or most largest electronics company and crazily successful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
We had heard recently of another death of another person, somewhat middle-aged and always sobering to those of us that are, of course, middle-aged, to see people die of these heart attacks. Third, this weekend, there are a lot of tweets, particularly from President Obama, on the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. And this is really fascinating, and it's really hard to grade.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
There are a lot of positive comments and a lot of negative comments. On the glass is half full side, it's helped a great deal to reduce the number of people without coverage and insurance. So that's generally viewed, I view that very much as a positive. We've gone from about 20% of the population without coverage is about 10% of the people without coverage.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-25-25
On the half-empty side, the glass-empty side, it's added tremendous power to the insurance companies and has helped, not helped, the supply problem of providers and clinicians. And so at the end of the day, I'm a believer we need coverage for all Americans, but that access and supply is the much bigger problem that politicians don't talk about or address really whatsoever.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast thank you for listening today's discussion is the introductory call the good the bad and the ugly so so here's the gist on introductory calls in any business you're in any life you're in you do a lot of introductory calls and i'm going to walk through very quickly what i think of as the good the bad and the ugly so the good introductory call is somebody sets you up to talk to somebody
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
And then at some point towards the end of the call, after kicking off with, oh my God, I'm so interested to hear what you do, asks you something like, we've got two minutes left. Tell me about you. Or, oh, we've got two minutes left. What can I do for you? And when somebody ever says to me that at the end of the call, what can I do for you?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
It usually comes as they've asked me 13 times for something they want. And they say just almost a supply tip. What can I do for you? The thing that I think of when they say that is you can get off the damn phone. You're driving me crazy. And I say that half jokingly, but very truthfully, quite frankly, when people do that to me, we often call them charmingly arrogant.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
They start off being very charming. We'd love to have a discussion with you. Want to hear what you have to say. And then they spend 20 minutes telling you about themselves. At the last minute, they ask you, now, what do you do or what can I do for you? And the answer to me inevitably at the end of the call is, what you could do for me is get off the phone. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
And hopefully I never have to talk to you again. In any event, I say this half jokingly, but those are the good, the bad, the ugly. The good, there's a natural desire to talk to each other. There's a natural need. You're trying to help somebody and they're not a taker. The bad is they're trying to sell something to you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
and they think they're the coolest thing on earth, and they haven't really explained to you up front what they're trying to sell to you, but you're really on there because they have something that they think is the greatest thing of all God's world, and they want to sell it to you. The ugly is they take up 30 minutes of your time, and you just want to get off the phone before you shoot yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
And there's a specific purpose for it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
This could be someone whose son or daughter is looking for a job, somebody who's trying to network, somebody who's trying, has an interest in something you do, whatever it might be, somebody seeking thoughts about healthcare, media, law, whatever it is that you do, and they have an interest in it, and there's a genuine interest, and the person's a pleasure, and just, it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
So that's the good intro call. The bad intro call is someone that is really setting a call to sell you something, but really hasn't told you that they're trying to sell you something, and you haven't really tried to figure it out, but they've got a specific purpose in mind that they're trying to get from you, And they've not been very upfront about it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
And you get stuck on the call and you don't know how to get off the call because it just feels sort of disingenuous and so forth. And you're not really interested in buying what they're selling. And you've got to find the polite way to get off the call and move forward without feeling too pressured and move on and live your life. So that's the bad. The ugly is as follows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Introductory Call: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 3-25-24
And unfortunately, I've had a couple of these meetings and calls lately where somebody says they're really interested in talking to you about what you do. And they start off saying, so excited to talk about what you do. I'm so glad we got introduced. And then they literally go on for 20 to 30 minutes talking about what they do and how they do it and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by brilliant David Pivnik, and David requires us to use the descriptor brilliant before his name. It's part of his contract. No, he actually is brilliant, and he doesn't require that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
We're going to talk today about a subject that David is oh so knowledgeable about, about business, politics, and sports. David, let's tee off by talking a little bit about USA Canada and the NHL sort of all-star extravaganza and how the NHL has done a great job of making itself relevant again. And what are your thoughts on the Canadian-USA rivalry? Is this all really just great fun for them?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Thank you very, very much. And what about the political overtones? Is this all a lot of hype, or has President Trump made an error in sort of picking a fight we don't need to have? Because obviously, I mean, you're our expert on Canadian-American relationships. You're the sort of... The guru, the expert, the genius on that area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
How much has President Trump's language amped this up where you have Canadians booing the American anthem? Is this all good fun or is it going to turn into what's happening? Sort of the soccer hooliganism type stuff where you start to have fights between Americans and Canadians, which seems so stupid.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
And if we have fights between Americans and Canadians, are you like the Tuchuks that have to pick one side or the other? And am I pronouncing Tuchuk right? I'm not sure I'm not. But their mother's Canadian. Their father's American. They've chosen to suit up for the USA. You're a Canadian and American. Do you have inner conflict?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Let me ask you that question. Is Montreal and Quebec, is that still considered part of Canada or do you, for all practical purposes, the rest of the country consider that sort of a French Parisian outlier, or are you still consider it part of Canada? I guess that's the question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
And I don't mean this in a negative way, but you're sort of a gritty, sort of blue-collar acting, Ontarioan, Toronto person, Do you ever feel like you're just a lot less sophisticated compared to the people from Quebec and Montreal? Just a little, and I don't mean this offensively, a little dumber than the Quebec and Montreal folks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Are they really that competitive? What's the gist of it? What's your take on this, the Canada-USA rivalry that's going on in the NHL All-Star Weekend?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
So what is the answer? Are you okay, esteem-wise, given the difference in average intellect between Ontario and Quebec?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
If you could actually rank the provinces from best to worst in Canada, which it seems like implicitly, I didn't realize this, that Canadians do, you know, how do you compare British Columbia and Ontario to, let's say,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
florida and california how do they compare i mean as long as you're ranking and stirring up trouble in such a incomprehensible way compare them to some of the u.s states where does uh british columbia let's compare it to texas because they're both big oil wealth like areas what's the what's your sense i mean you can't really compare ontario
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
to a state in the US that has real commerce, but let's compare it to like North Dakota. How do you compare Ontario to North Dakota and how do you compare British Columbia to Texas?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
So you're like the equivalent. What we have in the U.S., and I'll try and explain this to you and educate you on this. We have in the U.S. elitists on the coast that consider certain parts of the country to be flyover states that don't matter, right? And you seem to be sort of a middle-of-the-country Canadian elitist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
My mistake for calling you blue-collar and gritty because I'm going to change that right now. It seemed to be calling Nova Scotia and New Finland sort of flyover country and irrelevant for all practical purposes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Which is the real, speaking of that, I'm going to ask you two questions. Which is the real London? London, Ontario or London, England?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Wow. Wow.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Which province do you compare to Iowa, the state of Iowa?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Wow. Didn't see that coming, but a great pronunciation of Saskatchewan. How do I pronounce the T'Chuks? How do I pronounce their names?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
It's T'Chuk. Good shot. Got it, got it. That's just a little bit messy. David, we've talked about... No, Messi's a soccer player. Yes, yes, yes. Messi's a soccer player. Very well played. Lionel Messi, the great soccer player. Yes, well played, well played. David, anything else you wanted to offer our listeners today? We've talked about how the NHL got this right between Canada and the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
We talked about how...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
uh the the the u.s and canada they had i think they had three fights in the first nine seconds of that game of the last game and is that just good fun knowing that it's unlikely anybody's really going to get hurt because nobody really wants to get a jaw broken in one of these fights they used to do that 100 years ago where you saw guys really get hurt in these fights but is it really sort of regulated fighting where you know no one's going to get that hurt what's the center because nobody really wants to have injuries here do they
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Down the USA-Canada Rivalry and Business Insights with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 2-25-25
Got it. David, again, thank you so much for visiting with us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You were fantastic. My interviewing skills today were subpar, but you were great. Thank you so much for joining us, our gritty, blue-collar, intelligent Canadian. Thank you for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir, DOGE & Politics 2-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Palantir Technologies and Doge and more. So here's what's fascinating about Palantir. Palantir is founded by an arch-right conservative, fascinating person, Peter Thiel, who essentially has been a huge President Trump supporter from the very get-go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir, DOGE & Politics 2-25-25
The president and co-founder of Palantir is an anti-Trump guy, Alex Carp. Brilliant, brilliant guy. He's taken about $2 billion off the table in the last six months, but supported Kamala Harris in the election. The third thing that plays into this is the government is trying to cut the
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir, DOGE & Politics 2-25-25
outside contractor spending as much as they reasonably can without putting us in a horrible spot as a government and as a nation. One of the things that's on the chopping block is defense contracting spending, and one of the biggest beneficiaries of defense spending through contracts is Palantir. So Palantir is on a good four-day loss streak, getting hammered the last several days.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir, DOGE & Politics 2-25-25
I would be remiss to note that I invested in Palantir last year. I don't know where I'm at on it. I saw a run-up in it. Now I'm seeing that sold run-up go run down. And it is a reminder amongst all of the things that I ought to stick to index funds versus individual stocks. I have no real predictability over these individual stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir, DOGE & Politics 2-25-25
But again, Palantir, Doge, politics, and more, Palantir is taking it on the chin. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try each day to bring you brilliant people from the business and private equity world. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by two leaders from VMG Health. We're going to talk about cybersecurity due diligence in M&A transactions and its critical role.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
And this issue with third parties is so challenging because you not just want somebody that's good to work with, but you got to make sure that they're cyber secure and they put deep resources into it. And then it's challenging, too, because even some of the companies you think would be the deepest and the best at this face challenges, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
I mean, that must make it challenging for a company to try and figure out which third parties are good or bad on the cyber security side.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
And Chad, anything else you wanted to add in there about third party risk or any of the other issues that our audience should be thinking about in the healthcare M&A world as it relates to cyber?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
You know, 100%. When we see this now, when health systems get hit with ransomware and get closed down for a period of time, it's a disaster for healthcare provision and quality of care. It's really, really challenging. It's so interesting. As we're talking, I'm getting emails from Delta Airlines about their new multi-factor authentication program and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
What you're talking about is right on in the entire business world and particularly in the healthcare world. Brian and Chad, thank you so much for joining us today on the Vector Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you for all you do. What a pleasure to visit with you and V&G Health. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
We're joined today by Brian Wilson and Chad Zoratek, both managing directors at VMG Health. Brian, could I ask you to take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do? And then, Chad, I'll ask you to do the same.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Fantastic. And Chad, you do so much work in the financial health care sector. Where are some of the places where you end up seeing sort of cybersecurity and some of these issues prop up as well?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you very, very much. And Brian, let me take your two questions specific to cyber due diligence, particularly in healthcare M&A. both sort of the sell-side sort of lens. How do you view this from the sell-side lens? Where do you have to be in great shape to show the company the best light to potential buyers?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
And then when you're a buyer, how do you think about buy-side risks when you're in healthcare, M&A, and cybersecurity? Brian, can you talk about those two issues, sort of sell-side on cybersecurity and buy-side?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you. And Chad, when you're dealing with healthcare M&A today, how focused are buyers and sellers around the cyber diligence? I take it a million times more than they were 10 years ago, but what do you hear from buyers and sellers when we talk about cyber diligence?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
And Brian, let me come back to you on the next set of questions. And each of you had these fascinating, fascinating careers. Brian, for you, I'll take you back to the question in a moment, but you've worked internationally. You've been in the U.S. Army. I mean, what a tremendous experience you've had in life in here. What are some of the leading practices for cybersecurity due diligence?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you very, very much. And Chad, can I ask you to do the same?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
And how do you sort of frame some of these things in taking the right approach, given the vast experience you've had? What are sort of leading practices for cyber due diligence?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you. And it seems like a nonstop sort of fight back and forth, especially as the bad actors, the threat actors, get more and more sophisticated. Brian, I'm going to ask you to take a lead on the next question, and I'll ask, or Chad, I'll ask you to take a lead on the next question and ask Brian to jump back in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Chad, where does cyber insurance play in mitigating risks associated with healthcare M&A? And Chad, maybe you could take the lead on that, and Brian, you could speak up on that as well. Any thoughts there about cyber insurance?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you. And to your point, huge financial ramifications if there ends up being breaches and threats or lockdowns and ransom and everything else, so many different places, even just leaks end up having huge financial implications and customer implications too. Brian, any thoughts you wanted to add in about cyber insurance?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk about, Brian, why don't you lead us off? Talk to us about, you know, so much of deal and diligence is built around financial due diligence, legal due diligence, quality of earnings. Why is that not enough? Why is that not the core of diligence? And why are some of these other things so important too?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity Due Diligence in Healthcare M&A 2-25-25
Thank you. And take a moment, Brian, third-party risks. How do third-party vendors factor into cyber due diligence, cybersecurity? I mean, so many of the big breaches came out of not somebody doing something directly, but through one of their third parties that they worked with. Talk about that a little bit, third-party risk.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Responsiveness as a Business Imperative 2-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a business lesson. It for sure holds true in the service businesses. It probably holds true in every businesses, every business, excuse my language, is that responsiveness is a key strategy and a key advantage. So here's the issue. You know, one of the people I work with essentially says,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Responsiveness as a Business Imperative 2-25-25
If I don't go ahead and respond to somebody quickly, they ultimately find a different vendor for that spot, somebody else to work with. So there are a couple of different pieces of this. I think that's the most stark example that if you don't respond quickly, people find somebody else to work with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Responsiveness as a Business Imperative 2-25-25
But I think more important than that, the art of responsiveness, and it's both responsiveness and relative substantive responsiveness, is something that people absolutely love in companies they work with. Because everybody's working through a huge to-do list, trying to figure out what they got to do, what they have to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Responsiveness as a Business Imperative 2-25-25
And if you're a thread that's hanging out because you're not constantly responsive, this is a business negative. If in contrast, you're the opposite- constantly responsive and able to knock things off people's list to put them in good shape and make their lives easier. Well, I have to tell you, customers and businesses love that. It's something that should be able to be taught.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Responsiveness as a Business Imperative 2-25-25
It seems to be so natural to other people than others. I mean, there's almost a whole world of people. Those that are constantly responsive is those that are not and trying to figure out the difference, but sort of a constant in our world of responsiveness versus not. That's today's, concept today, responsiveness as a business imperative.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Responsiveness as a Business Imperative 2-25-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tilray Brands & the Cannabis Industry 2-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I am thrilled again to be recording today with Chanel Bunker, our producer, the best in the business. Can't tell you each day how thankful I am for Chanel and her leadership and her responsiveness. An amazing, amazing professional. Well, today's discussion is Tilray Brands and the cannabis industry.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tilray Brands & the Cannabis Industry 2-25-25
And it seems like no matter what happens in the cannabis industry, they can't seem to quite get it right. They've got lots of federal regulations to challenge, not still approved for federal sort of distribution, but approved by lots of states. So still sort of this cash and debit card business, also very hard to bank, also still getting killed by the illegal market, not the legal market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tilray Brands & the Cannabis Industry 2-25-25
And so for a lot of those reasons, the cannabis business continues digging in the chin. Tilray Brands, which is one of the leading brands in the business, down 28% year to date. And that seems to be sort of core for the area. The cannabis business seems to still be taking it on the chin. So that's the story of the session today. Cannabis can't win.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tilray Brands & the Cannabis Industry 2-25-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE DOGE DOGE Part Two 2-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Doge, Doge, Doge Part 2. So here's my take on Doge. The thing with Doge is quite complicated. At the end of the day, this last fiscal year, government spending was about, the fiscal year, the CBO says about $7 trillion, $6.9 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE DOGE DOGE Part Two 2-25-25
That's a number that's up almost $3 trillion over the last five to seven years. That's an obnoxiously high number that causes a tremendous deficit in spending. So to that extent, DOGE or something like DOGE is certainly needed. And the whole concept is, how does it work? How does the Department of Government Efficiency work? Does it fly off the heels?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE DOGE DOGE Part Two 2-25-25
But is it needed to fly off the heels because things have gotten so out of control in terms of federal spending that we have to do that? Now, what's fascinating about DOGE
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE DOGE DOGE Part Two 2-25-25
about federal spending is the stats that i see the federal spending's going up dramatically but the federal workforce has not so a lot of this cutting and dealing has got to be outside contracts other kinds of things and a lot of it's got to be done without hitting the three things you can't touch which is social security medicare and interest expense
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE DOGE DOGE Part Two 2-25-25
It may be the military to some extent, but we'll see how it goes. But in any event, today's discussion is Doge, Doge, Joe's part two. I am coming around that Doge or something like it is really needed just because these expenditures that we have as a federal government are horrendous.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE DOGE DOGE Part Two 2-25-25
But we've got to cut these federal expenditures somewhat intelligently so we don't throw ourselves both into a recession or a depression. And so we also don't kill the ability to do what we need to do as a government. So fascinating, fascinating situation. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant leader. We're joined today by Aniket Barjwaj. And Aniket is Vice President and Global Incident Response and Services Leader at Charles River Associates. Charles River Associates is one of the most elite incredibly bright, gifted consulting firms out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Exactly, and that makes sense. So you have to – the incident response, if you are going to pay ransomware, that doesn't do you any good. It might stop the beating for the moment, but you better fix the problem or you're going to be right back at it, maybe with that same threat actor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
And I take it these extortionists, these ransomware people, it's not like the mafia where you could trust them, that you could trust their word. I take it that's the last thing you could do with criminal activity. And criminal gangs is to trust that they're not going to come at you again, because quite frankly, once you pay, they're going to do so again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
There's not a code that says, OK, you've paid us. We're not coming after you again. I take it. It doesn't. That's not the world we live in. Let me ask you another question. You know, etiquette. How do you work with clients? How does a maybe give us a couple examples of what you look so you don't have to mention specific names. But how does Charles River in your group?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Amazing, fascinating work with clients and maybe some examples.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Thank you. Fascinating. What a fascinating set of examples. What a crisis situation that you live in that must be stressful. And thank God you take care of your physical and mental health. So it's got to be stressful when a client has this emergency and calls you folks to be ready to respond in a calm, thoughtful way and not have your stress go through the roof.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Talk for a second about what are you most focused on and excited about this year? When you look at this year and in the next several months, what are you most focused on and excited about?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
And that's got to be just critical for clients to be one step ahead. I'm going to ask you about a couple other things. You did a master's at Hopkins, Johns Hopkins. Talk about Johns Hopkins a little bit. One of the greatest institutions in the world, your thoughts on that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
And then second, you were also honored recently and for several years in a row as one of the top cybersecurity professionals in the world. Talk a little bit about that. Is that meaningful to you? How does that feel to be recognized like that? And talk about the Johns Hopkins experience, if you don't mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
No, and I love that. The focus particularly on physical and mental health, and you need to take care of those things if you want to take care of everything else. I couldn't agree with that more. Before we get into the heart of the discussion, Let's talk about nation state actors.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Thank you very much. Again, we're visiting today with Aniket Barjwaj, who helps head up global security, cybersecurity, and incident response at Charles River Associates. He's ranked constantly as one of the top cybersecurity professionals in the world. Tremendous career. And I've got a daughter going to Johns Hopkins. I'm a huge fan of Johns Hopkins.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Aniket, I can't thank you enough for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're honored to have you on. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
You know, we talk so much in World War II about the Maginot Line, about the need now to be able to build planes and ships and industrial manufacturing. And that all I think is still going to remain important. But how much is cybersecurity and cyber warfare, the future of everything, and how much both from a commercial perspective and a national perspective is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
We have to be so ready to to protect ourselves and be redundant as well. What's the sense of is this the next battlefield that the cybersecurity nation state actors acting in that regard?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
No, and the ability to take care of business, because if you're down, you can't take care of business. You can't take care of whatever your business is as well. So it's not just about protecting data. It's about just the core ability to operate, isn't it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
We are so thrilled to have Aniket with us today. We're going to talk some today about cybersecurity in the context of M&A and a lot more. Aniket, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about what you do and about Charles River Associates?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Thank you. And you do a ton of work in sort of the mergers and acquisitions ecosystem, a lot with various private equity firms and funds. What are some of the key trends you're watching as people look at cybersecurity in the context of mergers and acquisitions? Absolutely. Great question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
And take a moment. You mentioned a moment ago insurance. I think there's this perspective in business that the cyber insurance, you need to have it for various different reasons. But if you actually have a real serious cyber attack, it may or may not pay. What's your sense of the cyber insurance world?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
And do you help people navigate through that, companies navigate through the cyber insurance world?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk about trends in incident response. I mean, I know prior to an incident, people do tabletop exercises, all kinds of things to figure out how they're going to deal with things when an incident happens. But talk about trends that you're watching in incident response. What are you seeing there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
I bet that's right. I mean, clients have spent a lot of time in this up front, probably also have better defenses and they know you well and they're in a better spot when something happens. Talk for a moment about this. When somebody pays for extortion or pays for ransomware, they pay these amounts to stop the extortion or live with the extortion or stop the ransomware.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity, M&A, and the Evolving Cyber Battlefield with Aniket Bhardwaj of Charles River Associates 4-22-25
How often does the same actor come back against that customer or that client or company and How do you stop when you've paid ransomware or paid extortion payment, having them not come right back at you and doing it again? What do you see there? How does that happen?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So today's discussion is called Following Your Gut Instincts. So this is at least inspired in part by a tweet we saw yesterday by someone named Du, D-U. So you never know on Twitter who's actually a real person who's not. But I love the tweet, and I thought it's right on so many things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
My worst choices, when I get excited by an extraneous pull and sort of go down a direction I shouldn't go down or just not a worthwhile direction and a time-wasting direction. Another example is, situations where you could put this into almost anything you want, but the impulsive decision to do a certain thing versus what I know feels right in my gut.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
In any event, I love this concept of following your gut, listen to your gut, and I think it's a perfect metaphor for the stock market. There's economic analysis, optimal analysis, and there's behavioral analysis. You have to hit it somewhere down the middle if you want to be able to live with the ups and downs of the market over time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
In any event, today's podcast, Follow Your Gut, some of this resonates with some people. It certainly resonates with me and some members of our family and a lot more. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
Let me tell you what the tweet says, and text me if you want the full tweet in writing, but it's also in the newsletter and LinkedIn today. The right decision is always the one you can't explain. Too much analysis, too much justification, you're forcing it. Live in the city, marry the right person, pursue the idea that allows you to think less.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
Make life easier on yourself by prioritizing emotional pulls over mental pushes. And I think this is so applicable in so many ways. Sometimes you know you're getting into a project or a concept or going down a line that you know doesn't feel right, and you probably should follow your gut instinct.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
So much of investing is this mix of your gut and your caution versus what your broker or advisor says in terms of asset allocation and so forth. And you got to hit this somewhere in between between your gut tells you to do unless your gut is insane and what your broker tells you to do, which is often too aggressive for a lot of us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Following Your Gut Instincts 4-22-25
So this concept of trying to hit it down the middle and follow your gut is so important. I know my best decisions in joining my second law firm that I'm still at 30 years later was following my gut to that law firm and feeling comfortable like it would be a good choice. So many of my best decisions are incremental ones, doubling down, doubling down on things that are working.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are seven of the stories that we're following today and thank you for listening to the podcast. First, the markets got crushed yesterday but appear set to partially rebound today. The S&P finished down about 2.36% yesterday. It's right now and it's early today up about 1.66% so it
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-22-25
Can't wait for that. In any event, a lot going on in the business world, the trade world, the tariff world, and a lot more. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-22-25
Two hospital chain stocks also got crushed yesterday, Universal Health Services and Tennant Healthcare. The Universal Health Services downfall was based on concerns about government reimbursement. They do a lot of Medicaid work. We'll see about the Tennant Healthcare one as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-22-25
Third, RH, Restoration Hardware, a stock which we follow regularly, dropped about 3.3% yesterday, and it's now down 60% year-to-date. Fourth, Tesla dropped again almost 6% yesterday. It's down 44% year to date. The company reports earnings later today. We'll see how that goes. Fifth, Humana dropped 7% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-22-25
This is based on CMS rejecting Humana's appeal to improve its star ratings for Medicare Advantage. That's costing Humana a lot of money. We'll see how this goes. They're going to keep on fighting. Humana is, but they dropped 7% yesterday on the news. Sixth, Carvana, a stock nobody never knows exactly how to judge. A lot of cynicism about it. Dropped 7% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-22-25
Finally, seventh, thrilled to see the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast rank first this month in the Apple Business News category. A lot of people to thank there. I'll start with Jeremy Corr and Chanel Bunger, two of our great producers on the production team. A couple other PSs. Excited to interview Coach Nick Saban at the Becker's Healthcare Conference next up. next week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and it's in preparation for a webinar we have coming up, 25 mantras, concepts, and business thoughts. Some of these are personal. Some of these are business. And bear with me as we walk through the 25 of these. I would love somebody to give me feedback on this discussion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
You also have to save and put enough money away that you're safe regardless of what the long run brings. The third and fourth concepts are more along the lines of personal concepts versus particularly business concepts. One comes from Jerry Seinfeld, which is sort of this concept of Some meditation, some weights and moderate coffee that those three things get them through life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
More meditation, more weights and more coffee. I can only do so much espresso without driving everybody around me crazy and making myself insane. But the concept of working on some meditation practice, very hard for me. But the concept of staying in shape, very important to me. And I think that's right on. The fourth concept that goes with those concepts is a different concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
And as you age, you'll understand this better. But the concept is don't let the old man in. You've got to be very careful in life about slowing down too much. Because as you slow down, it's harder and harder to get your mojo going, to get moving in the right direction. And I don't want to overuse this to cause people stress, to push themselves too hard. But there is this fine line.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
And if you slow down too much mentally or physically... It's very hard to recoup and get back at that speed you want to live at and work at. The fifth concept is really for all professionals or people building a business or doing whatever job they do, is when you first get into whatever you're doing, you have to get great at whatever you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
So if you're a doctor, you've got to become a great doctor. If you're a lawyer, you've got to become a great lawyer. Same thing with accountants. Same thing with any kind of professional. Then at some point, you move from being great at that profession to to practicing leadership and practicing management and growth in that profession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
But the starting point is really understanding and being great at your profession or job. So those are the first five points. Now I'll move to six to 10. The sixth point is, really understand your business and the landscape that it's in, and then you're trying to always apply things in that context.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
So if you're a lawyer and you're in a sector, you really want to understand the business sector you're in, then apply law in that context. And I think this goes for very many things, is really trying to understand the landscape that you work in and that you live in. The seventh concept is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
that is the economy weakens, it's important that you prioritize your spending as to what you think is really critical, that you really keep your debt under control, that you understand your asset allocation and maintain your emergency funds. The eighth concept is a different one, again, a wife concept, a personal concept, that injuries are better than illness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
If you're the first one or two people to text me with feedback in this and suggestions for changes or edits, it's 773-766-5322. I will send you a 100-hour Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening. So the first concept, we talk about a business often.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
If you have an injury, you're gonna know somebody else who has a horrible illness So do your best not to whine or complain too much about the injury. I've had over the last year, a couple of eye surgeries, a couple of knee surgeries. And by God, I am fortunate that those are injuries versus horrible life threatening illnesses and be thankful for the injuries, not the illnesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
I know it's a hard way to look at it. Ninth concept is whether you're hiring a lawyer, a painter, anybody you're working with, Always ask for an estimate before you start a project. Again, a life lesson learned over and over and over again. The 10th concept, and we talk about this all the time, That it's one thing to get wealthy or get successful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
It's another thing once you climb that mountain to stay successful, it takes tremendous drive. Or to stay wealthy, it takes tremendous discipline. Never lose sight of those two concepts, both extremely important. Getting wealthy, climbing the mountain, God bless. But staying wealthy, not screwing it up, that takes tremendous discipline and willpower. And the same with so many things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Let me, that's six to 10. Let me take a pause and give you 11 to 15. 11, and this goes to assets. Allocation of your assets is critical. What you have in equity, what you have in debt, what you have in cash. You know, if you've been investing for a long time, you doubtless have been through lots of swings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
My punch in the gut came a long time ago when everything in equities and the markets just got tanked. And of course, that caused me to do a ton of studying as to what allocation was right for me. Now, most financial advisors push people into more aggressive allocations. And my own take is you want to live with an allocation that you could live with and you don't have to live.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
You don't have to listen to anybody's take on, oh, my God, you have 80 percent of your assets in equity, 70 percent in equities. You have to have the amount of equities you need to keep up with inflation to grow. But at the same time, be able to assess risk so that if it goes down, if the equities are really struggling, you can live and not panic. So that's allocation is critical.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Twelfth concept is don't quit your job during a recession. Everybody at some point hates their job. If you're in a recession, hang on tight. The best thing you'd have during a recession is a paycheck. The next best thing is a business that generates money or lots of assets. But don't quit your job during a recession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Third concept is every business meeting or meeting of any sort that you're involved in, show up earlier or right on time. And then another caveat is keep those meetings as short as possible. We're the biggest fan of that. The 14th concept, and I think this is true, 80% of success is showing up every day on time and doing what you're supposed to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Whenever you're on the course of a business, if you have to choose to double down on that business if it's going well, stay the course if it's going fine, or abandon it if you shouldn't keep on pursuing it. And this abandoning something is a very hard choice sometimes because periodically you get positive feedback, you get dopamine fixes. And so you want to keep going with it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
The rest is bright drive and personal skills, but constantly showing up on time. 15th concept, In anything you do, constant and regular communication is everything. And you got to constantly focus on whether it's with clients, with people, with whatever you're doing, the more they know this is where we're at, this is where we're going, this is what we're trying to do, the better off you are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Not to put a knock on President Trump, but his communication about these trade wars is awful. So it leaves a lot of us frantic and panicked. Similarly, if you're a leader of a company, a leader of anything, the more you communicate where you're going, how you're getting there, the better off you are. So those are concepts 11 to 15. Let me give you 16 to 20. 16 to 20.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
There's this concept about how you do anything is how you do everything. And I think there's truth to this and there's not truth to that. I'm a believer that you got to figure out the few things in life that you want to be great at. And the other things that you do, you don't have to kill with 100% intensity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
There's almost nothing worse than the person who's great in business, who then you're playing some sport with and also has to kill you in the sport too. They can't help themselves. I think you have to pick and choose. Here's where you're going to be great. Here's where you're not going to be great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Some things could be hobbies, some could be businesses, and really finding out what you do and what you love doing. The 17th concept, I think this is so right on. Life is a game. It's not only about winning. It's also about having fun while playing. You've got to enjoy what you're doing and view it that way. And if you don't, it gets very old very quickly and a real prescription for burnout.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
18, marketing versus sales. I'm a big believer that marketing without a sales team or a sales effort is a huge waste of money. In the ideal world, these things work together. If I got to do one versus the other, we're building a product and building a sales team, then a marketing team. But marketing versus sales, two very distinct things. And I see many people, marketing is easy, sales is hard.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
So many people off-put to marketing versus sales, but sales is what pays the bills. 19th, and this isn't always the case, but don't upset the apple cart when it doesn't need to be upset. When you don't need to upset the apple cart, don't do it. Just relax. You don't need conflict every place. This is not intended to be a message to President Trump, but you don't need conflict every place you go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
It's a horrible way to go through life. It's a horrible way to do business. It's a horrible way to do families. 20th, again,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
the clearest way to give value to customers is going to wake up in the morning figure out how can i do something for that customer where can i connect them where can i help them how do i make them pleased you know what can we do for them i think that's sort of what the clearest way to give great value to customers is waking up every day thinking this thinking how can we take care of customers and you're likely to excel in what you're doing so that's concept 16 to 20.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
I'm going to give you at least five more, particularly if my producer will sit with me for another five or so, and if you're not too bored. I can't tell if you're bored because it's a podcast, but tell me by text if you're bored or hating this or liking it, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
You're listening again to the Becker Private Equity Podcast, which this week is the top-ranked podcast on the Apple Business News Rankings. The 21st to 25, no new ideas. There's all this concept. There's no bad ideas and that may be true, but there are bad ideas, but there is also this concept that whenever business you're in, there's execution time versus idea time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
And the two of those often have to be different. There's a certain point in the business cycle where you have to execute on what you're doing. And there's nothing worse than constantly somebody who's constantly coming to you with ideas, but not executing execution over ideas. 22nd digging ditches.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
But at the end of the day, when you realize there's not that much potential or it's going to be so hard to get to that potential, you got to make that decision to let it go. The easier decisions are when things are going well, to pour the coals to it and double down on it. I love that. Or it's going fine. You keep on doing it. You keep on moving along. It's doing fine. It's making some money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
This is a concept that goes with the flywheel concept and one that I use often, that if you want to dig, that if you want it to be successful at anything, you have to dig a lot of ditches, put in a lot of grunt work till you start to really figure it out and figure out how the ditches will start digging themselves. You have to get enough momentum going to really make this work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
And that's something that we're a believer in. We use the phrase, you got to dig 10 ditches before they start digging themselves. And the real concept is you really got to get going To a certain extent, there's enough momentum that things will start moving on their own, not just with your personal effort and drive. The 23rd concept, and again, this is the one that's way overstated.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
People often say failure is good. Well, failure is not good. Failure is only good if you're actually learning from that failure and you're not putting so much risk into that failure that it destroys what you're doing entirely. So failure is good within reason. 24th. There's this concept that culture is everything. And I can tell you in my perspective, culture is important. It really is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
But it's culture plus strategy plus having the right talent and the right people. I could have a beautiful culture, but if I'm surrounded by all people that are morons, it doesn't matter how nice the culture is, we're not going anyplace. I could have culture, strategy, bright people, disciplined people, hardworking people. All those things are part of it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
And you might say, well, that all defines culture, but I think it's deeper than that. Culture plus strategy plus great people and a great team and ultimately finding customer product fit is really important too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
25th concept that i like some of these of course have come up with some different readings and stuff like that over time is cautious when right when you're right be cautious don't over understand what you've done great i do believe in doubling down on where things going right and then when things go wrong be curious as to why they went wrong and could you fix them so those are so far 25 of the concepts mantras and thoughts that we're working with you know if you're if you like this
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Please text me. We'll give you the other 10 that are on our list at some point. But again, 773-766-5322. If you send me a text at that number in your first two to send me comments and texts and thoughts on this, Would love to hear your comments and thoughts. I'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate, and we'll get it to two people that listen and work through this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast, and thank you to the remarkable Chanel Bunger for her help every day as the best producer in the world. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Mantras, Concepts, and Business Thoughts 4-22-25
It's not a loser, not a huge winner, but fine. You stay the course. The second concept we talk about is a business investment concept, and I love this as well, is save and protect yourself like a pessimist and invest like an optimist. So even though... You want to invest to win for the long run.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is why we don't time the markets, part 271. So we always talk about not timing the markets. I joke about this being episode 271 on this series about not timing the market. But let me tell you a quick story. So
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
that while we were talking about these numbers and investments, I am an avid believer that you don't time the market, that you can't guess. People use this language, oh, it's on discount at 20%. Oh, it's on discount at 10%. If you were at Filene's Basement or Bloomingdale's or wherever you shop, that if you could buy something with 20% off, you would do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
The reality is we never know what's really off and what's not. I'm a much bigger fan of not timing the market, dollar cost averaging, and so forth and so on. But I can tell you, it's this potential sort of joking bet as to where the market would be in a month at the end of April when I said 6,200. Right now, one, I feel very wrong. Two, I feel very validated in my concept
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
that I don't try and time the market. So the good, the bad, and the ugly, don't time the market. While we don't time the market, episode 271 or whatever number I said, it's not a real number, but we always talk about not timing the market. And again, I was wrong on my guess as to where the S&P would be. I was right on not timing the market. So it is what it is. One for two is not bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I know my colleagues that have set up this pool as to where the market would be at the end of the month are enjoying how wrong I was, but it is what it is. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
About a month ago, when this trade war stuff starts heating up, there's a text thread, you know, one person is very skeptical of the trade war. The rest of us are trying to figure it out and so forth. And one of the things that comes up is who's going to bet on where the S&P is going to be at the end of April? So various ones of us put in different potential numbers
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
I don't want to recall my number because I think I'm going to be way, way off. But it was an optimistic number and how things would bounce back once this trade war got settled out a little bit. And this is, again, why we don't time the market. Now, I'm going to keep my guesstimate confidential as to what I was guessing. I think it was 6200. And my colleagues will correct me or let me know.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why We Don’t Time the Markets: Part 271.. 4-22-25
if I'm totally wrong or totally right. But as I look at this today, we'll release this April 22nd, but as I look at it on April 21st, the S&P is at 5,100 and down another 3.4% today. So my guesstimate of 6,200, which I won't point out loud, seems very, very off. Now, the only credit I'll give myself is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Rick Kess. Rick is a partner at RSM. RSM is the preeminent sort of mid-market private equity consulting accounting leadership firm. Just a fantastic job they've done in building the practice over a long period of time. Rick joins us regularly to talk to us about trends.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Or will that have an impact on interest rates and what we see?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Thank you. I know the House is working through a major sort of tax and budget bill. President Trump says it'll be the greatest tax bill of all time. That might be hyperbole. I'm not an anti-Trump person, not a pro-Trump person, somewhere in between. I know I can't be too critical of it because my podcast might get shut down. I say that jokingly. That's a joke for our audience.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
He's watching the private equity business. Rick, let's get to it. What is going on in the private equity business today? Are deals starting to happen again? What are you seeing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
But Rick, what are people starting to say about the discussions in the tax bill that Is it too early to tell or are people starting to digest that at firms like RSM and trying to understand the impact?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Thank you. And take a second, as we get to the second half of the year almost, it's amazing. What are you most focused on and excited about as we get to the second half of the year, Rick?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Anthony Edwards. An amazing, incredible talent. But even with all his talent, he is still well behind Elon Musk in terms of the effort where they go head to head. But yes, absolutely, Rick. We'll be excited to see the Timberwolves perform well. Very few players as exciting to watch as Anthony Edwards. Just a fantastic series coming up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Rick, thank you very much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Now test free on shopify.de.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook Mid-2025: Cautious Optimism, Credit Concerns, and Tax Talk with Rick Kes of RSM 5-20-25
Let me ask you a question. On Friday, Moody's reported that they downgraded the U.S. 's credit a little bit, you know, not to the 600s or the 500s like a personal opinion. debt score or credit score, but from AAA to AA1, what impact will that have on interest rates and the interest rate environment in the long run? Or is it not really relevant for the private equity environment?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So today's discussion is celebrity speakers. that have some sort of stain on them and bear with me on this. And that's probably a horrible way of, of, of, of doing this, but I'll try and work on that title.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
Bill Walton over the years, a character of characters, talked openly about sometimes recording an LSD and announcing an LSD and no one better than Bill Walton. But what I have found fascinating over the years is the people that have a little bit of scandal, and regardless of how they handle it, whether they're overly apologetic, whatever their position is, they are interesting often.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
And that's not good nor bad, but they are interesting. There are so many people that might have criticized the choice of Lance Armstrong as a speaker at the McGuire-Woods Health Care Private Equity Conference, but I can tell you this. The room was full. The room was explosive. Lance went and did a separate fitness thing at Barry's boot camp.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
It was organized by Holly Buckley and Jeff Cockrell and team. And just was fascinating and loved and interesting. And I think sometimes these people that have been stained or scathed, You have a new humility to them, and particularly then, they're really sort of a pleasure in their own way, and they are interesting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
Like when you talk about the perfect person – and I'm not sure who the perfect person is – the perfect person is… And again, we've had Arnold Schwarzenegger speak over the years who might have thought it was perfect. People thought it might have been this perfect story of bodybuilder to movie star to governor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
But, but here's been my experience in booking celebrity speakers for a hundred years, top in a hundred years, spent 33 years. I don't want to date myself, but we've been using speakers at events for a very long time. And, and, and this discussion comes a little bit out of, you know, this past week, Kevin Glantz Armstrong booked for the McGuire Woods Health Care Private Equity Conference.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
But then, of course, it turned out he impregnated the maid and had a baby with the maid and ended up in a horrendous divorce. with one of the scions of the Kennedy family. And of course, makes Arnold bad, but also makes Arnold more interesting. Not good or bad, but interesting. And so anyways, this is my thought today. Like when somebody asked me, is it okay if we book Lance Armstrong?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
You know, you always know you're going to get some criticism from people. And it can't be somebody who does things so bad. Like I would never book Kanye or somebody who's a racist or a hater or a horrible, horrible mean person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
Of course, you can't book those kinds of people regardless, not only because they're morally reprehensible, because they're morally reprehensible, but people that have had some scars, celebrities with some scars, often make the best speakers. And again, this is sort of the shout out to the job of the team at McGuire Woods who booked Lance Armstrong.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
It's also the shout out to Lance Armstrong for being so engaging, willing to own whatever he owns, but really explosively interesting. God bless those choices. My own perspective is celebrities with scars are often far more interesting. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
You know, over the years, we've had David Faraday speak. We've had Rick Pitino speak, Bill Clinton speak. Then we've also had lots of people that have not been particularly sustained in some way or another or marred in some way or another. Hillary Clinton, President Bush. Lou Alcindor slash Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and a host more that have not had particularly a knock on them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
So here is the great challenge in picking a celebrity speaker that has had some sort of knock on them. Rick Pitino had this whole scandal at one of his coaching jobs. People thought he would never coach again. Of course, he came back and has had this crazy success at St. John's this last year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Celebrity Speakers With Scars Are Often Much More Interesting 5-20-25
Lance Armstrong, the most decorated American cyclist of all time, turned out plenty of doping scandals and all kinds of things. And so that sort of took away from his reputation. But he came to speak last week. David Faraday had had some substance issues, some other issues, but just fantastic to listen to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is, can you do a great deal with bad people? And again, I have to broadly define and distract what is bad people versus good people. There are plenty of difficult people to do business with that are very good people that I still wouldn't want to be a business with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
And it's almost like when you're working with a partner, a staff member, an employee of yours, a vendor of yours, whoever you're working with, one of the tests of great relationships is those people periodically make a mistake. And you have to decide at that point, how are you treating those people? Good partners treat those people well when they make mistakes and realize it's a mistake.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
It's not part of the entire ecosystem. Similarly, when somebody thoughts they were getting paid something and they might have misunderstood, so they're getting paid a little bit less, if they've been doing a great job and they are great performers and great employees or great partners, you try and make sure that they're made whole one way or another.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
And you certainly get that comfort in certain partnerships that that is how people are going to behave and you'll be able to to work with them, and I think that is, at the end of the day, the kinds of people you want to do business with, and for a variety of reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
You could have the very best lawyers and spend incredible amounts of dollars on lawyers, but those lawyers, you can't legislate every situation that happens. You just can't do it. And so what you really want is people that, through good or bad, that you could work with because you're never going to be able to legislate or regulate or write down a contract every single thing that happens.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
In the best of businesses, the contracts go away and you're only looking at them every once in a great, great while. I always remember when a client says, we need to look at that provision. This is always a bad sign. That means that somebody's having a tiff with somebody or some conflict over something. Never a good sign. And it's similar.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
You're far better off doing business with people that you can trust, that you like versus that you can't because even with the best lawyers, it's going to be a constant evolution of what you're doing and what's happening. So to take it a step further. So one set of category is people that are just difficult, tough, smart people that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
that just you might choose not to work with, no matter how smart and talented they are. The second type of people are people that are slightly dishonest or that are dishonest, that tell you one thing and are telling principals the other thing, or telling you, oh, I don't want to do this, but I'm told I have to do this. I need to find out that's not the case.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
So you have people, I am by nature not wired to go for every last nickel or last penny. I'm one who's a believer. You build businesses, you get wealthy, others get wealthy. We all do well in that it doesn't work well when you're back and forth fighting on every little piece of everything. It's bad karma for business that doesn't work out well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
And this happens in business so often that I can't even tell you. And again, The first core category of people, people that want an ad, they're difficult, that are sort of buy the book when the book goes in their favor, might not be when the book's not going in their favor. You can find ways to do business with them. You might not prefer it, but you can find ways to do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
The second time of people – and I go back to 100 years ago. I was working side by side with a consulting firm on a huge project for years, and the consulting firm always said – We always have to wait on our bills. We're all waiting on our bills, not just you, the law firm, but us, the consulting firm, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
And when that consulting firm finally got terminated from that client, what I found was that the law firm, me, we were nine months behind on our bills. The consulting firm, regardless of what they had told me, was getting paid every week and guaranteed that they got paid every week. This would be closer to the set of not really honest dealing versus you just can't contract around it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
When I look at this, I'm at the end of the day, again, and one of the great steps in my business career was the period of time when I had enough clients that I didn't have to take on any clients regardless of how they behaved. That's a great sort of point in anybody's professional career in development. Similarly, as you're looking at doing deals, you have different types of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
You have people that just are really good people. And one of the reasons back in the day, we ended up with one of the partners that I have is because a close, close colleague had worked really closely with them and vouched for them as being straightforward, good people. And at the end of the day, Very smart people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
They may not be the smartest, the toughest, the this, the that, but they're honest, good people to deal with. And so when you go through your different differences over the years, you work through them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
In contrast, if you're dealing with people that are either two flavors of difficult, either they're so hard edged that you really feel like if there's a challenge or a problem, you can't really work through it, or two, They're overly greedy in certain spots, and it doesn't leave room for you to take care of the rest of your people and team.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
That's no good if you feel like you can't trust them on that. Or third, if you hear one thing, but they're really doing something else, that also is a signal that you really can't do business with those people. Again, you can't contract past difficult people. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
Again, as always, if this resonates with you, hear your thoughts on it, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
I once had a partner that we used to joke, if he ever flew over New York, Because he flew over New York once, he had ownership of any client that was ever out of New York. And that was obviously hyperbole, but it was that kind of feeling that a dollar for me was less important than a penny or a half penny for him. But just very difficult to do business like that in the long run. Temporarily, yes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
In the long run, no. So there's some people that are difficult. They just feel like they are just, you know, they're out for every nickel. They are very feisty. You can't really communicate and talk with them normally. And I'll talk about those people first, because even those people are honest people. And you know what you're getting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Can You Do a Great Deal With Bad People? 5-20-25
I find that a very hard way to live one's life and to do business. And so that's sort of one set of things. The other thing with all these business relationships, business relationships are exactly that. Over the long run, they're a business relationship.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is this discussion of the solopreneur versus building teams. And I'd love your comments on this chapter. It's going to be a chapter from a book. It's a podcast today. And if you want to send me a comment or comments at 773-766-5322, I would just love your comments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
But even there with most serious businesses, You'll need some full-time people every day to really build something is my impression. The great entrepreneurs in our country are iconic. And sometimes I feel like these people on X or social media are looking up to them as though like, look, you could be a solopreneur or something special.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
But the reality is all of them, whether Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Judy Faulkner, or so many others, none of them were solopreneurs. All of them built with serious teams. In building a law practice, this practice really grew as I began to build a team. This allowed me to take care of clients while also having the time to try and bring in new clients.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
At Becker's Healthcare, similarly, the business did fine for several years when I outsourced everything. But it really grew when I started to hire full-time employees and build a team. Obviously, many of those teammates were absolutely extraordinary, and that's a different story. You could be a solo business, sure. You could be a consultant or a writer or an executive coach or many other things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
A therapist that I speak with has what I think is a solo preneur business. My sense is, though, if you want to build something serious or big, you're likely to have to commit to building larger teams. They could be outsourced. They could be internal. But my experience is there's really no way around ultimately having a core full-time internal team.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Again, we'd love your comments. We hope you enjoy this. 773-766-5322. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
Throughout the book, when I get to the book in more depth, We'll talk in depth about teams, niches, customers, and some of the things we always talk about. But here, in this podcast, in this chapter, we'll discuss this concept of solopreneurs, or what I like to often call the myth of the solopreneur. The concept of the solo entrepreneur is talked about often on X and social media.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
It's the idea that one can, by themself, build a serious business. In my experience, I've tried both the concept of going it alone and the concept of building the growing teams. Personally, I have found time and time again that it's incredibly difficult to build anything serious as a solopreneur. Sure, you could build a business that could pay your bills and run it by yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
You could run a subway by yourself, but I guess that's not really a solopreneur. And there are a lot of things you can't do by yourselves. You could be a writer, perhaps, but you still need people to help you in the publishing and everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs. Building Teams 5-20-25
There are a lot of things you could do as a solopreneur, but it's very hard for me to see many of them they could do without some help or some assistance. Whether you outsource key parts of the business or hire people full-time, my sense is that it's really nearly impossible to build a serious business without building teams. They could be outsourced teams. They don't have to be full-time teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 5-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are the five largest companies in the U.S. by revenue. And I find this fascinating because these companies are also in the news so much. Number one and still king is Walmart. We'll come back to Walmart in a second. Number two is Amazon. Number three is UnitedHealthcare. Number four is Apple. And number five is CVS.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 5-20-25
It's got a Medicare Advantage fraud investigation going. It's had a tough, tough year. Those are the five largest companies by revenues. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, you got Walmart. Amazon, United, Apple, and CVS Health. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 5-20-25
So just a few quick notes about a couple of these. Walmart's up 9% year-to-date. It has shown tremendous strength over a very long period of time. It has got itself in a tricky situation now as it tries to describe the impact on tariffs to the markets by taking flak from President Trump as it does so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 5-20-25
It's complicated more by the fact that many of its stores are in red states where President Trump is widely popular, wildly popular. So saying anything that irritates the president can cause you business backlash. So that's fascinating to watch. A note on Apple. Apple has fallen this year to third in market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 5-20-25
Number one is Microsoft, and number two is NVIDIA, which has really been surging lately. So you got those two in front of it. And then third is Apple, back above $3.1 trillion or so, $3.2 trillion, right around there in market cap. Just remember, just a year ago, not very long ago, it was flirting with $4 trillion in market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Largest U.S. Companies by Revenue 5-20-25
So a significant change from a year ago, and it was number one in market cap. Now it's number three. The third company we're talking about for a moment is United Healthcare. United Healthcare is down 42% this year. It seems like it's had nothing but bad news. Its most recent CEO, Andrew Witte, just decided to leave the company, to resign. It stopped giving guidance for the year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
This is Scott Becker with a special episode of the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by one of the most interesting leaders in the country. We're joined today by Rahul Gupta. And Dr. Gupta is going to talk to us about the latest things that he's doing, his career, some advice for leaders, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
I mean, that's amazing. And I had a chance to visit with you about that a couple of years ago in an amazing effort under your leadership, the administration and more. And I know you've made a recent transition. Talk about what you're doing currently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
Dr. Gupta, can you take a moment and tell us about your career and about what you're doing currently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
And that's amazing. And give us on a 1 to 10, how excited are you about this new role after the really exciting role you had last time? Because that was an amazing role you had in the Biden administration. Talk about your excitement here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
world with the advent of artificial intelligence and hopefully being able to shorten clinical trials and experimenting. Give us some of the trends you're watching in sort of this critical drug development area and world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
I think one of the most interesting things I see about you is what a fascinating career you have had. Talk a little bit about what advice you give people pursuing interesting careers. You've had this magnificent career. You've also done an incredible job of developing long-term partnerships and relationships that have been very helpful for your career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
Talk a little bit about that relationship building and also just about advice on having a great and satisfying career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
But I think that's so important because how you've looked at this is is lifelong learning and then constantly thinking about where it applies well, what's needed, what can be done. And you've really positioned yourself in some fantastic areas. And as a born genetic, you've made a big impact in those areas. I got to tell you, it's fantastic to watch Dr. Gupta.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
Anything else you'd like to leave with our listeners today? It's always great for me to catch up with you. It's great to catch up with your colleague as well, who's the biggest fan of.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revolutionizing Drug Discovery with AI: A Conversation with Dr. Rahul Gupta of GATC Health 3-18-25
It's just fantastic what you do and what you've done throughout your career. I love watching you. Again, Dr. Rahul Gupta, thank you for joining us on this special combined episode of the Becker Healthcare and Becker Private Equity Podcast. Always a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you for having me, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today's discussion is the wrongness of binary thinking. So one of the things that's happened, and I see this when I post something about any subject, there are immediately positions from the left and the right That just, you know, try and destroy the position.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
It's somewhere in between. It's not no DEI at all or all DEI. It's, again, somewhere in between. And I can criticize when the deficit of two trillion dollars and I can certainly see that it's probably a mix of both incredibly obnoxious spending, maybe cutting taxes too much. I tend to fall more in the watching the spending area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
But the truth is somewhere in between that there's a lot of blame on both administrations. Republicans and Democrats for our deficits. Again, the concept is this binary thinking is largely wrong and the truth on most issues is somewhere in between. And the more we can get back to as a nation and people to problem solving, the better off I think we will all be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
And the reality is I'm a huge believer that almost everything, almost everything in life, that the reality is that the truth is somewhere in between. So it's not that the Dems are all wrong or the Republicans are all right, but usually it's that they're somewhere in between. That's the correct answer. It's not that we shouldn't spend a lot of money on universities. Of course we should.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
We should also understand where the money's going, and there has to be accountability of it in some sense, whether it's being used for good research purposes and good purposes in general or not. It's not that Ukraine is totally right and Russia is totally wrong. In general, the truth is somewhere in between. It's the same thing with Israel and Palestine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
It's not that Israel is 100% right and should destroy Gaza and and the Palestinians are 100% wrong, it's quite frankly, the truth is somewhere in between. The Palestinians have the right to live, but sure as heck, Israel has a right to live in peace as well. And again, on almost every issue, the truth lies somewhere in between.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stupidity of Binary Thinking 3-18-25
And there can be categorical oughts, of course, categorical spots where the truth is not in between. But I find that in 99% of the situations... that the reality is that there's always a middle position that's probably the right position, that the truth is somewhere in between. And that spot in the middle is usually the right spot sooner or later. For example, it's not MAGA or WOKE.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is about American Eagle Outfitters and on the broader topics of share buybacks. So here's the deal with American Eagle Outfitters, and I'll put RH in the same category. Companies do share buybacks for multiple different reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
Now, there's famous companies, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, that over time, if you share buybacks, And a lot of it depends on the integrity of leadership. When I see Warren Buffett do it, I generally believe he's doing it because he truly thinks it's his best use of cash right now, and he's not going to the bank typically to do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
In these cases, RH and American Eagle Outfitters, they're doing something very different. They're going to the bank to finance share buybacks, and they better have a return on that and hope that it goes in the right direction. I don't know that it will. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope we shed a little light for you on share buybacks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
Again, often used for dastardly purposes, sometimes used for good purposes. Depends a lot on the financial situation of the company and what you're doing. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
Currently, American Eagle Outfitters is down 48% over the last 12 months and down 28% year to date. RH is having a similar type of situation, at least this year, where they're down significantly. One of the things that both companies have in common is they both recently announced share buybacks. And share buybacks have multiple different pieces, some good, some bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
The place where we hate share buybacks is is when a company is burning through cash and is using bank leverage or bank financing to do the share buyback. And that's essentially what RH, the American Eagle Outfitters, are doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
They're borrowing money to do share buybacks, and it largely feels like they don't know what else to do, and this gives their shareholders a quick goose because it pops up the share price because now you've got less shares outstanding. It's somewhat artificial because you've borrowed enough money to do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
American Eagle Outfitters & Share Buybacks 3-18-25
So that's sort of what we see with American Eagle Outfitters and with the situation with RH, using share buybacks. Even worse, in one of those two cases, the CEO is selling into the share buyback, which makes you really think they don't have a lot of confidence in the company and just a financial engineering game. So again, share buybacks in American Eagle Outfitters.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to talk today about five different stories that we're watching today. I'll start with the first. Just the first is that the markets are tanking today, down about 1%. Let's hope that doesn't last all day. Let's hope it gets better.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-18-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, always feel free to text Scott Becker. Thoughts, topics, ideas, 773-766-5322. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-18-25
We had a couple of good days in the market, which was a nice relief after the last couple of weeks. Second, four of the largest private equity funds that we watch are all having a tough year so far. KKR is down 22%. Blackstone is down 15%. Apollo Global Management is also down 15%. And TPG is also down 22% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-18-25
Again, those are constantly changing, but directionally, the private equity funds are having a tough year so far. Third, the big payers. Let's talk about the big payers. UnitedHealth is about flat year to date, but CVS is surging and up 47% year to date. That's after a tough year last year, but still an amazing recovery. And Cigna Healthcare is also up about 15%. Those are both going well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-18-25
Fourth, a couple of companies we talk about regularly that are two of the biggest losers over the last year. Stellantis slash Jeep down 56% plus over the last 52 weeks. Oatly, the oatmeal company, down 51% over the last year, but Oatly did rise 7% yesterday. Finally, fifth, Intel, which was a big loser last year, is rebounding this year. It rose another 7% yesterday, and it's up 28% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-18-25
So those are five of the stories we're following. We'll also talk separately about American Eagle outfitters and share buybacks shortly on a different podcast. We'll also talk about the world's not binary. Again, this is not a discussion about gender. We're talking about binary opinions and thoughts. We'll talk about that next.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Last Year’s Losers, Today’s Winners: Intel & Walgreens Rebound 2-18-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast the podcast this week was ranked number one in the nation in terms of the apple business news rankings ahead of the wall street journal podcast so we're always thrilled to see that today's topic is last year's losers are today's winners intel and walgreens so so here's what's going on over the last year
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Last Year’s Losers, Today’s Winners: Intel & Walgreens Rebound 2-18-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We like to learn something. We hope you're entertained. God bless you all, and thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Last Year’s Losers, Today’s Winners: Intel & Walgreens Rebound 2-18-25
Intel and Walgreens have largely taken to the chin time and time again. Each was down about 60% last year. Today is a different day. This is one of those days where you wake up, things have been going poorly, and today's a much better day. So that's what's going on with Intel and Walgreens, and both for different reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Last Year’s Losers, Today’s Winners: Intel & Walgreens Rebound 2-18-25
Walgreens is up 10 plus percent today on basically news that takeover rumors may come back. At one point, the deal with Sycamore, one of the private equity funds, was largely tabled. Now there's rumors that that may come back. On that news, Walgreens is up about 12 to 13 percent today. Now that could go back and forth depending on what all happens. Intel is a very similar story.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Last Year’s Losers, Today’s Winners: Intel & Walgreens Rebound 2-18-25
It was down about 60% last year, and now today it's up about 11%. There, it's on rumors that Intel may at some point have greater value being broken up than staying together. That's what's going on with Intel. But again, Intel rebounding this year versus what happened last year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Last Year’s Losers, Today’s Winners: Intel & Walgreens Rebound 2-18-25
And so far, Walgreens is up 17% this year as opposed to last year, which was just an absolutely horrible year for Walgreens. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, Intel's up about 30% year-to-date, about 12% today. Walgreens is up about 17% year-to-date and up about 12% today. So both rebounded tremendously from last year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is back to the basics when you're struggling. So here's the deal. Periodically, whether it's in business, investments, eating, tennis or golf, or relationships, I will be not where I want to be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
But the idea is that you have to periodically reset to get yourself back to the basics of the core things that work for you and constant. Unfortunately, throughout life, it's not static. It's a constant adjustment. So we view this as a cardinal rule.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
You know, when I get off kilter, when I'm performing poorly on my middle age scorecard, it's this effort to get back to the basics and try and make things work as they're supposed to work. But I think that's the best fix I have for most of these things is back to the basics. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
Again, if you like this episode, send me a text at 773-766-5322. And if you're the first, I'll go ahead and send you a gift card, a $100 Amazon gift card. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
Like I have something that I talk to my children about, which I call the middle-aged scorecard, which would go through my tennis, golf, fitness, business, investments, diet, closest with friends and family, you know, and is a basic synopsis of how I'm doing and am I happy with how things are and so forth. And periodically, usually when my life gets just a little bit too out of control,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
I've over-caffeinated. I've committed to too many things. Things all start to bleed into the wrong category. If it was a bar graph, they'd all be showing the wrong color versus the right color if it was a dashboard. And I should be able to create a good dashboard for this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
And when it's going poorly, I have to sort of get back to the basics of what I do, whether it's in diet, sticking to drinking a ton of water and easing on the caffeine. If it's businesses and investments, back to sort of categorical on Tuesday mornings, this is who I reach out to, this is what I do. On Wednesdays, this is the newsletter I write. Whatever it might be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Back to the Basics When You’re Struggling 2-18-25
On investing, back to index funds, treasuries, and the allocation we want. In golf, back to relying on the short clubs and stopping, trying to hit the three wood. In tennis, it might be in doubles, back to get the return in place and get to net. On the serve, it might be back to You'll make sure you're scratching your back and knocking that head off your head to get that service motion right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the art of saying no, how to judge invitations. One of the things that happens is when you're early on in your career, you try and say yes to a lot to fill up your plate, to make sure you're thriving and sprawling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
If it's right in my sweet spot, almost always yes. Fourth, Someone business-focused wants to be on our podcast or webinar for no charge. Generally, no, but perhaps yes, if I'm genuinely interested in the person, generally love talking to them, or I'm super appreciative of them, but generally we use the concept, nobody writes for free. It's an old song, it's an old statement from a song or movie.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
Nobody writes for free. Fifth, business, lunch, dinner, or coffee. I try and say no to this all the time. I can't stand the business lunches or the coffees unless they're close friends or people I really want to talk about. I just can only handle so much stress in my life and schedule's too tight and I don't have the patience for it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
So the business lunches, dinners, coffees, we really try and avoid. Sixth, the short advice or intro call. I try and say yes, sometimes overwhelmed, and there are periods of time we'll go through just way too many invitations for these kinds of things. But we'll generally try and say yes if we at all can.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
But sometimes it's just too hard to block out the time and the energy for it and the energy suck of it. In any event, that's sort of the art and arc of saying no, how we judge invitations. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We hope that this resonates with some people. I constantly have to struggle with
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
As you get more senior, you get to the spot where if you don't set some boundaries, your life will be completely out of control and overwhelming. So what I've had to do due to that is to try and set some boundaries on how I say yes and no to speaking in other invitations. This is a quick wrap up on six thoughts on that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
what we can do and can't do and still remain energetic and effective. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
First, virtual speaking or podcast guest, I almost always say yes, particularly if there's some kind of synergy or educational effort and the host makes it easy to execute or we love the host or appreciative of the host or the invitation. Second, in-person speaking out of town.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
Here, I try and limit this to six to eight a year out-of-town talks and generally leave them to there's some kind of synergy. It's someone who I'm indebted to or very appreciative of. It's right in my sweet spot. It's someone that's done so much for us where I feel hard to say no or it's a great customer or client or somebody I'm just honored to speak at. You also look at is it easy to travel to?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Art of Saying No: How to Say “No” to Invitations 2-18-25
Are there other synergies? Is it close to family or close friends that I'd love to see? I do talk about, is there payment? Is somebody paying me to speak or not? Generally, most of my talks are not paid talks. Some are. It's more of a nice thing than an absolute. Third, in-town speaking, a much lower barrier to say yes. If it's educational or charity, it's almost always yes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We are so thankful for our listeners always. So thank you very, very much. Here's what's going on today in the business world and more. We'll go through eight quick stories. First, the markets were pointing up pre-opening. Now they point down a little bit. We'll see how the day goes. Totally to tell for sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
If you're not a company, if you're some sort of health system executive or independent, be the first person to text me and we'll get you free and right for that. Again, that's April 28th to May 1st in Chicago. Finally, listen today to our podcast on the art and arc of saying no and how we judge speaking and other invitations.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
Second, Russia and the United States are holding peace talks in Saudi Arabia. One way or another, we do need to try and be involved in discussions to end these types of conflicts, this one between Russia and Ukraine. So good or bad, I applaud the efforts to be in the middle of it and trying to figure out how to solve this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
Third, Walmart, the first or second largest company in the United States by revenues. Amazon might have overtaken them this year. Releases earnings on Thursday. Always a good bellwether for what's going on in the economy. Fourth, January retail sales were down for the most in the last year. Clobbered in January. Says a lot about potentially consumer confidence.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
Fifth, when struggling at anything, whether it's in business, diet, sports, Go back to the basics. Go back to the basics and figure out what those are and get back at them. Sixth. Congratulations today to all-time great person and professional Steve Stein. Steve is a wonderful, wonderful leader in sort of the data and privacy area. Just a fantastic leader. Seventh.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following in the Business World Today 2-18-25
The McGuire-Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference is set for May 14th and 15th at Chicago at the Ritz-Carlton. Lance Armstrong is keynoting. If you want a free invite to that, be the first person to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. The Becker's Healthcare Annual Meeting is set for April 28th to May 1st again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly's one of the smartest leaders that I know. She works at the intersection of healthcare and private equity. She also manages and leads a department of tons of people. Just does a fantastic job.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
She's got a few topics today, and I'm going to ask her a couple questions today as well. Let me tee us up first with one of the questions I have, and then I'll let you get into some of the topics you're bringing today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
But to your point, I couldn't agree with that advice more about trying to first center oneself and going back to the core, the basics of what works for you. Whether it's breathing, for me, it's drinking enough water, doing enough steps, doing just basic stuff to keep myself centered. And then how do you translate that to the group that you lead? Because you lead a group of 60, 70 attorneys.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
How do you translate that? And how do you translate that into how you communicate with clients who themselves are stressed as funding moves in and out of possibilities? As if you're representing private equity funds, they tend to get softer on doing acquisitions when there's lots of uncertainty.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
How do you communicate with your both client base, the private equity funds and healthcare systems, and then with your team of 60, 70 lawyers to keep on plugging along even as things go through peaks and valleys?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
So, Holly, here's the question to start with, and this is a leadership question. There is so much noise going on in the world and in the markets between the tariff discussion, the trying to bring some manufacturing home discussion, the markets going up and down. It seems like there's so much noise. How, as a leader, do you lead people and help them to sort of keep doing what they have to be doing
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
No, I think you've hit it right on. And this concept of you have to go beyond the headlines to figure out what's really going on and how bad or good things are. And so you're absolutely right. I mean, there's two big areas of healthcare services is actually providers being providers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
And then there's everything else that sells into providers or payers or other places, which might be health tech services in all kinds of other services. And on both of those, depending what you're doing, they're not necessarily providers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
directly impacted by the tariff situation, although there's indirect consequences and everything, but really trying to drill down to take some of these sort of news cycle out of every business decision and just be able to focus on does it really have an impact or not?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
You know, somebody the other day was on the podcast and said, look, the tariff thing, he's not a fan of it, but he also said of our 28 to 30 trillion dollar economy, two to three trillion is imports. That means 90% of our economy is not necessarily directly affected. And we know it's deeper than that because some of those imports are so, so important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
But his concept was you have to try and ignore some of the news and move through some analysis on it. And again, we're talking about a couple sectors, healthcare services that I broadly divide into provider services versus tech and other kinds of services where you're not a direct provider. The provider side has struggled a lot the last few years, at least the practice roll-up side.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
But the other side, the services side that sells into providers is not nearly as much, even though they're customer basis providers. And you sort of have to really dig through the noise as to how affected things are, recognizing that finance challenges affect a lot of things beyond just tariffs and imports and so on and so on. But I think that's exactly right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
The other thing I think that you do a great job of modeling is when there's different levels of duress, the staying calm with your team, with your clients, with others. And I think this is one of your real strengths. I know, for example, each you and Chanel talk to me very often. I've talked to you for 20 years very often and Chanel the last several years all the time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
And I think sometimes I don't model that very well. I know we were on a call last week, right? Something go wrong outside of what we were doing. And you have this great emotional maturity or sense of things to know, Scott, is everything OK? And I think it's fascinating how good some people are at modeling that calm and strength through stress.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
And now some of us, namely myself, are not always that great at that, no matter how hard we try and breathe and stay intent on being calm under pressure and not letting outside factors get to us. And I think these concepts of trying to really drill down to what something means, do the tariffs have real impact on the OB-GYN practice that's being rolled up or not?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
And there's so many of these news cycle things like the Medicaid cuts. Are those real? How big will they be? Are there really cuts? How much are they going to impact this business? We know it's general news in the wrong direction, but we have to do a whole different level of dive to understand how much impact it really has.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
And those that can really do that assessment sometimes have a real advantage.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
even when there's so much constant noise around everybody? How do you sort of either stay focused yourself or keep your team and your own teams focused? How do you think about those issues when there's just periodically so much noise in the news?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
Yeah, and not getting too up or too down based on what's going on with it, because day to day could be a whole different story depending on what's going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
You know, and when you hear anything come out of D.C., there is an immediate reaction, not just by the press, but by many people on the right and left, of course, of concern because it's a change and it's scary and trying to stay as calm as you can.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
when these things happen as to what the real impact is going to be and try and breathe and think through it versus overly reacting emotionally to this or that, particularly when it's unclear what's actually going to happen versus what's discussed. And it's, it's, it's really hard to manage through it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Staying Focused in Uncertain Times: Leadership Lessons from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 4-15-25
We couldn't agree more. Holly, I want to thank you, as always, for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You're one of our top listened guests, and for good reason. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stocks & Their YTD Results 4-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, if you're the first person to text me on this, I'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. That text number is 773-766-5322. These are nine of the stocks that we follow in fasting, and we'll tell you what they're doing year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stocks & Their YTD Results 4-15-25
First, two of the big PE stocks, KKR is down 30% year to date, and Apollo Global Management is down 24% year to date. Third, Tesla, down 37% year-to-date. Everybody seems to follow Tesla. Fourth, Walgreens, after a horrible year last year, is up 16% year-to-date. That's largely based on the deal where Sycamore Partners is buying Walgreens. Fifth, UnitedHealthcare is up 16% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stocks & Their YTD Results 4-15-25
They were down last year. This year, all the payers are getting a boost from improved payments from Medicare Advantage from the Trump administration. Next, Palantir Technologies, the company Peter Thiel bought. It's one of the few companies I've invested in individually, which I should never be investing in anything individually, is up 22% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stocks & Their YTD Results 4-15-25
America Express, another stock we followed that I think if I was going to invest in individual stocks, it's going to do, is down 14% year-to-date. FTI Consulting, where a close colleague just went to work. down 13% year-to-date, but that's run-of-the-mill for the consulting firms.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stocks & Their YTD Results 4-15-25
And finally, ninth, Alliance Bernstein, where one of my favorite all-time money managers works, is up almost 2% year-to-date. Those are nine of the stocks that we follow. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're back with you later with more episodes, and thank you so much for listening. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is we're going to talk about some movements of companies and plants and production and a lot more. And it's fascinating to try and power through this and figure out What is tariff related? What is just generally related? What predates the Trump administration? And a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
Fifth, goodness from Bank of America. Bank of America had a terrific first quarter. Its profits rose 11% to $7.4 billion. Its revenues rose 6% to $27.37 billion. It had a great first quarter. Finally, sixth. General Motors is suspending production and laying off 500 at its electric vehicle plant in Ontario, Canada. They say that this is due to weakening demands and not due to tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
General Motors is down 15.26% year to date. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
So here are six or seven of these stories and sort of things moving around. Maybe that's the best way to call it. Jobs moving around. First, Honda is reportedly trying to move more of its production from China and Mexico to the U.S., The U.S. is Honda's biggest market. They sell about 1.4 million vehicles a year here, nearly 40% of the global sales.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
They import about 40% of those cars from China, from Canada, and Mexico. They're trying to move more of those here, those jobs here. Second, Advanced Micro Devices said on Tuesday its key processor chips would now be made at TSMC's new production site in Arizona. making the first time that its products will be manufactured and parked in the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
This is very important, and part of this does predate Trump. They're trying to move some of the chip development and manufacture to the U.S. Apple and Nvidia are also going to move some of their chips there, their production there. Currently, about 90% of chips are being made in Taiwan, and if China ever takes over Taiwan, that's a horrendous situation to be in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We’re Following Today 4-15-25
Third, for all those that fly often, American Airlines, which is the most obnoxious cost for Wi-Fi, said it's going to move to free high-speed internet next year through a partnership with AT&T. American Airlines is down 45% year-to-date. Fourth, China tells its airlines to stop buying Boeing, Jess, or to not take delivery of them. Boeing's down about 10% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Working a 9-5 & Following X/Twitter 4-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's first podcast deals with the following concept, working nine to five and following Twitter slash X. So here's the deal. If you're on Twitter, X, excuse me, they romanticize the entrepreneur and the person who doesn't work to no end, almost to an obnoxious degree. And here's the deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Working a 9-5 & Following X/Twitter 4-15-25
I would say the backbone of our country is those that work. I use the phrase nine to five to reflect people that work, that have a job. And it doesn't have to be nine to five, of course. It doesn't matter what your hours are. People that work a job are the backbone of our country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Working a 9-5 & Following X/Twitter 4-15-25
And, of course, entrepreneurs that help create a job and push the economy and bring creativity are really important, too. But the disdain for either class, the working class, the people that actually – Power America, or the entrepreneurial class, those that are creative entrepreneurs. The same for either class is completely misplaced. Both are critical to our nation and to everything that we do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Working a 9-5 & Following X/Twitter 4-15-25
And this concept, if you read on Twitter, you would think that everybody that works a job for pay is a loser. And then once in a while, people get it, say like, even if you're an entrepreneur, most of us had to work a job first and earn a wage to learn what's going on in the world. But at the end of the day,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Working a 9-5 & Following X/Twitter 4-15-25
Great respect for those that punch a clock, those that work a job, those that do all the things that power our country. God bless them all. And of course, great respect for the entrepreneurial class as well. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled this past week to pass 7 million downloads and to get to the spot we're ranked for the last couple of weeks, the very top of the Apple Business News chart rankings. We're excited today to be joined by John Santana.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
John, we've had a chance to watch Clearwater grow over the years. It's impressive what you folks have done. When you look at private equity firms that invest in healthcare, they acquire healthcare organizations. What kind of unique cybersecurity challenges do they face? And how do these risks differ than some of those in other industries?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
John is a principal consultant at Clearwater Security, and he focuses on private equity firms assessing their cybersecurity risks across their portfolio of healthcare investments. He's also served as lead author on the Cyber Risk Benchmark Trend Report on Healthcare PE that Clearwater recently published. John, can I ask you to take a moment to tell us a bit about yourself and about Clearwater?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
Thank you. And take a moment and talk about how should private equity firms approach cybersecurity due diligence before closing a health care investment and other common pitfalls to avoid too?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
Thank you. And another question, once an investment is made, once a private equity fund invests in a healthcare company, what governance structures or risk management strategies should be implemented to monitor and improve cybersecurity? How do you do that going forward?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
Thank you. And take a second. For private equity funds that have lots of different investments in the healthcare portfolio, centralized approach to cybersecurity, decentralized. What's the common prevailing wisdom and what advice do you have on that and how much people take a centralized approach versus the decentralized approach?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
No, no, no, no. You're fantastic and no reason to be nervous. And God bless you. Tell us a little about yourself and Clearwater Security.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
Thank you very much. And take a moment, John, just to wrap up. What are you most focused on and excited about this year as we get to the second ever this year? Where are you most focused and excited?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
Thank you very, very much. John, what a pleasure to visit with you. What an amazing job Clearwater Security has done. Thank you so much for your leadership in the cybersecurity space with private equity funds. Again, we're joined today by John Santana. Just fantastic. John, thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cybersecurity in Healthcare Private Equity: Insights from Clearwater’s John Santana 5-13-25
Thank you for having me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
This is Scott Becker with this special episode of the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Here's the discussion today, and I had to have this discussion with a family member recently. When you hit somebody else's car and you're not going through insurance, but you promise the other person you'll pay for their car, there are three things that could happen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
doesn't take advantage of the situation uh and gives you a bill that's reasonable at the end of the day it never feels fair but you ought to say thank you very much and sell that person right away thank you for listening to the becker's private equity and business podcast thank you very much
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
And particularly, we're talking here about a relatively small accident. One is the person in their body shop can really screw you, and you get a bill that's far, far bigger than you might have expected. Second is you get a bill that's below $1,000, and we'll talk about that in a second. And third is you get no bill at all. The person has decided it's a minor nick, and they're not going to fix it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
And so here is my perspective on this. If you end up with either of situation two or three, you hit somebody and they ultimately give you a bill less than $1,000 or they decide not to get it fixed right now, you should thank them for their courtesy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
My perspective is if you're not getting screwed by them, because now once you've hit somebody else's car, you've really got an open invitation to be screwed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
If they're not screwing you and they've gone through the pain in the butt, bringing the car to the body shop, taking care of it, doing everything else that has to be done, the inconvenience, moving your car there, getting it fixed and so forth, and you get a bill for, in this case, it was $475 or $600, really anything less than $1,000.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When You Hit Somebody Else’s Car: 3 Possible Outcomes 5-13-25
Because once you're in that spot where you're in body shop hell or dealership hell, anything could happen. And so God bless that person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Today’s Big News: UnitedHealthcare Tanking 5-13-25
This is Scott Becker with a special episode of the Becker Private Equity and Becker's Healthcare podcast. Today's big news is UnitedHealthcare tanking UnitedHealthcare plunged today as their CEO, Andrew Witte, stepped down as a surprise announcement. Andrew Witte largely has been really well thought of. United's down 16% today. It's down 38% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Today’s Big News: UnitedHealthcare Tanking 5-13-25
It's one of the huge juggernauts in terms of the nation. It's one of the fifth largest companies by sales and revenues in the nation. It's grown to have a huge insurance footprint, a huge provider footprint. And when you see it down 16% in a single day, down 36% for the year, you do start to have concern about what's going on with UnitedHealthcare.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Today’s Big News: UnitedHealthcare Tanking 5-13-25
Again, they've decided they're not giving guidance for the next quarter. Their CEO, Andrew Witte, hugely well regarded, stepped down unexpectedly. We'll keep an eye out on what's going on with UnitedHealthcare. Again, special news alert, UnitedHealthcare down 16%. Andrew Witte steps down. We'll see how this plays out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Today’s Big News: UnitedHealthcare Tanking 5-13-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Healthcare and Becker Private Equity podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Shout-Outs to Great Leaders & Organizations 5-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is five shout outs to great leaders in organizations. The first shout out goes to Rick Levin, the founder of Rick Levin and Associates, the premier real estate auction company in the country. They've also done so many other interesting things. So today's shout out goes to Rick and their efforts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Shout-Outs to Great Leaders & Organizations 5-13-25
Just a great friend and a great leader. So those are my five shout-outs today. Again, Kelly Blair, Nader Samyankut, Nimbo Vin and Associates, and a whole lot more. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Shout-Outs to Great Leaders & Organizations 5-13-25
The second shout-out goes to a company that I proudly serve on the board of. This is Nimble Solutions, led by Kelly Blair and Notter Sammy, Colin Monastero, and Tim Fuchs. Just a wonderful group of people, and so thrilled to be a part of their board. Also, Bob Wilhelm on the board, and sponsored by private equity fund, Aqua and Capital Partners.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Shout-Outs to Great Leaders & Organizations 5-13-25
A shout-out, and we're thankful to that crew every day. The third organization we'll give a shout out to is a not-for-profit organization, National Medical Fellowships. This is led by Micheline Davis. John Corzine, former governor of New Jersey, senator from New Jersey, serves as the chairman of the board. Again, this is an organization where I serve on the board of with Lloyd Dean.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Shout-Outs to Great Leaders & Organizations 5-13-25
Amazing what they do in trying to fill the gap. in doctors that are people of color and support people of color to get to medical school and have medical careers, amazing work. Fourth shout out goes to Stan Slovin, another close friend who recently took his team from Wells Fargo, set up their own wealth management job.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Shout-Outs to Great Leaders & Organizations 5-13-25
Stan has got the most amazing energy of almost anybody out there, tremendous personal skills, tremendous intelligence, tremendous energy skills, and a great shout out to him today. Finally, fifth goes to Mark Abramson, a close, close colleague. He has gone from being almost impossible to watch golf to a single-digit handicap over the last couple of years with tremendous determination.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are five of the stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We recently passed 7 million downloads. So thank you to all those that listened. Thank you. First, Goldman Sachs lifts targets for the S&P for the year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-13-25
Thank you for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-13-25
That's the first time we've seen that in a little bit. They're cautiously optimistic on the markets. Let's hope the surge continues. We do take the projections from the large financial firms with a grain of salt always. Second, Samsung is launching an ultra-thin phone. They beat Apple to the punch on this. Apple is trying to do the same thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-13-25
I don't know if anybody still can switch between Apple and Samsung without a huge amount of hassles and headaches. Third, Nissan, the once great motor company, almost like the University of Michigan of Sports, slashed 15% of its global workforce as it sinks towards losses. Again, Nissan, once with a gloried brand, it just really has struggled a long, strange fall they've had.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-13-25
Fourth, Apple stock rises on tier of relief. It was up about 7% yesterday. It's down about 16% year to date. Apple is number two to Microsoft in market cap. Would you buy Apple now, I guess, is one of the great questions. Fifth, Microsoft surged another 10% yesterday. Their market cap hits $3.34 trillion. Amazing what Microsoft has created.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Thank you. And is there any prediction as to how long this uncertainty will last? Now, many of us see a need for reducing government spending, bringing down inflation and so forth. But if the winning leads to lots of stock market reductions and deal flow slowing significantly, at some point we're all going to get tired of so much winning, as President Trump would say. Is there some point at which
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
The temperature will start to come down or should we expect four years of this sort of up and down and people being very concerned? I take it you don't have a prediction on that. You're probably not allowed to make a prediction on that. But from a business perspective, do you see some of this calming down over a certain period of time?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Thank you, Rick. That doesn't sound overly promising to us watching the markets crash today, but I'm hoping that this will be short lived. And, you know, I do wish Jamie Dimon had become Treasury Secretary, but he didn't want that job. And now we might be stuck with all kinds of people that are afraid to oppose President Trump. We'll see how it goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Rick Kass. We just had a discussion on the Becker Private Equity Podcast titled Too Much Winning, The Markets Are Crashing. And this goes to the concept that there's so much too much going on in D.C.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Rick, any other words of wisdom or words of comfort today? Because many of us with the NASDAQ down 4%, the S&P down 3% could use some of those calming words, those words of wisdom. I know you've got to have something for us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Thank you. That really goes back to the Jack Welch theory. Be the best in your niche. Be number one or two and you'll thrive in good times and survive in bad times and do the best you can and try and ignore the noise. I think that's right on. Rick, as always, that was comforting. So I appreciate you giving me some sanity and centeredness back today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Thank you very much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
that the markets don't know what to do with it between potential government shutdown, potential reduction in government spending, tariffs and trade wars. And I guess the question I have for you, Rick, is how How does this impact the private equity investors? They don't live in the same mode as the public markets. Will this create opportunities for them?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity in Uncertain Times: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 3-11-25
Will this kind of turmoil lead to some slowdown? What's your sense of how this will impact the private equity deal markets?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 3-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is nine stories that we're following today. Again, it's Tuesday, March 11th. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, the markets tanked yesterday on multiple concerns, government shutdown, tariffs, reduced government spending, recession fear, and more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 3-11-25
They spent on their cash reserves from nearly $1.5 billion to aggressively repurchase their own shares. They retired more than 20% of their own shares. Their CEO, in what some might think of as a sleazy move, sold shares into the repurchase, raising further questions about whether he's aligned with shareholders or not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 3-11-25
But again, those are nine of the stories we're following at Becker Private Equity and Business today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 3-11-25
We did record a podcast on this yesterday. the markets crashed, are we tired of winning yet? Second, the S&P fell 2.7%. The NASDAQ dropped 4%. Third, Tesla dropped nearly 15.5%, a bad day in Tesla world. Fourth, the major airline stocks all dropped significantly yesterday based on concerns regarding slowing air travel. United, for example, dropped 6% yesterday and was down nearly 5% pre-market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 3-11-25
Fifth, even though earlier today the futures pointed up, now they point down and are a disaster. The market's a disaster currently, down about 1% at the S&P. We'll see how that plays out throughout the day. It's been a volatile market. Sixth, planetary technologies dropped 10% yesterday. This brought it down to essentially flat year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 3-11-25
Seventh, two well-known names, Reddit and Robinhood, each dropped around 20% yesterday. Eighth, another well-known name, Trump Media and Technology Group dropped nearly 12% yesterday. He is having a challenging week. Ninth, two of the firms whose numbers we never fully trust, that's RH and Carvana, also dropped about 11% yesterday. RH, great story on them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will a Reduction in Government Spending Lead to Higher Unemployment? 3-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to respond to a reader question. One of the reader's questions we got this weekend was, will a reduction in government spending lead to higher unemployment? And the answer to this is almost certainly yes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will a Reduction in Government Spending Lead to Higher Unemployment? 3-11-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will a Reduction in Government Spending Lead to Higher Unemployment? 3-11-25
We've already got with the slowdown in government hiring and just starting to hit the down switch on government hiring, a slight increase in unemployment. I expect that if we the government was hiring 30,000 people a month, if that number goes down to zero or below zero, you're absolutely going to have some increase in unemployment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will a Reduction in Government Spending Lead to Higher Unemployment? 3-11-25
Now, this is a fascinating thing because this will lead to for a period of time, almost inevitably some sort of recession. And at the same time, it's also going to lead Chairman Powell sooner or later to reduce unemployment. federal funds rates to a lower number, which at some point will have an evening out effect as money gets cheaper again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will a Reduction in Government Spending Lead to Higher Unemployment? 3-11-25
But yes, you're almost certainly going to see some sort of unemployment increase as the government stops spending deficit spending. Currently, the government's about $2 trillion a year in deficit spending.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will a Reduction in Government Spending Lead to Higher Unemployment? 3-11-25
cutting that number some and again we kept ourselves out of a recession with that deficit spending but probably spent too much to do so by trying to avoid the natural economic cycles uh and and trying to use debt to pretend we have growth so when you go ahead and actually reduce government spending and reduce government payrolls we're going to have employment pop up no question about it let's just hope it can be done so in a rational way without throwing us into horrendous depression
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is around the following. You get in certain situations in life Where the apprentice gets to the spot, where the apprentice, the next in charge, gets better than the master, the teacher, the CEO, the leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
And I don't want to understate that. It's easy for me years later to understate the import on my own ego of having people that were now better than me running things I'd run for a long time. Those were very hard transitions. And for people that tell you they're not hard transitions, emotionally, they're probably lying to you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
I have the chance firsthand to see this evolution in another setting where one of the mentees is not quite there better than the mentor, but you could already see there are things that that mentee is able to do better than the mentor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
Now, it'll be a long time till she takes the mantle of leadership in that organization, but you see enough great things early on, just the way that she handles things, the way that she handles clients, the personal touch, the customer service, the math, the ability to analyze and dig deep and work through things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
entry customers with respect where you could see that mentee potentially becoming better than the mentor at some point. Now this is sometime into the future. I don't think it's today, but there are moments when I see the mentor, something he didn't do decades ago, slip on certain things and introduce different ideas into the system and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
that don't make the sense you would have thought of at one time, where sometimes the mentor feels like he's got to use equipment just because they're amortizing that equipment when back in the day that mentor would have known. It's a sunk cost. It's okay. Let's just work on doing the very best we could do today. There are certain signs we all see.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
In me running the McGuire Woods Health Care Department, I saw that I was slowing in my ability to constantly recruit, constantly show the right people in the right place. And Amber and then Holly was ready to do that. At some point, this meant Torme gets to that spot where he sees.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
And I've seen this a lot of times in my career, where at some point the people that I am mentoring or that were part of my team, you know, eclipse the work that I could do. And then it's time to make them the ultimate leader of whatever we're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
that he no longer can make decisions at the pace they need to be made at, that it's time to turn it over to the mentor, to that next generation. Again, that time is not now there. It's not there yet. But you could see it in all these organizations, that evolution of leadership from mentor to mentee. We'll see how this goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
We've had a wonderful experience with it in the organizations I've been involved in. I can tell you it's not always easy. It's very emotionally difficult to move into that next spot if you've led for a long time. But it's the right thing for the organization. It's the right thing for that person coming up. And it's almost always the right thing for the person stepping away.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
Now, Bob Iger will never respect this message, I am sure, nor will Elon Musk, and nor might my colleague, who also may at some point find himself in a situation where the mentee has eclipsed the ability, the strength, the perseverance, the ability to manage clients that the mentor used to have. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
If you have any questions or if you want to discuss any of these subjects further, feel free to text 773-766-5322. If you're the first person to text me on this podcast and you send me an idea for another podcast idea, We'll be happy to send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
I saw this in the health care group, the department I ran for 13 years at McGuire Woods, when we got to a spot where the energy, the growth, the sophistication, a whole lot of levels of things that had to be done could be done better by the mentor, Amber Walsh, the mentee, than by myself anymore.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
And that's the time when you recognize that it's time to move on and give that person the mantle and let her be the leader of the department. I saw the same thing at Becker's Healthcare, another organization that I there I founded it and grew it with the help of Jessica Cole. And there got to be a period of time early on where I put her in charge of everybody, sort of a CEO.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When the Mentee Eclipses the Mentor 3-11-25
And then later on, where I really put her in charge of everything as president and CEO, where she just got to the spot where her skills as a. mentee as a leader had eclipsed my skills, and she was the right person to run the organization and has been doing it for a long time. And I think just a fantastic part of evolution in business and growth is that understanding.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you all for joining us. I'll do a couple of introductory announcements before we get started with the substance of the program.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
And Craig, let me follow up with that because you talked about behavioral health and obviously so much different action and things going on behavioral health still and so much need. Is there an area that you're most focused on and excited about this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Is there one that you're most focused on and excited about either from the investment banking practice or sort of what you're seeing out there in terms of when you look at things?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you. Holly, I'm going to ask you one question from an audience member, FTC. Will there be less pressure going forward from the FTC under this new administration in terms of roll-ups and consolidations and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
I mean, the last administration under Lena Kahn, probably the biggest trust buster of the last 30, 50, 60 years, tried hard to sort of block mergers, tried hard to sort of, you know, try and move us away from some of the monopolization that's out there and people have different views on it, different thoughts on that, whether that's good or bad, but certainly was the most compelling FTC leader in a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
We're going to see less pressure going forward from the FTC on transactions, maybe offset by some of the state regulations. But what do you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you. I'm going to ask each of you one question, then we're going to get back to the core agenda. The next question I'm going to ask each of you, and Craig started to answer this, is the area that you're most focused on this year, a specific area you're most focused on this year. But before I get to that, I'll start with Bart, Matt, Craig, and come back to Holly on this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Just 30 seconds or a minute. There's all this discussion about the Department of Government Efficiency. One of the things that was said recently was that there's some insane number that could be cut out of Medicaid. Obviously, Medicaid, hospitals, health systems rely on that Medicaid. State governors love that Medicaid because it's one of these that gives governors their power.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
How much is the private equity community concerned about about federal discussion of cost cutting, or are they sort of in a wait and see mode? Bart, do you want to give us 30 seconds or a minute on what you're sort of hearing from clients about this, or is it just sort of wait and see? Because if those cuts really came through, it would have huge impact. But, Bart?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Matt, did you want to take a crack at that question as well?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
But to your point on home health, we've gone through periods of time where home health reimbursement just got cratered and it led to lots of bankruptcies. We obviously have seen it in nursing homes. We've got a depletion in nursing homes in our country, which is causing tremendous problems in the health care ecosystem because now hospitals are no places to discharge people to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
And so we've seen these draconian cuts at different times under different administrations. I mean, some of them in the last administration were really hurt nursing homes. And then there's no place to for patients to be discharged to. So they're real, real. I mean, to Barr's point, your point, trying to read the tea leaves and real, real implications to some of this stuff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Craig, I'm going to ask you one question that came from a listener, and I think this is a great question. It's right up your alley. The question is, a PE-backed provider group, and I'll try and give you a moment to process through this. They're five years in. They've ended up leveraged at seven to 10 times EBITDA.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
And take it that's happened because maybe the EBITDA has gone down because most lenders aren't going to give you leverage at that number. You see four to five is the typical number we'll see. Are they stuck or can they still be sold? The question is, how likely is it they could still be sold? And again, it's very case by case. But give us some general thoughts about this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you. The survey is great. We also had a chance to feature Craig on a podcast related to that survey. So, Craig, thank you so much. Matt, take a second and introduce yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Does that mean practices in that spot is sort of stuck for a delayed period of time because they're five years in, but they're leveraged at 7 to 10x? You know, and that could happen in a lot of different ways. Everybody goes down and leverage stays the same. And all of a sudden your leverage is a lot higher than you thought. Are they stuck or is there hope for that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
12 to 18 months but i don't think that every single shareholder needs to just assume that you know they're marking their investment to a zero you know to perpetuity either right no fascinating fascinating situation i i one of the investments i made was recently marked to a zero a couple weeks ago so i'm very familiar with that term at the moment so thank you craig the uh great holly let me turn to you
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
one area that you're most focused on and excited about this year? And then I asked Craig that question and I want to get Bart and Matt's thoughts on that. Is there a specific area that you're most focused and excited about?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you. And I get a chance to visit with Matt regularly. He's one of the most listened to guests on our podcast and just a terrific, terrific centered, thoughtful leader. Thank you, Matt, for joining us. Bart, take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us what you're looking at or tell us about yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Bart, thank you very, very much. And Holly, take a moment to introduce yourself. Then after you introduce yourself, I'll kick us off with the first, you know, next question of what you're watching and stuff like that in the private equity healthcare world. Holly, please introduce yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Holly, take us through some of the trends you're watching in the healthcare area this year that people should be thinking about.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
If you're ever interested in hosting or sponsoring a webinar, let us know. We've got four fantastic panelists today. We're joined by two colleagues of mine from McGuire Woods, and then we've also got Matt Wolf, who's a senior leader in valuation and private equity at RSM, and Craig Castelli.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
And Holly, will that dissuade a lot of health care investors in certain areas from certain states? Will that have a larger macro impact on the environment?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you. So that's one key trend. Any other key trends you wanted to touch on as we get started?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Craig is a brilliant investment banker who at the wherewithal to found his own investment bank a long time ago now and works at the intersection of healthcare, and he also does his investment bank work outside of healthcare too. And it's done a ton of work in healthcare and DSO work over the last few years, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
So thank you very, very much. So two big things, sort of hospital to home, post-acute, and then state transaction rules around private equity. Bart, take a moment and tell us a couple of trends that you're watching and most closely focused on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you. There's really three different parts. There's strategics being involved, there's continuation vehicles, special continuation vehicles, and then there's sort of recaps. The strategic getting involved as a buyer, which a few years ago almost never seemed to happen because they just couldn't compete financially with the private equity funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
But you're seeing some of that now more and more. But also on the continuation vehicles and the recaps, private equity funds can work through those strategies for a certain amount of time to delay exits. But at some point, they have to figure out a way to do exits. I mean, is that a fair statement?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
I'm going to ask each of you to take a moment to introduce yourselves, and then we'll get started with the core of the discussion. And thank you all for joining. At any time that you've got a question, feel free to send it in the chat link. There's a chat box. We'll try and address all the questions. Also, feel free to text Scott Becker. If it's easier, 773-766-5322. 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
We're going to talk about healthcare private equity deal trends, 2025, and so many different changes in the market between different sectors, whether provider-based, practice-based, dental-based, or life sciences or pharma and device-based, so many different things going on. Welcome to this version of the Becker Private Equity and Business webinar series.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
Thank you very, very much. Matt, a couple core trends that you're watching. Then I'm going to go to Craig, and Craig will lead us off on the next set of questions. We've also got an audience question I'll get to in a moment, Matt, after you tell us what are the top one or two or so trends that you're watching currently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
And let's touch on a couple of things you said there, but you said a couple of things, you know, in, in, two ways to have profitability in a fund. Profitability goes up or you have good exits. Profitability goes up or you do multiple arbitrage and over time, multiples are rising. Now we're in a period of time where it seems like multiples are pretty flat and not rising for the moment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
In fact, you said we don't anticipate multiples going up and we also don't anticipate interest rates going down quite quickly. And so for people trying to exit, they still have to have a return for their fund so their investors re-up with them and are happy and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
So we can answer your questions and please do send them in. Craig, I'll start with you. Take a second and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Caber Hill Advisors.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2025 Healthcare Private Equity Deal Trends 2-11-25
It's really a math game and a challenging game to get good enough exits to offset some of your things that aren't exiting at the right price to make a fund's ultimate return in this vintage pretty good or acceptable to LPs that they're not looking elsewhere for their next set of funds. Is that a fair assessment?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a discussion about what's wrong with private equity. And so here is the issue. Over the last year, private equity funds, the big, big ones, the KKRs, the Carlyle Groups, the Blackstones, saw a good rise last year in their stock prices. Now, they seem to have a fundamental problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
or just not really, I guess you want to call that the carry, just the general fee income, but they're not really making money for the investors in the way they were. At some point, That pushes investors to keep on staying with this, or they say this has got so democratized that we go back to S&P index funds and stocks. But that's today's discussion. What's wrong with private equity?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
Text me at 773-766-5322. If you're the first to text me, I'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate that deals with this. And give me your thoughts. Give me your opinions. I'd love to hear them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
And this is why KKR's stock went down after it released earnings and why Carlyle's stock went down today after it released earnings. So what's going on is you've got a bastardization of the business. It's sort of like the Vegas house. What you have going on now is each of their fee income is rising tremendously. They're all recording record amounts of fees.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
A lot of it's on private credit placements, often of their own, where they're taking fees off the top. Here's what we find with businesses. When businesses are producing real results for customers, in the long run, those businesses thrive. For example, what's going on with PE right now is the opposite.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
They are winning on the fee income business, but they're losing on the exit business and making money from their investment business. So one of the things that Carlyle said in their report was, and they try and say this as quietly as they can, aside from fundraising being a little tepid, a little slow, that essentially the juice in the sale of businesses is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What’s Wrong with Private Equity? 2-11-25
is not happening right now that's the 20 percent they make on the you know the two and twenty is the general fee two percent fee income twenty percent profits on exits right now they're not seeing that so that's where you're starting to have trouble right now as investors aren't hitting their rates to return and ultimately the private equity funds if they're doing great on fee income uh that means they're they're you know doing great on sort of the carry
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are four quick stories that we're following today. We find them interesting and fascinating in their own way, so bear with me. First, the Carlyle Group, which is one of the world's largest private equity funds and companies, dropped 6.5% today. We'll go through a separate podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
They own a company called Mobileye that they bought, and Lyft announced it's going to be using the Mobileye tech, and Intel still owns 88% of Mobileye, and that's what's driving Lyft today. So again, four stories, Carlyle down, Intel up, Coca-Cola up, and Humana down. Fascinating to watch some of these big names and what's going on with them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
We'll go through five key points on this. But the real story is private equity funds, a little bit harder time raising funds than Their fee income is going great. What's not going great is their exits for profits. And this is endemic of the whole industry. But one of the reasons why you've seen Carlyle Group and KKR both struggle recently after reporting earnings. Second, Humana.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
Humana also dropped this morning. Their revenues are going fine and grew 13% in the last quarter, year after year. But the earnings are struggling on higher medical loss ratios. So that's what's going on with Humana. Third, one of the companies that's doing great is Coca-Cola. Coke, and we're a direct holder in Coke, so I'm thrilled with this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
This comes from one of the times when I was binging on investing in things that Warren Buffett invests in. Their stock is up 3% today, 7% year-to-date. Rival Pepsi is down 16%. Again, we'll do a separate podcast around Coca-Cola. But fascinating what they're doing, organic growth. Well, some volume growth and some price growth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 2-11-25
I always worry about companies where all the growth is coming from price growth, but they seem to be doing a little bit of both. More price growth than volume growth, but still pretty good. Finally, fourth, the last store we're following this morning is Intel Corporation. It's rising today. It feels like forever since we've said that. They're about 5%, 6%. And the real reason for that is...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Market Cap Companies 2-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And I'm going to talk through, I'm going to take off on a tweet I saw today that says you never really understand a company until you own shares in it. I think that is so right. That's a great quote from Walter Schwartz. Brought to us this morning by Value Theory or Value Investor on Twitter. But I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Market Cap Companies 2-11-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And I thank every day my lucky stars for my producer, Chanel Bunger, who's just fantastic to work with. Chanel, a special shout out to you today. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Market Cap Companies 2-11-25
But today's discussion is the five biggest market cap companies. I own shares in a couple of them. And you always follow these so much more closely when you actually own shares in them. So number one is Apple, which I don't own shares in directly. I own it through index funds. But number one is Apple, back as the king. Number two is NVIDIA, the company that Jensen Wang built.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Market Cap Companies 2-11-25
Don't bet against Jensen. They're down 3% this year after this huge deep-seek scare, but seem to be rebounding just fine. Number three, ran by the CEO of the year, according to Fortune, Satya Nadella, is Microsoft. And they're right behind NVIDIA again. They had a bit of a shock to the system as their cloud revenues weren't as good last quarter as they expected, but overall doing great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Market Cap Companies 2-11-25
Amazon is number four. Amazon just became the number one revenue company in the world, passing Walmart. It's like Mel Robbins passing Joe Rogan. I know I've overdone that analogy, but fascinating. But Amazon, number four in total market cap. Hard to bet against Amazon. We own some of Amazon and Microsoft directly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Market Cap Companies 2-11-25
Quite frankly, I wish I owned some of Apple and Nvidia and Alphabet directly too, but waiting to keep my allocation where I want it in terms of cash to stocks and so forth, so not buying it yet. And number five is Google slash Alphabet coming at number five in the market cap stocks. So those are five of the largest, the five largest market cap stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'm going to walk you through the five biggest companies by revenues. And why I find this so interesting is mostly the rise of UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth Group in these rankings. Number five, coming in at number five is Berkshire Hathaway, the house that Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger built.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
You send me an idea for a podcast topic, and we use it. If you're the first couple of people that send it to me, we'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. And that's not intended to add to Amazon's lead as the market cap leader. It's just intended. It's easy to send somebody an Amazon gift certificate, and we love the ideas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
I follow their investment wisdom all the time on both Twitter, reposting it, and I do find them brilliant. I wish I just followed Warren Buffett my entire life. I'd be very, very rich. Fourth is Apple, number four in biggest companies by revenue, still knocking it out of the park, just really doing well overall, and the number one market cap company. Number three, UnitedHealth Group.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
UnitedHealth Group seemingly has taken over the U.S. healthcare economy. They're number three in total revenues with numbers at $400 billion plus. It's amazing how big some of these companies are compared to the U.S. economy. Number two, it is widely reported that number two is now going to be Walmart, where number one will be Amazon. And that's the first time that changed in a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
It's very similar to a short period of time ago, NVIDIA had overtaken Apple, but Apple took back that crown. It's also very similar to Joe Rogan and Mel Robbins. Joe Rogan has been seemingly the number one person in podcasts forever. And most recently, I'm watching Mel Robbins take that lead. So that's what we're watching today. Those are five of the leaders by revenues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Biggest Companies by Revenue 2-11-25
And number five, Berkshire Hathaway. Number four, Apple. Number three, UnitedHealth Group that just keeps on growing. Number two, it looks like it's going to be Walmart. And number one, the house that Jeff Bezos built, Amazon. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you, as always, to our fantastic producer, Michelle Bunger.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets, Warren Buffett’s Core Thought on Doing Deals, & My Putting 4-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are three of the stories that we're following today. And some of these are going to be totally unexciting. But the markets, the markets have been up and down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets, Warren Buffett’s Core Thought on Doing Deals, & My Putting 4-8-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you're the first to hit me up on the putting concept and give me a suggestion, text 773-766-5322 and would love to send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets, Warren Buffett’s Core Thought on Doing Deals, & My Putting 4-8-25
They look like at 2 o'clock Eastern that they're slightly up, but it's really been an up-and-down day as people bet on whether or not President Trump will do tariff negotiation deals or not. So right now, the market's slightly up. They were way up. They were down. Now they're slightly up. We'll see if that holds throughout the day. I'm not sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets, Warren Buffett’s Core Thought on Doing Deals, & My Putting 4-8-25
Second, and this is just a general admonition, Warren Buffett said it well, you cannot do a good deal with bad people, and it's something everybody should remember in every negotiation, every deal they're in. That's the second story today. The third story is truly a first-world problem, but I will treat this as a 12-step program. I will admit that my putting in golf sucks. My putting just sucks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets, Warren Buffett’s Core Thought on Doing Deals, & My Putting 4-8-25
I'm going to work at it some. I don't know if there's a cure for this. If anybody has a cure for this and it's a useful cure and you send me a text as to how to improve my putting, I will send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. You got to be the first one to respond. 773-766-5322. You got to be the first one to give me a legitimate putting tip and I'll send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets, Warren Buffett’s Core Thought on Doing Deals, & My Putting 4-8-25
So again, the markets are up and down today. The old Warren Buffett concept, you can't do a good deal with bad people. Just the most true statement ever. And he's brilliant at doing good deals with good people. And finally, third, my putting sucks. I'm open to suggestions. I'm going to go to a 12-step program. I'm going to have to do something.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Harvard, higher education, and the addiction to the federal government. So here's the deal with what's happened with some of our elite academic institutions. And again, I say this with
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
now when i see this number of 9 billion for harvard i i am truly sort of aghast that there's this addiction between our higher education institutions and the federal government funding it's also this crazy inability to watch budgets at these institutions is also led to why so many of them took so much funds
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
from places like Qatar and allowed different influences to become a big play in these institutions. But again, the note I saw today was Harvard, and this is summarized by Bloomberg, that it's preparing for potential funding losses, including $9 billion in grants and contracts due to the Trump administration's scrutiny of colleges. $9 billion in grants and contracts. That's simply outrageous.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
They'll end up, they're trying to borrow $750 million to try and stave off some of these threats of federal funding challenges. But that's literally a, that's a crazy, crazy amount of money. In any event, Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'd love your thoughts on this. I know some people hate whatever the Trump administration does.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
I'm not one of those people. I just can't get over the fact that these institutions are getting this amount of money from the federal government. Simply incredible. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
all sort of balance, I think, because I'm actually a Harvard Law graduate and enjoyed the relationships in the network and the education immensely. But here's the discussion today. So the concept today is Harvard is concerned that it's going to lose about $9 billion in federal funding. And I don't know how many years this is over, but this is a – Crazy number.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
Harvard is an institution with the last I looked, the largest endowments in the country at $40 to $50 billion in their endowment and probably a lot more. I haven't looked at it in some time. They're going to lose about $9 billion in federal funding over the next several years. I don't know how many years. An amazing, amazing number, astronomical.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
And they are then going to take out a loan from a bank $750 million for operating costs when they're sitting in an endowment of $40 to $50 billion. And this whole thing, it shocks me in terms of how perverse the funding of higher education became that schools were getting this kind of money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Harvard, Higher Education & the Addiction to Federal Funding 4-8-25
I was blown away originally when I saw that between, I think it was Hopkins and Columbia, they were getting $1.2 billion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Health Insurance, Cannabis, & Apple 4-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is health insurance, cannabis, and Apple. So here's three of the things that we watch and we'll talk about this. First, the health insurers are surging today as President Trump agrees to raise the rates to Medicare Advantage insurers. This is in some ways, it's a shot in the arm to insurers
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Health Insurance, Cannabis, & Apple 4-8-25
It's a shot in the backside to physicians and hospitals and to Americans. This Medicare Advantage is awful, but this will help private Medicare plans. They're going to get a big boost from the Trump administration. Just awful, but Humana United up on this today. Second, Tilray Brands, which is one of the huge cannabis stocks, is down about 57% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Health Insurance, Cannabis, & Apple 4-8-25
Cannabis stocks continue to get pummeled in our country. Can't quite get over the finish line in terms of regulatory issues and what is still the outside illegal market versus the legal market. But at the end of the day, a few years ago, as a cannabis investor, it went poorly. I was a Bitcoin investor as well. That went poorly. Bitcoin rebounded. Cannabis has not. We'll see how that goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Health Insurance, Cannabis, & Apple 4-8-25
Finally, Apple and Nvidia are each down 27% year to date. I don't know which of the two I'd buy if I had my choice, but each down 27% year to date. Apple long-term, probably a solid holding. I've, of course, got it through my index funds, which I'm primarily an index fund investor. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should I Sell Some of My Stocks? 4-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's question is a question I received from a listener yesterday. brilliant person, nervous about their investments. And the question was, should I sell some of my stocks? And here's the answer. We talked about what we talked about. The simple answer is no, particularly if your horizon is long-term.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should I Sell Some of My Stocks? 4-8-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should I Sell Some of My Stocks? 4-8-25
You got to hold through these dips because usually they're dips. I'm not saying buy the dip, but hold through these dips. Then you have to sort of develop over time a core investment strategy and philosophy. My cores are an allocation that I can live with, which is heavily weighted towards treasuries versus equities. So I've got good, good balance.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should I Sell Some of My Stocks? 4-8-25
So when things go down, they don't go down that much. You also got to have an emergency fund, so you're not tempted to panic sell. And then the third thing is, the other sort of core priority or pillar of my investment strategy is, I am largely in index funds versus individual stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should I Sell Some of My Stocks? 4-8-25
Whenever I think I've got it down and can pick an individual stock, something happens to absolutely hammer my individual stock picks, and I go back to the notion of I shouldn't be in individual stocks. Again, those are the three thoughts. Don't sell on the panic, but do make sure over time you've got an allocation you can live with through good and bad times. Also, have an emergency fund.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should I Sell Some of My Stocks? 4-8-25
And for me personally, it's don't bet on the high flyers. God bless you if you do. You're going to get them anyways through your index funds. But me, I'm a core investor in index funds versus individual stocks. Those are my three thoughts today on the stock market. And should you sell into the panic? I think not. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are three of the stories that we're following today, and thank you for listening to the podcast. First, the market's point way up this morning is negotiations start to take shape between Trump and some other countries.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-8-25
We're seeing an article this morning in the journal, Dow, S&P, NASDAQ set for higher open after chaotic day on Wall Street. Yesterday, the markets were pretty flat. Two days before that, they got crushed. And now we'll see what happens, and we'll see if the day holds. Right now, the markets are up about 3%. That would be a welcome relief from the last few days in the markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-8-25
Second, The Motley Fool has an article on five stocks that you should buy that are down more than 25%. They say to buy them now. Again, I don't really ascribe to this stuff, but I find it fascinating to watch. These five include Amazon, Google, Ally Financial Services, Shopify, and Advanced Micro Devices. Again, it's not an endorsement from us, many of those, but that's what they're looking at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-8-25
Third, China and the U.S. keep having tensions. China says the U.S. is blackmailing China. China vows to fight to the end after Trump threatens additional tariffs. That's Yahoo Finance. We'll see if that ends up holding true. But somehow or another, the two countries have to reach detente at some point. In contrast, Japan and the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-8-25
are starting to expedite tariff talks after discussions between Japan's prime minister and the president. So we'll see how that goes as well. Again, thank you for listening. These are three of the stories that we're watching right now. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Naomi Freed Becker 5-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. In today's episodes, a very special shout out, so bear with me on this. The podcast just passed about 7 million downloads. It was ranked first this week in the Apple Business News rankings. So bear with me when I take you on a journey outside of the traditional business area, and I appreciate it so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Naomi Freed Becker 5-6-25
So today's shout out goes to Naomi Freed Becker. Naomi Friedbecker is the matriarch of our family and an incredible woman. She has been a leader in the family. She takes care of everybody and everything. She's a true matriarch. She maintains an incredible number of close friends. She takes care of my wonderful father, Mort Becker. She has basically taken on over the course of her life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Naomi Freed Becker 5-6-25
She's now in her 80s someplace. I won't tell you exactly where because you'll get mad at me and I don't like the wrath of my mother. But she's really done this incredible job over the course of a lifetime, being incredibly positive, being incredibly resilient and taking care of everybody around her and with her. So today's special shout out goes to Naomi Freed Becker on her birthday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Naomi Freed Becker 5-6-25
We are so fortunate that we'll be able to. celebrate with mom and dad tonight for her birthday. Just a remarkable human being, a remarkable leader and woman. Thank you and God bless you, Naomi Freed Becker. I'll tell you what, the first person that texts me, happy birthday, Naomi Freed Becker, To my text at 773-766-5322 gets a $100 Amazon gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The DoorDash Death Spiral 5-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We've just passed 7 million downloads, so God bless everybody that listens. Been ranked number one this week in the Apple Business and News category, so that's fantastic too. Today's discussion is DoorDash enters death spiral. So here's the issue.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The DoorDash Death Spiral 5-6-25
That headline might be a bit of an overstatement, but here's what we're talking about. The stock is down about 8%, 9% today. It's still up about 12% year to date, or at least it shows that on the books today. But here's what's happening. DoorDash is in that horrendous situation that we find companies in sometimes where the organic growth has slowed to almost zero.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The DoorDash Death Spiral 5-6-25
And then it has to find revenue through big ticket acquisitions. So we recently just announced two big acquisitions. It's buying United Kingdom company Deliveroo, which is another delivery service for about $3.9 billion. It's also buying a company called Seven Stores. I don't know anything about it, but another delivery type service. But the real issue here is the death spiral.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The DoorDash Death Spiral 5-6-25
What I absolutely hate in watching companies is when the organic growth is totally stalled and they make it up through acquisitions. It's almost an old adage of losing money and everything, but making it up through volume. That always gives me great concern as an investor, as a watcher, and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The DoorDash Death Spiral 5-6-25
I'd rather hold on to the price tag of Palantir, which is dropping today itself, which is still showing tremendous growth and not able to make it up on volume or through acquisitions. So again, the door-death spiral. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Plunges: 4 Quick Points 5-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Palantir plunges four quick points. So here's the deal with Palantir. Their stock is down about 13.5% today. It's still up about 41% year to date. Second, it's really down because it's European international business is getting clobbered this first quarter. Now third,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Plunges: 4 Quick Points 5-6-25
It still had total revenues this first quarter that really exceeded expectations. It had 3.9 billion in total revenues, which is a remarkable number. But notwithstanding it beating numbers, there's great concern that its sales growth is starting to slow. And particularly alarming to the markets was its international business, that that's gone down, not just missed estimates, but went down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Plunges: 4 Quick Points 5-6-25
So that's what people are watching. Finally, its U.S. business did really well. In fact, its commercial business in the U.S. went way up. So we'll see what ultimately happens. But today's discussion, pale and tear plunges, four quick points. That's what we got for you. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revenge & How Sweet it is 5-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, today is what we think of as one of those ridiculous episodes. Today's episode is about revenge and how sweet it is. So here's the backstory on this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revenge & How Sweet it is 5-6-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. The rest of the characters on the course are not worth naming. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revenge & How Sweet it is 5-6-25
Aside from being in the media business and a lawyer by background, a couple of my favorite pastimes are golf and tennis and just trying to stay in shape, which is a winning and losing battle, depending on what week it is. So what's happened with my golf game, when I'm mentally uncentered, my golf game is just absolutely horrible. And that's really been the case for some time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revenge & How Sweet it is 5-6-25
It feels like this entire winter, when I spent some time out of Chicago and in Florida, I played horrible golf, and it just had moments of glory. So one of the things that happens is, one of my close friends, who is a, you know, literally, I love him, and a ridiculous individual, has been taking my money in golf. you know, time and time again. And this makes me very distraught.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revenge & How Sweet it is 5-6-25
I don't understand why years ago a therapist said to me, if you feel so bad after playing golf, don't golf. That was the therapist's advice. And again, it made tremendous common sense where for anybody who's an addicted golfer, you know that that's a theory. It's a new degree or got their degree from the DeVry Institute of Technology or something like that. So here's the story.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Revenge & How Sweet it is 5-6-25
I ended up coming back to golf. And I've been playing poorly, losing money to the friend who will go unnamed. His last name is Blum. And this... On a cold, dreary day in Chicago, it was Revenge Day where I came out victorious. It wasn't big stakes. I think I won $20, but it doesn't matter. Revenge is a beautiful thing. That therapist needs a new job, and that's where we're at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are seven of the stories that we're following this morning. It's May 6th, or I should say this afternoon. First, the markets were down yesterday. They're down again today. Today, they're down more than a half percent. Yesterday, they were down more than a half percent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Fifth, Ford Motor Company was slightly down pre-market. Now it's up a little bit. It expects nearly $1.5 billion hit from tariffs. It had struggled the first quarter before tariffs, so we'll see how this really goes. It's hard to really calibrate what's really due to tariffs and what's due to tough management. Sixth, DoorDash. Starts to tank. DoorDash is down 8% to 9% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Its revenues came in lower than expected. Never a good sign for the quarter. It's trying to make it up on acquisitions. It's acquiring seven stores. It's acquiring Deliveroo. That's about $5 billion in deals. Always a concern for us when companies have to make up for organic growth slowing through acquisitions. Ideally, you want a combination of the two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Seventh in the healthcare sector, Zimmer Biomet dropped nearly 12% yesterday as it reduced earnings guidance for the year. It reported declines in the areas of tech and data, bond cement and surgical product lines, but higher growth in its hips lines. That's a little bit about what's going on in the markets currently. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
We'll be back with you on some short episodes about Palantir, about DoorDash. Tesla also struggling. It's also about Naomi Becker. We'll also have a special episode about revenge and how sweet it is. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Looks like it'll be a couple bad days in a row as it unwinds some of the reality we've been seeing. Thus far, the NASDAQ before today is down about 7% year-to-date. The S&P 500 is down about 5.5% year-to-date. Second, Skechers, a great story of a family business going right. They have signed a deal to sell Skechers at a valuation of $9.4 billion. It's going to Brazilian key e-firm 3G.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Just really an amazing story of success by the Skechers family, the Greenbergs family's It's being called the biggest shoe buyout in history. Third, a few of the private equity funds really suffer from the same problem. KKR is down nearly 23% year-to-date. It's like Apollo reported increases in fee earnings, but noted that monetization opportunities are challenging.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Blackstone also down 20% year-to-date, and Apollo Global Management down 19% year-to-date. Large funds are glugging off fees to sustain themselves during a tough deal environment. Many smaller funds are struggling, and in fact, we're hearing some stories of very small funds laying off most of their teams because they just can't make the fees work for their expense load.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Afternoon 5-6-25
Fourth, Palantir Technologies is now down about 13.5% to 14%. Well, its Q1 sales exceeded its forecast, and its commercial business in the U.S. is hopping and growing. The real story is it saw a decline in international business. It also, even though it beat its estimates, it's showing slower growth than the markets would like. It's down about 14% today. It's still up about 41% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Rick Kess. Rick is a brilliant leader and partner from RSM. He joins us regularly. Rick, we're going to talk today a little bit about the private equity world and what you're seeing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
I think the most fascinating thing that I'm seeing are two things that I'll sort of use as almost personal anecdotes into the market and get your sense of this. The first thing is, I'm an investor in one fund, I'm an LP, and that LP just announced one of your exits, and the exit is something that we're seeing more and more of.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
Thank you. And there's a fascinating point you just made because we're talking today. It's Monday, March 3rd. It's a day where the markets are down because at least they're pointing to the fact that President Trump is going to hit with some more tariffs that will start tomorrow. And what you just said was a fascinating microcosm of what's going on. The markets don't love the tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
But what you also said is that manufacturing is up some in this country. And I remember talking to a close friend from Indiana not long ago who owns some manufacturing plants. And they're also getting those going if they could staff them again, in part because they've got to be manufacturing goods here, not overseas. So you've got this very complicated world that we live in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
where many of us don't love the tariffs because they're causing some trouble in the stock market and can lead to more inflation. And at the same time, they're having some of that effect that President Trump wants them to have, which is leading some more manufacturing back to the United States.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
So, I mean, all these things seem to be so complicated in terms of the different conflicting efforts and purposes of them. And I know you can't talk politics, but I thought that's fascinating what you just mentioned on the manufacturing side.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
It's an exit of a company who's selling into another company owned by another fund in that family under that same sponsor. So more and more people finding ways to do exits that are sort of non-traditional, and it might just be circumstance, but it might be a way to get the exit of that fund, get something going in the next fund. But that's one topic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
No, I think that's exactly right. It's really, really fascinating because for every action, there are a lot of consequences, some anticipated, some not anticipated. And it is fascinating to watch that and then try and judge what to do based on that. And really just so fascinating. Rick, I want to thank you as always for joining us. You know, funds starting to put money to work again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
Other funds trying to find ways to exit. Some of those being internal and side by side exits versus what we think was real exits. But I guess they count as long as the investors getting their money back. I don't know if it's sustainable or not. You can't keep on selling money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
When I see funds sell their own funds and sell their own funds on their own funds, sometimes I think of it as one of the world's great Ponzi schemes. No offense to anybody. I know that'll piss somebody off, but that can't go on forever. So ultimately, they better find some other people to sell to as well. In any event, Rick Kess, always fantastic to visit with you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
Thank you for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Trends: Exits, Capital Calls, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 3-4-25
The second thing is starting to see as a limited partner, capital calls again. I wanted to get your sense of what are you seeing out there in the exit environment? What are you seeing out there in the putting money to work environment? What are you seeing out there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to quickly walk through three stories that we're following today, and thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
It's down about 40%, 48% year to date. I want to thank you to Dr. Lee David Mulligan for correcting me on that actual number. Thank you so much. Again, those are five stories we're following today. Tariffs, fake foods, fake cars. And I joke that they're fake cars, that the EVs are fake cars. NVIDIA and SoundTown, that's what's going on with that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
First, the first story we're going to talk about today is, of course, the tariffs from President Trump on China and Mexico and Canada, 25% on tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and Now, I'm not a particular big fan of tariffs, but I'm trying to understand why the White House is so excited about them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
As much as I could study it further, try to understand it, try to mute the impacts of a long time ago of NAFTA and the concept that we're shipping or doing a lot of our manufacturing in other countries that he'd prefer to do here. And that pleases his swing state audience in manufacturing hubs and so forth. It is almost a certainty that tariffs will be inflationary. But the markets do hate them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
And the markets were down yesterday on the imposition of these by about 1.7 percent. They're down today about 1.5 percent. The markets truly hate the tariffs. And we'll see how it goes. I am trying to understand where President Trump is so excited about them. And part of it is you do hear anecdotal stories about manufacturers coming back to the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
So that's a positive, but a lot of challenges, a lot of negatives as well. The second thing we're talking about today is fake foods are getting hammered. Beyond Meat and Oatly each are getting crushed. Beyond Meat is down 70% over the last year. Oatly is down 60% over the last year and dropped 16% yesterday. So fake foods getting hammered. Third thing is fake cars are also taking to the chin.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-4-25
Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian are all falling. Tesla and Lucid are down about 30% year-to-date so far. Fourth, NVIDIA dropped about 9% yesterday. It's fallen to third in market cap. This now leaves Apple as the only company that's a $3 trillion-plus market cap company. So that's NVIDIA. Fifth story we're following today is SoundHound. SoundHound nearly dropped 10% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is tariffs part two. So one of the things that's happened today, and again, we're coming to you March 3rd, 2025, is President Trump has announced that tariffs will go into effect on Canada and Mexico and likely on China as well. And this has caused the stock market to take a dive today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
The flip side is if we end up with slowness in the economy and the continued reduction of inflation, that's going to lead, regardless of tariffs, to the Fed taking rates down some more. The fourth thing that you look at is employment and unemployment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
And one of the things with tariffs is it is having an immediate effect of starting to have manufacturing a little bit busier in states that do manufacturing. In this point of these four different points that we're talking about, whether it's inflation, the Fed, cost of goods, the stock market, or employment in factories and manufacturing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
This point should not be understated in terms of how Trump relates to his base and what he thinks there. You've got various different things going on. You've got recently Apple, in response to these tariffs, and partly in response to meeting with President Trump, said that they would invest in new facilities, new plants here, $500 billion and so forth to be invested in the United States. In the
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
2016 election, which Trump won. If you remember, there's all these great takes from Michael Moore, who is by no means a Trump fan. He's an anti-Trump person, talking about how Trump would talk to his base about bringing jobs back here and attacking GM and Ford and others that would be after... that would talk about closing down factories, closing down jobs here. And so what you...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
Think about this. When he goes after the tariffs, it is a rough, rough shot measure. It's sort of taking a machete at something versus a scalpel. But what he is doing is resonating with part of his base that wants to see those jobs in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and so forth. Now, we also know if we ratchet tariffs up too much, it's going to cause tremendous inflation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
And it's horrendous for world trade. So many of us that are stock market watchers and ultimate economy watchers see all the negatives and tariffs. And I think what we miss when we see all these negatives and we're so upset about them, what we probably miss is the on the ground sort of impact on some of the factory jobs that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
in those swing states that Trump is so intent on making promises good to his voters. Truly a fascinating, fascinating thing to watch. Again, I've always viewed tariffs as a protector of the unions. I've never been a crazy fan of tariffs, but it is what it is. And I'm trying to understand why when the market's getting crashed, Trump's a stock market watcher, why he's so positive about tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
And we do know that President Trump watches the stock market closely and points to the stock market as a point of success. So you look at that and say, what drives the effort towards tariffs when he knows that the markets react negatively to it? And I think there's probably a few different data points that we look at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
And I think part of the reason is exactly this, that he sees it as a way to keep those factories humming in the United States, or at least marginally moving in the right direction. And that's one of his target goals. for making good on his promises to those voters. In any event, absolutely fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
Again, not a fan particularly of tariffs and trying to understand the mentality behind going after tariffs and driving them as part of the game. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'd love your thoughts on this. And if you're the first person to comment to me, Tariffs Part 2, text me, Scott Becker, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
And your thoughts on this, we'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
The stock market's one of many looks at, and you probably think that's a temporary negative there. And again, trying to get into the mind of what President Trump is thinking about these things is not an easy task. Second, you look at inflation, and he broadly campaigned on the fact that inflation was bad under Biden, and it was. And then it starts turning around here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
And I think what probably happens is he feels like he's got a little bit of room on inflation because the last report showed it going down a little bit or at least even to flat and not going up. So he probably feels he's got one bit of room on inflation. Obviously, if the tariffs ended up causing tremendous inflation, he would feel bad about that and that would cause challenges and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: Part Two 3-4-25
The third thing is the Fed. He's been a regular Fed basher and has been watching Chairman Powell. He's eased up on it a little bit. And obviously, if we end up with inflation, that's going to slow the effort of the Fed to reduce rates.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're trying to make sure that every day we're teaching, we're learning, we're entertained, and a lot more. Today's discussion is fake cars and fake foods get slammed in the markets. So here's the discussion, and this is a joke, of course, so don't take this overly offensive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
You know, it's really a discussion of Tesla, Lucid, Oatly, and Beyond Meats. We hope you enjoy this. We hope you get a kick out of this. We hope you're not so environmentally sensitive that you're mad at me calling these fake cars or mad at me calling these fake foods. I totally apologize, but I hope you have a laugh out of putting those things together as a discussion. Fake foods and fake cars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
Text Scott Becker anytime. If you're the first one to text me on this episode, fake food and fake cars at 773-766-5322. Well, I will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. Amazon's also down 2% today, a day where, you know, one of the mega caps, Nvidia, is also getting crushed down almost 6% on Monday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
We're going to call for a second electric cars, fake cars. Electric cars down 34%. Lucid Group is down 34% over the last year. It's down again year-to-date, just really taking it on the chin. Tesla's also down about 30% year-to-date. So Lucid's down 27% year-to-date, something like 34% over the last year. Tesla's also down 30%. So that's – we put those in our –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
In our category of fake cars, we need electric vehicles. And I know that's a joke, and I don't mean to irritate any of our people that are very huge fans of electric cars and their transition from electric cars to fossil fuels. But if you watch Landman, you know we're not ready for it fully yet. The second thing we're going to talk about is fake foods.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
And in the fake food category, I've got Beyond Meat, which is the company that makes the the pretend meat that's not made with real meat. And so Beyond Meats, to give you a sense of the fake food category, they are down 68% in the last year and down 18% in the last year to date. So that's also just taking it out of the chin.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fake Cars & Fake Food Get Slammed in the Markets 3-4-25
Another situation in the fake food category is Oatly, the maker of oat milk. And this is what drove this discussion today. Always down 16% again today. They're just getting crushed. They're down 33% year to date and 60% over the last year. So today's discussion is fake news. Cars and fake foods getting crushed in the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA vs. Microsoft 3-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is NVIDIA versus Microsoft. So here's what we're watching. Both NVIDIA and Microsoft have fallen below $3 trillion in market cap. Second, NVIDIA on March 3rd was taken on the chin, and that was at midday. And its market cap had fallen by 5%, 6%, down to $2.8 trillion or so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA vs. Microsoft 3-4-25
First time it's been below $3 trillion in some time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA vs. Microsoft 3-4-25
third microsoft also fell but less than one percent at least as we're watching now that will put microsoft in the number two position ahead of nvidia which is the first time in a while that we've seen that the final thing is of course apple apple's slightly down today but apple remains the king of market cap up at 3.6 trillion or so and it's the only company now above 3 trillion that's when you see sort of the the whoosh
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA vs. Microsoft 3-4-25
Sort of the wind coming out of the market sails when we get back to a spot where only Apple is above $3 trillion. It's about $3.6 trillion. Microsoft, number two. NVIDIA, number three. The company that Jensen Wang built. Fascinating to watch what's going on. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you today with more episodes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA vs. Microsoft 3-4-25
Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. In this suggestion for a podcast, maintaining professional relationships, it comes to me from a close, close colleague, one of my favorite people in the world. So thank you very, very much for this suggestion. We're going to discuss today maintaining professional relationships.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
Or you just give because people are pleasant people to work with and you love them and you like them. But then there are others that are always trying to take. I remember somebody at one of our conferences saying, well, you shouldn't pay for that because if you approach Scott in this way, he'll give it to you for free. And it was really where, you know, with this concept, nobody writes for free.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
And that's not really true because a lot of people do write for free. But this concept of like so underhandedly trying to. you know, take one of our paying customer sponsors that that's how we pay the bills and try to find a way to get them free. And that's how we pay our staff and our teams and stuff like that. So just parasitics.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
There's other people in your professional life that we think of as parasitic. So the first category is those that your whole entire professional life is built around. The second are those that you are better off not having anything to do with because they're just parasitic, meaning like parasites. The third type of professional relationship is somewhere in between.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
And the question that really came from this listener was, and one of my favorites was, or my favorite, was this concept of what do you do with people that, like, you've had professional relationships with, you're maintaining those relationships, but they're no longer so central to what you do and no longer, but they're also not horrible. They're not people you just like.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
And I guess if I think anything, it's you sort of stay in touch, you maintain those relationships, you stay friendly. Not because there's a business interest in it. There might be. But because no good to burn bridges. And two, because you like them. And three, because why not? And you're not going to spend tremendous energy in those relationships.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
Now, I'll give you three or four points around professional relationships. First, and this may sound strange to you because I'm sort of in the mass media world, But your real professional life is built around five to 10 serious professional relationships and business connections. And those may change some over time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
So you might not go travel to go see those people. You might not pick up the phone. But you would stay in touch because you had some mutuality that you really liked each other and respected each other. And because... You never know when you might be able to help them or vice versa, whatever it is. So you sort of maintain those relationships.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
We sort of look at this like we do with most things is double down, stay the course, or abandon. And so when I look at these three different types of professional relationships, those that are integral to what you do, your top 10% of relationships that drive 80% of your professional life, you got to double down on those.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
Those that are parasitic or like parasites and leeches, you've got to abandon those. And third, those that are not your closest relationships but that you like very much, that somehow or another might have had importance at some point in your business life, might not now, but that you like very much, you sort of stay the course with those. You sort of maintain them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
So that's how we sort of look at these professional relationships. Double down, abandon, or stay the course. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'd love your thoughts if you could identify the person I was referring to in number two as the freeloader. I'm sure you cannot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
I will not say the name out loud to anybody, but I will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate, 773-766-5322. Two people that I think will know who this is, if they listen, are Jessica Cole or Amber Walsh, will know who the person is that I'm talking about in category two, the parasitic situation. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
But at the end of the day, I can probably count on, you know, it's like the 80-20 rule. It's like 10 to 15 relationships, maybe 20 over the course of a professional life. And I've been in business for 30 plus years. They're the real linchpins of your professional and business success and career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
So the first thing that I think about when I think about maintaining professional relationships is to understand who are your most important, synergistic, beneficial, mutually lovable business relationships that really drive your business career and business success and really to double down on those relationships.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Professional Relationships: Double Down, Abandon or Stay the Course? 2-4-25
Second, there are a set of relationships that go in a whole different category that I would put in the category of parasitic. And that's to put it nicely. People that always want something for free or always want something. And I'm a huge fan of you give and give a few different times until you see if there's some mutuality in a relationship or whatever it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Merck’s 11% Drop: A Few Quick Points 2-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Merck. Merck is down 11% and we'll go through three to five quick points. Merck is a drug maker, vaccine maker. It's got a number of things going on. 2024 was a great year for Merck, up 7% in revenues and knocked earnings per share out of the box. So a great year, about $64 billion in revenues overall.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Merck’s 11% Drop: A Few Quick Points 2-4-25
That's the good news. The bad news is they're projecting a slower growth in 2025. So that's the bad news. They're projecting barely any growth. That's let the stock to be down about 10%, 11% today. Right onto that. They've got a weak pipeline for new drugs. They've got some expirations on patents on some of their most important drugs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Merck’s 11% Drop: A Few Quick Points 2-4-25
And all the drug makers that make vaccines are a little bit concerned about RFK Jr. being confirmed as the chair of the Department of Health and Human Services. Just fascinating. Different topic, different discussion again. Not an anti-Trump guy, but I'm certainly not an RFK fan. It is what it is. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Merck’s 11% Drop: A Few Quick Points 2-4-25
That's the story today with Mark. Just fascinating. Again, call Scott Becker anytime, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We're thrilled to be with you today. We try each day to make sure we're learning something, you're learning something, that we're entertained as well. We're going to quickly go through seven of the business stories that were followed today. First, China responding with tariffs as well in response to the U.S. tariffs on China.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
owned Groupon and just made a fortune, a rich guy in Illinois, is up again several percent today and keeps on rocking and rolling. Those are seven of the stories we're following today. Another story we're following in the private equity world, KKR is down about 7% today, and we'll follow that pretty closely as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, fasting day in the business news cycle. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
Again, I wouldn't make too much of this. It seems like President Trump is pretty actively involved in the discussion with China, Canada, Mexico and everybody else, as I wouldn't overreact to these different movements. It's hard not to, I know, but the markets seem to be sitting in the same thing. The markets are up, rebounding somewhat today after a down day yesterday. So God bless that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
Second, Palantir Technologies knocking out of the park. Peter Thiel remains just a genius. Their stock's up about 26% today. We'll see if that holds. Third, Ferrari, the car company, keeps on rocking and rolling. They're up about 8% today. I guess one of the great questions is, would you rather have a Ferrari or Lamborghini?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
Both these luxury upscale brands are sort of a way of showing off that you've made it, or at least if you haven't made it, pretending to make it, so it is what it is. Fourth, Spotify is also up about 10% today, increased profitability and doing great. Fifth, Merck. The Drugmaker is down 11% today. We'll have a separate podcast on what's going on with Merck, but that's fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-4-25
Sixth, NVIDIA is down 13% year-to-date, and we'll see if they start to bounce back. Palantir has widely panned this DeepSeek thing. Hopefully, that'll help NVIDIA as well. Finally, seventh, Tempest AI, the latest miracle company from Eric Levkowski who found a Groupon or
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for joining us today. This is a talk today on 15 thoughts on building businesses. It comes out of the book we wrote on the subject, The Entrepreneur's Edge, just a core book on concepts for building businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The muscles were on the boards of several companies. And that's where a lot of my background knowledge comes from. So the things we think about in building a business, we start with this concept that was a Jack Welch concept that you want to be in niches.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
My niches have always been business to business and specifically as possible in those businesses, figuring out who you're trying to serve, what business you're trying to be great at. Can you be great at it? Can you win in the niche? Is the niche worth winning in?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
In the media business, we're obviously in the healthcare media business, but then we're more specifically in the media business around hospitals and health systems and the media business around surgery centers and orthopedics and spine. In the law practice, well, the law firm is a huge law firm. The core clients that we served in the practice when I ran it were
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
hospitals and health systems, surgery centers and surgery center chains, and then private equity funds that invest in healthcare. And the more specifically you're targeting a niche and know who you're trying to target, the better off you are in both being great at what you do and building an audience or building a client base. So we're always a believer in niche centric. Jack Welch famously said,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
You want to be first or second in the niche. And at good times, you clean up. In bad times, you survive. And I basically largely ascribe this theory on being sort of this, you know, in niches and trying to be the best in your niche at what you do. Second concept we talk about is being team and people centric.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
There's all this discussion today about being a solopreneur, solo entrepreneur versus being a team builder and building a team. I'm still a big believer that if you want to do anything significant, you better build a serious team and double down on great people and constantly trigger who your team is and sort them out. but that you could do a lot of things if you build great teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
If you don't bother to build great teams, you're very limited in what you could do. I can't quite find my way to being the solopreneur as much as I'd love that as the last part of my life, being a solopreneur, but I just don't see it. Third is customer centric. And this is the concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Second, I have to give a speech on this on Wednesday, so I figured I'd do it as a podcast to get some prep for it. So hopefully you you enjoy this as much as I do. And thank you very, very much for listening. And thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
It became clearer and clearer in my business career is that I have people on our team trying to take care of a very unimportant client or customer that And no offense, I know people take offense at that concept, but you could have one customer that pays you a million dollars a year, one customer that fights with you to pay you $300 a year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
And we would have people spending all their time in the $300 customer, and you can't do that. You have to constantly make value judgments, interior customers, and make sure your best people and your best service is going to your most important customers. It just is what it is. And it's not that you ignore growth customers. It's not that you ignore small customers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Well, you probably should ignore small customers and just not serve them so you can put all your time and energy to great customers. But there's this constant concept of really being customer centric. and then tearing your customers. And you constantly have to make value judgments in everything you do in life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
I was on a podcast with a non-sponsored client, and my daughter called from the Middle East. By the second time she called, I had a boot on the podcast, let my producer handle it versus myself, because I got to make constant value judgments as to what's more important. Right now, my daughter calling from the Middle East, far more important than this podcast. That's not a paying customer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
And no offense to anybody, if it was a huge paying customer and my daughter texted me and said she's okay, I would have told my daughter to hold on a moment. But in that situation, we didn't. And Chanel's very familiar with what I'm talking about. Fourth is, in every business, it's this constant concept of finding product-market fit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
And we talk about these four core things, niche-centric, customer-centric, people and team-centric, and product-market fit all the time. But this fourth concept on product-market fit is this concept of are you doing something that your customers really want?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
So for example, we started this latest business with selling sponsored podcast, you know, and we've sold a lot of them and people want them, but not at the rate that they want sponsored webinars. So we had to focus more and pivot more towards hitting the market where they are, what they want to buy, what they want to sponsor versus what I'd like to sell them and what I want to want them to sponsor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
So, you know, more and more majority of what we do is specialized business to business webinars versus, versus, you know, the podcast, but it's similar to every single business. It's constantly trying to fit. What does the customer really need? And are you serving that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Just as an aside to Becker Private Equity Business Podcast, with that and the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, we've now passed 20 something, 22 billion downloads, trying to work towards 25 million. So thank you for listening. And if you have comments on this talk and 15 thoughts on building a business, feel free at any time to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
I mean, so many software businesses talked about ad nauseum are built around a founder's belief or a software engineer's belief as to what they think is cool. but you actually need something that a customer also thinks is cool, it needs, and it's that overlap, that Venn diagram of what you're doing and what they want that is the winning solution for product-market fit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
And you're constantly going to evolve. When you start off, really, you're going to constantly be working to get that product-market fit. Fifth concept is scalability. And one of the things that happens is, The law practice is more or less a business that it's somewhat linear.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
You're building, you're building, you're adding great clients, you're adding great people, but it's somewhat linear, somewhat one plus one equals two and going and going. And professional services are often like that. So that's why so many of the big professional services are,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
firms move towards technology implementations where that's a little bit less one plus one equals two and one plus one could go a lot more because the price tags are bigger and you're not necessarily adding so many more people for that price tag the investment banking business is less of a linear business and more of a scalable business we're doing bigger deals with the same amount of people and a lot more money similar private equity businesses the whole idea is to leverage your people
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
30 people managing a multi-billion dollar fund versus 30 people managing a $300 million fund. And just the returns could be bigger and bigger. But you're constantly looking for businesses where there's some scalability. So I saw for businesses recurring revenue businesses where for every additional thing that you're selling, you don't need more people are so attractive to investors.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The sixth thing we talk about in business is clarity of goals. What are you really trying to do? What are you really trying to accomplish? And again, there are periods of life in businesses where I feel like I'm so good at this and so clear, and other times not as much so, but I can tell you, far more effective when great clarity about what we're trying to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The seventh thing that we talk about in business is focus. And it goes back to an old Ben Stein adage, and many people don't remember that name, but this obsession with business and greatness, if you actually want to be great at something, it's probably going to take serious work to get good at it, to get great at it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
It's almost like, you know, I think it's Malcolm Gladwell, famous director about the 10,000 hours thing. And there's all kinds of studies on why that's right and that's wrong, but there is this constant need to to really get better and better at what you're delivering.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Apple is probably the great example of our lifetime of a company that's constantly trying to get better at what they do, and so they're constantly fixing, constantly improving, but they've got to have that ongoing obsession with greatness built into the organization.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Epic and Judy Faulkner, I always forget if it's Judy Falk or Judy Faulkner, very similar, that obsession with constant improvement, constantly getting better. It often takes that if you really want to be great as a business. The eighth thing we think about in building a business is the evolution of the leader and founder. And we often talk about this evolution in three stages.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The first stage of most businesses, it's not necessarily a Peter Thiel type business or a big Elon Musk type business, but if most businesses is the founder, the leader, doing everything. They used to talk about being the cook, the bottle washer, the chief this, the chief that, doing sort of everything. That's sort of the first evolution. And you're very limited in the business at that point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The second evolution is you've hired people to start to handle a lot of different roles that you have. And that's sort of number two evolution in the business. The third concept is you've not only hired people, but those people are better than you. And one of the phrases that I hate is this is where the magic happens.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
But this is where growth can happen, and it's not linear to what you're doing, because now you've hired people that are expanding and growing the vision. I work in a media company. I was great in the content side, but it wasn't until several years in that I hired a person, Jessica Cole, who was able to commercialize everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
So everybody builds different businesses in different ways. These are my thoughts on building a business, whether you're doing it in software as a service, technology, or almost any kind of business. The two core businesses that I've built, but I've also served on the board of several and been an investor with several different private equity funds and lots of individual companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
It didn't require me to tell her what to commercialize, but saw it and did it and ran with it and made it happen. And it's when you start hiring people that are better than you in that third stage, that a founder really becomes a different level founder because he's built a better team and the business is able to grow at a whole different pace and accelerate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
So that's the evolution of the leader and founder. The eighth thing or ninth thing that we talk about, and it often goes back to this concept today Are you liked or respected? And in today's world, you sort of have to be both. And we talk about this with the gratitude foundation. Gratitude, greatly appreciating your customers, greatly appreciating your teammates and your staff and your leaders.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
You better actually truly appreciate them. You tend to appreciate them. You have to realize I cannot do it without them. So I better love them and appreciate them. And that's the concept when we talk about gratitude in building a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The 10th concept we talk about is, and I've seen this over the years, the best operators of businesses, the best leaders of businesses, the best CEOs of business, they really know their own business. And it doesn't mean they have to be micromanagers, but they've really got to know their own business and what they're doing and what they want to do with it and how it works and how it operates.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Where do they make money? How do they make money? Do they know where the revenues come from? Do they know where the sales come from? Do they sort of know all those things and really well? So number 10, the 10th point in building your own business is really, you know, knowing your own business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
the 11th thing we talk about is i i don't really believe in free floating at some point you need to have a clear plan and then as you evolve it's being open to pivots and then once you understand what really works putting a lot of resources into what really works in building a business as you get that clarity you get those systems really doubling down on those you're going to make pivots periodically but you sort of have to start with a plan and then adjust from there the 12th thing we talk about in building a business
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
is the 80-20 rule as to customers and people. And again, not always a popular thought, but a much repeated thought is this concept that 20% of your customers probably generate 80% of your revenues and profits. So you better take care of those first and foremost. Same with your people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
I always view it as 20% of your people are the most important, and you better take care of them if you want to build something for the long run. It's constantly looking at how do I constantly double down on my best people, my best customers, and grow a business from that perspective. The 13th concept we talk about is there's all this discussion today about
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
but how there are no bad ideas or everybody should have an idea. Everybody should bring a new idea to the table. We should be asking everybody for ideas. And yes, there's a beauty to that. But at the same time, you better operate your business and do what has to be done to take care of things. And you can't get distracted by every new idea that comes across the chasm.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
There's this old adage in school, there are no dumb questions. And in some ways, there are no dumb questions. I don't disagree with that or agree with that. within reason. But at the end of the day, you have to focus on executing in your business and knowing what works and doesn't work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Some of those individual companies have recorded a zero, meaning a loss of everything. Others have done great. But the two corporations I've been involved in built a media company called Becker's Healthcare, separately built a law practice within a large firm called McGuire Woods, helped to build the healthcare, private equity practice and healthcare practice. So I've had those two experiences.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Yes, open to new ideas, but you better be 80% focused on what you're actually trying to accomplish versus constantly exploring with new ideas. When I find people that are constantly exploring with new ideas, usually they're getting no place and they're constantly distracted. And that's not, that just is what it is from my perspective.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
The 14th thing we talk about in businesses is a core fundamental for businesses is it's all about great systems and great people, great technology and great people. People talk about the healthcare system. We can fix it all with technology. Well, good luck with that. We better have great technology, great systems, and great people. It's really both, not one or the other.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
And so we constantly look at this and building great systems and great people and Great systems make people better. Great people use systems well. You need both. Great systems, great technology, great people. Finally, the 15th thing we talk about in business is You have to know your core competencies as a company and really build and stack all your resources around them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
We used to talk about surgery centers that wanted to have one of every different specialty. This is a disaster for surgery centers. You'd really much rather have two or three specialties and be deep in those specialties. And it's very similar in business. If you're trying to build a great sales team, you better build it. a great sales team. You don't want one sales person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
If you're trying to build a great production team, you better have your operations team or production team stacked and great, great people. What you don't want is one of everything. And then outside of the core companies you're trying to build, again, one of our companies, we outsourced accounting forever, at least until we got really big.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
Another one, we outsourced legal forever, quite frankly, and maybe until you get to be a $100, $200 million company in revenues a year, you outsource in legal, whatever the number is. But the concept is really focus on your core competencies and outsource the rest. Again, these are 15 core thoughts in building and running a business. We'll talk more about those. We talk about it often.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
15 core thoughts in building a business. We can get into this separately and we'll do so in the discussion on Wednesday. Teams, building teams, really picking out niches, customer centricity, and a lot more. Thank you for listening to this version of the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Feel free at any time to call Scott Becker, 773-766-5322 with any thoughts, suggestions, ideas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
15 Thoughts on Building Businesses 2-4-25
We love hearing from you. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly leads the healthcare department at McGuire and Woods. She works at the intersection of healthcare and private equity and is a tremendous leader, a force of nature.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
Yeah, so let's take a second on that because I think that's absolutely fascinating because there's so many different ways. One is I'll vouch for Howie. She's become an equity partner, a leader, one of the top lovers in the country, does tremendously well in leadership and in debt for clients.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
economically does well, all those kinds of things and also runs a fantastic family with her husband and two daughters. So in terms of her success, it's been incredible success. It continues to grow in that success. So obviously you ended up being right at this and choosing where you ended up doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
We're going to talk to her today about a subject that we don't often get to visit with, but used this subject recently with another guest and just had a wonderful podcast. The podcast topic today, Holly, is what's the worst career advice or professional advice you've ever received? You don't have to note who it was from.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
The second thing is I always have this concept I work with and almost anything anybody's ever done successfully and there may be exceptions to this, there are going to be naysayers. And I'm a huge believer in the concept, don't believe the naysayers, and thank God how he did it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
Third is, and I'd like to dig into this a little bit further, the person who gives that kind of guidance, when he gave that guidance, and I think it's a he, I'm not sure, but you'll tell me, or he or she, because I might know who you're talking about, I'm not sure, but that person said, probably did it with your best interest at heart versus in a negative way. But help me work through that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
What was your perception of that? Were you taken aback? Did you view that as fuel for your fire? I know that I have a daughter who's incredibly talented, incredibly motivated. And if you ever tell her she can't do something, She may be upset for the moment. And when she's upset sometime, I will make the mistake once in a while of coddling her. And that goes very poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
And then she jumps back after whatever she's trying to do. She's quite determined and has a high motor. And then ends up doing whatever. I told her, oh, don't worry. It's OK. And she goes after it. How did it feel? Was the advice meant in a good way? And how did you respond to that advice?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
I mean, there's so much there. People that don't know Holly, she has a big personality. She's a natural leader. And they might discount the fact that she's also incredibly bright. She graduated from high school at 16, went on to college at 16. That's incredible. And I tell the story often because it shows sort of the motor and intelligence of the person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
I hope it wasn't from me, but, but give us a second on what, what do you think of as bad career advice? What have you heard? What have you ever been told? Give us a few thoughts on what is bad career or leadership advice?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
But if you don't know Holly well and you judge the book by the cover, you might think it's all big personal skills and not brilliant and hardworking as well. And Holly's incredibly hardworking. She's incredibly gifted and smart. And so what happens is in these early years as an associate, the pendulum is much more focused on smart and task oriented. Just you get things done and are you smart?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
And then in big law, as you move up several years, it becomes much more balanced up. What are your management skills? What are your ability to get other people to get stuff done the right way? What are your abilities to work with clients?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
And so as I listen to what you're saying and I hear this, he might have misjudged your sheer intelligence and work ethic, which is a key part of success in the early years. And then as you get further into law, it's this mix of management skills, leadership skills, personal skills. to go with very, very bright and very hardworking.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
And it's a fascinating thing because the most successful lawyers at the big firms, at the biggest firms, are often really smart people. We have another colleague who's a valedictorian who breaks the mold on this, but he was also brilliant and a great team leader. But sometimes our valedictorians are so good at being students. And I remember a brilliant Chicago lawyer we had who was brilliant.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
but couldn't get past the task thinking into the bigger thinking of how are we going to really take care of clients and help them move their business forward. And it's people like Holly that have that mix of all those skills and those skills to the mistake of the person who gave you this advice,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
Those skills, if you get through the first few years, become as much or more important of the skills in the long term of a career. So it's a fascinating perspective that he had versus the antiquated view that he had versus what really is what makes it go over the long run. That's fascinating. Holly, let me let you continue to double down or give us another piece of horrible advice you got.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
I think this is actually a brilliant comment and it goes to the heart of things. Yes, you got to look sharp enough. You got to look clean enough. You got to look all those things. And I wouldn't discount that. I'm not a great dresser, but I believe there's a certain level of professional decorum and dress that's needed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
Now, that doesn't mean I need a $2,000 suit or an expensive suit, particularly to look sharp and clean. Far more important than looking sharp and clean, in the old days, there was this ad campaign that said, image is everything. And sort of to the point that you're making, I think this is the absolute wrongest advice and sentiment there is out there at all.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
I think it's very, very important to be professional, come across clean and together, but having to show off through a fancy car. or fancy clothes, or that somehow that is a substitute for great substance and energy and drive is I think such misguided advice. And I love that you talk about that. I love that. I think you are right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
And I think this concept that people should go out immediately when they start a job and spend thousands of dollars on their wardrobe. No, they ought to spend thousands of dollars on self-improvement, starting to put money away, starting to do other things, but on the wardrobe is absolutely ludicrous. I could not agree with you more, and I love that sentiment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Holly Buckley on Bad Career Advice and Breaking the Mold in Big Law 6-3-25
Holly, as always, thank you for joining the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We are thrilled today as an aside to bring number one on the Apple Business News Podcast today. God bless all of our listeners and our magnificent guests like Holly Buckley. And a special shout out to our producer, Chanel Bunger, the best in the business. Holly, thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to be four shout outs to four different business leaders from four different places. You're going to get Jensen Wang. You're going to get Tim Cook. You're also going to get Jeff Cockrell. And you're going to get Haley Jones. So we'll call this four shout outs of the day. Haley Jones, Tim Cook.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with President Trump that we have to be very careful what chips we sell to China. I'm also in agreement with President Trump that we've got to be careful in how much we buy into all of our manufacturing to China versus spreading that out to India and some other countries so we're not so reliant on one other country that it sometimes feels like an enemy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
So I give Jensen Wang and Tim Cook tremendous credit for trying to navigate this political situation and what a difficult political situation it is to measure and to figure out. So that's my first shout out today. Go to Tim Cook and Jensen Wang for having the backbone to try and navigate the situation with President Trump and not easy to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
Our next shout outs are going to go to a couple of professionals I've been fortunate to work with for a long time. They, by the time they hear this, because I've already gone through this whole first part on Trump, Jensen Wong, and Tim Cook, might already hate the podcast for believing that I wasn't hard enough, or I was too nice to President Trump, or that I should have been very positive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
I don't know what their politics are, but sometimes if I don't bash President Trump enough, people are upset. But we're not in that business, so bear with me. But two professionals, and I'm probably throwing a third here too. Haywood Jones joined Packers Healthcare 10 years ago. She has been nothing short of spectacular as a professional. She's brilliant. And she does big ticket sales.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
And what happens is you find people that have this great ability to think and have great personal skills and have great drive. It can connect dots. And that's what you need in a senior level driver of business. She has been nothing short of a leader, a fighter starter, just an incredible professional. And God bless her.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
As long as I'm talking about Haley Jones, I'll touch very quickly on two other great professionals. And there are so many at Becker's Healthcare. So I'm always cautious when I shout out some that I'm missing lots because there are so many great professionals. And that's a tribute to Jess Cole and the entire team and Katie Atwood, who have built a remarkable team at Becker's Healthcare.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
But I'll give two other quick shout outs today. Allison Warner, who adds up the sales department, just a fantastic professional, one of the best in the business. And to Emma Bola, who's also been with us, I think, about 10 years or more. And both those two are also just remarkable leaders and professionals. So the shout out starts with Hayley Jones today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
We're going to throw out a quick shout out also to Emma Bola and Allison Warner, who are just doing an incredible job, just incredible professionals. Finally, the last shout out of the day goes to Jeff Cockrell, who for a long time had up the private equity group at McGuire Woods. And this is one of the things that you like to see.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
Jeff was in some ways a mentor advisor to me, but he could never be a mentor advisor to me because he's He was so smart and so motivated out of the womb that you could never really mentor or advise people like that, but maybe a little bit of advice here or there. I had sort of toyed around with starting the healthcare private equity practice at McGuire Woods.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
Jensen Wang, and Jeff Cockrell. So I'll take these in no particular order. The first shout outs I'll give to Tim Cook and Jensen Wang. Each of them, I think, are doing about as good as they can in trying to manage the very complicated political situation and dynamic situation we're in. Now, this is not a knock on President Trump.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
And what Jeff did is nothing short of remarkable in taking the initial seeds of that practice and turning it into a mega practice. That's one of the most important practices at McGuire Woods. And there's a lot of people in this, in this group too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
Tom Zahn, who also built this incredible healthcare private equity practice, Holly Buckley, Amber Walsh, but today's shout out goes to Jeff Cockrell and amazing what he has done. The last thing I'll note about Jeff, and this is so much we think about when we see people evolve and grow is the It's almost like the old Forrest Gump statement.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
You never know what you have until you start to work with somebody. I think Forrest Gump said something about, you never know which chocolate you're getting in a box of chocolates. But the concept being, with Haley and Jeff, both came to Becker's Healthcare and McGuire Woods at different times, both phenomenal. But who knew they'd be some of the great people leaders these companies have ever had.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
I didn't know that when they hired them. Jeff came in with two other lawyers, both fantastic. But Jeff just took this to a whole different level as a rainmaker and a driver. He's sort of the John Finger of Chicago, just magnificent. And Haley Jones, the same exact thing, was always a terrific professional out of the womb. Just when she got started, she was great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
But the level of drive, the level of success, level of the ability to connect the dots at a high level and drive value for customers is simply remarkable. So again, today's big shout outs go to Jensen Wong, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, and Jeff Cockrell. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
I'm a big believer that we needed a reset in some of our trade policy. Yes, I believe we should be running at deficits in total, but I'm also a huge believer that other countries should not put tariffs on us that are higher than we're putting on them. I don't care about all the different literature and thoughts about why that's a good idea.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
I just think if they have a 30% tariff on us and we're buying more from them, screw them, and we needed a reset of trade policy, so I'm on board with that. Bear with me on that. But what I do give credit to is Jensen Wang and Tim Cook are right in the middle of this because their companies do a lot of business with China.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Shout-Outs: Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Haley Jones, & Geoffrey Cockrell 6-3-25
In fact, a great book on Apple in China written recently, it's been recommended to me. I've got to read it. Also, Jensen Wang, a Taiwanese-born American immigrant and as good a leader as they come with that beautiful drive of an immigrant. I read the bio on him. I love almost everything that Jensen Wang does. And he's trying to fight these curbs on sales of chips to China. Now, here's the deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to be cash flow is king, plus a salute to a recent entrepreneur. So here's the deal today. Great quote I saw yesterday, and it's not a new quote. It's the quote and the reminder that cash flow is king. It's almost like the reminder to me when I see these different tweets that say,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
And I can't tell you how much I respect the playbook of this person. The person will go nameless. I don't know if he wants to be discussing his new business out loud yet or where he's at on it. But this is a person who spent six years in a professional environment really learning a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
And if you read any of the stuff I do, you'll know that I'm a big believer that the best way to learn is by having a job and engaging yourself And the best way to come up with ideas is to be in business. I find it's almost impossible for people to just abstract ideas. I think it's a very hard thing to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
But if you're in something, if you're engaged in something, it's much easier to try and figure out ideas and what you could do and what you could do successfully. So I'm the biggest fan of this approach. I am just the biggest fan of this person. A relatively young professional in his early 30s, working his butt off to grow a new company.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
He's got an incredibly professional and smart spouse who also helps support the family and does fantastic. But he himself is a rock star and a force of nature. And I love the fact he was patient enough. wasn't one of these privileged kids who thought he had to start his business right the moment he got out, but gave it six years, 10 years of hard work doing what he's doing to learn and grow.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
So the two things today are cash flow is king and a salute to this young entrepreneur. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
Every once in a while, you just got to slow down and breathe. This one is right on. When people are running businesses at negative cash flows, they either got to be a richly well-funded, venture capital-funded company with a lot of runway and a very specific plan that they're going to grow the heck out of the company and then get to profitability. But for most small and medium-sized businesses –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
For most business startups, this concept that we could wait a couple years for profitability, we could wait years for profitability is largely a myth. And ultimately, cash flow and getting the cash flow is the absolute king. Cash flow allows you to invest in people and talent and growth, take some risk and do all the things you have to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
So when you talk to a business owner or a founder, and they're not really concerned about cash flow, they're just concerned about making things beautiful or making them great. I always take a backseat to investing in that company because I always want to see when somebody thinks they might be getting the cash flow and what the thoughts are around it, how important they view it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cash Flow is King + A Salute to a Young Entrepreneur 6-3-25
Cash flow is like fuel. It gives you the ability to do so many different things. So we're the biggest fan in companies that move towards cash flow relatively quickly, not with seeing all the noise out there about how it's not that important. The next thing I'll note as we talk about cash flow is, you know, I'm watching recently an entrepreneur, somebody who started their own business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled to be ranked number one today in the Apple Business News rankings. The next four podcasts are from the Wall Street Journal and then from Bloomberg, so thrilled with that company as well. Today's discussion is the complicated economy of President Trump, 10 quick statistics. I'm going to try here not to editorialize
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
Seventh, the U.S. is expected to spend nearly $1 trillion on interest in 2025. At some point, to knock that down, you've got to knock down the principal. Eighth, the U.S. stock market is back to slightly positive year to date. The S&P 500 is now up a little more than 1% year to date. Ninth, the GDP showed slightly negative growth in the first quarter and expected to slow to 1.62% this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
Tenth, Fed Chairman Powell is not moving too fast to reduce interest rates until the job market softens and slows until inflation and his preferred inflation measure slows a little bit more. In any event, a lot to digest. At the same time, we still have a deficit-ramped-up economy and not getting nearly the amount of growth. We're sitting at 6.5% of GDP on deficit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
We ought to be getting a lot more growth than 1% to 2%. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
And at the end of the day, the economy seems very similar to the Biden economy. There might not be as much inflation right now, but that might have been coming down as well. But we've still got a deficit amped up economy, and we'll talk about that, but I'll try not to editorialize here very much. First, jobless openings rose in April more than expected.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
Second, the Labor Department reported 7.4 million job openings. Analysts had projected 7.1 million. March at 7.2 million job openings. Job openings remain high. Third, unemployment remains close to 4.2%. Fourth, here's one of the stats where things are just right on with the Biden administration. Federal deficit numbers remain high with no reduction in the near term.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Complicated Economy of President Trump: 10 Quick Statistics 6-3-25
The CBO projects the fiscal year budget for 2025 to show a $1.9 trillion deficit, slightly up from 2024. This is about 6.5% of GDP. Fifth, the 2025 deficit should lead to around a total deficit of $38 trillion. We'll talk about more on that at some point. Sixth, inflation is slowing considerably, and it's down for the CPI consumer price index at 2.3% for the 12 months ended April 2025.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber's on the executive committee at McGuire Woods, has practiced at the intersection of healthcare and private equity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
No, I think absolutely fascinating. And Amber, as always, thank you for joining us. And thank you for your depth of sort of thought on these issues. It's really refreshing and amazing. Amber Walsh, again, Executive Committee Leader at McGuire Wood, just a phenomenal leader. Thank you for joining us today in the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
She's going to talk to us today about something that is more and more a piece of the workplace in teams and more, which is intergenerational teams working amongst different generations at work and a lot more. Amber, I know you'd mapped out some talking points in this, some thoughts on this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
But let me ask you a question. You would be at the firm itself, assuming people age from 25 to at the very oldest, I would think 80-ish, you've got three generations at the firm, I would think. Because Because you wouldn't have anybody young enough to be a fourth generation or probably still practicing long enough, although some people might be of counsel, to be a fifth generation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
But you still have three generations. Help me out on that. Am I saying that right?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
Got it. Got it. So, right. So five different, what you call the classifications of generation. Got it. Got it. It's not like we've got somebody who's great grandkids and them at the firm, but we do have these different generations in these different areas. Yes. Got it. Got it. Now I understand. It's a, what are some of the lessons in working together?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
I know that for example, so I'm whatever age I am. And the, the 25 year olds that are starting associates at the firm are essentially my children's age. And all good. And you feel a little bit like a father to them versus a colleague to them. And it's a little bit interesting. So what are some of the lessons in working across these generations?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
Why don't you tell us what you're thinking about it and why this is top of mind and maybe walk us through your core talking points on you sort of intergenerational workforces and teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
No, I think that's so well stated because I remember back in the day when I was in the younger generation and I had people, and you'll know these people, there were people like, you know,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
people that were 10 years older than me that I was working with people that were 20 years older than me that I was working with and sometimes it was easier to work with people 20 years older than me because those people were not in any way shape or form still in that competitive on the rise sort of
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
mindset where they felt almost competitive sometimes with the younger people who were still trying to prove themselves sometimes it was easier to work with people that were that were that difference in age because there just wasn't any of that competitive sense between them and sometimes it was harder but it's very interesting when you take that middle generation out so it takes out some of the things probably add some other complications and so forth but what a fascinating perspective i mean it's so fascinating to look at it through these generations and so forth
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
And then, you know, trying to stay connected throughout the generations and stay close with those that are older, those that are younger or whatever the variations are. What are some of your other observations, Amber, that you've seen out there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
Thank you very, very much. And Emma, when you look at this further, What further advice do you give to people and sort of developing teams, working in teams across generations? Give us some more thoughts here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
no 100 and it's probably extremely healthy for uh bernie sanders helps keep him young uh and it's it's probably healthy relationship for aoc because they're probably not a sense of real competition amongst them i wouldn't think and probably you're right on a million levels probably a really healthy type of thing 100 well absolutely fascinating and and talk to us further about anything else?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leading Across Generations: Insights from Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-1-25
And where are you most focused? Where do you take this next in terms of multi-generation? You're right in the middle, as you said, 100%. Where do you take this next? Where do you take this thinking next and how does it apply?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla & More 4-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, we're going to talk a little bit about Tesla and more. So here's what's going on with some of the stocks that we watch regularly. We always think about whether we should invest or not invest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla & More 4-1-25
Finally, just a quick note, a quick congratulations to consulting savant Howard Sutker on the 12th year anniversary of Sutker Moran and to his name partner, Scott Moran. What an incredible job they've done of building a business and making that go. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla & More 4-1-25
And again, at the end of the day, I had to stick to just index funds and keep my weight of my allocation right and not worry so much about this. But I do find it fascinating to watch. So Tesla is back to down 36 percent year to date, just having ultimately a disaster of a year and all kinds of challenges. You know, we'll come back to the Elon Musk scorecard in a week or two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla & More 4-1-25
But what a fascinating guy to watch and God bless him. I love Jamie Dimon yesterday saying he's the Einstein of our time or something of that sort. I think that's right on. Second, NVIDIA is down nearly 20% year-to-date now. Again, the company that Jensen Wang built, it's recovered pretty well from that, you know, whatever it was, the deep-seek thing from China, but still having a tough year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla & More 4-1-25
Apple remains down 11% year to date. Again, it's still the biggest of the market cap stocks. And amazing that they're able to stay in the game and keep giving people, customers, something that they need and want very badly. Again, it's worth noting, Apple and Amex, which we'll talk about below, are two of Berkshire Hathaway's, i.e. Warren Buffett's, largest holdings that he has.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla & More 4-1-25
So that's what's going on there. Finally, fourth, American Express is down 9.35% year-to-date. Again, this year, my goal was to watch Apple, Amex, and Nvidia and try and figure out whether to invest in one, not to invest in one, but just to watch because they're interesting. Those are three of the stocks that we watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's podcast is titled Rednecks and Film People. So we're going to describe two people that are bigger than life characters that have had a very big impact on my life and two of the people I love the most. And the quiz today is if you text 773-766-5322
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
So here's a setup for these two. One of them grew up in a very small town in Georgia where the only dry goods store was owned by the Harris family. You know, ultimately just celebrated a birthday. And Redneck of Redneck, sort of exactly the ruddy-faced Scottish-type guy that you would look at and think Redneck from the middle of northern Georgia.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
made himself into, and really I give his mother credit for this and his dad, into a concert pianist, which is somebody that plays the piano at the highest level, really remarkable for a kid from North Georgia, then went on to Harvard Law School. And when I first met him at Harvard Law School, That was my moment. I realized I was going to do just fine in law school, that this was going to be fine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
All kidding aside, you know, ends up being CEO of a huge family office, a lawyer by background, Miri's outkicks the coverage, names a lake after his wife. He's sort of like a gentleman farmer type Thomas Jefferson ish. Well, not with, with not completely, but you get the picture and three amazing children's and a great daughter-in-law. So that's sort of,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
Character one, rednecks of rednecks and as bright as they come and fascinating and really led to my comfort level at Harvard Law School, both socially and understanding I was going to be fine at Harvard Law School. The second person we'll talk about is another really remarkable character, and I tend to surround myself with idiosyncratic people that I just left.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
And this one is, you know, in some ways more from the type of neurotic, anxious world that I come from, but a crazily good athlete, probably one of the greatest synagogue baseball players of all time and softball players of all time has ever
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
Wonderful wife, four amazing children, including one of all things is going to Yale, which proves that whatever intelligence there was in that family comes from the wife's side. The wife is a brilliant person, great athlete, great runner, too. And this one's going to run at Yale. The thing I'll tell you about this person, I respect this so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
I've got another buddy like this named Howard Sutker. that later in their professional life, in the 40s or 50s, started their own practices. This one built a crazily successful entertainment law practice, represented a number of Oscar-winning films. Simply remarkable what he has done with his professional career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
I love the both of them, both two of the most fascinating people that you'll ever meet. Today's episode, Rednecks and Film Guys. You know, it's hard to find that compilation to put those two together, but we've done it here. Rednecks and Film People, thank you for listening. Again, if you get it right, you're the first person. You get $200.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
and you are the first to identify both of them, you get a $200 Amazon gift certificate. If you identify one of them and you're the first, you get $50. That's the rule today. So here's the setup. Throughout your professional life, your personal life, your business life, You end up getting to know certain people that just have big outsized personalities or just really interesting in their own way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
If you don't get it right, but you get one of them right, you get $50. If you... Don't get either right. You're welcome to keep on listening, but you don't even get the steak knives from Glenn Gleary, Glenn Ross. Thank you for listening. The text number is 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
They're characters. They're interesting. It is what it is. We've got some of our own family that will remain nameless here. But a couple I've come across over the years, you know, went to law school with Barack Obama and Anthony Scaramucci, bigger than life characters, really interesting in all their different ways, love them or hate them. I love them both personally.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rednecks & Film People 4-1-25
Don't necessarily love all the politics of Barack, but love them as people. And then there's a lot of other people, you know, Nancy Temple, who went to law school with us as well. Harold Russell, who we grew up with. Just different people that are bigger than life characters. And you come across them throughout your life. Today, the focus is on rednecks and film guys.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 4-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are five of the quick stories that we're following today, and thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, the markets are falling today on renewed concerns regarding tariffs. We'll see how that continues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 4-1-25
It was on a much bigger run than that, but happy, I think, to be still up 12%. So in overall, good, good shape. That's what's going on with that. Those are five of the quick stories that we're following today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 4-1-25
Yesterday, the markets ended up up a little bit after being down most of the day, but ended up fine. Today, the markets point significantly down early, and we'll see how it goes. Second,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 4-1-25
u.s mergers and acquisitions fell in the first quarter year after year by 13 percent uh this is going to lead many bankers pe funds lawyers consultants disappointing people are expecting a good rebound in deals this year so far not the case not yet obviously tariffs interest rates lots of things causing a slowdown in that third canada goose sank to an all-time low yesterday
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 4-1-25
i didn't really see that coming given how attractive their products are their price for luxury but not as bad as montclair and so forth but nevertheless candidate goose taking it on the chin down three percent three and a half percent yesterday and taking an all-time low uh our family seems to be buying enough candidate goose to keep them in where they should be but but no such luck all right fourth discover financial jump seven and a half percent yesterday
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 4-1-25
They're in the process of being sold to Capital One for $35 billion. So we'll see where that ends up. Their interim CEO decided to stay on, and that helped give them a comfort that they're in a stable spot. Finally, fifth, Kalantir Technologies, the company that Peter Thiel bit, built, excuse me, remains up about 12% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Thank you folks so much for joining us. We're thrilled today to be joined on the Becker Private Equity and Business webinar with Venkit Mokurla. Venkit is a brilliant person and a terrific person. He's really two different things. He's an avid early stage investor who's invested across the board in a lot of healthcare companies and digital health companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
But people talk so much about structured data. You're going after this to get that. We're using our solution to get this out of those medical records out of this. What about the broader uses where you're compiling from lots of different sources in an unstructured way where the AI attacks things? Talk about that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And where does that fit into health care, sort of the use of unstructured versus structured data?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Well, and that's probably right. And we all see this in our own lives as consumers are using Google and so forth. Now, if we don't get the quick AI overview, We're kicking it. I had this experience yesterday. We had to go through 12 different articles trying to find the answer I wanted to get. And I'm so used to now getting the quick AI overview that gives me that answer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And so it's really amazing how quickly it's changing and then trying to find those commercial applications in healthcare, whether in revenue cycle, in the clinical side, in the marketing side, all different kinds of places in healthcare where you have to put these things to work. In terms of early stage investing, Just give us a second on the trends you're watching in early stage investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
For example, there's been an explosion in investing in different AI-related companies. Mm-hmm. And two observations I'll make. One, we're starting to see the consolidation of some of those because whether it's health systems and other parts of the commercial world, people only want to deal with so many different solutions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
So we're just starting to see, and you and I witnessed one recently, the roll-up of a solution into another. So one, sort of the roll-up stuff. And then second, any insight you could give us on this deep-seek thing that sort of just hit the news today, NVIDIA drops 10%, 15%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Doesn't that momentarily put a little fright into AI investors, and then we sort of all breathe and roll forward to figure out what our own solutions are and what we're working with? But if you don't mind talking about that quickly, there's been this explosion of investments in AI different companies. What will that look like five years from now?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And then second, what does this deep seek thing mean, if anything, for investment theses?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I think that is such great advice. It's sort of, you know, Steve Jobs was so famous for the user interface, making it easy for the user to use. And it's one of the reasons why 10, 15 years later, we're all dealing with Apple on everything that we and so many things we do. I'm sitting here doing this webinar on an iPhone.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I'm sitting here looking at the questions on the iPad, partly because he made the user interface and Apple did so easy. And they've continued to double down on that. And your point is in the last mile, there's all this technology, but at the end of the day, we have to make it really easy for our health system executive, for our users to use.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And that's where a lot of people miss the boat because they're developing something at the 10,000 foot level. We have to make it super easy for our customers to use. I just absolutely love that. Love, love, love.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Let me ask you this follow-up question that comes from one of our listeners, and it ties into a lot of this because we always talk about, you mentioned the idea to sell cycle and then the sales cycle. We know that sales cycle in large health systems could be very long. It's why there's this constant discussion and discussion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
chasm within venture capital of small to midsize businesses versus large businesses. Large businesses have more reward, but they take a long time to get them as customers. Small and midsize business, not as much upside, but easier to sign as a customer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And sometimes every business needs that momentum, that dopamine fix to keep on moving forward to see some progress, to see some customers come in the door. One of the questions from one of our listeners is, Part of the struggle in healthcare is the process of new products approved. Where do you see opportunities within large bureaucratic systems?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
If you've done this wonderful job with essentially a startup, getting in the door and getting business with some large, large systems, how do people navigate some of that? Whether, and this person asks on the financial side, the ops side, the security side, it's so hard to get in the door and get things approved. How do you sort of move through some of that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I think one of the points you made is such a great point that for example, if you're seeking work at 10 different systems, the natural thought might be that system A has already done 16 different AI solutions, that system, Z has done none. So I should go after system Z. But the real answer is you're probably much more fertile at system A that's interested in doing these kinds of things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Like we used to think about health systems. Some of them had done a ton of acquisitions, a ton of joint ventures. And those are the ones that knew how to do joint ventures and acquisitions. So it may be much easier and better to focus. And it seems almost paradoxical.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
to to focus at those systems that are innovators that are really trying to do these kinds of things so even though they're trying six solutions they're probably more interested in trying a handful more than the one that's going very slow on these things that's still using the flip phone or in my case the blackberry i'm going to ask you another question because i'm not sure you've got focus on this somebody's asked about the fda and what you see about future plans with the fda i don't know how close you tie into that with the work at midstream but any thoughts on the fda are things going to get easier harder there
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Is it going to be insane? Any thoughts on the FDA in this coming administration?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Thank you very, very much. Let me ask you a question from one of our audience members, and I'm going to get back to a couple of our final questions. We've got a question. One of the resistance points that the company is seeing is, that the utilization of some elements of AI, there's a fear of giving up access to internal data.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
It's almost on the smaller picture, this issue of the deep seek issue, the TikTok issue, of the fear from the customer of giving up access to internal data or letting them totally into your system. I know, for example, on the smallest level, if I use somebody new for some sort of platform or advertisers like that, I get to get them access to all my social accounts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And you're always a little concerned about that. But talking about from the health system perspective and the company perspective, what are some recommendations you have for building trust with the system and make sure the system feels like you're not going to take their data and AI at all over the world or not going to compromise their data?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
How do you help to create better safeguards and remove some of those fears as you dig in closely and partner with systems?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Let me ask you a question that's an advice piece for founders. Over the last couple of years, we've seen a whole number of founders go through things like tech stars like Combinator. More recently, a couple fantastic companies that I've seen have gone through the Mayo Clinic platform accelerator program.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
After people go through those programs, how do you think about seeking first round funding and how do you sort of look at those next steps?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
So to that point, I would also encourage the listener to reach out to Venkit on that separately. He's incredibly tied into that investor community. And obviously, some of the credentials you've noted are probably right on board with things that that investor community is interested in. team, product fit, you have a true product fit. I mean, it's a lot of what you say about the last mile.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
So many people are just a mile above that last mile. And so not really hitting the right product market fit and that you're talking about. And then right, finding the investors that really have the right internet area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I think your point is so well taken though, because you and I have seen so many business that have flanted out at numbers, That would be very exciting numbers to most of us. And again, I've got the unfortunate of seeing this on both sides as an investor in small startups as well as an investor with major funds like Apple.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
your former business, Andreessen Horowitz, and an outcome for Andreessen Horowitz can't be $30 million. It's gotta be a big number. I don't wanna speak about Andreessen Horowitz specifically, but General Catalyst, they're playing the big, big, long game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And then for many of us, we're investors with that, but we're also investors in lots of smaller types of things where if it ends up being, you know, 10, 20, 100 million, it's a win for those entrepreneurs and those investors. And there's not absolutely a right or wrong. Not everybody has to become Amazon. A lot of people could become something and be quite successful at a mid-market size.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And a lot of times it's a lot easier to become very successful to mid market size than a billion dollar size because the competition is different. But it does take a lot of a lot of blocking and tackling and a lot of execution. And I think the thing that you said to me a few times today is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And I've heard you say it, but not as clear over the years, is this hardcore last mile product to market fit, hitting it really right on with what the customer needs is so important. Because if you do that well, then you could really blow up a value equation that really can work. across big systems and small systems. I think it's really such important advice. There's a great question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Part of his role at one point was Chief of Business Development a great company that grew into a really successful company in the healthcare analytics space. He's also served as an operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz, which is one of the most well-known names in healthcare investing, one of the great venture capital funds of our time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I'm not sure this is really right in your wheelhouse either, but let me ask you the question and see if it is. And I want to get back to a couple final minutes on what advice would you give to founders and what advice would you give to investors? Just a couple of core thoughts. And I also encourage our audience, any final questions,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
text scott becker 773 766-5322 thank you so much so next question we had is regulatory guidance or oversight mechanisms that should be implemented to ensure the safe ethical and effective use of ai in healthcare while maximizing the benefits of patient outcomes and it does feel like we are just moving into this wild west of ai solutions
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
where there's so much computing power being applied so quickly that no one could tell exactly where it's going. And we're all sort of a little bit sort of like, oh, my goodness, along for a Wild West ride. But give us a second, Don, what do you see there in terms of sort of safe ethical use of AI? And how do you think about that as a founder, as an investor?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
No, 100%. And obviously, some of the largest companies in the world that sell so hard and how safe and ethical they are, are not so safe and ethical. And it is what it is. It just is what it is. And that's not that's just the reality of the world we live in. I'm going to make two quick statements. First, I want to thank all of you for attending.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Then I'm going to come back to Venkat with one more question to make these two quick Two quick statements. I want to thank all of you for joining us today. I know more than 110 people signed up. More than that. Venk, it's a wonderful, wonderful leader, investor, founder. So thank you. Any more questions, please provide them to us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Second is at Becker Private Equity and Business, specialize in these business-to-business webinars. If you're a founder, an investor, a technology company, we'd love to discuss with you having you on a webinar. So thank you so much for joining us. And thank you to Michelle and her team who helps do the back end of all of this. Just does a magnificent job. Michelle Byers, thank you so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Venkat, two more quick questions. What advice would you give to founders and any final advice you would give to investors in thinking about those two things?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Thank you. And talk about the sort of evolution from being a investor to an entrepreneur. And let's start with investing. So many different things out there to invest in. How do you assess opportunities to invest in health care? How do you think about those things?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
No, thank you very, very much. And I'll just wrap up with a couple of points there. First, I think your focus on these entrepreneurs and investors and founders hitting that last Mile, that true customer application where really the rubber hits the road and really be intimate with that and really solving that is such great, great advice that so many people in broader marketing strokes sort of miss.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I think that's a fantastic piece of advice. Second, I don't want people to panic. The S&P is down 1.8%. The Nasdaq is down 3.3%. I assume that deep seek won't kill all of us and that it will be okay. I take it that's the case. And we shouldn't all panic today that things will rebound and be okay. Third, we are so thrilled to get to work with entrepreneurs, investors, founders like Venkat Mokurla.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
One of the great pleasures of my professional life is working with Venkat and people like Venkat. Always happy to visit with people. Again, if you want to follow up with Venkit, please do so. Venkit Mukherjee, the best in the business. Thank you so much. If you want to follow up with Scott Becker, love to reach out, love to visit with you. Thank you folks all so much for listening in today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
What a great pleasure. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Finally, Venk, it's the founder recently of a company called Midstream Health. We're going to get a chance to talk to Venkat today about a number of subjects, both investing, founding companies, use cases for AI. I'll probably try and bother him a little bit on what's happened today in the markets with deep seek and all these things with AI and the sort of tumult in the AI world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
No, I think that's, I think there's a lot to be said for that. There's team, there's idea, what the thesis is, there's timing, there's all those things. Right. And then there's this evolving fight in healthcare between point solutions versus larger solutions, because sometimes so often the entrepreneur, the engineer is so great on the point solution that,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
And it could be the best point solution, but so many health systems and so many investors are moving towards larger, if not so much enterprise solutions, but away from having a thousand different point solutions. And how do when you start investing in looking at seed versus next stage, how do you think about point solutions versus larger solutions? It seems like so often.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
The great point solution gets dumbed down because the entrepreneur is forced into a larger box that the system or customer investor wants. How do you think about that point versus larger solutions?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
I'll encourage our audience at any time, text a question. There's a chat box. Send your question by chat or send it to me, Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. Venkat is a close colleague, a fellow investor. We're huge fans of his. Venkat, take a moment and tell us about yourself and your background.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Yeah. No, I think that's a great point. There's a few points you made there. One is that you better nail the point solution. Whatever you're doing first, if there's a big enough pain point in it, people are still going to buy the point solution. It might not scale to a billion dollars, but it's still a very important thing to solve. And so don't lose faith in having a fantastic point solution.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
Second is, if it's on the epic roadmap, which we think about in healthcare, if it's on, for example, the Amazon roadmap, which you think about in general business, you might want to think about whether or not that's your focal point or not. But that's a great question. And I love what you said about timing. There's always the right time for an idea. It might just not be now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
It's like the people that prognosticate the market. they're going to be right periodically doesn't know don't know if they're going to be right now let me ask our audience first at any time that any of you have a question please put it in the chat box or if it's easier text scott becker at 773-766-5322 either way so that that's one and and then second uh thank you let me ask you next question
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Fireside Chat with Venkat Mocherla on Early Stage Investing and AI 1-30-15
When you look at AI as it applies to healthcare and what you're doing at midstream, what are you most excited about as AI applies to healthcare? Where are you most excited and where are you folks most focused?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to walk through 10 of the business stories that we're following today. It's January 30th. It is a busy, busy day in the business world. So bear with me. I'm going to first give you four or five prescripts to the business stories that we're following. First, the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
Third, I'll just give you a couple of the stocks that we watch in the year-to-day results. I'll go through three of them very quickly. Apple down 4.42%, Lucid down 11.63%, Amex up 6.22%, Palantir up 5.46%. Those are just a few of the stocks that we watch. Intel is also down about 1.5% and more. Fourth, Apple is set to report earnings today after the markets close.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
Their market cap is right about $3.6 trillion. Fifth, the Fed and Chair Powell held rates steady at their meeting yesterday. We'll see how that continues to play out. Sixth, E-Advocate Health is going to close its Walgreens clinics in Illinois and Wisconsin. This involves 47 or so in-store clinics. It marks the continuation of Walgreens moving out of being a direct provider of primary care.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
Seventh, Tesla fell 2.26% yesterday, bid on the mend today. It's down about 6.5% year-to-date. It had weaker than expected fourth quarter revenues, and it saw its profit drop by 71% for the quarter. Eighth, Caterpillar, mainstream of the traditional economy, is down nearly 5% today after forecasting lower revenues for the year. It also missed on fourth quarter revenues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
Ninth, RFK had its first HHS confirmation hearings. We're covering that at Becker's Healthcare. No comment on that. I'm not an RFK fan. nor a Mehmet Oz fan, or did not really become a Pete Hexer fan either, but different story. I am a huge Marco Rubio and Elise Stefanik fan, so it is some balance there. Tenth, tragic accident yesterday involving American Airlines and U.S. military helicopter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
An awful shame. A lot of people dead. American Airlines, and this is basically irrelevant, down about 4% to 5% on this, but what a shame. In that event, those are 10 of the stories we're following, plus a few prescripts. You can always reach Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening, and thank you to Chanel Bunger.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
economy grew less than expected in the fourth quarter. Inflation came in at the expected numbers. The GDP grew at 2.3%. The personal consumer expenditures index grew at 2.5%. The markets seem to be responding fine to these numbers because they don't put too much cold water on the concept of Fed rate cuts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
We've now passed a combined 22 million downloads on the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity podcast. God bless all of our listeners. Thank you very very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
In fact, the slower economy is a bit of a concern, particularly how much deficit spending we still have. Second, we've heard about this separately, Atticus Coffee in Park City might be one of the best coffee shops in America. We also noted just briefly that we're sold out of business-to-business webinars at Becker Private Equity through the next month and a half, six to eight weeks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
Third, Blackstone, the biggest private equity fund operator with the largest assets under management, So it's revenues and profits surged in the fourth quarter, and it reached record assets under management of $1.13 trillion. But even with all, it's down a few percent today. We'll see how that goes. It was down 5% last time we looked.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
Fourth, Microsoft, which is something we're an individual holder of,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-30-25
is down of course six percent today and always a reminder to me to stick as much as possible to index funds versus individual stocks now here's the tensors we're following past the prescript and i'll get through these very quick because i know we're taking a lot of your time today ups is down nearly 17 percent as it missed on fourth quarter revenue it's just having a tough tough day second starbucks jumped eight percent on approved results their new ceo is basically a genius
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is really about social media, Twitter, and more. And is this, for all practical purposes, today's video games? So if you're a parent, you probably spent some part of the last 10, 20 years lamenting to your children about how much time they spent with video games.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
But I do feel like Twitter and some of these social media have become nothing more than a video game. I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on this. 773-766-5322 or always email me at askpacker at packerstrategygroup.com. What are your thoughts on, has Twitter become a video game? I guess that's the core question. We'll call the title that. Chanel, has Twitter become a video game?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
Thank you so much for listening. I love it, but I do feel like I'm addicted to it, like the kids were addicted to video games, and I might have been as a kid. Thank you for listening to the Back to Private Equity in Business podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
Like one of our kids spent a disproportionate amount of time on video games. And we always viewed that sort of as a, Oh my goodness, spent so much time on video games. And I wonder if today, like I'm a Twitter addict, a Twitter fanatic. I just, it's, I find it great fun. It doesn't have a business purpose. I don't really know what they've done with Twitter. They've so gamified it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
So you could constantly look at your stats as to why, How many impressions you have, how many likes you have to qualify for a next level of earning, you have to get the 5 million impressions and so forth. And it dawns on me, it's become addictive to me, like some of the video games were to me as a youth, and certainly like some of them were as kids.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
And I guess this is not, I'm not the first person to talk about that, but have the social media platforms become today's video games? I think it's a real, real issue, and I think it probably is. I could spend literally Thousands of hours dumping time into Twitter X, which I'm not really sure I have a business purpose in, or if it's just today's video game, an addictive video game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Has Twitter Become Today’s Video Game? 1-30-25
LinkedIn I spend some time on as well, but I do feel like there's more of an actual business case there. It keeps me connected to the private equity community, the health care community, McGuire Woods, my law firm, and Packers Healthcare, which is the media company that I founded. So I feel like LinkedIn at least has somewhat of a business purpose, not just a video game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James. So here's what ties these four people together. And you might think this is almost the strangest assortment of four people you would see other than all of them being super rich. But no, it's not that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
All the other CEOs of his era, They've either moved on, you know, the Bill Gateses of the world, obviously Jeff Bezos of the world, Steve Jobs passed away. Elon Musk, also remarkable energy and perseverance is still at it. Mark Zuckerberg, similar. And Zuckerberg stock, you know, it's I think the fifth or sixth or seventh largest market cap stock in the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
He's now been added as CEO for 21 plus years. And when I look at these folks, whether it's Tom Brady, LeBron James, Michael Tell, Mark Zuckerberg, I am amazed at the diligence, the discipline, the perseverance, the ability to keep themselves sharp, the ability to keep themselves on and focused and growing and building for all those years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
I find it to be an amazing sort of almost a miracle of nature, a miracle of human mind. Probably all of them make the effort to keep themselves physically and mentally healthy. Obviously, Tom Brady and LeBron had to be crazy about that for their business, but I bet You know, you never see an overweight pitcher of Dow or Zuckerberg.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
And the energy and perseverance they've had over all these years to keep at it and stay in leadership is remarkable. I've led different organizations. The maximum I led one for was 15 years. It was exhausting. And I did two different stints as a leader of that organization. I find it to be an exhausting thing. I'm amazed at these folks that could do it. Just hats off to LeBron, TB.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
Zuckerberg and Michael Dow. It almost sounds like I'm on a first-name basis with them, but I'm not with any of them, but really amazing what they've done. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
I mean, the closest I've gotten to Mark Zuckerberg is scrolling on Facebook, and the closest to Michael Dow is knowing his brother, a magnificent ophthalmologist in Austin area, Stephen Dow, but I don't know any of the Zells or Zuckerbergs, the Dells or Zuckerbergs. or LeBron's or TP's personally, but God bless them all. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
What Zuckerberg and Dell have done in business is comparable to what LeBron and Tom Brady have done in sports. So LeBron is still playing incredible basketball at 40 years old. Tom Brady played incredible quarterbacking until 42 or so or some later age than that, some incredible year. I don't have the exact year in front of me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
A tribute to these guys' perseverance. It's remarkable and amazing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
But each of them had longer careers than the average career in their sport by a huge amount. And here's how Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Dell line up. Michael Dell, of course, the founder of Dell. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. Michael Dell has now been CEO for 40 years of Dell. And not only that, Dell is moving through another growth period of time where they've re-found their bearing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
They've reinvented themselves over the years. They've pivoted. They've sucked their core, but re-pivoted over the years. But he's literally been in the game for 40 years. Now, the average lifespan of an NFL running back, I think, is three years. Tom Brady played for 24 years or something like that, something crazy like that. LeBron has played for 20 plus years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tom Brady, Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and LeBron James 1-30-25
I don't know what the average NBA career is, but I assume it's similar two to three years or something like that. And he's played for 20 plus. Similarly, the average CEO tenure of a publicly traded companies, I think about 8.3 years. And you're looking at Michael Dell now 40 years in and still pivoting, thinking, growing and making it work. It's really a remarkable thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled to recently pass 7 million downloads. Thrilled to also be in a spot where ranked, I think, first a week or two ago on the Apple Business News Podcast ranking. So God bless that. Today's discussion is Tempest AI, four or five quick points. So here's the deal with Tempest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
So I was very impressed that they'd moved to that spot where Tempus was that well-received and that much a tool of the trade by huge health systems. So I was really impressed by it. The third reason I watch Tempest, which I'm not afraid to admit this is—
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
One of my close friends who's based in Indianapolis was an earlier investor in Tempest and continues to tell me how well he's done with Tempest while I've done so poorly with another company called Astera Labs. So multiple reasons we watch it. It's founded by hometown people that have just knocked it out of the park.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
That's not a pun on the word hometown because I believe that Eric is also an investor in hometown coffee and juice ran by the brilliant Rubin family. But it was not intended as a pun. But the point being, Tempest is still just doing tremendously well. It's got a market cap at almost $10.9 billion as of today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
And my buddy, who will remain nameless, keeps on bragging to me about how he got into it early and I did not. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
Tempest AI was founded by a brilliant entrepreneur, Eric Kowalski. He's also the founder of a company called Groupon. His partner in founding Groupon, Brad Keywell, is not a founder in Tempest AI, but an early investor in Tempest AI. And between the two of them, they own a substantial amount of the shares in Tempest. Tempest AI, just for background, is currently as a market cap investor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
about 9.5 billion. I think there's five or six of the biggest shareholders on about 51% with Eric, this brilliant entrepreneur owning about 26% or so of those shares. Tempest fell yesterday on a critical report from a short seller.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
The short selling reports are always so convoluted because sometimes the short sellers are driving reports to try and drive the stock down so they can profit from short selling. But in any event, the stock dropped about 20% yesterday. It's back up a few percent today. And so you don't worry too much about Tempest. It's also up about 62% year to date. So it's doing just fine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
Now, one of the reasons we watch Tempest AI is really twofold or threefold. One, it's founded by people that are local to us. So we watch it and we're curious. They've done a tremendous job as entrepreneurs. Second, when a nephew, he had a serious, horrendous cancer several years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI: 5 Key Points 5-29-25
I was fascinated to learn that one of the technologies that the great health system was using to help analyze the cancer and what to do next and to look at precision medicine and so forth was what was developed by Tempus AI. And this was by one of the greatest health systems in the world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and again, we've recently passed 7 million plus downloads. We're doing great on the Apple Podcast rankings. We're getting more feedback from listeners, and we are so thankful for all those things. Today's discussion is, my diet went off the rails yesterday. So here's the deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
So those things. And the fourth thing that happens is I stop hydrating myself as well as I could. So multiple different things led to an all-time blowout, horrendous diet date tomorrow. So here's the trick on this. Here's the deal on this. There's a great, great concept in this I've seen a million times is Don't go two days without a workout.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
If you blow one, make sure you get back in it the next day. If you're having a horrible diet day, well, okay. Make sure the next day is a better day. So today is the rebound and recovery day. It's going to be salads. It's going to be disciplined at dinner. It's going to be drinking a ton of water, the 80 ounces I needed, trying to bounce back. But, you know, again,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
Trying to avoid having too many of those days in a row because everything tends to go downhill when I double and triple down on bad days of eating. So again, this may be apropos to nobody. It might be apropos to somebody. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
We can't thank you enough for our listenership and for our great producer, Chanel Bunger, the best in the business. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
It doesn't happen all that often, but maybe once a week or so, once every couple of weeks, my diet and willpower totally goes off the rails. And there's a couple of things that generally happen that drive this. And I sort of look at three different triggers. One is, it's almost like an alcoholic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
If I have one bit of something, one bit of a cookie, that could be one trigger that triggers me in the wrong direction. Yesterday, I've got one of the kids in town who works abroad. And so it's so good to have Wren. And so I ingested some of my bad habits on her. We went and tried this at a bakery, that at a bakery. And of course, by some point, I've just sort of given up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
So that's one thing that drives it. The second thing that drives it is when I get out of my routine, I have a typical morning routine where I work for a few hours very early, and not to brag on how early I get up and work, but I work for a few hours. Then I get some kind of exercise in and stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
My Diet Went Off the Rails Yesterday 5-29-25
But it's been one of these weeks where there's so many of these going on, my routine has been off, my stress has been off. And so that also drives me to blow the diet. The third thing that often causes me to blow the diet is Too much caffeine. There's a point in time which caffeine, whatever it does, it blows my impulse control, and I'm just wanting to get more food and more stuff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the problem with point solutions. So here's the issue. People have point solutions in all kinds of businesses. Often we talk about them in the technology world where somebody's selling a very specific point solution versus a broader solution.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
Here's the other things you could use. Here's what else you could do to complete your suite. Or in this case, here's publishing agencies or publishers you could talk to once we do what we're doing. But if you're so narrow in your scope that the person feels like they're lost after working with you, then I find it to be a real disincentive
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
to working with the person because you have no confidence you'll ultimately get from point A to B. In any event, I found it to be an absolutely fascinating thing and a fascinating learning experience. That's all I've got for you today on this, the problem with point solutions. And I find this to be constant. And I just had a perfect example of it recently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
And what's happened with buyers of point solutions is that they more and more want help beyond just the point solution, and they don't want to manage 100 different point solutions. So this becomes one of the problems with point solutions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
More recently, I ran into trouble with a point solution user, not a technology firm, but really an editor, writer type who I needed help from on writing a specific thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
And one of the things I found is that this writer is so nearly focused, and they're a professional writer, so nearly focused in their small window, they couldn't give any advice on where you go after working with her or him or whatever it might be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
And what happens with that is you become very hesitant to sign up fully for the services of the point solution, the writer, because you don't know where you're going to go after that. And so it's a real discouragement from working with it because you sort of have to do every single thing a la carte.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Problem With Point Solutions 5-29-25
So sort of my business advice is if you're going to sell point solutions and you really want to be great and you really want to be useful, You don't have to do everything by any means. And you don't necessarily have to broaden your services. But you've got to make yourself in the business of being able to help people. Here's the other software we could connect with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are seven of the stories that we're following today, and thank you for joining us. First, NVIDIA, despite some restrictions on sales to China, reported great earnings, and it's possible that's going to bolt past Microsoft today as a top market cap company.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
Third, as we've talked about often, Tesla and Elon Musk remain tremendously resilient. The stock is down 11% year-to-date. Sixth, this is apropos of nothing, my diet efforts were a disaster yesterday. Everything went off the rails. You're going to have days like that. Seventh, Best Buy points down this morning. after disappointing earnings and projects challenges due to tariffs on imports.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
Now, when they talk about tariffs and all the challenges of tariffs, you have to remember some of these companies that are whining about tariffs, and I don't mean to use that pejoratively, maybe I do, they were already down 70% year to date, and they were facing headwinds way before the trade wars. So we take a little bit with a grain of salt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
In any event, thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you later with a few more episodes. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
Both are leaving Apple, the prior top firm in the dust currently. The video is up 6% earlier today. We'll see how it's doing today. It starts today at about $3.3 trillion in market cap. Microsoft is about $3.4 trillion, and then Apple right at $3 trillion in market cap. Second, U.S. futures and the markets are flat now. Earlier today, they were way up as the U.S. Court of International Trade
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
blocked some of President Trump's tariff efforts. The president is going to appeal that, but always fascinating to watch. They didn't wholly block the tariffs, but some piece of them ultimately might not have that big an impact on trade negotiation. Goldman says that the court setback won't derail Trump's tariff plans. Third,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
Salesforce, the company founded by Marc Benioff, brilliant, brilliant person, reported better earnings than expected and raised its full year outlook. God bless the resilience. They said their data cloud businesses and AI businesses are hauling in annual revenues of more than a billion dollars, up 120%, 120% year over year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 5-29-25
It's really moving in the right direction and continues to project higher growth. It's top line revenues. Fourth, Tempest AI, founded by geniuses Eric Levkowski and Brad Keywell, took it to the chin yesterday, down about 16%. It's still up significantly year-to-date, about 57%. Excuse me, it fell almost 19% year yesterday. Its market cap is about $9.2 billion. So that's Tempest AI.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to have recently passed 7 million downloads and been ranked at the top of the Apple Business News Rank Exist Month. And this is largely due to great listeners and great guests. One of our great guests is David Pivnik, who's a brilliant leader, lawyer, business strategist, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
Let me ask you about that. The false claims case has been around since the Civil War. What's the take on that? Can that possibly be ruled unconstitutional? Can we possibly not have key TM cases? Is that a possibility? Or would that get the Supreme Court and at some point they'd be like, no, of course we could do that. What's your take on that? Is there a good basis for not being constitutional?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
We talk to David often about leadership issues, business issues. He made his name as a top litigator handling white collar claims, often for private equity funds, but a fascinating, fascinating person. David, let me start with this. Talk to us for a second about, so what are the most interesting issues that you're following today? What's top of mind for you? What are you keeping your eyes on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
Let me ask you a question just to understand it further. would this knock out the key TAM statute entirely or just knock it out for particular types of claims?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
And currently, the government intervenes in a certain percentage of false claims cases. And when they intervene, the chances of recovery go up significantly. I don't have in front of me the percentage of claims. I remember it was about 25% that the government intervenes and maybe it's less than that. Do you know the percentage of times that the government intervenes in?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
Because it seems as though this would knock out particularly all those cases where the government doesn't intervene.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
Right, because you end up in a spot where that number, that 20-25% number would go up somewhat, most likely. So it wouldn't completely knock out key TAM cases, but it would knock them out where the government doesn't intervene.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
it'd be fascinating to see the ultimate impact on this because also of those 75% of the cases the government doesn't intervene in, those are the ones that are less likely to lead to successful outcomes for the plaintiff, the relator, as they call it. Fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
David, can you talk a little bit about the context for healthcare, some sense of the amount of dollars recovered through KTM cases each year or some ballpark on it and what you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
False Claims Cases with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-29-25
Fantastic and fascinating. David, we'd love to talk to you more about the key TAM cases, the false claims cases, and more. What a fascinating area. Again, David Pivnik, one of the brightest in the business. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is around Avis Rent-A-Car, unpredictability, and index funds. So this is the reason why I stick to index funds. And part of this is there's almost no ability to predict unless you're a genius of some sort. And I think then it's still hard to What is going to happen with individual stocks?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
And most of us can't do that. And more than that, I'm not a professional money manager. Most money managers can't do that. So today's discussion is stick to index funds, Avis, the unpredictability of the markets and individual stocks. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, the title is Avis, the unpredictability of stocks and index investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
And here's the story today. Today, Avis Rent-A-Car, Avis Budget, which has been down for the last year or so, really struggling, has been in a lot of trouble, jumped 20% today. And you might ask, why did Avis jump 20% today? And I thought maybe good earnings, maybe that it had somebody who's trying to buy Avis Budget. But no, the reason Avis Budget jumped today is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
It's because of the potential increase of imposition of tariffs on autos. And this led people to believe that this is going to have a real positive effect on the rental car business because less people will buy autos, more people will rent autos. Again, if you have the ability to follow this kind of stuff and make those kinds of predictions, more power to you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
What we've seen over the years is index funds almost always outperform managed mutual funds, managed investment portfolios, because the ability to actually predict better than index funds is lost on 90% of people. There is a small percentage that outperform the index funds, but most of us don't.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Avis, the Unpredictability of Stocks & Index Investing 3-27-25
So when I see Avis today pop 20%, I'm reminded of the inability of most of us to predict individual stocks and what's going to happen. I would have never thought deeply enough or at scale enough or at specific enough that this stock would jump based on the imposition of more tariffs on autos by President Trump. There are so many pieces of this you have to follow to be able to make that prediction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR, Blackstone & Intuitive 3-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Here we're going to discuss KKR, Blackstone, and Intuitive. So these are three of the companies that we watch closely. KKR and Blackstone to give me a sense of what's going on in the private equity markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR, Blackstone & Intuitive 3-27-25
The other podcasts in the top five are all Wall Street Journal podcasts and Bloomberg podcasts and great company. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR, Blackstone & Intuitive 3-27-25
Intuitive because they're close colleagues and we've watched them for a very long time and we're huge fans of their CEO, Gary Guthardt. So Intuitive is the maker of the robotic surgery da Vinci robot. And I'll start there. They're sort of the pioneer leader in this. They're up 30% over the last year in one of the big bright spots in healthcare. So that's what's going on with Intuitive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR, Blackstone & Intuitive 3-27-25
KKR and Blackstone are more reflective of the fact that private equity funds are having a hard time getting exits done at the right prices. And so that's where they're at and what's going on there. So to give you a sense of that, KKR is now down 20% year-to-date. Blackstone is down 14% year-to-date. Each of these firms are wildly successful, wildly famous. KKR was one of the original big PE funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR, Blackstone & Intuitive 3-27-25
Blackstone is the largest alternative asset manager PE funds. Again, Blackstone down 14% year-to-date. KKR down 20% year-to-date. Intuitive, one of the few big bright spots in healthcare, up 30% over the last year. I'll also note one of our other favorites that we watch because of a close colleague at Bernstein, Alliance Bernstein.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR, Blackstone & Intuitive 3-27-25
And Alliance Bernstein outperforming its asset class a little bit, up about 4% year-to-date. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And also, a giant thank you to the audience, to the listeners, to Chanel Bunger. The podcast is ranked today first in the nation under the business news category at Apple.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to walk through six stories very quickly that we're following. The first two really revolve around tariffs and what we're seeing. So for the first, President Trump said yesterday that he would impose 25% tariffs. on global automotive imports.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-27-25
Hims and Hers remains up 110% over the last 52 weeks and is up 37% year-to-date. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-27-25
He says this is essentially making good on a pledge he had made earlier. Our second story is that the news of these tariffs caused the NASDAQ, the S&P, to fall greatly yesterday. The NASDAQ fell almost 2%. The S&P was down more than 1%. It's early today, but stocks are also a little bit down today. NVIDIA and Tesla dropped 5% yesterday each. Robinhood dropped around 7%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-27-25
So a tough day in the markets yesterday. We'll see where today ends up. Third, the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast, thanks to all of our listeners, is ranked first today in the United States in the category under Apple Business News. It's surrounded by Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal podcasts. We're very thrilled with that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-27-25
It's very different than the book I authored, The Entrepreneur's Edge, where the book's also fallen off of the proverbial cliff. We'll see if that gets any better. Fourth, a few of the stocks have just got crushed over the last 52 weeks, and these are five of them. Moderna, the vaccine company, Oatly, the oat milk company, Five Below, Stellantis, the Jeep company, and then Trump Media.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-27-25
All of these are amongst the biggest losers over the last 52 weeks. Fifth, on the health system side, we're starting to see lots of layoffs. An example, that is PennMed just announced that they're laying off 300 people. You'll be seeing more and more of that. Finally, sixth, Palantir Technologies remains up 270% over the last 52 weeks and is up 22% year-to-date. And we'll give you a PS quickly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Throw Out the Sleep Medicine 2-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is, throw out the sleep medicines. And you might ask, how do we title a podcast, Throw Out the Sleep Medicines? And is this podcast about health and wealth and improvement? And it could be, it could be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Throw Out the Sleep Medicine 2-27-25
I mean, I rely too much periodically on edibles, sleep medicines, stuff like that, but that's not what this is about. We have this week a free book giveaway of a book authored by myself and Grace Keller called The Entrepreneur's Edge, How to Build, Grow, and Manage a Business. This is a self-proclaimed book that's a B plus, A minus book.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Throw Out the Sleep Medicine 2-27-25
It's not fantastic, but it's much better than the first opportunity we had at this book. But here's the deal on this. If you can't sleep tonight or you're having trouble and like to heavily on sleep medicines, Our advice to you, this free book sale or giveaway is available from February 26th to March 2nd. Don't worry about it being free. We're going to make it up on volume.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Throw Out the Sleep Medicine 2-27-25
I say that as a joke, obviously. But if you can't sleep, download this book, read this book, throw out the sleep medicines, throw out the edibles, throw out the anti-anxiety drugs. This book will put you to sleep. I dare you. I challenge you to do it. If you take me up on the challenge and you read the book, Download it for free. Do a review on Amazon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Throw Out the Sleep Medicine 2-27-25
I'll also send you a free hard copy of the book, and then you could use that for sleep medicine next week. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Utah Leadership Council 2-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the Utah Leadership Council. What we try and do each year is host a gathering of business leaders in Utah to discuss world issues of the day. This year, we're doing a lot of discussion of auctions, AI, investments, revenue cycle, and a lot more. We're
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Utah Leadership Council 2-27-25
We are an investor, but most of the things I'm individually invested in suck. So don't take my investment advice ever. My only investment advice is allocation of assets and stick to index funds. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Utah Leadership Council 2-27-25
How will you make improvements in the world in such a complex world? There's also, of course, a lot of discussion of leadership around what exactly is President Trump doing and is it all bad? Is it all good? Some of his picks as leaders seem insane. Others seem great. And watching this, but at the end of the day, if in 90 days he's able to bring
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Utah Leadership Council 2-27-25
the Middle East situation to peace and the Russian-Ukrainian situation to peace, or at least ceasefires in both those places in his first 90, 180 days, it's going to be hard not to look at that and say, wow, even though we might hate a lot of his tactics, I can't stand a lot of his tactics. When he's out there bashing our allies, doing different things, I can't stand it. And there's a lot of...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Utah Leadership Council 2-27-25
back and forth behind the scenes stuff. But if he actually accomplishes taking those two things to peace, at least for the foreseeable future, those would be huge accomplishments. Again, we're thrilled to host the Utah Leadership Council, great discussions on business, world affairs, AI, and a whole bunch of other issues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Utah Leadership Council 2-27-25
And I want to thank our leadership for joining us this year at this year's Utah Business Leadership Council. If you're interested in this in the future, feel free to reach out to Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. If you're the first person that texts Scott Becker at 773-766-5322 and you listen to this episode, we will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. Not that we're such huge fans of Amazon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nissan & You Better Be Obsessed with Greatness 2-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a short episode on Nissan and you better obsess with greatness. So Nissan was recently caught, the junk on status, credit in the tanks. doing horribly on every level. I don't think they've come up with a new car that's exciting in a very, very long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nissan & You Better Be Obsessed with Greatness 2-27-25
So here's the lesson in this, whatever business you're in, and I give Jessica Cole, our CEO of Becker's Healthcare, huge credit. You better constantly obsess with greatness, constantly at your core, constantly keep on trying to get better. Jess has done a remarkable job of that, and it never stops. It never stops, and she has just done an amazing job of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nissan & You Better Be Obsessed with Greatness 2-27-25
Reminds me of the old anti-growth sentiment from Intel, only the paranoid survive. You better constantly be obsessed with greatness in everything you do if you want to succeed for the long run. Jess does that. A lot of companies do it. Nissan failed at this. A lot of companies failed at this, and it is hard over a long period of time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nissan & You Better Be Obsessed with Greatness 2-27-25
It means constantly sticking to your core, constantly bringing in great people, constantly trying to be great. And it is a lot of work. And again, my shout out today goes to Jess Cole at Becker's Healthcare for doing so much of this leadership. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Und ich finde es so interessant, weil das, was du sagst, zusammenfasst mit einigen der Diskussionen, die wir hatten. Ich war gerade auf einem Deal-Ausruf, bei dem der Privat-Equity-Fund nicht mehr so aufgeregt war, um Deale zu übernehmen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Especially mid-sized deals, not large at the farm deals, but mid-sized deals and trying to grow EBITDA in a tough environment and find ways to do so when organic is not easy. So I think you're right. There are some glimmers of hope out there and there are people wanting to put money to work. There's an incredible amount of...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Deals that are teed up to go to market and an insane amount of money to be put to work. And a little bit of caution out there as to getting those two sides to meet because of the uncertainty in the environment and everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Let me ask you a question there. I was on a podcast earlier today with somebody who's in the med spa business. Und sie sagten, Med-Spa, Plastik-Schutz, Geld-Pay. Aber auch so fühlen sie sich ein wenig rezessionärer, weil es eine der Luxus- und eine der Dinge ist, auf die die Leute Geld sparen wollen, egal ob es um die Wirtschaft geht, ohne dass es so schlecht wird.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by one of our most listened to guests, Rick Kess from RSM. Rick, the private equity market, there's an article that kicks off in the Wall Street Journal today saying that it was in a challenging spot prior to the trade wars in tariffs. Now it feels like somebody going under the knife.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Die Leute wollen ihre Augen machen, sie wollen das, sie wollen das. Und auch das Med-Spa-Stuff ist immer noch sehr populär. Ist da ein Gefühl für das, ob es rezessionärer ist oder nicht?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
a lot of uncertainty in the air, a lot of pauses going on, but notwithstanding the pauses, there's still a lot of pent-up interest in doing deals, because aside from everything else, there's a whole industry that's been built around doing deals and investing and trying to sell and to buy and to resell and grow and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
So there's still a lot of pent-up interest in just trying to find that spot where you could find the right... where you can find agreement on pricing with a lot of uncertainty.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Und nur eine Frage zu dem. Einige davon sind falsche Komfort, andere sind echte Komfort. Die Privat-Equity-Funds sollen sich jedes Quartal und so weiter mit Investoren auswerten, aber sie sind keine echten Zahlen, weil sie nicht verkauft wurden.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
In manchen Fällen ist es sehr schwer, als Privat-Equity-Investor zu beurteilen, wo dein Kapital wirklich ist, im Vergleich zu den öffentlichen Märkten, wo du es jeden Tag siehst. Und ich glaube, es gibt zumindest ein bisschen Komfort, wenn man weiß, dass es privat gehalten wird, dass es nicht getradet wird, dass es nicht wirklich jeden Tag wert ist. So that you can breathe while you wait and hope.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
But it is illiquid. And so you're sort of stuck to that extent. But no, I think your point is so well taken, Rick, is do they prove that, hey, this ends up being a good asset class in a time of uncertainty? You know, how does that play through?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Nun, ich sage dir, viele Portfolios werden nächstes Jahr unter den Knopf gehen. Wir sind Theresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Finding Opportunity in Uncertain Markets: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 4-24-25
Give us some good news. Tell us your thoughts on where the private equity deal market is going next. the fundraising market. Tell us what you're seeing and give us something uplifting and inspiring, notwithstanding the Wall Street Journal article, notwithstanding the markets today. Give us some good news. Can we ask you to do that, Rick?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Lost Art of Counting 4-24-25
I see so many examples on the golf course, on the tennis course, and I won't mention the person that can't seem to count. In Golf-Tournaments are people that can't count. And there are personal trainers that seem to have lost the art of counting again. This is my bully pulpit to bring back counting and math for people of all ages. We need it. The lost art of counting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Lost Art of Counting 4-24-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Lost Art of Counting 4-24-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's episode is called The Lost Art of Counting. Und ich gebe euch ein paar Beispiele, wo wir das in der täglichen Leben sehen. In der täglichen Leben. Die Waffen starten zu zählen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Lost Art of Counting 4-24-25
An einem Punkt, als Menschen aufgewachsen sind, haben sie so viel zu zählen und so viel Mathematik selbst, einige auf dem Kalkulator, aber nicht so viele Computern, dass sie noch eigentlich zählen können. Und was ich in der täglichen Leben finde, ich erinnere mich stark an ein Golf-Tournament letztes Jahr, wo eine Partei Das ist das, was wir in den letzten Jahren gesehen haben.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Lost Art of Counting 4-24-25
Ich sehe es in Tennisgames. In Tennisgames Somebody's keeping score and they got the score wrong because they've lost the art of counting. I think this is something that as a society, when we talk about going back to the basics, STEM education, math education, we need to get better at this as a society.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are 11 stories that were found today, and thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, on the negative news side, top strategist at Jefferies says the best days for U.S. stocks are behind them. That's a bit of a depressing article, and he makes some good points.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
We own directly some shares in Coca-Cola that came out of my various years of watching what Warren Buffett's investing in and trying to follow him. I wouldn't have better if I followed him my entire life. Nice. I'm just thrilled to interview Coach Nick Saban Monday at the Becker's Healthcare Conference.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
Also, Holly Buckley will be interviewing Lance Armstrong at the McGuire Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference. Lots of exciting stuff going on. $10. Tesla jumped the last two days, but remains down nearly 40% year to date. And finally, 11th, 30% of U.S. adults, 42% of households own no equities at all. I think that's a fascinating stat for trying to understand this great divide in America.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
Just fascinating from my perspective, that huge divide that we have. A couple of PSs. We have a webinar shortly, May 7th, based on the book, The Entrepreneur's Edge, where I'll go through 25 questions. Mantras, concepts, thoughts. We hope you enjoy that. Just so many interesting things going on. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
I don't think it's probably true, but he does make some good points. It's really interesting. Second, the markets jumped the last two days. Just a welcome sign of good news for investors. Great to see that. Third, earlier this morning, futures pointed down on uncertainty rate tariffs and negotiations, but now they're pointing up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
The markets are pointing up today, midday, and that's fantastic news. IBM is down 7% early today based on the losses of federal government contracts. There is no parties that are going to be happier to see Elon Musk focus more on Tesla than all these different companies, consulting firms that had huge federal contracts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
Fifth, Chipotle, which lost Brian Nicole as their CEO, is down about 20% year-to-date and down premarket. Meanwhile, Starbucks is tracking about at the S&P. That's where Brian Nicole went to, where he took the leadership role. They're down 10% year to date. Sixth, Intel jumped yesterday on news of job cuts. It went up about 6%, 5.5%. It's up a few percent year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 4-24-25
NVIDIA, the biggest winner in the chip sector, is down 23% year to date so far. Pepsi lowered its full-year earnings expectations Thursday, citing increased costs from tariffs and a pullback in consumer spending. Pepsi is down about 6.5% year-to-date. Coca-Cola, in contrast, is up 70% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion comes out of a quote from an author, Sahil Bloom. And I've had a chance to read Sahil Bloom's book, at least one of them. Very smart person. But he had a particular quote that I just loved. And I thought that quote was right on in so many ways. So here's where the quote goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
That's why I love this concept of, again, let me quote the first part of it. Stop fearing the judgment of people who aren't even thinking about you. You know, if I send out a sales email to somebody. and they don't respond, they don't like it, they're not really interested, life goes on. At the end of the day, this is okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
If I send out a request to help somebody on something, or if I send out a proposal for somebody to ask me to give a talk, and they don't like the price, they don't like what I'm doing, they're not interested, This is okay. Don't fear the judgment of it. If I'm on the golf course, I hit a horrendous shot. It's not okay. No, I'm just kidding. It's okay too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
It doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things. And what matters is your family's okay. You're okay. You're plugging forward. You're moving along. You're taking care of your mental and physical health. It is what it is. But the fear so much, the judgment of other people. I remember when I first started building a legal practice, people would laugh and scoff at me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
And I tell this story to every young person who's trying to build something. The first couple of times you try and build something, you get all this negativity from people of sort of like, oh, they laugh at you. A person used to say to me of my original newsletter. Oh, I use it for toilet paper.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
What happens is it's not until you do it 10 times, 15 times, 20 times that they move from laughing at you to, oh, my God, they respect the fact that you're trying to be a serious professional.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
So, again, I think at the end of the day, I love this tee-off point from Sahil Bloom, this concept of stop fearing the judgment of people who aren't even thinking about you, even if they are thinking about you. Who cares? Move forward. Make your life. The sooner you really go after it, the sooner you keep on doing things that are positive and productive,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
the sooner that everybody starts to respect, oh, and I saw this very vividly. I see this with young professionals, moves from being like, oh, the person's trying too hard, to that person's a serious professional. I just love when I see that evolution in people. We've all seen it in ourselves, I think, and it is what it is, but I love this concept. Don't fear the reaper.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
Stop fearing the judgment of people who aren't even thinking about you. Nobody is thinking about you. Nobody cares. They're too busy thinking about themselves. The thing you've always wanted to do, go do it. Go do it now. It's this concept, I think, appeals to me in so many different ways. It's an overstatement that no one's thinking about you. Nobody cares about you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
Don't fear the judgment of people who aren't even thinking about you. Go get them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
But the point being, so many people that are scared to really move forward, scared to make that call, scared to put out that effort to try and get a job, scared to network. I see so many people who are young looking for a job by sending out
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
thousands of applications almost electronically where the hit rate is so low versus picking up the phone, emailing somebody directly, talking to somebody directly, trying to connect directly. And I just think people need to sort of stop fearing the judgment of people or stop fearing that they're going to get rejected. This rejection is a part of life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
And I don't know if we're all becoming soft or scared to be rejected. I get rejected every single day. I can't even remember telling you about how many rejections I got at prom. No, I'm just kidding about that. I'm just kidding. I didn't get rejected that many times trying to find a prom date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Fear the Judgment of Others 4-24-25
But the idea of having a thick skin and getting rejected and living with rejection is a part of growing up and a part of resilience. And the overfearing of every encounter, every microaggression, every issue is It is so problematic. It's such a challenge. It's such a paralysis for people that they've got to move past that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Palantir Technologies, aren't I a genius? So here's how the typical discussion goes with people that talk about their stock picking. I invest in Palantir Technologies. It's up 35%. It's up 370% in the last year, last 52 weeks, but I didn't own it for all of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
Also invested in a cannabis ETF a couple years ago that got absolutely crushed. Invested in a Bitcoin ETF that got crushed too. And then, of course, I sold it and it went back up. But anybody that tells you about their genius in investing in individual things, my take on that is –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
Generally, they're a moron and should be investing only in index funds like I should be investing largely in index funds. That's the take for today. Don't think you're a genius when things are going well. Let's see everything, not just the one thing you're bragging about. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
But needless to say, it's up a lot since I bought it. So aren't I a genius? And let's go through this very quickly. This reminds me of everybody who sits at the dinner table and says they bought Apple early, they bought Nvidia early, they did this early, they did that early, and they're just geniuses. And, of course, they're still not that financially ahead and still working for a living.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
Now, when somebody tells you that they bought Palantir earlier at the right price, and it's up 35% year-to-date, and it's up 370% the last year. Also ask them what they bought that went poorly, because I can guarantee you anybody that's bragging about their genius and picking particular stocks also got crushed in some stocks. I'll give you one of mine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
One of those we talk about regularly, Astero Labs. I thought I was so smart when I ended up owning part of Astero Labs. It was going up. It was going up. It was the greatest thing I ever bought. I thought I was going to retire off it. And of course, Then deep seek happened. Then the next thing happened. Then the next thing happened.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Palantir Technologies – Aren’t I a Genius 4-24-25
So my Estira Labs, which I also own directly, is now down, I think, the last I looked, about 55% to 60% year-to-date. So as much as I might tell people at the dinner table how smart I am because I own Palantir that was up 35% year-to-date, I own it in the same breath I own Astera Labs, which is down 60% year-to-date. So maybe I'm not that bright.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, we try and teach and entertain. We try and bring you brilliant guests each week, business-to-business podcasts and webinars. We're thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly's the chair of the National Healthcare Department at McGuire-Woods.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
And talk about that for a second, because under the Biden administration, It seems like once these platforms work so hard to stay close to the Biden administration and avoid irritating the Biden administration, you know, and all kinds of discussions of comments back and forth and dialogue between the tech companies and the Biden administration. Now you've got the opposite happening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
These tech companies that were so pro-Biden, anti-Trump. I'll take Twitter aside because Twitter was bought by Elon Musk as part of this response to Trump. what he viewed as the censorship of free speech. But talk about, you know, now you've got Mark Zuckerberg, who seemed to have, you know, to use the phrase from Game of Thrones, bent the knee to the Biden administration.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
Now he seems to be bending the knee to the Trump administration. Aside from everything else, isn't that a despicable part of politics that now you've got these big businesses that feel they have to bend the knee to whoever's in charge that has that big an impact on their business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
And she's going to talk to us some about sort of this evolution from the Biden administration to the Trump administration and what this likely means for the FTC, where there's been such a fascinating period of time at the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and so forth. Take a second, Holly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
I mean, it's really fascinating how quickly it seemed to happen over time as they read the tea leaves and so forth. Talk for a second about Weiner Kahn You know, lover or hater, she was probably the most impactful leader of the FTC in some time. She was very aggressive on some of the merger activity. We saw it a lot in the hospital and health system area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
She also was aggressive about trying to get rid of non-competes, which was viewed as a pro-worker, pro-labor effort. She also had some thoughts on the artificial intelligence agenda. What do you see now with Lena Kahn being gone in terms of some of these initiatives, the scrutiny of mergers, the AI scrutiny, the non-compete effort the FTC went after?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
What are some of your thoughts as to what's going to happen there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
Tell us a little bit about, why don't you take a second and introduce yourself first, and then talk to us about the impact of the new administration on the FTC.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
No, absolutely fascinating. And take a moment, Don, the deal environment for 2025. But before you get into the deal environment for 2025, I know you had intended to give a quick plug for a couple of McGuire Woods healthcare private equity events. Would you mind giving that plug? And then I know you had some detailed thoughts on the healthcare deal market of 2025.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
Let's do the plug first and then come back to the 2025 deal market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
But one moment on Chris Kersey, who's the founder of Haven Christ Capital. I mean, this is something I did not know. Aside from going to Stanford and Harvard, and I, of course, went to Harvard as well, which is Irrelevant, but fun to say. But he also is a medical doctor, and he was valedictorian of his medical school class at Emory University School of Medicine. That's literally remarkable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
So Stanford, Harvard, Emory, and valedictorian at Emory. And he's been hyper-successful at Havencrest. I did not know all that, but just fascinating. And he's also on the board of the Johns Hopkins Endowment Fund, so a very busy, very smart, smart person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
Thank you so much. So tell us what the deal environment is going to look like this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
On one hand, people will say the wicked witch is gone. On the other hand, people will say she was the first great trust buster in a long, long time to go after the big companies that seem to be dominating too much of American capitalism. So really very divergent views on Lena Kahn, but a really bright, bright person, whether like her or not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
Second, the deal environment for this year should be fascinating, better than last year, should be interesting, although last year ended pretty much with a big bang. And then finally, two McGuire Woods healthcare events, a pop-up event in Dallas, I think January 29th, and then the healthcare private equity event in its 21st year, May 14th and 15th in Chicago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shifts in FTC Leadership, Big Tech Dynamics, and the Healthcare Deal Market: Insights from Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-23-25
Holly Buckley, Chair of the Margarita's Healthcare Department, the best in the business. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
This is Scott Becker on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try and teach, we try to understand and entertain. Hopefully, I'm learning, you're learning. Today's discussion, most of our episodes are more serious business episodes and private equity episodes. Today's discussion is, it's not a serious episode. This is titled, It's Not the Driver Stupid.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
You get past that, a certain weight, a certain type of game improvement driver, the work is probably much more so in changing me versus changing the driver itself. Like the boss used to say, It's easier to change the person than change the person or something like that, meaning it was easier. You can't change someone. You're better off changing the person you're working with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
Here, it's the opposite. You better fix how you're hitting it because the constant search for the better driver is somewhat of one of those illusory dances of trying to find the perfect anything. There is no driver that exists that's going to make me hit it perfectly perfectly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
or that much higher percentage probabilities down the middle and the 220 yards that we want, you know, and calmly, calmly is a big part of this. But again, it's not the driver stupid. It's the name of today's episode. Obviously, this comes out of my frustration, constantly wanting to change drivers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
And this is part of my therapy to avoid myself from going to buy another driver because I'm not hitting it well. Again, I'm in Chicago, so this is inside one of these simulator places versus outside on the actual course. But either way, my immediate impulse is I better buy a new driver, but it's the wrong impulse. This is part of my therapy to save a few hundred dollars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, at Becker Private Equity, we specialize in business to business webinars, business to business podcasts. If you're ever interested in joining us, it's a sponsored effort, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
So this is a takeoff, of course, of the old line, it's the economy stupid. For me, the line is it's not the driver stupid. And let me explain. So many of us are built like this. Something's not working as we want it to work. And rather than practicing it more, getting more training in it and really working at it, we decide that it's the equipment, not us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
And again, I recognize that this ridiculous behavior, but I'm so prone to it as a garage full of golf clubs will attest to. But the reality is there are clubs that can make it a little bit easier. But at the end of the day, the impulse control is to go back to working on hitting the driver and versus trying to switch the driver.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
Now, this is very different than dealing with employees and leaders in companies. There's an old statement one of my bosses used to use that said, it's change the person versus change the person. And the concept was, sometimes it was better to change out the person because you can't change the person themselves. Here, I think it's somewhat the opposite.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Not the Driver, Stupid 1-23-25
I could chase the perfect driver for the rest of my life, and I'd be far better off using 10, 20, 60 of those minutes at a driving range trying to work on my swing versus changing the quote-unquote driver. And again, there are differences. I need a game improvement one, one that's easy to hit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, and here are sort of four thoughts for the day. First, we look at almost any business, and one of the things that's so great about the large, large businesses, meaning the Amazons of the world, the Apples of the world, the Uniteds of the world,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
Everything you do, they're very appreciative. They're very thankful. They get the value in it. And those are just lovely people to work with. So that's the second thought for today's business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
The third one is five of the healthcare companies that we're watching this year, this was prompted by watching some of the Hippocratic AI release this morning, an interview that was done with Hippocratic AI and General Catalyst between Munjil Shah and Hemant Taneja, brilliant people. But five of the companies we're watching this year, Abridge AI,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
Akasa, Hippocratic AI, Nimbo Solutions, and Midstream. We'll also continue to watch the great success of Intuitive and Lintas, and we're thankful every day to the help that we get from a company called MedHQ. So those are three of the thoughts we'll watch today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
The fourth thought is, and this is just we're thankful, we had absolute near-record advertising revenues last month on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. It's very business-heavy. It's more private equity-like. We hope you enjoy it. We specialize in business-to-business webinars and podcasts. Feel free to join us anytime. Call Scott Becker for more information, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
If you can, text me first. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
is their ability to enter service lines and then make the decision that all of us have to do on a less diversified basis. These guys could do it on a big diversified basis, which is this concept of double down, double down on a service line, to abandon the service line or you stay the course. And those are three concepts we look at constantly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
And the issue being, I was watching this from United as they sort of pivoted out of the urgent care business, or at least partially, It's this constant ability to have great data, great analytics, lots of service lines, and be able to make these choices. Are we doubling down on this? Are we staying the course on this? Or are we abandoning this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
And as you get bigger, and as you have enough service lines, you can make those choices When you're running a point business, a single point of service business, you've got to figure out in that business and what you're doing. Are you doubling down? Are you abandoning? Are you staying the course? And I think it's a fascinating discussion constantly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for the Day 1-23-25
So that's the number one thought today is just double down, stay the course or abandon the business. The second thing I see in people in a business is this. There are some people that are the most thankful, appreciative people ever. And my goodness, do I love getting a chance to work with and deal with those people. Just a total pleasure, some people to work with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to talk today about five different stories that we're watching currently in the sort of private equity world, the business world. And thank you for listening. We try always to make sure you're learning and that we're learning it and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
The six individual stocks, some were above the indexed. Some were losing money. Some were right about the index. But at the end of the day, very hard, unless you're highly diversified, to be a better stock picker than an index investor. And for 99% of us, particularly myself, I'm far better off just largely being an index investor, the S&P indexes, versus trying to pick individual stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
But again, to each one's own. Fourth, we had a near record month of advertised revenue in the Becker Pivot Equity and Business podcast last month. We're hoping for a record revenue month in January. We specialize here in business-to-business webinars. Let us help you get in front of your audience.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
Finally, fifth, an absolute great piece in Yahoo Finance on why all the tech CEOs are showing a lot of people with display of affection toward President Trump. Basically, the concept is it's all about defense. And Julie Hyman does a remarkable job of describing this, what's going on in Silicon Valley and this, and why people are so prone to trying to stay close to President Trump.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
So the first thing is the big market cap stocks, NVIDIA, Apple, and Microsoft have already done a reshuffling this year. NVIDIA is back to the number one spot. It's up 7% year to date. Apple's down 11%, falling to number two. And Microsoft is rising again. It's up 5%, but still a little bit behind Apple in the ultimate sort of market cap race. So it's NVIDIA 1, Apple 2, Microsoft 3.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
And they really talk about that it's largely defense versus offense. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, you can always reach Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
Second is an investment possibility. We're constantly looking this year at NVIDIA, Apple, and American Express. And always this question of whether we've missed the boat on this or it's too late. So we've already talked about Apple down 11% this year, NVIDIA up 7% this year. We're not direct investors in them. We're largely index investors.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
AmeriExpress, which is another one of the stocks that we watch for this purpose, is up 8% year-to-date. And, of course, as we look at this, of course, as we start the year, we wish we had invested in NVIDIA and Amex, not Apple yet, but I'm not sure that that's good long-term thinking. We'll see how it goes. Third.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-23-25
Yesterday, we did a podcast on sort of the different index investing versus individual stocks. And just to keep this as simple as possible, we did it on an individual journey basis, meaning my own individual journey. We went through six of the positions. We have an individual stocks versus the index funds. What we essentially found was no great argument to not stick to the core of index investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to visit with Holly Buckley. Holly shares the McGuire-Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference, does an incredible job of it. And we're going to talk to her a little bit about some of the lessons learned and the thoughts she had coming out of last week's McGuire-Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
No, I think that would be great. Let me ask you this. In terms of what everybody's sort of wondering is about deal flow, what it looks like, are the markets going to open up or is the sort of cost of debt still too much of a challenge or just too much uncertainty? What are you seeing in terms of the floodgates of deals opening? Any impressions?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Holly, let me tee up and ask you for a few observations of what you saw and what you're seeing and thinking.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
And dental is a fascinating area because it comes with lots of different funding sources, Medicaid, direct, some health plans, some other places. And everybody seems to need dental work. And there's 200,000 dentists in the country. So it seems like there's a big enough business. There's still opportunity, even in changing times. And so that's been up and down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Just a couple of years ago, behavioral health was really hot. Veterinary health was really hot. What are the things are you hearing about that people are talking about a lot?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Thank you. And in other areas that you think are really sort of top-notch right now and so forth?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk about when you come out of the conference, Holly, you see so much activity and there's been years where, where, The country's been in a recession, so the conference is very depressing, and everybody seems to be there – like half the people there seem to be looking for jobs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
There's other times where deal activity is so insane that it's – that it just is just a nonstop activity. This year I'd say the temperature was very, very healthy. Now it seems like the private equity business has been a little bit slower because people have been concerned about the cost of debt. There's been this long hold period for a lot of things and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Talk a little bit about what are you focused on and excited about coming out of this conference, which was very inspiring and very positive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Thank you very, very much. Holly, anything else you'd like to share with us today coming out of the conference last week?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Holly, thank you very much. I love getting a chance to visit with you and talk healthcare private equity trends and just general business and leadership with you on the Vector Private Equity Podcast. You are as good as it gets. You know, I know we have another colleague who thinks that he is so brilliant and the very best, but you are the very best. And don't let him hear that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare PE Trends: Innovation, Investment Shifts & Market Outlook with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 5-22-25
Holly, thank you as always for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You are the smartest and the most articulate and your other colleague is absolutely fine. Thank you for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Good News & Bad News 5-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And today's news is good news and bad news. The good news is that the stock market is pointing up again after the House approves Trump's tax bill. So that's good news.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Good News & Bad News 5-22-25
If a company becomes a little bit less stable in paying their debt, the costs, the interest rates go up. And that's what we're starting to see as interest rates here explode. In fact, Moody's recently downgraded the U.S. 's credit rating. Never a good sign for what was the most stable nation in the world. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Good News & Bad News 5-22-25
The bad news is that interest rates aren't going down anytime soon and that we're also likely to end up with more and more inflation over time as deficits continue to go up. So there's good news. Good news is the stock market continues to go up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Good News & Bad News 5-22-25
The bad news is for all the things that we criticized the artificial economy under Biden, the concept that the stock market was artificially inflated because of the amount of debt financing and deficit spending, well, it looks like that's not changing anytime soon. So if I call it an artificial economy under President Biden, I think President Trump has probably said that as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Good News & Bad News 5-22-25
And what I mean by that is whenever you're running deficits 6% to 8% of the size of the economy, that means you better get some growth out of that. And if you're only getting half of that growth, then you're doing a very bad job in doing that deficit spending. And it seems like we are pacing to do the same thing under President Trump, which is deficit spending, which really doesn't
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Good News & Bad News 5-22-25
get us to a true economy because we're putting it on the backs of ourselves and our children and our grandchildren, it's sooner or later that debt catches up to us. We're already seeing a spot where the market prognosticators say interest rates are going to stay high for a long, long time because you can't, in a real debt market,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Are There Any Real Republicans Left? 5-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is, are there any real Republicans left? And so here is the concept. And I don't mean to offend anybody on the right or the left. I don't know where anybody is anymore anyways. But the Republican House is apparently ready to pass a tax bill
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Are There Any Real Republicans Left? 5-22-25
This is no different. We view this with great concern. Are there any Republicans left? That's today's topic. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Feel free, of course, at any time, text Scott Becker with your opinion. You could hate this. You could love it. That's my thoughts. I'm concerned about the deficits. 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Are There Any Real Republicans Left? 5-22-25
that would increase the deficit over the next 10 years by another $3 to $4 trillion or so. The deficit is already at $36 trillion plus, and this is a disaster, of course. You've already had a situation where Moody's has said that that budget deficit, the deficit we have has led them to reduce the credit rating of the United States.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Are There Any Real Republicans Left? 5-22-25
In the long run, you can talk about Chairman Powell all you want, but the real cost of debt, long-term debt, is driven by how many people will buy the U.S. debt. And the more that the U.S. doesn't keep its fiscal housing order, the more challenging it becomes to have interest rates come down, at least real interest rates, because that's what really drives the cost of the debt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Are There Any Real Republicans Left? 5-22-25
So when I look at this and I say if the Republicans stood for something back in the day— It was being fiscally conservative and fiscal hawks, and the Democrats always stood for taxing and spending, and the Republicans always stood for fiscal conservatism. It just seems over the course of the last 20 years, that has become a total disaster.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Are There Any Real Republicans Left? 5-22-25
I do remember at one point in my life, a long time ago, we had balanced budgets for a few years. Then we had a $12 trillion deficit. Now, 20 years later, we've got a $36 trillion deficit. And it does seem like there is no one that's minding the store and everybody's working with voodoo economics to not worry about it. As we say often, debt kills nations. It kills companies. It kills families.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to be with you today. The podcast just passed, I think, 7 million downloads, was ranked last month number one in the Apple Business News podcast rankings. And thrilled to be growing the related newsletter as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
So now it's tweaking, it's making little enhancements to be more efficient, but we feel well positioned for the demand of the marketplace in order to step in quickly. So a fantastic group of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
We talk about all the time, our core and the quality of our execution is so important, but the positioning of the marketplace and the changes that continue to happen, we feel very well positioned to service the needs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you very, very much. And Howard, let me flip back to you. Any advice that you would give to either founders or emerging leaders in the daily work of leadership or business acumen? What pops out at you as sort of like core advice that you would give to people either building businesses, running businesses or leading businesses?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
We leverage a team-based approach. What's going on in the marketplace, a lot of talk about fractional resources, but we utilize a team approach. So our engagements always have
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you very, very much. And Scott, let me ask you the same question. I asked you to add some color there and follow up and help us round that out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
I think, you know, Scott, it's important to listen. So we listen to our team, we listen to feedback and input and gather the facts. But at the end of the day, we need to be decisive leaders and we need to be confident in those decisions. You know, Howard and I tell our team, we're not perfect. You know, we make mistakes every day too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
But being confident in the decisions that you're making, once gathering the facts, I think that's what they look for in a leader, is that what we're putting forth, the decisions that we're making, we feel confident and we believe in. And, you know, it's funny, just last week,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
we had somebody on the team say, man, you guys are really enthusiastic about what you're saying and what we're talking about here. And I think that's just passion, you know, showcasing your passion. You can be really successful when you're passionate about the work that you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And I think when that comes through from the leader and it comes through through the decisions that are being made and motivates the team and gets the team excited and you quickly figure out, you know, who wants to be on and, He wants to keep pushing that rock the same direction as the leaders. So we like to listen. We like to hear, get the facts first, but then be decisive and move.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And that's just a part of our DNA and who we are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Again, Howard Sutker, Scott Moran of Sutker Moran. You guys have done an incredible job building Sutker Moran and more importantly, helping clients out with their CFO needs or financial needs or consulting needs and a lot more. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
a managing director director and staff support so we can flex to the needs of that company and provide what they need at a cost that makes sense to the business and ultimately that allows them to save on fees so coming back scott to where i started higher level financial acumen at less cost and we're serving the middle market more than half our clients
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
sits somewhere between 20 and 100 million in revenue, a lot of privately held, but also we also see some, we see that change in the middle market space, a little more investor dollars coming in and a little more private equity in the middle market space, more and more as that continues to shift. So primarily Chicago-based firm, our team is primarily here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
We do have individuals on the West and East Coast, but a majority of our clients are in the greater Chicago area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Talk for a moment, Scott. Typical revenues, $20 to $100 million, traditionally founder-owned, but increasingly also private equity-sponsored companies and so forth. I know you've got a really, really bright team, a really bright team of professionals. I know you became a named partner in the last several years. Congratulations to you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Talk for a second about verticals or industries that you work most closely in. Are there specific industries or areas that you do more work in than others?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Today, we'll be joined by two business experts who work in the CFO and outsource CFO area with two leaders from the firm, Sutker Moran, Howard Sutker, and Scott Moran. Scott, maybe you could take the lead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Sutker Moran.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
You know, it's pretty even. When we look at the client base, we break it down into four main buckets. So we end up with manufacturing, service, construction, and then our fourth bucket there is distribution. Now, the service bucket tends to carry a handful of industries that overlap. So that includes our law firms, our consulting firm, a lot of professional services firms, marketing firms.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
It also includes our logistics and health care. So health care for us could be doctor practice groups. It could be senior care, could be elder care, could be mental health related. It could also kind of be somewhere over that line of not-for-profit health care type services as well. So pretty even, Scott, amongst those four buckets in that lower middle market space.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you very, very much. And Howard, take a second. Howard Sutker, you founded this business 10, 15 years ago. Tell us about the founding of the business and talk about sort of where it was then, where it's at today, and areas that you see with yourself and Scott Moran and the team focusing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you. Take a moment in terms of the shortages of accountants in the world today, things that we didn't expect years ago. There's a movement towards artificial intelligence and helping in so many things. What are some of the core trends, Howard, that you're watching in the business and in how companies handle their CFO and their controller staffing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And then I'll ask Howard Sutker to also join in, give us a bit of his background and also talk about his initial founding of the business and how that came about. Scott, can you take a moment and kick us off?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
It seems like an incredibly challenging time to find the right talent at the right place. What are some of the trends you're watching?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Yes, fantastic. Scott, thanks for having us and congrats on all the growth that you just mentioned there on the podcast. But excited to join you and tell you a little bit about Scott Sucker Moran today. So we're a business consulting and CFO services firm. And at the end of the day, what that means is we're going to try to provide high level financial acumen at less cost.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you. And Scott, let me see you back up on the similar question. Some of the trends you're watching currently to add on and add some color to what Howard was saying about trends that you're watching.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Yeah, well, you know, I'll repeat a few that I mentioned and just kind of layer in a little bit. You know, the third, fourth quarter last year, so much talk about AI and it continued to ramp up. And how is that going to be utilized in business and all these large firms and large companies investing in it? And when will that trickle down?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And the affordability and the implementation costs and where will we see it across the middle market? You've got that. The tariff discussion has obviously been a hot discussion that we've had here the last few months and will continue to have as we see different sort of costs pull through inventory in the next couple of months.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
But if you take it even more narrow to what we're doing, the fractional leadership space. continues to be in demand because of the points that you both just mentioned. The shortage of CPAs, less people sitting for the CPA exam over the last five to seven years than ever before. And those are people that even prior to that would be ascending to the role of CFO or being in a leadership position.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And so COVID has really changed the way a lot of companies think about sourcing that talent. You got less people coming into it for a variety of reasons and more people going out. The idea that how do I get that in my business at a cost that makes sense? So it's not just to our space in the CFO seat. You know, you see it in IT, you see it in HR, you see it in marketing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
How do we get the expert or how do we get that expensive individual with all the experience to help my business? But I'm not ready to either spend the dollars, nor do I see it as a 40, 50 hour a week commitment. So the trend moving into this fractional leadership space. So we love it from the standpoint of creating a ton of conversations in the marketplace.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
But it also allows us to differentiate ourselves and talk about full coverage and our ability to provide, you know, what's a little bit different than what fractional gets interpreted, which is part time, half in, half out. temporary, but a lot of our fractional or full coverage solutions that we're offering and working with companies last three to four years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Our average client length is that time. So the trend in the space and seeing all this change in professional services, you're seeing consolidation amongst CPA firms, private money coming in there. Those are all areas that are impacting the fractional or outsourced CFO space. So You talk about AI and the tariffs and technology, the role of the CFO continues to evolve.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And it's really in all industries. How are we going to implement the right technology to make ourselves more efficient? What's going to be cost effective? So it's more than just running the accounting or the books and records. It's more than the FP&A, forward-looking function. Now it's also technology and the implementation of that technology.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
So having the right person in that seat is pretty critical. But the trends in the market shifting to this fractional leadership model or it being a solution for whether it's a port in time or several years is something that we're really paying close attention to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Thank you very much. And Scott, take a moment on sort of maybe an example of a client engagement. Don't have to name the name of the client, of course, to where you folks can have good impact, can have big impact and really have them either solve these things up or add value. Give us an example of a client engagement.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And the way we do that with companies is through three different types of roles. The permanent financial management, where we take over and run that financial department. We also do it on an interim basis where we step in. There's an immediate need, whether somebody's been terminated or they quit, or that company is growing and looking to add that layer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And obviously, ideally, thinking of one that you actually worked on versus hypothetically without mentioning names and so forth, but where you could have the impact you'd like to have.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Yeah, so I think, Scott, we can come in right away and have a big impact as I think about really two recent clients that are very similar. What often happens in the middle market is that financial position, the key leadership financial position, the CFO and controller, they get blended into one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And so the company that we've seen often is hire that one position and ask them at times to be the CFO and then other times to be the controller. Now, those are two different price points and they're two different skill sets. So most of the time we're coming in because we're replacing that position. So the recent example I think about is that CFO slash controller position.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
being terminated and us getting the call to step in. So one, we had an incredible amount of value because of what we've built since 2013, how we step in, how we onboard the position. We've got a checklist, we've got a process and protocol to step in. So taking over that financial department really from day one, we like to say, get in the chair, get in the seat, take control.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
You know, there's an association with consulting firms that they tell you what to do. They don't actually get in and implement, do the work. So we step in, we take over the seat and then we're taking that position And we're breaking it into the CFO role and the controller role. And what should the CFO be doing? What should the controller be doing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And so during our onboarding process is really implementing that change. And what it ultimately leads to for that company and the value that's added is the costs that are associated with the controller and the CFO are different. We can get those tasks and things done. And then we can spend time on thinking about where that business is going.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
So in both of these cases, they're growing businesses, businesses that aren't trying to stay the same from either a revenue or profitability standpoint. They're trying to get to that next level.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Well, the next level means, in some of these cases, expanding footprint, changing capital structure, so the right capital structure to grow, but also evaluating opportunities to make, whether it be acquisitions or look at some of the competitive landscape and bring that and vertically integrate under the umbrella. Those are all CFO-level discussions. We went through the onboard.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
We broke that CFO role apart and put the individuals on our team that can service that. And now we're focused on bigger picture, marrying the financial strategy to the business strategy. A lot of the owners we work with, they have this great business strategy. Sometimes it's documented and sometimes it's in their head.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And it's really marrying that to a financial strategy to help you execute that goal, help you be accountable and understand are we inside or outside the guardrails? in order to meet whatever that ultimate goal is. But a lot of value gets added in the quick cleanup and professionalize the financial department. And then it continues on from there as that company evolves and grows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And so we've seen that, we see that all the time, but two very recent examples of it going on right now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
And the third is the project-based consulting. And that can be a variety of things. It could be M&A support. It could be a company going through some restructuring or turnaround services. But at the end of the day, the commonality is they lack the internal resources or financial acumen for the situation that they're in. And so what we do is we provide highly skilled financial professionals.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
No, thank you very, very much. And Howard. You've been at this for some time now. You've built a tremendous business with a great team of colleagues and a great partner in Scott. Talk for a moment about what you're most focused on and excited about this year and as you continue to grow. Where are you most focused and excited?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Fantastic. And Scott, let me ask you the same question. Where are you most focused and excited currently? I mean, you've got great people, great team, and that's everything. And Howard mentioned really well, the man might be there, but if you don't got the right supply and the right talent, you can't handle it well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Give us a follow-up to any additional caller to where you're most focused and excited.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
Yeah, and I'll play off of what we just talked about, the trend in the fractional leadership space and the CFO space in particular. Everything Howard just mentioned, having the right people has been key. It's key to our continued growth and success. But we feel very well positioned in the marketplace for this trend of companies looking to outsource their financial management.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Inside the Rise of Fractional CFO Leadership with Howard Sutker and Scott Moran of SUTKER MORAN 5-22-25
We're not in a position right now where we're trying to build a process or figure out how we're going to take over a financial board or figure out how we're taking... those steps to jump in. You know, we feel very confident in our team and very confident in the things that we built.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be visiting with an expert, a brilliant leader, who's going to talk to us about growing sales, using AI, doing a whole number of things to improve revenues in what's a challenging potentially economic environment. We're joined today by Sean Carson. Sean's with Sales Empowerment Group.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Let me ask you another question. And again, I apologize, Sean, for going longer and deeper than I teed you up for, so I apologize. But bear with me if you're okay for a couple more questions. Yeah, please. Okay, great, great, great. So here's a question for you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
So many businesses, or let me ask you if you see this, some businesses, for example, constantly sold and developed business through trade shows, and a lot still do. Or they originally developed business almost hand-to-hand combat, and a lot still do, meaning hand-to-hand, one-on-one sales.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
How has the world changed, and do you periodically see something where a company, like we had talked recently, a financial printer, and the world has just changed so much, so we're trying to find new ways to touch the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
How often do you see in the changing world that we're in that the way in which people go to market has just changed a lot over the years, and how much is it sort of thought so, but you really just have to go back to basics? and I know that's a multi-piece question, but it really gets to, how much has the world of how people go to market changed over the last several years?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
And how much do they need to go back to basics or do they need to do something different?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
No, thank you. We have a webinar coming up where we'll get a chance to talk with you further on April 9th. And I'll ask you some more questions about, you know, salespeople. Are they born or made founders born or made? And how do you how do you split that difference? I'm sure the truth is somewhere in between and a lot more. Sean, I'll just ask you one more question right now for this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
What are you most focused on and excited about for this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Well, fantastic. today, leader at Sales Empowerment Group, focuses on their private equity line and the private equity sponsored companies. Sean, what a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
And Sean, when you come into a company, give us a sense of the range of what that looks like in terms of the depth and sophistication of the sales teams from sort of really totally built out, but just need some help on the demand generation side or something versus those that are really building a sales team from almost ground zero where the founders really driven a lot of the sales before.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Talk to us about the different breadth of what you see out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Sean, let me ask you to take a moment, introduce yourself, and tell us a little bit about yourself and your firm.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Thank you. And talk for a second about go-to-market strategies. Some of these founder-led companies, things started sort of word of mouth or based on their Rolodex, who they were working with or whatever niche they were in. And then the world's evolved so much. And obviously, there's a limit to how far you can go with the founder's context and relationships.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
How are go-to-market strategies evolving? And what are some of the things that you're seeing out there in terms of how people approach the market that may be the same as it was 10 years ago, but also might be different? What sort of evolutions are you seeing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
And it really becomes sort of a virtuous cycle if it goes well, where your customer, your client really understands what they're doing and who they're doing it with, who their ideal customer is, and constantly hitting that product-market fit with their customer so that you could then repeat it, where so much of that early on is stuck in the founder's head and the founder's core team's head, and now trying to scale that as a private equity fund who makes a growth investment and wants you to do so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Yes, 100%. And Sean, I couldn't agree with you more. We've seen situations where people get their sales and marketing gets ahead of their ability to deliver. And then you've got a one and done problem with customers. And it's a horrendous repeat cycle versus a virtuous cycle. So constantly making sure you could grow and deliver side by side. I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Talk for a second, if you don't mind. Really, I'm going to ask you two questions. First is artificial intelligence. Everybody's talking about artificial intelligence. How is that impacting go-to-market strategies? And then second, you work a lot with your private equity-sponsored companies. What industries is Sales Empowerment Group?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Are there industries that you folks particularly focus on or verticals you particularly focus on? So two questions. Artificial intelligence impacting growth and growth strategies, go-to-market strategies, and then what industries that you focus on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Thank you. Talk about, is it sort of working side by side with the team, helping them hire reps, helping them think entirely about the whole growth cycle and revenue cycle? Talk a little bit about where you specifically work with companies. Give us just a deeper sense of that, if you don't mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Does it amaze you ever at how quickly you're starting to access AI in different places? And now when you don't have it, it starts to be irritating. I mean, it's amazing how quickly that transformation has happened.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Well, and that's one of the beauties of having context in what you do and having done what you folks do for a long time, is you understand the context in which you're putting that technology to work, which is a huge difference than other people who are not. Talk about business-to-business sales forces, and I've seen different ones.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
In some business-to-business marketplaces, there might be 500 to 1,000 potential ideal customers. So you're really scaling a sales team to that. In other businesses like the logistics business, we've seen people running these huge boiler rooms. And that might work when there's so many different points of entry, so many different potential customers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
How do you look at scaling sales teams and how has that changed over the years as well?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
Fantastic. And take a second, Sean, take one moment and take us through what a typical engagement with one of your clients might look like, just to give more color to it for our audience. Like, what does that look like? How do you engage? And I know you do so multiple different ways, but give us one example, if it's okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Mastering Sales Growth: AI, Private Equity, and Scaling Success with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group (SEG)
And you don't have to name a client, of course, but give us a sense of what a typical engagement might look like.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Despite the Turbulence, Is This a Goldilocks Economy? 3-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today's discussion is as follows. Despite the turbulence, is it a Goldilocks economy? So here's the concept on this. People talk about Goldilocks economy as not being too hot or not being too cold. If it's too hot, the Fed has to raise rates and that causes the economy to go in the wrong direction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Despite the Turbulence, Is This a Goldilocks Economy? 3-20-25
and about tariffs and so forth, that things are okay enough. We'll see how this plays out. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Love your comments on this, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Despite the Turbulence, Is This a Goldilocks Economy? 3-20-25
If it's too cold, you have a recession, lots of people lose their jobs, very bad, no good, etc. The concept of the Goldilocks economy is somewhere in between. hot enough, warm enough that rates could stay at a normal rate or a lower rate, but not so cold that people are losing jobs when we've got a recession or a depression.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Despite the Turbulence, Is This a Goldilocks Economy? 3-20-25
What I did happen the last couple of days is new jobless claim reports came out. There were about 223,000, which is enough job losses in new unemployment claims to cause concern, but to also signal to the Fed at some point they may have to lower rates. but not so much as to cause a panic. Similar, we're seeing something similar with the big banks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Despite the Turbulence, Is This a Goldilocks Economy? 3-20-25
The big banks, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Goldman, of course, is more of an investment bank. are all doing small reductions in force, laying off 1,000 to 3,000 people, a couple percent in certain areas. The biggest thing I saw was one bank laying off 175 junior investment bankers. But by and large, not doing huge layoffs, more normal trimming.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Despite the Turbulence, Is This a Goldilocks Economy? 3-20-25
And that is, again, a sign that it's not a disaster, more of this Goldilocks things versus a total disaster. Now, some companies are very much a turnaround phase. So Intel is getting rid of lots of people and trying to get themselves to be a leaner company and so forth. But overall, the general take is, are we in a Goldilocks economy? And that was hitting all the noise about Dogecoin.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Tesla, Stellantis, Jeep, and Carvana. So we find following these three companies, the auto companies, about as interesting as is out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
That went very poorly. We'll see how it goes for Carvana. Just fascinating. They were down Tuesday a great deal, back up today. They're up 122% over the last 52 weeks. So that's what we've got going on. We've got Tesla, Carvana, Stellantis Jeep. Fascinating to watch what's going on with these big car companies and the market caps and just the business and all those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
We'll also note that Porsche recently reported a little bit slower results, notwithstanding the fact that I bought a new Porsche Macan, or at least the used one from the dealer that was in their demo category. But Porsche has been struggling. As we say about Porsche, there is no substitute. Let me get back to Tesla, down 41% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
There are more and more calls from the investor community that they'd like to see Elon spending a little more time on Tesla and a little bit less time on Doge. I think there's a great mix of views out there on where he should spend his time. Second, Stellantis cheap, down another 4% today. It's down 58% in the last 52 weeks. It has a change of leadership going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
Let's hope that moves it in the right direction. I'm a Jeep fan or was a Jeep fan. I've been disappointed the last few years. I'm not a big fan of that Jeep Wrangler thing that all the cool kids have. I'm not one of those. And I find it to be a very uncomfortable ride. But I do love...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
traditional jeep cherokee i haven't spent a lot of time driving the jeep grand cherokee but i love the jeep cherokee and of course jeep got rid of it uh it was their second best-selling car ever just moronic leadership it's like the old coke guy that wanted to do the new coke and the new diet coke and it was one of their best-selling things you know just moronic and i know there's this great concept of you have to blow it up while it's going good but i don't really buy into that i'd spend time 80 of your time
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tesla, Stellantis Jeep & Carvana 3-20-25
continue to double down on the things that are going good, and then you could separately deal with this concept of that you're gonna develop other products, new lines, new service lines without blowing up the good stuff. Third, Carvana, it was down 10% the other day. It's recovering about nine, 10% today. It's now trying to get into the new car business too. CarMax did that years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Banks, Small Layoffs 3-20-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is big banks small layoffs so here's the gist of this today you've got four of the biggest banks BFA, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan. JP Morgan, it's rumored that they're doing trimming. It's not been quite announced, I think, directly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Banks, Small Layoffs 3-20-25
But all four of these are doing small layoffs, small reductions in force, 2% to 3%. In some areas, it's heavy on investment banking. Investment banking has come through. Let's hope that this is a – The notion of a soft landing that we're getting a couple percent layoffs versus big, big layoffs. And again, we always say half tongue in cheek, but very real to those who are laid off.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Banks, Small Layoffs 3-20-25
Reduction in force is a stat until you're the person who gets laid off. A recession is fine, but when you get laid off, it's a depression. So we have great empathy for those that are laid off and lose their jobs. But that's what we're hearing today. Four big banks, small layoffs, B of A, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan. Let's see how that plays through.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Banks, Small Layoffs 3-20-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're coming to you with some stock market results on a day that's been a down day for the market. Some of the big names are taking to the chin, but alas, Shake Shack is winning. So we're going to talk to you about Shake Shack plus five losers. Shake Shack had great fourth quarter results. It wasn't me, I promise.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
I'm always a little concerned that it's doing so well. But in any event, they're also taking it to the chin today. They're way down. Two other stocks I'll mention. Reddit, which has recently had a tough run as they're getting lower and lower losers, is down 9.34% today. And then finally, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. And again, I can't take a cruise because my claustrophobia won't allow it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
It's also down about 9% today. So that's what we're watching today. One stock, Shake Shack, way up. But some of the stocks we've been watching regularly, Carvana, Tempest, Royal Caribbean, which I don't watch that regularly. Reddit, which has been down a lot lately. And FTI Consulting, which a close colleague just joined, taken to the chin today. Shake Shack, keep eating those burgers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
God bless them. I got to try and avoid it, at least do it without the bread. It is what it is. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
It wasn't me overindulging in burgers and fries and all those kinds of things. The one of the kids happens to love Shake Shack. It's about 10% as investors breathe a sigh of relief at Shake Shack. Now, that's the good news today in terms of the stock market. In contrast, there's a number of stocks that have been regular winners that are taking on the absolute chin today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
One of those, and I'll start with that one, is Carvana. Carvana, which nobody ever really believes their accounting, even though it went way up over the last year, is down 14.3% today. It's one of those companies where it's hard to believe what they say. There's a lot of discussion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
They're keeping their numbers up by selling a lot of things to subprime loans, and a lot of those subprime loans are behind in terms of... Consumers making payments on them and they hide the ball. Well, I don't know the truth on it. That's what at least one of the short sellers speculates that short sellers now out of business. But but nobody really knows whether to believe Carvana at all.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shake Shack + 5 Losers 2-20-25
And when they give really rosy forecast. people get even more concerned about whether they're telling the truth or not. Second, FTI Consulting, again, took it to the chin today as they had a tougher last quarter than expected. Third, Tempest AI, which has been all over the news and rising like crazy. It's one of my close friends' favorite stock picks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And we've already released a podcast today on Walmart in the markets, also one on RFK Jr. It's got this concept of banning pharmaceuticals with advertising of certain sorts, which strikes me as anti-free speech. We also had one about Walmart missing on – it made it on earnings. It was projecting software growth this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
And me, being the little engine that could, went back to something we talk about often, which is going back to the basics constantly. putting the drive in play, slight fade on everything, not trying to go too much, and working on the putting in the short game. And by golly, for this mid-handing cap horrendous golfer, did that work like a charm yesterday?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
And did I come home with extra money in my bank account? So that was a good day. Yesterday, you know, and I'm in Florida for a couple days where you get to play these middle-aged sports. But don't worry, for all those that want me to have a miserable time, I'm going back to Chicago today where the temperature is zero or less. So don't worry, we're coming back. The point being here, tennis also.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
Yesterday morning, slept horribly, played the worst tennis match I've played in a long time, lost to two guys who will remain nameless. I don't know their names, but they were so bad. One of them must have been 97 or so, and I exaggerate slightly, but they were so bad, and me and my partner managed to lose them. I couldn't see. His shoulder was bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
But even so, what really killed us was the mental game of tennis because with his bad shoulder, with my bad eyes, we still just were awful. Today, though, we had a different match against a different team, a squadron of Eagles. These are really true athletes. The average age is probably God only knows how old, but old, old. But we're able to get revenge today again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
Different guys, but won 6-1, 6-1. So I often lament how bad my middle age sports are. I've been having the worst couple of years, the worst year or so, between the injuries. And I think often it's more about my mindset, where my mind is at. It's a great quote I heard the other day about when you're tired, don't forget all the things you've learned over the years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
You know, if you've learned to play a certain way of winning tennis, a certain way of winning golf, Just play those ways and don't constantly give in to impulse control and doing stupid things. Today was revenge. Today was the day where the broken clock was right twice in the last 24 hours. It's also a day where the blind squirrel found the acorn.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
That's taking a shot at the market today down a little bit. But today's discussion is going to be a little bit of a different podcast. We often talk about how much I'm struggling the last year or so with my middle-aged sports, and I think mostly golf, tennis, and other things. And when I think of the middle-aged sports, I sort of give myself two reasons why I'm struggling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
So a good day in the middle-aged sports world of Scott Becker and the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. If you listen to this all the way through, you can lament it all you want. You can laugh at my obsession with how bad I am at middle-aged sports. I don't care. But if you're the first person to text me, it's 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
And you say in the text message, middle-aged sports, you got to send me your name and be willing to have us say that we awarded you a gift certificate on LinkedIn or something like that. But we'll send you a $100 gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. It's revenge time. God bless. Thank you very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
One is that, you know, my mental frame of mind, my clarity of just presence, calmness, has been not where I want it to be. Second, I had a few different surgeries this last year, which again describes my aging process, you know, a knee surgery, a couple eye surgeries and so forth. And a lot of that's just all excuses for my mental attitude being bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
But, you know, even there's a great concept that even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. A broken clock is right twice a day, regardless of how broken the clock is. Well, I guess over the last 24 hours, it's fair to say I've been that broken clock. I've been that blind squirrel because it's been revenge day on both the tennis court and the golf course.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Few Quick Notes For Today 2-20-25
One of the friends who will remain nameless, but he knows who he is, has been annoyingly taking my money all year long. Another friend is also, has not played a bad round of golf when I've been on the course with him. But yesterday, late afternoon, was revenge day as we played 18 holes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart & the Markets 2-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're really going to discuss two big stories and a couple other things we're going to touch on today. The first big story is Walmart, even though it had a great last year, is projecting a softer growth this year and a tougher economy for Walmart. That has led the market to be down about 1% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart & the Markets 2-20-25
That's sort of the big news. A little bit of a hangover from Walmart's reporting of earnings early this morning and the market being down. A couple other stories that we're watching closely. The president says they're looking to cut defense spending. This is hitting some of the stocks that rely on defense spending right between the eyes. Palantir is down 10% yesterday, down 10% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart & the Markets 2-20-25
So that's Palantir. Another story we're following, Carvana gets beaten down today. A lot of questions about is Carvana real or fake, but it's grown and been up so much the last couple of years, it just knocked it out of the park. Finally, Mercedes-Benz pivoting more production away from electric vehicles as those sales are plunging and moving back to gas vehicles.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart & the Markets 2-20-25
So again, the two big stories today. Walmart projecting a softer growth in this coming year, and the market taking a chin. Then Palantir tied to defense spending, down 10% yesterday, 10% today. Mercedes-Benz moving away from EVs, and Carvana also struggling. Those are a handful of the stories we're following today, leading off with Walmart in the markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart & the Markets 2-20-25
Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And today's discussion is RFK Jr., pharmaceutical companies, and who let the dogs out? So one of the great song phrases of all times is this concept of, and I won't try and say it or chant it, but who let the dogs out? Woof, woof, where people then bark at who let the dogs out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
And then for all of us to judge, you know, is this good or bad and to try and make judgments on it. If we start as a society decide, those people are smart enough to advertise to us, but we're not smart enough to decide whether it's garbage or not, then we're in really, really bad shape. So if you're a believer in free speech, you got to believe in free speech, whether you love it or not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
And maybe there's lines on hate speech, some of the things that Kanye says and other people say in racist speech, but in terms of pure commercial speech, whether you like it or not, choosing what industry is allowed to advertise and what's not, and we allow politicians to advertise.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
So one of the great quotes, concepts is, and it's used in many professions is, how do you know that a politician is lying? Well, because their lips are moving, because they're talking. That's the concept. And you use it for a lot of different professions. How do you know a lawyer's overbilling you? Because he's billing you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
But to come back to the theme of who let the dogs out, Pete Hegseth is now Secretary of Defense. And again- I'm not going to qualm over his credentials one way or the other. I don't really know enough one way or the other.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
When he starts his day-run job as Secretary of Defense with a tirade against DEI, it reminds me of this concept of just like the DEI leaders of the fire department or the mayor of Los Angeles, don't focus on DEI, whether against or for it. Don't be a culture warrior. If you're in charge of the Los Angeles fire department or the Los Angeles government, protect the community from fires.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
If you're in charge of the U.S. military, protect us from military threats. I don't want to hear you talk about DEI this, DEI that. You hate it. You like it. You're this, you're that. I don't care. Deal with your job. Try and improve health care in our country. God bless you, RFK Jr. Don't deal with banning free speech. If you're Pete Hegseth, deal with improving our military service.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
Don't deal with culture wars. I don't want to hear it. Most of us don't. I mean, there is a percentage of people that they just cheer and are like it's meat to dogs when you're fresh meat, red meat to dogs when you say that kind of stuff. But the reality is protect us from fires, protect us militarily, improve our health care. Don't try and get into a free speech.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
Don't fright every culture war that your brain idea comes out of your mouth or thought or head. Filter some of that. Again, RFK Jr., pharmaceutical companies, and who let the dogs out? I won't do again the who let the dogs out woof woof thing because I do it so poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
And when I see some of the things that come out of RFK Jr. 's mouth, that come out of Pete Hex's mouth, all I can think of is we've got an administration who's going to let some of the leadership just run crazy and say whatever they want to say. So that's, again, the adage of who let the dogs out first. Woof, woof, and excuse me for that horrible bark.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
If you agree with this, you don't agree with this, if you're the first one to respond to this podcast today at Becker Private Equity and Business, And text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. We'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
But the concept being, the latest for RFK Jr., he's been on this ongoing tirade about pharmaceutical company advertising. And I'm not a particular one who does business with the pharmaceutical companies or anything like that. I'm thrilled at the developments of the pharmaceutical companies in a lot of spots. I'm also annoyed at the expense of the pharmaceutical companies in a lot of spots.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
But either way, the concept that we should ban advertising for pharmaceuticals is literally one of the most inane ideas I've heard in a long time. And the concept being... that if you're a believer in free speech, and most Republicans are big believers in free speech, including paid political speech, including funding for political ads and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RFK Jr, Pharmaceutical Companies, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” 2-20-25
They're backers of the Citizens United concept where companies could put money into politics and so forth and so on. Basic believers in free speech of any sort. And so if you're gonna believe in free speech, then you gotta be a believer in the advertising and pharmaceutical companies abilities to get their ads out and their ideas out into the marketplace of ideas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
This is Scott Becker with a special combined episode of the Becker's Healthcare and the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by three leaders from a company called WeConnect. And WeConnect is a behavioral health company that focuses on within behavioral health, mental health, substance use disorder as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Just remarkable. Daniela, I'll ask you to wrap up, even though Murphy's an EGR pioneer, but I'll ask you to move us forward and wrap us up. Daniela, tell us about where you're most focused and excited this year. And what a pleasure to visit with the three of you. Wish you had more time. And I talked to you about, you know, advice for people trying to recover or trying to stay healthy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
It's a lifetime journey. We've seen it up close, family members and others. We empathize completely. We love you for speaking about it. Daniela, tell us what you're most focused on and excited about this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Danielle, where can people find WeConnect? Let me just ask you that question quickly. Where can they find WeConnect?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Well, fantastic. And you must be the Canadian in the audience by the great accent. Is that right? I can never hear it, but yeah, you're absolutely right. Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. And Murphy, tell the audience about yourself and a little bit maybe about your tennis career and also the three of you got to know each other.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Fantastic. I want to thank the three of you, Daniela, Cam, Murphy. What an inspiring discussion by far. I had so many discussions on healthcare and business and everything else. By far the most inspiring discussion I've had in a while. We thank you so much for joining us on this combined episode of the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thank you very, very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Thanks, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
So just to give some background, one of the leaders of the company is Murphy Jensen. If you don't know Murphy Jensen, him and his brother were two of the great pro tennis players of my time. And I followed them really closely. I think won the French Open, at least the doubles French Open and had a fantastic career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Remarkable. And Murphy, let me ask you this question. In terms of tennis and pro sports, so many challenges. Is that just indicative of the high-stress environment or the drive that athletes have? Because they're well-documented. One of the specials on ESPN or Netflix has another tennis star that had some trouble with substance abuse.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
And just extremely common amongst high achievers and amongst our whole population. Talk a little bit about, just give us a sense of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
No, thank you. Thank you so much. And Daniela, talk a little bit about the trends you're watching in behavioral health today, and also maybe give us a moment on the starting story of We Connect. Daniela?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Absolutely. So as Murphy mentioned, we mend our Necker Island and my side of the story is very different of how I got invited there. I entered a contest online that said, you know, submit your top three bucket list items based on the most creative answers. We'll select someone to go to Necker Island and meet Richard Branson.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
He's got a fascinating history and I'm very familiar and just a huge fan of his history. He's also teamed here with Danielle Tudor and Cameron Schell, and they'll tell us about themselves. Daniela, can I ask you to start off by taking a moment to introduce yourself, then I'll ask Cameron and Murphy to do the same.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
And I was just a few months into my own recovery journey, huge life change. And I had the spark of an idea to bridge accountability, human connection and a reward system into one platform, one service to really help people struggling with substance misuse and behavioral health challenges.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Didn't know how I was going to start it other than I had my tech background and it just so happened that I won this contest and I see this incredibly charismatic guy on the tennis court
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
um and coming back from that island and getting that introduction and seeing how we could really complement each other's skills and pair up as a team and then later on obviously cameron joining on as the executive chairman just makes quite the trifecta as as we trudge forward in this industry you mentioned industry trends you know 11 years ago when we started this thing the concept of rewarding people with behavioral health issues was not only foreign
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
But there was a lot of naysayers in the space. Now you see policies in place that push forward contingency management and incentives to help people with their social determinants of health and help them stay accountable to their care plans. Eleven years ago, the thought of using a mobile application, particularly for folks in Medicaid, was also foreign. And now we're seeing that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
not just as a trend, but we have actual outcomes from actuarial teams that are MCO partners that have demonstrated that people are happier, healthier on a platform like ours. And as a result, they've been able to reduce emergency room readmits by 40%. So big, big trends this year and complete 180 shift in the last decade from what I've seen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
It's simply remarkable. And when you look at this, who's the customer that you're working with here? Or maybe Daniela, whoever's the right person to take this question. Who is it that you folks work directly with? Are you working with health plans? Are you working with individuals? How do you engage?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
So we have two separate channels. One is health and government. Under health and government, we work with health plans. The majority of our population in that channel is Medicaid, as well as in partnerships for grants at the state and federal level and behavioral health organizations.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
On the employer channel, we both directly sell into companies as a mental health benefit and also partner with brokers, large national brokerages, but also individual smaller brokers in different regions of the United States. So anything you want to add to that, Kim, please do maybe on licensing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
So simply remark, I'm going to ask each of you this question. I'll ask you 30, 60 seconds on this. And Cameron, we'll start with you, then I'll go back to Murphy and then Daniela. What are you most focused on and excited about this year? It could be each of your own perspectives. It doesn't have to be exactly the company prescription, but where are you most focused and excited this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Absolutely, Scott. Thank you so much for having us on. I'm Daniela Tudor. I'm the CEO and co-founder here at We Connect Health. I'm also a person in long-term recovery and have a longstanding background in technology before diving into this partnership with Murphy just over 10 years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
It's amazing. Murphy, I'm going to turn to you with two quick questions. I couldn't agree more with Cam, your thoughts on this. We speak so much to our children about constructive lives and physical mental health being the two core parts of life, being live a constructive life and really focus on your physical mental health. And I love your take on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
You know, the world is adopted for physical health. The mental health is so important and still a work in process. Now, Murphy Murphy doesn't realize this, but he and his brother were two of my heroes growing up as a Midwestern tennis person. And I'm going to ask you two questions, Murph, and one of them, Murphy, you might not be able to answer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
But John Costa, who's on The Daily Show, recently wrote a book about his tennis experience and playing on the pro tour. Have you seen that book? Are you familiar with John Costa, who's a comedian who also played professional tennis for a period of time? And the reason I ask is he grew up in Michigan himself. Was it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Well, he's a comedian, but he's also written a book about his tennis career called Lucky Loser. And Lucky Loser is someone who's in an alternate tournament and gets in the tournament because somebody drops out. But he talks about the stress of playing on the professional tour. He played at U of I. Then he played at satellite tournaments and pro tournaments across the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
And it was just really, really fascinating to hear his take on playing professional tennis. He didn't have the success you had anywhere near it. Made it to like 800 in the year, 800 in the world, got to ATP points, stuff like that. But played in Korea and Japan, every place just trying to pick up ATP points. And the level of stress and the burnout of it was incredible.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
How WEconnect Health is Transforming Recovery & Behavioral Health with Daniela Luzi Tudor, Murphy Jensen, and Cameron Chell 4-17-25
Amazing. And I've been following this online for a long time. Cameron, take a moment and tell us about yourself, and then I'll ask Murphy to round out the introductions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are eight more stories that we're following today, and it's an active day in the markets and in business. We're back with you again. We hope we don't drive you crazy. First, UnitedHealth Group is getting crushed today. It's down more than 22% on missed earnings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
Seventh, pounds and dollars. Periodically, we do a podcast where we talk about how poorly my weight or my stock portfolio is going. We often refer to that as scales in portfolios. Recently, we asked readers for a better title. One of them that I liked was called Pounds and Dollars. We also did a Twitter poll based on that, pounds and dollars versus scales and portfolio.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
Pounds and dollars won the Twitter poll by a substantial margin. So now when we talk about how badly my weight is doing or how poorly my portfolio is doing, we may title it or subtitle it pounds and dollars versus scales and portfolios. And again, we talk about these issues because they're issues I think most of us worry about or think about. So it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
A, finally, we also discussed on a separate podcast, when you're struggling at something, Do you grind and reflect? Do you grind or do you reflect? Do you sort of grind through the problem and keep on trying to hit it and get better? Or do you take a step back and try and relax and reflect on it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
I don't have a perfect answer, but I know when things are going awfully poorly with me, sometimes I keep on pushing myself forward and it's of no use. And I'm better off taking a step back and relaxing a little bit and just taking a breath. But hard to do for many of us. Thank you again for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Again,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
If you're the first person to respond and say congrats on being ranked first in podcast, we'll send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. You have to text 773-766-5322. God bless you all. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
Humana, another large payer, is down nearly 7%, so both taking on the chin today. Second, President Trump and Chairman Powell seem to truly hate each other. President Trump said yesterday Chairman Powell's term can't end soon enough. We've obviously talked about it a lot. We're big fans of Chairman Powell. It is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
Third, the markets are all having a tough week, but they've turned somewhat upwards this afternoon after a tough morning. The Dow is still down, but I think the NASDAQ and S&P are currently up. Fourth, we're just thrilled to see the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast ranked first again in the Apple Business News rankings. So God bless that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
And our listeners, thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you're the first person to hear this and you send me a text, Scott Becker of Becker Private Equity, a text at 773-766-5322, we will send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. You got to be the first person to text. Fifth, Hearst, the rent-a-car company, is up big today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 More Stories We Are Following Today 4-17-25
It's up currently about 38%, and news that Bill Ackman in Pershing Square might take a piece of the company, have taken a stake in the company already. Sixth, we're thrilled today to visit with Alan Condon, who we just talked to, and Jacob Emerson today on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. We'll talk federal policy. We'll talk UnitedHealthcare. We'll talk a lot more. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Chairman Powell versus President Trump, Part 309. And I say jokingly, Part 309, you get the sense that these two people truly hate each other. And that's quite frankly, okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
Now he's got to fight the tariffs and the other craziness that's going on. And again, I'm a big believer that other countries treat us fairly on trade as well. So I'm not against what President Trump is doing here. I also believe we need to have certain industries in the United States. I see all the memes about, oh, my God, we don't want people making socks here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
But we better be able to make computer chips, ships, planes, all kinds of stuff, pharmaceuticals that are essential if we end up in a serious fight or challenge or conflict. So we got to do some of those things again. Debt. By either administration kills companies, countries, nations, families, everybody.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
We hate all this surplus spending, this deficit spending, but we love watching this Powell versus Trump thing. We just don't want Powell to give up the fight. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
chairman powell i believe is one of the great leaders of this generation he's worked through democratic administration republican administrations he was appointed by either a democrat or republican but then made fed chair by president obama or vice versa with bush and obama but either way the guy's a really bright guy that deals with political pressure better than anybody that i've seen in this generation now the second part of this is president trump wants to control the fed wants to control what's going on in straits
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
He wants to hit the tariff game hard, but also lower interest rates so he can keep the stock market up. So he pounds on Chairman Powell regularly to bring interest rates down. Now, Chairman Powell, who understands economics, is really a very gifted guy. I don't mean this as a negative about President Trump. I'm not an anti-Trump guy. I do think he's a little bit all over the place.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
But by and large, there's a lot of things he does that I really agree with. But in terms of his take on Chairman Powell... He is way off. This guy is the brightest statesman we have. He's not a political whore. He's a really smart person, and he's trying to do his best to fight inflation, keep the job market good, and manage all these different things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Chairman Powell vs. Trump: Part 309.. 4-17-25
Well, he's got a White House that's going in all different directions. The last White House, he had a fight because he did so much inflationary spending that he couldn't bring rates down, notwithstanding Elizabeth Warren telling him to bring rates down because the inflationary spending, the surplus deficit spending by the government was so bad that he had to fight that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is scales and portfolios or pounds and dollars. So here's the setup for this. And we did a Twitter poll on this. The concept is that at the end of the day, I am somewhat obsessive and compulsive. I'm not very good at it. at watching my weight and watching my portfolio.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
pounds and dollars versus scales and portfolios the the pounds and dollars one won on the podcast by a decent amount uh and we'll probably move back towards using that more often these the pounds and dollars versus scales and portfolios and thank you so much for the the reader who sent us in that title that concept of pounds and dollars uh versus scales and portfolios thank you very very much again if you have a suggestion in this feel free at any time
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
Text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. We appreciate you reaching out, giving me your thoughts, letting me know what you think, whether you agree, you disagree. I don't care. We love hearing your thoughts. Thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
Now, the concept is, in terms of scales and portfolios, when I get to the spot that my weight is where I don't want it to be, I have the hardest time getting on the scale, so I think about the scales in that way, And then portfolios, we think of as well, is when do we get to the spot where portfolios, it's so depressing. I don't want to look at the portfolio.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
I don't want to hit the Fidelity or Vanguard, whatever tab we're hitting to check the portfolio, scales of portfolios. So I look at this and I'm looking for a better title for this concept of scales and portfolios. Again, right now, the scale is going okay, but it's gone a little bit. The portfolio is not going so well, but it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
But I asked on Twitter and in my newsletter for better suggestions in scales and portfolios. One of the ones that we came up with that was referred to me or suggested to me was pounds and dollars. And I sort of liked that much better than my concept that I use of scales and portfolios. Apparently, our audience liked it a lot more because we did a Twitter poll around –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scales & Portfolios or Pounds & Dollars 4-17-25
scales and portfolios versus pounds and dollars. And pounds and dollars got the overwhelming number of votes for the title of these types of discussions when we're talking about my weight and my portfolio, meaning the weight is going okay right now, back to closer to target weight. The portfolio is nowhere near the target portfolio. But in terms of a title...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, I'm going to use golf as a metaphor. Golf, grind or reflect. And this could be the same as anything that you're doing when you get into a slump. So currently I'm in a spot where you're not even supposed to say this as you're a golfer, but I'm shanking everything. I'm not shanking the long clubs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
But in any event, grind or reflect, today's theory, can you relax yourself enough to take a step back and just relax, not just try and grind, grind, grind, to try and find your stroke again? I don't know. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. If you could relate to this, when whatever you're doing seems to have just fallen off the cliff, fallen apart,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
and you're the first person to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. I am struggling. The struggle is real. I will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. You've got to be the first person to text Scott Becker and reflect on this at the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
I'm shanking every short clubs. And if I have any strength in my game, it's typically the short part of the game. And right now I can't hit a thing. And so the concept is, you know, you can't even get around the golf course.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
It's just so embarrassing when you're shanking stuff, you feel like, uh, you know, a, um, I can't use the word, but you feel like a mental midget probably is a good way to say it just like a mental midget. Yeah. So try to get back at it. And the question is, do you grind through a bunch of lessons and a bunch of practices trying to find your stroke and find your sort of rhythm?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
Or do you reflect and take a day off and stay away from the golf course, stay away from the practice range, stay away from whatever it is? In this case, I probably should stay away a little bit, but it's really the same in anything that you do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
How do you sort of resurface yourself, re-get yourself into good mind space, a good mental space, a good physical space, so you're not totally just whacking at things and messing them up? That's how we feel right now. So the concept is grind or reflect. Probably need a little bit of both, but certainly just grinding at it doesn't seem to be helping.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf – Grind or Reflect 4-17-25
So it's probably time to take a step back and just relax. You look at it when you see yourself on screen at a lesson and hitting the golf ball and you look like a mental midget, for lack of a better word, choice, or for not being able to use the word choice, I want to use.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UnitedHealthcare & the Markets 4-17-24
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is UnitedHealthcare and the markets. So here's what's going on. For the first time in a long time, UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth Group, just is tanking. It had a horrible miss on earnings. It's down 20% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UnitedHealthcare & the Markets 4-17-24
Again, and UnitedHealthcare is about the fourth largest company in America, right after Amazon and Walmart. It might be third, quite frankly, with CVS fourth or fifth there in terms of total revenues. United's been just a juggernaut that could do no wrong. In fact, it was up again last week as President Trump And the Trump administration raised rates for Medicare Advantage.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UnitedHealthcare & the Markets 4-17-24
Today comes as quite a surprise to Wall Street because it's down 20%. That, you know, United's a part of the Dow, so thus it has an oversized impact on the Dow. So the Dow's also down significantly today, but the NASDAQ and the S&P are also down. So sort of a real negative surprise for United, now down about 21%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UnitedHealthcare & the Markets 4-17-24
Another couple other stocks that we watch closely, American Express reported earnings down only 1%, so doing fine. Hertz rent-a-car up 20%. Nobody, I think, saw that coming. Just crazy to see what's going on with Hertz and the ups and downs with the rental car companies in relation to tariffs and a lot of other stuff. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UnitedHealthcare & the Markets 4-17-24
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Challenges at UnitedHealthcare 5-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is UnitedHealthcare and the challenges at UnitedHealthcare. So today looks like another bad day for UnitedHealthcare, down about 8.5% free market, a really challenging spot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Challenges at UnitedHealthcare 5-15-25
recently an announcement that the Department of Justice is launching an investigation into their Medicare Advantage program and potential allegations of fraud. Next up on UnitedHealthcare, their stock dropped about 20% on Tuesday as their CEO, Andrew Witte, abruptly resigned. Always bad news.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Challenges at UnitedHealthcare 5-15-25
They also decided that they wouldn't be giving guidance for this year going forward, at least at this point, and that always freaks the markets out. So what you see so far, UnitedHealthcare down 20% this week, down 40% year to date, and likely to drop another 8% to 10% today. That's what we're watching with UnitedHealthcare.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Challenges at UnitedHealthcare 5-15-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apply, NVIDIA, & Microsoft: The Market Cap Redux 5-15-25
Es ist schwer in der Länge, gegen eine dieser Firmen zu kämpfen. Wir sind ein direkter Investor in Microsoft. Wir sind kein direkter Investor in NVIDIA oder Apple. Natürlich wünschen wir uns, dass wir schon lange her waren. In jedem Fall danke fürs Zuhören. Das war heute's Market Cap Redux. Microsoft, NVIDIA und Apple.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apply, NVIDIA, & Microsoft: The Market Cap Redux 5-15-25
We had mistakenly a day or two ago said Apple was head of NVIDIA, but NVIDIA has made a charge for it and is now number two in back of Microsoft. Thank you for listening to the Vector Private Equity in Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We’re Following This Morning 5-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is five quick stories this morning. First, the news at UnitedHealth Group keeps getting worse. It was just reported that the company is facing an investigation over fraud in the Medicare Advantage program. The stock is down more than 6% early today. It fell nearly 20% earlier this week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We’re Following This Morning 5-15-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We’re Following This Morning 5-15-25
The current CEO, Andrew Witte, who's a really smart person, resigned abruptly on Tuesday. Second, the market cap count. Let me correct this from yesterday. Right now we're sitting as follows. Microsoft is number one, Nvidia number two, Apple is number three. Third,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We’re Following This Morning 5-15-25
We had a chance to fly Delta yesterday, which led to a Twitter poll of which is the best airline to fly out of Delta, United, and American, and then whether there's any correlation to stock price. So here's what we got. Delta by far won the survey over United and American. Now, from a stock price perspective, Delta and United are each down around 15%, 16% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We’re Following This Morning 5-15-25
American, who's having a tough year, is down nearly 30% year-to-date. Fourth, Mike Dowling, who is the long-term CEO of Northwell Health, recently announced that he will be retiring. Michael, for people that don't know, is a generational talent in leadership and a remarkable human being. We learned a ton from Mike Dowling, just as really as good as they come.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Quick Stories We’re Following This Morning 5-15-25
Fifth, President Trump reverses course on the sovereign wealth fund. He essentially says the U.S. must pay off debts before creating a sovereign wealth fund. This may be the smartest comment from any president in years. This is a good reversal from his earlier position where he was all in on a sovereign wealth fund ASAP. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This morning, we're going to address four different reader questions. We're going to talk briefly about, and some of these are private equity, some of these are healthcare. And thank you for listening. First, we're going to talk about GI and private equity. Does private equity and GI prioritize profits over quality?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
And essentially, the movement away from small independent hospitals to large, large health systems has led to more market power and more ability to raise prices. And I think the answer is probably a guarded yes. I mean, on one hand, the big systems have really had to do this to offset the power of the massive payers. four of the largest payers are the four largest companies in America.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
So you end up in a situation where systems have had no choice but to have some bargaining power with those payers to get bigger and bigger. They've also had to get bigger to be able to scale technology, to employ physicians, to invest in the systems, and so forth. So I don't think one is necessarily a cause and effect of the other, but certainly it has probably led to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
Better care, the more systems that they become systems, but it's also probably led to some higher cost as well, but it's also allowed systems to survive. You've got 40% of systems in the country that are losing money currently still, and the other 60% aren't doing that well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
So I think there's probably a good argument that consolidation has not helped inflation in terms of healthcare costs, but probably needed nevertheless. A third question we got from a reader was, if we're headed towards a recession, what could healthcare leaders do to prepare their communities for it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
And the reader goes on to say, most health systems are the largest employers in their communities, so they have a great amount of influence and impact. Yeah, I think this is a great, great question. I think health systems are going to have to be careful on hiring so they don't have to fire lots of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
We'll give you some thoughts on that. Second, does hospital health system consolidation lead to rising costs in healthcare? Third, we're going to talk a little bit about what can hospitals do and health systems do in the face of potential recession and so forth as one of the most important actors in their communities.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
They're going to have to maintain their headcount, probably grow their headcount some, but try and do so in not so big a way. So you end up with more and more health systems trying to handle bigger demand. more volume with the same amount of people in the same amount of platform versus expanding and taking on more debt and doing other kinds of things that make them more financially fragile.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
I do see the point that hospitals and houses are for sure one of the biggest economic drivers in most communities.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
i think they have to run their ships well and that doesn't mean cutting lots of people that doesn't mean getting headcount down but it does mean more volume with more technology with the same people also houses are going to be really careful in terms of what they do on technology spend to make sure they're doing it right there's a need for technology spend but it's got to be done right and you'll get so many chances at it because it takes up so much time money staff attention etc etc
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
So that's a third issue. A fourth question that had, and I'm not sure I answered that question that well, but the concept of hospitals have to run well, not get crazy about cutting headcount. They can't overhire. They got to be careful on debt. They got to be careful on expansion projects, so forth, as we possibly move towards a recession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
The fourth question from Reader was, how should systems use PT as a driver, an extender? And I think it's a great, great question. You know, the more that health systems, I mean, the challenge of health systems is how will they get paid for this or not get paid that well for it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
But the more they can integrate that full community service, particularly connected to orthopedics and some other areas, the better off they are. So much of the best PT right now is done at aligned healthcare facilities versus the health systems themselves. And I think it's a great question. I don't have a clear answer to it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
In any event, those are four of the questions that were raised from readers. Some of them relate to private equity. Some relate just to general health system management. But thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
Finally, fourth, we're going to talk about PT and should it be an extension of health systems and how we should look at physical therapy and so forth as part of a magnet for services. The first question is, does private equity in GI prioritize quality over profits or vice versa?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
I would say that this issue can be somewhat not a definitive answer where you end up with the definitive answer is when the PE fund has over indebted the entity. And it's not so much that you're trying to prioritize profits over quality.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
It's that they end up in a spot with it to be so much tighter in how they run the shop that you could end up with less clinical staff and less help than you want to have. I would think by and large, how they approach it, how much they push quality versus not. Some of the big GI roll-ups have been very focused on quality and really run by doctors.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Reader Questions 3-13-25
And so I wouldn't say they prioritize profits over quality, but I do think when they get financially in a challenging spot, you could end up with some of those problems. A great question. The second reader question is, why has the rise in health systems coincided with the rising cost of care
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to discuss terrorists, Doge, the government shutdown, and a lot more. So here's what we're going to talk about. First, we'll talk about government shutdown. If we actually have a government shutdown, as the Republicans and Democrats play chicken with the budget, This will be a bad thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
We can't find from countries that are both dumping products here and that use wages that wouldn't pay our people, that don't work. So you've got this complicated issue. It's made more complicated. It's explained poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
But I do think there's some sense to some of these tariffs, some of these efforts to make our tariffs more reasonable compared to the rest of the world and also to put ourselves in a spot where essentially we can manufacture products here and do products here. If we want high union wages, and all of our unions do, then we better find a way to not be buying things at $3 an hour from overseas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
The math just doesn't work. So am I pro-trade war? No. But do I believe there's some basis for these tariffs, particularly if we want to meet some of the Democratic objectives of higher wages for our people and Republican objectives, then we've got to figure out some way to do that. So that's my thought on the tariffs. The third thing is Doge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
And Doge is really complicated because, again, just like we've got to get great deficits down, we've ultimately got to get our deficit spending down. President Trump, I disagree with so much of what he says, and I agree with so much of what he says. Yesterday he said, we're trying to move from a fake economy to a real economy. I couldn't agree with that sentiment more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
Whether Trump could actually do that or not is a different issue. But when you're using $2 trillion in deficit spending a year to inflate the economy, and that money is going to all kinds of special interest, it is just despicable behavior and does give us an artificially inflated growth. Like we've said many times over the years,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
if you're using debt at eight percent but you've actually got a essentially growth at two or three percent well you've really screwed the pooch so this concept and whether doge will actually do this or not whether it's all smoke or mirrors or not i am totally on board with the need for doge or something like it and as i listen to all the noise around this and how many political footballs are are at play
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
I am coming to the conclusion that the only way to do this might be the wrecking ball approach that Elon Musk and team are taking. So I am becoming a little bit more positive towards what's going on with Doge and the trade wars than I was some time ago. Obviously, it's disconcerting all this stuff. You know, those are the three big things. You know, the government shutdown. Doge and tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
We could also talk about inflation. We could talk about a lot of other things. But I think that's probably enough to leave people with right now. What a fascinating situation. I mean, certainly President Trump is bombastic as hell. But this Doge thing is so needed. You can't live with $2 trillion deficits. My family was doing that. $100 deficits, we'd be broke.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
It will cause lots of challenges. It will cause our debt rating to go down. The Moody's Fitch rating will go in the wrong direction. So let's hope the Democrats and Republicans can agree to something. It is challenging.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
If the country's doing it, we're going to go broke. If a company was doing it, they'd go broke. It just doesn't work in the long run. So we've got to deal with it. You know, there's people that say, oh, the billionaires should just pay more taxes. They are a spit in the bucket compared to how much money we are spending in deficit spending. You could tax all you want to the billionaires.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
That doesn't even make a dent, so we've got to figure out a way to cut spending and probably raise taxes some. I don't disagree with that, but you've got to do a little bit of both. In any event, thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
Now you've got the Democrats saying they're willing to shut down the government, where before this, when the Democrats were in charge, it was the Republicans saying that they were willing to shut down the government. And it all boils down to a giant game of chicken. So that's the government shutdown. That's one of the big headwinds we're facing. Let's hope that gets solved versus a disaster.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
Second is the trade wars and tariffs. And I've been so bombarded with so many different thoughts in this last several days that it's taken me some time to get to some conclusions. Thoughts on this. And here are a couple thoughts on this. I don't love how President Trump sort of goes about this in the bombastic way that he does, but it sort of is how he's wired.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Government Shutdown, Tariffs, DOGE & More 3-13-25
At the same time, our trade deficits have gone from bad to worse over the last decade or so to record numbers recently. And I do think we need to address it. If we want to have high wages here and everybody wants higher wages here, You can't have that in being importing goods that are made in labor countries that pay 10%, 20% of what we pay. Those just don't work. So if we want high wages here,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to discuss the Elon Musk scorecard. And we do this periodically. And I know that people have very different opinions on it. I'd obviously love to hear your opinions on it, but we'll go through four or five Elon Musk things and talk about where the scorecard sits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
And we'll know in some time whether this is more smoke and mirrors actually going to have some impact on our annual deficits. We'll see. I don't know. The fifth thing I'll look at is his ability to add to the population. I think now he's prolific. He's got 10 children, I think, from a few different mothers. I don't know. And I give him an A for adding to the population.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
I know very few people that have produced 10 children. And obviously, I don't have a social comment on this, that this is good or bad, that he's a good father or a bad father. I know the kids will probably get left a lot of money, but besides that... Don't have a comment. I mean, he's running 15 different companies. He's also got Starlink, The Boring Company, a lot of others.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
But in terms of just pure adding to the population, we give him an A. I'd love your thoughts on this. This is the podcast at Becker Private Equity and in Business, the Elon Musk scorecard part two. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
Now, this is not too different than the middle age scorecard I do for myself on sort of fitness, tennis, golf, business and investing. And my grades are often in the BB plus area. So bear with me as it's all going sort of OK right now. But the Elon Musk scorecard take two. First, Tesla's down 38% year-to-date, so we'll give Tesla a C right now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
It was up a lot last year, very hard to judge in the long run, but I give it a C currently. The lots to project for the long run, there's some positives to it. Second is X. He seems to have figured this out, even if there's a lot of crazy people on X. I don't know how they're doing financially. I saw a fund that I'm invested in just made an investment in it, so that's fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
I give X a B currently. Third is SpaceX, and SpaceX is doing remarkably insane things today. You know, they've almost replaced NASA as how the government does rockets, space travel, and so forth. That stated, they've had a few recent crashes. People say there's a brain drain there. I don't really know. But we'll give that a B plus currently at SpaceX.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Score Card 3-13-25
But that could change if this concept of a brain drain is really going on. Fourth, and probably the most politically controversial, is this DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency Act. This is so highly controversial, but our debt and deficit certainly need cutting so badly that I'd like to go with a B here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a CEO that we're also featuring at Becker's Healthcare. We're joined today by Beau Bartholomew. And Beau is both a CEO, he's also an investor, he's done a number of different companies, he's worked private equity, venture capital, but he's really a wonderful, wonderful leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Thank you so much. In a moment, I'm gonna talk about what trends you're watching in healthcare, but let me take a step back. You're about as good in principle the guy as I know, just a terrific, terrific leader and person. You live at this intersection of healthcare, venture capital, private equity, You've worked with private equity some. You've invested some.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
And yet, more recently, private equity seems to be taking on the chin in the public domain. Talk to us a little bit about what's real, what's not real. Maybe just a moment on the good, the bad, and the ugly and how the public should think about private equity in health care.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Beau, can you take a moment to introduce yourself?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Thank you. And talk about, Beau, and I think you nailed that exactly right. There's going to be good players and bad players. Good ones can really do a lot of good. Bad ones make over leverage and put people in a more challenging spot, particularly in tougher margin businesses. Take a second on that. What are the core trends that you're watching this year that you're most focused on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
But the point, Bo, and I couldn't agree with you more, in both of us happen to be, by background, forced or chosen to be entrepreneurs. And one of the concepts about being an entrepreneur is there are multiple different kinds of entrepreneurs, but I've always found when I'm trying to do something great, the money ultimately flows. When I'm trying to build something great, the money flows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Where if in contrast, if I start off with the concept of how do I turn something into a profitable business, and that's concept one, it never seems to work out well. And I think the two different faces of investors, those that are trying to build great businesses and actually do something well that takes care of people and solves a problem,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
end up ultimately finding the money as long as they're keeping their eye on that too. Whereas those that start with the other sort of perspective of everything is spreadsheet driven, everything is money driven, ultimately don't often, sometimes often don't really solve a real problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
And then, you know, there are instances where the money comes anyways, but it's not really the road to success or doing great things. Is that your experience or your thoughts on things too?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Thank you very, very much. And, Bo, take a moment on what are you most focused on and excited about this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Bo, thank you very, very much. One last question. You've been this great entrepreneur and leader. Any advice for emerging leaders that you could share with us?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership, AI, and Private Equity with Bo Bartholomew, CEO of EvidenceCare 2-13-25
Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to walk you through four stocks that are just getting crushed today and really an interesting day in the stock world. The markets overall are up some, but there's plenty of stocks that are getting hammered on earnings. We'll go through a couple of those.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
I'll talk first about two stocks that we're all sort of familiar with. Hanes Brands down about 17.5% so far today and Hyatt down about 12.5% today. Each struggling and each providing gloomy outlooks. I happen to love the Hanes brand's underwear and the t-shirts. I wear their black t-shirts religiously. I buy their boxer briefs. You get them $5 for $20.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
Maybe that's part of the problem with the stock. You get them so cheap and they're a pretty good product. But Hanes brand is just getting crushed today on their earnings. Hyatt also getting crushed down about 12.5% so far today. So those two getting crushed. A stock that I don't know very much about, but it's been all over the news today is the Trade Desk. And the Trade Desk is down 33%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
That looks like the kind of holding I would have. So that's what's going on there. Then a couple other companies I'll mention. I told you we were only going to do four, but I'll give you one more. This is the fourth. British American Tobacco, also down 10%, nearly 10% on earnings misses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
And finally, fifth, Chicago hometown favorite, Zebra Technology Corporation, started by the Kless and Kaplan families 100 years ago. Maybe not that long, but just had a tremendous, tremendous run. Also down about 9%. Even though they did well on earnings and revenues, they provided a forecast that shows concerns about tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks Getting Crushed Today 2-13-25
Those are five of the stocks that we're watching that are struggling today. Again, you've got Hyatt. You've got Hanes Brands. You've got the Trade Desk. You've got Zebra Technologies and British American Tobacco all taking it down the chin. God bless you. I hope that some people find this interesting. I find watching this market stuff to be just fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to come to you ranked number two in the country under Apple Business News Rankings for Business News Podcast, right behind the Wall Street Journal podcast, but right in front of a lot of other Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg podcasts, so God bless that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
The other thing I will say in defense, in defense to all this schadenfreude type view of this world, this joy in seeing them take a little bit of it on the chin, is two things. Astero Labs has been one of my best performing stocks. And of course, as I look at SoundHound down 30% year to date, Astero Labs is down 33% year to date. So even my winners was more than his winners lose.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
So that's no good. Second is, I've been missing putts like I get paid to miss putts. You would think somebody's giving me $100 a putt by how much I'm missing close putts. So my stock picking is bad. My putting is bad. But I'm just glad to see some sort of like misery-loving company to see SoundHound fall just a little bit after it's been up 500%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
And remind you, this is the same friend who invested heavily in Tempest AI before it went on a huge run. And I forget the third stock that he invested that went on a huge run. So I don't feel so bad for him. He's cleaning up. He's cleaning up. We're trying to get by and he's cleaning up. And in terms of the missing parts, well, it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
Some of my buddies aren't missing parts at nearly the pace that I am. And that does irritate me. But what am I going to do? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast and sound hound and my buddy bragging. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Let's hope it recovers. Let's hope my friend makes some putts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
Today's discussion is SoundTown, and I'm sick of hearing my friend brag.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
But more importantly than his stock recovering and my other friend making some putts is me making some putts and having some of my stocks go up too. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
so so here's the discussion soundtown over the last couple years it's an ai company that does does talk and so forth has really skyrocketed it has just been a home run and and one of my friends who will remain nameless cannot help but constantly telling me how much his stock that he invested in soundtown has hit it out of the park over the last year
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
It's literally up 500% over the last year, 496%. And I can assure you, I got nothing that's up anywhere near like that over the last year, at least since I've invested in it. So SoundTown up 500% in the last year. Now, here is the great pleasure today. And I don't want to cheer against my friend's investments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
I want to make sure he does great and he's successful and his family's well taken care of, you know, and all those things. But the only plea I take is that SoundTown, after it's been up 500% since he invested in it, is down 30% year-to-date. Now, I know that's so childish of me. It's like praying for one of my friends to miss a putt when he's playing golf with me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
SoundHound & I’m Sick of Hearing My Friend Brag 2-13-25
It's absolutely horrendous manners, and it hurts me that I'm that low a person And I'm sort of pleased to see my friend's stock go down a little bit, but he's made so much money that I don't feel that bad. And I'm also pleased once in a while to see some of my friends miss their putts. And I know that's childish as well, and it makes me a bad person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
this is scott becker with a special podcast episode and this will not be a business one and we hope you enjoy this this discussion is pat mahomes tom brady philadelphia fans and donald trump now here's the story on this tom brady's got seven super bowl wins and we're not really going to compare the two quarterbacks in terms of who's a better quarterback
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
So two groups that are very pleased about the Chiefs taking it in the chin are are the Eagles and President Trump. But when you look at sort of the person who's probably the most happy, and it was hard for him to hold back his glee while announcing the game, was probably Tom Brady.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
Because there's been so much discussion as of late as to whether Patrick Mahomes is going to become the GOAT and not Tom Brady. So when you look at this and you think about it, you look at the top three that were so pleased by this victory, I wish the Eagles fans are right in there in the Philadelphia sports nation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
And it's a very avid sports nation in Philadelphia where they very much cheer for their teams. And now the Flyers are struggling. The Sixers are struggling. The Phillies are good. But but I know that they're they're quite happy about this. It's not since the Broad Street Bullies that they've been so excited about a sports teams as they are about probably the Eagles.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
And they were really excited about the Phillies last couple of years. President Trump, I think, very excited. He's a schadenfreude-type guy, pleased to see a comeuppance for Kansas City. I think most of us feel that way about the Chiefs not winning again unless you're a Chiefs fan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
But finally, probably the happiest person is Tom Brady because it tables this discussion over who's the real GOAT for now, Tom Brady versus Patrick Mahomes. This puts Patrick Mahomes back a little bit in this race to be the GOAT the greatest of all time in football quarterbacking. Thank you for listening to today's discussion, Patrick Mahomes versus Tom Brady.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
Who's the happiest to see Patrick Mahomes lose? Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
Patrick Mahomes is seeming on his way to plenty of Super Bowl wins. He's got several so far as a very young quarterback. He was very close to the famed three-peat, winning the Super Bowl three times in a row.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
So when I look at this past Super Bowl and Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs getting smoked by the Eagles, if you were to put together a list of the people that were happiest about them getting smoked, Obviously, right in that category, the top three would be Philadelphia Eagles fans, even including their mayor, who seemed to spell Eagles incorrectly on video and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
And it was really embarrassing. But Eagles fans are right up there with being pleased about this. Another person seems to be right up there with pleased about the Eagles winning and the Chiefs losing is President Trump. Who was, you know, he was taken umbrage with Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift had come out campaigning against President Trump.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Philadelphia Fans & Donald Trump 2-13-25
And Taylor's a big Chiefs fan, you know, because of her boyfriend, tight end Travis Kelsey. You know, people knew who the Kelseys were, but barely Jason and Travis before, you know, this Taylor Swift dating thing. And of course, Taylor Swift is quite the catch. So God bless the Chiefs and Travis Kelsey. It is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is along the lines of golf and when you just suck so so here is the sort of core thought along these lines so i've worked hard at my golf games over the years at some point got the handicap down to almost single digits Now, of course, the handicap is skyrocketing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
I played yesterday a match again with the aforesaid Gary Cole, who thinks he's literally spectacular in everything that he does. And he's certainly playing a lot better golf than I am. But we lost in the 16th hole or 17th hole. And it's I was an awful partner, a useless partner, not that he was so great himself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
And then finally, I've played a number of matches with a close colleague, David Abramson, who won't remain nameless. And David has played lights out golf on every match with him. I've played worse golf than you could possibly ever play. It's literally embarrassing. I feel like the partner that is the big problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
200, 300-pound weight on somebody's shoulders right now until I start to improve this game a little bit more. Now, the good news is I don't make a living playing golf, and the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast is ranked, I think, number two. in the country today in the Apple Business News category. So there's at least some good news on the horizon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
But from a golf perspective, I'm playing awful. From a tennis perspective, I am playing so soft and so poorly. I'm embarrassed to watch myself play tennis. I'm embarrassed to watch myself play golf right now. My fitness is okay. At least business is going fine. Investments are fine. But oh my goodness, the podcast is fine. But from a middle-aged person's perspective,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
where you take so much of your ego satisfaction from your golf and tennis. It is a very, very tough winter. It's a long winter. We'll hope that it gets better at some point. I've got to rebound.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
I apologize to my playing partners, but I am damn sick of losing money to people like Gary Cole, Scott Levy, and others who really shouldn't be able to carry my water, but seem to be taking my water right now. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This wasn't particularly a business-oriented podcast today, but it is a shame.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
It's a damn shame what's going on with my golf game. Just like Oliver Anthony says, it's a damn shame. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, ranked number two in the country today in the businesses category. At least we got that going for us. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
And I can't seem to do some of the parts of the game. I feel like I'm doing better than others. Other parts of the game right now, my putting is atrocious. My chipping's okay. But as an entirety, the handicap is skyrocketing. It's sort of the opposite of what's happened to a cushion at the golf company whose stock was going up. Well, my handicap is going up as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
But when your stock price goes up, it's good. When your handicap goes up, that's bad. So one of the sad things about this all is not just that I'm losing money to my colleagues who I'm betting with. There are certain colleagues of mine who will remain nameless, like Gary Cole.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
Scott Levy, who I'm so used to taking money from, but more recently I am losing money constantly to them because I am playing so poorly and putting so badly. One of my playing partners said the other day after one of my putts, that's just terrible. And that was not the most encouraging words I'd ever heard on the putting green or in actually, you know, a match where we were playing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & When You Just Suck 2-13-25
The other thing I want to point out is I've had three partners recently in golf. And I feel like, although one of them I got away and we did get a win out of it with a partner called Mark Shuttockoff against two other guys who will remain nameless. They really will remain nameless because I don't know them that well as to offend them publicly. But Mark carried us to victory.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we've got for you a webinar that we recorded with Sean Carson of Sales Empowerment Group. Sean helps to head up the private equity practice there. They do a tremendous job on revenue growth strategies with private equity-sponsored companies and mid-market companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
No, thank you. And I could see this in the world we're in, where people get clearer about the resources they're going to use. And I could see you guys being in a very winning spot there. What advice would you give to a CEO or a founder or chief growth officer on sort of growth and strategies today and how to approach go-to-market?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And also, what's working in revenue growth and go-to-market strategies? Not necessarily this moment where we're being hit by these tariffs and other sort of uncertainty, but what's been working over the last year, what should continue to work going forward? And what advice would you give to chief growth officers, founders, CEOs, et cetera?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
When you talk about the audits that you do or the early reviews you do with clients, do you spend a lot of time trying to identify what's working and what's not working so that they could double down on that versus being all over the place?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
When you talk about owning the execution, Sean, what does that look like for a typical client engagement? What does that look like?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And when you work with customers, if you're supplementing them on lead generation, for example, and I'm not sure that that's, tell us about that versus all the way through closure versus advising them on how to structure their sales team. Give us a sense of some of the different things that you do with customers. It may be a couple of examples if you don't mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And this is so typical of some founder-led businesses. They start with inbound demand, but most of us know if you want to build a serious business, you better outbound too. So you're really targeting the customers you want to target versus the smaller amounts or maybe the unstable amounts that come in through inbound. And when you develop that outbound focus,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
That makes them a lot less fragile, I take it as well, because they're not just reliant on the phone to ring, they're out there developing relationships, making those relationships more stronger and deeper. In terms of demand generation, what are some of the current trends that you're watching in terms of demand generation? Then I want to ask you about sizing of sales teams versus marketing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And how do you look at that? Does that differ broadly by industry, how you size a sales team? But tell us first, maybe a couple of trends in demand generation and outbound for prospecting and so forth. And then a little bit on the sizing of sales teams, how you think about that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And also what you're talking about, when you're throwing everything against the wall and a bunch of different resources are overstaffed, you can be very expensive and inefficient. It's your customer acquisition cost, your growth, your intimacy with customers can really suffer. Let me do this. We've got a question from the audience, Sean. Let me...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
interrupt our sort of core track to just ask you this question from the audience. So this is a great question. And I'll probably read the question pretty fully because it's pretty spot on. Is automation, technology, AI continue to advance it's become increasingly difficult for companies to differentiate themselves in the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Many are trying similar things to go-to-market strategies, and this makes operational efficiency, doing it faster and cheaper, a key competitive advantage. But the question the person asks, and I love this, How do you see this shift towards a lot of people using automation in different ways impacting innovation and long-term growth?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And probably more importantly, how do you advise your clients while using these different resources To continue thinking differently or to say it a different way, to get closer and closer to customers, even though there's so much out there that's being thrown at customers. How do you sort of advise clients to look at things in an information overload world where everybody's using similar AI tools?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Talk about that a little bit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
I think your point, and you guys seem to walk this walk as well as anybody I know, of really being customer-centric and about the customer. For a team that is focused on growth, there's nobody that's more client-focused on their growth than you folks are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
You would hardly know that you're building this crazily successful firm sales empowerment group with this sort of humble way that you work so closely with clients and client intimacy and really trying to be client centric. And I think your point is so well taken. There could be all the different information out there, all the different technology out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
But if it doesn't really feel like you're working for the customer and trying to improve what they're doing and help them, then nobody really wants to work with you. And you guys, I think, very much exemplify that effort. Talk for a second as a follow-up to that question. How is artificial intelligence, how is technology impacting some of the go-to-market strategies?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Right. But your point is so well taken that the organic growth doesn't require debt, doesn't require bolt-on transactions, doesn't require interaction. It just requires accelerating, building out the team and the right strategies. I'm going to ask you two questions to follow right on top of each other. How did you start working with private equity sponsored companies?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Thank you. And in this world of AI and outreach, automated outreach, all kinds of other things, how important is the sort of real one-on-one contact from business to business versus all technology driven? And how's that mix of sort of people to technology as you interact with customers and people on the other side of the equation?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And I love what you just said, that everybody's looking for an easy button. At the end of the day, truly building a business. I mean, you could use an outside resource like Sales Empowerment Group, who's as good as they come. It really helped to accelerate and strengthen your business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
At the same time, between you and the customer, someone's going to have to really work hard for customers and take care of their customers to make this work. I mean, there's not like AI, chat GPT, all these things. They can accelerate, they can help, but you still have to have really bright, really hardworking people trying to make it go. Is it a fair assessment?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And then we're going to talk about how are go-to-market strategies evolving in today's world. Tell us how you started in the private equity sponsored world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
We'll work through a whole range of issues with Sean Carson today. Thank you for listening to this Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast webinar. Thank you. Sean, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us about Sales Environment Group?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And Sean, you've been in sort of the growth business for a long time. I mean, bigger organizations, the biggest organizations can be very systematic and disciplined about their purchase decisions. In midsize organizations, small organizations, often a shorter sales cycle. You could have a founder who's more quick to try different things and other things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
How do you sort of look at those issues in terms of the discipline of certain organizations? We've worked over the years with GE, for example, and GE back in the day had a very disciplined supply purchasing perspective, very, very clear about procurement. There were this many vendors on the list and that was going to be it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
What do you see out there today in the world, that discipline versus non-discipline? You talk about meeting a customer where they're at. Obviously, some chains, Walmart's known for everybody comes to Fayetteville or Bensonville or whatever it is. I'm spacing today. But how do you see that discipline amongst buyers? And how does that work?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And what's the mix out there in terms of large companies, mid-sized companies in terms of sales cycles and discipline versus willing to buy based on, okay, we had a conversation today. We're ready to try. What's your sense of that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
But I think that's really well stated. Back in the day, not too long ago, a CEO would engage with a new type of software and say, we're going all in on that software. And then that CEO would find that nobody in the organization would use that software.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
So even the most confident CEO learned he or she better get buy-in from the organization, not just make those choices themselves and really be in tune. with who the users are going to be and so forth. The point is really well taken and probably more people wanting to consult internally before just making a decision. In the old days, people were very brand name conscious.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
For example, in the law firm business for a certain type of deal, you might only use Kirkland or Skadden because you wanted to make sure you could defend it to the board if something went wrong. And similarly across the board with the big four accounting firms and so forth. In your business today,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
How much are people very brand centric or is the brand world just changed so much that people are open to other types of solutions other than a Fortune 500 solution, Fortune 200 solution? I don't know if you know, that's a fair question, Sean, but any thoughts on that in terms of how brand centric people are versus not?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Thank you very, very much. Talk a little bit about, Sean, what industries you work with? Are there specific verticals you work with more than others? And any thoughts there? And then I'll ask you a couple more questions too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Thank you very, very much. And Sean, what are you most excited about this year? Where are you most focused and excited? Other than the market maybe starting to rebound a little bit today, but other than that, what are you most focused on exactly? We'll see if that helps. What are you most focused on and excited about this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Thank you. You folks have done a remarkable job. Where can people find out more, Sean, about Sales Empowerment Group and what you do? Where can people learn more about it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Sean, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I know we'll see Sean and some of his colleagues at the McGuire-Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference, May 14th and 15th. Sean, your team are free to come. No charge. We want to have you there to visit with people and meet people. So thank you so much. Other people that are interested, let us know.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
We'll have our next webinar May 7th. I've got one other question from an audience member before I let you go. remote work environments versus hybrid work environments. Any thoughts, and you evaluate sales teams, how much strength there is?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
I know sometimes the big boiler rooms, sales rooms, you probably see less and less of those in the B2B climates, but even the 10-person sales team that's all in one place, what are you seeing in terms of remote versus hybrid versus in-person sales teams? Any thoughts there, or has that world just changed so much? What do you see out there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
I know I've got to let you go, but I've got one more audience question if you're okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Great. So the next question is from one of my favorite people, actually, great, great business person. How are ideal customer profiles and personas evolving with AI resources? And maybe not just ideal customer profiles, but how do you sort of synthesize to get to the ideal customer profile and how are AI resources helping you better target the ideal customer profile?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Again, Sean Carson, Sales Empowerment Group, really just about the best in the business of what they do. Sean, thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you all for joining us. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Thank you. I think that's so important because I see private equity sponsored firms sometimes that are chasing bolt-on after bolt-on after bolt-on or acquisitions, but their organic business is going in the wrong direction. And it almost feels like that's a recipe for failure versus having a strong organic growth strategy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
to go with a good bolt-on strategy, but if your organic growth is not working, at the end of the day, you can only fill that so much through trying to substitute through lateral and bolt-ons and so forth. So organic really has to be a foundation to everything that everybody does one way or another.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
So our go-to-market strategy evolving today for companies, what are you seeing there and how is that changing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
When you talk about that foundation of a sales team or a growth team, how do you think about that for companies? Sort of that foundation, like how do you size the sales team? How do you think about outbound versus inbound developing prospects? How do you think about some of those things?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And you work with a lot of founder-led businesses that now have a private equity sponsor. How many of those have great clarity about their ideal customer profile? How many sort of are really clear, this is who we're really going after?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And how many are still in an evolutionary stage or a constant evolutionary stage and differentiate success based on those that know this is who we're really targeting for our business versus not?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
In terms of today's world, we've got obviously the last couple of weeks have been just a bit of a combustible period of time. Tariffs, market down, people hunkering down a little bit, but not all that much. But you do see the M&A private equity market going to freeze for a moment. But in terms of organic growth,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Do you see distinctions out there in different types of companies as to how much they're still just very bullish and plugging forward versus a little bit like a deer in the headlights right now? What are you seeing in the current environment in terms of people assessing their go-to-market strategies? Because business can't stop. They can't stop, even though it can be more challenging at times.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
What are you seeing out there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And let me ask you a follow-up question to that. Are there some customers that are saying this provides an opportunity because so many people will freeze up or be so nervous now that if we really get after it, we could develop closer, tighter relationships. And at the end of the day, a lot of this will pass. If we put ourselves in a good spot, it will be well-positioned as things start to rebound.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
Would you see some customers, that third, sort of really attacking forward and seeing this as an opportunity while the world gets a little nervous?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And do you find a spot, exactly to your point, where people have used multiple different resources, they love working with you, things get a little tighter in the environment, and rather than this being a net loser, this ends up being a net winner for a firm like yours.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
People say, look, we're going to stop spreading resources all over the place to the total addressable market, and let's just work with self-empowerment group to really double down on what we're doing there. How much of that are you starting to see?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growing Revenues Fast in a Changing Economy – Optimizing Sales Teams & Working with Great Outside Resources Featuring Sean Carson 4-10-25
And Sean, take a second time for private equity sponsored companies, the imports of organic growth versus bolt-on growth, particularly in a changing world. How important is organic growth in an organic growth strategy? Can you give us a moment there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Reinder, hims and hers, and the markets getting crushed. So here's the thing, and I know this is completely immature, but when I'm so sick of watching the markets and there's so much stress and tension in it,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
I'm going to be very careful in my words here. We don't go to Grindr. We don't go to hims and hers, but we do go to look at what's going on with their stocks. And again, Grindr up 70% over the last year. God bless you. Hims and hers up 90% over the last year. God bless you too. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If I offended you in this podcast,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
and you are the first person to text me at 773-766-5322, and you are offended, I will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate. Amazon's also struggling to share in the stock market. I haven't looked at the exact numbers yet, but that's the deal. $100 Amazon gift certificate. If you're offended by this, and you're the first person to text me that you're offended, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
I go back to the lowest common denominator, and I see what the stocks of HIMS and HERS are doing and what Grindr is doing, and then also the markets in general. So here's the deal. Of course, HIMS and HERS is famous for selling erectile dysfunction medicine across the internet. through telemedicine and lots of other things. They've had a hell of a run the last couple of years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
I guess there's, in this pressure-filled environment, there's no shortage of people that need erectile dysfunction medicine, and it pains me to talk about it. But their stock is up 90% over the last year. Grindr, of course, is the site made famous for hookups of same-sex couples.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
And again, in a very stress-filled world with the market up and down and struggling, it seems like there are no shortage of people still looking to utilize sites like Grindr. We don't approve or disapprove of this message, but their stock is up 70% over the last year. So I guess at the end of the day, like anything in life,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Hims & Hers, and the Markets Getting Crushed 4-10-25
If you bet on vices, particularly vices that aren't tariffed, you'll probably do well in the market. The third note today is the stock market itself is giving back some of its gains from yesterday. Yesterday it had a record up day. Now today it's down another 4% or so. The S&P at least at noon is down 4%. That's a disaster of a day. Again, when things are a disaster, when things are stressful,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Buy Individual Stocks 4-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is don't buy individual stocks. So one of the things that I hate is talking to investors, novice investors, amateur investors that think they're brilliant when they hold Apple or Nvidia when it's going up and don't know what to do when it's going down. And again, there is so much of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Buy Individual Stocks 4-10-25
So the story for today is you're not a genius. Don't invest in individual stocks. Play index funds and have a portfolio you could live with, an allocation you could live with. Billy, don't be a hero. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Buy Individual Stocks 4-10-25
Everybody's a genius when the market is going up and brags about their different holdings. For example, my buddy that has made a fortune in SoundHound, he has been incredibly uncommunicative this year. Well, the stock is down. Let me check the number again this year. The stock is down 60% year to date. And all of a sudden, I'm not hearing from my genius friend that's an investor in SoundHound.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Buy Individual Stocks 4-10-25
Similarly, my buddies that are investors in Apple, again, everybody's brilliant, has rode Apple to all-time highs, God bless. Now that it's down 24% year-to-date, I don't hear so much from my buddies from Apple. The reality is, though, the reality is if you want to play some stocks as a hunch, God bless you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Buy Individual Stocks 4-10-25
But your core portfolio, unless you're some kind of quantitative genius or somebody could really pick stocks. I don't know anybody that can actually, unless you're an inside trader. I won't mention the name. but he runs 0.72 today. I don't know if he's insider trading. I don't want to get sued. But unless you're an inside trading hedge fund guy, you shouldn't be betting on individual stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Buy Individual Stocks 4-10-25
You should be investing in index funds. And again, there may be that you're rich enough to have a broad enough portfolio and you could work with one of the big money managers and periodically mimic the S&P and harvest losses and do all those kinds of things. For most of us individual investors, it's more hassle than it's worth, and you can't really duplicate fully the S&P 500.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So what a fascinating few days in the markets. Here are three of the stories that we're following. First, the markets jumped yesterday on President Trump's declaration that it's going to slow down on tariffs, still going at it with China, but generally took a 90-day pause on the tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-10-25
This drove the markets to their best single day in many years. That was great news yesterday. Today, the market's not so sanguine, not as good, selling off some, down a couple percent. But again, up almost 9%, 10% yesterday, down 2.25% or so today. We'll see if that holds. Third, the consumer price index drops this last month while jobs stay pretty steady.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-10-25
That's pretty good news from an inflation fighting standpoint. You've also seen the one and two year treasuries drop significantly in terms of their yields. Well, the 10 years held at about four and a quarter, 4.35 or so. Those are a few of the key stories we're following today in terms of what to do about the markets and so forth. Just breathe and hang tight.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-10-25
And let's hope it'll all be OK over time. Let's hope that sooner or later, President Trump finds solutions with these other nations and then finds a solution that they don't with China. We'll see how it goes. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, markets way up yesterday, giving spec some of those gains today and inflation starting to slow.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 4-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Make America Healthy Again and Five More Concepts. So here's the take today. One of the new platitudes that comes out of the MAGA side of the equation or the Trump side of the equation is this concept of Make America Healthy Again or MAHA.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
I'm certainly not a believer that MAHA includes less vaccines and less GLP-1s, although Medicare can't pay for them. We can't afford it for just obesity. But the fact that you could say MAHA in a text and drive some of your more liberal friends crazy is almost worth doing. It's like almost saying to my conservative friends – Elizabeth Warren speaks the gospel.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
Just trying to see the reaction from my more conservative friends. But that's my take on MAHA today. Four other quick notes today. First, Medicare Advantage. The Trump administration, like the Biden administration ultimately did, is pumping up Medicare Advantage. Medicare Advantage is one of the worst programs known to man ever. It costs the government more. It's so dumb. It's so bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
It's hurting doctors and hospitals. We should get rid of Medicare Advantage tomorrow. There's some great takes on this on Twitter that I saw today. Third, I hate this tariff war stuff. I just hate it. At the end, I think we should have zero tariffs with others. If they're zero tariffing us and that's going with our trade, we should be zero tariffing with them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
At some point, we've got to work this thing out. But I do love the president standing up for America, even though I don't know that every day he knows exactly what he's doing or why he's doing it. Fourth concept today, we did a poll yesterday on will people curtail spending based on market turmoil, and about 50% said that they would. Finally today, Bloomberg.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
Bloomberg quotes a couple strategies saying it's unlikely the S&P 500 ends up by the end of the year
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
We'll see again how that goes, and at what point President Trump has so forced Chairman Powell's hand that he lowers interest rates, even though it doesn't have a damn thing to do with long-term interest rates, which are really based on the solvency and strength of the United States' ability to pay debts. In any event, at some point, the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
has to find detente with China, with Russia, with others. But my God, it is fascinating times that we're living in. And again, my one tip is, To my conservative friends, if you want to get a reaction out of your liberal friends, you put MAHA in a text or MAGA in a text.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
If, in contrast, you want to get a reaction out of your conservative friends, you put something positive about AOC, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders in a text. Those are my pieces of advice for today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
And again, in some ways I have to laugh because the concept of becoming more healthy, yes, I'm a believer in the bully puppet. I'm also a believer in GLP-1s. I am a believer in the fitness stuff that we used to have to do in school back in the day. I'm not a believer that RFK Jr. is really a bright person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
But when you take all this stuff together, this Maha concept, this Make America Healthy Again concept, you know, sort of anti-vaccine concept, at least some of it. And I don't want to offend the MAGA people. But the most fun thing about this whole MAHA movement is you could put MAHA in a text to one of your more liberal-leaning friends, whether you believe in MAHA or not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
And again, I think the whole thing is somewhat ridiculous. So bear with me, particularly when we don't really walk the walk. We need GLP-1s, we need vaccines, we need a lot of other things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Make America Healthy Again + 5 More Concepts 4-10-25
But the sheer fact that you could put Maha in a text amongst your thread group of friends and have one of your more liberal friends say, I can't believe you really mean that, or what do you mean by Maha, is enough to make the ridiculousness of it all worthwhile. I'm not an ultra-MAGA person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber's in the Executive Committee at McGuire Woods. She works at the intersection of healthcare and private equity, and she joins us regularly to tell us what she's watching in sort of the private equity space, the healthcare space, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
No, thank you. And talk about some of those other areas, like the impact on health. buildings and outpatient centers and what it means for real estate technology and spreading around of services with anesthesia where there's shortages. Talk about some of the other impacts that there are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
Amber, let me tee it up and ask you, what do you have your eyes on currently that you're watching in healthcare or private equity?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
Yes. No. Fascinating. And what does that mean for the big box hospital buildings? Those are still very needed still, too. And what does it mean for growth outside the hospital where people seem to be, again, a little bit more careful again about building new things unless they seem to be some of the wealthiest systems? What do you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
A hundred percent. So a lot of that where people are trying to repurpose it and then they got to make sure that they could repurpose it, bringing lower acuity things outside the hospital and and bring higher acuity things into the hospital and make sure they've got enough volume to make that all make work. And we've seen more and more systems make that transition over the last several years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
And from a private equity perspective, where private equity is buying up practices, really trying to own real estate, any thoughts on what this all means from a private equity perspective? Or does it just mean continuing to invest in things that are outpatient, even though the practice management world has been a little tougher lately?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
Yes, but I love your last point on there may be this macro move towards outpatient, but to be an effective investor in it, you really got to understand the different pieces of it in a million different places. You know, it's not just generally, it's got to be specific and really understanding it. I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
No, 100%. And that's always been one of the concerns for health systems, that they lose things to a lower acuity setting and take them out of the main hospital where they got paid higher rates. But then there's always the issue of whether they'd lose it anyways or whether they could backfill it with more expensive stuff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
But you have to assist them. If you're going to do the build it and they will come thing, you need to control enough of your integrated delivery system to know that you can make that work. So there's not enough independent everything out there to backfill some things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
So you sort of like, they must be doing it with a decent amount of confidence that they know they'll be able to fill it because they have enough local strength and resources and assets that they'll be able to work through things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Ongoing Shift to Outpatient Care: Key Trends and Investor Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-25
A hundred percent. Amber, thank you so much. You're always a remarkable guest on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a discussion of great leaders with great personal skills and great analytical abilities. So today's discussion is a shout out to several leaders that could combine these two skill sets in an incredible way. And I'll walk through four of them, plus a couple others.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
to go with brilliant personal skills, just an incredible leader. I'll also give a special mention to both Lisa Rock, who was long-term at Nimble, and Kelly Blair, the current CEO, is remarkable at Nimble as well. Finally, I mentioned a couple that are close to home.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
One, Greg Miller, an asset manager at Alliance Bernstein, who's got this tremendous gift with people and a tremendous ability to cut to the chase and understand issues almost better than anybody else I know. Finally, I'll mention somebody really close to home, Robert Becker, my son, both a philosophy undergraduate major
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
and a computer science major, plus a graduate degree in computer science and AI, and the incredible gift to be one of the best listeners and best communicators of anybody that I know. Just an amazing gift, an amazing balance of skills that he has. Again, today's shout-out goes to these great leaders with this great mix of analytical skills. to go with brilliant personal skills.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
We've gone through six or seven of them here. Some of my favorite people in the world, some of my favorite leaders. If you have suggestions to add to this podcast, people that you think fit this mold, feel free to always text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
Or these are joining us on a webinar next month on business leadership and business building. And a couple others I'm going to talk about as well that combine these great sets of skills of great analytical abilities with great personal skills. So the first four I'll mention are Amber Walsh, executive committee leader at McGuire Woods, incredible mind to go with incredible personal skills.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
And in that same vein, put in there, Holly Buckley from McGuire Woods, also a department chair at McGuire Woods, lives at the intersection of healthcare and private equity, amazing ability to have great personal skills and a brilliant analytical mind. The third person I'll mention today, Barry Tanner,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leaders Who Excel at Both People and Problem-Solving 5-8-25
Long-term CEO of Physicians Anoscopy, then PHI Solutions, then more recently another company, another company. Just an amazing gift with people with tremendous analytical abilities. Just a great, great combination. The next person I'll put in that category is also joining us on this webinar. Nader Sami, long-term chairman of the board and CEO of Nimble Solutions. Just a brilliant mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & a Sucker is Born Every Minute 5-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is golf and a sucker is born every minute. So here's a tee off on today's discussion. I get an email this morning from the PGA Superstore, Tor Superstore. And it says, it has this headline, new season, new clubs. And you might think, that this, of course, should be immediately ignored, deleted.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & a Sucker is Born Every Minute 5-8-25
I am on a 12-step program not to buy a new golf club for a while. Though I tried one yesterday, I loved. But I can hold back. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & a Sucker is Born Every Minute 5-8-25
It's not about the clubs. It's about the golf game and the practice and your mental state and all kinds of other things. But what the PGA Tour Superstore knows is that a sucker is born every minute. My colleagues know that I have an impulse for certain things. One of them is golf clubs. So I see this ad, and it's almost like a Pavlovian response
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & a Sucker is Born Every Minute 5-8-25
that I immediately want to check it out, even though I'm always buying new clubs. I have more clubs than you could shake a stick at. There are so many clubs in the garage, the car, and every place else that you could possibly put clubs. I'm giving away clubs to family members and relatives because I'm embarrassed to have so many clubs, even though I still suck.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf & a Sucker is Born Every Minute 5-8-25
But the concept of the PGA, I think at the end of the day, I am going to call the Trump administration— Because I think they're taking advantage of, with these advertisements, what's really an addiction. This kind of advertising, new season, new clubs, immediately hits me. And all I could think of is, let's do it. And again, today is not that day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a special shout out to high motor leaders. So here's the deal. There are certain people that could appear as not what you think of as what used to be the typical patrician leader. These could be people that if you didn't know what they did, You wouldn't know how powerful their motor runs inside.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
Dr. Rao is the CEO and co-founder of ABRIDGE, one of the great ambient listening technologies out there in healthcare. Shiv is a physician by background like Dr. Rangel. And for some reason, I relate well to these professionals that are also high motor people that present in a certain way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
Dr. Rao, in some ways, this is a spitting image of Dr. Langell, in that each one of them has got this incredibly depth to them and thoughtfulness to them that you wouldn't know until you get to know them. And then the depth in how they handle themselves and what they've done in accomplishing and have accomplished is literally remarkable. The fourth person I'll mention is Dr. Amamo Tomlinson.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
the CEO of Vituity, which is a $2.6 billion company today, Dr. Tomlinson might be the most gracious person you'll ever meet. It's similar to Judy, to Dr. Langell, to Dr. Rao. When you first meet Dr. Tomlinson, you're not overtaken by the physical presence, and this is not a knock on anybody's physical presence,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
But what you warn is the depth of connectivity and the depth of intelligence and the depth of drive, sort of an incredible motor that you might not see on its face. The fifth and sixth person I'll mention today, they both get a special shout out. One is Coley Becker, a daughter who –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
may present as an introvert, but he has this incredible internal drive and motor that has taken her to different parts of the world to learn about different things. And now after several years at Pricewaterhouse, coming back to do a master's in international relations.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
But this incredible internal drive, internal motor that reminds me of some of these other people, just tremendous grace and a tremendous motor that goes with sort of this incredible persona. Again, like the other leaders here, doesn't overwhelm you, but it's this deep thoughtfulness and deep motor that's incredibly impressive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
Those are my five shout outs today on high motor leaders that we're incredibly impressed by. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
And I'll just go through about five of these people very quickly. So the first one is Judy Faulkner of Epic. If you met Judy, if you know Judy, you wouldn't know what a high motor she has until you knew the motor she has and the leadership that she brought to the table. Simply remarkable. Doesn't present anything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
This perfect public persona doesn't try to, but is an incredible internal motor that has made her one of the great leaders of our generation. Second, Dr. John Langell. Dr. Langell is the CEO of the Northeast Ohio Medical University. Northeast Ohio Medical University, over the last several years, has been built into one of the great medical schools in the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
Actually, they had 6,000 applicants for 200 spots. They've done this incredible job of filling a need. If you first meet John, you're struck by his graciousness. You're not necessarily struck by, you know, he's not one of these six foot four guys.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Special Shout Out to High-Motor Leaders 5-8-25
But when you get to know John, he's an incredible high motor, thoughtful, driven person who achieves remarkable results through partnership, through alliances, and through all kinds of efforts. So John Langell gets a second shout out today as a high motor leader. The third person I'll mention is Dr. Shiv Rao.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to discuss briefly 10 stories that we're following this morning. It will sort of walk you through these very quickly. First, the markets point up today after the Fed held a press conference yesterday and also on news of a potential trade deal involving the United Kingdom.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
Next, FTI Consulting remains down year to date, but since a close colleague joined the firm, they're up 6% over the last month. No quintessence there. Finally, Alliance Bernstein. This firm has jumped 10.73% this year so far. Some of their best, best leadership is spending more time outgrowing the business and building the assets under management and a lot less time in the office.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
This seems to be helping both the company's performance and the company culture that some of those people are spending more time out of the office. Finally, yesterday, just a great pleasure to record a webinar on 25 business trends, thoughts, and mantras. That'll also be available at Becker Private Equity and Business. And also, we'll have a special webinar next month.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
on business leadership and business building. We're going to feature four great leaders, Jessica Cole, the CEO of Becker's Healthcare, Amber Walsh, Executive Mini McGuire-Woods, Nader Sami, Chairman of the Board of Nimbo Solutions, and Barry Tanner, long-term CEO of many sort of healthcare companies. Just fantastic. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
P.S., thrilled to be passing 7 million downloads and being highly ranked on the Apple Business News ranking for podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
Second, it's been announced this morning that Trump plans to announce a conference of trade deal with the United Kingdom today that should be going on already and soon to be fully reported. Third, the markets rose yesterday. Another decent day for the markets. Uncomfort that the Fed has probably done raising rates and not that far away from lowering rates.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
Fourth, Oscar Health, the healthcare insurance company, jumped 30% yesterday. Sort of a rebound time for some of the smaller health insurance companies, while the larger ones are struggling. Also in the up section yesterday, Walt Disney, the Disney company, also jumped nearly 11%. And Tempest AI, founded by brilliant business person Erika Fikowski, jumped 13% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Stories We Are Following Today 5-8-25
Fifth, Google dropped more than 7% yesterday. You don't see that happen very often between Google and essentially now called Alphabet. Next, Rivian also fell yesterday by nearly 6%. Those Rivians are expensive. As one of my close friends whose spouse wants to buy one, We'll tell you they're expensive cars, but it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to have Dr. Darrell Williams, scientist, founder of Partnership Solutions, PartSol, joining us today on the webinar to talk about generative AI and decision-making and a lot more. Dr. Williams, thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Let me ask you a follow-up to that. Let me first ask you another audience question, and then I'm going to come back to what are you most focused and excited about this year, because I hear some of that excitement. So how do you help the CEO understand that IT and AI are two very different things, or AI as a tool ran alongside IT, but they're very different things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
How do you get CEOs to start to get to the spot of understanding where the use cases are and how it's a very different thing than traditional information technology?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you. And talk about what are you most focused on and excited about this year? You've had this tremendous rollout. You've got the Absolute Truth and AI company at ATI. What are you most focused on and excited about currently, Dr. Williams?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
It's fantastic. I'm going to ask you a question from the audience that, again, dovetails really well with one of the questions we were going to look at later on. So this comes from an audience member. For an innovative company eager to integrate AI agents into daily operations, what's the most common misconception that we keep in mind, that we should keep in mind?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
So we want to use AI, but what are the most common misconceptions that we should keep in mind? And then from everything we're hearing, the potential of AI seems limitless, almost too good to be true, beyond the importance of data accuracy and quality inputs, which you've mentioned, what are the key challenges or trade-offs we should be thinking about as we embark on using AI in our company?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
So what are common misconceptions and what should we be thinking about? Almost like what advice would you give to clients starting to implement AI tools?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
I've seen so many of the revenue cycle companies in AI... They were solving a real problem. People were working with these huge bullpens of revenue cycle workers trying to get revenue cycle claims processed. And they couldn't even hire people fast enough to do it. They couldn't pay people well to do it. They were really trying to solve a problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Like some houses have 2,000 people trying to follow up on claims.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
and ai and ai solutions led them to have 1200 people doing it and 800 of them replaced by the machine so the 1200 really work on the more important stuff but they were really trying to solve a problem because they just they couldn't even get their hands around how to keep staffing this the way it was being done so i think your point on what are we trying to solve you know i've got one organization 35 full-time writers
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
I don't want to replace them with AI, but I'd like them to spend more time talking to their communities, really engage with the communities. So could we get some of the work done through computers and then have the journalists doing more and more talking directly with people in the community? Like that's a real problem that you want to solve.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Whereas if you're just throwing AI to business and haven't figured out the problem you're trying to solve, what I hear from you is that that's kind of a useless approach. You better figure out what you're trying to do and what your problems are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you. Another question from the audience. Can AI stem cell and absolute truth algorithm technologies used to make financial investment decision making? I assume the answer is yes at some point, but not an area that I don't know if you're working that area of financial investment decision making. But I assume people will be using AI to sort of filter through what to use and not use.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you. There's another question. And how do you apply the AI tools that you have to the business domain knowledge that's needed in a specific business? So the question from the audience member, I'll read the question from the audience member, but each business has its own business logic, its own sort of knowledge of that domain. How do you inject that context into the AI on top of your data?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
How do you make sure what you're doing is applicable to their business, particularly in the four verticals you're focused in? How do you do that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
So instead of them having to look at a thousand different documents, put a bunch of analysts behind those documents, digging everything, you could have a tool run, AI run on it. get you to the summary or whatever it is, the core, enough of what you need to know so you can make good decisions at that point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
I mean, and then obviously Jeff Bezos was fantastic at making decisions, knew he had to be more wrong than right, didn't have to be perfect, but your decision maker is still your decision maker, but hopefully they've got good enough data, good enough confidence to then make decisions using their domain expertise, their knowledge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
So you get them the right stuff to look at, you get better and better at getting them the right stuff to look at. So instead of having Junior analysts crunch through thousands and thousands of documents. The machines do it. The computers do it. The AI does it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
And then the decision maker eliminates, takes out that two weeks of everybody looking at documents and takes it through, gets it from you very quickly, can make decisions based on really good data.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
And talk about this. People talk about the free AI platforms, like open AI parts. So you guys don't have like a free platform, do you? That's not how you work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
A fair answer. Talk for a second about where do you see, you've talked about the verticals. Can you give us an example of specific use cases you see with clients that, that might be the most prevalent use cases in the next couple of years?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Yeah, and that's going to be fascinating to watch. You're always seeing more and more people in the Waymos, the automated autonomous taxis and so forth. And that's a new thing, but you could see how quickly that can grow as the technology gets better and better because it replaces, unfortunately or fortunately, the human element in it, unfortunately, because it replaces a lot of unskilled jobs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Fortunately, because you get better driving and safer driving and less errors. Fascinating. Talk for a second, Dr. Williams. A few weeks ago, a month ago, all of us heard for the first time about DeepSeek. Just give us a moment on DeepSeek and what that means and why that was important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
But when you talk about error and sort of issues with the ultimate outcomes, what I'm told is when people are using that, Those tools, there's still lots of error and errors, but talk a little bit about the discussion why DeepSeq hit us so broadly across the broadsides here in the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk about that. You mentioned something a moment ago about sort of going from poor tests to X amount of tasks, but you also talked about the algorithms, the human behind the algorithms. Could you talk about that for a moment?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Right, at the end of the day, and that's what we've heard over the last month or so, that even though it's great, it takes a lot less cost than the open AI, some of the things that we developed versus some others, that at the end of the day, accuracy is still not where it has to be to rely on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
It gets you good enough for a lot of decision-making, but not good enough in terms of which teacher you're leaving your kid with, or things where you have to have great, great accuracy on it. Fascinating. Give us a moment on... Any particular trends you're watching currently in generative AI that our audience should be generally familiar with?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Let me ask you, any general trends you're watching, Dr. Williams?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Because there's so much discussion now, whether it's with Elon Musk's Grok, with the other open eye solutions, the search solutions, is the algorithms behind those that drive a certain algorithm way of outcomes versus others. Talk about the effort or the secret or the thoughts in developing those algorithms that then feed into what you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Yeah, no, it's a fascinating, fascinating situation. It's been an evolution. I mean, let me ask you this next question. So if you started 15, 17 years ago with the iPhone, very few of us would have guessed that the iPhone would be omnipresent at this point, that that sort of device or the Samsung phone, whatever it is. But we would never thought smartphones would be so omnipresent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
It seems like AI is getting injected into lots of things. At what point will it be? It will be a few years to where we feel like, oh, my God, we don't recognize the world from 10 years ago because now there's AI running through so many things that we're doing. Do you have a sense of that? At what point we'll see it in so many places that we think it's like omnipresent?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Let me ask you to take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us about yourself and the history of PartSol People don't realize you were sort of in the AI world before AI became a household word. Talk to us a little bit about the founding of Parcel, the history of it, and yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
It's binary.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Yeah, no, it's a binary thought process versus an and thought process. Exactly. We want to support Ukraine, and we want to find peace and bring this war to an end. We want to do both, not just one or the other. We want binary, not to bring politics in it, but moving away from binary solutions. We need to do both. It's an and thought.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Versus or no, I think that's I think that's absolutely brilliant. I guess one last question, Dr. Williams, where can people learn more about partnership solutions, parts all and what you all do?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
It is really fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. There was a question. I don't know if it's a Palantir question or not. Somebody wanted to know how much is spent on AI defense contracts in our country. I don't know if you have any idea what that number is. I don't. I wish I did before I invested in Palantir because now I'm a little bit concerned about that investment. Okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
It reminds me of all the golf clubs now being AI golf clubs. But God, I know that they're not making me a better golfer, even though I'd like to, because it's still me designing the algorithm of the stroke. Dr. Williams, I want to thank you for joining us so much. I want to thank our audience for joining us today. And I can't tell you how much we appreciate all your questions and all the inquiries.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you very, very much. Thank you. My pleasure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you very, very much. Dr. Williams, where are you most focused today in the three or four verticals that Parcel focuses on?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Fantastic. So FinTech, legal tech, health care tech, national security. And you're working across borders, correct? Tell us about some of the work internationally as well, if you don't mind. I know you're doing work with governments and internationally, big agencies. Talk a little bit about what you're doing internationally. Sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Thank you. And if you sell to a luxury yacht retailer, do you get to go on the luxury yacht?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Quantum computing, we've got a few questions from the audience already. Quantum computing, there's a lot of interest in development of quantum computing. Will that accelerate and complement AI? How do those two things fit together, the discussion of quantum computing and AI?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
No, no, 100%. If you don't have the right inputs, the right algorithms, the right things you're asking, the right machine learning set up, you end up with not the right answers on the back end. And you talk about the absolute truth here. Talk about this. If you're a consumer or work with a company like yours, there's so much different noise coming. Everybody's an AI player today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
There's so much different noise coming from so many different directions. How do leaders that are consumers, that are using your product or working with other vendors, how do they cut through the stuff to figure out what's real, what's not? Who should they work with? Who shouldn't they work with?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
You've been really accomplished in working with a lot of big fintech players, a lot of overseas players. How do people decide amongst many different vendors are talking about AI, who to work with? How do leaders cut through some of this stuff to decide who really knows what they're doing? That's another audience question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Let me ask you a question along those lines. So whoever you're working with, whoever CTO is working with, they ought to test with the party, they ought to get reference from the party, you know, have you do some runs with them. Let me ask you this question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
The intelligence of your consumer, the customer, whether the bank or otherwise, as all of us get a little bit more familiar with AI, like I feel like All of our education is going at a pretty good speed ramp because all of a sudden we're seeing in our Google searches when we ask a question, a whole different level of detail and data than we were getting years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
We had to search through and scroll through all the different search results to figure out what was relevant. Now it's summarizing it for us immediately. Are your consumers... learning a lot and coming up to speed at a decent pace, or are people still just overwhelmed in the workplace as to where to figure out where the solutions go and how to use the solutions?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Right. And we see a lot of that where people say in the law firm setting, for example, people are using AI, but they're periodically finding in the law firm that, oh, it's got something that's just a wrong site or a made up site or just the wrong case and so forth. So it's still got to be very carefully checked by people on top of the AI.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
And so you're still speeding things up a lot, but there's a lot of checking and there's a lot of expectation that it's going to be right. And it's not always right is what we're finding in the legal sort of tech area. Talk to us about for a second about, Dr. Williams, any examples of parts all partnership solutions, parts all used in health technology or health care, health, life sciences.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Understanding the Generative AI Landscape & How to Use AI to Improve Decision Making & Operations Now 3-6-25
Where would be the places that you're working with? Where your companies work with AI and health tech and health services.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 of My Direct Holdings Are Getting Crushed 3-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is three of my direct holdings are getting crushed. So this is a sad day in the markets. And I say that jokingly. It's actually a great reminder to me to invest in index funds and not equities. So here are the three stocks that I hold directly that are taking it on the chin. Astera Labs is down 7%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 of My Direct Holdings Are Getting Crushed 3-6-25
They've had 75% turnover in their company. And as we talk about turnover, and again, excuse the pun, that's a lot of experimenting with different positions. Thank you very, very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 of My Direct Holdings Are Getting Crushed 3-6-25
It's also now down 50% year to date. I woe the day that I ended up owning Astera. Second, Palantir Technologies, which was one of my great winners, is now down 7% today and probably closer to even year to date. It was up about 11% to start the day, but it's probably moving in the wrong direction. Finally, Amazon, which I'm happy I own and I'll probably own for a long, long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 of My Direct Holdings Are Getting Crushed 3-6-25
is down almost 3%, and it's also down about 70% year-to-date. At the end of the day, the markets are, again, getting crushed today. They're down almost 2%. This sort of mix of noise over jobless claims not slowing down as much as expected, new jobless benefits, you know, still – The job market pretty sturdy leads people to believe that Chairman Powell is going to keep rates pretty steady.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 of My Direct Holdings Are Getting Crushed 3-6-25
And that combined with all this noise over tariffs is leading people to have lots of uncertainty about what's doing the markets. So we're watching those three things. I also can't help but comment on Grindr. Grindr is down 17%, 18% today. I talk about Grindr often because one of my close friends always gets a laugh out of it when I do mention Grindr being down 17%. So there you go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR 3-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is KKR, just KKR. KKR is down 90% year to date. KKR, along with sort of Blackstone, Apollo, epitomizes the large private equity fund. They're down a couple percent today. They're down 90% year to date. People, of course, love the big private equity funds and they love to hate the big private equity funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR 3-6-25
They had a good year last year. They're struggling this year. One of the things that's fascinating about all this is you are seeing a private equity funds. They're starting to do some exits and limited partners starting to get some distributions. You're also starting to see limited partners starting to get some cash calls, you know, on their commitments for the next fund.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR 3-6-25
And what is disappointing if you're a limited partner is those distributions are are coming a little bit slower than those capital calls are coming. In addition, those distributions and the fall in the market are making those capital calls less fun to fund. In any event, that's what we're watching today. KKR in the private equity market. It is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR 3-6-25
KKR down 20% almost year to date, 90% as of today. Limited partners starting to see some distributions, but the market being down and seeing capital costs coming a lot quicker than distributions. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Astera Labs & Stellantis Jeep 3-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Grindr, Astera Labs, and Stellantis. So here's three takes on these three companies that are struggling recently. First, Grindr is getting absolutely crushed today, down about 16% today. They've had 75% turnover of employees since the new CEO took over.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Astera Labs & Stellantis Jeep 3-6-25
That 75% change in turnover is a lot of experimenting with different positions and trying to get it right. That is really challenging. Second, Astero Labs is now down 50% year to date. I care about Astero for two reasons. One, I'm an investor in it through a hedge fund distribution that I got. When I first got that distribution, it was rising like crazy, and I thought I was a genius.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Astera Labs & Stellantis Jeep 3-6-25
Of course, that changes very quickly. It reminds me again of the Kenny Rogers song, you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them. I should have folded, it seems like. I did not, and now I feel like his other song, The Coward of the County. It is what it is, a tough day in the market for Astera Labs, again, and for Grindr.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Astera Labs & Stellantis Jeep 3-6-25
Finally, a third stock getting crushed over the last year is Stellantis slash Jeep. It's now down 53% over the last year. Just a debacle and continues to be a debacle. Again, another cautious outlook. They keep on predicting they're going to get better. It doesn't seem to get better.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Grindr, Astera Labs & Stellantis Jeep 3-6-25
That also leads to a vicious cycle of the markets getting less and less confident in their ability to forecast what they say they're going to do. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you a lot more on Friday and Saturday this week, but thank you for listening to the podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are eight stories that we're following today at Becker Private Equity and Business. And thank you for listening. First, the markets are getting slammed today based on lower new jobless claims than expected and concerns the Fed will keep moving slowly. 221,000 new claims for jobless benefits versus expected 236,000.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
This was exciting for a while because I thought I was going to get rich, rich holding it. Alas, it's not to be. As Kenny Rogers says, you need to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. Sadly, I'm not either Kenny Rogers or the astute gambler in this song. To take the reference further today, I feel more like Kenny Rogers, coward of the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
Seventh, Solantis Jeep, which I love to rail on, is down 53% over the last 52 weeks and, again, is struggling currently. So those are seven of the stories we're following currently. Let's hope the market starts to rebound at some point shortly. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
A special P.S., the McGuire Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference is scheduled for May 14th and 15th. If you're interested in that, please text me at 773-766-5322. The Becker's Healthcare CEO Conference just signed up Caitlin Clark for next year, and we're working on the great one. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
Two, KKR, one of the largest private equity funds, is down today and down nearly 19% year to date. Notwithstanding that, limited partners generally in PE funds are starting to see some distributions and are again also starting to see some capital calls, some movement in the deal market. Third, NVIDIA is now down 15% year to date. Its market cap has fallen to $2.8 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
So still very high market cap, but it with Microsoft below the $3 trillion mark. Fourth, Marvell technology has fallen 16% plus today, even after it beat earnings, provided a cautious outlook. Betting on the high-growth tech companies requires a lot of calm. Fifth, Grindr is getting just crushed today after meeting estimates on revenues but missing on earnings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-6-25
It has had 75% turnover of employees since its new CEO took over. That's a lot of experimenting with positions. It's down 16% today. Sixth, Astera Labs is now down 50% year to date. You might ask, what is Astera Labs and why does anybody care? I care because I own Astera directly after receiving it in a private hedge fund distribution.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. We're thrilled each day to feature brilliant business people, brilliant private equity people. Today, we're thrilled to visit with Chris Felderman. Chris is the co-head of consulting and the head of the Chicago office at Palmtree. Palmtree is this magnificent investment bank and consulting firm that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk for a moment, Chris, about sort of your sort of growth, your trajectory, how you joined Palm Tree, and a little bit of your background.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
And he's going to tell us more about Palmtree and what they do. A lot of fantastic mid-market work. Chris, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell the audience a little bit about Palmtree?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Thank you. And in the sort of business space, the private equity space,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
what trends are you watching currently what are you seeing i mean there's so many interesting things going on people trying to put capital to work again at the same time i saw kkr report earnings recently and took it on the chin today what are you seeing out there in the private equity space and what should people be thinking about right yeah well as an m a advisory firm we're always very focused on m a activity and the effect that that activity has on the demand for our services you know as we're
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Thanks, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Thank you. Let's touch on those three very quickly for a moment. So last year, we saw the return to big M&A by some of the largest funds, the Blackstones, the KKRs, the Apollos, the mid-size funds just started to get back into the game sort of towards the end of last year, the start of this year. But still, some concerns depending on what business you're in on tariffs,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Also, interest rates aren't moving down anywhere nearly as quickly as some people had hoped. And that has an impact on deal flow and activity as well. Any more thoughts on what you're seeing in what areas or industries are you seeing more activity versus less?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Thank you. No, that seems right on. More and more corporations carving out and selling off, spinning out things that probably aren't core to their business and looking at that. We just saw one of those in the education tech space. And so that sounds exactly right. And Chris, talk a little bit about your sort of take on what you're most focused on and excited about this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Where are you most focused and excited?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
And I think that is such a good point. I mean, you've got plenty of LPs in funds. that feel like they're getting long in the tooth in terms of they're waiting for distributions, particularly as they're starting to re-up for the next funds. What's your sense of that? Will there be some acceleration in the exits? I think one of the things that was concerning about the KKR news today is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
a huge amount of their fees or their profits are coming from fees rather than from exits. And as an investor, if you're looking at that two and 20 and you're paying a lot of the two, but not getting a lot of, or not seeing a lot of the profits on the exits, that's concerning as an investor. And that's what's driven KKR down today by 8% or so. What is your sense of that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
At some point, limited partners get a little bit, anxious to start seeing distributions on their paid-in capital, don't they?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
But I think that's exactly right on in that if you're an investor, you're not so worried about at this point maximizing return. You're trying to make sure your capital comes back in one piece, maybe kept close to the S&P and ready to deploy it again and hope that it's a better cycle. I think you've nailed that. I mean, that's the perspective, isn't it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
If you're an investor, you're not necessarily worried at this point about maximization of that last vintage fund. You want to make sure it did okay and you're able to move forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
I think that is right on. Talk a little bit about advice that you would give to company founders, business founders. What do you tell emerging leaders, emerging founders as they look at the markets, they look at what's going on and so forth?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Chris, let me ask you one final question. Where can people learn more about palm tree LLC? Where can they learn more about Chris Felderman?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
M&A, Private Equity Trends, and Value Creation with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 2-6-25
Chris, fantastic to visit with you. A huge fan of Palm Street. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is two and a half stories we're following today. And I'll give you the first story. The first story is, and this is the half story. I was thrilled yesterday to give a speech at a class that's ran for doctors and nurses on innovation at University Hospitals in connection with Northeast Ohio Medical, Neomed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Colliers, who we absolutely love, and one of our close friends at Colliers, and just a genius, they are having a tough time today, but a great, great company. And then Ford is also struggling. I can't comment on whether Ford is great or not, but they are struggling too. Those are a few of the things that we're watching. Thank you for listening. Again, two and a half stories we're following today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
I think that's brilliant because the first one is sort of a bit of a promo on my speaking at this class, which I love, but those are two other stories. Stocks are going up, overrated, underrated CEOs, and throwing it a little bit on Disney there, which is going nowhere, but Bob Iger, one of the most overrated CEOs in the world, but a big ego.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. A special shout out today to my buddy, Andy Goodman. Thank you for being a regular listener. You're the best. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
And what a great pleasure. I gave a talk based on the universally famous book, The Entrepreneur's Edge. I say universally famous kind of as a joke because I wrote the book and it's shocking that this universally famous book is available on Amazon for 99 cents. That's the half story we're starting with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
But thank you to Bill Flickinger and Michael Heritakis for having me on at their class on innovation. I'm always looking for speaking opportunities, paid, not paid. We enjoy it. Thank you so much. A couple other stories were found today. First, Peloton, Philip Morris, and Ralph Lauren hitting it out of the park today. Who would have thought Peloton and Philip Morris would be correlated?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Second, a study, Fortune, does a survey of who is the most underrated and overrated CEOs. Underrated, Satya Nadella, Microsoft, Doug McMillan, Walmart. Those are underrated CEOs, overrated, no shock, Bob Iger. Bob Iger did this, you know, in their company, not him, because he hid, did this horrendous smoke and mirrors earnings call yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Two and a Half More Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
He said, Streamy's moving in the right direction, et cetera, et cetera. But we're having trouble. And ultimately, the markets didn't buy any of it. And Walt Disney's not killing it today. A couple other companies had a tough time on earnings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Friends Don’t Brag About Golf Scores or Great Investments 2-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is friends don't tell friends. their golf scores, or their great investments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Friends Don’t Brag About Golf Scores or Great Investments 2-6-25
So one of the things that happens in the worlds we all live in is, you know, I wake up this morning, I'm reminded that one of my close friends, he's out of the park in two of his investments, and he had told me about these investments before he invested in them, and I should have done so. Those two were Tempest AI and EY Willie.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Friends Don’t Brag About Golf Scores or Great Investments 2-6-25
And again, my moronicness for not following his lead and being stubborn. But the point is, when I graciously tell him, you know, you were right, I was wrong, You're like EF Hudson and Peter Lynch. I should have followed your lead. Rather than just saying, thank you. Thank you. He doubles down and tells me the next stock, Soundtown, that he also knocked it out of the park on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Friends Don’t Brag About Golf Scores or Great Investments 2-6-25
And all I could tell you, is this necessary? Do I really have to hear this? It's bad enough I missed out on the first two, but he's got to tell me he was hiding a third from me that also knocked it out of the park. This whole conversation reminded me of two of my buddies that it seems like every time they shoot a 78 or 79 shot, or score a great golf score, and I'm struggling with my golf game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Friends Don’t Brag About Golf Scores or Great Investments 2-6-25
I am struggling right now. They text me, oh, yeah, I just had a great round. I just had a great round. Like, I don't want to hear about your goddarn golf score anymore. All it's telling me, friend one, I'm a great investor. You're not. Friend two and three, you're great golfers. I'm not. If I get one more text from any of you about your great investments or your great golf scores,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Friends Don’t Brag About Golf Scores or Great Investments 2-6-25
I'm going to lose it. In any event, that's today's podcast. Friends don't tell friends about the great golf scores that are great investments. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I am steaming mad, but I'm going to be okay. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are eight of the stories that we're following today. And we'll break these down for you into some shorter episodes as well. If you're interested in the more one to two minute episodes too. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Second, this morning I wake up, I go to one of my favorite coffee shops, Pete's Coffee in Winnetka here, and I run into one of my closest friends who says, oh, you're supposed to have dinner with your buddy, this guy, last night. And, of course, this guy he's talking about never takes me for dinner. And this guy's a money manager, and I don't have money with him. Yeah.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Of course, if I had money with him, I would get on his list of people to go for dinner with, but alas, it's not to be. He reminds me of another friend that I go off with with two other guys. Two other guys are clients of his. He always says to them, almost no matter what shot they hit, and this is not to denigrate their golf games, they're fine. That's a beautiful shot. That's a wonderful shot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
I love how you hit that ball. Now, all I can tell you is he never says to me, great shot. And, you know, again, the comment is, duh, he's a money manager and I'm not a client. I'll stop this analogy here, but the only other place in a profession where you get unearned compliments is a profession I cannot talk about on podcast, on Twitter, on LinkedIn or any place else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
But the reality is no one ever takes me for dinner. No one ever says nice shot. The only person ever says nice shot to me is the golf pro I take lessons from. And I'm not sure it's legitimate. Third, going, getting closer to business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
First, one of my best friends is two for two in picking Tempest AI and Eli Lilly and Comfort over the last two years. I should have listened to him when he said these two things, but I'm so stubborn. He's sort of a modern-day E.F. Hutton or Peter Lynch, and that goes back some time, and many of the younger people in the audience might not recognize those names, E.F.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
I had the chance to speak yesterday on core business concepts in building a business and an innovation class led by Mike Hirotakis and Bill Flickinger at the Fire Course held at Flickinger, held at the University Hospitals in conjunction with Neobud yesterday. This was a real privilege. This was based on the universally famous book,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
The Entrepreneur's Edge, which I wrote, and it's so famous, it's available at Amazon digitally for 99 cents. It's strange that it's that great a book and still available for 99 cents. Fourth, back to the core business news today, Peloton and Philip Morris are rocking and rolling. Ralph Lauren is also jumping today. Fifth, Fortune names Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the most underrated CEO.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Next to him is Doug McMillan of Walmart. I think Jessica Cole of Becker's Healthcare should be right there too. Sixth, Mattel, BlackBerry, Tempest AI, and NVIDIA all rose yesterday. Seventh, the New York Times, like the University of Michigan, dropped 12% yesterday. What they have in common is they were both once great institutions. Finally, Snap, Google, and Uber also all dropped yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Ace, the Walt Disney Company ran by the overrated Bob Iger, did a whole smoke and earnings call yesterday, mayor's earnings call yesterday, but the markets didn't buy it, and the markets aren't responding well to what's going on with that. Finally, PS, three firms cutting jobs, Estee Lauder, Workday, and Julius Baer all for different reasons. And finally, Ford and Collier's falling today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
We're a huge Collier's fans. Great, great people. Great leadership. Ford, not so sure of that. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Those are eight of the stories we're listening to today or that we're following today. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Hutton and Peter Lynch, but this friend, Jim Keller, keeps on knocking it out of the park. He also reminded me today that he also invested in SoundTown, which has also been an extra base hit or home run or whatever you want to call it. So again... Once I graduated him in his first two picks, Tempest and Eli Lilly, he didn't have to double down and tell me about his other great pick.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
When he told me about the last great pick, he then sounded like two of my closest friends who always text me when they have great golf scores. Enough. I get it. You are all great investors and great golfers. If one more of these guys texts me or calls me after shooting a 78 or a 79, I might lose it. But that's the point today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 2-6-25
Again, congratulations to my friend on Tempest and Eli Lilly and Sound Down, I guess. And congratulations to my two buddies who think they're magnificent golfers for their below 80 rounds. I didn't want to hear about it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is 10 points on building teams. So my education on building teams really came from two core places, obviously from experience, but more than that, from discussions with a great healthcare partner who is a leader of the practice at Latham, one of the great rooms in the country named Jerry Peters.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
So there's no way around having to put this effort into sorting out your teams, figuring out who's going to be on the teams, who's not, and who's going to lead and who's not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
As you build teams, you start to see leaders emerge and you need to do everything you can to sort of embrace those leaders early, to identify them early, to double down on them, to try and support them and to try and retain them. And this is a key, key part of building teams and building leadership.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
And again, not to make this entire discussion about leadership and building teams, but it's everything to business. So as you see great people emerge, do everything you can to wrap your hands around them, to keep them, to retain them, to keep moving forward with them. The next point I'll make is I served on a couple of different boards.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
One of these boards or two of these boards, the companies had great success and it's really because they made the effort to put out serious teams of leaders. In contrast, I served on another board that had one sort of what I would call a supernova leading the company So I'll give you the contrast. One of the companies that really built out great teams ultimately sold for nearly a billion dollars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
The other company that never really got past the supernova. So just a huge difference in outcome and the ability to really thrive and succeed based on did they build teams or not. There's a lot talked about today in terms of the solopreneur, and if you're on Twitter at all, you would think that the world is run by solopreneurs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
My sense is that this is very, very far and few between, and all the great iconic leaders of our past generation, whether it's Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates, the Jensen Wongs, every single one of them ultimately had to build serious teams themselves. to build serious businesses. And that's really, there's a real myth of this solopreneur concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
The next point I'll make is that we're a huge fan in building companies and you stack resources in your core areas. You stack them around your most important customers, your most important service areas, your most important, whatever you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
And in building the media company, we stacked resources around things like, just as an example, the editorial team, the conference team, the key company management team, the sales team, And we ultimately outsource everything else. In fact, to this day, 30 years later, we ultimately outsource the receptionist. We don't have a receptionist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
We just ultimately outsource anything that is not critical to your business and really stack all your resources around building core, core teams. Again, I'll go back to the Jim Collins philosophy. Everything is built around this concept of good to great. Get the right people on board. You can do almost anything you want as I build another company.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
If I'm lazy about investing in the team and growing the team, I can't really go any place with it. We'll talk further about this team concept. We talk about in entrepreneurial companies, the evolution of a founder from stage one to stage three. Stage one is the typical startup. The founder does almost everything. He's the cook, he's the bottle washer, he's the old adage, does everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
Just a brilliant, brilliant guy who just constantly harped on me. If you want to build a great business, you want to build a great practice, you better build teams. And second, Jim Collins, one of the great business thinkers of the last several decades, who had the core philosophy that everything was about getting the right people on the bus and building teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
Stage two is the founder starts to hire people, but he's not necessarily, he or she is not necessarily hiring people that are better than him or herself. They're basically filling out positions. And this is still a very important part of development because the founder can work on growing the business while also taking care of the business. But this is a 2X solution at best.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
It's not a 10X solution. It's not where companies can really scale. My experience is that companies really grow and really scale in is when the founders ultimately hired all the leaders around him or her, and those leaders all do the job better than that founder could do it. I remember about five, 10 years ago, having a serious discussion with my partner CEO who's been with me for 20 plus years,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
And at some point she was there with me and said, do you want to come back and do this? And the reality is there's no way I could do it as well as she did. So you can't, you just can't do it. But you want to get to that stage three where the business is less reliant on you and really could grow into a different level of business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
The next concept we'll make is you need to judge people, but you can't overly prejudge people. I can't tell you how many times people have hired people thinking that's the next star, and they've not been. And then in contrast, the other person that they thought was not going to be a star ends up having an extremely high motor, great drive, and ends up being the leader the company builds around.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
I have seen this so many times. It's incredible. The next thing about startups is people talk about, again, the small businesses. But the scary reality is you probably can't be too small a business. You have to have a certain enterprise, a certain size to hire people so that you build a big enough team.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
I remember being on the phone with somebody this morning who called me for a job but wants to work for a big company. I was like, oh, I'm doing another startup. Ain't no big company. There's no structure in it. But early on in businesses, you're very reliant on a couple of key people. You've got a lot of ride or die people. And I'll talk about this in a second.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
You're going to have throughout your career what I think of as ride or die people that are indispensable to you. The number one job is to take care of those people, embrace those people, and not to lose them and to get other great people, but to do so in a way where the person who's number one realizes they are number one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
I've had great luck in the legal practice, in the business, in retaining for 20-plus years as partners the Ryder and I people that really run those enterprises today. I think a very, very important concept. And I'll give a quick shout-out to – Judy Faulkner here in Madison, who's just done an unbelievable job of keep on doubling down on teams. That's epic. Again, so that's the concept today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
If you had the right people, you could almost do anything you wanted to. So that's sort of the starting point on teams. And in terms of my own perspective, Every success I've had has been built around building great teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
Keep doubling down on teams. Keep building teams. It's everything to business. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
And every failure that I've had has really been where I haven't made the effort to build a team or I've tried to do it other ways, either on the cheap or because I'm lazy because I don't want to build a team. But every time I've failed in a business, that's really been the situation. The next point I'll make on this, as we talk about teams, is as follows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
that if you're going to build teams, one of the hard parts about building teams is when you get going, you have to do a lot of sorting out people. And this means figuring out Who's going to be great? Who's an important member of the team? And who shouldn't be there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Points on Building Teams 6-5-25
And what I have found in all the businesses that I've been involved in is if you don't foundationally do that early on and make the effort to do it early on, you could be doing this for the next couple of decades and in a very mediocre way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is about men wearing suits and really how the world has changed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
Love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
And this is top of mind because I'm in a suit today and went into a gas station and you get various different looks from people because today, if you're wearing a suit, you're literally the only person in the world that's wearing a suit, it seems like on most days. And so here's the deal. In the old days, a guy wore a suit and people thought that person must have some import to them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
They must have a serious job or at the very least, they were a serious career person wearing a suit who went to work proudly, dressed for the day, dressed for what, you know, the modern day version of battle, dressed in a suit. That was the old version of what it meant to wear a suit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
Today's version of what it means to wear a suit is that you have to be such a low status person that your boss forces you to wear a suit. So rather than it being a sign of respect that we're wearing a suit, what I think people perceive today, if you're the guy wearing a suit, you probably have a boss who's really nasty and a tough, tough boss.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
I won't use the word I want to use to describe it and that you are very well on the totem pole. So that's the difference in what's happened today versus 10, 15 years ago. I think this is a sad reality. I'd love to hear people's not, it's not a sad reality. It is what it is, but I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this. You know, and obviously there's some people that carry off the suit thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Men Wearing Suits: How the World Has Changed 6-5-25
Like they are the man, like they have it going on. I, you know, like we had Alex Rodriguez, this great professional athlete or a conference last year, uh, He puts on a suit, and he looks like the man. I put on a suit, and I look like a middle-aged, dumpy old guy. But it is what it is. I'm not that bad. But in any event, I'd love to hear people's opinions on this. Text me, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
Und die echte Geschichte hier mit den großen Privat-Equity-Funden ist, dass sie einen schwierigen Zeitraum haben, Deale auszuschließen, sodass sie nicht wirklich den Profit erzielen können. Sie machen einen Finanzen, aber wenn sie wirklich Geld verdienen, ist es, wenn die Deale ausgeschlossen werden. Und das ist sehr kurz. Es ist sehr wenig davon vorhanden. Great story in InsiderMonkey.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
Who has the edge? Blackstone versus BlackRock. BlackRock is really a traditional asset money manager. Blackstone's alternative assets. Great piece in InsiderMonkey on that. Fourth, Blackstone is looking to bring clearing events, one of its big portfolio companies, to market. They bought it for 600 million pounds in 2017. That's a long hold period.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
Tesla, nach einem guten Teil der Rückkehr, hat bis heute nur noch 7% zurückgegeben. Es ist heute wieder runter. Es ist jetzt um die 17-19%-Jahre. Die Dinge sind in der Lage, für Tesla zu kämpfen. Wir werden sehen, ob sie einen Rebound bekommen. Und es gibt eine Geschichte darüber, die kommt nächstes Jahr.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
Elon Musk, der sozusagen der Tech-Bro zu Präsident Trumps Bro-Bro, ist jetzt ein ausgesprochener Kritiker des Präsidenten-Tax-Bills. Und das ist faszinierend zu sehen. Er geht nach ihm, um den nationalen Debt zu beeinflussen. I have to tell you, I completely agree with Elon Musk on this. Debt destroys countries.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
I'm so thankful that Elon Musk, of course it's easy because he's got so much money to fight, but a lot of guys don't. So I give him credit for standing up for what he believes on this, on the debt. He says, I'm sorry, I can't stand it anymore. The massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
You know it. But I just love that, quite frankly. Seventh, Amazon is doubling down on testing robots to replace delivery workers. Fascinating to see that. What a strange, strange world it is. And we'll see when robots start to replace a lot of stuff. My son just bought a robot that he's working on programming. Very scary. I hope it doesn't replace me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
Finally, eighth, we had a great podcast yesterday with David Pivnik, all world brilliant person. And we talked there about Tariffs, Tacos, Trump and Tesla. You can make a living just talking about the four Ts. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de The jobs report yesterday for the private sector was horrendous, created a very small number of jobs in May, I think 37,000. The markets had expected nearly 114,000 jobs to be created and less than half of the jobs created in April. So a bad month on hiring in the private sector.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
In the old days of the Biden administration, they've made up for that through tremendous amount of government hiring. Obviously, that shouldn't be the playbook, but that's how people falsely kept numbers high. Second, the markets largely yesterday took the jobs report in stride. With every negative comes a positive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-5-25
The positive being that it might mean that the Fed is going to get closer to reducing rates. The 10-year treasury yield also dropped. Zweitens, Blackstone ist der größte Alternative Asset Manager Privat-Equity-Fund des Landes. Es ist bis jetzt um die 20 Prozent gestiegen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant founder and managing partner of an investment firm we're joined today by adam patinkin he's the founder and managing partner of david capital partners it's an alternative investment firm headquartered in chicago also has offices in london
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
It feels like 30%, but you're going to tell me I'm wrong, but it feels like a ton. Yeah.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Give me 60 seconds on tariffs, because people say they'll be inflationary. but other people say it's going to bring higher-paying jobs back to the U.S. You've got this fastening political dynamic where the head of the auto unions is now on the Trump team for these tariffs, where Wall Street hates the tariffs. What's the longer-term take on the tariffs? What's this going to mean?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Are they going to be negotiated down? What does it mean for the markets and the economy?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
And let me ask you a question. At what point, college, after college, before college, that this was the world you wanted to be in. And what sort of inspired you to go in this direction? Talk a little bit about what the background was to wanting to become a professional investor and thinker about the markets and so forth. And you are a brilliant thinker about the markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Absolutely fascinating perspective. I'm going to ask you one more quick question. It's a bifurcated question. Cubs or Sox fans? That's one. And are the beers going to get better this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
And the Cubs are also improving, I think, right? Would you say the Cubs look like they're improving?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
I'll ask you one more question. I know Elon Musk has something like 12 or 13 kids. One of my partners at work has eight children or nine children. I forget exactly how many he's got right now. I know that you are now on the road to children. You've got your first. Congratulations. Do you think you'll catch up with Elon Musk in that category of children?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
That sounds right. Adam, a great pleasure to visit with you. Thank you very, very much. It's an absolute pleasure. Congratulations on all your success. We'll keep on watching. Just fantastic. Thank you very much again. Adam Patinkin, founder, leader, David Capital, brilliant, brilliant person. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Talk about how that interest was sparked.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
It's literally amazing. Recently, there was an announcement that you joined the board of a New York Stock Exchange listed company, something that many of us have always aspired to and you've done it at a young age. Tell us about that and what got you excited about joining that board.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Adam, can you take a moment and tell us a little bit about David Capital, yourself, how you decided to get this started, and a lot more?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Helps the audience understand what is a search fund? It's a term I hear more and more. But for the life of me, if I had to define what a search fund was, I don't think I could do so. Give our audience a quick sense of what is a search fund.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
That's fantastic. In a second, I've got a listener question who's from a listener, a great athlete who's got a great question as well. But before I get to that, let me ask you another question. Inflation and tariffs. How does inflation and tariffs impact your investment theses and how you're thinking about things? Obviously, a couple of years ago, you made a call that inflation had peaked.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
wasn't quite there yet. What's your current thoughts on inflation and what's your thoughts on tariffs and sort of the current market conditions and what that means for your investment strategy?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
Let me ask you a question about that, because you had mentioned something about a farm in northwestern Illinois and stuff like that. Let me ask you two questions that come from a listener, from an avid listener, one of the great athletes of all time. And here are the two questions that come to that listener.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
And Adam, if these are above your pay grade, feel free not to answer them if they're too complex. Yeah, go ahead.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
How long do you think the price of beef will stay high is one question, and it really goes something your grandfather said it sounds like. And what is the cycle? And people don't realize that you as a finance hedge fund guy know answers to these kinds of questions, but at least one of our brilliant listeners who's an avid athlete does. What is the cycle? I've always wondered this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
What is the cycle for replenishing beef cattle herds?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Investing, Inflation, Tariffs and the Search Fund Model with Adam Patinkin, of David Capital Partners LLC 4-3-25
And let me ask you a question there. How is your knowledge of different things, sports, cattle raising, black Angus or red Angus, I forget. How has your knowledge of different things helped you connect dots in the investment world? Are there connectivity things that help from place to place in the different aspects of your life?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is RH, Lululemon, and corporate speak. So one of the things that I love in corporate America, and I say I love it I hate it, but I love watching the ridiculousness in which leaders try and tie themselves in knots to try and tell a story different than what we're seeing. So here's the deal with RH.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
unless they see you looking like one of these tall patrician people or model type woman that looks like they spend a lot of money or model type men that looks like a ton of money if you're not ken and barbie they treat you like trash the the point is and i don't look like kenneth barbie so i get treated that way but anyways lou has become the same thing here you got the ceo not talking about what they got to do to improve things but talking about all the corporate misdirection
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
You know, tariffs, weak consumer, everything but the fact that Lulu is not attractive anymore for clothing. It's not nearly as exciting. I love the Viore shirts better than the Lulu shirts. I still like the Lulu pants. The shorts are fine. I'm sure I can find alternative shorts, but there's not compelling reasons. They tried to introduce shoes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
They look very unexciting, and I'm a guy who buys way too many shoes. I know it's embarrassing. It's like an Imelda Marcos thing. Anyways, thank you for listening today. We're talking about our age, Lululemon, and corporate speaking, corporate misdirection. It's a little embarrassing to watch. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
RH is down 27% today, and if you read the release on earnings, You would think that it's going fantastic. Revenues are this. This is going that way. Consumers love our stuff. Demand is up. We're opening more locations. And they go on and on about what's great. Then they get to the punchline. Earnings are down and we missed earnings. And I just think it's one of the great misdirections of our time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
It's sort of like the Boomer Esiason play action pass. where he pretends he's going to hand off, then he passes. These guys pretend like it's going well, and then they slip in that earnings just absolutely suck. The corporate misdirection, the corporate speak. Similarly with Lulu. The bloom has sort of fallen off the rose at Lulu. It's just a lot less exciting place to shop than it used to be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
There's no compelling reason to go into Lulu. You know, no matter how you look at it, it's just not as exciting as it was. Still fine, that's the basics, but even the sweats at 128 are hard to stomach paying that much money for sweats. But here's the deal with Lulu. When Lulu goes poorly, they don't say they've got to re-get back after their creativity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH, Lululemon & Corporate Speak 4-3-25
They don't say they've got to work on that stuff. Now, the thing I'll tell you is I still love the RH furniture. I think they do a great job on furniture. They just priced it so crazy that you only do it once in a while. They treat you when you go in there like they don't want to talk to you if you're going to spend $20,000 that day. They treat you like you're a poor schlep.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is Larry Fink Slippery? Part Two 4-3-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast this is take two on is larry fink slippery so so here's what we're going to talk about here recently larry fink the ceo of blackrock has been speaking on a change in the traditional allocation mix asset allocation mix from the traditional 60 40 you know, equities to bonds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is Larry Fink Slippery? Part Two 4-3-25
It seems to me awfully convenient that it's at the same time that they're greatly expanding. They're talking on margins that they're also working on trying to prompt the markets towards this movement towards alternative assets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is Larry Fink Slippery? Part Two 4-3-25
he could at some point seem to explain the benefit of BlackRock as he talks about moving people to alternative assets, that they've also got a self-interest in this move in that direction. It's fascinating to watch. I mean, he seems like one of the most disingenuous leaders, but it is what it is. Fascinating to watch. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is Larry Fink Slippery? Part Two 4-3-25
So something they are calling 50, 30, 20, with 20% being an alternative assets and 50 being in equities and 30 in bonds. Here, BlackRock, his firm, is the world's largest asset manager with more than 10 trillion under management. Fidelity and Vanguard also hold huge numbers of assets, but they are viewed for some of them as custodial, not management. So BlackRock has the crown.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is Larry Fink Slippery? Part Two 4-3-25
But their margins and their total value based on assets under management are a lot lower than Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR. This is because those firms are focused on alternative assets with higher fees than public assets and public equities. Public equities, bonds, and stocks hover between 25 and 100 basis points for fees. They're lower with index fees and ETS.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is Larry Fink Slippery? Part Two 4-3-25
Alternative assets like the types that Larry Fink is touting bring in 2% plus a piece of the profits, and often more for VC and special vehicles. Larry Fink and BlackRock are trying to push people towards this portfolio that includes a higher percentage of alternative assets. And this might be right, the right thing to do, but it also would greatly increase their margins.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is summer is coming, the markets are crashing, and I better win some money on the golf course. So one of the things I'm looking forward to this summer is I play golf with a very sort of embarrassing group of different people. And I'll just note a few of them here in this discussion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
The second one is a tall, gangly guy who's got sort of the – Mental IQ on the golf course of something close to a cousin of mine who wasn't bright enough to get into college. He plays with a mental IQ that's really low. He plays with the same mental IQ in paddle tennis. Really good guy. Really good father. A little awkward. He is truly an acquired taste.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
The inside game is a little bit like Brad Sellers used to be and hits it right there. The third guy who I'm so sick of taking money from is one who always complains, you know, you're supposed to give me strokes, you're supposed to get strokes, you're supposed to get strokes. It is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
He's a Buckeye, one of the finest people in the world, politically leans a little bit center-right, but very rational person, I think is an apoplectic, somewhat... constant watcher of the markets, which makes it a tough time as the markets are up and down and tariffs are hitting and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
But also one of these guys that's a gifted, gifted, good, good guy and hasn't taken money from me in years. So I can't wait to play with him. The fourth guy is a guy that I get a chance to play with almost every week who is sort of like, you know, ridiculous in his own way. Comes out loaded for beer. Hits the ball all over the place.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
Again, doesn't play what I think it was a highly intelligent game of golf. More sort of an... A game that is a little bit wild, a little bit out of control. Also, what we think of as an easy mark in the business. He himself is a marketing guru.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
The thing I'll talk about all four of these people, one of them's a brilliant real estate developer and investor, one of the best in the business in our area, as good a guy as they come. The second is the 13th greatest tax attorney for real estate in Chicago, but actually a tremendous professional, tremendous, tremendous person. The third was a highly successful Wall Street guy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
And the highest compliment you could pay about a guy who's a highly successful Wall Street guy is he is the least seeming like a highly successful Wall Street guy that you could get. The most down-to-earth, unpretentious person you will ever find. The best of the best. And that's the same with all these guys. The fourth guy is more of a wild card. We love him to death.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
He's built this incredibly brilliant marketing practice. He's one of the most creative, engaged, trying to learn people that I know, an evolving learning type of person. You know, I do fault him once in a while for being the kind of guy that says, I'm going to take my paddle someplace else if I can't play on the court I want to play on. But he's grown past that, and we love him regardless.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
But one of the things I get very excited about, particularly when I see the market so down today, down 3% or 4%, is the chance to take money from this motley group of golfers. It is a group of untalented, untalented people. One of them plays all winter at some place called the Polo Club. You'd think this was the fanciest place in America, but it's really not. It's fine. It's beautiful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
One of the best guys they are. And anyways, I am looking forward to the summer where I can make up some of the losses from the market and take money from the four of these guys. I can't wait. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you're not a golf fan and don't want to get that deeply into my golf games, don't worry about it. I totally understand.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
Just click off. But if you can, stay on at the front, stay on in the back, and listen to the ads. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
But it's not like, you know, what you think of as a Polo Club, unless you think of a Polo Club as surrounded by a certain type of people. But it is no Polo Club in terms of the real world. This golfer hits the ball a mile away. You know, can be can be on when he's on, but could be wild when he's wild and just generally an easy mark for winning money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
He's also one of the few guys that's about the same height as I am. I actually feel like Bill Walton or, you know, Walt Chamberlain next to him. So I love, love, love to play with him.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Summer is Coming, the Markets Are Crashing & I Better Win Some Money on the Golf Course 4-3-25
The second guy that I often get a chance to play with come winter, and again, one of the deals come summer is, and one of the deals on this is if you could name the four people we name, then we'll send you a $200 Amazon gift certificate, but you can't be one of these four people, and you've got to be the first one to name them and text me at 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are nine stories we're following this morning. First, the markets are down this morning early by an astounding amount. The S&P by more than 3.5%, the NASDAQ 4%. Second, when I first look at the futures late last night, I literally thought it was a misprint. They were so far down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
Pre-market down 7%. Eighth, some of the big retail brands are also down more or less pre-market based on their dependence upon import, export, and overseas manufacturing. Adidas fell 10%. Nike's down 9%. Walmart's down 6%. We'll see how it goes. Nice. Congratulations to Evan Harwood, Paul Loeb, and team on what they've built at Maxwell Street Partners and Tyler Goldstein.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
Recent sale of one of their portfolio companies, recent acquisition of another one, really hitting it well in their niche area that they're in. Just fantastic. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
I haven't seen them that far down in a long time. But we'll see how it goes. Third, they're down because President Trump announced widespread tariffs late yesterday, and the markets are reacting very negatively. In the best-case scenarios, these become sort of a stance for negotiation, and some or many of these get rolled back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
But right now, it's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. Fourth, in this changing economy, we've got a great webinar featuring Sales Empowerment Group coming up on growing revenues. Text Scott Becker, 773-766-5222 if you want to register for that. Fifth, Restoration Hardware, RH, is down 27% or so. Early this morning, I missed earnings. They do this incredible job of
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
touting all the things are going well, and then sort of a footnote as to how bad earnings are. They're really gamers in terms of this. They remind me sort of like, you know, Mrs. Lincoln, the play was great, other than your husband getting shot. That's how RH plays the PR game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-3-25
Sixth, Larry Fink is trying to move people from a 60-40 allocation to a 50-30-20, coincident with BlackRock trying to really move into the alternative asset world. We've got a separate podcast there. It's very fake, slippery, and we'll probably do another version of that today. It's just so fascinating to watch how he moves with the times. Seventh, big-name stocks like Apple are down a lot today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
This is Scott Becker, and we have a special edition of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast that will also release some Becker Private Equity today. And the format today is a little bit different. This is a situation where Peter Murphy Lewis, who does film documentaries, has got a fantastic marketing mind and marketing firm, and does so many interesting things. But one of the things he does is he
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Or the audience for reading the Wall Street pieces that I thought were brilliant was very small. What people really wanted was short-form ability to see what's going on in their sector, what's happening, what's a quick sense. Nobody could digest the long-term stuff, and very few people wanted to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
but they could digest and wanted to digest the short form content that gives them a sense, here's what's going on in my area. And so one of the real works was trying to get the editorial team and everybody grew up in a different editorial age, not today, today it's easy. Back then, trying to convince writers to write short form was literally a war, was brutal. Today,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
The people that come out of journalism school, that come out of multimedia school, that's what they do. So they think it's weird that we would write a 2,000 word, a 4,000, a 5,000 word piece. They're all used to writing shorter pieces today, because that's what people read and get a sense from things are. But it was very different 23 years ago. Same thing with our conferences.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Years ago, we moved towards relatively short form, people on stage, people talking, panels, just like our podcast is 10, 20 minutes. And we used to have this old saying. Every speaker would say that they needed more time. And every audience member would say they needed less time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And we say that somewhat jokingly, but one of the things we evolved to, and it was a learning process, was shorter form almost everything. versus longer form, because that's where our audience was. That's what they would respond to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And we would get, when we really moved hardcore to short form journalism, it was a long time ago, and the overriding amount of positive compliments we would get were literally about that. And it's listening to those signals and constantly listening to those signals. And I guess that goes to product to market fit in any business thread.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
It's really understanding your audience, really listening to those signals. I mean, few of us, when I first started this, you know, it was back in a different, it was a niche within healthcare. And people would say, oh, my God, you were so smart to pick that niche. That niche really ended up being a growth niche.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But the reality is like everything we do is there's some test and trial and error testing and so forth. And one of the great phrases we use is fire bullets, not cannons. But I wasn't so smart to pick the surgery center industry, which is where we started 30 years ago. No, I had tried and tested three different areas. And that was the one that really moved forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You know, if some people are sports fans at the scoreboard at a big NBA arena or a lot of arenas, they used to have this thing called the M&M race, you know, where the three M&Ms would race and one color would get way out of the other colors. And what happened with me was we were testing three different areas at the time. This goes back 30 plus years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
It was disease management, it was cardio, and it was the surgery center area. And the surgery center area was like the M&M that ran way ahead of everything else. And the smart thing was, same thing we talk about with people all the time, we doubled down on that area. And then we doubled down on the great people that work with me. We did everything we can.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I remember having deep discussions with people. We were almost in the startup stage saying, we're going to pay you really well. It's going to be a great opportunity. We're going to take care of you and stuff like that. And trying to convince great people to stay when we were first building. Great, great talent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But we believe in doubling down on what's working, doubling down on people, doubling down on the same thing in business, doubling down on where the business is at. And then 20 plus years ago, we expanded into hospitals and health systems. and into healthcare IT, into orthopedics and spine. And then again, you follow what's going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
The business has grown to where a huge percentage of the business run hospitals and health systems. I wouldn't have expected that, but I was smart enough, and I understand why it did now, but I was smart enough once it started going well, like the M&M race, to put more and more resources into that. We have a phrase in the law that we used to use, I don't know if people use it anymore, but
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
best people on best clients, same thing, best attention on the most important areas. And it's a constant evolution. And it's not, most of us are not smart enough to know abstracted what those are going to be, but most of us are smart enough to pay attention once we see it and to start doubling down on those areas. And so that's sort of how we evolved.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
The podcast thing you mentioned, that stat on 7,000 podcasts is an amazing stat. I did not realize that. But we started podcasting prior to COVID. And it's like many things. I was ready to give up on podcasting. You know, podcasting is challenging because you're speaking to a person, but you're also speaking abstractly into an audience.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And you don't get immediate feedback like you do when you're giving an in-person speech or a webinar. And so a couple years into podcasting, I was ready to essentially give it up for all practical purposes. And then COVID hit. and COVID hit, and also in the stats.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I get daily stats on how many people are listening, what they're doing, and the numbers went through the roof of the number of people listening and the connectivity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And connectivity, all these businesses today, particularly with so much artificial intelligence, with so much technology, the difference in business today, yes, you have to be great on those things, but one of the huge differences in business today is this connectivity And following the signals. And so we ended up doubling down on podcasts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I mean, and so, because it ended up being people were listening to it. And so we ended up very engaged in it. And 7,000 episodes later, we're still doing it. Probably not as many episodes a day as I was back in the day, but it's, but a lot of it is listening and growing and incremental. It's not, and being smart enough to, and we always say grind plus think. And so grind plus think.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So do what you're doing plus think, but you have to assess. I could go on and on, Peter. I'm gonna stop for a second and give it back to you. Sorry about that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Sure. There's three concepts that we use constantly, and they're, I think, almost universal to business, but there's certainly... apropos to both the media business and the law business, first of all is we think of three concepts, niche-centric, team-centric, and customer-centric. So we think of those three things constantly. And what does that mean?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Niche-centric means that you're in some sort of niche, not in everything. You follow me? So Becker's Healthcare is has been very successful. We're very focused on a niche area, healthcare, and then niches within healthcare. Some with the law practice was very focused. Me, ran our healthcare department for a long time. All of our work was with
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Hospital and health systems, surgery center, surgery center chains, private equity funds that invest in health care, but it's all in health care. So we're niche-centric. It doesn't should evolve over time, but everything's niche-centric. The second concept, we've talked about some.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Every serious business, you know, people talk about these are kind of class, these iconoclasts like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and all these other people, Judy Faulkner at Epic, but every single person, nobody has anything serious without a team.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And it's true that when the greatest compliment to Steve Jobs is the company has survived and thrived after he was done because he built a great team. And Tip Cook has ran it. It's similar with Microsoft and Bill Gates. The greatest compliment to Bill Gates, it's not that he started something that's great, but it thrives and he built such an institution that's fantastic today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And it's not too different with Jeff Bezos and others, but nobody does anything without a serious team. So the second thing is serious team. Everything's about building serious teams. There was a guy early on in my career, a lawyer at another firm, Jerry Peters, who He just harped on me about teams, teams, teams are everything. And I took the advice to heart. I sort of understood it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Peter, thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure. What a brilliant idea. I absolutely love it. And this, I'm hoping, is the least stressful whatever period of time for both of us today. So just enjoy yourself and I'll do the same. Thank you so much for the idea and the chance to visit with you. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And then we have a belief in teams. There's a core concept in teams and colleagues. And it's this thrive, thrive mentality. It's not top down. They have to thrive side by side with you. they have to have a Venn diagram where you overlap what they're doing and what they love doing and what the firm needs them to do or the company needs them to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
There's gotta be these constant overlaps, but it's this concept of they thrive, you thrive. So most of my partners in the law firm that grew up with me, They've now surpassed me. They now make more money than me. They do fantastic at the law firm. They thrive. And you have to, as a leader, view it as thrive, thrive, where there's very strong limits to how far you can go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And same thing in the media company. My leadership team does fantastic. They've done great. The whole company does great. But it's really a thrive, thrive thing. It's not me trying to tell them what to do every day. It's they thrive, I thrive, and we're side by side. And it's really that team building. The third thing is customer centric.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
At the end of the day, and so many new software companies miss this, Everything's about how you actually take care of a need for a customer. And if you don't keep doing that, you end up in trouble over time. So at the end of the day, we have to create a huge meeting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
We have to make sure that there's lots of people in the audience there that can really enjoy being with each other, networking with each other. And we've got to make sure there's the right audience there so the people that pay the bills for the conference can visit with the people they need to visit with there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And so we have to really make sure it works for everybody, both the companies that are there and the audiences there. It's got to work for both. And all these lessons are, you know, they work across sectors. In the law sector, we have to make sure that we're taking care of our great customers who are getting what they need from us. our clients in that regard.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
It's the same thing in the media company. You got to make sure people are taken care of. I'm not sure, but there's so many lessons that go back and forth. There's differences, but at the end of the day, you've got this connectivity. As the law firms enjoy and use more AI and technology tools, at the end of the day,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
clients still hire lawyers and law firms and people that they trust are going to take care of what they need to take care of and do it consistently and reliably for a long time. In the media business, Our advertisers, for example, they trust that they're going to get in front of the right audience by being with us. And they're going to connect with the right people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And, you know, we have to perform on that. It's not, it's, you know, it's like, it's like everything every single day has to be performed on. So, you know, it's, but a lot of the concepts, I think, you know, and I can go on and on about the concepts, but a lot of the concepts come back to customer-centric, knit-centric, team-centric. We take care of those things, a lot of things. work well?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Yeah, I don't think. I think that's a quote from somebody that was on one of my shows, not myself exactly. But just to be clear about it, I think it's a telling quote. I think our health care leadership overall in our nation does an incredible job in an impossible situation. And let's talk about that for a second. We've got about 340 million people in our country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You've got about 1,100,000 physicians in our country and about 3 million to 4 million nurses in our country. Physicians don't get out of school till they're 32 or so, 30, 32, right around then. Half of them are going part-time by 40, 45 for a billion different reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So we have this tremendous shortage of physicians and nurses compared to the amount of people we need to take care of in our country. That's just a math problem, just a horrible, challenging supply and demand problem. So, you know, the healthcare ecosystem is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
has tried to catch up with all kinds of technological solutions to help sort of leverage better that physician community, that nurse community, and all the other technicians, everybody else that helps take care of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
That is probably, I'm sure, correct. Yes. I mean, we do most of ours are short form podcasts. That's fascinating that that comes up. I've never done that with AI or Grok or any services like that or ChatGPT or whatever you use. That's fascinating. That's probably right. Yes. And it's, you know, many of them are 10, 15 minutes long. in relatively short form, but that's probably right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But we are in a spot where we are horribly short in the supply and demand curve, the amount of people to take care of the demand that we have, and that's gonna get worse before it gets better. You know, one of the things I always say about healthcare is Every single one of us is a consumer. It's one of the beauties of health care. Every single person is a consumer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So we know what we know about the system. And we know that in certain areas, you can't find a primary care physician. In other areas, if you need a specialist, you've got to know somebody to know somebody to get to the right specialist. And this is becoming more and more people's experience.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
In many states, if you want a new primary care physician, you've got to see if you can pay for a concierge physician. Some of these lessons might be lost on people that are so healthy in their 20s. By the time they get a little bit older, everybody's got ailments of some sort. I think our healthcare leadership is really, really good in playing in a very, very tough game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You've got a situation where healthcare leadership, California is a perfect example. California is trying to legislate that a hospital can't charge more than a certain amount.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But what happens is that's somewhat ludicrous, and it's not a knock on hospitals, it's not a knock on government, but if they have to keep on paying their staff higher and higher amounts just to be able to have the staff they need to take care of things, they can't be stuck in a reimbursement cap. They're already stuck in it anyways because of Medicare, Medicaid, commercial payers, and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But the idea that you could legislate that without legislating the input cost is just a horrific concept. So, I mean, I think our health system leadership – Back in the day, the health system leadership would look like in a – it would look like – oh, God, I'm trying not to stereotype. It would look like a small town, an older guy that looks like me, and maybe a ruddy-faced guy and stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Today, the people that run health systems are bright, driven professionals who The older ones, the younger ones, they're bright, driven professionals trying to do the best they can. You know, I came from originally in my career a physician-centric practice to where everybody thought hospital administrators were not good. And then as my practice evolved, we started to work with big, big hospitals.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I was like, oh, my goodness, these people work well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
really really hard so i and and a lot of them are really really smart and they're running big organizations so i don't know that um i think you're dealing with an impossible challenge you're dealing with 340 million people a million sixty thousand doctors a million one doctors and trying to take care of a growing expansive population with the resources that these people have is an impossible problem and what happened to the technology side
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
People say you could fix it through technology, you could fix it through preventive medicine. Obviously, I think this anti-vax concept, and I don't mean to offend anybody, is ludicrous. Vaccines, the polio vaccine, the measles, mumps, rubella, we need those things, I think. People have different perspectives on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But this concept that technology will fix everything, if you're a health system leader, you are getting an explosive amount of technology sold at you and trying to figure out which ones really solve the problems you have versus not. A real challenging situation. There's also always this concept from politicians and others of, well, it should all be preventive care.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
In the other bigger nations, biggest nations in the world, preventive care only goes so far because we can only prevent so much. And if you look at countries like China and India, which have the two biggest populations in the world, they have a harder problem than we have. But the limits on preventive care were very high.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
apparent during COVID, where they were just totally short doctors and nurses to take care of people. So India got overrun for a period of time. China had to lock everybody up because they couldn't afford to have contagions. They don't have doctors and nurses. So we need to solve the problem of having enough doctors and nurses to go with the technology.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I mean, the job of the leadership of these big health systems, reimbursements relatively flat. They're seeing more patients getting paid the same or less and costs are going up and they're just in an impossibly difficult situation. So I, you know, I do think there are challenges, but they're really tough challenges.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
That's probably right, yes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And I give great credit to these systems that are working hard, trying to constantly solve them, trying to constantly provide great care. It's almost, we go back to this thing of customer centric, One of the beautiful things that we've said it before is all of us are consumers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
We might not know perfectly, but we know when we're in a doctor's office or a system and we're taking care of really well. And we feel it, you know, it might not be perfect, but it's not gonna be perfect, but we know when it's staffed or not staffed. The flip side is we've all been in hospitals or at least I have where you're like, Oh my God, there's nobody here at night.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And I'm stuck here in a hospital bed. This is very not comfortable. Right. You know, and I've been in hospitals where, you know, no board member at that hospital takes their family to the hospital. I'm like, oh, that's a hospital that has to align with somebody else. You know, there's, you know, it's a great, great divide and great challenge out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But I think hospital leadership is, you know, in the old days, it was an old boys network. Everybody in town that had a contract at the hospital was on the board with the hospital. The local construction firm was on the board of the hospital, and they were there to make sure they got all the construction projects.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
The local law firm was on the board of the hospital to make sure they got all the law. It was a different world than it is today. I'm sure there's some of that still today, but by and large,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You're dealing with sophisticated, bright professionals that are driving serious organizations and trying to make choices as to which technology to adopt, which is going to be a leverager of physicians, which is going to be a replacer. You know, where's that line where you can really make do with a lot of technology versus a lot of people?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And it's, you know, if you're 20-something, you think technology should do all of it. By the time you're 40 or 50, you want some people help as well, and you realize you need doctors and nurses too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Yeah, no, that's a great question. It's a great question. So back in the day, I was involved in and wrote and drove a number of healthcare books, healthcare nonfiction, healthcare legal books, healthcare business books, stuff like that. More recently, I wrote a business book, and it was written for different reasons and trying to figure out the why, the real why there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But the concept of writing books, you know, each of the books I'd written before, I wrote with some minor amounts of help. And this is like, you know, the thing that – one of the things about life is –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
we often have to relearn lessons time and time again so when i wrote four books like 20 years ago i remember how much of a headache it was and how much my time should be allocated elsewhere versus writing more books and so you know one of them was called healthcare law practical guide you know one of my take it over as leader of one was called the physicians managed care success manual one was a surgery center book another one was a surgery center book
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And I remember back in the day, 20, 30 years ago, writing these books, I'd be like, this is a huge headache for the amount of benefit that comes from it. But one of the problems with life is, there's a great quote on this, you have to relearn these lessons periodically. So the last couple of years, I wrote another book about business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
They call it The Entrepreneur's Edge, how to build, grow, manage a business, whatever. And the amount of headache in writing the book and I shouldn't say there's not benefit to it. It's certainly not a profitable exercise, but, but it really interesting exercise.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And there's lots of positives out of it, but you know, the question of like, if I write another book, I'm going to use a serious, not ghostwriter, but somebody to seriously help me write it because the amount of hassle compared to the amount of, you know, the, the, the cost benefits very hard on it though, this book that I wrote on business, um,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
was intended to put together a lot of my management and investment thoughts in one place, partly so I had them in one place. And part of that was for my children, for others, to make sure I had them in one place so I could always reference them. Now, the finest moment of that book was my daughter's in her mid-20s, or one of the daughters in her mid-20s, and she had a bunch of friends over.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
He comes on podcasts and does what he calls the Strategic Pete Takeover, where he interviews the host of the podcast and talks to the host of the podcast. So this special episode involves Peter Murphy Lewis, who is just phenomenal and a great interviewer. I learned a lot from having him interview me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And they're all young professionals. They're all really smart young people. They're young adults now. And one of them asked me, what would you do as a beginning investor? And so of all the different things that came out of this book, the most fun thing was the daughter's friend, not really as I had written a book, and said, oh my God, let me show you the chapter on that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And that was like the moment of like, ah, this was almost all worth doing, that somebody was actually interested in what I had written or thought about in it. But it's, yeah, no, I'm dawdling with working on another edition of this book. And I go back to this concept I constantly have to relearn my errors of is that really a good place to put my time or not? And we're trying to figure it out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But I do love it. I could go on and on about this, Peter. There's been so many mistakes I've made in it. I could go on and on and on about it. But it's a fascinating process. But it's hard work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Sure. So the books I gifted the most back in the day, there was a book called The Go-Giver. And this must have been 10, 15 years ago or so. And I gave a lot of these books out. I love the attitude in it. I love the thought in it. I love the whole thing in it. And I gave a lot of those books out. It might have been a gift I gave out to clients one year to others one year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I thought it was just a great, great book. I have given out some of my more recent book, a decent amount. And I'm always a little embarrassed when I do. So, you know, it's, it's always a little bit like a little bit goofy, but, but the go-givers book I gave out regularly, it was written by a third person, the book.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
There's so many books over the, you know, there was a time when I was, I'm still an avid business reader. I'm as much an avid fiction reader as I am a business reader and documentary reader. I, you know, listen or read a ton. Back in the day, there was a book by a guy, Jim Collins.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
James Collins was one of the great business thinkers of our generation or the generation back, you know, who wrote a book called Good to Great. And the concept of Good to Great was that It's all about building teams. You know, strategy is important, but you come up with the right strategy. If you get great people on your team, you can figure out strategy and figure out product market fit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But if you don't build a great team, you can't do it. And there's so much of what he wrote that really resonated with me. And it's not like I've come back and read it a bunch of times and all those kinds of things. You know, I wish I was one of those people that could say, like,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You know, I guess probably a right political answer to this, that the most read book I've got is the Bible, but it's not. You know, it's just not. It's just not. It's not the New Testament. It's not the Old Testament. It's not a religious book. I wish it was. I wish it was a Ryan's, you know, holiday Stoics book about meditation, but it's not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But the books that have stuck with me are different books that, you know, there's so many books I've read, but there's a handful that stick with you. Like there's principles of them that became, you know, guiding for you. You know, and so I think I would say the Go-Giver is the one that we've given out the most by far.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Yeah, no, I think it's a great, great question. And you're way, way too kind, clearly. The concept is, we believe in a couple of core concepts. One is that you can't do anything seriously without a team. And so at the end of the day, you there's a handful of things I've been seriously involved in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
We went through a period of time when I published my own book last year that I gave out a lot of it. It's sort of embarrassing. It's like you send it to people, half of them don't want it. You know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, you sort of, it's a little embarrassing sometimes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You're giving out your own book and some people really appreciate it and you're really thankful. And some people are like, oh my God, you're giving me another thing. Like when people send me books in the mail, half of them are like, oh, that's a burden versus a thank you because now I got to read something. But the book that I've given out the most is The Go-Giver for sure. It's been a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And then the one that stuck with me was a lot of the stuff that James Collins wrote. Jim Collins wrote about business. I thought he was just right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Well, I'm a huge fan of what you just said. We've got some interviews coming up at our meeting next week where there'll be a mix. I get to interview Coach Nick Saban, who's a famous football coach, and we'll send him 12, 15 questions, but there's no prep. Other ones are done, and either the people want to or want to do so much prep. And trying to make sure you're still fresh.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I mean, there's different things. So my routine looks like every morning I get up, I write sort of what I'm watching from a business perspective or healthcare perspective. At least a couple days a week, I do solely on healthcare. A few days a week, solely on business. And just follow what's going on. And I love that. And we write a newsletter out of that. We podcast. We record podcasts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Usually an interview a day and then often two or three short pieces a day. One of those is easy. It goes to what the core business use of the day is. But the other ones are the ones that take more creativity. And some of those some of those days were better at it than others. And you're right about constantly staying fresh. And when it when it goes right, like we did one today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
on love the 90 percenter. And this concept is, you know, and so many things come out of discussions and meetings and talks that we're a believer. If you've got people that work with you and they do things 90% great, you better love them and you better appreciate them. And you better not nitpick the other seven to 10%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You could talk to them periodically about if they want about getting better, but you better love the 90% that they're doing. And it came out of a discussion where we've got a team that's doing incredibly well and somebody had some criticism and I'm like, don't be criticizing that team and those people and they're doing 93, 97% of the stuff fantastically well, better than they've ever done it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Love the 90%. So that's a concept. But many of our podcasts are creative and fun. I was with, we did a podcast that's more on the creative side, The Lost Art of Counting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And the core lesson I learned a long time ago, and it came out of a couple of discussions and some reading and just growth, was that nothing gets done seriously in any serious way without a team. And so for myself,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And somebody might read that title and think it's a serious podcast, but it's really about either on the golf course, friends that don't count all their strikes, strokes, and must have missed the art of counting, or the personal trainer doesn't count all the reps or whoever it is. But it's humor and creative and fun versus a serious business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
podcasts and it's it's a constant effort you know and you know how it is like days where you're sharp and you're you're and you're in a good centered place you're more creative and better other days you're sort of just trying to get through it
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
and try not to put up stuff that's sort of like, that's not worth reading because you're just sort of like, you know, you're, you're tired or you're not energized. You're not in a good spot. I mean, I, I, I think it's just the very human experience that like, you know, I, I was having a, I do a lot of today, Twitter and X polls for ideas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I was having a tough day the other day and the Twitter poll was, you know, what do you do when you're feeling down or not motivated? Yeah. you know, and I think most of us have, I mean, most of us, as far as I can tell, most of us have days like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I mean, I really was comfortable talking about it, but so you, you know, and so it's, it's top of mind and you get it back a fascinating number of perspectives, you know, and you actually learn something almost every time you put out one of those questions and polls, you know, I find it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So there are all kinds of different ways of like, you know, from the people that write back really helpful things, the people that write back profane things, you know, you sort of, uh, it's great fun, but the constant effort to put out content and think and grow. And this was the issue of like, this was the challenge of, you know, grind, but think.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And sometimes I get such into the mode of just grinding. I'm not thinking about who it's attaching to, who's listening, who's doing great with them. Not, you know, it's a, it's another effort to, to grind and think. And sometimes I'm very good at it. Sometimes I'm not as good at it, you know, the constant challenge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
the things I've had great success with, I've aligned with and built great teams, the place where I've fallen short, I've not made the investment and the time and the effort to build serious teams. So anything you do is built around building teams and great people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Well, here's what I'd say, and this is really a fascinating take, and bear with me on this, Peter, because you are a fantastic interviewer. You interview how we try and teach people to interview. You're really, really good at this. And so what do I mean by that? When I'm doing a bad job interviewing and being the interview, it's too much me and not enough of the guest and panelists.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And so we have this core theory that it should be 10% you, 90% the guest, or pick a number. It doesn't have to be exactly, but it's like, and you are an amazing, you do an amazing job interviewing. of being patient, thoughtful, and then asking a question and letting the guest talk. You're really amazing at this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And it's something that we've tried to teach people because at our conferences, we'll have several hundred sessions at some of our conferences. I mean, it's lots of people moderating, some juniors, some seniors, some more experienced. And what I try and tell people is it's 10% you, it's 90% them. It's the more you constantly think that you're not the show, they are. the better off you are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And so that, and you are a magnificent at this. The second thing I would say is, so much of my ability to do it right depends on how I'm showing up that day. And I've gotten better at better knowing that it's not me, When I'm on stage, I'll generally relax and be okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But back in the day, when I would do poorly, it would usually be because I was abusing this rule of 10, 90, or 20, 80, and I might have been too caffeinated or too amped up where I jumped in too much. The other thing we tell people is, one is control yourself. Two is realize it's 10, 90, 20, 80, whatever the number is. It doesn't have to be perfect. The other thing that we say is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You're not a rote interviewer. So you might start off with a set of questions, but the difference between better level interviewing is when you then lean in and ask the follow-up question to something, even though it's not on your script or on your whatever, on your set of questions. We think about a lot of those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And for me, a lot of it is, like on Monday, we've got one of our big conferences. I probably got five or six sessions. I'm running, I'm moderating, I'm interviewing. That's probably too much for me to have. the right level of patience for everyone. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I've got three a day, which is probably the right number for me to show up the way I should show up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And you learn to have in your life and your business and your professional life, your personal life, what the phrase today is, ride or die people, people that you really want to ride or die with. They're just so reliable, so great, so good at what they do that you want to stay so close to them and work so close to them. Really, either your entire career or long, long periods of your career.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So Monday, I'll try and get through, not abuse the rules of too much caffeine, of getting off the 1090 thing, the 2080 thing. and straight calm enough for control. And then it's, it's a lot of effort to just like to not, not a lot of effort.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
It's a great pleasure, but it's a lot of effort to stay just thoughtful and aware of yourself and in control yourself is what I think of as an interview as a moderator and, and, and so forth. I mean, I literally, literally I say it with complete sincerity, you're actually magnificent at this and you make a living doing it. So you could tell you're magnificent at it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And I love that. And sometimes, of course, you do a great job of this on a Zoom interview, on a computer interview. Sometimes it's harder because you're sort of trying to, you know, it's not a normal, it's not a natural thing. And so sometimes it's really easy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Sometimes when we're interviewing people at length on panels on Zoom, oh, it's hard because you're like, you have to concentrate in a different way and look at the screen in a different way than is normal when you're in person and stuff like that. But I love that concept on the camera. I love that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Pete, what a great pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this. And what a creative, brilliant suggestion. I loved it. Thank you so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
There's another concept you mentioned, and I love the concept of this. We've always been a big fan of what we call doer managers, people that manage and do, that they don't lose sight of the fact. It's almost like the physician leader president who also is still involved and sees some patients, although it's hard to do today in the complex in today's world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
but the content that people aren't scared to do and manage. And so when you mentioned I've done 7,000 podcasts, That's probably a right number. And that's probably me working too much in the business, being too much of a doer versus a leader and a thinker and strategist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But it reflects a lot of how we do a lot of things with a bit of a team and a bit of a grind and not being afraid to get your hands dirty and be what we call a doer manager. The worst thing we've had in business, the best thing we've had in business is leaders that also do, leaders that see, leaders that help.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
You know, and you get to people that are running these scaled organizations, health systems. You talk about the association of the Nebraska Hospital Association, where they're running big, big things in Nebraska, Madison or whatever it is, you know, or huge systems. And they can't really do everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
They've got to spend much more time on their top eight to 10 lieutenants and people that they're working with the teams, but they can help set the culture too. But, but this concept of, of a mixed doer manager is, We love building teams. We love being a doer manager.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And we also, you know, and a constant believer, whenever you start something new, some best advice I got a year or two ago was from somebody when I was starting something new and the person was very harsh, very clear with me and was along the lines of, if you're starting something new, You can't delegate everything until you, again, understand what you're doing in this new thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
interview myself on the Becker's Healthcare Podcast and the Becker Private Equity Podcast and talk about business, healthcare, and a lot of other things. And it was really just a pleasure. So we hope that you enjoyed listening to this special episode of the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And I thought it was harsh and great advice, and that person was right on in their advice to me. So you sort of never lose focus on learning and growing, but it's all about teams and strategy and niches and so forth. But it all starts with you can't do anything serious without a great team.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Yeah, no, you've nailed it, really, because that's exactly the issue of a lot of things I do that hit this balance between advanced hobbies versus businesses. And if I really want to turn the next thing into a serious business, I've got to find the serious time to commit to it and spend the time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Actually, one of the things we talk about in business constantly is finding what we call product market fit, you know, building something that people actually want to buy and that you actually want to sell, which you want to do both of, you know? And so we talk about this so much and, and to your point, you know, I sort of made the decision that I've got so many things on my plate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
I better stick to this for the moment. What it was is an advanced hobby versus a business. Even though I love it because I don't have the, the energy or span to deal with customers in the right way on that while still taking care of the things that we do at Becker's Healthcare and by background, the things that we do at the law firm I'm a partner at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So we sort of said, you can't do it at the level it needs to be done to really find what you want to find and don't have the energy to take the next step to find the right people to do all that without first investing the time myself and understanding product market fit really well. That's a great question, Peter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Sure. So at Becker's Healthcare, we have about 100 employees. But you have to remember, one of my colleagues, the CEO, Jessica Cole, really runs the entire company day to day. And I'm able to serve in the role that I serve in, which is more or less chief content officer, board member, advisor, podcaster, speaker, those kinds of things. So she really runs the day to day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And thank you specifically to Peter Murphy Lewis for making the time and energy to do this. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Got a very large editorial team, about 30 plus people, nice size commercial team and events team. We're a big believer in that you stack people on your core areas and outsource what you don't have to have internally. So our role, be a magnet to listeners, to readers, to attendees, stay really closely connected to the health system community.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And our people's job, more and more, it's not just putting out information, but it's also staying really closely connected to the community, to the people that listen, read, attend, to make sure we're resonating and we're on board with what they're thinking about. So there's about 100 people there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
The law firm itself, which I at one point was on the board of, at one point led a division within the law firm, I don't know how many employees today, but six, 7000 employees at the law firm. It's a large, large national law firm and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Yeah, so that's a great, great question. And you have to remember, I'm an incremental builder. Some people are visionaries. I am not a visionary at all. I'm an incremental builder. I'm a tester and builder. And when I first started this company, Becker's Healthcare, it was like a lot of things in life. It was very, very incremental.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
For the first 10 years, and this goes back 30 plus years ago, didn't have employees, outsourced everything. We did a very simple newsletter in a very simple conference each year. And that's very different than today. We've got 100 employees. We do probably a dozen conferences a year. And we have millions of people that read one way or another what the company does and what the editorial team does.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But when getting started, in any sort of business, this was not intended at first to be a business. It was first intended to be sort of thought leadership, trying to learn, trying to make myself an expert in the health care world, learn about the health care world, being what we think of today as a thought leader. 30 years ago, people didn't use that term, but that's the term.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
So I started doing newsletters, started doing conferences. and didn't even understand that this was potentially a business for some time. And then what happens is started to grow relationships, started to grow an audience, started to grow what we were doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And at some point, and this goes back 20 plus years ago, started to look at this and say, Oh, this could be a serious thing, not just an advanced thought leadership thing or advanced hobby. And so it's, And at the time, the world didn't move so fast 30 years ago. There's so many things that were easier 30 years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Like when you say to your kids, or I say to my kids, well, I paid my way through school. Well, that was easy 30 years ago when you went to state school and it cost $1,000 a year. Or when you went to Harvard Law School, and it was nothing compared to what it costs today. You could pay your way through school today. The cost of these things has been so crazy, you can't do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But building an audience, building a business, 30 years ago, it's really early in the internet stage. We're really early in building digital newsletters, digital websites. We competed against a great publication, it's still a great publication, that was very focused on print and print magazines.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And so many things are by necessity, we ended up doing great because we couldn't compete with them in print. We evolved in deciding we had to be the leaders in digital. And at the time, the digital world wasn't such an information overload world. And it's not to downplay what we did, but it was a much less competitive world 20, 30 years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And I was able to sort of dawdle with it for five, 10 years until I started to figure it out and start to really hire people full-time in the company and grow the company. And then in life, there's... There's luck and there's making some good decisions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
Some of the early good decisions I made in both the law firm and in the media company in Becker's Healthcare was when I attached to or started working with great people. I'm a big believer that you double down on what's working great. And when I started to work with great people in the law firm, it was a person named Jessica Cole and some other people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And in the law firm, in the media company, it was Jessica Cole and some other people in the law firm. It was Amber Walsh, Holly Bunker, Bart Walker, and some others. But when I had great – Melissa Saban and others, great, great people working with me, we then made every effort to – take care of them, to make sure they were thriving, we were thriving, that we were growing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
And so many of the people that have been with me for the journey, both in the media company, Becker's Healthcare, or at the law firm, have been with me for a long, long time. We were missed not mentioning people like Katie Atwood, and Allie Warner, and Laura Derrida, and Scott Jones, and Mark Gamble, and a lot of others that have been with us for a long time in the media business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
But the key is, you're constantly You know, businesses can be very simple. You're trying to find great people that work with you and great customers that you work with and sort of providing that mutual product fit of what works. And so we started building an audience. We started building an editorial team. Now we've got 30 people in the editorial team, really hardworking, smart people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Strategic Pete Takeover: Scott Becker on Legacy, Leadership, and Building Becker’s 5-1-25
We were ahead of the game in terms of short form journalism. And this was, again, my learning is almost always incremental. And I've been with people that are just brilliant that could think in the seventh draft, that's not me. So when I first started this, I would write long strategic pieces, and I thought they were really smart. And what you'd find is nobody would read them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
This is the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today's discussion is, all I want is carbs. And the discussion really stems out of this. We had one of our conferences, one of our largest of the year the last several days. It's still going on, quite frankly. 4,600 people at the Becker's Healthcare Annual Conference. And when I think about these conferences...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
27% say, hold the line. And it's like, hold the line. Like I'm the Green Bay Packer offensive line from the 70s. Hold the line. And the third one, the third group, which is not the call-in one, not the forgiving, nice group, but the group that says, yes, you could court on carbs for a day or two, as long as you could rebound from it and don't double down on the rebound.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
And I think that's another answer. So here's the poll studies on carbs. Can I go all in on carbs for a day or two after a conference? 46% go all in. 27% hold the line. The third one is only if you could rebound. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
The first day, my physical willpower and how I act is pretty good. By the second and third day, I've had so much coffee that literally all I want is to gorge on carbs for a day or so, meaning nothing. donuts, sugar, cookie, ice cream, pizza, whatever it might be, I just want to gorge on carbs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
And so one of the things I did was, as I ought to do now, I did a Twitter poll on after a few days of a conference, can you let yourself go and just gorge for a day or so? And I can't do it during a conference because then I end up sort of almost comatose and flat and horrendous. I can't do it during the conference. So I asked people, here are the three responses. Yes, go all in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
That's one response. Second poll question is no, hold the line. And third is only if you could rebound. Now, the beautiful thing about the Twitter audience, Twitter audience some days can be very harsh and non-redeeming. There's people that are always on there saying, you're not doing enough of this, you're not doing enough of that, and just very, very critical.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
All I Want is Carbs 5-1-25
Here, the Twitter audience, I found to be much more forgiving. 46%, it was 47%. Now it's 46% said, yes, go all in. Another 27%, which are probably like the teacher you had at your Catholic school that beat you with the ruler or the fitness coach who was very tough on you. You know, my personal trainer says I have to lose weight. not nice people generally. These people say, hold the line.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are three stories that we're following today. First, the markets are surging again as there's more good news and more also news that may lead the Fed to reduce rates. So as of this morning, the S&P is up 1.5%, the NASDAQ is up 2.6%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
President Trump with respect to this trade war effort has certainly mitigated some of his efforts and tried to re-figure it out, which I give him great credit for trying to figure it out when obviously it stepped too quickly into this trade war fully. So when I look at the coverage of the first 200 days, I think there is a huge lack of balance on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
And there's a lot of stuff that I dislike about President Trump. There's stuff I like about President Trump. But one thing I would say is he's certainly engaged in trying to solve some of these issues, solve some of these problems. And it is fascinating to watch. In any event, markets way up again today. We're in a situation today where Microsoft and Meta are really surging. They did well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
regardless of the tariff issues. There's also news that China and the U.S. are going to start tariff talks. And finally, you're in a situation where the overdoing of the Trump 100 days criticisms, you would think that we had started World War III. And as far as I could tell, we aren't there. So that's my thought on that. I know some people will not like that. I apologize.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
I just think a more balanced approach on it is probably in order. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
Second, a big part of this is that the big tech companies are showing terrific resilience with respect to the talk of tariffs and trade wars and everything else. Microsoft's up almost 10% today. Meta Platforms is also up 6%. Microsoft reported terrific earnings, notwithstanding all the discussion about tariffs. The third story I'll talk about for a second. I know this is a complicated story.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
But one of the things that we see in the media is every media outlet or so many of them are doing everything they can to paint the first 100 days of the Trump presidency as an unmitigated disaster. And again, there are things I dislike about the Trump presidency. Number one is a constant war on DEI. There are things I don't dislike about the Trump presidency.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Stories We Are Following Today 5-1-25
You know, we've had this trade imbalance for 100 years. We've got horrible deficit spending. We've got some real challenges. The Ukraine-Russia war has been going on for years. The Middle East has been a debacle. As far as I could tell so far, the Middle East looks a little safer for the moment. Russia-Ukraine seems to be simmering down some for the moment. The
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to talk today about sort of maintaining fitness and health while on business trips or at conferences and so forth. Now, we talk about this type of subject often because as, you know, whatever age you are, taking care of your physical and mental health is, is table stakes for doing everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
And if I glean into the carbs in those rooms, I am so flat when I go to interview people. And so out of it, that's a horrible, horrible thing. But what you do find, what I find, and for some people, this may be easier, but for me, the level of discipline it takes, the level of willpower it takes over a multi-day conference
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
to stay healthy and eat right and keep myself in check and do the right things is really, really hard. And it takes real purposeful intentionality to try and schedule right, to handle it right, so I could take care of the health and fitness too. And then if you add onto that, going out for dinners at night and indulging in drinks and dinner and so forth,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
You have to do all you can to sort of keep yourself in check if you're trying to recover to get back to regular life post-conference so your recovery hill is not such a big uphill mountain to climb to get back at it. Again, I know this is sort of a bit of a rambling thought. on keeping yourself healthy and fit while going to business conference, business events.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
It's top of mind for us because of the last four days, we've been at the Becker's Healthcare 15th Annual Meeting at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago. And just the effort to stay away from coffee, to keep myself healthy is a real war, a real challenge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
And I know we were having a discussion here where people were talking about being gluten-free, people talking about getting their steps in, drinking enough water, not going to their fitness classes, and all those types of efforts and challenges when you're at a business event or business conference. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you handle these things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
Some people are so good at it, it seems, not me. I try my best, but I'm not great at it. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
And we, as you get a little bit older, we treat it more and more with focus because we have to, or we let it go and we get old in a hurry. So anyways, talk about what you do. And I was having conversations with a bunch of people out there at a conference, you know, some people run early in the morning, uh,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
My colleague, Holly Buckley, is organizing a thing at Barry's Boot Camp with Lance Armstrong at the Healthcare Private Equity event that McGuire Wood sponsors. For me, it's being on the road and trying to avoid impulse eating and sticking to my good habits that are not always perfect. I'm never perfect, though, of drinking so much water that I hydrate myself, taking so many steps every day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
trying to, if I can, and schedule myself so I can get some exercise in the morning or at some point during the day, and then periodically trying to hit some push-ups and do some other things. We were talking to other colleagues. One's a regular, does jujitsu regularly and trying to find a way to get to a class while he is here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
Others do other types of fitness classes and try to figure out if there's a way to work that into their schedules. But if not, falling back on the use of wearables and getting enough steps, trying not to overdo the coffee when you're going through too many meetings. For me, that's a real culprit, real kryptonite.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Maintaining Physical and Mental Health on Business Trips 5-1-25
I drink so much coffee, then I lose willpower late in the day and I eat everything that I can see. It's a scary type of thing. If you're careful about your gluten or what you eat, trying to stay away from the carbs and the bread or the sugar. If I lean into the We have a team break room at the Becker's healthcare conferences.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try each week to bring you brilliant guests from the business, private equity world. Today, we've got somebody who both really needs little introduction, but hits two huge areas. He's both a founder himself of a company, a co-founder of a company called Midstream Health.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Fantastic. And talk for a second, Venkit, what trends are you watching early stage investing. What are you seeing there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Thank you. And take a moment, Don, if you had to give a couple core pieces of advice to a founder, what would you tell them? You've worked with dozens of founders, probably more than dozens, actually. What advice would you give to a founder?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
you know thank you i think that is great and i think people should take you up on this offer you've been an incredible sort of seed stage early stage venture stage investor really incredible venka take a moment on any final advice for investors themselves as they think about the ecosystem where to invest yeah i think oftentimes i think again the same sort of advice i was giving for
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Thank you very, very much. And we're going to really go down two big lines of thought today. We're going to talk some about investing, and then we're also going to talk about what you're currently doing and how you think about this is AI use cases, because all of us are getting bombarded with different thoughts on AI use cases.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
I think that last point is so important and so interesting. I mean, so many people, young software engineers, young computer scientists, young everything, literally coming out of college in their 20s, not necessarily looking for huge exits, but really solving problems. And with that humility of really trying to solve problems and figure them out,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
You and I know that we've talked to so many experienced business people outside of healthcare, and it's something you said earlier. They think, oh, not a problem. I can invest in this or do this or do that. And it's just such a clear problem to solve. And don't understand all the nuances out of it in the area. And I do see so many young entrepreneurs
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
You know, and I don't want to be ageist because I'm older, but that are so inclined to really be curious, trying to solve problems, trying to learn. And it takes that attitude to connect both what you're doing with what a client or customer or small or medium or large business needs. You've got to connect those dots. You can't just throw a solution at them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
And I think that I think you really nailed it. Venkat, it is a pleasure to visit with you today. This podcast will be released shortly. We'll also be doing a webinar along similar lines next week. Thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Just a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
And many of us, small businesses, large businesses, trying to figure out where exactly it fits in and wanting to make sure we don't miss the boat on some of the opportunities with it. So let's start with the investment side of the house and talk about, you've been an investor both institutionally through Andreessen Horowitz, plus individually in several different companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Talk a little bit about how do you think about investing? Do you think about the individual leader of that effort? Do you think about the space they're in? How do you think about where to put money in, not to put money in? What drives those thought processes?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
He's also a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the most renowned venture capital fund in the world. He was an investor there. He's also currently an investor in many early stage companies. We're joined today by Venkat Mukherjee. And Venkat and I, we built this as a fireside chat slash podcast webinar.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
We're going to talk about sort of eight different sort of questions and topics around both investing in early stage companies and about use cases for AI. And he is such a fascinating person. Venkit, let me stop for a second. Take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself, about Midstream, about your background. And thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Thank you. And then where do you sort of fit in the who? Who are you investing behind? You know, I've met through you a whole number of brilliant entrepreneurs. How do you decide of those who's worth investing in, who's not? How do you make those assessments? How do you think about that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Thank you very, very much. And then what drove you, Venkat, from being an investor at one of the most successful VC funds of all time to wanting to start your own company? I've also seen, obviously, there's a number of people that have been in that situation that chose to go be entrepreneurs. And really fascinating, reminds me of Malinka as well from Makata.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
But talk about the concept of moving from, One great spot to going into the effort to start your own company. Talk about that for a moment and what drove that. And then as we move through that question, let me also ask you, when you talk about AI as it applies to healthcare, what are you most excited about?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Maybe those two questions, what drove you to do this and what are you most excited about as AI applies to healthcare?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Unlocking AI’s Potential in Healthcare and Early-Stage Investing with Venkat Mocherla 2-16-25
Fantastic. Thank you very, very much. And talk for a second about where are you seeing both the trends in healthcare and AI as it applies to healthcare? What are you seeing? Where are the use cases? Yeah. Where are the best probabilities of success or where should be people thinking about AI in healthcare?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Importance of Physical Activity to Centeredness 2-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and again, this is a Saturday podcast, so I hope you enjoy it, is why is physical activity so grounding? And I think there's certain things, like I know myself, the days that I get some exercise and some movement in, particularly the days that I sweat,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Importance of Physical Activity to Centeredness 2-2-25
I am a much more pleasant and much more centered and much more grounded person than days that I'm not. There's almost a dramatic difference in the two things in terms of just the physical activity and the way that could center and ground me that almost nothing else can. And it worries me as I get older that I won't be able to do this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Importance of Physical Activity to Centeredness 2-2-25
But I think one of the great mysteries of life, and maybe someone could explain this because I'm certainly not doing it enough job explaining it here. is this beauty of how physical activity can be so centering, so grounding, and so relaxing. Why that is, I'm not sure, but the importance of it can't be understated.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Importance of Physical Activity to Centeredness 2-2-25
And it really goes with another topic that we're working on this weekend, which is this journey of self-awareness. And to be self-aware that if I do this, I'm a much better person later that day or that day is an important lesson. And then they have the discipline to actually do it so I could be that better person and that more centered person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Importance of Physical Activity to Centeredness 2-2-25
Now, that's the struggle day in, day out, or finding the time and the effort in the scheduling to make it all work so you could do it. In any event, today's discussion is the importance of physical activity to centeredness. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I think many, many of us share this concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Importance of Physical Activity to Centeredness 2-2-25
Feel free at any time to text me ideas or thoughts, 773-766-532. Thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a longer discussion that comes out of businesses, and we're going to call this building businesses, winners and losers, or winning and losing, whatever you want to call it. But here's the background on this. I've had the good fortune of building two successful businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
telling you this because of credibility for credibility or to brag, but telling you it because it goes to the backdrop to, my goodness, if you do this long enough, you get plenty of wins, plenty of losses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And I think both are very instructive because so many of the lessons that I've seen over the years come from the fact that I've learned from the investments that have turned to zero or the companies I've been involved with that have ended up fizzling out versus continuing to be really successful or struggle. And there are lessons in all of those things. And I'll sort of try and go through
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
common lessons in business that we have sort of come towards and lived through. I start with this concept that so much is about building great teams. And I'm a huge fan of the Jim Collins perspective that you literally could do almost anything you want if you build a great team. What I've seen in businesses is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
When I've built great teams and really invested the time to build great teams, whether at the law firm or at Becker's Healthcare, I've had great, great success. And the people that run those teams today that were part of the teams that I was building now are the leaders of those places.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And if you take the time to really build teams, and it's a lot of work, you've got to sort out a lot of people, that you could build the foundation for a great business. If you don't ultimately make the time and effort to build teams, you're never really going to get there. And I've seen this in a couple different spots.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
I've been in the spot where I've started a couple other things, but I've been very weary of really trying to invest time and energy and money into building serious teams. And those other businesses have ultimately relatively fizzled out, or they've been almost like one-hit wonders. They've been successful a period of time and then fallen apart.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
Similarly, I've served on a couple different boards of directors. And I remember this vividly early in my career. One of the boards built a magnificent, deep leadership team. It went on to have tremendous success. The other board, this was an early board, was an incredibly successful period of time, but it was really driven by the insane energy and personal skills of one person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And when that person didn't build a strong enough team around them, they never really got to that next step of greatness that you want to have as a company or sustainable greatness. So I view that as fundamental to everything. Jim Collins talks about this extensively in his book, Good to Great, but that teams are really sort of everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
One, the fabulous healthcare media company, which became a really successful healthcare media company. Second, building this great healthcare legal practice. And these two things ended up being somewhat related in their own way. But ultimately, two really nice successes. The legal practice became one of the largest legal practices at a billion-dollar firm over a very long period of time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
The second thing I often look at is niches and defined niches and defined ideal customer profile. Again, where we have been able to build things that have been successful or been able to see things that are successful, there's been a very clear target on what you're trying to do, who you're trying to serve. Originally building the legal business back in the day, it was originally business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
individual surgery centers, physicians in those surgery centers, the leaders of those surgery centers. And we had a very clear target. We built a newsletter, built a conference around that. And similarly, in the media company, healthcare media company, very clear about serving health systems, health IT, orthopedic and spine, and more so, but very, very specific.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And I love a current niche business, and I'm watching them, they're involved in called shoulder 360, you know exactly the audience are trying to attract, exactly the vendors are trying to attract, everything's around the shoulder. They've got very great clarity about their niche and around their product.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
In contrast, where I've tried to build things on a more broad scale for general business audience, I found it very, very hard to do so when not really attacking a specific niche. The similar concept is I don't spend much time in the B2C area, but where I've seen people in the business to consumer area,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
They almost have to find a niche and have distribution channels very, very hard to do it essentially by themselves. So that's sort of a couple starting points on niches and teams. The third starting point I'll talk about is what I call product to market fit and commercialization early and really trying to see if your customers want what you're selling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And this I found particularly apropos in the sort of software business where I've seen different engineers build great things that they thought were going to be fantastic but they spent so little time actually commercializing that they never hit the yin and yang. They might have been building something great, but they weren't building it for something that somebody wanted.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
I remember one of our lawyers 100 years ago being upset that she didn't get thanked enough. And I would have to explain, well, no, they're really thanking you by paying us because they love what you're doing for them. But if I find a fault in companies, it's sometimes when They don't early on really focus on customer fit, product market fit. They've not really made that effort.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
So that's sort of another lesson in business. You've got to commercialize early and find out if your customer is really there or not early. The fourth thing I talk about in building businesses is, and this is true for me, it may not be true for everybody. Some people are very intellectual, very smart. They can do it in a different way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
I have found that whenever I'm building a business and it's been successful, I've been almost compelled and obsessive and driven and excited by it, that it takes tremendous drive, tremendous energy, almost obsession to want to build that business. The contrast I've seen is situations where others are half in or half out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
where the spouse of a husband or wife who's really successful starts a hobby store, and that hobby store ends up being not successful because they weren't really driven towards it. They've put their foot in the water. They've got something they can call their own, but they don't really want to do it. I remember a fantastic wrestling coach when I was younger who said,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
Now, I've really seated that baton to some of the junior people that are no longer junior people. They're fantastic partners that lead a lot of that practice. Similarly, the media company became a really successful healthcare media company and great, great success. Now, the thing that's fascinating about it is anybody who's built businesses, it's almost like talking about stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
do you want to wrestle or do you want to be on the wrestling team? And the concept was, did you really want to compete? Were you really obsessed with competing or did you just want to be a part of the team? And they're two very, very different things. So that's a fifth concept we talk about often is the obsession it takes to really be successful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
The fifth thing we discuss for whatever you're doing is business plans. And I basically break this down into three different types of business plan. There's essentially the no business plan, There's the two to 10 page business plan that has some clarity about what you're trying to do, who you're trying to serve, who you're trying to hire, what your costs are going to be and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And then there's the extensive 50 to 100 page business plan that you could hire somebody to do with you or that you could find online. And I'll tell you, when I look at these three things, All of my personal success and the companies I've worked with success has been built more or less around those business plans that are closer to the two to 10 page business plan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
Now, that doesn't mean that you don't need the more extensive one at times for capital, for other reasons, for partners, or if you're doing a huge business out of something, you're putting in billions of dollars. Yes, you're going to need a more extensive business plan. But in my experience, most businesses are well-served businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
by the three to 10 business plan, page business plan in great clarity about what they're trying to do. I've also seen people do this, including myself without a business plan. And at times early on in my life, I could succeed that way with just sheer energy. But I think it's a huge mistake. I think some business plan is needed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
The sixth thing we talk about and we see it on, you know, online all the time is this concept of do you burn the boats? And burning the boats means that you're sort of giving up everything to put all your energy into the business. And this sounds like a great romantic idea, but from my perspective, it's largely a stupid idea. You've got to be able to pay your bills.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
You probably have to be able to fund your business. In my own perspective, this concept, this romanticized concept that comes out of a Julius Caesar quote to burn the boats is really a stupid, stupid concept, and we don't encourage it. We encourage you to keep the day job, keep the right businesses going, know what you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And then when you're successful enough, you could end up stop straddling and really get really fully focused on what you're trying to do. The seventh concept we'll talk about today is we find the best, best businesses really know their own business really well. They know who their best customers are. They know where their best people are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
They know where the revenues and their profits are coming from. They really know their best, their own business really well. And that's really the starting point for almost everything. The eighth thing we talk about often is the 80-20 rule. You're going to put most of your time into your best people, your best customers. It's not a democracy. It's best people, best customers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
And you're constantly going to go down to your best product lines, your best service lines, your most profit lines, and so on and so on. The ninth concept we talk about is this concept of businesses are systems and people. It's technology and people. You need to have great people. I've seen people build businesses, huge businesses without great people. I'm not a believer in it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
There are stocks that you have that are winners. Palantir Technologies is one of my winners, but you don't often hear about some of the stocks that you have that are losers. And one of my losers is something called Astera Labs. So when you build businesses, you invest in stocks, whatever you do, you're going to have what I think of as winners and losers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
I think everything is much easier if you're hiring great, smart, driven, motivated people. There's also a tack on thought around this about, there's always this comment of culture beats strategy for lunch. Again, I think this is one of the great myths of our time. From my perspective, it's culture plus strategy plus talent. It's not one or the other. You got to have both.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
It's really easy to say, burn the bolt. It's really easy to say it's all about culture. And there's some truth to all that stuff, but you also need talented people and driven people and motivated people and customers and all that kind of stuff. Hence, We always say about businesses, there's five funnels in a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
There's an idea, and then there's actually developing a profit, then there's developing revenues, then there's developing actual profits, and then there's actually scaling it. But ideas themselves are not the thing. It's the execution and the development that's a thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
But even with ideas, I'm a huge believer that it's much easier to find ideas for businesses when you are deeply involved in things than when you're in contrast. you know, really just sort of abstracting whiteboarding. I find it's very hard to abstract and whiteboard much easier to really find ideas, come up with ideas for business when you're deeply involved.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
That's the concept on ideas and businesses, you know, and so forth. The 11th thing I'll talk about really quickly is This concept of the solopreneur, the solopreneur is this social media construct of the person that could do it all themselves. And I am no doubt there are people that are creators on the Internet and so forth that maybe could do it all themselves.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
But even there, they probably need to to find help. resourcing, selling, doing other kinds of things to find sponsors and all those kinds of things. In general, I'm not a believer in the solopreneur. I'm a believer in the building teams. They're not to be huge teams. They could be lean teams, but I'm much more focused on that than I am this concept of the solopreneur.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
I often talk about the myth of the solopreneur because I believe it's really hard to do anything by yourself. Finally, the 12th concept that we talk about all the time is, and we've talked about it a little bit earlier today, is ultimately the You're going to constantly double down on what works. As you develop businesses, as you know what's working, what's not working, a lot of it is very simple.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
You double down on what's working, what's bringing in money, who your great people are, and so forth and so on. So those, again, building businesses, winners and losers. I've had a lot of both. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses – Winning & Losing 5-31-25
In addition to sort of building his businesses, Russell started a couple of other businesses, invested with venture capital funds like Andreessen Horowitz and invested several individual startup companies. Russell served on some boards of directors. And this is not so much
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is when great people get thrown under the bus. One of the things that we find throughout our business career is periodically you'll see somebody who is just an absolute gem of a professional, a leader, a stalwart great one who ultimately gets thrown under the bus in some internal company
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
I mean, sometimes, for example, you see a situation, we talk often about the CEO of Stellantis Jeep, Carlos Tavares, who just did a horrible job. He's got a scapegoat, did a horrible job. The CEO of Gap, Gap is down 20% today. I mean, he might have a scapegoat. He might try and blame his chief of strategy, blame somebody else. I don't know for how boring Gap has become.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
The only thing you could ever buy at Gap anymore is black T-shirts. And even those became sort of a less quality than they used to be. And I'm a regular black T-shirt wearer. But the point being, you have a situation where great people get thrown under the bus. And what I have found throughout my life is that a lot of times when these great people get thrown under the bus,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
They rebound over time because they themselves are fantastic leaders, have a great backbone, they've got a great spine, and they come back strong over time. My friend that was involved in this Arthur Anderson thing ended up founding her own law firm, has been crazily successful. She's probably as successful in the industry
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
holistic way of any of our friends that we went to law school with back in the day, and just a brilliant, brilliant leader. So my hat goes off to these great people that are periodically thrown under the bus, and we wish them the very best in their resilience and their bouncing back, and we abhor the leadership that throws them under the bus.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
challenge and situation where they need to find a scapegoat. The history of this is longstanding.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
One of my closest friends, one of the smartest people I know, had this happen to her years and years ago when she was a leader at Arthur Anderson, had no involvement at all in something and sort of got blamed for something and ended up having a horrendous situation and she got thrown under the bus and had to go through to Congress and everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
Now, it ended up coming away from it totally vindicated, but a brutal couple of years of her life working through these issues when this wonderful person got thrown under the bus. You see this in corporate America regularly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
If I take any solace in it, there's this old adage, when bad things happen to good people, and that's exactly what happens sometimes when a great leader gets thrown under the bus. What I've seen over the years is these great leaders, that they end up finding a way to be resilient and bouncing back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
When Great People Get Thrown Under the Bus 5-31-25
And it ends up being one of the great courageous things that you watch in leaders is they end up being able to respond and rebound from these situations. it's almost a knock on corporate culture and how a corporation, when it's having trouble, he has to find a scapegoat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a topic that we talk about in different ways a lot, but inspired today by an article published, I saw it in LinkedIn, called Lessons from a Bag of Doritos. And it's really a discussion of Roger Enrico. For those that don't know, this is before the time of many people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
Looking at left of the decimal point changes. And to go off this concept, how can you double the distribution in your podcast? What would that take? How can you make yourself a much better tennis player? What would that take? It probably wouldn't. take an incremental improvement in my backhand, it probably means losing 10 pounds and being a lot faster and playing with a lot more energy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
That would be a left of the decimal point change versus a right of the decimal point change. Similarly, it would be looking at things as how do I make what I think about from the Dan Sullivan story of writing and is how do you make 10x changes versus 2x changes? How do you make big, big improvements versus small, small improvements?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
And the concept is, and the article is, that leadership is about looking at not just management and execution and making right of the decimal point changes and small improvements, but how do you also look at making big changes, bigger changes that are left of the decimal point changes? How do you sort of get there? And I love this concept. And for me, it's a constant reminder.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
I am such by nature an executor and a blocker and tackler that the reminder to periodically look at things from a 10x perspective, a bigger perspective versus a smaller perspective of how to make big changes to what I'm doing versus small changes to what I'm doing. is really, for me, a fantastic reminder. It's not something I'm naturally good at, to look at it that way versus the other way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
So that's today's discussion, looking at bigger changes versus smaller changes, looking at essentially the concept of right of the decimal point versus left of the decimal point. And here's the idea of trying to go for left of the decimal point changes. Like, for example, if I see somebody doing push-ups, I think,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
He was the CEO of Pepsi earlier on, the leader of Doritos and so forth. And the concept is this is really a discussion of big swings versus incremental changes. And they talk about in this article things that are to the right of the decimal point versus the left of the decimal point. And management versus leadership. And so bear with me for a second as I try to explain this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
Not to do five push-ups, but can they go left at the decimal point, make a much bigger difference by going after 50 push-ups? What's the way to make a much bigger change versus a smaller change? Left at the decimal point versus right at the decimal point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
It would be if I see somebody brushing their hair, rather than proving their hair, can they change their hair from brown to blonde to make it a big, big difference? Left at the decimal point versus right at the decimal point. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I say facetiously a little bit about the brunette to blonde.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
I thought it was a brilliant piece by a guy named James Cain, Lessons from a Bag of Doritos. But the concept is this. Most of us go through life, at least many of us, trying to make small adaptions, small incremental changes. And this would be the concept of right to the decimal point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
And the concept of the article is, so if you're looking at 1.3, this is not changing the 1, but trying to change the 0.3 to 0.4 to 0.5. that would become incrementalist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
You know, try and move the net worth up a little bit, try and move the weight down a little bit, try and get a little bit better at what we're doing in terms of the podcast being ranked number one at the Apple Business News, try and spend a little bit more time developing podcasts, try and do a little bit more money on marketing the podcast and distributing it and so forth and so on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Big Swings vs. Incremental Changes 3-29-25
And also be incremental changes, constant incremental changes, trying to move revenue from $60 million to $61 million, whatever it is, whatever business you're in, this looking at incremental changes. In tennis, it might be getting to be a little bit better at my backhand. And so the concept being here, as opposed to incremental changes, looking at right of the decimal point changes,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Japanese Toilets & European Vacation 3-29-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try and bring you daily business episodes, episodes about private equity and a lot more. Today's topic is Japanese toilets and European vacations. So here's the deal. If you're from the United States and you're as provincial as I am, meaning traditionally a Midwesterner from the United States,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Japanese Toilets & European Vacation 3-29-25
If you have any thoughts on this, any suggestions, any concept that this is the most ridiculous episode you've heard in a long time, feel free to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. And we will be thrilled to send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate if you're the first person to text in response to the Japanese toilet episode. You have to say in the text, Japanese toilet episode.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Japanese Toilets & European Vacation 3-29-25
Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Japanese Toilets & European Vacation 3-29-25
You are not an overly sophisticated person. You're fine. And I have a relatively quick mind and I view myself as relatively smart, but not overly sophisticated. So when you're in a European toilet at a nice hotel and you see something called the Japanese toilet remote control, you think without understanding that that's really cool. That Japanese toilet remote control probably flushes the toilet.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Japanese Toilets & European Vacation 3-29-25
And here's the message to all of those that are provincial travelers like me. The Japanese remote control toilet thing does not flush the toilet. All I can tell you is when I used the Japanese remote control toilet thing, I ended up splashing all over the toilet in a way that was unseemly. And so this is an educational episode for those that were not aware of
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Japanese Toilets & European Vacation 3-29-25
But don't use that Japanese remote control thing. It doesn't flush the toilet. And it created quite a mess in our beautiful hotel room. That's my thought for today on provincialism and being the ugly American in Europe. Just no knowledge, no understanding. But to focus back on just using the regular toilet flush mechanism, not the Japanese remote toilet flush thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is learn to love your 90 percenters. So that's the title. Learn to love your 90 percenters. So here's what I find. In every walk of life, there are people that are doing a very good job. They're doing a very good job. And you have a choice with those people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
And you better do it in the context of appreciating all the great stuff that they do. And it's not the artificiality of the sandwich approach, something nice on the front end, something negative in the middle, and then nice in the back end. You know, I've been through discussions with people with the method of coaching or teaching, and I'm not a fan of it. It's more that you better overall.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
We are Theresa and Nemo and that's why we switched to Shopify.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
Do you appreciate the heck out of them for what they're doing that's 90, 90% great? Or do you focus on that 7% to 10% that you'd like to be done somewhat differently? And my belief is that you almost always are going to focus on 98% and that 90 to 93% that's going great and just appreciate and love those people and be grateful and thankful, even if imperfect and not always perfect.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
And if you make the mistake of focusing on the 7 to 10% that's not going well, then you often discourage and disenfranchise those great people that are largely doing what the organization and institution wants you to do. If you have a friend that's 90% a great friend, they're probably a great friend.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
You don't get too mad at them that they missed dinner with you six months ago for something or they made plans with other people, they did this or that. You better love the friend. And it's the same thing with the people you work with. You better love the 90%ers, the 93%ers. Life's too short to not appreciate the heck out of those people that are doing overall great, great stuff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Learn to Love Your 90 Percenters 4-26-25
And it doesn't mean that you can't teach or talk about the 7% to 10%. You can, especially if you've got great people and they can excel and be the total leaders of the organization wherever they are or just get better themselves. You can't talk about that other percentage, but you better be careful about how you do so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are six stocks that have plunged over the last year in big name stocks, at least relatively big name stocks. And we're not going to tell a lot of story behind them, but this will give you six stocks that have just really had a tough last 52 weeks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
But again, those are six big names, just a couple of big names amongst them, Moderna, American Eagle Outfitters, Jeep, Oatly, Estee Lauder, Acadia Healthcare, that have just got crushed over the last year. Now, the good news is I don't own any of these names directly. And that's not because I'm some kind of genius. As we express regularly,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
I do own Astero Labs directly, which I think is in the top number of stocks that are down 60% this year, year to date. So even doing worse than these stocks. So there's plenty of that. But the point is, these are six stocks getting crushed. I'm not an investor in them. I don't know that you should be either, but that's for other people to decide and talk about.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
First is the vaccine maker, Moderna, which is down about 74% over the last year, just having a horrible time. Second is Acadia Healthcare, which keeps on seeming to get in trouble from either the government or lawyers and other types of things. They're down about 71% over the last year. Third is Stellantis Jeep. And again, my Jeep Cherokee, which I love, which is about a 21 model.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
Recently, it had its battery replaced, but overall, I love the Jeep Cherokee. It's their second best-selling car of all time. The moronic CEO at Stellantis Jeep got rid of that in their line to go, you know, to diverge the line some, the Compass being their lower-end vehicle, the Grand Cherokee being their higher-end vehicle, but really screwed the pooch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
They're down almost 63% over the last year. Estee Lauder, the makeup company, and the same thing is one of our closest family friends works at Estee Lauder, but they're down 61% the last year. American Eagle Outfitters, and I don't know anybody that shops there anymore. The Bloom is off the rose at AEO, down 52% over the last year. And finally, Oatly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Big-Name Stocks That Got Crushed This Year 4-26-25
The oat milk people, I almost feel like somebody's oat milk's gone through its greatest phase in the greatness of the oat milk era. Somebody's got to make oat milk great again, but Oatly's down 40% over the last year. And again, really another example of a stock that is struggling and not where people would like it to be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Burberry’s Surge and Grindr’s Market Rise 1-25-24
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today, we've got something that is a great surprise to the upside. Burberry shares, the place known for whatever you call them, very nice business trench coats or sort of creepy coats if worn the wrong way, saw sales dip less than expected this last quarter and now finds themselves with their stock up nearly 11% today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Burberry’s Surge and Grindr’s Market Rise 1-25-24
But really, the big story today, Burberry up 11%, and Grindr grinding it out, showing great promise, great success, and up nearly 7%, 8% today. So Grindr having a hell of a day in the markets, up 7%. You know, fascinating to see you've got this great juxtaposition. Burberry and Grindr both rising. I find that humorous for some reason, but it's terrific for them and their businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Burberry’s Surge and Grindr’s Market Rise 1-25-24
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Burberry’s Surge and Grindr’s Market Rise 1-25-24
So Burberry surges 11%. This is something that I think almost nobody saw coming. I'm starting to turn around their sort of movement in the wrong direction in such a quick way. I'm certainly surprised by how quickly that's moved in the right direction. We'll see if they could maintain that or not. So that's certainly a surprise to the upside. A couple other stocks having a heck of a day on Friday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Burberry’s Surge and Grindr’s Market Rise 1-25-24
And again, to stick with sort of the And I don't mean this in a bad way. The sort of the creepy agenda of the Burberry trench coat. And again, it's a joke. It's not creepy. It's fantastic. And this is not creepy either. But Grindr also is up nearly seven plus percent today. And I think Grindr is the hookup site. And so God bless Grindr. Burberry and Grindr in some strange kind of way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Burberry’s Surge and Grindr’s Market Rise 1-25-24
They feel like they go together for me. And I know that's probably totally politically inappropriate. But you've got a situation today where both Burberry and Grindr are rising and doing terrifically well. A couple other things that we're watching. We've got a couple other things going well. Nintendo, the gaming console game going up as well, 4%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try each day to teach, to entertain, make sure that we're learning, that you're learning something and a lot more. We're going to talk today really about Three health care stocks that are struggling on Friday. And you'll be listening to this on Saturday. But to give you a sense, there's a few things going on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
And I know this is ridiculous, but Hanes Brands, you get five pairs of underwear, sort of the, I know this is too much information for people, those boxer briefs, And you can get literally five or six of them for $12 or $14 or $20 at the most. And I love them. They're the most comfortable things ever. So not only the fact that I love them, their stock is down 3%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
today, but you should remember the stock's been up 94% over the last year. That's not from me so heavily investing in buying Hanes underwear and Hanes t-shirts, but I got to tell you, I love them as much as any clothing that I have. And again, I know it's not so exciting, but it is what it is. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
Always feel free to suggest episodes, suggest ideas, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
There's great concerns in D.C. about what's going to happen to health care budgets, health care reimbursement, the longer tail of cost and whether there will be cost cutting or cost containment through the Trump administration. This is weighing negatively on a couple of the big hospital health system stocks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
So we're seeing today, and this is Friday, but you'll be listening to this on Saturday, HCA is down about 3.5%. Universal Health Services is down 3.5%. Intuitive Surgical is also down about 3.66%. Even though they had fairly good earnings, fairly good revenues,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
There's just increased concern about what the health care reimbursement and buy-in risk is going to look like over the next couple of years. That's causing some challenges in the space. So those are three of the things we're watching currently. A couple of things that I'm watching, I've got my eyes on, which are totally separate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Healthcare Stocks That Struggled on Friday 1-25-25
The sterile labs, which is something we own individually through a spin-out of something, has had a great impact. last six months, but it's down another 4% today after being down not long ago. And one other stock that we fell closely for really the strangest of reasons, because I love their clothing, is Hanes Brands.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So today's discussion, and we try each day to teach, to entertain. We try and be largely nonpartisan or bipartisan. You know, we assume you're not that big a fan today of either party, so bear with me. We're going to talk today about tariffs, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So here are a couple thoughts on tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
It just doesn't work if we want to be paying $40 an hour here. for buying goods for $2 an hour there. So that's one reason for tariffs. And I would say that's the good reason.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
The bad concept on tariffs is that at the end of the day, it ultimately leads to inflation because we are reducing the amount of places we could buy goods from, which means less competition for selling goods and ultimately higher prices and brings up inflationary and as inflationary tones to it. So that's the bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
Now, the ugly about tariffs is, I'm a believer that greater trade throughout the world likely leads to us being more vested in not having battles and wars and fights with others. And the more that we have trade with others, the more likely we're able to stay in tune with them and reach peace with them and avoid things blowing into armed conflict. So the ugly of tariffs is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
The more that you isolate countries from each other, the more likely you are to ultimately have challenges that can grow into military and other kinds of conflicts. So, again, we're talking today about the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
Good reasonable tariffs protect us from just undercutting our workforce, undercutting us in what we think of as unfair ways, places where they pay below-living wages. in places where they're polluting the heck out of the world. The bad is it does have inflationary aspects here. It gives us less of a pool from which to buy goods.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
And the ugly is if we really end up with trade isolationist policies, sooner or later that can lead towards more and more conflict between nations, which is a bad thing. So there's tariffs for you, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We're always looking for suggestions for ideas on episodes 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
If you're the first to send us an idea on an episode this weekend, whether we use it or not, you got to be the first. We'll send you a $100 gift certificate from Amazon. We're an individual investor in Amazon. Thus, we try and do all of our gifts through Amazon. That's not really why we do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
We do it because it's a very easy way to thank people for them calling and texting and letting us know that they listened and giving us suggestions. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
And so tariffs have been traditionally used to protect a local country's industry. And there could be good or bad reasons for that. It's gone back and forth being a tool of the capital class, those that own businesses that want protection from overseas businesses, and being the sort of effort of unions where people really want them because they're protecting U.S. jobs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
And who has been the bigger champion of tariffs over the last 100 years is has gone back and forth over the years politically. We've got the Trump administration that is very aggressive about utilizing tariffs, and it's not been particularly a Republican policy for a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
Now, the good in tariffs is, let's say we're buying goods from China, and China's manufacturing them at $3 an hour with child labor, and they're polluting the heck out of the world. Well, of course, we want to put a tax on that to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 1-25-24
To try and make sure that they bring their cost up, that they improve what they're paying the workforce, and that our workers and our businesses aren't unfairly challenged by the fact that somebody's using child labor or really inexpensive labor. Because we can't pay our workers what we want to pay them if we're buying stuff from overseas for $2 an hour.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Peloton Rises Today 3-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today we're going to talk about Peloton Rises today. So this morning was one of these incredibly unusual days where I slept in and early on in the morning I heard the household's Peloton being used. It feels like Peloton's that subscription that we pay 40 bucks a month for and never ever gets used.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Peloton Rises Today 3-22-25
This morning, I woke up, and two things happened. One, the Peloton was in use, and it seems like forever since that's been the case, I thought somebody must have had a temperature or something was wrong. And two, the Peloton stock was up 3.5% today. And again, you're probably listening to this on Saturday. This is coming out on Friday. But those two things have not happened in a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Peloton Rises Today 3-22-25
The Peloton being used in our house. the peloton jumping uh it's almost like a daily double like a parlay uh now peloton still is down about 22 year to date you got to remember peloton a couple years ago just absolutely got crushed it's up 40 54 over the last year or so and about you know, down 22% this year. But we'll see how it plays through.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Peloton Rises Today 3-22-25
But I know today's got to be some sort of lucky letter day or special day. It's up 3.5%, 3.6%, and it got used in our household. So kudos to Peloton and what they're doing. It's become relevant again, at least in our house. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, NVIDIA & Palatnir 3-22-25
this is scott spector with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is apple nvidia and palantir and here's the discussion on these three apple remains the market cap king sort of like the old bond king uh bill gross or then the the guy at double tree but the bond king apple remains the market cap king it's at 3.24 trillion in market cap now It is down 14% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, NVIDIA & Palatnir 3-22-25
The good news, if you're a competitor, is that it's Peer Group, Microsoft, and NVIDIA is also down significantly. NVIDIA is number two in market cap at about $2.8 trillion, but it's also down year-to-date now about 13% or so, 12.3% or so year-to-date, but some rebound lately. So those two end up where they're at.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, NVIDIA & Palatnir 3-22-25
Palantir, which we follow closely, one of the companies followed by Peter Thiel, is still up year-to-date, now about 18% having a good day-to-date, but it's down about 30%, 40% from its highs. The big concern with Palantir is two-thirds of its revenue is from government contracts, and the great discussion out there is, Where will essentially Doge go after and not go after?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, NVIDIA & Palatnir 3-22-25
I think people that are Palantir people hope that Peter Thiel's and Elon Musk's close friendship will avoid it being a big target, and we'll see how it plays out. But again, that's what's going on right now with the market cap king and NVIDIA and Palantir. Palantir at risk because of government revenues. NVIDIA has had some rebound, but still number two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, NVIDIA & Palatnir 3-22-25
And then Apple, which is still doing fantastic at $3.24 trillion in market cap, is down for about $3.7. At one point, it was getting very close to $4 trillion. So it's down from where it was, but still overall in really good shape. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Carvana – Do You Believe Their Financial Statements? 2-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We often talk about companies that use smoke and mirrors to deliver their results. And one of those companies, in my perspective, is largely Carvana, the car company. Now, they're down about 15%. This last week, they were up crazily the last couple of years after some scandals years ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Carvana – Do You Believe Their Financial Statements? 2-22-25
And one of the things that you get with Carvana is this constant effort to say, our profits are this, our income is this. It reminds me almost, and I hate to use this name in vain because I'm a huge fan of Jack Welch, who used to manage his earnings reports. And Carvana seems to pull lots of different levels to manage their earnings reports.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Carvana – Do You Believe Their Financial Statements? 2-22-25
One of the things that we're finding is the street is getting less excited about this management and thus much more aggressive about pricing what they think is real versus Memrex. So that's one of the things we're watching today is Carvana down again today for the second day in a row by a big amount, down 15% for the week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Carvana – Do You Believe Their Financial Statements? 2-22-25
We'll see if that lasts, but I find it absolutely fascinating to watch what's going on with Carvana. And I do believe they're one of the leaders in this concept of essentially playing smoke and mirrors with how they describe their earnings and what's going on with them. So again, that's Carvana, again, down now this week, but up year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Carvana – Do You Believe Their Financial Statements? 2-22-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try and bring you current business news on a really regular basis. We try and make sure you're learning something, we're learning something. There's obviously a whole set of stocks that we follow closely. One of those that I watch sort of from a distance is RH, Restoration Hardware.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
Thank you very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
And why do I watch Restoration Hardware? I watch Restoration Hardware because there are two things. One, they're sort of an upper class furniture brand, lower upper class, upper class. But two, they sort of position themselves in how you walk into the store as about the most snobby sort of retailer you can get, where somebody looks at you, immediately sizes you up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
It's like going to the car dealership, where if you don't look how they think you should look, they almost don't talk to you. Whereas if you look professional, look good, you're wearing a suit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
or you're with you know your your spouse or and they look great then also they talk to you but if not if you're just how i usually dress and i describe how i dress as follows one of my close friends says about me often you dress just like one of my close friends who doesn't care about how they look which i think is a vast vast overstatement so where is this going
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
This is going to my childish pleasure in seeing RH taking it on the chin so far today in this year. They're down about 6.5% today. They're about 12% year to date. They're up about 30% over the last year. But again, you got to remember almost everything was up over the last year. So we tend to dislike the arrogance of RH. And thus we take, of course, I'm not a direct holder in RH.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
RH Stumbles & I Can’t Help but to Cheer 2-22-25
So I take a little bit of childish pleasure and then being down almost 7% today. I know that's childish. I'd love your thoughts on this podcast on what you think of RH. If you text me your thoughts on RH on this podcast, the text is 773-766-5322. And you're the first to text me. I'll be happy to send you a 100-hour Amazon gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers Takes it on the Chin 2-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is hims and hers takes it on the chin. So hims and hers has been knocking out of the park up literally so much over the last year and even year to date up almost, I think like 200%, some crazy number. Today, they're down about 20%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers Takes it on the Chin 2-22-25
And one of the reasons they're down is because the FDA has declared that a shortage of one of the weight loss drugs is coming to an end. And this is very, very important because there's been certain telemedicine companies, certain distributors that assumed they had a lock on some of that supply, so everybody goes to them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers Takes it on the Chin 2-22-25
Here what you've got is essentially the government saying that shortage is over, which takes some of the wind of the sales out of hims and hers, which is down 20-plus percent today. A couple of things that we're watching closely. UnitedHealthcare around 8% to 9% today on news of a Department of Justice investigation. And again, you'll hear this on Saturday. These are from Friday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers Takes it on the Chin 2-22-25
Also, Shake Shack, which had jumped yesterday, is down 7.6% today. Finally, I'll make a quick note. I'm thrilled to join the Board of Directors of National Medical Fellowships. National Medical Fellowships is the oldest organization in the country aimed at essentially helping people of color become doctors and medical professionals.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers Takes it on the Chin 2-22-25
My view of the world is we need both more doctors and healthcare professionals, plus we need more doctors and healthcare professionals of color, that it's not a zero-sum game. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. We try and bring to you each day things of interest, news, entertainment, and all on private equity in business, and sometimes just body of life episodes. Today's discussion is, and the title of this is the 15-minute meeting. So one of the companies I work with, schedules all of their meetings as 15-minute meetings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
wanted to speak for longer, but their audience wanted to speak for shorter. So we'd have speakers say, I need more time. And we'd have audience members almost universally say, we need less time. Because the audience doesn't want to sit still for an hour lecture. 30, 40 minutes is more than enough. I think it's a fascinating thing. So I'm a huge fan of this company that does this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
It's a company called Book Launchers. The 15-minute appointment. And I just love what they do with it. It makes everything so much more efficient. And I'll tell you as an aside, one of the people I work with there is a woman named Sarah Bean, who just could not be any better. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
I'm sure not every single one of them, but it seems like 90% of them are scheduled as 15-minute meetings. They call them appointlets, meaning a small appointment. And I think this is absolutely brilliant. And what it does is it forces you to come to the meeting prepared for what you want to discuss or not want to discuss. And they have some flexibility in this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
It's not as though you're on for 15 minutes and they cut the clock immediately. Rather, they let you continue to talk and so forth. But the concept of setting the stage that we're having a 15 minute meeting versus an hour meeting versus a 30 minute meeting, There are so many things that are good about it. It makes for much more effective use of time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
It helps to avoid burnout because you're not sitting there dawdling for an hour over stuff. It just is a fantastic concept and process. We love this concept. We think we have adopted it for our podcast. We almost always set up a 30 minute recording session for our podcast, but often get done. Our aim is to be done in 15 minutes. And I think it's incredibly useful to both the listener and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 15 Minute Meeting 2-22-25
the person who's the podcast guest, and then to myself, of course, and our team, our production team. The other thing I'll tell you is years ago at our conferences, this was before TED conferences and all those kinds of stuff, we moved to shorter sort of sessions, 30 to 40 minutes versus the hour or longer. And what we found was the most fascinating dynamic. What we found was that people –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're joined today by one of our brightest guests, one of the most listened to guests, David Pivnik. David's a partner at McGuire Woods, but he's multidimensional, multifaceted. David, I don't know if you recall this, but back in the day, the set of YouTube videos or posted videos called Rap Battles of History.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
But here's the issue, David. I'll just make a couple of comments in response to what you said. I would warn you to be careful about this ageist commentary about how much time you have to retire, where some of us don't have that much time to retire. It sounds a little bit offensive, but I hear you and I get the point. The point is I'm old and you're young. No, I know that's not what you're saying.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Second is on the rare battles of history. I read the underlying current of it, yes. And one of the other concepts of, and this concept of, we don't know if he's already retired or not, is absolutely offensive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
But the point being, on the rap battles of history, and this is the beauty of a quick mind versus your mind, is I could see Besant, Powell, and I'm not sure I'm pronouncing Besant correctly, and Trump, being a perfect episode of Rap Battles of History, because Trump is trying to constantly push Powell to lower rates.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
And in rap battles of history, they would pit historic figures against each other. Great comedic output. Fantastic stuff. And this might have been before your time because you're still a younger person. But rap battles of history. But my son and I used to love it. And as I watch the dialogue in the financial press today, I'm going to talk to you about two different questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
And Powell, who's got a backbone, constantly says, no, no, we'll do what we think we have to do, what we think is the right thing to do, and beset someplace out there And I think people respect Bessette, quite frankly, but telling corporate CEOs to stop worrying. And they've got these three different dialogues going. And I just find it to be fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
And that's what made me connect the dots, which is which between rap battles of history. Let me go to a different subject. And this is something that's, again, far afield. But I love what's happened. The Chicago Bulls. look like a fantastically better team without their top score for the last several years. They got rid of Zach Levine. All of a sudden, they are playing like a much better team.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Different talent is shown through. How often is it in an organization that you remove a cancer or someone that should be a strength and the organization becomes better? I find it fascinating to watch. Any comments on that? And I don't mean to call Zach Levine, who played no defense, who could score but do nothing else, a cancer because he's not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Seems like a good enough guy, but the team is so much better without him. How does that happen when you take your best, most talented scorer out and the team is so much better without that person?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Thank you. Let me get you another question because I know you're heading towards the airport and an important case, and you're really a brilliant person regardless of how much I like to tease. Talk a little bit about Luka and LeBron. Can Luka and LeBron combine to win it all, or is that going to be a challenge to have them go deep in the playoffs, and are people cheering for them or against them?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
First, you've got Scott Besant, who's Treasury Secretary, saying – Don't worry, stop panicking, telling Fortune CEOs you're all whining and it's all going to be okay. You got Fed Chairman Powell saying we're not taking rates down anytime soon because of inflation, you know, tariffs can cause some inflation and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
One last question. A lot of talk last week about the Blackhawks playing in Montreal. In the Montreal, I think it's the Forum. Is it still the Forum being one of the greatest places to see a hockey game still in hockey? You are an honorary, you are a Canadian, and you're our honorary Canadian. A brilliant Canadian, not one of those Mounties, but just a brilliant Canadian.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Have you been to the Montreal Hockey Stadium? Is it the forum still? And is it as great a place to watch hockey as the Chicago Stadium used to be?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
One last quick question. You're a favorite. You're an avid sports fan. You go all over the country to see events. You take your children. You do an incredible job. Your wife lets you do it. She's probably happy to have you out of the house for a couple of days. I can't even imagine what it's like at that house. But the point, David, being what's your favorite stadium in America to see a game?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
What's your favorite stadium to see a game?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Then you got President Trump, where on every single day, it is unclear what he is saying. What do you make of all this financial news and talk? And does Besant have this right? Does Powell have this right? Do they both have this right? And is Trump just a master negotiator with no equal, or is he problematic in how he's approaching this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Do you consider your current home stadium where the Milwaukee Bucks play? Because I know your family has seized tickets to the Bucks, even though you live in the Chicago area. Is that your current home stadium? Do you consider that your current home stadium? Like the closest to home for you is going to the Milwaukee Stadium.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
Have you ever been called a fib in Milwaukee? And do you know what that means?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
No, no, no. It's not something for primetime. Any great Wisconsinite knows what a fib is. It's something Illinois bastard. The first word we can't talk about. But if you grew up in this area and you did not, you grew up north of the border, but you're still an American today and we still love you. But Fib is a blanking Illinois bastard.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Uncertainty, Leadership Lessons, and Competitive Dynamics with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 4-19-25
It was often called to Illinois people going across the border to Wisconsin. David Pivnik, one of the greatest of all time, literally one of the best people of all time and brightest can be. I appreciate you indulging me on a wide range of questions. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And today's discussion is the role of the CEO, salesperson, police person, or both. So here's the concept. We're a believer that in most midsize organizations and small organizations, the CEO is often the runs the sales team too, is chief of commercial as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
And sometimes when the CEO gets dragged back into this position of being a police person, it's not his or her fault. It's the fault of other senior leaders that are forcing the person back into this situation. But for whatever group you're running at a company, whether it's production, it's sales, it's software development, someone's got to be out there sort of pushing the game forward and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
and trying to make it go. Again, I find this to be a fascinating, fascinating discussion. I see it constantly in organizations, mid-sized organizations, large organizations.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
It is a great luxury in an organization to have somebody side by side with you who can be a police person, an accountability person, so you could do the stuff that you love to do and that drives the firm forward and drives the organization forward. I see these combinations in so many different places and I remember back in the day, there was a there was a you know, this is this will go way back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
There was a combination of leaders that came out of Jenner and Black. Ted Tetzlaff and Rod Joslin and Rod would be sort of the hard guy. Ted would be the driver. And those are fascinating people. And I hope they don't take this negatively. I read it as a fascinating relationship and they did a great job of it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
We've seen so much that over the years, we get one person who's really the growth person, big vision, big everything, the growth person, another person who's the police person. And I think that's a model that works well. Where you get in trouble is when that CEO also has to be at all times the police person. That causes tremendous stress for everybody.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
Again, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope you enjoy this. And thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
And that's a big part of the role is being CEO, leader, strategy, and sales and driving the sales team. As companies get larger, and even in small companies, there's someone in a small or large company that ultimately has to hold people accountable. And sometimes the CEO gets stuck in this role
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
because they don't have a clear enough or strong enough right-hand person who could sort of be the police person and hold the team accountable. And sometimes the CEO is forced into this role because other senior people are constantly nicking at troubles or causing troubles or picking scabs and leading to that. And it puts the CEO back in the role of having to be the
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Role of the CEO: Sales Person, Police Officer, or Both? 4-19-25
police person versus the driver and growth of the business. And at the end of the day, we're huge fans of organizations that have great chief operating officers, great leaders that could do sort of the hard work of keeping everybody accountable while the CEO can pursue growth, strategy, vision, and the big things, the big rocks that have to be moved forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Depressions vs. Recessions & Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets 4-19-25
And we joke about recessions versus depressions. A recession is when the stats show things are going in the wrong direction. Depression is when you lose your job or can't find a job. Two very distinct things. And that's not the true definition of depression, but that's when depression or recession really comes home to roost, when you yourself lose your job. So again, those are the concepts today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Depressions vs. Recessions & Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets 4-19-25
The quote of the day, a bull market is when you check the price of your stock every day to see how much money you've made. A bear market is when you don't bother to look anymore. Thank you very, very much to John Irwin for sharing this with us. We absolutely love it. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Depressions vs. Recessions & Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets 4-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast. Today's discussion is depressions versus recessions in bull markets versus bear markets. So this particular quote comes out of a Twitter site called Compounding Quality. It was shared with me by one of my favorite people, Dr. John Irwin.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Depressions vs. Recessions & Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets 4-19-25
Dr. Irwin is now Chief Medical Officer, I think at Prisma Health System, but a brilliant, brilliant person. So the quote of the day that he shared with me, which I think is so apropos, and we'll talk about this in the context of depressions versus recessions. The quote is this, a bull market is when you check the price of your stocks every day to see how much money you've made.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Depressions vs. Recessions & Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets 4-19-25
A beer market is when you don't bother to look anymore. And the actual quote is attributed to John Hammerslow. And I don't know John Hammerslow, but I just absolutely love that it plays into this concept that we talk about often. Scales in portfolios or pounds in dollars about how I don't want to look at the portfolio when things are going poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Depressions vs. Recessions & Bull Markets vs. Bear Markets 4-19-25
I don't want to go on the scale when I've been eating too much. I just love that. And so I love this quote. You know, bull market, you check your stocks every day. A bear market, you don't look at the monitor or the portfolio. I think that's right on. The next thing I'll mention is this, is there's a discussion here about recessions versus depressions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by regular guest, Rick Kess. Rick talks to us regularly about issues he's watching in private equity and trends he's seeing. Rick, let me ask you to take a moment to tee yourself up. Tell us a little bit about RSM and about yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Then we'll talk a little bit about what trends you're watching currently, whether the market's rebounding, the trade thoughts are going to help the private equity markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Thank you. And at the end of the day, margins and debt, and the cost of debt are still very important. So a company's margins performing, and are the interest rates going to be too high or not, are still very, very important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
And so to your point, even though the public markets explode upward today, that doesn't mean that margins have gotten better for a lot of privately held companies, where the interest rate costs are yet down, where it makes it easier to buy things with financing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Well, it's interesting you say it and that the venture world is also a little bit tighter on investing. That's been for a couple of years from what I could tell. And on top of that, anecdotally, I watched Landman this week, the latest episode or one of the latest episodes. And there, one of the Wildcat drillers was having a hard time getting investment as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
And I say that somewhat facetiously, but it is telling you the times that access to capital is more challenging, particularly unless you have a great balance sheet.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
No, a crazily talented, talented actor and just great, great watching. And I'll ask you another question up that vein as well. Have you watched the show Mobland? Have you watched this show?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Well, in addition to Landman, Landman and Moblin, those are two remarkable shows. It is even more helpful for you. Your point on the difference in the public markets and the transparency there versus the lack of clarity, what's going on in the private equity markets is so helpful and so telling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
But Rick, fascinating to watch and always fantastic to visit with Rick Kess, a brilliant partner from RSM, the best in the business and what they do. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Thank you so much. So the markets have been rebounding recently, almost back to flat year to date, the public markets. Literally, it feels like for the last six weeks, the private equity markets have been on sort of a pause. What is your sense of how those are going to start rebounding or moving? Any thoughts on that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by regular guest, Rick Kess. Rick talks to us regularly about issues he's watching in private equity and trends he's seeing. Rick, let me ask you to take a moment to tee yourself up. Tell us a little bit about RSM and about yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Then we'll talk a little bit about what trends you're watching currently, whether the market's rebounding, the trade thoughts are going to help the private equity markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Thank you. And at the end of the day, margins and debt, and the cost of debt are still very important. So a company's margins performing, and are the interest rates going to be too high or not, are still very, very important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
And so to your point, even though the public markets explode upward today, that doesn't mean that margins have gotten better for a lot of privately held companies, where the interest rate costs are yet down, where it makes it easier to buy things with financing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Well, it's interesting you say it and that the venture world is also a little bit tighter on investing. That's been for a couple of years from what I could tell. And on top of that, anecdotally, I watched Landman this week, the latest episode or one of the latest episodes. And there, one of the Wildcat drillers was having a hard time getting investment as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
And I say that somewhat facetiously, but it is telling you the times that access to capital is more challenging, particularly unless you have a great balance sheet.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
No, a crazily talented, talented actor and just great, great watching. And I'll ask you another question up that vein as well. Have you watched the show Mobland? Have you watched this show?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Well, in addition to Landman, Landman and Moblin, those are two remarkable shows. It is even more helpful for you. Your point on the difference in the public markets and the transparency there versus the lack of clarity, what's going on in the private equity markets is so helpful and so telling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
But Rick, fascinating to watch and always fantastic to visit with Rick Kess, a brilliant partner from RSM, the best in the business and what they do. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Sentiment, Market Momentum & Access to Capital with Rick Kes of RSM 5-17-25
Thank you so much. So the markets have been rebounding recently, almost back to flat year to date, the public markets. Literally, it feels like for the last six weeks, the private equity markets have been on sort of a pause. What is your sense of how those are going to start rebounding or moving? Any thoughts on that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is net worth in America. So there's a tweet in today's or yesterday's Twitter, that says the net worth breakdown by percentile. So it essentially says the top 1%, 12 million and above, 11.6 million and above, the top 2%, 2.7 million, the top 5%, You're basically a millionaire, 1.17. The top 10%, 970,000.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
is almost always in the eye of the beholder because some people think they're poor where by anybody else's standards, they would be very rich. Other people think they're rich, but by the next guy's standards, they're quite poor. So no easy answer on a lot of this stuff, but thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
About 60,000 people in the world worth $100 million or more, about a third of those in the United States. Top 1% by these stats, around $11.6 million. I thought it was a little bit higher. Top 2%, $2.7 million. Top 5%, $1.17 million. Top 10%, $970,000. And top 50%, $585,000. I know these numbers are right or wrong, but it's probably directionally accurate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
And the top 50%, 580,000. Now, I have no idea if those numbers are correct or not. What I do know is there's probably 40% of people in our country that have almost nothing. And that is a self-ashame. I don't have an answer to that. But it's not redistributing money. But directly, these numbers are probably right. The other stat that I know is...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
There's about 30,000 to 60,000 centimillionaires in the United States, of which about a third of those – oh, excuse me – in the world, of which about a third of those centimillionaires, people worth $100 million or more, are in the United States. So anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 people and so forth. have families or households that are worth 100 million plus.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Net Worth in America 5-17-25
And I've always said the top 1%, closer to 15 million were the stats I looked at a long time ago, but this breakdown says 11.6 million. Again, I find these stats always fascinating. When somebody says they're poor, but they're in the top 5%, in the big scheme of things, they've got it pretty good. And of course, poor in financial health,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the British aren't coming, the EU struggles, and more. So here's the story today. The United Kingdom, the great British economy, is moving towards recession. It had negative growth the last two months. Again, the definition of recession is negative growth for two quarters in a row.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
But then I see some of these foreign leaders react to them. I'm reminded that our trade deficits hit record highs the last several years. Our overall deficit record size over the last several years. Then I sort of get on board a little bit. I don't I'm not proud of that, but it's just the human reaction to it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
And it's fascinating for me to watch the different reactions of these different leaders to President Trump. And it is fascinating. And not here nor there on it. There's a lot of pieces to it. The last thing I'll talk about quickly is three stocks that are driving up on Friday. Some of these we've not seen go up in a while. Two of them I hold individually. This podcast will come out on Saturday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
But midday on Friday, Astera Labs was up 8%. It's been down year to date. Palantir, which has been getting crushed, is also up 8%. about 7%. It's still up 12% year to date, but overall it's been a disaster. Astera Labs, which I'm a holder of, is up about 8% today, but it is down literally 46% year to date. So that's not been a great winning stock pick for me. Peloton, Peloton.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
And again, I joke that Peloton, we've got two different subscriptions, one for one of the kids in New York, one in Chicago. both those don't seem to be getting used very much. As far as I can tell, it's up 9% today, maybe because we keep on paying the subscription, but nobody uses it. But it's down 23% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
Finally, I will also take a quick note on Tempest AI owned by one of the richest guys I know. That's up 7% today and still up 33% year to date. So again, Don't worry about the economics of the Levkoski family. They seem to be fine. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, UK growth slows, EU response to Trump, and several stocks we watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
And again, you can't blame this on President Trump that we're seeing this negative impact on the British economy. The second thing you're looking at is the EU economy. getting upset at President Trump for his tariff efforts and so forth. Oh, my goodness. And this is complicated because I'm not a big fan of the tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
And the strange thing that happens in my own mind is that when these other countries respond negatively to President Trump, Then I look at more of the facts of we've had this horrible trade deficit for literally decades now. We've allowed other countries to impose tariffs on us, but we've not imposed tariffs on their goods. They've been very protectionist. We have not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
UK Growth Stops, EU Response to Trump + Several Stocks We Follow 3-15-25
And then all of a sudden I find myself in this reactionary mindset, not cheering against President Trump and his terrorist efforts, particularly when the French complain about, you know, what they've been selling to us and how it's going to be too expensive to sell to us and so forth. I sort of I hate the back and forth of the Trump tariff policy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Matt Wolf. Matt is one of our most listened to guests. He's a senior sort of leader in valuation at RSM. RSM is the leader in sort of mid-market private equity. We're going to talk today about the exit environment and sort of what's going on there. There's been this delay in exits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
Yeah, so there's so many pieces that you're talking about that are so fascinating. One is you see on private equity funds, so much of the success depends on the vintage. If you were in a vintage fund, we're in a period of escalating multiples. Everybody did well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
You almost had to just keep things even and use it well just through the arbitrage of multiples or stacking some stuff on and growing bigger EBITDA and having the multiple arbitrage. When multiple arbitrage goes away and there is none of that now, then you're in a spot where you're really between a rock and a hard place because margins have gotten tighter in some of these businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
We've seen some of the big, big fund companies report KKR and Carlyle Group, all cleaning up on fee income. But the reason their stocks took another chin after their earnings releases was the concept that they're actually not making a lot of money in that 20%, the profit on the exit. So the 2 and 20, the 2 is going great. They're also making money in a lot of other ways.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
So not necessarily outperforming and there's no multiple arbitrage. So I hear from plenty of LPs that, of course, we'll see this cycle is not doing nearly as well as the S&P during this cycle.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
And then second, not really looking for the IRRs of what they wanted to get, but will be happy to get out of this with their capital intact and a little bit more money, some return, so that they're at least in the hunt to re-up and figure out where they're allocating their next set of funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
In your point on hold periods, private equity funds famously five, seven years, venture capital funds a little bit longer than that. But the point is so right on that when you look at this, the family offices, many of them have a much longer hold to rise, particularly their cash generating businesses versus something like this where someone's really trying to flip it within five, seven years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
So really an interesting set of circumstances. Matt, any more thoughts there? What else do you see? What else are you hearing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
because I'm not necessarily gonna get the potential arbitrage that would have come with another 100 basis points reduction or 50 basis points reductions where capital actually got cheaper, financing got cheaper, and people were quicker to pay up for stuff. And then you're so right in that there was a period of time where financing was so cheap
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
The private equity funds outbid everybody on everything. Now you're getting to a spot where family offices and strategics sometimes could be in the game as well that aren't so reliant on low-cost financing. What a fascinating situation, Matt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
But the 20%, they're struggling because not enough exits. Matt, talk about exits, the family office environment, the general environment. Tell us what you're seeing out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
I mean, certainly in the healthcare sector, there's a report today that Doge sees $800 billion in cuts in healthcare. You know, obviously that just is... I think it's both unrealistic and it's also scary because if you're an investor in that sector, you just see a giant whoosh of dollars out of that sector. I don't think people think it's really going to happen anywhere near that extent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
And obviously, the president and Doge have to be quite careful not to do what they would do in business and aggressively cut costs, but throw us into a recession here because that's not going to play well either. So really a challenging set of circumstances. But as an investor in health care, when you see those potential cuts, that's a little bit scary. We'll see how it goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
It is because it's a delicate balance of so many things we're trying to keep together and To make this all work is absolutely right. I mean, it's not just it's not a one off. We're trying to keep the safety net system together. And a lot of things we do don't necessarily make sense in a vacuum, but they're all part of a picture to keep a safety net together. And that's part of the challenge of it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
You're absolutely right. And to keep hospitals thriving, which we ultimately need. And COVID helped to show that we need them that much more. So no, I couldn't agree with you more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Exits and the Evolving Role of Family Offices with Matt Wolf of RSM 2-15-25
No, 100%. Matt, I want to thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. It's always fantastic to visit you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI & Private Jets 2-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Tempest AI and private jets. So here's the story on this. Tempest AI was founded by a brilliant, brilliant business person who also founded Groupon. He owns part of the great coffee chain in our area that I absolutely love called Hometown Coffee.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI & Private Jets 2-15-25
It's just an absolute genius when it comes to financial things and building net worth. I think the richest guy in Illinois. So Tempest AI, the most recent company that really drove and funded and made go is up, I think, 100 something, 50 percent year to date. So a home run hitter of all sorts. Now, what I'm thinking is this guy has a private jet.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI & Private Jets 2-15-25
Some of our other close friends fly in the private jet often. I never do. And I'm not a very close friend of the person, even though I think he's a terrific person. But what I'm going to do is give my phone number out. 773-766-5322. And I'll tell you, this is the deal today on Tempest AI. The first person that texts me and says, private jet gets a $100 Amazon gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI & Private Jets 2-15-25
If the guy who found a Tempest AI texts me, He gets a $200 Amazon gift certificate, although I think it's worth like $10 billion, so probably doesn't need the $200 Amazon gift certificate. But those are the two great challenges today. The first person that texts 773-766-5322 and says Tempest AI or private jet gets $100 gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI & Private Jets 2-15-25
If the person who did this all texts me, he gets a $200 gift certificate and will give it to the charity of his choice or to him. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hanes Underware 2-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and again, the podcast is ranked number one in the United States today for business news, so bear with me. And no matter how ridiculous you think that this is, there's at least a lot of people that listen, so God bless you all. So today's discussion is Hanes, Hanes Underwear.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hanes Underware 2-15-25
Hanes underwear took it absolutely on the chin yesterday. It went down 18.5%. I take it it's a total coincidence that that went down the same day that hims and hers went up, which seems strange to me and not really a connection. But the point being here. Hanes makes great products. They make great products at non-premium prices.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hanes Underware 2-15-25
So I can buy my five pairs of boxer briefs from Hanes for $20 at Target. I can buy the three to five t-shirts that I love more than my Viore t-shirts, more than my Lululemon t-shirts. I like the Viore t-shirts. I hate the Lululemon t-shirts. It is what it is. But the Hanes black t-shirts, the basic ones, I just absolutely love.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hanes Underware 2-15-25
So notwithstanding the fact that I have this love affair with Hanes, not with hims and hers, so bear with me, Its stock dropped 18.5% yesterday. I feel like, and this is really a call out to our listeners, I feel like I'm doing everything I can to support Hanes. I would ask others to help join in that as well. And in any event, Hanes gets crushed down 18.5% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hanes Underware 2-15-25
We'll see if that gets better. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Key Stocks to Watch 2-15-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This podcast is going to briefly go through five stocks and what they're doing. We'll release this on Saturday the 15th, so hopefully this is still current. There's not been big reversals since this happened. But just to go through five stocks. First, Crocs Inc. rose nearly 24% on Thursday morning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Key Stocks to Watch 2-15-25
I mean, that is just incredible that people still wear Crocs and God bless Crocs. Second, Hanes Brands took it on the absolute shin, dropped 18.5% yesterday. Didn't see that coming. I'm a huge Hanes fan. Third, Airbnb is up about 15% today. They're doing just terrific. We'll see if that lasts. Fourth, SoundTown, which has been a home run hitter the last year or so, is down about 40% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Key Stocks to Watch 2-15-25
We'll see if that continues or if they're able to reverse that fortune and move back in the right direction. Finally, fifth, you know, I have Apple. Apple is down a few percent this year to date. but is still the absolute market cap king at $3.62 trillion. So we'll see if that continues. Apple's number one. Number two, Nvidia, Jensen's won back at number two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Key Stocks to Watch 2-15-25
And Microsoft, the house that Bill Gates built, the house that Tatia Nadella runs, is number three in market cap. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you text me in this episode... We'll send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate if you're the first. 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by David Pivnik. David's a partner and helps to head up litigation at McGuire Woods. He does a ton of white-collar litigation, particularly in the healthcare sector. But we talk about a broad range of subjects.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
It's amazing you find the time for that, given how much you should be working as well. But no, it is really something. In any event, no. In all seriousness, David Pivnik, one of the best of best lawyers, partners, people I know and get a chance to work with, valedictorian from his law school class. He is what we essentially think of as bright, bright, bright, really, really smart lawyer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Really, really smart. David, thank you so much for joining us, as always, on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We are huge fans of Canada, Mexico, and all of our neighbors. And thank you for being a part of the United States now. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
David's one of the brightest people I've ever had a chance to work with and visit with, so I love getting to get a chance to visit with him. He's also a specialist on all things Canada, as he holds dual citizenship between Canada and the United States. David – Talk to us about the sort of Canada-U.S. relationship currently. I think the Canadian prime minister was just here. What's going on there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Your point is so well taken. It's what President Trump thought of as sort of humorous and funny led to the galvanizing behind Carney as the new prime minister when people thought Pierre, I forget his last name, was going to win. He was...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
to win, and then this got going, and all of a sudden, they had a backlash against being anywhere too close to the United States, and having the Conservative Party win in Canada, and you had the Liberal Party win in Canada, and that's what you ended up with, and it's fascinating, isn't it? Right, they seem to have a relatively sedate meeting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Carney made some headlines by saying, we're never going to be the 51st state, and obviously, all of us, I think, know that that's not reality, Canada becoming the 51st state, where a Billion reasons, most of which the Canadians, that's not what they want. But fascinating, fascinating discussion. Well, let me take you to another subject that as a Canadian, you are brilliant on, brilliant.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Talk to us about the NHL playoffs scenario. There's been some remarkable game sevens, and I know there's a lot of romance to be lost in this, but this is one of the subjects that all Canadians know well, which is hockey. Talk to us about both the NHL draft, the Blackhawks, our beloved Blackhawks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
We're the second worst team in the league, came in third in the draft lottery, and then also the NHL playoffs because I just watch snippets of it when my Blackhawks aren't involved. But there's been some insane game sevens where teams have had these crazy comebacks. What should we think about this? What are you watching? What's top of mind for you?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
What are you watching? What's top of mind for you currently? I know you're dealing with some very high-ticket litigation matters currently, but what are you thinking about? What's going on with the U.S.-Canadian relationship?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
And they thought they did that this off season. What about the coaching situation? I know that they were going to interview coaches and interim coach. Has that been decided or where are they at on that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Got it. Okay. So we've heard enough about Canada because nobody cares that much. And we heard enough about hockey is nobody cares that much. Take us through, you know, either something on the, you know, take us through maybe what's going on in the NBA playoffs. I think many of us were so thrilled to see the Lakers get knocked out and The Timberwolves look tough.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Anthony Edwards, who is prolific in many ways, just seems like a star. What's going on with the NBA playoffs? You watch it, of course, and I do understand it better than I do. What's happening there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Are the ratings not where they should be because people aren't interested, because there's not big market teams in? Is it because there's all these cable issues where you can't even get some of the games? What's driving the ratings and the decline in ratings? There's been all this talk about, is the NBA on the downswing? Is it not? What's your sense of that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
No, 100%. And LeBron is certainly a second-tier talent compared to Michael Jordan. We agree 100%. Anything else that you're watching closely from the sports or business world currently? I know you're incredibly busy with litigation. We haven't talked about that, nor probably will we today. We've talked about Canada, the NBA, the NHL. Anything else that's top of mind for you currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Well, let me do ask you this question. It seems like the Justice Department, people thought the Justice Department under President Trump might be asleep at the switch, but they seem to be quite active. Any thoughts there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Thank you very, very much. So an active DOJ, Canada-U.S. relationships seem to be thawing a little bit, moving it back in the right direction. Thank God, one of our great, great neighbors. We've talked deeply about hockey. You talked about a player I never heard of, Buddy Held, which must be somebody who's a serious player in the NBA.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
You know, the SGA, the guy in the Oklahoma City Thunder, how do you pronounce his name? He's potentially the MVP this year, right? I mean, how do you pronounce that name?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Canada, Hockey & Healthcare Enforcement with David Pivnick 5-10-25
Well, as you are aware, David, I'm an honorary doctor, not a real doctor. I'm really thankful to be honored. It was so, so nice of the Medical School of Northeast Ohio University, a medical university, magnificent. They've done an incredible job of building that program. But it doesn't mean that I have time. to follow the NBA and the NHL and Major League Baseball and pro football like you do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is hiring and talent, five core thoughts. So this came out of a discussion recently with a brilliant entrepreneur who had just had a challenging hire and we were discussing it and just reminded us of some of the rules and thoughts we have on hiring. So rule number one is, is when you hire somebody,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
But at the end of the day, it's really a guesstimate when you hire somebody and there's a lot of probability to it. The third concept is in any hire, reliability is foundational. Someone could be fantastic at a million levels, but if they're not ultimately reliable, then you can't make it work. The fourth concept really goes hand in hand with that one is somebody could be crazily talented.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
They could be brilliant. They can be fantastic with clients. They can be great with customers. But if they're not, at the end of the day, reliable and don't show up on time, we always talk about showing up on time is 80% of any job. So where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there, that's 80% of the battle. And as Yogi Berra would say, the other 80% is talent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
I say that jokingly, but you can have all the talent you want in the world, but if you're not willing to do the job every day and be reliable, it doesn't matter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
The fifth concept is once you find that something is fundamentally wrong with the hire and you can't rehabilitate that hire, you can't guide them to doing what they're supposed to do, you likely need to move forward with going different ways and not to prolong the pain. As one great leader said, you have to rip the Band-Aid off.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
I don't know if I'm that harsh about it, but I think there's a lot of decent for that. Again, this is today's discussion. Hiring and talent, five core thoughts. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
You never truly know what you have in that person until they start with you and start to work with you. We've had so many hires over the years where somebody came in and we thought they'd be an all-star and they weren't, or we thought they would be challenging and they ended up being great. So you never know what you have until you've hired somebody and until you've worked with them for some time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
Some of the best people I work with, I wouldn't have known up front that they were going to be the best, best teammates and colleagues and so forth. So that's number one. Second is don't beat yourself up over bad hires. You have to learn from bad hires or hires that don't work out, but you can't get gun shy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
One of the things that we talk about in growing organizations is situations where a leader – get so flummoxed by a bad hire that they're then scared to hire. The reality is the hiring ratio of what's going to work out versus not. And it doesn't mean you don't have to do this intelligently. You should. And learn from your bad hires. You should.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hiring & Talent: 5 Core Thoughts 5-10-25
But you have to always realize it's an educated guess, an educated gamble. And then you go back to it. And yes, we try and work through core criteria we think about in hiring. Like I hate hiring people that have 10 jobs in 10 years. I just don't believe in that. I do like to hire from people that have performed well in whatever they've done before.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Rules for Investing 5-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So happy recently to pass 7 million downloads with our tremendous team led by Jeremy Korn, Janelle Bunger, and Grace Keller. So just thrilled with that 7 million downloads on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast and highly ranked on the Apple rankings. So here are six quick rules for investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Rules for Investing 5-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Rules for Investing 5-10-25
One, buy and hold for the long run. Just, just, Have enough money in equities. Keep it there for the long run. That's number one. Second is think index funds versus individual stocks. And again, going back to number one, buy and hold for the long run. Don't jump in and out of individual stocks. Really stick to index funds and don't jump in and out of them. Third is don't try and time the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Rules for Investing 5-10-25
This is a fool's errand. Don't try and time the market. So those are three rules so far. The fourth rule is know your allocation of assets, your equities to bonds, to cash. And my own thought is you need a conservative enough allocation that you don't want to sell into dips. You don't want to sell in the market crashes. You don't panic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Rules for Investing 5-10-25
Fifth, which is also very important for maintaining that buy and hold strategy for the long run, is have enough emergency funds that you don't panic when things go in the wrong direction. You always have to have enough emergency funds so you don't have to panic. And the sixth is an anti-fragile rule. I don't care what all the advisors say.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Rules for Investing 5-10-25
Don't over-indebt yourself, one of the mortgage or anything else. Don't buy stocks on margin. Don't borrow to do investing. Keep on putting money away. Put in index funds. Buy and hold. Don't time the market. Know your allocation. Have an emergency fund. And don't get yourself over-leveraged. As we often say, Debt kills countries, companies, and families.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Funds, Exits & Multiples 3-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is private equity funds, exits and multiples. So here's a quick take on this. What you've seen over the last three to four years is the cost of financing go up and thus the multiples that are paid for private equity sponsored deals soften or go down or stay flat at best.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Funds, Exits & Multiples 3-8-25
We always love to entertain reader questions. If you have a suggestion, a thought, please feel free to reach out to Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. And we'd love to address your questions, your thoughts, what you're concerned about. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Funds, Exits & Multiples 3-8-25
This has led to lots of private equity funds with two sets of problems. One, their company's margins that they're invested in are going okay, not great. Bolton's have gotten harder and harder, so there's not been easy growth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Funds, Exits & Multiples 3-8-25
And more so, the big artificial problem is, in the old days, even if that was the case, operations were flat, but you grew a bigger company through Bolton's, or you were doing okay, slight organic growth, you could exit as long as multiples were going up. Now you've got a situation where multiples are not going up. So you've got to actually grow EBITDA to get an increased value for a company.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Funds, Exits & Multiples 3-8-25
And that's become harder and harder in inflationary times. Somebody asked me in a reader question, when will multiples get better? And at the end of the day, they probably won't really get better until we're at a spot where the cost of debt, the Fed cuts rates and the cost of debt go down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Funds, Exits & Multiples 3-8-25
And that could still be some time because we're still seeing inflation, even though we are seeing a softening job market. So we'll see how this all plays through. In any event, Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This question about exits and multiples came from a reader of the Becker Private Equity and Business newsletter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So today's discussion is around money managers. Why are all the money managers pushing investment in private equity vehicles and similar vehicles? And this is a fascinating discussion. And it's really the same reason why you see companies like BlackRock trying to move towards private equity, not just the public markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
with generally the 2% and 20% structure, whereas in traditional money management, you're looking at less than 100 basis points. So again, there's reality and there's self-interest, a lot of reasons why the money managers are after the private equity dollars too. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
If you have any questions about this or want to discuss it, feel free at any time to contact Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
So there's many things at play here, but there's two, one that's real and one that's self-interest. The first real one is that. There's only so much availability of public companies to invest in, and thus to have full exposure to the markets, to be able to even out returns over time, you probably need some exposure to private equities and to private investments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
But private investments are not all made equal. They are all over the board. Some good, some bad. I recently had another private investment that lost everything. So there's just a mix out there, and you have to be very careful in the private investment world. But why this morning when I talked about allocation of assets, I hear from two different money managers about private investments.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
And again, one is that reason that it's actually an important part of the portfolio. The second reason is all the investment managers
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Why Money Managers Are Pushing Private Equity 3-8-25
do okay on bonds they do better in equities and they do even better in terms of their incentive structure on private investments and private equities thus there's a sort of this ladder of what they get paid in the commission structure it's why blackstone is so much more valuable than black rock even though blackstone holds about a tenth of the assets that black rock holds because the business is a more profitable business
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to be coming to you today with a studio audience, so we're excited to be here with an audience. Today's discussion, and every day we try and teach, to learn, to entertain, make sure I'm learning, you're learning,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
Now here's the problem. We use the government deficit and the government spending to sort of juice the economy and keep it growing. The most recent numbers last year or so, and these are horrible numbers, we got 3% growth as an economy on 8% debt as a fraction of sort of deficit spending as a fraction of GDP. So it's a horrible, horrible numbers, but we sure like that growth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
so here's where the rubber hits the road if elon and team are actually successful at cutting enough government spending and we would encourage them to look to cut a few hundred billion not to try and cut a trillion at a time but to sort of work through this and the great challenge is might not be an office of four years so afraid not to cut a lot of it now
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
But if we have to get it somewhat in order, but if we do it too aggressively, it really harms the economy and the growth in the job market and everything else. So you've got this very balanced challenge of all of us know we've got to cut the deficit. This was a big discussion yesterday, though. But if you're in health care, like everything else, you don't want the deficit cut there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
Thrilled this last week to pass almost 23 million downloads between the Private Equity podcast and the Becker's Healthcare podcast. So God bless all of you who listen. Thank you. Today's discussion is doge, doge, doge. So here's the situation. This Department of Government Efficiency, this is a concept originally Vivek and Elon needed. It seems like Elon has taken it over completely.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
You want to cut someplace else. And this was the great challenge of all this budgeting, whether the tax side or the spending side, everybody wants taxes to spending in order. They just want them in order in a way that works for them. So what's the consequences? The consequences of this is, You're starting to see the community a little bit scared about the potentiality of cuts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
That puts a little bit of freeze in deal work. It also puts a freeze on consumer sentiment. So today, meaning Friday, and this will be released on Saturday, we've got the worst consumer sentiment reading in about seven months. And what that's going to do is hurt the stock market, which is what it's doing today, because people are now concerned again about where is the economy going?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
Also, things are too hot for the Fed to cut rates, but people are very concerned about whether they'll continue to make the living they want to make, whether they'll be able to afford what they want to afford and continue to progress. In any event, that's today's discussion. Doge, doge, doge. A ton of this is unanswered questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
But it's starting to put a little concern in the business and consumer community. And again, I am one of these people that really wants to see this debt get put into order. But the medicine we do sort of take to do so, it can't be like chemo where it might kill us in doing it. So it's really a challenging spot for the government.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
And you're sort of at a spot where President Trump goes back and forth day to day on what things are going to look like. And that's a little bit hard to figure out. from a business perspective. In any event, good luck to Elon in doing this, but let's hope he does it intelligently and not with just a huge knife. We'll see how it goes. Doge, doge, doge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
Vivek, I'm not sure where he is going. But Elon is sort of driving this Department of Government Efficiencies, which essentially is recommendations to Trump and others on job cuts and efficiency and saving money and so forth. So here's sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good is that obviously as a government, we're spending way more than we're bringing in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
I think last year was about $6 trillion spent, $4.3 million brought in. That's a losing number. That's a debt financing number. That's a deficit number that doesn't work. As we talk about often, Deficit kills families, governments. It kills companies. You know, no good.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
DOGE, DOGE, DOGE 2-8-25
I had a discussion yesterday on a podcast where somebody asked me, or a webinar, where somebody said, look, we've got a company that's, we've had it for five years in our portfolio. Debt is seven to 10 times EBITDA. Are we stuck? And the answer is probably yes. So too much debt, no good. So I want the concept of Department of Government Efficiency looking at debt. Now that's the good.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. One of the things we do every week is try and take suggestions from listeners for topics. Today is one of those days, and we're going to discuss cars as status symbols in American history.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Like one of my best friends would say to me, you know, he's a person who doesn't care how he looks and nobody knows about what he's doing, but, but he doesn't care how he looks. And he would say that sort of like pejoratively, but positively about not being status driven and so forth. So for a very long time, I drove what I would think of as,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Not particularly pretentious status driven cars and so forth. And, you know, always had a Jeep Cherokee, still do. Always had, you know, originally my first car was a Chevy Monte Carlo that I got when my grandma got very sick. You know, it is what it is. It's how many of us that generation got our cars. But it's a Chevy Monte Carlo. And I just loved it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
And for a very long time, drove cars that said nothing about status and so forth. Then what happens with cars and status symbols, you know, is you get a little bit older and there's two different things that go on. One, you can afford it, but two, and this is the dirty secret, you get a little bit more insecure about your status in life. And everybody's different in this, so bear with me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Some people are not. Some people just love nice cars. Other people end up sort of like, I've got to show the world that I've done okay, so I need a nice car. So my worst instinct, my worst instinct is when I'm feeling down or feeling like, oh, my God, nobody appreciates me. All I need is that Lamborghini SUV, and for about three seconds, I'll get a huge dopamine rush.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
And again, to call this an American story is probably an overstatement because cars have probably been status symbols for a very long time in many different societies. Today's discussion, cars are status symbols. And I could talk to you a few different data points. And some of this can be very anecdotal and personal versus broader and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
When I first pull into the valet EJs, they'll be like, oh, Mr. Becker, you're doing very nicely, stuff like that. Then, of course, that all wears off. But that's where the car status thing drives me in my worst moments. Now, the problem is when you buy that fancy, expensive car, and that would be an insane car to buy and don't think I'll ever do it. And if I do, I'll talk about it on the podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
You say three things. One, you say to the world you've made it, although so many people have cars as false status symbols because they haven't really made it. Second, you say that you're a moron for spending that much money on a car when any kind of car can get you where you got to go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Third is you probably say you're a little bit of a tool because you have to show the world how successful you are. So you're a little bit of a tool. And probably the fourth thing you say, besides you've made it, you're more on your tool, is you're a target. Now you're a target. If Lamborghini, I should be sitting in my driveway. Our house has never been broken into.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
For anybody who's listening, we don't have anything very valuable in the house, so don't break into it. But if you put a Lamborghini SUV in the driveway, and I'd have to put it in the driveway because the different car that gets charged, electric car, not my choice, is in the garage, I would have to put it in the driveway.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
So you end up saying, if you end up with the big flex, with a big car as data symbol, you're saying to my eyes four things. I've made it, though it could be false. I'm a moron, because you are. Two, you're a tool, which you are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
And fourth, you're a target now, because now people think, you know, I remember one time buying a nice Mercedes and having the window broken in right away and getting rid of it, being like, what do I need to be a target for? So that's my odyssey, the American journey on cars. Again, the big luxury car makers are going great. In some ways, they're an easy show, an easy status symbol.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
It's a lot cheaper than buying a house that's a big, big house that comes with taxes forever. It's probably more expensive than buying a nice purse, a nice bag. I don't really wear a purse or bag, but you get the idea, a nice purse or bag. But a lot of guys, too, are big on the Rolexes today, too. That's a way of showing that they've made it and stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Again, thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, Cars as Status Symbols, An American Journey. You talk about showing you've made it, being a moron, being a target, being a tool, all those things. Thank you to the listener who sent this idea in. We absolutely love it. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
First, sales of Lamborghinis and Ferraris, really high end status symbol cars, are going through the rough. Those are just doing fantastic. The Porsche Macan, which a couple years ago was priced at about $50,000,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Now at $70,000, it continues to be the best-selling Porsche because essentially it allows you to have that Porsche logo and drive that Porsche, but at a price point that's not the $200,000 to $300,000 of the Lamborghinis or the Ferraris and so forth. It's just like how Mercedes at one point, Jaguar, all started to go downmarket some to make things a little bit more affordable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
Now Porsche is going again in the opposite direction. That's getting more expensive. And I can tell you my own personal attitude with cars. My father always had to drive a fancy car. It was not particularly well-off, but loved driving the fancy car. It was sort of his way of saying, look, I came from growing up in an apartment with nothing. I'm going to drive a fancy car.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Cars as Status Symbols: An American Story 2-8-25
I was a very successful sales guy. I'm going to show the world I'm doing okay, and I'm going to enjoy it. That was that personal odyssey with cars. My odyssey was different for a very long time. I had this great discipline of driving cars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Darwin, Nikola, and Only the Strong Survive 2-8-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity in in business podcast today's discussion is darwin nicola and only the strong survive so so here's the deal there's four well there's really three major electronic vehicle makers tesla rivian and lucid motors And they're each down about 5% to 7% year to date. And we'll see what happens with these. Tesla, obviously, is the king of all of them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Darwin, Nikola, and Only the Strong Survive 2-8-25
They're the reigning champion. Rivian's number two. Lucid's number three. Rivian's getting help from VW. Lucid's got investors from the Saudis. Another one is Nikola. And I can never pronounce this correctly, so bear with me. But this company was an electric vehicle truck maker plagued by scandals, all kinds of issues. It is down 40% today, and rumors essentially of bankruptcy and just a disaster.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Darwin, Nikola, and Only the Strong Survive 2-8-25
But it's a reminder of this niche concept of Jack Welch's and so many others. If you want to be in the game, you want to try and be a leader, a top one or two player. All the profits go to the top couple, and then at least the monster share of profits go to the top. And then even in bad times, the top, top leaders in an area survive. So Nikola... Darwin, only the strong survive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Darwin, Nikola, and Only the Strong Survive 2-8-25
Another one bites the dust. They're down 40%. They're looking at bankruptcy. Just a bad day, but a great reminder. If you're going to be in a niche, you better try and be a leader in it. We always think about niches. Can you win in the niche? Is it worth winning in? Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Here's a discussion today, and it was inspired by a tweet I'd seen, but it's how we view things. Now we talk about them often. Today's discussion is startups are a five-part funnel. And so the five-part funnel is this. In every place you go down the funnel, there's less and less participants, less and less winners.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
And cashflow and profits still are king. And you got to get there. The fifth thing, which a much smaller amount of businesses get to, is what we think of as scale, where you've really grown a very significant business. In another talk, we'll talk about the evolution of a founder and how you get to scale, but that's a different discussion. In any event, we hope you enjoy this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Again, Scott Becker with you. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
The first point is the idea phase. And ideas are like, as they used to say, I'll use the phrase, excuse me, and I apologize to my producer. Ideas are like assholes. Everybody has one. And I think that's largely true. It's almost like opinions. Everybody's got one. Somebody having an idea, the best idea in the world, people say, oh, my God, that was my idea on somebody else's idea.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
BS, I don't care, irrelevant. The next step is, can you take that idea to product? And this is where you get rid of 80% of people that don't take idea to product to something that they've actually developed to do something with it. The third part, and it's ultimately got to go hand in hand with number two, because so many people forget to commercialize early.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
The third part is, do you ever get to revenues? There was a tweet today by somebody about how your dollar, even though it's so small, is so important directly to where business is going that you've actually gotten to revenues. So now you've come down the funnel a very far point. The next concept is, can you get from idea to to product, to revenues, to profits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5-Stage Startup Funnel 6-7-25
And again, many businesses get stuck there. And at some point, you got to call that an advanced hobby versus a business. Many people lose a lot of money getting revenues, but not to profits. If you're a huge venture capital funded thing, got huge capital behind you, maybe fine. If you're like the rest of us, you can't live in this revenues, but not profit land for that long.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobs, Unemployment, & Oil 4-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is jobs, unemployment, and oil. So here's what's going on with these three. If President Trump wanted to help fight energy inflation,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobs, Unemployment, & Oil 4-5-25
The good news is he's doing a good job because oil is falling precipitously, but maybe for the wrong reason that we're moving towards a worldwide recession where people use less energy. So oil prices down significantly. Jobs. And this is the challenge for President Trump, for Chairman Powell. jobs in March created were pretty good, 230,000.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobs, Unemployment, & Oil 4-5-25
And that's only a problem because you almost see job creation to slow down for Powell to put the brake on rates and feel like he's really got to lower rates. At this point, he's not going to do so until he sees that jobs are really slowing down. And third, the third issue, which I think is fascinating, is unemployment did tick up to 4.2%. Again, I know that President Trump, J.D.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobs, Unemployment, & Oil 4-5-25
Vance are hoping at some point for a rebound in that. in that unemployment rate as maybe more manufacturing jobs will back here. But it is going to be a rocky time as we start to get towards that. The market's now fallen over the last week about 10% between the S&P and the NASDAQ. For those of us that are ardent market watchers, that is no fun. But we'll see what happens.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobs, Unemployment, & Oil 4-5-25
Again, jobs, unemployment, oil, trifecta. Thank you. thank you very very much
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Affirm, Wayfair, & SoundHound 4-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to touch briefly on Affirm, Wayfair, and SoundTown. So these have been some of the fascinating stocks to watch over some period of time. What they all have in common is that they're all getting just absolutely crushed today. Affirm is down about 20% today. I am glad I'm not a holder of Affirm.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Affirm, Wayfair, & SoundHound 4-5-25
It's the sort of payment plans company. Wayfair, which I love their store locally. I might be the only one in the family that does.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Affirm, Wayfair, & SoundHound 4-5-25
is down almost 18 today in soundtown which i cheer for the only reason i even know of soundtown is one of my buddies keeps on bragging about how much money he made in soundtown i've made none i'm not an investor they are now down 67 year to date uh but they're still up over the last 52 weeks 30 percent But that's a big comeuppance for them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Affirm, Wayfair, & SoundHound 4-5-25
I also had a separate podcast, and I won't overdo it, on RH, down 16% today, down 40% yesterday. Again, those are some of the stocks we're watching. What a bloodbath in the markets. Again, you're listening to this on Saturday. I hope whatever you're doing on Saturday, you're not watching the markets, that you're enjoying yourself, you're relaxing a little bit, and you're plugging forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Affirm, Wayfair, & SoundHound 4-5-25
So that's today's discussion. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope to have better news for you next week. This week's been just a bloodbath and an absolutely horrendous, horrendous month. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & the Media: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So here's the notion today. President Trump, the media, the good, the bad, the ugly. So here's what I find fascinating. I saw a piece today that says the S&P 500 is on pace for its longest winning streak in 20 years as it's about nine days in a row of being up. And so I find that fascinating. That's probably the good.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & the Media: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-3-25
And I don't know whether they're called the media or President Trump, the bad and the ugly. But all I can tell you is watching the media reports on over the last several days in two weeks, the first 100 days of President Trump, as though the world was ending, as though this was the worst thing that's ever happened, is really a remarkable thing to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & the Media: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-3-25
Because it's amazing how quiet the media gets when we're now seeing this nine days in a row of the S&P surging and getting back to almost even year to date. So I don't know if you call it the good, the bad, the ugly. I don't know who's going to be irritated by this podcast. But I do find it to be fascinating how polarizing the media is either on the left or on the right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & the Media: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-3-25
How horrible these first 100 days were. You would have thought we had started a nuclear war the way the media was talking. And at the end of the day, now that the markets have recovered some, the media seems wildly quiet. I apologize for offending people on the left or the right, people to the right of me, people to the left of me. Let them be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & the Media: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-3-25
Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Tortoise or the Hare: Microsoft, Apple, & NVIDIA 5-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the tortoise or the hare, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia. So here's the issue today. Microsoft reminds me of sort of the three of the tortoise in the concept that slow and steady wins the race. Microsoft has so many businesses. They're in the basic word business or operating system business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Tortoise or the Hare: Microsoft, Apple, & NVIDIA 5-3-25
They're also in the LinkedIn business, and they're famously now in the cloud business and rocking and rolling there. They are now number one in market cap again at $3.25 trillion as of midday on Friday. They've overtaken Apple, which spent much of the last five years in the number one position. Apple is down at about $3 trillion, $3.04 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Tortoise or the Hare: Microsoft, Apple, & NVIDIA 5-3-25
And then Nvidia, which I think it was the here, although it's given the long, long time they've been in the business, how hard they've worked to build their business, but they had the timing right with the AI revolution and so forth. But I think in this year, because it's more recently that they've become one of the top market cap companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Tortoise or the Hare: Microsoft, Apple, & NVIDIA 5-3-25
But where we're at today, the tortoise and the hare, Microsoft's number one, Apple's number two, and NVIDIA's number three in market cap. It's not too different than some of the people I play sports with that might jump out to leads, but in the long run, I'm more like the tortoise that keeps showing up and keeps on winning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Tortoise or the Hare: Microsoft, Apple, & NVIDIA 5-3-25
I say that last part somewhat facetiously, but the tortoise and the hare, Microsoft number one, Apple number two, NVIDIA number three, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Liz Hutson 5-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's shout out of the day, and this will come out on Saturday, May 3rd, goes to Elizabeth Hudson. So Liz Hudson, who people might not know, is an engineer from the University of Illinois, turned consumer brand zealot in the healthcare sector, then built her own consulting firm,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Liz Hutson 5-3-25
Yes, I know it's closer to 35, but let's just go with 30 to not show the age too much. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you again. The shout out to Liz Hudson. The thank you to Sarah Chalko. Thank you so much. And Liz, thank you so much for being a regular guest on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Liz Hutson 5-3-25
I then became sort of a professional or maybe it's an advanced hobby, public speaker, but when speaking competitions all over the place. So here's why the shout out goes to Wiz Hudson. Wiz is one of the most constructive professional people that I know. You know, think about a concept today of rest, recover, repeat. Because the concept, it might be rest, reflect, repeat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Liz Hutson 5-3-25
But the concept is that just coming off a long week, you need to make sure, take some downtime, recover, relax. I've got to do a webinar this week coming up. So I did a practice of the webinar and sent it out to thousands and thousands of people that, you know, and a great deal listened to it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Liz Hutson 5-3-25
But of course, Liz Hudson is the sole person that made the effort to take the 25 thoughts I put into the webinar and turn that into five different categories that made it a lot more effective and a lot smoother and a lot more right on. So today's shout out of the day, and this is just emblematic of the things that Liz does. So the shout out of the day goes to Liz Hudson, the founder of EGH.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout Out of the Day: Liz Hutson 5-3-25
Whenever we mention Liz Hudson, one of the greats of all time, We also try and mention Sarah Chaco, Sarah Abraham Chaco, who was the person who introduced me to Liz Hudson. And both these two people, Liz and Sarah, are two of the greatest professionals I've had the chance to work with in my 30 years of being a professional.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is Apple, Trump, China, and more. So here's the discussion. Apple's down about 4% today. It's about to fall into second in market cap to Microsoft. Microsoft is about to surpass Apple. Apple is now down at least midday on Friday at $3.04 trillion, $3.08 trillion, where Microsoft started at $3.16 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
But I do think this is a fascinating headline to see Apple move 19 billion chips back to the United States. That's amazing. And some of the production there and whether you like this or not, We can't be in a spot where all of our industry, particularly economic security, global security industry, is sourced in one country that we're just trying to have a detente with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much. New in the DeutschlandCard App. Collect points with your banknotes from DM, Rossmann and many other supermarkets and drugstores. Simply scan banknotes, point and save. Now for free with the DeutschlandCard App.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
But what's fascinating is Apple is going to repurpose some of their chip production to the United States. What it says in the headline today is they're going to move 19 billion chips to the U.S. And again, you could hate Trump. You could like Trump. You could look at the Trump tariff as a disaster. You could look at the Trump economy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
you know, the Trump bump in the stocks last couple of weeks as he's softened the trade stance as a positive. I don't care what you think. All I can tell you is. Getting more chip production back in the United States and having some more manufacturing back in the United States is absolutely critical to the United States' long-term economic and military security.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
We've got some of these things being manufactured here, and we're not totally reliant on them being manufactured in either China or territories that China would like to make China. So however you look at it, yes, Apple – having a tough year so far. The movement to production to India and the U.S. and lessen reliance a little bit on Taiwan and China. probably long overdue and needed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Apple, Trump, China, & More 5-3-25
And just fascinating to watch this, whether you're on the left or the right, it is a fascinating time to watch whether you hate Trump or believe that Trump is good for the country. I don't know. I don't care to engage with people either way that are so crazy on one side or the other. I don't care.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is four thoughts for Saturday. And bear with me on these four different thoughts that have come in very different directions. So the first thought is, I was recently in Park City this weekend, Park City, Utah. And there's so many thoughts that come out of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
And what happens is, economically, it becomes very hard to survive in some of these small little places. My favorite small little place is on the North Shore, probably in the 30 years I've lived there, is this wine bar that used to be there. But again, it couldn't survive on the small traffic. One of the problems with the suburbs, other kinds of places is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
They end up having a very hard time with small places surviving and thriving. We've got a number of great small coffee shops, retards, hometown, and others. But in terms of restaurants, there's five to seven great restaurants. I put the Abigail's right at the top of that. I love Pomeroy. I love a few other places. But there are very few great places.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
We spend time at Happen and Little Ricky's, too. I'm the only person in the family that would go to Little Ricky's. But it used to be called Little Ricky's. Now it's called Little Honeycomb. But the same concept is true.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
There's only X amount of places that people really like going to and the ones that you really love, whether it be a barbecue or the place, the wine bar, all seem to get closed down over time. So that's the second thought of the day. The third thought of the day is dentistry.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
And again, whenever I comment on dentistry, I feel like Charles Barkley commenting on San Antonio and the big woman there, and he offends somebody. But dentistry has become one of the great records in our society. You go to the dentist, and they're always trying to push you on the x-rays and the extra services. The dentist comes in for about 10 seconds to make sure that the dentist can bill.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
But the thing that struck me the most was, here's a town that's enjoying explosive growth. And that's a good thing that there's explosive growth. The bad thing is, in trying to park a car Saturday night, or it wasn't Saturday, it was Thursday night in Park City, it was impossible to do so, literally impossible to do so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
Well, the dental hygienist, the one that I go to, I love the dental hygienist. She's just fantastic. The least painful, makes it the easiest thing to get through, and so forth. But dentistry has become a complete racket. We're always looking for more ways to rack up the bill with less work. And I think it's fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
And I don't mean that as a knock on dentists and any more than Charles Barkley means that a knock on the big old woman of San Antonio. I don't know if that's true or not, but Charles Barkley is funny when he talks about it. And I don't mean to piss off all the dental people, but it does seem like it is a racket. And that's the third point for the day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
The fourth point for today is we are recording today a couple of our podcasts in the airport. And what's amazing to me is, and we try and find a quiet spot where we can do this and not drive people crazy. But what blows me away is I find a quiet spot, people move towards me. It's how everybody has earbuds on, everybody's headsets on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
So it's not nearly as annoying to other people as it otherwise would be. And I'm very sensitive. I'm at least 45th in the next person. We're trying not to drive people crazy. But I find it fascinating to see what's going on here. And, you know, in this, you know, in the... being able to record and talk in a voice that works for the podcast, which is reasonably so, and not drive other people crazy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
Simply amazing to me. Again, those are four thoughts for Saturday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you so much. And thank you. Two of these four suggestions come from one of our favorite listeners. Thank you so much for sending in the suggestion. Thank you very, very much. We owe you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
So it led us out of Park City to go someplace else to eat that night and have a drink that night. And I think it's really a fascinating situation. When developers take over and there's no check on development, things go haywire. And that's what you're seeing in Park City. Park City is one of my favorite places in the world. Park City, Deer Valley.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
But currently, even though skiing is overall wonderful, even though one of my buddies skis too fast and ended up in the hospital, it's a situation where Park City was almost a total disaster on Thursday night. And I think it's going to, quite frankly, get worse. I can't even imagine what it's like during spring break week and spring break month. But what a disaster.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
And the opposite right now of sort of the travel publicity or the local travel publicity for Park City, because it was literally a disaster on Friday and this week. There was a crowding in town. That's a salute to zoning and to letting developers take a little bit of a chin and not going crazy with so much development. The second thing we'll talk about today is how do you end up in certain places?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Saturday 3-1-25
In today's discussion, it's Chicago's North Shore, where there's only so many good restaurants to go to. You keep on rotating to the same restaurants, and how do you end up just naturally with favorites and places you want to go? And the question is, Why aren't there more small, good little places to go to?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion comes out of planning a day and triggering moving in the right direction. So all of us end up in situations where every day or often we're trying to get ourselves moving in the right direction and we're trying to find momentum for the day or whatever our goals are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
I'm so thankful to the listener who sent in the idea for the day. That listener is a wonderful person and one of my favorite people in the world. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
And everybody has different ways of trying to get themselves going in the right direction. But the common theme is, it's often the case that getting one small thing done that makes you feel a little bit better, views you with confidence and positivity for the rest of the day. So that's really the concept today. And a lot of it's understanding, what are those things?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
Where myself, it's typically doing some writing in the morning, getting some exercise in the morning, taking care of a couple core things. Then I'm generally in a more positive spirit for the rest of the day. If one of those two things doesn't happen, I'm generally a disaster. For many other people, it's very similar. And a lot of it is deciding what are those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
I know, for example, there's the book by the famous author, the famous Navy SEAL about make your bed. And it's not so much making your bed in a vacuum is so important, but it's a concept of finding momentum for the rest of the day and triggering yourself in the right direction. I think this is true for so many people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
If you could find those triggers, the triggers in the bad direction, the triggers in the right direction, you can live a much more functioning, great life day to day when you aspire to do the things you want to do. And there's all this discussion about not just doing the, you know, doing things, but doing the most important things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Key Actions to Win the Day 3-1-25
And I don't want to dissuade you from that concept of really prioritizing what's important and what has to be done and what are the major goals for the day. But at the same time, I think it's very, very important people that have routines and can trigger themselves in the right direction can be much more effective in getting towards those big, big priorities. So I'm a huge fan of this concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Freak Out When Your Stocks Drop 3-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is don't freak out when your stocks drop. So here's the discussion. And again, I'm a big believer that it's a lot easier not to freak out if you've got a great emergency fund. And you also understand the allocation of assets. You're not overweighted towards equities versus bonds versus everything else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Freak Out When Your Stocks Drop 3-1-25
Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Freak Out When Your Stocks Drop 3-1-25
But again, don't freak out. So these lessons really comes out of Palantir. And again, many of these things that I use for discussion here come out of personal experience. So Palantir over the last week to two weeks, it just got crushed. And that could be enough for someone like me to freak out and pull the trigger and sell my Palantir on the dip because at the end of the day,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Freak Out When Your Stocks Drop 3-1-25
I am a little bit of an anxious investor, although I've done a great job of maintaining my allocation of assets at a level that works for me. So I don't freak out like I used to at one time, but I am an anxious investor. So when you're an anxious investor, Sometimes you have to go back to the facts. And so here are some of the facts on Palantir.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Freak Out When Your Stocks Drop 3-1-25
At the end of the day, it's still up year-to-date about 11%. It's up over the last year 243%. Now, again, I didn't get the whole benefit of that 243% because I invested somewhere in between. Yes, it's down this week 17%, which is a disaster and enough to scare people like me who are nervous investors. But that stated, you have to look at this entire context that don't freak out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Freak Out When Your Stocks Drop 3-1-25
It's down 70 percent this week, but it's only it's up still 10 percent year to date toward 40 percent over the last year. So it really moves to how do you look at it long term versus short term? And trying to just sort of breathe and hold it and not go overboard with making quick actions on it. So thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ignore Momentum Investing 3-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is don't be a momentum investor. So one of the stupidest things we ever hear from investment blogs, investment newsletters, trackers of the market is momentum investing. That this stock has momentum investing this momentum.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ignore Momentum Investing 3-1-25
The same concept is when that momentum goes the wrong direction that you sell out of that stock. And what I afford in the long run is that the most important thing, or the most important thing is your allocation of investments so you can live with the ups and downs of the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ignore Momentum Investing 3-1-25
But after the allocation of investments, the most important thing is whatever stocks you're investing in, whatever your investment theory is, it's conviction around what you're investing in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ignore Momentum Investing 3-1-25
When you have conviction around the investment, okay, I'm investing this for a specific reason, and you know why you're investing in it, then you could sort of go through the ups and downs and study the ups and downs and sort of live with them, knowing that in the long run, you're holding this for the very long term. Sort of how Warren Buffett invests.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ignore Momentum Investing 3-1-25
In contrast, if you start to believe in momentum investing, which to me is a lot like timing the market, you're almost always certainly going to end up not doing very well. So the advice today is ignore momentum investing and stick to your basics. So that's the concept today. Don't have deep convictions. Get your allocation right and ignore the timing, ignore the momentum investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ignore Momentum Investing 3-1-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, which is an ample one for this week, is sort of the the The sense of market gyrations and the need for allocation of your assets. So here's the discussion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
We had literally a record month almost of downloads on the podcast, ranked in the top 10 a few days this week, number one on the Apple Business News Podcast. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
So this has been a fascinating day in the market and the kind of market day or week that reminds one of how important asset allocation is and how important time in the market is, long time in the market is. So here's the issue. Early this week, the market was routed. The NASDAQ down 3% to 4%. The S&P down 2.5% to 3% after the discovery of this deep seek thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
And so what's happened is we rolled forward five days. The NASDAQ for the week is down about a quarter of a point versus down four points. The S&P very similar is at the end of the day going to end the week just fine in the big scheme of things. And the Dow is going to end up 1%. Now,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
If you have the wrong asset allocation and you're totally into something that you can't live with behaviorally, let's say you're totally 100% into equities, you might have panicked when the deep seat thing happened and the market dropped 4%. If you did and sold on that dip, you would have been in a horrible spot as the market ultimately ended up recovering this week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
If in contrast, you have a market allocation, let's say 50% stocks, 50% bonds that you could live with, you would have ended up the week basically even and not made the mistake of selling into the panic on Monday or Tuesday. I think it's a fascinating thing. And the real lesson here is the long-term is time in the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Gyrations and the Need for Allocation of Your Assets 2-1-25
And the second thing is having an allocation you could live with so you're not tempted or you don't panic and sell into the dip when things go poorly. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We are so thankful to our listeners.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the evolution of self-awareness. So here's the issue, and I think almost all of us deal with this, either business or personal capacity, is the different stages of self-awareness. And I sort of look at this as three different types of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
But it's a constant evolution of self-awareness and how you act in response to understanding your self-awareness, or are you just totally oblivious to it? Now, the flip side is some of the people that are totally oblivious to it end up being hyper-successful in life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
I remember we used to talk about people – I remember a young investment banker we used to work with, and we used to refer to that person as – is confident and stupid. And that confident and stupid thing might be a great way to go through life sometimes because the person was crazily confident in what they were doing, even though we all found the person to be very dumb.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
But to our chagrin or positivity, that person became crazily successful. So it is what it is. But I do think this constant journey to self-awareness how you're coming across, how you're impacting others, how your talking impacts others, what you're saying, where your filter is, where it's not, where it should be, where it's not, are really constant things to learn and live by.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
And I think many people that I see in life get better and better at this over time. Again, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Today's discussion from one of our favorite people in the world, a best friend, is self-awareness, in the journey of self-awareness. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
There's one – there's those people that either you'd call them incredibly emotionally intelligent out of the womb or crazily self-aware out of the womb that have always sort of been self-aware of how they come across and how they impact others.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
Then I'd say there's a second category, which I'd probably put myself into, where you're sort of this mix of self-aware, emotionally intelligent, but with plenty of flaws and plenty of challenges, where some days you're really aware of what you're coming across, and other days you're aware of it, but can't control yourself, even though you should. And then the third is the type of person...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
I've come across plenty of these in my professional capacity that are really completely unselfaware of how they come across. And these might be people that are terrific lawyers or terrific people, but don't really understand how they're coming across and how they're dealing with others. They just totally sort of lack that genetic understanding of how they're hitting another person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
And I think that the goal in life is to be more self-aware versus less self-aware, but not so self-aware that you drive yourself crazy or so sensitive to it. So I'll give you an example. There are days, of course, where I wake up irritable or anxious and to be aware that you're in that spot and how you're going to come across to others.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Evolution of Self Awareness 2-1-25
Or there's days where as an entrepreneur, we are so shamelessly promoting things and have to understand that sometimes when you get pushback or negativity on it, you have to then choose, can you continue to push forward even understanding that you're not coming across how you want to come across because you're trying to figure out how to sell something or develop a product, market, or fitness or something or not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Here are five of the stocks we're watching, the stories we're watching. At the end of Friday, you'll probably get this Saturday morning. Thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
with hims and hers is actually ending flat today for my friends that always comment when we discuss grinder and hims and hers and so forth again the text is 773-766-5322 again decker's outdoor got crushed today wogan's got fresh today hims and hers is way up heading way up and both basically grinder is flaccid thank you for listening to the becker private Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
So the first thing that happened is here, it ended up being sort of a disaster in the day in the markets, which started off as... It's a good day, rebounding from the early start of this week with the deep seek disaster. Ended up as a down day, down about 1% today after it looked like it was going to be pretty positive day throughout the day. So that's a little depressing, but it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
Again, the markets ended today, not as bad as the day that deep sea thing hit, but on a very negative note. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
A few other stocks that we're watching, Decker's Outdoor, which most people don't know that brand that well, but that's the maker of Hoka's. And so if you're my age, you know what Hoka's are. They ended up getting just crushed today, down about 20% and having a very hard time on earnings. The flip side is another stock that some people do know of that's RH, which is HIMS and HERS.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
HIMS and HERS is, of course, the telephonic prescriber for erectile dysfunction medicines and so forth. They rocked it today, so they're up 10%. So in terms of middle-inch stocks, HOKA's down 20%, HIMS and HERS up 10%. Now, in terms of two other stocks that we have our eye on today, Walgreens Boots Alliance, for the first time in 90 years, suspended their dividend.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
Third down, finished down about 9%, 10% today. Tim Wentworth, who took over as CEO from Roslyn Brewer, must be wondering some days why he took this job. It seems like running Boeing. There's one challenge after another that he feels like he's got no control on. And he's doing as good as he can to try and take care of a company that overextended itself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stocks We Are Following Currently 2-1-25
went in all kinds of crazy directions and is trying to find itself so that's that's uh walgans and and tim wetworth and what he's trying to do there the fourth stock that we're following today you know to go with this day that's been a disaster in the market it says grinder and we often talk about grinder the same days that we talk about hims and hers grinder which we think should be so correlated
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today we're going to go through six mantras and concepts we came across this weekend that i absolutely loved and so let me go through these six of them some of them i'll be able to attribute to the author some of them i forgot who the author was but but none of these are my original thoughts so the first one is somebody commenting on a tweet where somebody in the tweet says
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
That's the great, great starting point in life and success in and of itself. So I absolutely love that. The third concept from this week is this, is that the concept from a gentleman named Antonio is, is lock in one skill. That's all you need. Become a master at that one skill. Nobody pays you, and he uses the word a shit ton of money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
I wouldn't use that word, but a shit ton of money for being average at 10 skills. And this is a constant reminder to all of us, including myself, that you're far better off really focusing on one or two core objectives than 30 different things and being really great at those things. The fourth concept that I saw this weekend from a gentleman, Paul and you, again, doing the work is more fulfilling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
You don't have to be all over the place. Just get to work and do the work. So I will tell you, for all the different things I do, The simple act of podcasting with my tremendous producer, the simple fact of writing, of doing the work is probably so much healthier for me than the dozen hours I spend thinking about what I should do and being all over the place. Just do the work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
That's the way to go. Just dig in and do the work. Two more consoles we'll talk about today that I love. Somebody says in a comment to this named Taysorn, I don't know who that is. Every high achiever I know turns ideas into action fast. And this is at least how, I don't know, every high achiever, I see some that are deeply thoughtful and then turn deep ideas into big, big things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
But for most of us, I think this is the truth. It's certainly the truth for me. It's testing, turning ideas into action fast, making them happen, see how they go, and then doubling down on what works. So this concept of every high achiever I know turns ideas into action fast is one that I love. Next great concept. I almost said great. Excuse me. It's one of those days.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
Great concept is the number one reason products fall. you thought more about what you want to sell than what people want to buy. And I find myself in this situation often. For a very long time, I chased a business that built perfectly into my own workflow versus what clients really wanted to buy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
And the more we pivot to what they need and what helps them or compromise what I'd love to do to that Venn diagram of what they want to, the better off we are. This has obviously been an endemic issue in software. People build software they love, but nobody wants it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
I've now scaled my business to $4,000. And somebody had the wherewithal to respond to the tweet to her that scaling does not mean $4,000 in business. It's terrific. It means you've done a good job of getting your sales and business going. But let's not confuse scaling with starting a business or getting your first sales again. Two completely different things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
It's one of the reasons we talk about with software service businesses, constant engineering, but also constant commercializing and testing with the audience. But I love this concept. You thought more about what you want to sell than what people want to buy. The last concept is a more complicated concept, and it talks about your best performance. That if you... can be pushed, coached, prodded.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
You could do 10 times better at something if you are pushed, prodded, coached. One of the things that happened in my life is when I've had great coaches that are actually willing to push me at a pace a little bit bigger than I'm willing to be pushed, I performed at a different level.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
Now, most coaches don't want to do that because you're often a paying customer, and so they feel like they don't have to, what have you. I had a tennis coach in high school who was just remarkable, told me, this is how you are going to play. And this made me, not by any means, not Novak Djokovic, but made me much better than I thought I could be. And either you find that drive intensely intense,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
obsessively in yourself or somebody pushes you to it and you end up performing a lot better than you otherwise could. Again, this is another tweet from this weekend by a gentleman named Roman Simon. And I just think he's right on the best performance or they're forced by their own environment or by others. But I think that concept is right on again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
These are a number of different sort of mantras and concepts from this weekend. I love them. I hope you find them helpful. If you want to hear this again, let me know or just listen to it again. If you have questions, comments, other mantras you'd like to share on the Becker Private Equity Podcast, always feel free to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
Thank you very much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
And I think the person's concept was there are so many pretenders of builders of business on Twitter. And when somebody says, I've now scaled my business to 4,000, that's not really what we think of as scaling. Now, again, God bless you if that's multiple different sales and momentum is starting to move in the right direction. But that's not scaling. That's getting started and terrific.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
The second concept I also love from Twitter, and this is a guy named Andrew Gatzdacki. He says, you don't have to build a billion-dollar startup to be successful. If you're happy and you're able to pay your bills, you've won. And I think this is right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Mantras & Concepts from Twitter 3-31-25
The great Maslow's hierarchy is that you're able to pay your bills and support yourself through whatever you do, a job, a business, or anything else. Don't let everybody fool you to think that the only way to success is to build some huge thing, whatever. Dignity, truth, is you got a job, you have a business, whatever it is, and you can take care of and support yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the great pizza poll of 2025. Now, again, you may find this to be an absolutely ridiculous episode, but I'll give you the context of it. One of the things I found myself recently addicted to – it's not pizza. I love pizza, but I'm not addicted to it –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
And so this poll received 3,700 votes. There's still some time left in the poll, but what happens with these polls is once you get to a certain spot, you fit 90% of the results. And what I found was is 80% of people said, 79% said, it's okay to have pizza tonight and start your diet tomorrow. And 21% no. And many of them on the no side gave pretty good reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
You know, you're not really going to start it tomorrow. You could always make that excuse, et cetera, et cetera. And I love that. And many of them, of course, are right, though I am trying to hold tough today. I'm doing the best I can. But I did find it very fascinating. And what a great game they've made it into. And this is not an endorsement of Elon Musk. I have my own thoughts on Elon Musk.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
So we'll do an Elon Musk scorecard again soon. But that's not anything of the sort. What I'm talking about is the great pizza poll of 2025. It's you who may ask the question. Did I follow the poll results or ignore the public's views on, can you eat pizza last night and start the diet today? And I am, I don't know if I'm happy or sad to say, but I did do the pizza challenge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
I felt like I made some compromise. I did the gluten-free crust to go with a fantastic pizza. If anybody wants to know exactly what toppings we got, I'm sure this is the last thing in your mind, feel free to text 773-766-532-22, and I will tell you the toppings we got. But the great pizza Paul of 2025 said, Go for the pizza. I went for the pizza. God bless America.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
is to Twitter and X. They've totally gamified Twitter and X. And I realize there are so many crazies on Twitter and X. You have to be so careful what you look at so you don't come away like with your head bursting open. But with Twitter and X, you could constantly look at how many people viewed your impressions, how many people have liked this, how many people have liked that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
You could also promote a post to see how many people engage with the post. There's just a million different ways to play with Twitter, and they've totally gamified it, totally datified it. So it can be very engaging. Like I was on a plane yesterday coming back from Europe for eight hours, and you could literally spend the whole time playing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
Like today's version of a video game being on Twitter because it's crazy, it's interesting, and there's constant stat watching. If you're a stat person like I am, it's like the modern day version of video games. You just constantly gamify how many people are reading this, reading that. So we were on vacation for a week visiting kids, you know, a long story.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Great Pizza Poll of 2025 3-31-25
But of course, ate too much, drank too much, all those kinds of things on vacation. And so, you know, but yet I had a craving when I got home yesterday for pizza. And one of the things that's beautiful about Twitter is they make it very simple to do a poll. And the poll that we conducted yesterday, the great pizza poll for 2025 was. is it okay to eat pizza tonight and start my diet tomorrow?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, the first episode of the day, is two lessons from Lululemon. And here are the two lessons from Lululemon. First, Lululemon, I'll get to the lessons in a second, dropped about 15% on Friday. It's down about 25% year to date. Over the last year, it's down about 26% or so. But the two big lessons are,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
It's very easy to be anecdotal. But if I have to buy a new black T-shirt, I prefer to go to Viore today than Lulu. I don't love them. But so many different things go into that as well. So that's one. And you can never also... take advantage of your customer. At some point, Lulu moved to the $130 sweatpants, which just seemed like highway robbery. It is what it is. That's one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
Staying on top is very, very hard. You have to stay constantly creative, constantly at it. So many companies have done it. So many companies haven't done it. Amazing how Lulu has sort of lost its shine. The second thing that I find fascinating is, CEOs today come in two different types. There's the straight talkers and then there's the market talkers. And here's what I mean by that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
The Lulu person, rather than saying we all recognize that they've got to constantly get better. One of the beauties of Brian Nicole, the new CEO of Starbucks, is he is very clear about here's the things we have to do to constantly get better. And so I love listening to Brian Nicole. She's constantly at, we got to get better at this. We've got to make our life easier for our baristas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
We've got to make it more customer friendly for our customers. It's just fantastic in simplifying the menu and trying to make it better. It hasn't made me all of a sudden return to Starbucks all the time, but at least I understand what he's trying to do. The contrast is the CEO of Lulu spends so much time talking about market factors. There's caution in the headlines. There's inflation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
There's other issues. There's tariffs. There's AI. Whatever it is that he has to say other than saying Lulu's got to get better. What I've seen in a couple of the companies I run is over periods of time, we can get stale.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
And at those times, we have to re-double down on commitment to creativity, being a magnet for audience, being a magnet for attendees, being a magnet for listeners, whatever it might be. And I think this is the great corporate distraction, not coming back to what the company could do better, but looking at market factors and trying to explain it to the market like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
And what really happens, of course, is the markets are used to this. They don't buy it. Thus, Lulu's CEO talks, The stock falls 15% as he claims everything other than himself. In any event, thank you for listening to this version of the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
Once you get good at something, we often say it's about getting rich. Once you get rich, it's very hard to stay rich. Once you get good at something, you become a market leader. You have to so invest in market leadership and creativity and growth to stay a market leader. This in some ways is often harder than climbing the hill to get there is staying there. And we see this over and over again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
It's why I'm reminded of companies like Apple, of Epic and others, that just do this remarkable job of constantly plowing money back into constantly improving and trying to stay great. Epic's done it by their core product and expanding and getting better and better at it. Apple's done it through the iPhone and then all the interconnected systems with it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
But you could even see with Apple how hard it is to keep that sort of rose, that bloom on the rose. And stake rates, it requires a constant commitment to improvement and getting better. Intuitive, the robotics company, another company that's done an amazing job in that area in the face of increased competition of getting better and better. They're on the DaVinci 5 robot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Lessons from Lululemon 3-31-25
It just constantly keeps on getting better. It doesn't rest on their laurels. Other companies in that space have ended up sort of letting their lead sort of go away over a long period of time. So I'm always amazed at the Walmarts, the Amazons, the Apples that keep on keeping at it. Woo is an example of it's gotten a little bit stale. Hardly anything that draws you to the store anymore.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity Podcast. We are thrilled today to be joined by a long-term professional, brilliant, good, good person in the healthcare sector, Jason Taylor. Jason, I know you're a constant follower of the healthcare sector.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
Thank you. And take a moment. Now, for people that don't know Jason, one of the all-time good and competent people, really good person. Let me ask this question. One of my fellow friends, one of my best, best colleagues, a guy who will remain nameless, named David Pivnik. is a Canadian and a very difficult individual. And I say that jokingly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
He's actually funny as can be and as good a person as I come. Are all Canadians that nice, or is it a wide mix of Canadians like it is of all people?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
We're going to talk today about what trends you're watching, what you're focused on, what's exciting, and advice to other people, other leaders. Take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
You know what they call that here in the States, and you've been in the States for a long time. They call that Midwest nice, where somebody can be very nice, but they might not be that nice deeply underneath, or they might be. It's really a whole mix out there, actually.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
So talk about, as you've worked in the provider space, you've worked in the technology space, talk a little bit about what trends you're watching in healthcare technology and healthcare providers today. How challenging a situation is on the provider side, the technology side? What are some of the things you're watching?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
No, but I think what you said here, which is so right on, there are a couple of different points you made. One of which is there's this huge divide in systems. There's those 30 to 50 systems that seemingly can afford to invest in anything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
Every new tech thing that comes, it doesn't mean they're not strategic and smart about it, but they've got the wherewithal to do so and make some mistakes and they're still okay. And then there's much smaller systems that both don't have the money to invest in some stuff and even have the money to invest in some stuff, don't often have the staff to help them make sure that it goes right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
Talk a little bit about that, about where you see some of these smaller systems that just are sort of a little bit stuck because they can only invest so much technology and they can only do so much with both the technology in terms of the ability to invest, plus the staff to actually make it all go and work. Are some of those systems sort of stuck or what do you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
I mean, that's, I think, right on. You have this huge divide between the systems that can afford to do all these things, invest in doctors, technology, staff, everything they need. And often those are also systems that see the more money people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
And then you got systems that can't afford to do any of this stuff and that are doing the best they can just to provide the community needs that the community needs. And then you end up with a huge divide in health equity, don't you?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
No, 100 percent. But you do also see like we also see rural house systems closing, closing as well and leaving rural deserts as well. So I do think there's there's real challenges in both. And even, you know, you got labor and delivery units closing all over rural America. And that just is a real challenge. And it is a chicken and the egg thing is you don't have enough population.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
You can't support the health systems. You don't have enough health systems. You can't support the population. It really is a very circular problem that's getting worse and worse. I think in real urban areas, poor urban areas, as well as in rural areas, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
Talk about, Jason, for a second, what you're most focused on and excited about this year in the health care world or generally, what are you most focused on and excited about?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
No, 100%. And there's more and more of that sort of the Mayo Telehealth, like working with systems and the other big systems doing it too. And some of it works really well. And some of it is just challenging, right? I mean, some of it works out really well where you could have care where they're at. And that's obviously preferred if at all possible, right?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
I mean, just really where we like to be is you can get care where you're at and don't have to travel for it so far.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
Completely, completely true. And take a moment. Jason, and what advice you would give to emerging leaders? What advice do you give somebody as an emerging leader?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
I think that is such a great point, particularly in a technology-obsessed world. The actual ability to communicate and talk to people is so, so important. And I think that comment just resonates so well with us. Again, we're visiting today with Jason Taylor, just an outstanding leader and individual.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Innovation, Health Equity, and the Future of Healthcare with Jason Taylor of Panda Health 4-28-25
Jason, thank you so much for joining us on this special combined episode of the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 More Stories to Watch This Week 4-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is five stories that we're following this week and this weekend. First, Tesla jumped nearly 18% this week as the Department of Transportation expedited rules for self-driving cars. The stock jumped nearly 10% Friday. It's good to have friends in high places. It's good to be friends with the king.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 More Stories to Watch This Week 4-28-25
We'll have a different podcast on that. Second, Clarity of goals and purposes is one big critical key to success. This is as important as almost anything, and then the ability to execute on those goals. But clarity of what you're trying to accomplish is so, so important. And again, another discussion, don't listen to the naysayers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 More Stories to Watch This Week 4-28-25
Third, the markets jumped this past week as President Trump brought the temperature down on each of the tier of discussions and then discussions of terminating Federal Reserve Chairman Chairman Powell. So that was a good week in the markets. Fourth, the S&P is now down about 6% year-to-date, and the S&P is down nearly 10% year-to-date, but it could be a lot worse.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 More Stories to Watch This Week 4-28-25
Finally, fifth, T-Mobile got crushed last week and dropped more than 11% on Friday on a perceived softening outlook for this year. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Good to be Friends with the King 4-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is, it's good to be friends with the king. So here's the story. Last week, Tesla stock jumped. It jumped on news that the Department of Transportation and the federal government is very likely to ease rules on self-driving cars. This news couldn't have come quickly enough for Tesla.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Good to be Friends with the King 4-28-25
Tesla's been in quite the nosedive this year. Its profits were down about 71% year over year for the quarter. It's in a spot where it's not making money on electric vehicles. The ultimate demand for vehicles is going down. The price premium is also going down. This concept that the government's going to allow self-driving cars sooner rather than later was a huge shot in the arm for Tesla.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
It’s Good to be Friends with the King 4-28-25
And we're not saying that this is a knock on the close relationship between President Trump and Elon Musk, but it's always good to have friends in high places. And this was just the shot in the arm that it seems like Tesla needed. So we found that fascinating. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Listen to the Naysayers 4-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is don't listen to the naysayers. So in anything you do, and I know we've recorded this topic and idea before, anything you do, you're going to get people that say you can't do that. You can't make that happen. That won't work.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Listen to the Naysayers 4-28-25
Anything I've ever done successfully, I've certainly had that happen where people discourage me from doing it and said, you know, you're being precocious, you're trying too hard, you're doing whatever you're doing. And at the end of the day, you have to learn to ignore the naysayers. Don't listen to the naysayers. This is a constant regard in life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Listen to the Naysayers 4-28-25
When people talk about you, about this or that, if you're by nature an introvert, embrace that. Don't listen to the naysayers. Anything you do in life, think about what you do well, accept it, and double down on it, and don't listen to the naysayers, and follow your dreams, follow your pursuits, do what you're going to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Listen to the Naysayers 4-28-25
We have tremendous pride in the fact of some of our family members that don't listen to the naysayers. The other thing I'll add on is, Anything you do in life, at some point, you're going to get punched in the nose. Someone's going to smack you. And I generally view that as that's a sign that you're starting to make an impact. So don't take that as a negative. Take that as a positive affirmation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Listen to the Naysayers 4-28-25
Don't listen to the nice hairs and keep on plugging along. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
Either way, their stock pointed way up last week on the concept that the government would make it easier to sell and allow self-driving vehicles. So ultimately they had a terrific week last week, but their core car business is not going great right now. Sechstens, NVIDIA stürzte fast 9,4% letzte Woche, aber bleibt in einem Marktkurs von 2,74 Trillionen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
Das ist viel weniger als die fast 3,5 Trillionen, die sie einmal hatte. Letztendlich, Los Angeles hatte seine Kreditrate von S&P zu einem A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A. This is a scary sign for cities, states, the federal government. As we often say, debt kills countries, families, companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are seven of the stories that we're following this morning and thank you for listening. First, Domino's same store sales fell. They dropped this quarter by half a percent. That was different than expectations that they would rise. The media essentially says it's
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
No good to see lots of these cities and states over-indebted with too much debt. Finally, eighth, Apple remains down 16% year-to-date and is a market cap back above $3.14 trillion. So back in the threes, that's good news. But remember, at one point it was flirting with $4 trillion. Finally, one other PS. I got a podcast last week on learn to love your 90 percenters. Focus on what they do great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
Your people that are operating in A, A minus, B plus, focus on what they do great and don't harp on what they do imperfectly. That's the thought for the day. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity in Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
Tier of concerns, macroeconomic uncertainty, high inflation, hitting consumer sales. We'll see if that's the case or not. But either way, Domino's is down about 2% pre-market today. It's up about 16% year-to-date. Zweitens, die Futures-Markets-Punkte sind heute Morgen langsam runter, nach einer tollen Woche. Letzte Woche hat der Nasdaq 6,7% gesunken, also eine tolle Woche für die Marken.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
Letzte Woche könnte eine schwieriger Woche sein als letzte Woche. Es gibt auch eine Geschichte in der Wall Street Journal heute Morgen. Die Magnificent Seven sind seit 2022 nach dem schlimmsten Start. Und das ist eine wunderschöne Investorsumme, natürlich. Third story, the Wall Street Journal also reports that stocks have clawed back most of April's tariff losses. That's overall good news.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-28-25
Fourth, Spotify continues to rock and roll. It's up nearly 38% year to date, just overall doing terrific. A fascinating story on Tesla. Tesla finds itself losing money this last quarter on car sales, but making it up on the sale of regulatory credits. Obviously long term making money on regulatory credits is not a true business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're constantly following this year a handful of stocks, and I'll talk through the four that we're following regularly and what they're doing today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
Let's hope that gets better, because so many people have built net worth around NVIDIA, don't want to see that all crash. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you to our producer, Chanel Bunger. We are always looking for ideas. Always feel free to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
So I think it's fascinating to see the ups and downs, and it often leads me back to my core strategy of largely investing in S&P index funds and keeping a conservative allocation. But four of the stocks we're watching this year, Palantir, which we're a direct investor in, is down 5%. The three other stocks are stocks that we thought about being a direct investor in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
Two of them are Warren Buffett's favorites, long-term favorites, Apple and American Express. Apple is one of the few stocks that's up today about 2.4%. Amex is down 1.5% today. But in a day where the markets are getting tanked, being down 1.5% is not so bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
also compare that to nvidia nvidia is down 15 today just taking on the chin on the notion that this chinese ai company deep seek can outperform a lot of these companies without tremendously sophisticated chips which is a disaster for nvidia which is the most sophisticated large chip maker so again those are four of the stocks that we follow regularly Palantir, a direct investor, down 5%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Stocks We Are Watching This Year 1-27-25
The three other stocks we've thought about investing, and I've never really pulled the trigger individually, but of course, own them through index funds. Apple is up today, 2.4%. Amex is down today, 1.5%. And that's despite all the usage in the Becker family of the Amex card. And then NVIDIA is just getting crushed today, down 15%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Market Cap Tables & NVIDIA Takes it on the Chin 1-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, the market cap tables and NVIDIA takes it on the chin. So one of the things we watch regularly is what's going on with market cap. Who's the biggest market cap company? You know, Apple's been largely the biggest market cap company over the last five to 10 years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Market Cap Tables & NVIDIA Takes it on the Chin 1-27-25
That has changed recently where NVIDIA took the number one spot again last week, where its market cap went up to about $3.6 trillion. However, today is a different story. NVIDIA currently is down about 13% today. Its market cap is down to about $3.03 trillion. Apple's back at number one, $3.42 trillion, and Microsoft's back at number two, $3.2 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Market Cap Tables & NVIDIA Takes it on the Chin 1-27-25
NVIDIA taking it the most on the chin with the situation with the DeepSeek and Chinese tech artificial intelligence company. We'll see how this goes. But again, what we're watching today is NVIDIA back to number three, Microsoft number two, and Apple number one. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a takeoff on the concept to be or not to be. It's to DEI or not to DEI. So there is so much discussion right now about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And to one extent, you're seeing the backlash from the last couple of years of so much discussion of DEI and diversity and equity and inclusion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
And just so we're all on the same page here, if you don't take this as anti-Republican, anti-Democrat, I would say the same exact thing to the people that are in charge of firefighting in L.A. It's not about culture. It's about keeping our country safe. And the more we can move all of our leadership to keeping our
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
our people safe, keeping our country safe, focusing on our core job and making the cultural wars 5% of what we do or a piece of what we do rather than the whole thing, the better off we are. I was personally, I'm not a Pete Hegseth fan. I am a huge Marco Rubio fan. I'm a huge fan of Elise Stefanik. I'm not a fan of Mehmet Oz. I'm not a fan of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
And so this is not an anti-Trump bashing. This is just a Pete Hegson's an idiot bashing. And the focus on culture wars rather than keeping our nation safe is moronic at best and awfully bad for our country's defense at worst. Get out of the culture wars. Get into the defense of our country. Thank you. That's our discussion today on to DEI or not to DEI.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
We'll have more of these episodes in the near future. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
And you're seeing it play out in various different spots in the beginnings of the Trump administration. And I have to tell you, I don't have to proclaim to be pro-DI or anti-DI. But what I can tell you is when Pete Hex's first discussions as Secretary of Defense are
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
that he wants to banish all DEI, and if you don't abide by banishing all DEI and taking out all discussions of DEI, that you're going to be discharged or dismissed or what have you. I can't tell you, to me, how much Hegseth misses the purpose of his appointment. Now, the purpose of Hegseth being appointed is to make sure that we are militarily in great shape and defense-wise in great shape.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
To DEI or Not to DEI 1-27-25
This is the purpose of Pete Hegseth in the Secretary of Defense. It is not to fight various different culture wars. And even if you want to fight some of these culture wars that you don't love, it doesn't matter. Fight them as 10% of your job, 98% of your job, 99% of your job, 100% of your job is to keep our country safe, not to fight the culture wars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Tanking: 5 Stories We Are Following Today 1-27-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the markets are tanking five stories we're following this morning. So first, the biggest story today is the falling market indexes, the NASDAQ down about 3%, the S&P down about 1.5% currently. And again, number two,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Tanking: 5 Stories We Are Following Today 1-27-25
But I don't freak out as much as I would if 100% of my assets were in equities. But of course, in years when things are going great, I don't make as much money either. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. It is great to be with you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Tanking: 5 Stories We Are Following Today 1-27-25
This market drop is due to the concern that a Chinese tech company may have a cheaper and more advanced way to run AI without super expensive chips. This is very negative for NVIDIA, that whole ecosystem built around AI chips.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Tanking: 5 Stories We Are Following Today 1-27-25
Third, Bloomberg reports, again, that this could potentially derail the investment case for the entire AI supply chain, which is driven by large art spending from a handful of hyperscaling companies. Fourth, NVIDIA is down about 13% right now. This puts it in the market cap wars back behind Apple and Microsoft. So Apple's on number one, Microsoft number two, NVIDIA number three.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Tanking: 5 Stories We Are Following Today 1-27-25
Just last week, it was NVIDIA number one, Apple number two, Microsoft number three. NVIDIA is now giving up that lead again. And we'll see how this all plays out over time. Don't take too much out of any one day's reports and actions and so forth. Fifth, the five largest companies by revenues in the US, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, United Healthcare, and Berkshire Hathaway.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Tanking: 5 Stories We Are Following Today 1-27-25
Those are the five largest by revenues. The last thing I'll note, which is a PS, days like this in the market are a stark reminder that you want to have an allocation you could live with. For me, it's a relatively conservative allocation. So don't freak out too much when the market has days like this. When I wake up this morning and see futures are down 2.5% to 4%, it's always a bad day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
So if you don't combine coverage with trying to improve the amount of supply of doctors, clinicians, providers, and taking care of our providers, our nurses, our clinicians, our techs, everybody else, you're essentially... Ja, genau. Again, I think the glass is half full here. I think that's better than not having coverage. Again, I'm a believer in coverage, but it misses the real point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
If we don't take care of the real problem, which is the supply and demand in our country and the number of doctors, clinicians, tech and other assets we need to take care of people, then at the end of the day, coverage is very much an empty political platitude, where access and having the supply get closer to the demand that we need is really everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
But if we really want to deal with the real problem of costs in healthcare, it's not so much the payment model. We have to deal with supply and demand. We have to have enough doctors, nurses, caregivers to take care of our people. We also need enough technology. And on the pharma side, we've got to make sure the pharmaceutical companies
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
die uns nicht zehnmal so viel wie den Rest des Weltkrieges für die gleichen Pharmazeutika bezahlen. Das ist in der heutigen Modern-Day-Raping-Pillaging, um nicht zu beliten, aber hier 1.000 Dollar für ein Vial zu bezahlen, was 80 Dollar im Ausland kostet, oder eine ähnliche Art von proportionellen Auslandskosten gegenüber dem, was wir bezahlen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
is utterly ridiculous and adds to our healthcare cost problem. But again, the real issue here is applauding oneself, patting oneself on the back for improving coverage.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
Again, glass half full, I'm okay with it, but far more important that you solve the real problem, which is access and supply and demand in healthcare, not just the Lucy problem of pretending to get coverage from people when they still can't get coverage. They still can't get the help they need. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de. This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is coverage versus access in healthcare in the Affordable Care Act. So, one of the things I came across this weekend is President Obama tweeting about the passage of the Affordable Care Act 15 years ago. Proudly proclaiming how proud he is of the Affordable Care Act.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
And there are pluses and minuses here. I think it's worth discussing for a moment, as I saw all these tweets this weekend about the Affordable Care Act. On one hand, there is no question that providing coverage to more Americans, reducing the uncovered lives in America from about 20% to 10%,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
ist überhaupt ein riesiges Positives, ein nettes Positives, obwohl es die Frage ist, wie viel wir für das nette Positives bezahlen. Aber generell denke ich, dass viele Leute zu der Schlussfolgerung kommen, dass irgendwie oder anderem jeder sollte Quote-unquotable Aufmerksamkeit für die Gesundheit in Amerika haben. Also bin ich völlig auf dem Weg damit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coverage vs. Access in Healthcare & the Affordable Care Act 3-24-25
Der zweite Punkt in dem Tweet bemerkt mir einfach, an how empty so much the discussion is in DC and how few true problem solvers there are in DC. Coverage is a great political platitude, but it's literally irrelevant without access.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for joining us. Today's discussion is on the stock markets, tariffs, and reactionary perspectives. So here's the deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
uh lower wages here uh because we're not keeping our workforce busy doing some of the jobs that we're buying from overseas uh and it could also lead to in lots of deficits as a country which has done a marvelous job of rolling up so again i'm generally anti-tariff but the only thing that makes me pro-tariff is when countries that import almost nothing from the united states then threaten retaliatory tariffs we import a ton from them
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
in part because we've had low tariffs on goods coming in. They import next to nothing from us in part because they have high tariffs coming into their country. And then when we start to use tariffs to sort of even the playing field some, they start to go crazy about imposing retaliatory tariffs. And they're often imposing retaliatory tariffs on literally
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
I mean, the first news today really is that the stock market is surging based on thoughts that President Trump will start to calm the tariff fares and sort of soften the tariff war that's been ongoing. The second thought for the day is that I am generally not a pro-tariff guy. Generally, I've been a bigger fan of free trade and more trade between nations.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
a small fraction of the goods that we import so they import almost nothing and threaten tariffs and this is the only natural sort of jingoistic type of national nationalistic type of fervor that leads me to become pro-tariff it's this sort of whining from countries that go crazy when we impose tariffs that become close to their tariffs and then they threaten tariffs on us
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
on the nothing that they import from us to begin with. And remember, this whole debate starts because we're essentially importing a ton more goods than we're exporting. These other countries are buying goods from us, and they've traditionally had higher tariffs than us. In any event, that's the gist of today's discussion. And the good news is the market's way up on potential reduced tariffs
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
The second and third thoughts here are essentially that I'm not a pro-tariff guy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
When these countries that import nothing from us and charge us already big tariffs on goods exported into their country start complaining about us imposing some tariffs, then I can't get more further behind the tariffs just as a reaction to this ridiculous behavior from some of these countries that have already been so soft on importing from us and why we run such a huge trade deficit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
I hope people follow the line of thought here and love your thoughts on it. Please feel free at any time to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. You know, I know people have all kinds of different views on this. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
I think it's good for a lot of different reasons aside from lowering the cost of goods in the U.S., It also more economic relations between countries tends to lessen the chance of conflict in wars, which I think is a good thing. Now, the only thing that makes me pro-tariff is really a couple of things that caused me to become pro-tariff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
And again, the big news of the day is that the markets are way up based on Trump dialing down tariff affairs in hopes that he'll try and ease up on some of the tariffs that he's doing. But the thing that makes me change sides or become a reaction on this issue is as follows. The U.S. traditionally has had lower tariffs than the rest of the world. The U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Stock Market, Tariffs & Reactionary Perspectives 3-24-25
has also ran trade deficits like no other country in the history of the world, meaning we're buying a ton of stuff from other countries and exporting a lot less. Our net trade deficit is really high. We export a couple trillion dollars in goods a year, but we import a ton more than that. And that can generally lead to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to be Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. So here's the deal. If you listen to this podcast regularly, you know that I am largely an investor in index funds. Then I own a handful of individual stocks. One of those individual stocks is Amazon. So as I'm scrolling through business news,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
But in any event, down 10% year to date, up 10% over the last year. It's just another reminder that investing in individual stocks is advanced gambling at best and ought to stick to index funds. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
And I see articles as follows. The article that I saw today was about Amazon. Amazon stock nears its seventh losing week as Wall Street sizes up tech giants' used car plans. So Amazon today is trying to do the new Carvana or something like that. Carvana itself is a smoke and mirrors company, but God bless them. But so here's the deal with Amazon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
Amazon's now one in two in total revenues in the U.S., you know, side by side with Walmart. It's number four in market cap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
at 2.08 trillion dollars and what's got on top of that is aside from me being an individual investor in it not enough i can assure you to make a difference in their stock at all and not enough no matter how many boxes pile up in our house to have an impact on their ultimate revenues and sales But seven weeks in a row that they're losing money in the market, they're down 10% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
So at the end of the day, it could be a lot worse. The S&P is down 5%. They're down 10%. Over the last 52 weeks, they're up 10%. So still at least holding their own. I felt the Amazon long enough that I've done fine with it. Not great. I wasn't like an early investor that just knocked it out of the park. But I will tell you,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon Amazon Amazon 3-24-25
Whenever you're an individual investor in stocks and the headline you see is that your stock is on its seventh losing week in a row, that just sounds horrible. That's a horrible way to end the weekend. In any event, enjoy this episode about Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. Again, talking about getting in the used car business, the market doesn't love it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nicholas Newsad on Healthcare Business Deals and the Future of Medical Software 2-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by an incredible entrepreneur, leader, brilliant business person who also does some dealing and brokering investment banking of healthcare businesses. We're visiting today with Nicholas Neusat. I've asked Nicholas to do two things today, really.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nicholas Newsad on Healthcare Business Deals and the Future of Medical Software 2-24-25
Fantastic. So profitable medical software business has been in business for 10 years plus. Fantastic. Nicholas, Nick, it's always great to visit with you. Tell the audience a little bit more about the book you wrote, Dr. Deals, and about your podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nicholas Newsad on Healthcare Business Deals and the Future of Medical Software 2-24-25
First, tell us about his business and what he does. And then second, give us an elevator pitch, a short talk on one of the businesses that he has coming to market. He's got some confidentiality issues, so he'll give us more generals on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nicholas Newsad on Healthcare Business Deals and the Future of Medical Software 2-24-25
Amazing. Nick, thank you so much for joining us. Just fantastic to visit with you as always. Again, Nick Nusad, one of the great ones, as good a person as they come, very principled, great leader in healthcare. Thank you for joining us today on the Beckham Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nicholas Newsad on Healthcare Business Deals and the Future of Medical Software 2-24-25
But Nick, can you take a second first, Nicholas, and talk to us about your business, Dr. Deals, and what you've developed, and then we'll talk about this specific deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nicholas Newsad on Healthcare Business Deals and the Future of Medical Software 2-24-25
Fantastic. And Coker is a fantastic firm. So thrilled to hear that. The Coker group is fantastic. Coker is great. And talk to us a little bit about the particular deal that you're bringing to market now. And I know you're subject to all kinds of confidence. So give us some generals on it and then tell people where they can reach you if they're interested in learning more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And today's discussion revolves around a personal episode. We try to make sure we're talking business, we're talking private equity. Sometimes we devolve into other areas, but we'll talk about this as... personal trainers and customer service.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
And sometimes we'll skip to the stopwatch because it's a little bit easier for the personal trainer to use the stopwatch than the counting on the fingers thing. But that's a different story. So I come back today and I talk to this personal trainer about, you know, the weight loss issue and what he says. And he says something along the lines of, I think you misunderstood me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
And I was like, you know, it's like, well, that's not good. I guess it's better than your doctor saying you got something worse than you think you have. But essentially his point was,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
you probably go on a scale it's more like you probably got to lose 10 pounds in five and probably a little urgency was okay so of course this is enough for me to think this must be the worst customer service of any personal trainer in the history of the world this guy needs a new degree in customer service what does he mean i need to lose closer to 10 pounds than five pounds
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
so it is what it is i wish there was a place where he sent out a survey or something like that where i could you know mark down what his score should be for customer service because it's not if it's one to ten is the ranking usually he's a 10 today today where he says i probably gotta lose 10 pounds versus five pounds he might get an a plus and a 10 for honesty but he gets a three for understanding customer morale
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
especially at this point in life. So I'll give him an average, a 10 for honesty, a three for customer service. We'll average it out to 6.5. He's actually a remarkable personal trainer. In any event, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
So one of the things as you get older, you put away a little bit of money, you get used to these bourgeois habits, and they're so embarrassing of periodically for your workout using a personal trainer. It's one of the things that we talk about often is, you know, customer service and the customer service business. So this is the highlights of personal training and customer service.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
So lastly, I go to the personal trainer, and I say something along the lines of, You might have a hard time finding urgency and losing the five pounds that I have to lose. And so the personal trainer looks at me with a straight face and essentially says something along the lines of, you know, Something along the lines of, are you sure about the weight you need to lose?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
And I take it what he means is, you know, just be comfortable with your weight. You know, you're fine, but work on your muscle mass. So take it. I feel that it's fairly positive, left in a pretty good mood. That's pretty good customer service, I'd say. You know, yes, the reality is you only need to lose five pounds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Personal Trainers & Customer Service 2-24-25
So I come back today and I question the personal trainer on this discussion of like, And this is the same personal trainer that I'm periodically sending YouTube videos to on how to stop counting with his fingers. So this is not, you know, this is a great, great guy. And I tease him. He's actually a really, really bright person. And we tease him about that because he's counting on his fingers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ambition vs. Greed 2-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And here's the take today, ambition versus greed. So here's the concept. There's the old, old statement from the old Gordon Gekko film, Wall Street, that greed is good, that greed helps drive the economy and so forth and so on. And so we're going to do a different take of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ambition vs. Greed 2-24-25
And it's what's been lamented some in our society is ambition. Is ambition good or is it bad? And here's my take on ambition as a takeoff on greed. Ambition is good. Ambition is great. Lazy is bad. But ambition can't be at the expense of others.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ambition vs. Greed 2-24-25
So ambition is great as long as it's aimed at sort of advancing yourself, becoming the best at what you want to do, becoming this, becoming that, whatever it might be. As long as your concept is you're ambitious, but you're not at the expense of others. You're not trying to harm somebody else to be ambitious yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ambition vs. Greed 2-24-25
That doesn't mean you shouldn't compete well in whatever sport you're playing, whatever you do. Compete well, but do so fairly. But overall... This concept that ambition is not great. Ambition is great. Greed might be okay. I don't really know. But ambition is great. Laziness is not so great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Ambition vs. Greed 2-24-25
But ambition, as long as it's not at the expenses of others, that's today's concept on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you so much for listening to us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
EV Makers, ED Distributors + More 2-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are three stories that we're following today. Let's call this the electric vehicle makers, the ED distributors, and more. So here's what we're watching today. First, electronic vehicle makers, Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid all dropped Friday, with Lucid actually dropping nearly 8%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
EV Makers, ED Distributors + More 2-24-25
ED leader, hims and hers, which is a take on the EV tone, dropped almost 26%. So again, the EV makers, Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, down. ED leader, hims and hers, down even more. Second, there's hope that the Fed Reserve's preferred inflation metric is expected to cool to its slowest pace since June. We're still waiting on those results.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
EV Makers, ED Distributors + More 2-24-25
If so, that will be ultimately good news for the market as people are quite concerned about inflation, and that might temper some of those concerns. We'll see how that goes. Finally, a couple stocks that we watched just got crushed on Friday. And again, to go through these very quickly, these are two more stocks that got crushed. Car Gurus, which constantly shows up on my phone, dropped 17%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
EV Makers, ED Distributors + More 2-24-25
And Shake Shack, which I'm not using the app, I'm not eating the shakes, I'm not eating the burgers, fell 12%. Those are a few of the stocks that just got crushed on Friday. Another one that took it on the chin, which is a stock I love to hate, that's RH, Restoration Hardware, that fell 7%, and it's down about 14% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
EV Makers, ED Distributors + More 2-24-25
Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If there's ever a stock you want us to follow on here, please feel free to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. If you're the first person to text us, we'll go ahead and send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate if you send us with a suggestion. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try today to make sure that we're learning, you're learning, you're going to entertain some and a whole lot more. I'm going to walk through first four quick stories that we're following this morning. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-24-25
Collect points with your banknotes from DM, Rossmann and many other supermarkets and drugstores. Simply scan banknotes, point and save. Now for free with the DeutschlandCard App.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-24-25
First, many of the most active stocks that we watch took it on a chin Friday. Today seems relatively flat. Friday was a very tough day in the markets. Tempest AI fell 11.25%. Palantir Technology dropped 4.6%. It's also getting slammed today. Apple was flat Friday. Airbnb dropped almost 6%, and Nvidia dropped 4%. So again,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-24-25
We're going to go through four different stories today, but this is the first one. Tempest AI down 11.25%, Airbnb down almost 6%, NVIDIA 4%, Palantir down 4.6%, and taking to the chin today again. Apple was flat Friday and is number one in market cap at about $3.69 trillion, so they're doing fine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-24-25
Second, after a run-up last week, Oscar Health also took it to the chin last week, fell about 8% Friday. Third, two of the stocks that are affiliated with some of our closest colleagues from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but very bright people, even though from Wisconsin and even though perhaps Green Bay Packers fans, both did fine on Friday. FTI Consulting was up 1%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-24-25
Alliance Bernstein, which is crushing it today, dropped 1%, but FTI was up 1%. Fourth, the markets are relatively flat today. Pre-market, they were way up. Now they seem relatively flat. We'll see how it goes the rest of the day. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much. New in the DeutschlandCard App.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
So if you look for Prosper Trading, we are the real deal. We are here based in Chicago. We are real traders who have been in the trenches, who have done this. And we are live in the markets, 8.30 to 3 o'clock Central Time, every single day while the markets are open, with our students, just guiding them along the way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Fantastic. Scott, I'm going to touch on a subject. And obviously, you'll let us know if you want to cover this in the podcast or not. I'll tee us up and you'll figure out if you're comfortable talking or not. Scott Bauer, für die Leute, die das nicht wissen, hat seine Frau, Lori, vor Jahren verloren. Sie hat seitdem zwei Dinge unglaublich gut gemacht.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Sie hat eine Charite gegründet in ihrer Ehre und ich würde gerne darüber sprechen. Sie hat auch eine Familie wiedergebaut, sich verheiratet und so weiter. Und sie hat einen liebenden, wundervollen Job dort auch gemacht. Scott, kannst du uns über den Charitable Effort und deine Inspiration sprechen? Und bist du sich zufrieden damit?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Absolut und ja. Weil das bin ich. Das ist Teil meines Lebens. So wie du es erwähnt hast, Scott, damals, es war eigentlich genau an der Zeit, als ich von Goldman Sachs verabschiedet wurde, ist meine Frau, Lori, 43 Jahre alt, plötzlich weggeflogen. No prior conditions of anything. She had a sudden heart arrhythmia that obviously shocked our family, shocked friends, the community.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
So we built up a company called Prosper Trading Academy, where myself and other professional traders and educators work with students all over the world, live in the markets during market hours, teaching them what to look for, how to put trades on, risk management, everything. And we've got about 17,000 active clients right now. And we trade everything from stocks to options to futures.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
I had three boys at the time. They were 16, 14 and 12. We all saw live what happened and thought that our world was over. Das, was wirklich von dem heraus kam, ist wirklich eine Geschichte von turning lemons into lemonade. Durch unseren Prozess mit diesem Thema und Grief. Mein Fokus war wirklich nur, um Hilfe für meine Kinder zu bekommen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Jedes Mal, wo ich geschaut habe, fand ich nichts, das wirklich auf Griechen konzentriert war. Natürlich, sie könnten einen Therapeuten finden, um ihnen zu helfen, aber nichts, das wirklich auf Griechen konzentriert war. Also, zwischen mir selbst, meiner Familie und kleinen Freunden haben wir die Lori Bauer Foundation für Sudden Verlust gebaut. Und wir wussten damals nicht, was es tun würde.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Wir wussten nur, dass wir Kinder helfen wollten. Und seitdem, das war 2011, 14 Jahre später, haben wir mehrere Griechenzentren in der Chicago-Region. Wir haben literally geholfen. Tens von Tausenden von schmerzhaften Kindern. Und dieser Schmerz kommt nicht nur aus dem Verlust eines Eltern oder einer Schwester. Es ist Verlust, Verabschiedung, Verabschiedung, Inkarzierung.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Und die Bedürfnisse für das, was wir bieten, würdest du nicht glauben, ist einfach unendlich. Es ist unendlich. Und wir sind froh genug gewesen, dass wir, genau wie bei der Geschäftsseite, wo ich diesen Nisch von dem, was die Leute wollten, gefüllt habe, haben wir diesen Verlust gefüllt, diesen wirklich großen Verlust, um Kindern Hilfe zu bekommen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
We help kids ages 2 to 20, one-on-one therapy, group sessions. We also underwrite some children's grief camps, where over the summers, kids that are in the same situation can get together, have a few days or a week and just be able to be kids and not have to deal with the pressures that have been thrown at them. And it's something that I am really proud of. My kids have embraced.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
My kids are now 30, 28 and 26. They have embraced the foundation, obviously not for the reason that it was started, but for what it does. They are very active in it. And then when I say that this was a story of turning lemons into lemonade, given the situation here, I could have just gone on and just kind of lived my life doing what I wanted to do. And I was unbelievably fortunate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
I mean, you talk about being in the 1%. I was in the 1% because of what happened to me. Unbelievably fortunate to meet the most wonderful person ever. in the world who is my current wife amy and her three kids and we we could actually we could actually create a movie or write a book on how to build a blended family and how things just can go from a catastrophic situation
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
zu einem Leben, das unglaublich ist. Ich bin wirklich, wirklich glücklich. Meine Kinder sind unglaublich glücklich. Ich fühle mich genauso wie Amy. Ich fühle mich genauso wie ihre Kinder. Es ist wirklich das eine Prozent, weil man solche Geschichten nicht hört.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
No, it's really a wonderful thing. We've watched you, we admire it. Again, thank you, Scott Bauer, Prosper Trading Academy, for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. What a great pleasure to visit with you. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
I really appreciate the time, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
We fund people to trade as well. And I still get to have a little fun because I am down on the trading floor several days a week doing a bunch of media spots as well. So for people that don't know that there still is real live trade, just like no one's ever seen it like you may have seen in trading places, that still happens. And I'm in the thick of it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
So tell us, I want to touch on a few quick subjects before we keep on going. But first, with the recent volatile economic climate, the tariffs, everything else, does that create more opportunities for traders? Does that create lots of ups and downs? Does that have an impact on the trading world? That sort of first. Then I'd love for you to talk a little bit about
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
over the long run, how that trading environment has changed, because you and I know everybody started in trading on the floors 30, 40 years ago, at some point moved to electronic, moved to different ways, not everybody, but a lot. And I'd love to talk a little bit about that evolution too. But talk about how are things looking today in terms of, is there a lot of volatility because of the markets?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
What do you see?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Ja, es gibt absolut viel Volatilität. Und Trader, okay, wir müssen uns separieren und unsere Trading Hat gegen unsere Investing Hat anziehen. Trader lieben die Volatilität. Wir lieben die Möglichkeit, die die Volatilität für uns erzeugt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Nun, manchmal kann es so extreme Volatilität geben, dass, wenn es bleibt, und wir sind fast in einer dieser Zeiten gerade, dass es Dinge für Trader schwierig macht. Again, we embrace volatility, but when you get in a situation like we are now, where the market is moving not necessarily because of technicals or fundamentals, the market is moving on a daily basis because of
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
The next news print that might hit the tape, a tweet, whatever it might be. It absolutely makes things more challenging. There's no question about it. Now, would I prefer volatility over not having volatility? Absolutely. Volatility is there because of the uncertainty. And the uncertainty is there right now because of, as you just mentioned, volatility.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Nobody knows what is the next shoe to drop or what is going to happen. So we do embrace volatility. It is a good thing generally. Excess volatility, the market functions as it should, but it definitely makes things much more difficult.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Faszinierend, faszinierend. Und sprich, für die Leute, die das in den letzten 20, 30, 40 Jahren noch nicht erlebt haben, die Evolution von dem, was Trading war, zu dem, was es heute ist und wie das aussieht. Ich weiß, die Trading-Desken bei den großen Banken, den großen Firmen sind wieder verrückt beschäftigt. Aber sprich, wie sich das Umfeld in den letzten Jahren verändert hat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant business leader and who's built a fascinating financial business. We're going to talk today to Scott Bauer. Scott's had the kind of life, the kind of person that you admire for a whole bunch of different reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Sure. So, you know, up until, let's call it the late 90s, early 2000s, everybody looked at trading as floor trading, right? There were floor traders, different exchanges in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, out in San Francisco, internationally. And market makers...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
like myself individuals would have a seat the right to be on an exchange and trade whether it was a particular stock or futures whatever it was and what happened was with the switch over the advent of electronic trading Das öffnete die Handelswelt für viele mehr Menschen, viele mehr Institutionen, viele mehr Firmen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Und die Handelsgröße kam zu dem Punkt, wo der individuelle Marktgeber fast aus der Handelsgröße rauskam. Er konnte nicht mehr kämpfen. anstatt auf dem Boden zu stehen und zu sagen, ich möchte fünf dieser Kontrakte handeln. Nun sind diese Kontrakte 50, 500, 5.000 geworden.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Was also in der Handelswelt passiert ist, dass die größeren Banken, die größeren Institutionen, die größeren Unternehmen den Raum wirklich übernommen haben. Ich sage das nicht in einer schlechten Art und Weise.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Ich sage das, weil der Volumen und die Liquidität, die da draußen ist, und die Interkontaktivität, wenn man eine Stockoption, sagen wir, in Amazon handelt, und wie das mit einem externen Verkauf verbunden ist, und wie eine Firma wie Goldman Sachs oder Citibank das händeln könnte. Also viele, viele Floortrader, viele Floortrader, ich bin sicher, viele, die Sie kennen, die ich kenne,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Es war wirklich schwierig, diese Transition aus dem Stand in einem Live-Trading-Pit zu machen, zu anderen Marktführern zu antworten, zu Verkäufern zu antworten, wo das einfach verschwunden ist. Und jetzt war alles vor uns auf dem Computer. Also würde ich sagen, dass konservativ 80 plus, vielleicht sogar 90 plus Prozent der Trader
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
that I grew up with and traded with on the floor could not and did not make that transition over to the electronic trading world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Talk about, I couldn't agree with that more. I mean, so many people that I know that started in their 20s in the sort of floor trading world 20, 30 Jahre hervorgehoben, so viele Leute und eine kleine Anzahl, die auf der einen oder anderen Art und Weise trainiert haben. Erzähle uns über deine Transition von Floortrader bis Elektroniktrader bis Lehrer bis Geschäftsbilder.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Erzähle uns, woher dieser Pivot kam und was du von anderen auf diese Art von Pivots hast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
In den frühen 2000er Jahren, als diese Transition wirklich durchgehend war, eine große Transition, gab es das sogenannte Hybrid-Welt. Das Hybrid-Welt war damals Partial Floor Trading, Partial Elektronik Trading. Ich wollte ehrlich gesagt nichts mit der elektronischen Seite zu tun, so wie viele, viele Floor Trader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Und ich war beinahe gezwungen, ehrlich gesagt, des Floor Trading zu der elektronischen Welt. Und glücklich für mich hat Goldman Sachs mir gesagt, hey, wir brauchen noch Floortrader. Wir brauchen sie in der S&P 500-Pit, die in dieser Transition in den mittleren 2000er Jahren
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
We'll talk about that as well, as well as being deeply involved in Er ist auch sehr involviert in Charitäten und leitet einige Charitäte-Efforts. Wir hoffen, dass wir das auch besuchen können. Scott, kannst du uns einen Moment nehmen, um dich zu vorstellen und uns ein bisschen über dein Geschäft zu erzählen?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Most of the individual stock option trading, so whether Amazon, Coca-Cola, you know, there was no Tesla at the time, but any of the stocks you could think of, those went away from live trading right to the screens. But the big indices, they still stayed around. So fortunately I was in a position where I was still able to be on the floor, trading live, slugging it out in the pits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
In fact, when I went to work for Goldman Sachs, it was right before the great financial crisis in, you know, 07, 08, 09. So it was actually a great time to be down there. Und ich konnte an dieser Stelle beide Seiten des Geschäfts sehen, weil ich live handelte, aber alles, was ich machte, wurde elektronisch von Goldman Sachs gehandelt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Glücklicherweise konnte ich diese Transition in der realen Zeit sehen. Und das hat mich wirklich dazu gebracht, wo ich jetzt bin, weil 2011 I was fired. And it was the only time I've been fired in my life. And I was fired because at that point Goldman Sachs says, ah, we don't need any more floor traders worldwide. It wasn't just me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
They were eliminating all floor traders worldwide and going exclusively to online or, you know, the screens. And I'm like, okay, now, you know, what am I going to do? I now have the insight to die Verkaufsseite elektronisch zu handeln. Ich kenne natürlich die Flur-Verkaufsseite davon. Und an diesem Punkt, wenn du zurückgehst, 2010, 2011, 2012, der Wunsch für Wissen, für Bildung weltweit,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
was just growing and growing and growing for people and institutions and even big banks to trade in the markets. So I saw this niche that I believed introducing people to the ease of being able to trade options um zu verstehen, dass es keine Optionen gibt. Sie sind nicht unbedingt riskant. Sie sind nicht wie die Dicke in Vegas, wie viele Leute dachten.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Und so habe ich diese Bildungsplattform gebaut, um Menschen zu erlernen, wie man handelt und wie man online handelt. Und das begann im Jahr 2012. Und ich habe das aufgebaut. Prosper Trading Academy. Und wie ich vorhin gesagt habe, haben wir ungefähr 17.000 aktive
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Studenten und Klienten, die mit mir und unseren anderen Lehrern hier folgen, die instantan den Markt und Profi-Ansatz haben, die sie mentorieren, die sie bewegen. Und glücklicherweise, glaube ich, war ich verabschiedet. Die meisten Leute können das nicht sagen, aber glücklicherweise hat das mich wirklich dazu gefordert, so etwas zu machen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Ja, danke, dass ich da bin, Scott. Es ist mir sehr erfreulich. Meine professionelle Karriere, nachdem ich die Universität Illinois besucht habe, war in der Handelsgemeinschaft, Handels und Bildung. I was a trader down on the floor of the CBO, Chicago Board Options Exchange, for a number of years, 20 plus years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Und ich hatte die Vorstellung, als der Option-Markt wirklich, wirklich explodierte, um so ein Programm zu bauen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Und sprich mal kurz darüber, wie du das Programm gebaut hast und dann Prosper gebaut hast, wo du jetzt 17.000 Studenten hast. Sprich mal über das und wie du das gestaltet hast. Gib uns einfach einen Sinn dafür, wie das passiert und die Entwicklung da.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Natürlich. Ich bin also kein Marketingleiter. Ich zähle also auf meine Marketing-Team. Ich gebe ihnen so viel Kredit dafür, da rauszugehen und wirklich diese Nische zu finden und die Leute zu finden, die sich dazu einladen wollten. Wenn du jetzt schaust, Scott, du gehst auf Social Media und ich meine, wie viele Ads, wie viele Posts, die du von Trading Gurus siehst.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Sie sind nur Ad Nauseam und es war nicht so als erstes. Jetzt ist das etwas, mit dem wir kämpfen müssen und mit dem wir kämpfen müssen, weil ich das seit 35 Jahren mache. Ich bin auf den Netzwerken, den großen Netzwerken jeden Tag. Ich habe eine wirklich gute Reputation. Die Firma hat eine wirklich gute Reputation, aber
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
At times I'll get lumped into the same as all these, you know, one off fly by night, quote unquote, trading gurus. So we really built up the business very organically because through the mid
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
know teens or so um that's when advertising on social media advertising through through google clicks advertising through meta looking at your your demographics that's really where things started to build up and i really believe that my appearances on on cnbc fox business bloomberg whatever it is has just really helped my business because it gives me legitimacy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
It gives Prosper Trading Academy legitimacy where someone can say, oh, you know what? I just saw that guy interviewed with Jim Cramer. I saw that guy interviewed with Liz Klayman just now. He must be somewhat legit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
So we really built this up organically over time and it just, you know, fortunately snowballed and we took advantage of the want, the need that internationally people wanted to learn this business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Fascinating. And talk about this year, Scott. And then I'm going to ask you a question about Charity as well in a second, because I've seen your leadership there. Talk for a second about what you're most focused on and excited about this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
So right now the market is tough. And I'm not just talking about looking at the S&Ps, the Dows, the Nasdaq. The market for marketing and for actually getting people to sign in and log on is very difficult because many businesses are going through the same struggle right now where their end user doesn't want to spend any money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
right everybody's pulling back consumers we know the consumer is pulling back and whether they're pulling back and and not spending on on clothing or or other things we're going through the same thing right now so it has been a little bit more difficult marketplace for us right now getting newer clients i mean we're still you know we're still chugging along we're still doing fine but that has been more difficult and we're looking at different ways to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
zu nicht nur anbieten, sondern mehr Wert zu geben, sodass die Leute, die auf dem Fenster sind, diese Entscheidung machen können. Sie können sagen, all right, you know what? This is a no brainer. We've got to get to that point. I do believe that the market environment for trading right now is still fantastic. Again, so many people are concerned about their IRAs, their 401ks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
Wound up building up my own trading firm, went to work for Goldman Sachs and ran their S&P 500 operation down on the trading floor. And then about 10, 11 years ago transitioned from the floor of zu Trading on the screens and teaching people how to trade.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
And with absolute certainty, absolut great reason to be concerned. And early on I said we have to separate our trading hat from our investing hat. What I do is not investing. I am not an investment advisor. I am not a broker. I don't give None of our educators give opinions on what you should do with money for your IRAs, for your retirement accounts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
We focus solely on trading and the opportunity for trading is very, very robust right now. It's a challenging market, but yes, that's why you need a mentor. That's why you need someone like us to help guide you through it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
No, fantastic. And just for those that don't know, I will, you know, my disclosures, I've known Scott for 40 years. I'm a huge fan of his integrity, his business acumen. So a really, really good guy. Scott, before we go further, can you take a moment and tell people if they want to learn about trading, how could they learn about your company and where can they find you? Sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Prosper Trading Academy, Navigating Market Volatility & Finding Purpose Through Loss with Scott Bauer 4-21-25
So it's really easy. It's prospertrading.com. Name of the company is Prosper Trading Academy. You can go right to our website. You can Google, you can YouTube us. We have thousands and thousands of educational videos that are online, that are free. Anybody can Google or YouTube how to trade, right? But you're not necessarily going to find what you want.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
And then they find out it's a disaster and just as challenging as investing in public market funds. The third concept is, a concept we use often, that life is a constant journey. So it's going to be up, it's going to be down, but it's generally all okay and trying to stay moving in the right direction. And sometimes it's a journey and something's not okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
You know, you lose somebody to cancer, something horrible happens. But generally it's a journey, it's an evolution. You keep thriving, keep growing. You take steps forward, you take steps back and it's all okay. And this is life. This is the journey that we're all on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
Viertens ist ein Konzept, dass wenn du etwas großartig möchtest, ja, du musst natürlich Talent haben, aber oft musst du dich darüber besitzen, dass du wirklich großartig bist und es gewinnst. Das ist das vierte Konzept für heute. Das sind vier Konzepte für heute. Wir sind wieder mit dir mit einigen kurzen Podcasts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
Wir sind wieder mit dir morgen mit einem langen Podcast über 25 Mantras und Gedanken. Wenn ich unsere Produzentin Chanel Bunger mit mir morgen mitnehmen kann und nicht so müde werde. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Again, Rick, number one today in the Apple Businesses Rankings. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de. Somebody said the other day that breaking through classes in our country, going from middle class to upper class or from real to real upper class or from poor to rich is a really, really hard thing to do. And that those that do so should recognize the gargantum effort that it takes to do that. And I thought that was a fascinating take.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
It's sort of a good take and a sad take. Und wo die Länder hinbekommen sind, wo es schwer ist, das zu tun, und es fühlt sich manchmal mehr so an, als ob die Leute das Wasser tun wollten, als dass sie etwas Spezifisches tun, oder was sie gemacht haben, oder in sehr spezifischen Bereichen. Aber ich dachte, das war interessant, über die Breakthrough-Klassen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
Das zweite, was ich kurz darüber sprechen werde, ist das Konzept des Fangen des Autos. Also es gibt dieses ganze Thema über einen Hund, der das Auto fängt und nicht weiß, was sie tun sollten, wenn sie das Auto fangen. So many people that make money blow it, because they don't know what to do when they actually make it. They think they're so lucky to make it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Thoughts for Today 4-21-25
Then they find that happiness is still very, very much of a journey to get to the next spot or to be happy and calm and centered. I also look at this in the adage of investing in private equity funds. Those who put some money away thought, oh my God, I've made it. I can invest in these vehicles that weren't open to me before. Nobody would have me in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
Parts of it they like, parts of it they don't like, but certainly they didn't vote for the market going down by 15%. And so watching this, I find fascinating. And I find this text that showed up in my inbox just a few minutes ago. It's just a great example of the cognizance and the challenge that Trump faces. Voters are having as they watch this play out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
I saw another discussion this morning where I texted a colleague that said something like, oh my goodness, look at this deal with the market, what a debacle. And the person responds back, you people all wanted him, all you people can F off. So I don't know that that is Elogially stated. But when I hear this from a Trump voter and a non-Trump voter, it might be one bit the mood of the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
The picture changes quickly, so I wouldn't take too much out of it, but it is fascinating to listen to the different thoughts on President Trump and the situation that we're in currently. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, ranked number one today in the Apple Business News rankings, the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business Podcast. Today's discussion is President Trump and cognitive dissonance. So here's the concept. Many people, including a lot that I know, voted for President Trump because they were sort of not excited about the woke agenda or Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or four more years of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
And what I'm starting to see, and I'll read a text I got this morning. I'm starting to think that Trump and company have no blanking idea what they're doing with economic policy, blowing a mandate, and will lose the House in 26. Idiots. Should have stuck to Doge and Borders. So, when you hear that from an Ein ehrlicher Trump-Supporter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
President Trump & Cognitive Dissonance 4-21-25
Du bekommst einen Sinn, dass zumindest der Trump-Welt, und wiederum, ich bin kein Anti-Trump-Typ, aber ich habe mit der ökonomischen Agenda etwas zu tun, ist es ein bisschen ein Verlust, was zu tun ist, als sie das anschauen und fühlen, dass es eine Art Handelskrieg ist, eine Kampfkrieg.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. These are eight of the stories that we're following this morning. It's April 21st, the start of a new week in the markets and not necessarily a good week. First, the markets point decidedly down this morning. People concerned about both upcoming earnings, also about tariffs and trade week and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
For first-generation successful families, investing in PE and VC funds may be akin to the dog who chases the car and catches the car. The chase may be more fun than the catch. And what I mean by that is if you're a first-generation wealthy family, you thought, oh, my God, you'd really hit it when you could invest in private equity and VC funds, and then you found it's not as exciting as it seems.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
Seventh, against the tide, Netflix keeps on rising. I don't know what people are watching on Netflix, but it's up nearly 10% year to date. Finally, eighth, Pope Francis, history's first Latin American pope, passed away on Monday. He was 88. That'll send the, you know, the... Cardinals back at the Conclave trying to pick the next pope. We'll see how that goes. He's a special PS postscript.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
The Becker Private Equity Podcast ranked number one this week, followed by Wall Street, Your Money Briefing, Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg Daybreak, and the WSJ Minute Briefing. So just thrilled with that. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
So just a lot that's not going right at the moment. I do assume there's a decent amount of cognitive dissonance for all of those that voted for President Trump. They're trying to figure out policy at the present moment. Apple's market cap has fallen below $3 trillion after closing in on nearly $4 trillion last year. The stock's down 21% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
Third, Nvidia's market cap has fallen to $2.47 trillion after once being above $3.5 trillion. A great piece today in Barron's how CEO Jensen Wong is trying to ease trade war fears. Fourth, Microsoft also struggling, not as bad as Nvidia and Apple. Its market cap is down to $2.73 trillion. It's down nearly 13% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
Fifth, a great article in the Wall Street Journal, Private Equity World Engulfed by a Perfect Storm. Essentially, the article says, PE firms were struggling before the tariff battles, and now deals have moved to a standstill. The three largest buyout firms are now down more than 20% year-to-date, Blackstone, Apollo, KKR. So that's going poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-21-25
Another story that the longer the deal logjam goes on, the harder it's going to be for these firms to get money back to clients. Sixth, and I can empathize with this, investors in PE funds keep on making commitments to new funds and funding capital calls. Yet the return of capital and profits in the last two or so vintage funds is moving very slowly, if at all.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We're joined today by Liz Hudson, who's one of our most listened to guests. We're going to talk today about a topic that's near and dear to everybody who's ever founded a business or even beyond founding a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
No, and thank you very much. We've seen, there's been a lot of discussion and I've read a couple of books on it. This concept in building a business of the middle zone or the gray zone or whatever you want to call it. And this is the point where,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
where you built a team, you started to get enough revenues, things are going okay, but you've not quite gotten to that sustainability spot where you've built a big enough team and enough clients, enough business going on that you really feel secure and stable. And that's that middle zone of growing from smaller to a little bit larger to feel a bit more secure and stable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
And I think it resonates with projects, with products, with all kinds of efforts. And so now talk about this middle zone, this gray zone, in either product development or what you're doing and how you get to that next stage and some of the thoughts on it and tips on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
The topic is one that resonates with people going through any effort they're trying to get through and to improve in and so forth. Liz, let me ask you to tee up the subject and we'll start to talk about it. Why don't you go ahead and tee it up?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
I think this concept, but I think this concept, when you're going through difficult times in anything or trying to get through what we call a fight through or something else, this concept of remembering why you're doing something is so important. So I love that thought and tip. So everybody's in that middle zone at times in everything they do, and they can either quit or keep at it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
And to keep at it, you sort of got to know why you're doing it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
And I love that. And I also think there's this fine line. There is so much written about it's not the result. It's the process. It's the journey, not the process. And I think there is so much not the result. It's the journey, not just the result. I think there's so much truth in that. And I think there's also a reminder that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
that for some of these things, you've got to take that journey with some urgency if you actually want to get results too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
And that often, if you just don't want to flow through life, then this combination of loving the process, loving the journey, plus having some urgency to it to actually get results is such an important sort of contradiction and synergy you've got to put together, both loving the journey, loving the process, but also bringing some urgency to it. But I think there's so much there, I think.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
Thank you so much, Liz. I'm glad you continue on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
See, but I think this is a wonderful, wonderful point. Because every time you're starting something, there's a fire, there's excitement. I'm working on a new book, aiming for 50,000 words. We're 3,000 to 4,000 words in. And that's just a daunting period of time. Very exciting the first couple of thousand. Now you're in started getting to the to the to the to the meat of having to write.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
And you look at a fifty thousand words, you're like, oh, my goodness. And trying to find that that daily just that daily excitement to persevere, even when you get past that initial lick of excitement is so, so important. So I love these concepts. Liz, let me give you one chance to summarize these three again. Give us these three keys again real quickly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating the Middle: Staying Committed Through the Toughest Part of the Journey with Liz Hutson 5-19-25
Liz, I want to thank you, as always, for joining us on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Always a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to have recently passed 7 million downloads. We've also gotten to 21,000 plus subscribers in the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So it's a weak newsletter. So we greatly appreciate you listening, you reading, and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
Fifth, UnitedHealth Group rallied 6.5% on Friday, points up another several percent today. It's down 42% year-to-date. United is the third largest U.S. company by revenues. It's that big. Sixth, the five largest U.S. companies by revenues are Walmart, Amazon, UnitedHealth, Apple, and CVS. Walmart is up nearly 9% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
It's an amazing strength in this company over a very long period of time. The company itself is largely located in red states and is having a small tiff with President Trump as it tries to discuss the impact of tariffs on its stockholders.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
As firms navigate the president, they're often between a rock and a hard place because they're trying to be up front with their shareholders but not rile the president. Seventh, NVIDIA has been surging like crazy recently. It's nearly up 30% over the last month. Its market cap is back to $3.3 trillion, and it barely trails Microsoft, which has a market cap of $3.37 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
Eight, Tesla has jumped 44% over the last month. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are resilient people. Jensen Wang, the CEO of NVIDIA, is also a force of nature. Finally, ninth, Doximity dropped 10% Friday despite outstanding results. This was due to Doximity projecting slower growth going forward. The stock is essentially flat year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
It reported a great year in revenues and profits, but just the slowness in its potential growth has caused the stock to drop significantly on Friday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
We'll keep on trying to make sure that we're teaching and entertaining, sometimes usefully, sometimes not. Today's discussion is Nine stories that we're following this morning, and thank you for listening. First, Moody's, the major credit agency, on late Friday dropped the U.S. credit rating to AA1 from AAA.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
Moody's largely pointed to ballooning deficits and rising interest costs, ultimately quite a disaster. As I often say, debt kills nations, companies, and families. Second, the stock market is reacting negatively to the drop in the U.S. credit rating. The equity markets point down this morning, and the long-term bond yields point up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
Third, I give some credit today to those in Congress on both sides of the aisle who are providing some pushback to the current iteration of the budget bill that President Trump and team are pushing. This will likely send deficits higher.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 5-19-25
People on his own side of the aisle that are challenging him, I give them great credit because this has been political suicide the last several years, but something that needs to be done to keep the budget deficits under control. Fourth, the NASDAQ is down about half a percentage point year to date. The S&P 500 is up now 1.3% year to date. We'll see how those continue to play through.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a shout out to Christy Turdo. Christy is a tennis pro. And she's an extraordinary example of grit and perseverance. And I'll give you some of the backstory and three or four points about Christy. First, I was reminded to do this or think about it because it was recently her birthday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
They've also got fitness going on at the club and so forth. And to me, just watching the grit and the grind and the perseverance, the effort, also the assortment of people and leaders that are with her and work closely with her that have been there for years. a ton of them, too many to name, but just fantastic people like Beth and others that have been with her for years. Just an amazing group.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
effort. It's sort of Christy's growth, her grit, her perseverance, her effort to turn this into both a surviving and then thriving business. And also just the way she's handled it. Then on top of that, and it's not easy to constantly be hiring, recruiting pros, hiring, recruiting members. And over time, she's got better and better at it. And sort of the grit and perseverance is remarkable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
I would be remiss in the shout out to Christy It's not mentioned one other thing that makes her sort of head and shoulders above other pros. She's able to work with players that many think of as almost impossible to teach, that might have a great single stroke like a forehand, but it seems like that they could do almost nothing else on the court. The net game could be atrocious.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
The over a game is scary. The serve game is okay. The method of ability to Try different things in the court is missing. But Christy has an uncommon gift. Even with players like that, even with players like Jim Field, she could tend to get the very best out of them and make them better. This may be the ultimate testament to perseverance and grit. I see him on the court all the time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
As a teacher, this must be both a labor of love, a love-hate exercise, a throw-your-hands-up-in-the-ear exercise. How can this person not listen? But Christy, despite those challenges in teaching— Someone who was almost unteachable has proven her mettle by bringing out the best in that player.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
So again, today's shout out goes to Christy Turto, a lesson in perseverance and grit, a remarkable leader, a remarkable owner and pro. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
But she's truly an extraordinary leader. And here's sort of the gist of it. She's a tennis pro by background. Tennis pros come in all shapes and sizes. Many of them are very good at teaching. Many of them are completely reliable. Many are completely unreliable. Many are great players. Some are not great players. Some of them always aspire to be more than just a teaching pro.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
And being a teaching pro is a fantastic profession. So I don't want anybody to take that the wrong way. Some of the great teaching pros do so well, make a nice living, take care of people, teach. Kids, adults, everybody, fantastic work in what they do. Christy always wanted to also own a tennis club. I don't know how many years ago it is now. She decided to go out and try and buy a tennis club.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Christi Turdo: A Masterclass in Grit & Perseverance 5-19-25
Of course, did so right before COVID hit or around then. Bought the tennis club, worked her butt off to make that tennis club a success. Has brought in a ton of great pros to play with and hit with there. He's built out the programs. He's also then expanded into another location where they've added pickle tennis and paddle tennis and other types of things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
Ich liebe diesen Quote, wiederum, Erfolg ist nicht das Ziel der Freude, Freude ist das Ziel des Erfolgs. Um zurück zu gehen, einen Schritt vorwärts zu nehmen, der beste Wahl, den ich professionell gemacht habe, war in meinen Zwanzigern, in Bezug auf die Auswahl eines Jobs. Und ich bin mit dem Firmen, das war der Vorsitzende des Firmen Maguire Woods, der ich seit 30 Jahren war.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
Der Firmen wurde als Ross & Hardys genannt, und ich war in meinen Zwanzigern und habe es am Anfang verloren. Three of my close colleagues, Rob Glantz, George Swiatis and Jeff Dunlap, were all at this firm and they were all happy. This was a real rarity at that time in terms of big law firms.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
So I at some point left the more prestigious firm I was at, that I was working like a dog at, and joined this firm, Rusts and Hardys, which was really a choice towards, if I'm happy, I'll find a way to thrive. I now have been there for 30 years plus and thrived. So the message is, you find happy and you thrive. And of course, you got to be able to pay the bill.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
So I don't want this to be mistaken for find your passion to go broke. No, you got to take care of your family, do things you got to do. But find happy and thrive. I love that. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf Shopify.de This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business Podcast. Today's discussion deals with an Albert Schweitzer quote. Schweitzer quote, and I love the quote. The quote is, success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. And here's the concept.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
And it basically says, if you find yourself doing what you love, you're ultimately likely to be successful. The concept being that if you work so hard to find success and think that will lead you to happiness, that's not likely the case.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
Where in contrast, if you work at finding a position, a role, a situation where you're happy and you can pay the bills or a big believer in being able to pay the bills and you get yourself in the right situation, you're likely to be able to thrive once you get in that right situation. This concept of if you...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“Success is Not the Key to Happiness, Happiness is the Key to Success” 5-19-25
Find happiness in the right spot, you will find success, resonates with me very, very much. I've always find that when I make choices based on where I will be happiest, the success comes and I thrive. And when I make choices based on what seems right, prestige-wise or financially, it's often like putting a square peg in a round hole and I struggle.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets are On a Run, Don’t Do Anything Stupid 5-19-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the markets are on a run. Don't do something stupid. So here's the concept. The markets over the last month have been on one heck of a run. And so the S&P recovered about 12%. It's back to even for the year. The NASDAQ very similar. It's recovered all of its losses is up for the year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets are On a Run, Don’t Do Anything Stupid 5-19-25
As an investor, it's very hard not to feel pretty euphoric when the market works for you like it's done the last month. And then you often want to up your allocation of equities and you feel like you can't lose.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets are On a Run, Don’t Do Anything Stupid 5-19-25
It's also, from my perspective, challenging not to go out and do something impulsive, you know, like buy a, you know, as you start to feel wealthier, as you've got this wealth effect going on. You know, of course, And I won't do this because I don't do this, but a Maserati SUV seems fun in calling my name. But alas, we know that when the market goes up, there are multiple things we know.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets are On a Run, Don’t Do Anything Stupid 5-19-25
One that could go back down. So get your dopamine fixes for the market going up with a nice dinner, a nice drink, a nice whatever, but not something that sets you back $50,000 to $100,000. Second, we know that it's not good to splurge when the market is going up. So keep those splurges under control. Again, the market is surging. God bless. Don't do anything dumb. That's the message for today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets are On a Run, Don’t Do Anything Stupid 5-19-25
Thank you very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you text me your favorite splurge, That's 773-766-5322. I'll go ahead and send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate if you're the first person to send me your favorite splurge. Thank you for listening to the Vector Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity in business podcast we're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant lawyer and business leader greg hover greg is going to talk to say about the independent sponsor world which has become an increasing part of the deal world the private equity world and more greg let me ask you to take a moment and introduce yourself and just take a moment and also talk about before we get started in independent sponsors
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
Thank you so much. We've got an audience that's a vast mix of sort of private equity and business professionals and all kinds of other people that just have an interest in business. I didn't know what an independent sponsor was, quite frankly, until 10, 15, 20 years ago. I didn't even know what a sponsor was. But an independent sponsor, that world's emerged over the last decade.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
Tell the audience what an independent sponsor is and what that looks like.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
Thank you. And who are these independent sponsors? I come across them often like I'm dealing with one right now who was an entrepreneur and founder.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
did unbelievably well now is involved in finding deals bringing them to funds or other investors and trying to put deals together talk about who are the who are the typical independent sponsors another one that i know well was a former really successful partner and leader at gtcr then went out and did a lot of his own things as an independent sponsor but give us a feel for who are the independent sponsors
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
Sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
the independent sponsor practice at McGuire Woods in the conference coming up. Then we'll talk about what are independent sponsors? What are the deal structures look like? Why is this area emerged so much? Give us a second on yourself in the McGuire Woods independent sponsor practice conference.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
And are the independent sponsors putting a lot of their own money into typically or what do you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
Thank you. No, no. Fascinating. And when you think of a prototypical successful independent sponsor, I don't expect you to name a name, but give us a sense of who that might be or what that would look like, the prototypical independent sponsor that you've seen be successful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
It was fantastic. Fantastic. When you look at this coming year, Greg, you've built this fantastic practice. You're a great, great lawyer. What are you most focused on and excited about as you look at this coming year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Rise of Independent Sponsors in Private Equity – Insights from Gregory Hawver of McGuireWoods LLP 3-17-25
Greg, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you joining us. Again, if people are interested in the McGuire Woods Independent Sponsor Conference, please feel free to reach out to Greg Hauver or whoever you work with at McGuire Woods. Greg, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much. Thanks, Scott. Super fun.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Last week, we did with the Elon Musk situation, the Elon Musk scorecard. And a couple of people, I alluded to the fact that I keep a scorecard for myself that goes through various different categories, business and investments and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
And he's going to be taking some shots of pictures of people or videos when they're at the gym for his TikTok advertising, social media advertising, something like that. And, of course, gave you the right to to to go ahead and bow out of that. So you don't have to like you could opt out. But the thing I'll tell you is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
I might be slightly better than a before and before commercial for fitness right now. I'm not hitting it out of the park. I feel like directly I'm moving in the right direction, but not fantastic. So I give that a before and before picture as advertising, and I give myself a B right now, not doing fine and staying active, not watching my diet as well as I'd like to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
In terms of tennis and golf, it's been an absolutely horrendous golf season, and the only reason I'll give myself a B B on that is directionally, weightly, it's moving in the right direction. I'm hitting the same stroke over and over again. I'm playing much smarter. My putting's improved.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
I feel a lot of it's due to both having my head in a good space and also the coach that's giving me some advice on a couple things. I really feel like he's made a difference. So in terms of the personal training and the fitness, a B-ish. The golf, a B-ish. The tennis. The tennis... I, again, I finished second with a team, with a team in a tournament we had this weekend.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
The first team was so stacked that I don't feel bad about finishing second. Everybody knew they were going to finish first. Our team, two of our players played fantastically well. And I'll give a quick shout out to them, to Nathan Jaffe, Matt Grable. And then the third player on our team, Phil Richards, played fantastic. So it was a four-person tournament with a lot of round robins and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
And my teammates really carried the weight there. I'll give myself for my tennis lately a B. is serving better than I've served in a long time, but the fitness is holding me back a little bit. I'm not quite as fit and moving as well as I could.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
Not to give myself the sorry, sad song, but I've been through a handful of eye surgeries, so I'm not seeing the ball as well as I was, but I'm seeing it better now. So I would say businesses and investments overall going fine. The two core businesses that other people really run today going well. The one that I really run today, eh, going okay.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
Fitness, tennis, golf, and sort of across the board, a handful of things that I sort of, I don't know if I exactly score them periodically. I actually put grades on them. But I did want to talk for a second here. I'm not going to go deep because I'm not that deep a person. But I will give you a quick scorecard on the tennis, fitness, and golf category.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
Tennis, fitness, golf, all in the B, B-minus category. I would say it's not my fault, but it largely is. But moving in the right direction. I feel like directionally moving in the right direction. I know I gave you the Elon Musk scorecard the other day. This is much more personal, much more ridiculous. I hope that somebody enjoys it. Again, Scott Becker, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
I'm in that period of moment of time now. where I don't feel like I'm excelling at anything. Our podcast is ranked number one or two in the country in Apple businesses, so that's a good sign. Everything else is going okay. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, and God bless you all. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
Business and investing, I feel like, is overall going fine. I am certainly not an AA plus investor, but I feel like overall, the different business endeavors I'm involved in, and quite frankly, that's due to the teams that I work with, they're going overall fine. A couple of them are in the AA minus category. One, I'm a little stuck on, but that's one of my own individual efforts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
I'd give that a C. but the investments are going fine. I feel good about it. Imperfect, but I'm a very conservative investor. So when the market has lots of volatility, I feel pretty good about where I stand, give myself a B plus on that. You know, even though the market's not cooperating, I feel like I'm comfortable with how I'm doing within it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Scott Becker Middle Age Score Card 3-17-25
In terms of the sports, I would give myself in terms of how I'm playing my middle-aged sports in my fitness is I largely give myself B's to B minuses across the board. The only thing I will tell you is the saving grace is a couple of different things. One is the personal trainer that I work with some, you know, sent out a notice recently that he's doing commercials.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is a business discussion it can be true of sports can be true of business it can be true of any place where you develop great expertise and have great success one of the things that we see constantly and it's sort of the opposite there's a great set of books
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
You can't put in a gargantum effort the first time. And obviously some of that's going to be learning curve and expect to put in a halfway effort the second time and still have great success the second time. So if you want to be successful, multiple different things over the course of a life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
The thing you can't forget is, and it's reality of it is, it's gonna be a lot of work to figure it out the next time, to figure out product market fit, to figure out your team, to build a following, to build a customer base, whatever it is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
you don't start in your next endeavor on on second or third base you might start a little bit on first base because you know things you didn't know before but you can't forget the effort it's going to take i see some people fantastic tennis players growing up that try and make themselves into great golfers and again they can't forget what it took them to become a great tennis player
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
Now, some of the athletic skill might be transferable, but at the end of the day, it's going to take a lot of work to become great in that next thing. I think it's very true of business. Never forget where you start. Never forget that when you get started again, you got to go back to the start and grind to do all those things that helped you to figure out the first thing the second time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
by a professional executive coach, one of the great ones, I think it's Marshall Goldsmith. It essentially says, what got you here won't get you there. And that's the concept that getting to a certain level requires then transitions and changes to get to the next level. There's actually an opposite of that concept. And I'll talk about it as follows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
When you become excellent at something, fantastic at something, Many people don't realize that to be fantastic at the next thing means they actually, yes, they'll take their knowledge base, but sometimes they lose the perspective that they really are starting all over again. They're not starting the next thing on second or third base or fourth base. They might understand better.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
And I know fourth base is known as home plate. So bear with me, but they might understand better. things better, they might understand what it takes to be great at something else. But at the end of the day, one of the things that I think is, you could never forget what got you to success in your first endeavor, your second endeavor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Don’t Forget What Lead to Success the First Time 3-17-25
I'm reminded this often by serial entrepreneurs, that even though they may be better the second, third, fourth, fifth time around, you almost always are starting at zero. So you're not starting again at premium pricing until you build the right brand. You're not forgetting all the things it took to be successful the first time to do it the second time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to be around Johns Hopkins and Columbia losing a combined billion two in federal funding. And I'm not going to talk about whether it's right or wrong that they lost that funding. I don't have an opinion on that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
So I'm not a big Jimmy Carter fan, but I love this concept of actually looking at things from a zero-based budgeting, what's needed, what's not needed, and all those kinds of things. Now, I'm not saying we can go back to square one on all of our university spending, but it strikes me as incredible. We've got this huge university education complex. We've got tuitions that have gone through the roof.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
We don't have enough residency spots. We've got so many challenges with higher education. And at the same time, we are funding it at such insane dollars that I do think it's a time to take a closer look at Where is all that money going? Again, these are great institutions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
You know, somebody accused me in sort of an ad hominem attack around this thing of like, am I anti-research or anti-education? I'm the furthest thing from that. I'm a great beneficiary of our system. Went to University of Illinois, a great public institution that at one time got a lot of funding from the state, now doesn't.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
They went to Harvard Law School, again, not to brag about it, I don't think anybody brags about that anymore, but got an incredible education, incredible network, incredible people. So I'm not against these elite universities at all. I'm a proponent, but I am a believer that we've got to understand where the money is going and how much of it is going.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
I particularly have no guilt in asking these questions when we're running a $2 trillion deficit as a country. I'm not anti-child. I am pro-vaccine. I'm not pro-cancer. I want a lot of cancer research, but we do need some accountability of all those dollars. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Would love your thoughts and opinions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
Always feel free to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. If you want to attack me personally as anti or pro-cancer or anti-children, it's just ridiculous. Don't bother to text me if that's your plan, but please text me anytime with your comments and thoughts. Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
I'm also not going to argue that research is critical, that Hopkins and Columbia are overall fantastic institutions. I mean, I'd always love them every day, but I don't argue that they're not great institutions. What I do find fascinating is when I see that these two institutions, and this is just two, can lose a billion to...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
It does lead me to believe that we need more accountability and transparency around where all of our federal monies are going. The thing that surprised me here which is the sheer magnitude of dollars that could be taken away from these institutions. And these are only two institutions. And again, that money is going all over the place.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
These institutions, it's not just going to cancer, which is not just going to what's needed. I have no idea where it's going, but I was blown away by the sheer number and how that must be extrapolated over multiple, multiple different institutions. Again, again, I'm not necessarily judging it as bad or good. I was just blown away by the magnitude of the numbers that we're spending in these areas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Sheer Magnitude of Higher Education Funding 3-17-25
And then the hope is that some of it's going to great use. Now, again, I do not come out of the womb as a huge Jimmy Carter fan. Jimmy Carter, though, had this concept that he talked about as zero-based budgeting. And if there was one thing I loved about Jimmy Carter, and there are very few, notwithstanding his public image that he carefully developed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
this is scott becker with the becker private business podcast i want to bring to you this morning five stories that we're watching this morning uh hope you find this interesting we hope you enjoy it as much as we do so the first thing is the markets rallied just really well on friday uh that's going to be a short-lived rally that's about a rally that is as long as the beers chicago bears dynasty from 1985 that lasts just one year
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
But the Becker Private Equity Podcast is ranked second currently at Apple Business News. And the good news is that's right between two different Wall Street Journal podcasts. So that's a really good company. Again, text me if you got this far. If you're the first to text me, I'll send you a $25 Amazon gift certificate, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
But the good news is after the market starting out low this morning, they're about flat now. So hopefully not too bad a day today. Second, the five largest companies by market cap, we watch this regularly. Apple, number one. Nvidia has rallied recently. It's in the number two spot. Microsoft, number three. Amazon, number four. And then Alphabet, Google, number five.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
Third, I'll talk about five stocks that really advanced on Friday. Some of these are falling again today, but generally these are five that knocked it out of the park Friday, all more than 10% gains. And those include Astera Labs. Tempus AI, Avis, the rental car company, it seems like forever since that's been up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
SoundTown, which is regularly up and down, but around 30, down about 35, 40% this year. And finally, Peloton, we talk about it often, but those are all stocks that gained more than 10% Friday. Peloton's again down today. Four, even though a great day in the markets on Friday, a great rally. Here are three of sort of the retail and apparel stocks that fell. Gap,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-17-25
Macy's and Under Armour all got crushed on Friday. Fifth story we're following, we'll talk about just very briefly, and this is a thank you to our listeners. And quite frankly, anybody that gets to this point in the podcast, even though it's short, we will send you a $25 Amazon gift certificate if you're the first person to text me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant and outspoken entrepreneur. He's a healthcare entrepreneur and just a fascinating person. We're joined today by Dutch Rojas. Dutch is going to tell us what he's doing, what trends he's focused on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Well, and we really need more physicians and nurses and providers, and we've got to make it as easy as possible for them. My goodness, if you think we can solve health care with all these technocrats, my God, it's never going to work. We need more doctors and nurses more than anything else. I could not agree with you more on your worldview here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Dutch, tell me what you're most excited about this year. What are you most focused on and excited about this year? I follow your religion, fasting things. Give me the top one or two things that you're really focused on. I mean, besides the kids and the health and the family, tell me what else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
No, and that's fantastic. And, Dodge, I want to get you back on to talk about some more of the things you're doing. How do you decide when you're investing in a startup, how do you think about that? What makes you excited about a particular startup versus not excited about a startup? How do you think about that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Couldn't agree with you more. Couldn't agree with you more. I love that. Always it's people first and business second. You have tremendous people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
I think it's literally everything. I'm always a believer. There are a billion ideas. There's no perfect idea. I mean, there may be people like Travis and Uber that came up with something that was so far ahead of the game or Elon and Tesla or whatever it is. There's very few of that, at least in the mid-market that I live in and work in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
And so you're always betting on great leaders, great people, and hoping they'll figure it out versus a specific product. I could not agree with you more. Dutch, it is absolutely just a great pleasure to visit with you. I'd love to have you back on to talk about advice for founders, advice for leaders. If I can get you back on, I'd love to do it. It's always great to visit with you again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Dutch Rojas, literally one of a kind. Great to visit with you today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
I love his enthusiasm, his intelligence, and his just embracing of entrepreneurialism and capitalism. Dutch, tell us a bit about yourself and where you're most focused today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
No, for a lot of years. And Andrew's a brilliant, brilliant person, a leader. He's ran a number of companies. He was a senior, senior leader at Optum, led Optum for a while. And then he just does a fascinating amount of investing and interesting things. Just a brilliant, brilliant person. But tell the audience a little bit about him.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
We couldn't agree more. And one of the things that you say about is the people around him is the people that have worked with him for 20 years have followed him from place to place, which I think is one of the great signs of a great leader. Dutch, tell us what you're most focused on today because I know you've got sort of some investments. You've got some operations. You've got some businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Where are you most focused today and what's exciting you today? So two things excite me.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
right just in an array of wonderful specialties from ob gyn all the way to ortho and like it's just i think i'm turning 50 this year and i'm having more fun than i've ever had in my entire life and talk about that for a second i'm going to come back to something else because there's so many topics that are fascinating to visit with you about talk about turning 50 and maintaining the energy and motivation i mean i'm blown away at the positivity the enthusiasm
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
You're opinionated and smart. Talk a little bit about maintaining that energy flow and keeping it going and maintaining that momentum. And what do you do to take care of yourself to do that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Take a moment there, because those are two brilliant, interesting people. Andrew Hayek and Keith Smith, and really interesting, very different people, but both entrepreneurial and brilliant. Take a moment, give us 30 seconds on Keith Smith, then maybe 30 seconds on Andrew Hayek, if you don't mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
You know, you know what? Life is great fun and it's healthy to be in the game. It's far better to be in the game than not in the game. And if you're going to be in the game, you're going to have some of that. So God bless that. That's right. I love this concept of. People don't realize there's a growing career, there's a doing career, stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
The client dinners, the lunch meetings, those are in the big scheme of things. You've got to do some of them. There's this one guy that says never eat alone. It's his thesis. But I think it's a horrible idea for fitness and health. And in the long run, if you want to have a long career, you better keep yourself healthy and move it in the right direction. So I think that is just fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Capitalism with Dutch Rojas of Physician Capital, Inc. 2-17-25
Could not agree more. And talk about something else. You've been a huge supporter of physician-owned hospitals. And talk for a second. There's a moratorium on the new ownership of physician hospitals. Give us your thoughts on that. Is that ever-changing, or what are your thoughts there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to visit with you and talk about private equity. And here's the discussion today. KKR and Carlyle Group, as exits get harder, the big funds move towards fee income.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
In any event, that's what we're talking about today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We'll be back with you a little bit later with a short podcast and a few healthcare trends we're watching closely. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
So one of the things that's been reported recently, both these funds, KKR and Carlyle, reported earnings recently, and the earnings were strong, but the market didn't react well to the earnings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
And that's because at the end of the day, both companies showed great fee income, but really having trouble getting the profits because of delayed exits and exits that are not at the profitability and the gains they'd like. Moreover, recently saw KKR announce that they're doing more and more with the long-term holdings group.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
They're investing another billion, one in three companies that are in their long-term holdings group. The long-term holdings group is more like the Berkshire model, the family office model, less the buy, build, and flip model. And at the end of the day, the core business of private equity forever has been this buy, build, flip model.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
But now you see this gravitation towards buy and hold for the long run. towards essentially the things like more and more fee income. And the challenge with that, the real challenge with that is private equity fund companies have commanded crazy multiples compared to asset managers and banks and credit institutions and others that are driven by fees versus profits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
KKR and Carlyle Group 2-17-25
And so we'll see if ultimately this has a real impact on the sort of multiples that private equity funds command if they're no longer able to as actively invest buy, build, sell, and they become more like buy and hold. They'll still do fine, but they might not have the outsized valuations they've enjoyed for the last few years, at least in terms of Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, and more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are five stories that we're following today. It's a day where the markets are closed, so enjoy the day, take it easy a little bit, and so forth. But here's five stories we're following today. First, the markets are closed today, probably a welcome day for neurotic investors and market watchers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
Fifth, he was one of the biggest discussors of ESG and DEI for several years. They've now stepped back from that significantly and also withdrawn from the Climate Coalition. He, by background, is a UCLA grad and his dad owned a shoe store. Just a fascinating, rags-to-riches story. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. Amazing what he's accomplished.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
I've often been negative on him because he was so out in front of playing social justice warrior. But at the end of the day, a really impressive business career and so forth. I love many of the thoughts from Bob Parsons' book, Fire in the Hole. Bob's the founder of GoDaddy and Parsons Extreme Golf, PXG. Here's one of his quotes. Quotes, here's what I know for sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
The success or failure of any business revolves around the leader. To be successful, leaders need to do something they really like to do. I think he's right on in this and so many things that he says in his book, Fire in the Hole. Finally, Seth, three quick talking points from healthcare from a keynote talk we're giving soon. And I'll, again, do a separate podcast on this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
First, health care is a huge supply and demand problem. No matter how you slice it, we've got a growing population and not enough doctors, providers, nurses, just a serious, serious math problem. And I don't think that's getting any better. Three hundred forty million people and only a million sixty thousand physicians. Great shortages, primary care physicians and specialists.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
Take a breath and enjoy yourself. KKR moves to long-term holdings in its strategic holdings group and doubles down by putting more money into a few of the companies it holds in its long-term portfolio. And this is interesting for a variety of different reasons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
Concierge growth is off the charts because people can't get a doctor. Just really in trouble here. And you'll hear longer and more points on it in our further discussion. The second point is access is everything. Politicians discuss coverage and managed care, but few focus on real problem solving. How do we address truly the supply-demand problem?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
Politicians seem farsely immune from all this, but we all face access problems that are getting worse. When Doge talks about cutting $80 billion a year from healthcare, can they differentiate what's needed in administrative versus what's waived? How do we create more access? Currently, medical loss ratios are up at about 85%. That means 15% is going to administrative costs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
Isn't there a way to improve that? But then how do we invest in more doctors, nurses, and providers to go with everything else? The third point I'll say about healthcare is, It's tech plus solving the shortages to make this work. It's not just tech. Tech is often an incremental game changer, not a transformative game changer. Very, very important, but we still need more providers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
Tech is critical, but not fully in itself a panacea. Trust plus verify. Use tech, adopt tech, AI, everything else, but more doctors and nurses and providers too. That's the thoughts around tech and healthcare and providers. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We'll be back with you with a couple other episodes today. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
First, something that companies are putting money into, they're putting more money into 1-800-CONTEXT, Heartland Dental, and USI Insurance Services. Now, that's in and of itself, not that interesting. What's more interesting is it, like some other PE funds, continues to double down on diversification from its traditional private equity business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
This may be in part because the traditional buy, build, and sell, traditional model of PE is struggling right now. Longer and longer hold periods, harder and harder to exit and get profits and so forth. So what we're seeing with a lot of these companies is If you watch the financial reports recently of KKR and Carlyle Group, record fee income, but less exit profits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-17-25
The third story I'm following today, the journey of billionaire Larry Fink. And Larry Fink is fascinating. He's the CEO, long-term CEO of BlackRock, founded in 1988. It's the largest asset manager in the world with $10 trillion plus under management. Recently, the board awarded him carried interest on some of the firm's funds. Fourth, his net worth is right about $1.3 billion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
This is Scott Becker with a special combined episode of the Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by three remarkable leaders. We're going to talk to us today about women on boards and what the future holds, what trends are watching, what advice they have for women leaders, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
You know what? I'd like to ask each one of you in just 30, 45 seconds each is about your first board position, whether not-for-profit or for-profit, doesn't matter, and sort of maybe something you learned from your first board position. Desiree, can I start with you there? Your first board position and maybe what you learned from that and any sort of anxiety or excitement about it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
And I love that, though, because I think that's just a great learning for everybody that your first board, you're going to be a little nervous. You're going to not know that much. And you try and figure it out, feel it out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
You ask questions, you sort of, you know, get yourself comfortable to where you feel like, oh, my goodness, I'm actually making a real contribution every day to this board and to what we're doing. Marisa, your first board experience and maybe a lesson you learned from that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
But I love that story. I love that story because we all come into our first experience not knowing where we fit, what our job is. We're trying to figure out our role. And I think this ability to be a lifelong learner and to evolve in it and figure it out is so important to all of us. I just love that, Marisa. Thank you so much. Shannon, you've been on a bunch of boards.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Tell us about the first one you were on and something you remember from that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Then they become board members, and it's very different being an advisor versus an operator and trying to understand your role and what your role is. Let me ask you one more question about board service. You've been in some of the most stressful spots being on the audit committee, the compensation committee.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Talk about being on different committees and boards and some of the stress points in different committees and boards, if you don't mind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Thank you very, very much. I'm going to ask each of you one final question, and I'll start with Shannon, go back through the round to Marisa and back to Desiree. Shannon, what are you most focused on and excited about this year? What are you most focused on and excited about currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Oh, fantastic. Marisa, how about yourself? What are you most focused on and excited about this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today. Marisa, you've had this fantastic career on top of being a partner at one of the great law firms in the country. You're also a Yale graduate, a USC graduate. Tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Thank you very, very much. And Desiree, you've got so many things going on. What are you most focused on and excited about this year?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Yeah, so true. Probably I need it as bad as anybody, but no, thank you very, very much. I tell you, it is really a pleasure to visit with the three of you. Shannon, Marisa, Desiree, what a great honor to get to visit with you three. Just fantastic. Thank you very, very much for joining us today on this combined episode of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, the Becker Private Equity Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Thank you so, so much. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
We're joined today by Desiree Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash. Desiree, I'll start with you. I've got you on my list here of notes as the first invitee, but everybody's fantastic. And then I've got Marisa and then Shannon, and that's no particular order at all.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Well, the thing I will tell you that I love about all of you, one is I've got something in common with everybody. One, we both spent some time at CantonMution, and then I get a chance to visit next with Shannon. And Shannon's been on several different boards and also a leader and also has an accounting background and a law background, which I share with Shannon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Shannon, you've had this remarkable career. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Shannon, remarkable. So tell us, who was the first black woman on a board? Who was that? And just give us a moment on that story before we dive into the next part of the conversation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Desiree, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do and what your firm does and so forth? Desiree?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
That's fantastic. Well, thank you. And I will tell you, this panel was suggested to me by Kate Liebelt, who's a huge champion of this group and saw you do the last panel you did. So thank you to Kate as well. So I'll start here with Shannon and go back around the horn to Marissa and to Desiree. What are you seeing with women on boards today? What are the trends? And it could be women on boards.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
It could be women of color on boards. What are the trends you're seeing today? Yeah.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
No, and that's fascinating to hear. And it resonates with experience where we saw a huge jump for a period of time. And now that sort of has that growth and jump has slowed some. Marisa, let me ask you really two questions. What are you seeing with women on boards? And then what advice to women that either are on boards, would like to be on boards?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
And Shannon, at some point, we'll come back to you with that question as well, after I get a chance to visit with Marisa and Desiree. Marisa, what are some of your thoughts? What are you seeing with trends? And then what advice to women who would like to be more involved in board work?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Thank you. And from the public board perspective, still trying to make sure they hit the right The right mix, the right blend, the right stats, everything in terms of women versus men, people of color versus not of color. What advice do you have to potential board candidates in terms of positioning themselves to become board members if that's something they'd like to do?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Any thoughts or advice you would give to aspiring board members?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
But I think your point is so well taken. I mean, the closer you get to it, not just as an advisor, but as a board member, as a leader, it helps you put it all into context in a different way and really informs your business judgment, your advisor judgment, your operational judgment, all those things. Is that a fair statement, Marisa?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Thank you so much. Desiree, you're literally world famous. Talk to us a little bit about working in the public and private sector. You've also done something that few people seem to be able to do well today. You've worked across party lines from Governor Edgar. to Rahm Emanuel, who I once had a fundraiser at my house for, so I know Rahm, also President Obama.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Talk a little bit about working across party lines and also being on public and private boards and some of your perspective and what advice you'd give to other women leaders.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Breaking Barriers: Women Leading on Boards with Desirée Rogers, Marisa Murillo, and Shannon Nash 4-14-25
Thank you. And Desiree, you also worked at one time in the White House and very close confidant with President Obama as well. Can you just give us a moment on that background, too, if that's OK?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And here's the discussion today. Most of the things you do don't matter. And this is not meant as a negative. This comes out of a quote on Twitter X by one of the most read people on Twitter. And I don't know these people, whether they're real people or not, but the quote goes something like this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
It's almost like if I'm practicing a sport, if I go out and just hit balls, it's useless. If I go out and say, okay, I got to practice this, this, and that, which I need to work on. Same thing in any sport, same thing in life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
The intentionality, and it takes great energy to be intentional, but I love this concept of most of the things you do don't matter, which is really a message to be intentional about life. I just love that. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
It's by a guy named Dickie Bush. And he says, you know, All the little things you're stressing about or doing, most of them aren't going to matter in five years. And the real point of this is to constantly be intentional about your life and focusing on the things you really want to do. And I think that is a fantastic message. And I love that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
And it's not to overstate most things you don't do don't matter. But the point is really well taken in terms of intentionality. So, for example, trying to get a chance to have dinner with my wife. brother-in-law and sister, with my own family, with Liz, with my parents. And this is a great use of an evening, things that matter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
If I run around and chase 53 tweets today, at the end of the day, somebody might argue in five years that's going to be irrelevant. and constantly trying to be intentional about how you're spending your time, what you're doing, what you're trying to do, versus just going with the flow, which I do often. You know, I find there's three stages of mental health.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Most of the Things You Do Don’t Matter 4-14-25
One is being too slow where I get depressed. Two is being busy. And I make up for a lot of things by just being busy and keep myself not depressed and not anxious by just being busy. And third is busy with purpose. But I do think it is critical to try and constantly work towards mental health, and doing the things intentionally that you should be doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I find watching the top five market cap companies to be a fascinating study in business, in science, and everything in investing. So the top five has changed a little bit recently, and it's fascinating to watch. Apple remains number one, even with their market caps way down from earlier this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
in both revenues and market cap is amazing. Because most of these other companies have just crazy margins. If you're Amazon, you don't have those kinds of insane margins. Another thing that we're watching closely is the Motley Fool says, here are three companies that you should buy now. And I find this fascinating, too, for some of the overlap.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
One of the companies that overlaps is Alphabet, Google. The other two companies are Intuitive and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, again. Vertex Pharmaceuticals, I don't know very much about. Intuitive, I know a lot about because they're a customer of Becker's Healthcare and we're big fans of theirs. And Google Alphabet's one of the great time companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
I have no idea where it's really going, but just absolutely fascinating to watch how well they're doing. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
They're down about 20% year to date, but they're number one in market cap. Number two, Microsoft has retaken the second spot. Basically, they're down only 8% this year, whereas NVIDIA and Apple are way down this year. NVIDIA is number three, the company that Jensen Wong built. I just read a brilliant book on that, the building of his company, called The Thinking Machine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
jensen wong nvidia in the world's most coveted microchip just absolutely fascinating i love the book found it very interesting about jensen wong i didn't know that much about fourth amazon is number four in market cap and finally fifth alphabet google is number five again these companies keep on hanging around and moving in the right direction i find fascinating with um with you know amazon quite frankly
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Top 5 Companies by Market Cap 4-14-25
Amazon is number four. And then separately, there's a great article this week in The Motley Fool. And Amazon's number four, but also a huge gross revenue company, a revenue company, and probably number one in the world today in front of Walmart. The Walmart and Amazon keep on going back and forth there. But Amazon's finally caught Walmart. And to be that high up
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Core Concepts for Startups 4-14-25
This is Scott Becker for the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Here's two core thoughts for startups today. And again, welcome back after a long weekend. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you're the first person to respond to this podcast and text scottbecker 773-766-5322. And mention in the text startups.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Core Concepts for Startups 4-14-25
We'll send you a 100-hour Amazon gift certificate. And you got to mention startup in the text. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Core Concepts for Startups 4-14-25
We'll send you a 100 hour Amazon gift certificate. But there are two rules for startups. I love these. One comes from Twitter and David Lovejoy. And it sounds so simple, but it's so true. Don't run out of cash. I've seen so many people build new businesses. They run out of cash. They've got to leverage the house. They've got to leverage this. They've got to leverage this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Core Concepts for Startups 4-14-25
They've got to take on horrible financing. Whatever it is, make sure you're planning enough to run out of cash. The second one is somewhat in contrast to this, and I think this is a fascinating piece of advice. If you're rich, you sometimes suffer the affliction of being able to keep on putting money into a business if it makes sense or not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Core Concepts for Startups 4-14-25
So the second big concept is don't run a business like a rich guy. And I just absolutely love this concept because sometimes people just keep on pouring money into businesses
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
2 Core Concepts for Startups 4-14-25
and they do so for the fun of the game but not really to run a business and you gotta decide are you running a hobby or a business and i just love this concept of of of of don't run a business like a rich guy i got this advice secondhand i love it so those are two thoughts for startups again if you're the first person to text me today 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We are thrilled to be back with you after a long weekend. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are eight stories we're following this morning. A couple of these will break down into shorter pieces.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
Third, NVIDIA number three. Fourth... amazon is number four and finally alphabet google is number five so those are the five biggest market cap companies apple microsoft nvidia amazon then google slash alphabet sixth three stocks that motley fool says to buy and hold intuitive vertex pharmaceuticals and alphabet google We watch Intuitive very closely.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
They're a great client, customer, someone we work with at Becker's Healthcare. We love the company, so fascinating to watch that. Seventh, Rory McIlroy. Amazing to watch him win the Masters yesterday. He missed and screwed up a couple shots under pressure, which all of us can relate to, but then came back in the playoff hole to birdie the playoff hole and win the Masters yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
It gives him the winning. He's won all four Grand Slams, all four majors. Gives him what's called a career Grand Slam. Only six golfers have ever done that. It was a really dramatic finish. It was similar to the drama we had at Northmore last year with Adam Rosick overseeing it all, who's got great leadership and great class.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
First, the markets point up this morning after also a good rebound day on Friday and overall a good week in the markets last week. God bless that. Second, the market's upward trajectory comes on the heels of President Trump easing up on and delaying some of the tariffs. The markets loved this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
And then Justin Rose, who lost, has been a third-time second-place finisher in the Masters, also was phenomenal. We did a Twitter poll, which I love doing. What is your top goal this week? Eat well, advance your business, exercise a good deal, or other. This poll received about 1,200 votes. The two top choices were eat well or exercise. Third was advance your business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
And finally, fourth was other, which could be a whole bunch of different things. In any event, those are eight of the stories we're following today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
Third, notwithstanding the easing up, long-term for defense and security reasons and perhaps some economic reasons, We do need to make sure that we have some level of industrial capacity in this nation, i.e. to be able to make chips, not potato chips, semiconductor chips, planes, ships, et cetera, and more. Fourth, two core business thoughts for startups. One came from ex-Twitter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
One comes from a discussion with a close colleague. First, don't run out of cash. If you're running a startup business, don't run out of cash. It seems so simple, but people are not always careful early on in their management of cash. Second is don't run your business like a rich person. This means you can't constantly keep pouring in money into the business, even if you can afford to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 4-14-25
There's a certain discipline in turning it into a private loss center versus a money lost advanced hobby. Fifth, the top five companies by market cap This is interesting. There's been some movement again amongst the top five. We'll go Apple's number one, Microsoft number two. It's come back up in front of NVIDIA. Microsoft's only down about 8% year-to-date. NVIDIA down about 70% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to have recently passed 7 million downloads and to have been ranked this past week number one in the Apple Business News ranking. So just a terrific month for the podcast. So thank you all for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
And you do an incredible job. It cannot be understated in the world that we live in, when you find people to work with that are tremendous at what they do and so user-friendly and so service-oriented, how much we prefer and appreciate working with people like that. Take a moment and how you got into the business and how you got into real estate investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
Far more important than that, we have a chance today to visit with an incredible entrepreneur and professional. We're visiting today with Michelle Byers Robson. Michelle's going to talk to us about a couple different things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
Fantastic. And what are some things you've learned about real estate investing? Because it seems so scary to us as prices have gone up, interest rates are high, and it seems so scary right now to be a heavy investor in real estate. How do you sort of think about and look at it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
She runs a business, she manages events, she's also a real estate investor, and she's an incredible professional that we have the chance to work with and to utilize her company's services so we're not just fans, we're customers as well. Michelle, can you take a moment and tell the audience a little bit about what you do and about yourself?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
And take a moment and what kinds of properties do you prefer to invest in? Are you investing in residential, individual homes, three flats? Are you investing in commercial properties? What do you prefer to invest in?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
And are you in multiple different markets at this point? Is it hard to manage the markets from afar?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
Thank you. If you were to give advice to a novice real estate investor, someone who's trying to invest a million dollars, $500,000, $100,000, a smaller real estate investor versus the mega funds and so forth, any advice that you would give?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
But I think this point on knowing your exit just in case is so important. So you're not stuck in a property that's illiquid, so different, so unusual that you can't sell it. Even if your exit means you want to have to take a loss, you want to know you're locked up forever.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
You know, people have gotten locked up forever in high co-op cost buildings, high HOA cost buildings, big tax buildings, all kinds of things. And I think your advice are really unique properties where they think it's so cool, but if there's not an exit for it, because a lot of people don't want that property, that's a challenge, even if it's profitable for a moment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
Michelle, if you were to look at one property right now, one state, one area, what are you most excited about currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
From Conferences to Condos: Michelle Byers-Robson on Entrepreneurship and Real Estate 5-12-25
Fantastic. Michelle, it's amazing what you've done with your business, with your investing, with your career. You're an inspiration to me and just a pleasure to work with. Again, Michelle Byers Robson, just a fantastic leader and professional. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Bet Against Elon Musk 5-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is never bet against Elon Musk. So one of the things we've learned over the last several years is that whether you love or hate Elon Musk or President Donald Trump, these are two of the most resilient sons of guns you're ever going to meet. Sons of guns is in place of SOPs or MFs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Bet Against Elon Musk 5-12-25
I don't care what you think of them. But this ability to be resilient and fight back is nothing short of remarkable. So here's the story on Tesla. Tesla was down so far this year early on that people were ready to resign it to the dustbin of history in terms of leading automakers or companies and so forth. It must have been down about 50% or more. Now it's down year to date about 21%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Bet Against Elon Musk 5-12-25
More so over the last month, it's up 26%. Over the last year, it's up 90%. Its comeback, its return to glory has been nothing short of remarkable. And whether you hate or like President Trump, whether you hate or like Elon Musk, these people are resilient people. And again, you don't have to be a fan, but all of us wish we had that thick a skin and could be that resilient of people and of leaders.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Never Bet Against Elon Musk 5-12-25
Simply amazing to watch. The most resilient MFs in history, Elon Musk, President Trump, Tesla rebounds greatly. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the best piece of advice I ever received in business. And so this discussion today, I'm going to give two pieces of advice, and it's been teed up for me. I have a keynote talk this Wednesday at the Advancement Link Young Health Leaders Summit, which is a great organization. The talk is in Atlanta.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
The second great piece of advice that I learned, and it was really an education for me, and you got to remember, I grew up in business 30, 40 years ago when people yelled and screamed, and this is how they got things done. It was more important to be respected than it was to be liked, and so many other things like that. It was more thought of as a hierarchy and top-down leadership model.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
And in the old days, to get things done quick, you yelled at other people to move them along. And one of the brilliant lawyers I worked with, Marcelo Corpus, who was a few years younger than me, pulled me aside one time after dressing down another associate at the firm about performance on a project. And he said to me, look,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
You might be right that that performance was bad, but when you yell at that person, right or wrong, you're totally screwing up the culture that we're trying to build here and what you're trying to do. And this was, to me, great advice. To my credit, I took the advice. I'm imperfect, but I largely from that day on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
evolved my management style away from that results-driven to much more gratitude-driven and people-driven. And I just thought it was a fantastic piece of advice and stuck with me for the rest of my career, that if you want to build teams, you better respect people and treat them nicely and not just be results-driven that moment. You might get slower results,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
if you're not yelling, but you'll get longer term, much, much greater progress. So again, these are two of the best pieces of advice I ever received in business. I hope this, you know, somebody finds some usefulness in this. We certainly did from these two people. So thank you so much. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
In the interview, he posed one of these questions, you know, what's the best advice you ever received in business? And so here's what I'll tell you. The two best pieces of advice I ever received was, first was from a lawyer named Jerry Peters, who was a leader in a law firm, one of the best law firms in the world, called Latham & Watkins.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
And Jerry had built this incredible practice, huge practice in healthcare law, Kaiser Permanente was one of his first big, big clients, but had really built a fantastic practice. And he was nice enough to sit down with me when I asked him to and asked him for advice about building a practice.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
And he was very clear about the key to building a great business, a great practice, is to build great teams. And this may seem so pedestrian and so not that substantial, but But the reality is it's so, so important because so many of the business icons, you don't hear about them building teams. You just hear about them, whether Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, whoever it might be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Received 5-12-25
And what's lost sight of is all of these people did it through building fantastic teams and great products, not just themselves. They may be energizing, they may be a fire starter, but nothing great gets done without great teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This morning's report is the market surge. Nine stories we're watching this morning. So awfully good news today in the market in this weekend. President Trump and China reach what they call a temporary trade war truce. This is driving the markets way up today and viewed as really good news from a market perspective.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
Eighth, Affirm Holdings, the paying installments firm, dropped more than 14% on Friday after reporting soft earnings. Finally, ninth, Lyft. People watch these ride-share companies, Lyft, Uber, etc., closely. They jumped 28% Friday, and this happened after they reported great first quarter results. So that's what we're watching there. Again, those are nine stories we're following today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
The big story is the market's, of course, surging today, and we'll see how that goes. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
Second, pharmaceutical companies, in contrast, are getting hammered today as the president vows to impose on the pharma companies essentially the most favored nation pricing concept on pharmaceuticals. It's long been the case that other nations pay a lot less for the same pharmaceuticals than we do, and President Trump's trying to address that. That's going to be popular.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
Third, companies that rely heavily on imports from China or selling into Chinese markets are up a great deal today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
amazon tesla apple nvidia meta platforms all significantly up as is the market generally fourth pharma companies in contrast are already down today eli lilly pfizer merc all starting the day down fifth major automotive companies ford gm tesla lucid rivian both the traditional motor companies the ev motor companies are all up today sixth compass stock
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Surge: 9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 5-12-25
The real estate firm dropped nearly 20% Friday after it released earnings. Everybody's got a realtor in their family. So we're always watching that closely. A combination of factors. Tough Q1 earnings and a lot more. So we'll see how that goes. Seventh, Pakistan and India reach a truce, at least a temporary truce. This also comforted global markets. We don't need these two nuclear powers at war.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Steve Werner, Steve Mendes & Gritty Wellness 3-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's podcast is really a shout out to two people, and these will not be household names, but fantastic names. Today's shout out goes to Steve Mendez and to my friend Steve Werner. Each of these guys do something that Steve Warner describes as gritty wellness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Steve Werner, Steve Mendes & Gritty Wellness 3-10-25
And this is the kind of constant hustle, the constant drive, the kind of effort to constantly try and keep on getting better. And there's something about people like that that I just love. I'm wearing today my Gritty Wellness hat that comes out of Steve Warner's line. Now, Steve's not a customer. He's not a client. No financial relationship. The same with Steve Mendes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Steve Werner, Steve Mendes & Gritty Wellness 3-10-25
Steve Mendes did tremendously well, and he's constantly blocking and tackling to improve the world for others. One of the most gracious people you'll ever meet. So these are two people that I view as largely heroic. Steve Warner, Steve Mendes, and Gritty Wellness. I want to thank Each of you, you earned today a shout out for interest in the Gritty Wellness line. I think you can find it online.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Steve Werner, Steve Mendes & Gritty Wellness 3-10-25
You can for sure find it through Stephen Werner. As good a person as they come. Thank you so much. And God bless you both. And God bless Chicago. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's subject is the markets plunge and we can only take so much winning. So here's the thesis today. The markets are down about 2.5% to 4%. The S&P about 2.5% as we record this. The NASDAQ around 4%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
And third, President Trump, one of the challenges with President Trump, and again, I'm not particularly an anti-Trump person, is he does an absolutely poor job of explaining why he's doing what he's doing and thinks it should be apparently obvious to the rest of us. Now, on the reducing government spending and that potentially causing a recession is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
You might as well say it out loud that we need to reduce government spending, and this may cause a slowdown in growth, and the argument being we've had artificial growth through deficit spending. Rational. Second, on tariffs, you might lay out the case for why we have tariffs and why we're still going to have lower tariffs than most of the rest of the world is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
But you've got to explain it rationally to people so we can all digest it and the markets can digest it. What are the challenges we have right now? And I joke when I see the market go down that we're going to get so tired of winning. Many of the different things that President Trump does have some sense or theory behind them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
The challenge is often how it's explained and the way that it's gone about doesn't feel like it's done in a very systematic, thoughtful way. And that makes those of us that follow the markets, those of us that follow the world, those that are business people, and almost everybody else a little bit raised trying to understand what's going on, and that's a little scared.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
So we've got three big pieces of the puzzle today. Potential looming government shutdowns. potential reductions in government deficits and spending, which we'll see if that comes to pass. And then the trade war and all those things are weighing and providing a lot of uncertainty on the market. And the markets like certainty. Again, the markets crash and we're going to get tired of winning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
Those are big, bad numbers and not fun numbers, particularly on the eve of last week where we had a very challenging, a follow-up to last week, we had a very challenging week in the market. So very challenging numbers. The concept of winning is President Trump often talks about getting sick of winning and winning so much you're going to get sick of it. And here's the reality.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
There are three different big threads that are causing market challenges. One is the threat of government shutdown. Two is the concern about the government actually reducing spending. And so much of spending has kept us out of a recession, largely wrongly so, but deficit spending has helped that. And third is this ongoing tariff war.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
Now, the reality of this is we do need to reduce government spending. do we have lower tariffs than almost every other country? So there's not that there's not good reasons for some of these things, but there's also a concept called channel capacity. And there's two things that I think are problematic. One, there's only so many wars and challenges you could fight at one time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Markets Are Crashing & We’re Going to Get Tired of Winning 3-10-25
Like that's the old adage of Germany getting itself into two front war in World War II, both Russia and on the Eastern front and then the Western front. You can only fight so many wars at a time Second is the markets can't handle this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're really going to talk through a few different issues today, one of these being a serious issue, two of these being less serious. The first serious issue relates to government counting of GDP. And here's the issue with government counting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
He had a magnificent foursome the other day where David Berku of Colliers came to the rescue and were able to win a match and won big money, paid for dinner, went out big on the backs of the kid from Holland and the kid we call Philadelphia Freedom. So that was a great day on the course with David Berku coming to the rescue. The third thing is you end up in a situation sometimes
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
where somebody's absent from whatever team you're a part of, whatever golf game you have, whatever match you're doing, and that is often sometimes addition by subtraction. It's accretive. So we were missing one of the regular stalwarts of the game, and I can't tell you what a pleasant afternoon it was. So I have to say sometimes there's addition by subtraction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
We missed you dearly, but we had a wonderful time. The fourth note for the day, and we'll call this Four Thoughts for Monday, and I know we're all over the board today. One of the tweets I love this weekend was, 30 seconds of forcing yourself to do something will dissolve procrastination better than any other focus hack out there. And I think this is great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
When I'm thinking about, I got to drink X amount of water today. I got to do X amount of steps today. I've got to write this check to this person today. I've got to send this wire out. Whatever it might be, I've got to thank somebody for something. At the end of the day, 30 seconds – and this is from a guy I am where Aaron will or Aaron on Twitter, so I want to give propagated words too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
I think this is absolutely great because if I put those 30 seconds in, I can also fight through the procrastination and move forward for the day. So again, these are four thoughts for Monday. We hope you enjoy it. I don't mean to take a shot at any of our golf playing partners, but I do mean to congratulate the great one, David Berku. They rode us back to victory this weekend.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
On a lot of stats, employment, for example, we counted with and without government jobs added. Inflation, we use multiple different counts for Chairman Powell to get a real good sense of where inflation is really at for ordinary people absent certain expenses. And I'm not a big fan of multiple different counting measures.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
The money exchange was extremely satisfying and paid for a big dinner. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
I hate when companies do it with all different kinds of variations of EBITDA, which often leads to false counting. Now, the reality with the government is if we count GDP with and without government spending,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
This probably gives us a real and better sense, just like counting jobs, with and without government jobs, added as to whether or not the economy is really growing or whether it's been inflated due to artificial government spending. Two very different things. So in terms of this argument, do we count this without deficit spending, without federal spending?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Is there a Right Way to Calculate GDP + 3 More Stories 3-10-25
I don't think you have to do one or the other. I think you probably do both to get a real sense of what's really going on with the growth of our economy. We do some of it with government spending and some of counting GDP without government spending to really give yourself a real sense of this. So that's one. The second thought for the day is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5 Largest Companies By Market Cap 3-10-25
This is Scott Becker with one of our favorite subjects. We're going to talk again today about the five largest companies by market cap. And those five, and this number has changed a lot over the last couple of weeks as the NASDAQ has been hit hard. The one company that has thrived regardless of this is Apple. It's still at about $3.6 trillion, which is remarkable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5 Largest Companies By Market Cap 3-10-25
Microsoft is down to $2.93 trillion, number two. NVIDIA, number three, at $2.74 trillion and still falling. Alphabet, Google, $2.13 trillion. And finally, Amazon, right behind Alphabet, Google, at $2.11 trillion. Fascinating to watch what's going on with the big five, the magnificent seven again taking on the chin today. One of the things we'll note is we do have a webinar coming up.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The 5 Largest Companies By Market Cap 3-10-25
April 9th, we've got Sales Empowerment Group joining us to talk about go-to-market strategies, particularly for private equity-sponsored companies. If you're the first couple people that text me and register for the webinar, we will send you a $25 gift certificate each. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to discuss this morning four quick stories today that helped driving the markets early this week. So first, The markets point decidedly down today. The S&P is down 2 plus percent. The Nasdaq is also down significantly. Let's hope that changes some throughout the day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
Vance have been on Chairman Powell to reduce rates. And Chairman Powell can't reduce rates as long as the job market steady and inflation is high. By President Trump taking a bit of an ax to government spending and to essentially what's kept us out of a recession. And I'm not giving a value judgment that saying out of a recession the deficit spending is good. I don't think that it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
But what's fascinating here is you're going to spot where President Trump and J.D. Vance ultimately forced Powell's hand by leading us down into a slower growth situation because a lot of the growth we've had the last couple of years has been inflated growth. I think it's an absolutely fascinating situation. Fourth, Bitcoin has dropped down to 82,000 after being above 100,000 not very long ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
So really a set of fascinating things that you see, a potential slowing economy based a lot on slowing federal government spending. And that's a good thing and a bad thing, but just a fascinating thing to look at as we watch the economy and the markets tank in reaction to a softening of the U.S. economy. Fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
I'm not expecting that it will very much too quickly. Second, Wall Street, this is a Bloomberg article, starts to rethink lofty S&P forecast for 2025. Forecasters are starting to predict less upside this year. The larger question that runs through a lot of this is will reductions in government spending lead us into a recession? And I think there's significant concern that's the case.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
So the third point really relates to this. Yes, sort of government spending helped keep us out of a recession. Tremendous amount of government hiring, tremendous amount of government spending. We, in fact, spent $2 trillion more than we brought in last year. If we reduce government spending and cut that deficit, we're likely to end up in a recession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
Most leaders don't want to do this under their own administration, even though cutting deficit spending is an absolute imperative. You've got a situation where the far right is applauding – is it plotting this reduction in spending, even if it leads to recession, because they feel like we're so inflated spending over the last couple years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Quick Stories for Today 3-10-25
President Trump this weekend said he refused to rule out letting the U.S. economy enter into a recession this year, telling Fox News there's going to be a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. And if cutting the deficit is that, it is going to lead to some sort of a recession. Now, one of the fascinating points about this is President Trump and J.D.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We come to you daily with brilliant speakers, interviews from the business community, the private equity community. Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Scott Christensen. Scott started his own firm now a long time ago, and I feel like I've known Scott now for 20 to 30 years. He's been involved in sort of growth marketing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Thank you. And one of the things I've seen over the years is amazingly how closely connected you stay with your clients and who you work with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
It doesn't seem to be highly leveraged in terms of technology and resources and who you know, but it strikes me when I watch you that you and your top leadership stay very closely connected to the entrepreneurs, the founders, the mid-market companies that you work with. Is that by design, that level of intimacy and close connection with your customers?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Talk a bit about the business strategy and how you work with that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Yeah, no, actually, thanks for noticing that. It is something we're very proud of that companies stay with us for a long time, even as they take on investment and have more options. Even after like a huge exit, we often stay with the company even after maybe the founder leaves.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And we consider that the highest compliment that that we're able to scale with those businesses and provide value at all those steps. And frankly, Scott, I don't like trying to find new business all the time. So it's very helpful when people stick around.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
A hundred percent. And talk about is marketing evolves, implication evolves. Leaders try and get in front of their audiences. Talk about how that's changing what you're doing and maybe how artificial intelligence also started to play into that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Great. I think I want to break that down into two different questions. One is like the chaos out there of trying to find something that works for you to distribute your message because it is crowded out there. And the way I think about it is that I'm actually happy. It's so crowded.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
It's like when my wife and I started our family, when we had one kid, we focused on one kid, two kids, we kind of divided and conquered three. We embrace the chaos because you just can't do it. That's kind of how I see the market out there right now. There's so much out there. You just embrace the chaos. And really where that leads you is back to yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
The only way to effectively communicate is to understand that you market to a very small number of people, very likely in the business to business area. You're responsible for coming up with that content. that's gonna move the needle on your own. You can kind of ignore all the chaos and just focus in on yourself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
That's the biggest trend we're seeing, Scott, is that our clients are leaning into their own data and leaning into their own thought leadership and saying, I got something to say that's gonna move the needle to my 10,000 potential decision makers in the world. And we help them develop that. And then there's a strategic distribution from there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
He founded a firm called Root3, and he's just done an amazing job of building that firm out and really helping clients amplify and grow what they're trying to do. We're going to talk to Scott today about sort of founding the firm, about himself, about trends he's watching, where he's most focused, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
So one is that everyone has their own owned media channels now that they should be building. That's your website. That's your LinkedIn. And people are leaning into LinkedIn for those kinds of strategies. And then the second part is podcasts like yours. We want a niche podcast. media product, which has been your specialty throughout your career. And that's what works.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
So, you know, one of our clients is Craig Costelli, Caber Hill Advisors, who, you know, he developed a survey of private equity that led to some really nice insights for 2025. And then so we distributed it through his own channels. And then we looked for a really good niche media product that could get us in front of private equity and business owners, which led us back to you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And that's been a terrific investment. It's been a great tactic for growth. It's led to great conversations. And we're doing all of this in a very crowded market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
See, and I love that, and there's so much of that that I love, that this concept that we constantly work on, this developing a concept, you know, and I often do two big types of speeches a year. One is a speech on business trends and building businesses. One is a speech on healthcare trends.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And rather than trying to keep on redoing that speech that we'll edit and pivot and adjust, the idea is then to amplify that in front of the audiences who ought to be in front of it in as many ways as possible. And I sort of love that concept. So talk a little bit about the next concept and maybe a couple other clients that you work closely with. I recently saw a post about a couple –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
efforts you had done on behalf of clients that I loved that sparked me to actually ask you to join us on a podcast. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing and also some of how you're seeing AI as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Oh, great. Let me stay on the topic of the content. Two of the things that I highlighted that I think that you saw was Fifth Third Bank has started this Empowering American Cities initiative. I just think it's so brilliant. I wanted to talk about it on the podcast today. Fifth Third Bank is one of the biggest... you know, regional banks or mid-sized banks in the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
They want to talk to business owners that are kind of in that mid-market. So what did they do? They partnered with the Kenan Institute at Chapel Hill And they came up with data that you can't get anywhere else. They broke the US into every, they broke it down into markets, not just cities, but what is the market?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And then they looked at everything that impacts growth and came up with real time, fairly real time data that those business leaders in that community can use to predict growth, to make decisions. And it doesn't exist anywhere else.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
What better value proposition can you come up with for business owners and municipalities that could potentially be your client that you've actually developed the data that's going to help them grow?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And really understand what they're doing and so forth. And then a place like Fifth Third can put the resources into that to do that well. Talk about that. Because you work with both Fifth Third is by no means a small client. That's a serious, serious company. You also work with companies that are smaller. And at the same time, they all have to be really intelligent and be able to message well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Scott, can you take a moment and tell us a little bit about what you folks do and about yourself?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
How do you distinctly develop that? the thought pieces for someone like Fifth Third who could afford one level of thought pieces versus someone like XYZ or Scott Becker who doesn't want to spend that much money on a thought piece. How does that work? How do you think about that thing?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Well, so going back to Caber Hill Advisors and Craig, that was something that they could do pretty easily internally. So that's one level. What's something you can do pretty easily internally with your own database of private equity and put out a poll? Now let's go to Stradwar Associates. They are the largest consulting firm for rural and community health.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
they have a front row seat to what are the challenges. One of the things that they realized that there was no real ability to benchmark physician compensation in rural environments. So they didn't just do it on their own. They could have, that would have been a Herculean lift, but they came and they went to associations for partners.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
So the NRHA and then the state offices of rural health, NOSOR, came together to put together this data that's actually changing the paradigm for rural hospitals and community hospitals and how they hire and how they compensate physicians. What does Stroudwater want the market to think about them?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Sure. Thanks, Scott. I appreciate you having me on. For better or for worse, Scott, like you, I love the middle market. Love the chaos of the middle market. Built a firm around helping organizations from emerging stages through the middle market grow, attract investment, reach that next stage of growth, find a great exit. That's That's the environment that we love operating in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
They want them to think that they are preeminent in the space and they are the leader in understanding and helping rural communities access healthcare and rural and community hospitals thrive. And I think that they did just that. They demonstrated just that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Thank you. No, I've seen those three examples and I love them. Take a moment, Scott. I'm going to take you back to the AI question for a moment. And I know I'm giving you the headache of giving you two questions at once. I'm going to use this one to stick to one. Tell us about AI in the world of marketing, branding, amplifying.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Talk about that for a second and how you combine that with hand-to-hand discussions, one-on-one contacts and relationship building and why those two are so important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Great. I love this question. AI is something that every single one of our clients is asking about. What does AI mean for my business? How do we leverage AI? What I think, Scott, is that AI is going to be a catalyst for organizations, especially in the mid-market. really embracing technology over the next 18 months.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Because the thing about AI is that you can't go on Amazon and order AI for your business and it'll be delivered to your doorstep. AI is coming in the back door and it's already in the office. And so your question about how marketing
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
know leverages ai marketing was forced into the digital world more than a decade ago every single thing we do is it within a data platform within a technology platform and it's all data informed everything from choosing a subject line in an email to spending you know a six-figure ad spend because we're we are so integrated with technology we're benefited from ai and new ai tools every single day
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Now think about an organization that hasn't started that journey to embrace automations, embrace data across departments, linking their sales, marketing, service, operations, financing, getting all of that working together so you can make data informed decisions. If you haven't done that, AI won't help you. It has nothing to plug into.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
So I think for private equity firms, this is going to drive organizations. And I've already heard this from organizations. I need to sell because I don't know about AI and I can't afford the technology I'm going to have to upgrade to. So it could be a really big opportunity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
But your point is so well taken though. There's something you said that I think ties in so well that you still have to start with a strategy and relationships and then figure out how to use AI as a tool versus the other way around. Is that a fair assessment?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
It is absolutely AI for us right now. And this is in this period of time, what it's doing is it's making us just operate more efficiently. I sent out a Slack to my team before I did this interview. And I'm like, I'm just curious, how do you use AI every day? And there's so many niche tools that are coming out that they're using.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
I didn't even recognize half of them, but they are all plugged into these platforms that we use. And so I think my point is, I think in three years, AI is going to completely have shifted how we work. And if you have a lead right now, it's just going to continue to grow and grow and grow and grow. But right now, you're right. It's just tools.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
You still have to be able to do all the marketing tactics well. You have to develop a great strategy. And that stuff's not going away. AI is not going to do that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
yet no yeah no no i think that's right it's the 2x versus 10x the 2x is we still got to figure out how to use it the 10x it'll tell us how to use it what is is uh you know it's a point but fascinating scott what are you most focused on and excited about this year where are you most focused and excited
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
I'm waiting to get excited for this year. Right now, I think we're all waiting for this indication that everything's gonna move forward. I feel like we've been sitting in a period where things haven't been moving at the speed we want them to for a while. I think we're gonna get there this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And, you know, Route 3 was created to be the firm that you can go to if you're a high growth business, executing a high growth strategy for fractional services or for companies that just aren't at the size yet that it makes sense to have a full marketing department to be an entire outsourced fractional marketing department.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And really what I'm working on with clients is making sure in this time before the absolute chaos of high growth hits, what are we doing to shore things up? And how are we planning so that when we do high growth, that we have a good communication strategy in place for our team and for the market?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
So when we're busy growing, we don't forget to tell them what it means and why they should be excited about it. What are we doing to make sure that the brand, as we grow the business, that the brand can keep up and the brand's big enough for the business? Are we looking ahead at what growth is going to look like in 2025 and beyond and saying, is our brand big enough?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And getting ahead of problems, because when you're moving at 100 miles an hour, it's really hard to go back and look at these things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Yeah, no, I think that's exactly right. It's spending enough time thinking and strategizing so you can get ahead of problems or ahead of where you want to be versus just reacting and moving. And I think it's so challenging for entrepreneurs, leaders, founders like yourself. Talk for a second, Scott. I've watched you for 20 years. I love what you do. Maybe more than that, quite frankly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Talk a little bit about what advice you would give to founders, leaders in this market today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Scott, even though I told you I love the middle market and it's filled with chaos, growth can look like chaos a lot. And I love that. I hate not planning for predictable chaos. Let's take everything that's predictable and come up with a plan around it so we can deal with the real chaos.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Drama, when it comes up, things that we can't control, everything that we can control around growth, implementing technology, getting your sales and marketing data connected, especially for PE roll-up strategies who went from one office to eight offices, from two services to 10 services. If we can get that stuff under control, that's potential drama in the future that we can eliminate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
And so that's really what we're focusing on right now. And I'm excited for 2025. I think that this year is going to be the year that we've been waiting for. And I'm excited to work with companies through this high growth phase.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Scott, just fantastic. Again, Scott Christensen. Scott, is your title CEO? Is that the right title? I know that you lead everything. I didn't know if you call yourself CEO.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
Yeah, I mean, I think that's what it is in the bank documents, but I'm the guy that answers the phone and wants to talk to any business owner that has some problems.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Growth, Marketing, and AI with Scott Christiansen, CEO of ROOT3 Growth Marketing 2-10-25
So again, for me, a great pleasure to visit with Scott Christensen, Root3 CEO, known him for a long time, as good a person as they come, a constant builder, a constant amplifier for others. If you need help, reach Scott Christensen, Root3, just a fantastic person, fantastic team. Scott, thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thanks, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
this is scott specker with the becker private equity and business podcast here are five big losers friday i find fasting maybe it's kind of a shot in freud because at least it's stocks that didn't you know miss out on investing invest again so i don't have the fear of missing out but here's five stocks that just got cratered on friday uh i'll go from last to first
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
Newell, I can never pronounce it right. They finished down about 26.5% on Friday. So those are five stocks that took it to the chin Friday. We start with Pearl Weinberg, number five. Marvel Technologies, number four. Wayfair, number three. And finally, Skechers, number two. And Newell Brands, number one. All brands that got tanked on Friday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
Perrella Weinberg, the investment bank, made famous by Joe Perrella and some of those folks, just fascinating. They finished down 7%. Even though they had a pretty good year, it looks like their forecast is struggling. So Perrella Weinberg down 6.77%. Fourth, Marvell Technology, another chip firm that's overall just had a crazy run over the last couple of years. They finished down 7.23% on Friday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
Third, Wayfair. Now, when we first moved into a house in Florida, we bought everything from Wayfair. We were way over budget. We were extended. Everything got bought from Wayfair. Wayfair has now built a store in Wombat, not far from where we live. And I love going to that store. In fact, you know. I bought something for close, close friends. They need it there. And I just love the store.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
I think it's a great layout. I can find everything. It's not too high brow. It's not like going to the restoration hardware where you feel like you got to give them an arm and a leg. But meanwhile, I may be the only one that loves it that much. They're down 7.62% on Friday. Second, Skechers. Now, this is a brand I've not heard much about for a long time and apparently for good reason.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Big Losers from Friday 2-10-25
They also took another chin Friday, even though they've now re-upped with a Super Bowl ad. It seems like a lot of spending for a horrendous store or horrendous brand. They were down 13 percent on the other day on Friday. Finally, Newell Brands. Newell Brands is a brand that probably most people don't know, we're not familiar with, but Newell Rubbermaid. All that stuff comes from Newell.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan 2-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And today's discussion is Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan. And here's what we mean by this. So Amazon, after all these years where Walmart has been at the top as the biggest revenue company, is now ahead of Walmart in total revenues when they finally get reported for 2024.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan 2-10-25
At least that's everybody's expectation on the street.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan 2-10-25
similarly i'm i'm a person partly because i run a podcast follows podcast charts religiously for the longest time joe rogan has been one like walmart basically insurmountable on the podcast charts this past month is the first time that i've seen in recent history where he's not number one in fact he's fallen to number three but mel robbins has moved to number one
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan 2-10-25
Mel Robbins, I mean, she could be grading after a while, but what a brilliant, relatable leader she is. And again, it's not to say Joe Rogan at some point. I love Joe Rogan. I love Mel Robbins. Nobody goes to anybody that much. It's like I can't even make the analogy without somebody wanting to shoot me. But needless to say, no one can listen to anybody that long.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan 2-10-25
But it is fascinating to see Amazon finally pass Walmart. Mel Robbins finally take it to Joe Rogan and be number one there. Now, in the market cap wars, the market cap wars, it remains Apple number one. So that's where we're at today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We love following these many rivalries.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amazon is to Walmart as Mel Robbins is to Joe Rogan 2-10-25
Even if they're not rivalries to them, the rivalries to me are just fascinating. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So today I'm going to do something different. You know, I've become obsessed a little bit with following Twitter and how they gamified it. And, you know, they gamify it so you can constantly check how many impressions you've had, how many of this you had, how many of that you had.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
The next quote we're following this morning is from one of these famous Twitterites, Justin Welsh. And Justin has got a great following on Twitter. He's put the whole newsletter business. I don't know what's real and what's Memorex, but I absolutely love this quote from him. I've never regretted it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
Ending a meeting early, saying no to a quick call, taking Friday afternoon off, locking my calendar for lunch, making time for a midday workout. Protect your time like it's your most valuable asset because it is. So I absolutely love that quote, too, from Justin Wells. That's the second great quote. that I saw on Twitter this morning. I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
The third one I loved is somebody quoting Friedrich Nietzsche. And I think Nietzsche's got a complicated past, but this quote is so right. When we are tired, we are taxed by ideas we conquered long ago. So there are so many ideas, impulsive thoughts that hit us every day. I know this from experience on the golf course for sure, picking up the wrong club when I'm tired and doing an impulsive shop.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
In tennis, putting the ball up in the air when I just put it at somebody's feet just because I'm tired and not thinking and not turned on and so forth. But it's true in so many different things. So when we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago. Again, absolutely brilliant. The fourth thought I love today is from a guy, Brian Johnson, who regularly quotes on
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
fitness issues plan out this morning how you're going to vigorously exercise at least three times this week and i think maybe that should be five but but i love the concept of being clear about that as a goal to map out exactly what you're going to try and do at least three times a week for exercise and the more clarity you put in your schedule the better off you are the fifth tweet i love today and again i i repost a bunch of these just because i'm addicted to this game on twitter
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
And it's, again, it's like a video game for adults or for kids. And fascinating and sort of stupid. The payoff is you get a certain amount of impressions, a certain amount of followers, and then you're eligible to get some cash sharing. And the cash sharing is, I'm sure, going to be irrelevant to one's life unless you're like crazily, crazily successful on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
And don't take offense to this if you're a bank or a stripper. Either one, don't take offense. But the comment from a Jason Chaliff is, Banking relationships are similar to stripper relationships. No matter what they tell you, it's all transactional. You know, we all know the buddy that fell in love with the stripper. Excuse me. I'm a much older person now, but I knew some of those in my 30s.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
Fall in love with the stripper and find the stripper in the water, loves them after they stop paying. And this guy's concept, Jason J. Love, agree with it or not. Banking relationships are similar to stripper relationships. I got a kick out of that. No matter what they tell you, they are transactional relationships. Again, these are five quotes this morning, tweets this morning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
I think you still call them tweets from Twitter. I love them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you have a great quote to share, Please feel free to send it to me, Scott Becker, 773-766-5322, or one of the email addresses, sbecker at beckerstrategygroup.com. And we'd love to have your quotes and thoughts. Those are five of them from this morning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
But the one thing I do love about it is it forces me to look at different quotes, different ideas. And so I'm going to give you five ideas that I saw at Twitter this morning that I just absolutely love. So these are five ideas from Twitter. You'll hear this. This will be released on February 11th. Please text Scott Becker 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
I'm going to try and give credit to the person who wrote the tweet and the original quote they're quoting. So the first one is a quote from Walter Schloss. He's a famous investor. You never really know a stock until you own it. This is from a person or an accountant named Value Theory. And I think this is the truest of statements.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Five Thought-Provoking Quotes from Twitter 2-10-25
Every time you invest in something, you think you know it, you think you understand it. Once you've actually invested in it, you have a much greater sense of how it goes up and down as you watch it and follow it. You're just clued in a different way. So I love this concept. You never really know a stock until you own it. I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try and stay to make sure you're learning, we're learning, we're entertained, and a lot more. Here are 11 stories that we're following this morning. First, the markets point up this morning, close to two-thirds of a percent. Friday, in contrast, was a tough day in the markets. Let's hope today holds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Amazon, then Walmart, and then third is UnitedHealth Group. Sorry about that. Finally, Amazon's passed Walmart. Mel Robbins has passed Joe Rogan, but Apple remains the market cap king. The biggest company by market cap, number eight, to Apple, followed by NVIDIA and Microsoft. Ninth, a quick shout-out to brilliant young entrepreneur Bailey Aarons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Thank you for the great representation from Laura Brown. We're always looking for entrepreneurs that deserve a shout-out. Thank you very, very much. Tenth, a business thought from Alex Hormozy. You can love or hate Alex Hormozy. Here's the business thought. Figuring out what people value most, what they want most, and tripling down on it and ruthlessly eliminating everything else is the way to go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Really focus on the most important thing that your customers want and stop worrying about everything else. This kind of focus and cutting out of the most important thing, it's similar to the writing by Dr. Jason Selk. It's similar to the writing by Greg McCowan, just right on board. Finally, the 11th, we're so excited for the Becker's Healthcare Annual Meeting, April 28th to May 1st.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Nick Saban, Michael Phelps, Venus Williams, Kevin O'Leary, just a great, great crowd. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you shortly with a few other issues and stories. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Second, two of the big winners on Friday were Doximity up 36% and Affirm up 21.8%. So good day for those. Third, two big losers Friday. Newell Brands, sort of Newell Rubbermaid, et cetera, et cetera, down 26%. Skechers, even though featured in the Super Bowl, down almost 13%. Wayfair also took it on the chin on Friday, even though we love Wayfair.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Fourth, Ham's and hers continues to show great growth. It's up 350% over the last year and 75% year to date. They also had a Super Bowl commercial last night about moving into weight loss drugs as well. So fast in there. Fifth, NVIDIA is clawing back. Now only do it down 3.3% year to date. Don't bet against Jensen Wong. Sixth,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
11 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-10-25
Our March webinar features Partsoul CEO Dr. Daryl Williams on generative AI. Don't miss this webinar. Brilliant, brilliant guy. Seventh, the biggest companies by revenue. I'll just go through three of them. Walmart and Amazon seem to be switching the one-two spots. It looks like when reporting is done for 2024, it'll be Amazon ahead of Walmart. Second is obviously Amazon.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to visit with Rick Kess of RSM. Rick is one of our most listened to guests. Rick, this is a week where last week President Trump implemented tariffs. This has led to a little bit of a stock market meltdown. Give us a sense.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
Yes, but I think your point is so well taken. It is so easy for all of us, I'm included in this, to be nervous Nellies and see the market meltdown Thursday and Friday morning, The media in part loves this because it gives everybody something exciting to talk about. And it's certainly scary for a lot of Americans and others that have money in the stock markets and the equities markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
So it's scary for all of us when they drop 10, 12% over a couple days. But to your point, the market's bouncing back just a little bit today. At least it's not tanking some more. And It takes a few weeks to see how these things play out. Is that a fair sentiment to see where this really goes?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
Thank you. And it is fascinating to see some of these major voices in business, Jamie Dimon, Larry Fink, I won't put Rick Kess in that category yet because you've not spoken out about tariffs, but Elon Musk, Jamie Dimon, Bill Ackman have all sort of weighed in a little bit on how tariffs can be challenging, sort of joining that conga line of people that are very concerned about tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
But we'll see how it plays out, right?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
Is this stock market meltdown, the tariffs, is that going to freeze M&A deal activity? What are you hearing? What is your sense of what the atmosphere is going to look like?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
No, thank you very, very much. And I think that's right on. I mean, I do get people that as they analyze this further and further. And you get beyond the headlines. You know, there was one guest on the other day that said, look, here's the deal. We have a $30 trillion economy, $30 trillion economy. We import about $3 trillion a year. That's about 10% of the economy of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
Half of this is going to be exempted from tariffs. So it's a big deal. But it might be over amplified by what people all talk about versus the reality. And we'll see how that all plays out, really. I mean, it's hard to tell.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Market Volatility, Tariffs & the Future of M&A with Rick Kes of RSM 4-7-25
Nope, we'll keep on watching. Rick, we appreciate your insight. It's always, always fantastic. Thank you very, very much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast against Rick Kess, partner at RSM, one of our most listened to guests. Just fantastic. Thank you for updating us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion suggested by Nancy Stevens is post tariff stress disorder, PTSD. Now, many of us lost money in the markets last week. And one of the fascinating things about the markets is got about half the country is part of what you call the capital class owns equities.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
But he also has this concept in that even though the markets are falling, you could still go out and enjoy the day. You could still go and have coffee. You could still smell the roses. You could still do a lot of other things, even if you don't like what's going on in the markets.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
You know, I'm trying to see if I could find his exact quote, but it was a beautiful concept on this that even though you hate this, you could still enjoy the day and everything else that's going on. What else did he say? He said a couple of other brilliant things this weekend. Morgan Housel did. Good day for a walk. Good day for a hike. All of those things. And here's this quote, and I love this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
You could simultaneously dollar cost average remain long-term optimistic, not panic. enjoy the outdoors, kids, good food, et cetera, and realize how incredibly destructive and unnecessary this is. Now, I don't know if I agree with them on all these things or not, but I think it is well stated that you could still do a lot of positive things, notwithstanding the market having a horrible few days.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
So what Nancy calls post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, we hear you. We don't disagree, but you could still enjoy life and keep on moving forward. There's a lot to be said for just living life and moving through the tumult. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you, as always, to Chanel Bunger, our producer, the best in the business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
but half doesn't own equities and you see this across twitter the amount of sort of schadenfreude from those people that don't own equities, sort of almost taking some dark pleasure in those that own equities, losing some money. And again, you could see why this happens.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
If people that owned equities got rich the last bunch of years, and people that didn't, barely scraped by, and with okay wages and tough inflation, you could see where there's a little bit of resentment towards the Capra class or the equity class. And I get it. I don't... I don't think it's great, but I totally get it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
It's like when SoundTown is down 70% and one of my friends has been bragging about how well he's done in SoundTown, I can't help but have a little bit of schadenfreude about SoundTown. But that's not the point today. The point of today is the market's lost about 10% on Thursday and Friday, which is the biggest two-day fall since 2020. And there are multiple lessons out of this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Post-Tariff Stress Disorder 4-7-25
First is the great, the best lesson is by a guy named Morgan Housel. And Morgan is a brilliant, brilliant writer who has written a book called The Psychology of Money. He's truly a bright guy. And he has this great, great take from the other day where he says, look, You can hate Trump and how destructive this is, and that's your own decisions, whether you hate or don't hate him.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Alexander Ovechkin in divorce and midlife crises. So here is the story and bear with me. So a long, long time ago, I went through a divorce. Anybody who's gone through a divorce knows that this is a hard period of life. And I was certainly quite lost for a period of time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
So what I find so fascinating is I really start again this year watching this great chase. His chase to overtake Gretzky is the greatest of all time. And I'm thinking he's already a great star. And I can't believe now it's 15 years since that midlife crisis. You know, Vetchkin is still playing. It's still out there breaking the record. And he's finally done so. And so God bless him for doing it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
It really is. It's a fascinating concept. You see him in the locker room and he looks like an older guy for sure, but still has explosive speed and explosive shot and still lights it up. So all these years later, I can't believe he's still at it. I'm still lost. I'm still in a constant midlife crisis, and he's still playing hockey, so God bless him. The other person that I bless is Wayne Gretzky.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
I mean, this is a guy who had a record people thought would never be beaten, 894 goals in the NHL. He shows up to every of the last few games that Ovechkin's played to make sure he's on site to congratulate him. He says that when he broke Gordie Howe's record, which people thought would never be broken, Gordie Howe showed up and passed the torch. How classy a thing is this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
And it's really only in the NHL that you see this. You don't see Michael Jordan and LeBron James congratulating each other at all. And God bless them. I mean, it is what it is. I love Jordan. I'm not as big a LeBron fan, but God bless. But LeBron's got a lot to be blessed for, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
He seems like a tremendous family person and a lot of positive about LeBron, too, even though I don't love him the way that I love MJ. But how classy is Wayne Gretzky? How incredible is Alexander Ovechkin? You know, all of these sports stories, these music stories, one can tie to their own lives. I know it's so narcissistic and anecdotal, but it is fascinating to watch.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
I just cannot believe Ovechkin now is breaking the record. You know, I am not making a comeback. Even though I said so in print, I'm making a hockey comeback. There is no way that is happening. But I am amazed at what Ovechkin's done in Ovechkin's class. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
So in that period of being lost, I started playing hockey again, you know, in adult hockey leagues. I played a lot as a kid, started playing again, was never that great at it. But it was really one of the best things I could ever do and enjoyed it tremendously. I got so excited about the hockey I was playing. I started to also go to hockey camps.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
When you went to these hockey camps, everybody would sort of go around the room at the start of the hockey camp and talk about why they're there. And it was fascinating. It was like a 12-step program for all kinds of people in a midlife crisis and midlife issues. Just absolutely fascinating. So we're going to tie this back to Ovechkin in a second.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
And Ovechkin, for those that aren't hockey fans, just broke Wayne Gretzky's record, the all-time great one for the most goals scored in the NHL. So I go to hockey camps. One of them I go to is in D.C. And we play at the Capital Center where the Washington Capitals play. And part of this, it's like a fantasy camp. And one of these days, and there's a lot of guys like me. There's some women.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Alexander Ovechkin, Divorce, & Midlife Crisis 4-7-25
There's some people that are great skaters. And there's a lot of us like me that are very average skaters, average hockey players. But at one of these things, Ovechkin is here. And this is about 15 years ago. And he's already no longer a total kid because he's already been in the NHL at that point for five, seven years. He's already a total star.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Here are seven stories that we're following today. It's April 7th. It's post what President Trump calls Liberation Day, but that still is taking up a lot of the news. So here's seven of the stories we're following today. First, the markets had their first, their worst two days in a
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
Let's hope that's not a sign of the coming times. Sixth, a few of the stocks that we follow closely are getting pummeled. Moderna is now down 76% over the last year. Palantir has also been just getting hammered this week, so we'll see how that goes. Seventh, Thrilled to join Ed Marks' podcast today as a guest. He's an amazing leader, in-person, high-energy individual.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
Alex Ovechkin passed Wayne Gretzky as the all-time goal scorer this week. The great one in the grade eight. Really an amazing thing. And amazing to see Wayne Gretzky show up for that and handle himself with such aplomb. He truly is the great one. We have a separate podcast today on Ovechkin, hockey camp, midlife crises, and we'll talk about that separately. Always feel free to watch us at...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
www.beckerprivateequityandbusiness.com. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
The good news is they're not as far down as they were earlier, but the markets remain very, very volatile. They were down three or four percent. They were up a couple percent. Now they're back down. There is some hope that there's a delay in these larger tariffs and that that slows down this trade war. Well, I am not a fan of tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
When you hear the White House talk about this, it feels like they're trying to say to China and others, stop taking advantage of us. I know some may view this as a charitable view of what the White House is expressing. Second, at some point soon, we hope the markets will bottom out. How Agassi, Andre Agassi used to say, image is everything. We would say allocation is everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
Allocation and emergency funds are very critical, so you don't need to sell into a falling market. Third, the presidents say the markets, the president says the markets, we have to take their medicine. It's a fascinating, non-empathetic theory. take to many hold equities is the concept that we have to erase trade deficits.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 4-7-25
I assume we can reduce them some, but if we're the largest economy in the world, even with fair reciprocal tariffs, which we should have, we're still likely to be a net import nation. Fourth, suddenly the markets are anticipating a good deal of Fed rate cuts. A good story this morning in the investors ramp up bets on Fed rate cuts. Fifth, CVS Health is reported working on massive layoffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by RSM partner, Rick Kess. Rick, so many different things going on in the private equity world. A big deal announced today for Skechers, a $9.4 billion deal. That's a welcome positive after a quarter that seemed very slow on deals.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
Thank you. And what do you sort of see in terms of, of sort of opening up, starting to get going again and, What is your sense? Are you starting to hear more rumblings of it as the stock market returns? Are people feeling a little bit more confident? Or what do you see?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
Apollo, their CEO says in an interview that they've largely been on deal pause for a little bit. What is the reading of the tea waves? What are you seeing at RSM in terms of the deal world? And what can we expect?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
Yes, and you mentioned something about the headlines. The headlines cause all kinds of turmoil, and then things sort of seem to calm down. How do private equity funds, buyers, sellers, sort of filter through that noise so they stay calm and keep on trying to put money to work and build businesses?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
And a lot of it is staying calm under pressure. I mean, I know that, for example, I've been through this bug enough for 30 plus years that when one of my kids or colleagues asks me, oh, my goodness, should I sell my stock because it's all tanking right now? I've at least been in this long enough to know don't sell into the dip.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
And I think it's the same thing for private equity leaders that have been in this for long enough time to know it's going to be up, it's going to be down, but it's going to be okay. So try and hang tough a little bit and we'll keep on moving forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
No, I think that's right on. And it's this challenge of doubling down. There's some people great that are available for hire, but you also want to make sure that those people get built in and baked into your company, your culture. So as soon as the market turns in the right direction, they don't leave too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
So it's this complicated thing about doubling down on different people and technologies and other things and hoping you can retain them when the market turns back up and they don't become jumpers, too. So it's really being careful in that hiring process. But there is this chance to double down and find some great people at a time when the market's in turmoil, too. Oh, yeah, definitely.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Weathering the Private Equity Slowdown: Insights from Rick Kes of RSM 5-5-25
I totally agree. What a fascinating situation. Well, we hope that this. Pause starts to become a non-pause. We'll get back to go. But Rick, fascinating to watch and always fantastic to visit with Rick Kess, a brilliant partner from RSM, the best in the business and what they do. Rick, thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to walk you through six quick stories that we're following today. Let me start with the following. Skechers, the shoe company, announces a massive deal where they're going to sell an evaluation of $9.4 billion to private equity fund 3GS.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
There's just been this long term, there's been sort of a pause of people to pay student loans. President Trump turns that back on. You know, I know this is a politically dynamic issue. We're obviously from the school of thought that believes people should basically pay their loans. So it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
But also to be careful in how much loans you take out because so much of our education is not worthwhile today in terms of leading to the jobs and the incomes people want. That's the four-story project. Fifth, President Trump throws another sort of wrench into the game. He says that foreign films, films that are brought here from overseas should pay a high tariff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
Again, the thing about watching President Trump is he says something and then he pivots and evolves. So we'll see how this all plays out. Finally, six, the markets are relatively stable today after they started off down as there's some positive talk coming out of the White House and the administration about trade talks and more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
So again, those are six of the stories we're following today at the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
So that culminates a very long run for the family who founded Skechers and an amazing outcome. This will make the 85-year-old founder a billionaire plus and really amazing what they've done. Second, on the flip side of deal activity, Apollo, one of the largest private equity funds in the world and one of the largest private credit players as well,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
says that deal activity is largely at a standstill currently and we'll see how that continues to play out third another core business discussion and fascinating warren buffett this week at the berkshire hathaway meeting he's 94 he's at the best track record of almost any investor in the history of the world will step down as leading berkshire hathaway at the end of this year he'll still be ceo
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Quick Stories We Are Following Today 5-5-25
He's leaving the company, the fund, Berkshire Hathaway, whatever you want to call it exactly, with something like $300 billion in cash on hand to do deals. Just an amazing leadership, and it could not have anybody I respect more as a leader investor than Warren Buffett. Fourth, President Trump gets going again, says student loans, people have to pay their student loans.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is a slightly longer form podcast where we're going to discuss 10 thoughts on building a business. We hope you enjoy this talk. We'll have a discussion at the end on a place for giving us feedback, and we'd love to get your feedback.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
and engage participants and potentially for device companies and companies that sell into that market. So this concept of shoulder 360 to me is a beautiful example of niching down. There's an old Jack Welch concept that you want to be first or second in your niche or not be in it with the concept that you really win in good times when you dominate a niche and you survive in bad times.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
So I'm very, very big in this concept of niche centric and love this example of shoulder 360 as an example of it. That's not a Becker's healthcare property or anything else that we're related to. Second, customer centric. There's this whole concept of in business, Really making sure you wake up trying to make sure you're fitting a need of your customer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
You're really doing everything that customer needs to take care of what they need. And then you have to tier your customers. Some of the best examples of tiering customers I've ever seen are people that break their customers into five different quintiles. The 20% at the top may be the most profitable or the most revenues. The second 20%, again, the most profitable, most revenues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
The third is the third tier of that, then the fourth, then the fifth tier of it. And great discipline businesses are very good about really focusing on the first one or two tiers and really almost abandoning the fifth tier and looking at the third and the fourth tier as, to can they become A or B type clients or should we be serving them or not?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
And then the concept is for your core customers, those are the ones that get your best people, the best ideas, the best engineering, the best everything, but very, very much focused on your best, best customers and understanding who are your best customers that really keep the lights on and really make the business go. The third thing we talk about, and we talk about this often is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
the first concept that we think about in building a business there's really three concepts i put at the very top of building a business and those are people and team centric customer centric and niche centric and a lot of these three concepts will overlap with a lot of things that we talk about later on in this discussion and podcast so the first concept is niche centric
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
Every business has to be people and team staff centric. You have to build a great team and you ultimately probably have to tier your team as well to know who your best people are and to do everything you can to support and thrive and grow businesses around your top people and building lots of top people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
The best leaders I've seen have a mentality in building teams of they thrive and their people thrive. It's not a top-down type of matrix. It's a thrive-thrive culture. It's almost like a Venn diagram. How do I thrive? How do you thrive? And where's the intersection versus I thrive, you don't.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
And the concept being if you want to develop people over the long run, it's got to be what we think of as a thrive-thrive environment with your people. The fourth thing we think about, and a lot of this comes back to niche-centric, is are you building a product or selling a service that people really need where you could identify the ideal customer for it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
There's so much discussed about the ideal customer profile. And this concept of the ideal customer profile, who's your ideal customer for your business, is so, so, so important. And you have to spend so much time on it if you want to do this right. You have to be in a spot where you can really identify who's the right customer for us. Like the Shoulder360 thing is a great example.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
They know that the perfect customer is for shoulder 360 is a device company that sells shoulder devices. So it becomes very simple. Then they have to know who at the company is making the decisions as to where they spend their market spend. Similarly, they have to know who their target person is in the audience. Is it an orthopedic surgeon who deals with shoulders? I assume it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
Is it a physical therapist that deals with shoulders or is it a hospital service that deals with shoulders? But really knowing your product market fit and really testing early. We talk often about the concept of companies is you have to be willing to commercialize early to try and test early whether your product's really needed and trying to identify this ideal customer profile.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
I just love that concept. The fifth concept, and we talk about this a lot too, is scalability. Is there a spot where there is some scalability in the business where you can develop the systems, the processes, the people, that you're at some spot where revenue starts to come in regardless of adding more people?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
So the private equity business, when it's going well, is the perfect example of a scalable business. You take a team of 20 or 50 professionals, Then you put literally billions of dollars over that that they're going to invest. So it's not a one-to-one ratio where every effort they put in leads to another output. It's rather... they could do bigger deals with the same numbers of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
It's why in some ways when the media business is going great, we just love it because it's not like a legal hours business or a consulting business where every hour you put in leads to revenue. It's rather you've built a big enough platform and then people pay you for access to that platform. And it's not dependent necessarily on a direct correlation with more labor or technology cost.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
So scalability is very important. The sixth concept we talk about often is clarity of goals. Do you have great clarity about what you're trying to accomplish, who you're trying to serve, what you're trying to build? Without that clarity, you spend so much wasted effort being all over the place versus being terrific. Seventh, we talk about this often as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
It is far easier to build a business around a niche and keep on niching down than trying to build a business around the total addressable market around huge broad markets. I have a discussion later today with somebody who's building a consumer facing business versus a business to business business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
the obsession with greatness and what you're trying to accomplish. So for example, I'll give you a silly example or a small micro example. We work on a newsletter most days of the week and We know that when the newsletter goes out and gets a great number of unsubscribes, that somehow we've made the writing not as sharp, not as clean, not as it should, not as good as it should be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
That's the obsession with greatness. Got to make the effort to be more concise, sharper, better in whatever you're doing. And it's the same with anything you're doing. And the obsession with greatness, unfortunately, often takes a lot of work and a lot of thought. We use the phrase often, Grind and think, not just grind, but grind and think.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
The eighth concept we talk about in building businesses, and this is one bit miscellaneous, but it also goes back to some of the team issues we talked about earlier is the evolution of the leader and the founder in three phases. And so when I think about founding businesses or watching people found businesses, when they first do so, they're often doing a lot of everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
The old adage is the chief bottle watcher, the cook, the bus boy, they're everything or the bus woman. As you grow, we often see this in three phases. The second phase of growth is that you've hired people and they extend you. They're not necessarily better than you, but they extend you. And you could do more, but it's almost like 2x potential scalability or growth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
The real magic of business happens when the founder hires people that are far better than the founder, and they start to fill out all the leadership spots. Then you end up in a spot where the business gets better and better, and it's not so dependent upon the founder's own drive, actions, and so forth. It's far better situated when everybody runs departments that the founder used to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
That's the third stage and when a business can really start to scale and grow and become something much more significant. The ninth concept we talk about, and it goes into team building, it goes into customer centric, is a tremendous focus on gratitude. That you are legitimately and sincerely thankful for your people that are doing great jobs and doing great work, your customers that support you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
This can't be false gratitude. It can't be AI-driven gratitude. It's got to be real gratitude that you really love your people and what they're doing and how they're doing it, and you are just so thankful for them. We're in another discussion we'll often do about the 90 percenters. And what I love in leadership is people that do 90, 93 percent of stuff right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
And the leader understands those people are so damn valuable. What I hate in leadership. is when the leader or the organization focuses on the 7%, the 10%, the 3%, that those people are doing great and they start to make that the job. So it's immense gratitude and really understanding who your 90 percenters are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
And I always think right away that that's harder than a business to business business with a discreet market. I've watched over the last couple of years the development of some of these niche conferences, most recently one called Shoulder 360.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
The tenth thing we talk about in leadership is this concept of really knowing your own business and your own company. People talk about all this broad reading, this broad strategy, this broad everything, I start everything with, do you know who your most important customers are? Do you know who your most important people are? Do you know where your profits and revenues are coming from?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
If we could start with those things, those 80-20 rules, where are our best people? Where are our best customers? Where do our profits and revenues come from? We are way, way ahead of the game. In any event, these are 10 of the core rules that we think about for building a business. We hope you find this enjoyable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
We have a much longer form of the speech that we do virtually and in person, but we hope you love this. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. I would love to, at the end of the day, get your feedback in this talk and hear what you have to say. I'm at 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
If you listen to the whole thing, you send me some comments, you're the first person to send them to me at 773-766-5322. I'll send you an Amazon gift certificate. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Core Concepts in Building a Business 5-5-25
And I love this example of just a hardcore niche where somebody's really building on a very, very specific niche versus trying to be broad and being everything to everybody. And that's a great example of niching down from orthopedics to a specific part of orthopedics where you really have a reason for being for a certain number of attendees and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the age-old question. Should you check your weight in your portfolio every day? So here's the issue on this, and everybody's got a million different opinions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
Checking or not checking, if you have a core plan for how you do things, maybe you shouldn't go get so up or down by the weight. I just know that when I am checking it regularly, I'm generally healthier because I'm probably more willing to check it when I'm doing okay. In any event, that's today's podcast. Hope it resonates with some people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
Should you check your weight or your portfolio every day? You know, the answer is maybe. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
If you're a wealth manager, you tell people not to check their portfolios all the time, because at the end of the day, you don't want your clients bothering you. But the reality is as follows. In terms of checking the weight every day, I find what I'm in the right... When I'm in the right mindset and disciplined about my weight, I check it all the time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
And checking it keeps me disciplined, keeps me thinking about what can I do? Do I have to be really careful today to keep my weight at its target level or not and so forth? So in the right situations, looking at the stat day-to-day causes the right behavior. So I think overall you should do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
Just like a sales team should probably look at their sales numbers every single day to know where they're tracking and know where they're at. The portfolio is a different issue. Now, I'm one of these people that incessantly checks the portfolio. I don't check it when it's way down, just like when my weight is way up, I can't get on the scale. Those are two of my challenges in life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
But in terms of the portfolio, yes, you could check it. But the most important thing is you've developed a backbone, a clarity of plan as to what you're doing on your portfolio allocation. So when you check it, you don't take action. But you ought to check it. You ought to learn it. You ought to study it. That's sort of where I come from.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Check Your Weight or Portfolio Every Day? 3-3-25
I do check it all the time for better or for worse, probably for worse. But I don't always act on it. I know enough to know what my allocation is and stick to it. So you could check it as long as you're able to do that. I take it the same thing is probably true of weight loss and controlling your weight.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walgreens & Sycamore is Like Trump & Zelensky 3-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Walgreens Sycamore is like Trump Zielinski. And here's the point on this. Walgreens and Sycamore Private Equity Fund have been courting each other for the last several months, but can't seem to get on the same page, can't seem to get a deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walgreens & Sycamore is Like Trump & Zelensky 3-3-25
Anyways, that's the discussion today. Walgreens, Sycamore. Trump Zelensky, what a fascinating thing to watch. Thank you very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walgreens & Sycamore is Like Trump & Zelensky 3-3-25
Walgreens stock, notwithstanding the great leadership of Tim Wentworth, has been down over the last year, recovered some this year, up 14% so far this year, but dropped on Friday due to news that this deal is not coming together, at least right now, between Sycamore and Walgreens. Sycamore, I think, would be scary for Walgreens.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walgreens & Sycamore is Like Trump & Zelensky 3-3-25
They'd probably put a lot of debt on it, try and refashion the business, but also an upside for those that are at Walgreens. So fascinating, fascinating situation. The Sycamore-Walgreens negotiations and situation. The similar thing with President Trump and Vladimir Zelenskyy. These two guys, like Sycamore and Walgreens, can't seem to get on the same page. They seem to get close.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walgreens & Sycamore is Like Trump & Zelensky 3-3-25
I have no criticism of President Trump negotiating in public. I think that kind of transparency is extremely healthy, quite frankly, so I'm not a negative on that at all. I think at the end of the day, we've got to view the situation in Ukraine and Russia as an end situation. We can back Ukraine and we have to find peace.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walgreens & Sycamore is Like Trump & Zelensky 3-3-25
Obviously, we don't need to go broke, just like Reagan made Russia go broke, the Soviet Union go broke, by constantly putting military pressure on. We don't need to go broke by having Putin put so much pressure on Ukraine and us giving $100 billion to Ukraine. We just don't need that as a nation. We've got to find some way to bring it to peace and support Ukraine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Every Brilliant Person Is Also an Idiot: Part One 3-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This is part of our series that every brilliant person is also an idiot, part one. So today's discussion, and I just think this is the reality of the human existence, that most everybody, bright or not bright, also has flaws. Today's discussion centers on the Kroger, one of the largest grocery stores in the world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Every Brilliant Person Is Also an Idiot: Part One 3-3-25
But again, goes in the category of every brilliant person is also an idiot. Today's story focuses on, again, Rodney McMullin, the CEO of Kroger. The ski story focuses on a close business colleague who's also brilliant and an idiot like all of us. I am no exception to that rule. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Every Brilliant Person Is Also an Idiot: Part One 3-3-25
Their CEO and chairman, Rodney McMullen. So Rodney McMullen was dismissed this week for personal conduct supposedly unrelated to the company. But it's just another reminder. Here's a guy at the top of the world. CEO and chairman of one of the best companies in the world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Every Brilliant Person Is Also an Idiot: Part One 3-3-25
Yes, they've been back and forth through potential merger talks, back and forth with different challenges with the FTC and the Department of Justice, but an incredible run and growth that Kroger's has had. Just incredible. And Rodney's right at the top of that. And then this weekend, news comes out that he's being dismissed for personal conduct. Now, again...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Every Brilliant Person Is Also an Idiot: Part One 3-3-25
We'll call this every bright person is also an idiot part one. But I think it's just a constant reminder. And I don't know how you avoid this. People that are bright, people that are not bright, all of them do stupid things. And how do you control the stupid things so you don't crush your life or kill your existence? I have a brilliant friend who I went skiing with recently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Every Brilliant Person Is Also an Idiot: Part One 3-3-25
The guy skis like 55 miles an hour. He's a brilliant, brilliant guy, one of my favorite people in the world. Of course, he crashes going 55 miles an hour. I won't discuss the name for HIPAA reasons. It's not really HIPAA reasons. Just joking about that. But crashes going 55, 57 miles an hour. Horrendous concussion. Going to the orthopedic surgeon for the knee this week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks We Are Following 3-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are seven stocks that we're following. We'll give you a quick rundown of what's going on with those. So first, SoundTown AI, a volatile AI stock, jumped 18% Friday. I believe it's up over the last year, but down year-to-date. Second, RH, which I love to hate, fell 6% yesterday and it's down 18% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks We Are Following 3-3-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks We Are Following 3-3-25
Third, Acadia Healthcare got crushed Friday and was down 25% earnings missed estimates. Fourth, Lyons-Bernstein rose Friday. It's got great leadership in the wealth management area. A special shout-out to Jay Leonard and the Greg Miller. Fifth, Universal Healthcare fell nearly 6% Friday after annual earnings missed estimates. Its leader, Mark Miller, is an outstanding leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks We Are Following 3-3-25
We expect they'll bounce back just fine. Sixth, another healthcare stock, Surgery Partners, is on the rise today after beating its fourth quarter estimates. Eric Evans took over that company several years ago as CEO. It's just done a wonderful, wonderful job. Seventh, finally, Bank of America rose about 5% Friday. It's up nearly 5% year-to-date. There's a great article in Insider Monkey.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks We Are Following 3-3-25
Is Bank of America the best affordable dividend stock to buy according to hedge funds? That's the question. It's just interesting. A couple more quick notes. Walgreens fell 5%, almost 5% Friday. It means up 15% year to date. Looks like its deal with Sycamore is falling apart and getting them on the same page is almost as hard as getting Trump and Zelensky on the same page.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks We Are Following 3-3-25
So just a challenging situation. One other note. The Kroger chairman and CEO resigned due to personal conduct. It always leaves you wondering, what is that personal conduct? What we often say, and we got this quote from a guy named Brian Johnson, every brilliant person is also an idiot. This may just be the human condition. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are five stories that we're following today, and they'll give you a range of stuff relating to the market and a couple of other things. So bear with us. First, the market surged back on Friday, but are struggling today on concerns about tariffs. Goldman Sachs warns the S&P 500 recovery is likely temporary.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-3-25
So we know a great day Friday. They don't say to hold too much sort of court on that. Second, the NASDAQ is slightly down year-to-date. The S&P 500 and the Dow are slightly up year-to-date. Third, the three largest companies by market cap and where they're at year-to-date. Apple's number one, down 3.6% year-to-date. Nvidia's number two, down 7% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-3-25
And Microsoft, number three, is down 5.82% year-to-date. Fourth, the top three companies by revenue and their year-to-date numbers. Walmart, and that's only one of these six that's up, is up 9.14% year-to-date. Amazon is down 3.38% year-to-date. And UnitedHealth Group is down 6.11% year-to-date. So that's four of the stories.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-3-25
The fifth thing I'll tell you is it's fascinating to me to see how five of these six largest companies, the three by market cap, the three by revenues, five of the six are down year-to-date, yet the markets are relatively flat. I take it that means that people are rotating money into other sectors, but they're keeping them in equities versus taking out money from equity exposure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 3-3-25
Just fascinating to see what's going on there. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. We are thrilled today to be joined by Rick Kess. Rick is a partner at RSM. RSM's the leader in sort of private equity consulting in the mid-market. Just a fantastic firm. A lot of Q of E work and readiness for deal work. We're going to talk to Rick today about what is going on in the private equity environment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
A hundred percent. And I guess I'll mention two things just quickly. One is Chairman Powell has some concern with them just in terms of inflation. So it's going to cause him to go a little bit slow in reducing rates, it seems like. So that's one thing that can impact the deal market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
The second thing, as long as we're talking health care a little bit, I guess one of the big concerns in the health care world is the potential efforts by the Trump administration, President Trump's administration, to cut some of the spending federally and some big parts of that are towards Medicaid, Affordable Care Act subsidies and some other places.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
And that could have a negative impact on the health care deal world, I take it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
What should we expect this year? What is he seeing? And a lot more. We're talking today in a strange day in the markets where President Trump imposed tariffs yesterday in Canada, Mexico, and China. That's causing some gyration in the markets. But looking beyond that, or maybe you can't, Rick, can you tell us what we could expect in the P.E. deal world currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
No, 100%. And avocados may not be the biggest thing, but they're directional in terms of issues versus specifically about avocados and guacamole. Even though, you know, you're in Minnesota, I'm in Chicago. We love our guacamole. We probably love it every place in the country, but we'll see how this goes. Let me ask you another question. We were talking pre-Super Bowl, Eagles versus Chiefs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
Are you allowed, I know you're at a big institutional firm, one of the best in the business. Are you allowed to give a prediction on that game? Eagles versus Chiefs, and if so, do you have a prediction?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
No, thank you very much. We'll see what happens. I do think there's probably enough people that have had enough of like, I mean, Patrick Mahomes is hard not to love. He's actually a... wonderful player and a wonderful talent and seems like a great person. But it is hard to want the team to keep on winning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
So we'll be cheering for the Eagles, you know, and Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley and so forth. But, oh, my goodness, it is what it is. Never dull. Rick, thank you so much. Tariffs, cuts to Medicaid, Medicare. You know, it's a it's a tough Monday morning and we'll see how it all goes. It's you know, it could be worse and we'll see how it all plays through. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariffs, Private Equity, and Market Uncertainty with Rick Kes of RSM 2-3-25
Rick Cass, RSM on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We are thrilled the podcast have recently reached 22 million downloads between the health care podcast and the private equity podcast. So God bless you all for listening. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And today's discussion is the solopreneur versus building teams. And I think this is a fascinating discussion. As we've moved to this world where so many people are remote and trying to build small online businesses, There's become this concept of the solopreneur. The person could do it all by themselves.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
You know, it never really made progress in the media business till I heard Jessica Cohen, a lot of other people in the real built a different size company, never really made progress at McGuire Woods till I built a team of people to take care of clients in the corporate healthcare world and the business transactional healthcare world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
And I really see that in the boards I serve and I've seen people that are one person wrecking crew is just fantastic, but they can't go very far without building teams. So I look at the subject solopreneur versus building teams. That's a subject for today. Solopreneur versus building teams. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
In anything I do, I would love to be a solo person and just do it, but I find it's impossible to do what you want to do without great teams and great teammates and great other leaders. If you have thoughts on this topic, please feel free at any time to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. I'm also so thankful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
We recently passed 22 million downloads between Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity. And again, all I can tell you about doing 22 million downloads and podcasts for the last few years is that it required a team. It sure wasn't a sole effort of any sort. One of the key parts of that team is on the phone or in the recording with us today is She's in studio.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
I'm on the phone, you know, on a nice set of headsets, Chanel Bunger. But you can't do this without a team. And I am still lost at this concept of the of the ethic, the ethos, the drive, the celebration of the solopreneur. I just don't see it. I see still that the world is really built around great people, great teams and more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast, the solopreneur versus building teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
If you read Twitter or follow Twitter or X, whatever you call it today, you see so many people talking about being solopreneurs, sort of being on their keyboard, generating income from YouTube, from Twitter, from whatever social media outlet that shares revenues, this concept of the solopreneur. And I am old school, so I always read this as the solopreneur versus building teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
And for the life of me, I love this concept of the solopreneur, but I can't quite get there. In terms of building anything substantial and real, I still am a believer that you've got to build teams and work with great people to be able to really build something of any substance that's sustainable. So I love this concept. I'd love to, as I get older, to be a solopreneur.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
At the end of the day, I am just having a hard time seeing how you really build serious businesses without serious teams. Obviously, I've been affiliated most of my life with two core businesses, Becker's Healthcare, which does not have thousands of employees, but has lots of employees.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Solopreneuer vs Building Teams 2-3-25
And then McGuire Woods, fantastic law firm, which has thousands of employees and everything I've built within those or outside of those, I see as people doing it with great teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So we talk often about building businesses, and we recently authored a book called The Entrepreneur's Edge. The book's an AABP Plus book. It's not fantastic, but good. I'm no literary hero, so it is what it is. But here are four cores to building a business, and we view these four as critical to any business,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
There's a great quote from one of my favorite leaders, founders, Mohan Giridharadas, the founder of Lintas, where he says, we need something where the customer has a real pain point. They really need help on something, and that's where we could really help. We don't want something that's nice to have. We want something that they need to have.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
So that's the concept of finding that product-to-market fit where customers really need something. Again, four core concepts, niche-centric engagement, team centric, customer centric, and then really finding product market fit. And that's when you start to accelerate and build the foundation of a real business. It's simple, but it's hard to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
And here they are. And they're part of a much larger chapter on 15 thoughts of building a business and a much larger book. But let me give you the four cores that we think everything starts with. First, we look at businesses being niche centric. Again, it's a big enough niche that it's worth winning in, but small enough that you could win in and define it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
So what is the niche you're trying to win in? Second is, we're not a believer in the solopreneur concept, we're a believer in building teams, and at the end of the day, taking care of great people, growing with great people, building great teams, we view this as critical. Third, the third centric we talk about is customer centric.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
It's really making sure you're doing everything you can to greatly take care of your customers, that you're providing, you're building raving fans, you're beyond expectations performing for your customers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
4 Core Concepts for Building a Business 2-3-25
uh and finally the fourth thing that we talk about is product market fit and there's so much written on this but but the more you could narrow down to really doing something that hits this venn diagram of things that your business is great at and loves to do but also the customers really want that's where sort of what we like to say is and it's so embarrassing to use this phrase that's where the magic happens we hit that overlap of what you do great your business does great and what customers really want in need
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are 13 stories we're following this morning, including the discussion of new tariffs. First, the markets are down this morning as President Trump imposes tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Seventh, GM, Ford Motor, and Stellantis all getting hurt on the tariff news. Eighth, a couple of the big-ticket stocks. Apple down 6% year-to-date, still number one in market cap. Amazon up more than 8% year-to-date, and Microsoft down 1.5%. Ninth, we're super excited for the Becker's Healthcare Annual Meeting starting April 28th.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Magnificent lineup of health system speakers and celebrity speakers. Michael Phelps, Nick Saban, Venus Williams, and Kevin O'Leary should be a lot of fun. Tenth, This is a discussion we'll have in a separate podcast too, and it's also in preparation for a speech I'm giving Wednesday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
But if you want to build a great business, you have to be niche-centric, team-centric, customer-centric, and work to find product-market fit. It takes all those things. It's straightforward, but it's not easy. Eleventh. This is a reminder.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Most successful businesses hit singles and doubles first, and then they work to really find their customer base, really find their spot in the product-market fit, and then they accelerate. Twelfth. Aside from tech businesses, we're keeping a close eye this morning on various different businesses, the turnaround consulting business, the auction business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Also, a quick shout out to Miriam Crawford and her incredible, successful 15 years of greatness at Crawford, the Crawford agency. Her spouse, William, is a tremendous leader as well. Between Miriam building a business, raising her family, and trying to improve William over all these years, she has done a yeoman's job. 13th, Moderna is now down 60% over the last year. Intel is down nearly 54%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Second point, let's hope this is partially negotiation and partially making good on campaign promises versus permanently at these levels, at least not permanently at the 25% on Canada and Mexico and the 10% levels on China. And there's lots of back and forth, and the reasons for these, what goes on, why this might support American workers, but might also cause inflation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Those are some of the things that we're watching this morning. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Also thrilled to have just passed 22 million downloads between Becker's Healthcare and Becker Private Equity. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Early to tell on how this will all play out, but all of us are a little bit scared of a bit of a trade war. Third, interestingly enough, the markets were really down early this morning, and now have recovered to be down about 1%. Fourth, a story from Bloomberg, quoting Goldman,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
The announcement came as a shock to many investors who expected tariffs would only be imposed after trade negotiations failed. People think that Trump might have gotten in front of this a little bit. Goldman also says, or at least their chief strategist says, that if sustained, the tariffs would cause a reduction in the S&P 500 fair value by about 5% and hurt earnings by a few percent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
13 Business News Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-3-25
Fifth question. taking us past tariffs. Nvidia is down about 10% year-to-date. Tesla is flat. We'll go through a few of our favorite stocks very quickly. Sixth, MicroStrategy up 15% year-to-date. Palantir up 9% year-to-date. We're an individual investor in Palantir. I think I should be an individual investor in Tesla, but we'll see.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, before I get started, I am so thankful to our listeners, our sponsors, our guests, just having a tremendous run with the podcast, past 7 million downloads, and ranked really highly in the Apple list. Thank you so much. Today's discussion is building businesses lessons from a career of wins and losses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
So that's the point on drive and spark and growth. And I just think that that is, you know, we used to say that, you know, you got to take 10 ditches where they keep going to build themselves. You got to get flywheel going to where things really start to go themselves. But it takes years to get there. People talk about viral. I'm not a real believer in viral information.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
If something goes viral, somebody's really had to kick it to make it happen to go viral. For a long time, I had two full-time jobs in driving and building a business. I think that's a reality for most of us. The next topic I'll talk about, and this is number eight, is business plans. I view it as there's essentially three core types of business plans. There's the no business plan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
There's the short two to 10 page business plan. And then there's the complex business plan. I tend to love the short business plan, the back of the envelope business plan. And again, if I have a fault, it's I'm probably too much of an entrepreneur versus a deep thinker. You know, I went to law school, not a dumb person, but at the end of the day, I could spend more time of time up front planning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
But I think the right mix is somewhere between the two. Too many people end up with great sort of – paralysis by analysis and trying to build business plans. We see so much that are the business plans, the actual business plans, the business, and that's not right either.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
You have to ultimately get out there and test and go, but you do need some clarity of who you're trying to reach, what you're trying to do. Eric Fried, brilliant founder, says projections are all BS. I think for projections built on the total startup, that's largely the case, and the plan is not the business itself. The plan is the kickoff point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
We'll talk a lot this afternoon about building teams, niches, and a lot more, and try and also give some of my most miscellaneous points that I love to talk about. So I hope you enjoy this. What we're going to try and do again is discuss common lessons from wins and losses. So the core concept I'll start with next is teams. Every success I've had has been built around building teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Ninth, another common myth that I just love to talk about is Julius Caesar has a famous phrase called burn the boat's. You know, that you have to be all in on something. You have to be totally all in on something and can't be pursuing multiple different things. And I think there's truth and falsity to this. I'm a big believer for most entrepreneurs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
You are going to do far better if you're in a day job and understanding what you're doing and come up with ideas that come out of that. You're solving real problems than abstractly trying to burn the boats before you're financially safe. Many, many successful businesses are built by people that have hedged their bets. They keep a day job. They've got some income or they grow the next thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
In contrast, I see so many entrepreneurs that jump and fail and have to spend years recreating themselves professionally and business-wise and financially and so forth. So I'm not a huge fan of the burn the votes concept. The last thing I'll say about business today in this talk is Know your own business. The very best business people I know, they know their best customers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
They know their best people. They're constantly doubling down on their best people, their best customers, their best niches, that they realize business is not a democracy. You're going to put your time into your best areas, your best people. constantly knowing the 80-20 rule. What's the core of your business that drives a great deal of results and spending a lot of time there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
We say you're constantly doing your job and connecting the dots and really knowing your business. The people that I know, like there's somebody that was talked about a hundred years ago that I did business with, and his people would say he knew that leader, Bruce St. John, would know if a two-by-four dropped at another one of their facilities that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And it's not that you have to be a micromanager, but you have to know your business. And I think that is just so important in what you do. In any event, we can go on and on. I've got a few other points. I'll let them go for now. But thank you for listening to this version of the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We hope you enjoy this. I'd love your feedback. 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And every failure I had was really where I didn't make the effort to want to put in the time to seriously build teams. where I've served on companies' boards, and I'll just go through this real quick. One of the boards I served on early, a company called Ambulatory Surgical Centers of America, they had droves of brilliant people, a ton of A-plus leaders,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
they ended up having huge success for a long period of time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Similar example, Physicians Endoscopy ran by a gentleman, Barry Tanner, significant success over a very long period of time and really succeeded with that team and that growth, ultimately sold to, went through several different private equity funds over the course of 25, 30 years, and then finally sold to Optum United for some crazy amount of money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
The flip side is I've been involved in a board where they had one supernova leader, but ultimately that was the be-all and end-all. They ultimately sold the company for a number that was not very exciting, and largely because you can't go very far with just one supernova leader. It just doesn't work. This leads me to the next point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
There's this constant discussion today about the myth of the solopreneur, what I call the myth of the solopreneur. Peter Diamantes, brilliant business person says, we're going to see a unicorn built around a solopreneur soon. And he may be right. I have a very hard time buying into this concept of a solopreneur. I'm a believer. You've got to build teams if you want to be successful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I am a believer that, yes, you have to outsource stuff. And I still believe very strongly you need a core team, but outsource everything beyond your core team. In building the media company, we decided we needed editorial staff. We needed a conference team. We needed a sales team. In a sense, we outsourced everything else for a very, very long time. We still don't have a receptionist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
We have an 800 number that people call into, leave a message, stuff like that. People might hate that, but we've built a half a billion dollar business with that mindset of outsourcing everything that we don't have to. So the next thing I'll talk about with teams is I'm the biggest fan of Jim Collins.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
So lots of wins, lots of losses. And I'm just going to go through about 10 points on this building businesses, wins and losses. The first background I'll give, I'll start with this. I've been involved in building two successful businesses. First, a healthcare media company known as Becker's Healthcare that became really successful with a great team and great leadership in several niches.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And for those of you old enough to remember, Jim Collins, one of the great business writers of our time, at least of my time, he has this concept, good to great, and essentially says that when you – It's all about getting the right people on the bus. If you get the right people on the bus, you could do almost anything that you want.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And if you don't get the right team on the bus, it doesn't matter how good your strategy is, no matter what you're doing, you can't go very far. With teams, I'll give one more comment or two more comments, is that there's this concept of what I think was the evolution of a founder. The founder early on is what I think of as a solopreneur. That's stage one of founding a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Stage two is you hire a lot of people, but those people aren't necessarily better than you. And the business has limits as to where it can go in stage two. Stage three is you're hiring people people that ultimately do everything you used to do better than you could do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And I think when you get to that point, that's where the magic can really hamper the business that you could grow because the growth doesn't come just from you. It comes from a lot of other people driving the boat and pushing it forward. A couple more points on teams. I'm a huge fan of Don't prejudge people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Whenever I've hired people, whenever I've seen people hire people, there are some people that come in that people think that's going to be the next star and doesn't turn out to be. But so many people that don't look like they're going to be the next stars for whatever reason, but are these high internal motors and end up being the real leaders as we go forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
So don't overly judge people as you're building teams and growing teams. A couple more thoughts I'll have for you. There's this great belief that you need a certain size enterprise to build great teams. The reality is you need a certain size enterprise to have the team you want and not to be fragile to the loss of key people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I remember early on in building a business, one of my best, best people leaving and being like, oh, my God, I'm dead now. And so you end up ultimately having to build teams that are not so fragile to the loss of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
You also, unfortunately, will also have in business what I call ride-or-die people, people that even if you could, you never want to lose them because they're so freaking great that you build entire enterprises around them. One of those is the CEO of Becker's Healthcare, Jessica Cole, who's been a true ride-or-die leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
The last point I'll make on teams is I'll try and come back a couple of times to Judy Faulkner and Epic. What she's done is constantly committing to improvement and constantly building engineering teams and people teams is really remarkable. And it's a great lesson for all of us. The next topic I'll talk about today is niches.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Some people do great in the broad consumer markets, the total addressable market concepts, or selling it to China. I have seen that all of my successes have come from highly focused efforts at niches. And most of my failures have come when I've tried to go too broad at something and not really narrowed down. Who's the ideal persona? Who's the ideal customer? What are we trying to do?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I would say that, in addition, the very most successful companies I've worked with have been really niche-focused and really know what they're trying to do. Originally built a law practice, an initial media company, founded on a specific niche areas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And one of the lessons I have about niche areas is if you get really great at your niche, you also tend to see things in other niches and adjacent areas to grow into other areas and adjacent areas. But if you don't make the effort to get really great at your niche, then it's hard to understand where to grow into adjacencies and to grow from there. In building a niches,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I'm a big believer that you have to get yourself so engaged in things to really see the field, to see the opportunities, to see what's out there. It's very hard to hardcore whiteboard every niche you're going to go into. But the flip side is when I've been so close to businesses, I'm able to really dig into them. And you see things so clearly when you're so close to them and you see opportunities.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Second healthcare legal practice originally built in a specific niche and then grew into several other niche practices and areas as we got bigger and more successful. I've also served on the board of a company that sold for nearly a billion dollars. I've served on a couple other boards. Some of those were successful. Some of those were not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And those opportunities, when you really are close to your business, you almost realize you're not going to fail. It's easy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
find succeed or succeed greatly and that's we want to be so close to your business that you could see niches like that a couple of the thoughts on niches we we often think about niches is can you win in the niche and then in addition is it worth winning in so can you win goes to how deep or incredible is the competition in it like for example i'm building a software company
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I don't want to compete with Judy Faulkner, but I just don't want to do it. But I want to pick a niche point area to start with and then grow from there. And then is it a big enough area that's worth winning in? Some of the areas we've grown into, we could win in them, but they're not worth winning in. Other areas, hyper-competitive, we can win in them, but it takes a lot of effort to win in them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
One of the examples of a niche that I've seen recently, a company called Shoulder 360 or Conference Shoulder 360. The beauty of that is you know exactly what your targeted customers are, exactly what your targeted audience is, exactly what you're trying to do. I love that. It's not a company we're involved with. I just love the concept, Shoulder 360. Jack Welch hit it well on niches.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
He often said, you want to be first or second in the niche, maybe third, because in great times you clean up, in bad times you survive. And I think he's right on there. We'll also talk about sort of niches versus the total addressable market. Whenever a founder comes to someone and talks about the
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
The total addressable market being China, and that's the example we always talk about, or everybody always talks about, or all of the United States or every consumer, they almost get laughed out of the room. Whereas if they come to a very specific niche you're going after, it's much easier to grab somebody's attention as an investor, what you could do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Then the investor's issue is, can you grow big enough to make something out of that niche? I got a real good lesson in niches and watching the USA Today. USA Today years ago doesn't have a specific niche, a real niche. trying to be a newspaper for everybody, its value several years ago was very close to the value of a niche media company we had built.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And I just found that fascinatingly interesting that this broadly known publication wasn't that much more valuable than something we had built in a niche. The last thing I'll talk about with niches is the paradox of point solutions. You're almost always going to start with point solutions because that's the way you can do something better and more concentrated than anybody else. The flip side is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
In the long run, you probably can't be a point solution unless you're so big. You got to be a little bit bigger than that because nobody wants to deal with thousands of different point solutions. Again, to go back to Judy Faulkner and her eating the lunch of people is at some point, Epic develops a module that competes with your point solution. In many, many houses, this will be Epic first.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Even if the point solution is better, they don't want to work with it unless they have to because you're so much better. So there's the paradox of point solutions. Most people are going to start with paradox of point solutions. Most are going to start with niches. But at some point, you have to get bigger and find bigger niches and go beyond point solutions. I find it's a brilliant paradox.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
The fifth thing I'll talk about is product-market fit for companies. One of the things, again, you see countless times with entrepreneurs and founders and engineers is they build something at such length, but don't spend enough time commercializing early. And many of us do this. I mean, we can't help ourselves.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I've had the chance by background to invest in venture capital and private equity funds, including with Andreessen Horowitz, one of the best known venture capital funds, incredibly successful people. I've also invested in several startup companies throughout my career. Some of those went well. Some of those went to zero. Zero is always a bad thing. I've started several businesses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
We don't commercialize early enough, and thus we build something that people don't really want. So it's a lot easier to be in your room coming up with a product and so forth and so on for a lot of us than actually trying to sell. But if you don't commercialize early and sell early, you're in a lot of trouble.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
CEO of Becker's Healthcare, again, says, ready, aim, fire, not ready, aim, aim, aim, fire. The constant need to get out there and commercialize and test early and then see how it goes. Jim Collins says, fire bullets, not cannons, so you can test early. I think he's right on. And you have to spend a lot of time early on figuring out who is your ideal customer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And we often call it a persona at the media company. Who is the ideal customer we're trying to reach and trying to understand it? But this concept, whenever you're looking at businesses, thinking about businesses is, commercializing and testing early. It's no fun. You have to have a thick skin, but you got to do it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
I've also seen, you know, people come to us a couple years into funding the business and saying they are now making a big pivot. If you're an investor, When somebody says you're making a big pivot, this is when you mark down internally in your head the investment to zero often. So that's one thought on the big pivot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
But you have to test early to know whether your market really wants what you're trying to do. You want to have great clarity of who you're trying to be the go-to for and what you're trying to be great at. We often talk about product fit and market fit and ideas as the funnel in five stages. I'll go with this very quickly. Somebody has an idea. That's one top of the funnel.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Then they have a product, then revenues, then profit, then scale. And by the time you go from one to five, you've narrowed out a huge amount of the competition of potential players. Sixth concept, I'll go through a couple overstated myths. A favorite overstated myth that we have is culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I just think this has become part of the populist view.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
But no, it's really culture, talent, strategy, drive. It's a lot of things to make things really successful. I must say this culture strategy is similar to the concept of this concept of the solopreneur myth. I just don't think it's fair to do things alone. I think it's very hard to call it just culture. A lot of places have great cultures that aren't very successful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
You have to have culture plus talent and strategy. Seventh concept, startups, growth, driving things forward. And this is something I wish it wasn't true. And it may not only get unique to me. Any time I've had real success, I've become so taken by the effort that I've become obsessed and compelled by the effort. The flip side is when I've not had that drive, and growth, I've had a very hard time
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
having great success in getting things where they need to be. There's no way around it early on that you have to have this burning desire to succeed. Dave Thomas of Wendy's, the founders of Wendy's, and I used to love Wendy's, used to say that ultimately you need a burning desire to succeed. I think this is largely true.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
Every success I've had has had a founder or a fire starter that really has had that drive and nervous energy or whatever it is. We call them fire starters, but I can actually start fires Most entrepreneurs realize that sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. But greatness and getting something really going requires sustained drive over a serious period of time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And a couple of things I'll tell you is when you see that coming in yourself, you need to cultivate that passion. So it doesn't come throughout one's life all the time. Many serial entrepreneurs believe that they've become greatly successful in one thing. They're going to be gifted success in another thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
A couple of them have been very successful. A couple of them have completely failed or petered out. We've seen both of that. I've made lots of investments. Some have been successful. Some have been total disasters. In fact, some of the ones I thought were real wins ended up being real losers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And we find this is never the case, that serial entrepreneurs need that drive time and time again if they want to be successful time and time again. I remember the drive in starting a practice. Grew up like one of my colleagues in the audience in a place called Skokie. We were all fine but not rich. Parents lost their job periodically, those kinds of things. They lived nice but didn't have money.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
And when I really started building my practice, there were multiple motivations, one of which I was at a first firm. If you didn't have your own business, your own clients, you were treated like a dog. I never wanted to treat anybody like a dog, but I knew I needed to build a practice and was so driven to do so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Businesses: Lessons from a Career of Wins & Losses 6-2-25
When I ultimately built Becker's Healthcare, that drive in me really evolved over time. It took a little while for that fuel to be fired and to go after it, but it really came. And then you have to bite onto that drive when it hits you. It doesn't always hit you. And I think for entrepreneurs, you – You have to realize it's going to take serious drive to make things a success.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business podcast. Today's discussion is going to be about leadership and careers. Five quick points. The first thing I'll say before we even get started is we're so thankful to the audience here at Becker Private Equity and Business. Recently passed 7 million downloads. Just fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
If you could find the right coach and the right instructor or whatever you're trying to do, This can be incredibly valuable, and you can go a huge amount further. Dan Sullivan writes about this in Who Not How. He's right on. If you find the right coach, the right mentor for what you're doing, you can go so much further than otherwise.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
We're also thrilled at Becker's Health Care to have passed 17 million downloads. Thank you to our listeners, our guests, and our sponsors. Thank you very, very much. So here are five quick points. First, at some point, a few years into your job or your career, you're going to have to decide if you're going to have a job or you're going to become a leader.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
The choice is ultimately yours, but that's a choice you've got to click into at some point to decide, do I want to be a leader at what I'm doing or am I just having a job? And either could be okay. The choice is yours. Either is okay. Second, in business and personal finance, you have to run lean, but there is a limit to how far you can cut your expenses.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
Thus, at some point, you need to grow your income and grow your revenues. Third, I was recently asked by someone who was starting a business, should I go broader or should I niche down? My unequivocal advice would be to niche down and test several niches. That's third. Fourth, there is something very important about being in the right industry. The right industry matters.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Leadership & Careers: 5 Quick Points 6-2-25
A motivated computer scientist or someone in the right field can, on the average, go a lot, lot further than a motivated writer. So I think there is a lot to be said for that. Finally, fifth, and bear with me on this concept because I don't do coaching. I don't sell consulting. Yes, I'm a lawyer by background and I have a media company, but I don't sell coaching. But here's the point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for listening. Here are five stories that we're following today. And thank you for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, the markets point down today, but not horribly so after a really good May. And they're down today because tier of threats are ramping up again.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-2-25
We'll see where this goes to. Finally, I'll add on another story. Tesla sales in France fell 67%. The company is still seeing a lot of anti-Elon Musk pushback. Thank you very much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-2-25
The dialogue between China and the U.S. is getting a little bit more testy. We'll see how that goes. Second, GAAP dropped more than 20% Friday. It forecast essentially no growth in sales and much higher tier of cost. Blaming tariffs, and there are real challenges for sure, seems to be act one of each CEO's PR playbook as they struggle to find growth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-2-25
Third, Palantir technology keeps rising as the government doubles down on business with the company. Remember not too long ago when Doge was causing nightmares for big consulting firms doing business with the government. It seems like those days passed fairly quickly. Fourth, P.O. interest up 74% year-to-date. That's not a typo. They're up 74% year-to-date and rose 7.73% last week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 6-2-25
We'll see if that keeps going in that direction. Finally, fifth, the Senate has started to work through the tax bill passed by the House. Here, conservative senators perceive the bill should go further to cut costs. Others are more focused on making the tax cuts permanent. We'll see how this goes, and then I'll need to send the bill back to the House to reconcile the two bills.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today, we're going to speak to Holly Buckley. Holly's the chair of the McGuire's Healthcare Department. We've got the McGuire Woods Healthcare Private Equity event coming up May 14th and 15th in Chicago this year at the Ritz-Carlton. It's in its 21st or 22nd year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
Amazing, amazing work by the Healthcare Private Equity team to grow that into a marquee event in the country. Today we're going to talk to Holly about a subject I find very fascinating, which is the subject of focus versus sprawling. Focus in the essential versus doing and going after more priorities and how people like Holly, who runs this major, major department at a, you know,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
No, I think there's so much there, and I'll sort of walk through four of those things that I just absolutely loved. The first concept is execution plus strategic thinking, execution plus thinking. And not always easy. You and I have had plenty of colleagues that are so good at both, at wrapping their hands around both of those.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
And then we've also had colleagues that are so good at sort of executing little tasks but not actually thinking of the context they're in. So execution plus thinking. The second thing, you know, there's this whole layer of thought around culture each strategy for breakfast. And most of us that have been in real business understand that that sounds so good, but it's really culture plus strategy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
It's not one or the other. It's people and strategy. It's like people and technology, culture and strategy, and it is both. The third thing that I absolutely loved is this concept of what is the absolute most important thing in your life.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
And if it's family, it's family, whatever it is, but whatever that glass ball is, it could be in business, the most important client, the most important colleague, the most important employee, whatever it is, but you better have your eyes on what's most important to you. And I think a wonderful concept of like, look, we've got all these different work priorities and,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
But if we mess up our relationship with our spouse, our family, our children, whoever it is that's most important to us, that's a real problem.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
The fourth thing, which is an amazing thing that's happened is, you know, particularly on longer flights, we've gotten back to this point where people used to think about, you know, in the healthcare world, they talk about this thing called pajama time, where a doctor has to do notes at night. Airplane time for lawyers or business people is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
particularly if you could sit nicely and turn off some of your social media and stuff, has become really well-timed. For our sake today, we actually decided to send this get some work done, think through some things, do some reading I want to catch up on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
That's really how this evolved to the airplane team becoming something that people actually like versus hate for their chance to actually sit and do some work and think versus just executing on stuff. So I love those four or five points. I know there's a lot more there, Holly. Holly, anything else you'd like to add to this concept on essentialism?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
I mean, you've made big strategic shifts over the year as you move the practice from a provider-centric practice to, over the years, a provider and private equity-centric practice. That was a big strategic effort by you and some others.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
Any other things you want to comment on as you sort of look at setting priorities, cutting down to the essential, and always looking at that one glass ball, the most important thing in your life that you can't let get dropped?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
huge law firm, manages this concept of focus versus testing new ideas, focus versus sprawling, and trying to stick to the essential. Holly, what are your thoughts on how you manage around this concept of focus versus sprawling and trying to hit that right balance?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
But I love that point on some sort of governor, some sort of plan, some sort of here's what we're trying to do. And this is going to change over time, but it makes every decision not a brand new decision. If this is what we're doing on recruiting and this is our criteria, then we could really assess from the get-go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
Not everybody is a blank slate, but do they sort of fit into the criteria we're looking for, what we're trying to build, what we're trying to do. And I think just having some sort of plan is a million times better than not having a plan than having the right plan or a plan that makes sense is the next level of that. And, you know, I know we spend a ton of time on both those things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Focus vs Sprawling with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 1-31-25
Holly Buckley, remarkable leader, again, chair of the McGuire's Healthcare Practice, works at the intersection of healthcare and private equity. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Becker's Private Equity and Business Podcast. Holly Buckley, thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks 1-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We're constantly in this search of looking at this discussion of index funds versus individual stocks, and taking a whole different level, talking about investing in private alternative assets versus individual stocks and index funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks 1-31-25
So three of the stocks that we follow individually, because we're investing individually, are Astero Labs, Palantir, and Microsoft. So to give you a sense of this this week, Astero Labs, which is up 8% today, got crushed in the deep sea route on Monday and went down about 30%. So a bad day for individual stock investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks 1-31-25
Palantir continues to recover and seems to be back up about 4% today and is doing pretty well. And again, Astero Labs is up today too. Microsoft, a third stock that we'll talk about here. got crushed yesterday, down about 6%. We've been a long-term investor in Microsoft, so we'll stick with that for the long run.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds vs Individual Stocks 1-31-25
But always a reminder, when your individual stocks go down 6%, or in the case of a sterile lapse, 30% early this week, that index funds are the way to go for the core of one's portfolio. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are nine of the stories that we're following this morning. It's January 31st, the end of January. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, after the deep seek route early this week, the markets have stabilized and point up this morning again. Let's hope that that holds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-31-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. And thank you to Chanel Bunker for all of your help. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-31-25
Second, Apple is up a little bit pre-market on solid earnings amidst slightly lower iPhone sales. However, midday, it's right about even. Third, Microsoft, which we owned directly, dropped 6% yesterday. It may push me back to just index funds. We'll see how that goes. Fourth, Microsoft is barely ahead of NVIDIA in the market cap war. Apple is, again, the king.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-31-25
Microsoft is right in front of NVIDIA right now, and that might change any time. Fifth, in the toughest news of the day, Walgreens Boots Alliance, for the first time in 90 years, is suspending its dividend. It's down about 11% today. Tim Wentworth, the new CEO of Walgreens, must wake up some mornings and just ask himself why he took that job. All right.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-31-25
Sixth, two of the topics we're going to talk about separately on the podcast today are the search for self-awareness and the discussion of why physical activity is so mentally grounding and so important. Seventh, IBM jumped 13% on eBay, a really good IBM. Tempest AI also keeps on jumping. The company that Eric Ofkowski built, it was up 13% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following This Morning 1-31-25
Eighth, Whirlpool and UPS both got a UPS down about 40%, Whirlpool down about 18%, a bad day for both of those old legacy companies. Finally, ninth, we're thrilled to report that between the Becker's Healthcare Podcast and the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast, we have now surpassed 22 million downloads. So God bless that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and this will probably be released on Thursday this week, is Ray Dalio on three key points on investing. Now, Ray is the founder of Bridgewater Investments, Bridgewater Associates, a brilliant, brilliant hedge fund investor over a very long period of time. He is fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
the wins that you have if you're not diversifying, but you take a lot of risk out of your investing if you diversify well your investments. And I think that is really a good point. So the first point is, unless you're a superstar, live with the fact that you're not going to have alpha and outshine the market, even though Ray might. Second is to diversify well for sort of this risk balance.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
And I love that point. The third thing he says is, is to get away from the notion that because something has recently been a really successful investment, it's likely to be a really successful investment going forward.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
And this is the great challenge as an individual investor, as a high net worth or a small net worth investor, do you jump onto the NVIDIA bandwagon because NVIDIA has knocked it out of the park the last couple of years, or is it really shot its wad? Similarly with Apple, is it already at a high or is it going to go to 5 trillion? Who knows? But you have to evaluate every stock
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
not based on the momentum it's had the last four years, but what it's likely to do going forward and in the future. And I love that thought as well. And he basically says, his quote is, you have to know the difference between an investment that has gone up a lot and the one that is done well. So something can go up a lot, but not necessarily be well-positioned to do great in the future.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
And I think that just is a great, great point on investing. And so everything you do, diversify well. If you're not going to beat the market, figure out where you want to be and be in asset classes that at least perform with the market. And then finally, look at this as though Don't overweight things that have done well recently because they might not keep on doing well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. It's great to be with you. It's great to have Chanel Bunger on my side as our producer, the best in the business. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
He's a completely successful guy, crazily successful. the more you read about him, you realize that he's both crazy successful and probably a little bit crazy, some mix of the both. He did a great interview at Davos World Economic Forum with Rick Newman on sort of a number of subjects on investing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
And what he said was, there was a whole quote that I won't do verbatim from Rick Newman's article and interview with Ray Dalio, but it was a brilliant, brilliant interview. He basically said first, you've got to realize if you're competing in the market, there's a winner and there's a number two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
And if you want to be the winner, you also have to take it away from somebody else that in a sense that you're in a, in a, in a fight against others that somewhat of a zero sum game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
And some of us may not all believe this, but his concept is, look, if it's a zero sum game, you better be humble unless you're so freaking good at this, that you could outperform the market because, because he, you know, he goes on to say, be humble. Being number two is an asset class versus a winner.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Three Key Points on Investing from Ray Dalio 1-31-25
But for most of us, being in the asset class, being an S&P 500 index, and I'm paraphrasing, is absolutely fine for the most of us who aren't going to beat the market. The next thing he says is that you have to be able to diversify well because you don't pay a real price for diversification. You might not have all the
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled recently to pass 7 million downloads and also reach 20,000 plus subscribers under the Becker Private Equity and Business newsletter. We're thrilled today. We always love getting a chance to speak to really smart founders, and today is no exception.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
That's fantastic. What trends are you watching in revenue cycle? It seems to get more complicated all the time. What sort of trends are you watching currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
We're thrilled today to be joined by Lindsey Gross, who has founded a company in the revenue cycle area called Claims Theory. Lindsay, can you take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself and about founding your own business?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
Fantastic. And talk about as you get going now, you've been up and running for a year plus, I think. I don't know how much time exactly. But talk a little bit about what you're most focused on and excited about as you get into this next half of 2025.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
Thank you. So you founded a business from the scratch up, from the startup. You – Obviously, we're inspired some by a mother who is a founder of a business. But talk a little bit about what advice would you give to other founders besides having a mother to learn from? What advice would you give to other founders?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
Thank you so much. Lindsay, it's always great to visit with you. An incredible founder's journey. Any other things you'd like to share about being a founder, about getting your business going? Anything else you could share with our audience to give them some insight into what it's like to start a business?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
Thank you so much. I love that advice. And you do an incredible job of balancing all those different things and getting things done. One of the things about Lindsay that people might not know is aside from being a visionary and building a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
She also is an incredible operator and capable, competent execution type person as well, can get things done, which I think is just a wonderful mix for founding and running a business. Someone that has a vision and can also get things done, combines thinking and getting things done. A tremendous example of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
Lindsay Gross, thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast and telling us a little bit about your founder's journey and about Claims Theory. Thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Claims Theory: Lindsay Gross on Leadership, Vision, and the Future of RCM 5-30-25
Thank you. And talk a little bit about, Lindsay, about the anxiety, the excitement. How does it feel when you're starting a new business?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is winners and losers, the good, the bad, the ugly. So here's the deal today. Two stocks I'm watching closely that are winners today, and there's a backstory to all this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
And today's example of that is The Gap. The Gap is down 20% today. And again, Best Buy was just down 12% or 15% the other day. Both companies have really struggled the last several years. But of course, we're able to point now to tariffs as the reason for their struggles. We find that to be this fascinating thing to watch. So the winners and losers, the good, the bad, the ugly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
We've got Palantir Technologies. We've got Costco. We've got AsteroLibs. We've got Gap. We've got Best Buy. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
One of these you've got going on right now in corporate America is when anybody does poorly, they blame it on tariffs, regardless of their management prowess or not. So part of this is a backdrop for that. But the good, the bad, the ugly. So the good are two companies, one of which we're a direct investor in, Palantir and Costco are doing well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
Costco reported good earnings, and that was in all the tier of noise is doing just fine. Now, let's talk about the bad and the ugly. The bad is Astera Labs. Astera Labs is a company where I thought I was a genius because, of course, it had been so up when I first received my shares of Astera Labs. Now, of course, it's been a disaster, and today is no different.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
It's another disastrous day for Astera Labs as the discussions of China and chips ramp up. It's their labs. One of these things I own some of without any great conviction, which is itself a moronic way to invest in stocks. But I will tell you, generally, we invest in index funds and treasuries, and those are the core of the portfolio.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Winners & Losers: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly 5-30-25
So the good so far, Palantir technology is just still knocking it out of the park. Costco continues to be operated like a well-oiled machine, just a great company. The bad, we look at Astero Labs, which are an investor, and I think it's down like 6% or 7% today. So that's that. And then the ugly. The ugly is the typical company that's been horribly managed and is blaming everything on TRFs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to have recently passed 7 million plus downloads and quite frankly, to introduce many new sponsors to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. This week, I saw yesterday we're ranked, I think, 11th in the Apple Business News Podcast rankings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Others are execution people and can actually get things done and work so well with people that things actually thrive and the trains run on time. Once in a great while, you get a leader that could do both, that could come up with the ideas and actually see through the execution and be willing to work through what has to be done to make sure the ideas are executed on as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Now, you might look at President Trump, who's an idea of minute person, but you're not always sure if he's going to persevere on those ideas and prosecute them fully. Julie is different than this. I mean, if I look at her compared to the two most recent presidents, Joe Biden, I'm not sure if he had any ideas anymore and certainly didn't prosecute them well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
President Trump seems to be in conscious of so many different ideas. When I look at these two different examples of leadership and then President Trump's a little bit all over the place with all his ideas and not sure he could prosecute them fully. I mean, there's ups, there's downs and stuff like that. What Julie Radner brings is tremendous consistent leadership to everything she does.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Has an idea. She finds the right solution. She executes on it. She prosecutes on it. It gets done. I hesitate to say that this example of leadership might be one that should be turned into a leader that maybe she should run for office because she's doing something that I'm not seeing in either President Trump or President Biden. That's our thoughts today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, the shout out today goes to Julie Radner and her family, magnificent husband, leader, lawyer, one of the best of all times, Keith Radner. I joke when I call him the first gentleman, the second gentleman, whatever that ridiculous term is, but also magnificent children that they've developed as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Bear with me today as we have a very special shout out of the day. Today's shout out of the day goes to an inspirational leader that we know well, Julie Radner. And quite frankly, we could give the same shout out to her husband, Keith Radner, an absolutely magnificent person and leader. What's happened with Julie?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
Julie has taken over leadership of a specific committee where she has shown uncommon drive and execution and creativity in what she is doing. We always knew that Julie was one of the great leaders of our time. She's thoughtful. She's calm. She's got a great, great sense of humor.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
She's got a magnificent first gentleman with her, like the Doug Ember, forget his name exactly, that was Kamala's husband. But she's got the Keith Radner, who's actually freaking brilliant. But what Julie has, in addition to have raised two fantastic children, brilliant children,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shout-Out of the Day: Julie Radner 5-30-25
She has taken leadership of an effort, and she has shown in that leadership uncommon both grace, talent with people, and the ability to think through very difficult choices. We often say of leaders, some of them are idea people, and they've got that creativity or that vision.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
GAP Drops 20 Percent as CEOs Run for Cover 5-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for listening. We're coming to you at the end of May. God bless. One of the stories we're following today is gap tanks. So one of the things I find fascinating, gap is down 20% today. And that's not what I find fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
GAP Drops 20 Percent as CEOs Run for Cover 5-30-25
What I find fascinating is you have all these companies that have been struggling for a very long time. And one of the things that they all do now as they continue to struggle is now be able to point to tariffs as the reason they're struggling. So GAAP in its earnings says we're doing fine, but we're going to get crushed this year because of tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
GAP Drops 20 Percent as CEOs Run for Cover 5-30-25
And again, there may be some truth to that, and clearly Best Buy used the same script the other day. But what I do think is though, so many of these companies have been really struggling for a long time, and this gives the CEO coverage. To say to their boards, it's not me that is screwed with the business plan here. It's tariffs. The reality is Best Buy has been struggling for some time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
GAP Drops 20 Percent as CEOs Run for Cover 5-30-25
The gap has been in trouble for it seems like decades. But the CEOs look for coverage. And the way that they get coverage. coverage is by saying it's an external factor that's causing them trouble. And that's what we're seeing today. Gap down 20% today as they point to tariffs as a problem. And the real problem is they've been poorly led without a vibrant product line for a long time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
GAP Drops 20 Percent as CEOs Run for Cover 5-30-25
It's very similar to Lululemon that had lost their vibe, and now they blame it on tariffs and everything else, but they just sort of had lost their vibe. Restoration Hardware, the same thing. And then you watch a day as Gap takes 20%. CEOs run for cover. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be recording in front of a studio audience. We're going to talk through seven stories that we're watching this morning. First, the markets are flat today. They were down early, then up a little bit, relatively flat now. We'll see how that plays out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
The flip side is many of these companies that are the most Acutely talking about tariffs as the problem in the reporting as they do the quarter end reporting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
point to tariffs, and most of those companies are so poorly run to begin with that you can't tell if it's tariffs or if it's just bad management, but the CEOs seem to love to build a point to some external factor that is the cost of their trouble.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
It reminds me, Seventh, of a year or two ago when every company that was a technology company to try and puff up their long-term prospects would talk about how they're bringing AI into everything they do. At the end of the day, it's just fascinating to watch. Again, Those are seven stories that we're watching today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
There's a lot of different data coming at the markets today, and we'll see what happens and how they end up. Second, regardless of how the markets end up today, it's likely to end up being a very good May as we've seen some recovery from the trade wars of April. It's amazing how quickly things go up and down. Third, President Trump is dialing up the rhetoric on China as they continue to clash.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
He says that China has already violated the trade detente that was put together. They've got a clash over chips and what chips China can and can't buy, and more on chip manufacturing. They've also got conflicts around visas and a lot more. Fourth, good news is inflation just a little bit down. So that's good news.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
Another thing that we're following is what we're finding is the best-run companies deal with the tariffs and the instability in Washington pretty well. So companies like Walmart, Costco seem to be doing just okay, notwithstanding all the tariff discussions and noise. Costco reported earnings. They had a nice quarter, and they project they're going to continue to do fine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stories We Are Following Today 5-30-25
The flip side to that sixth is those companies that have been operated very poorly now use tariffs as sort of cover. So Gap is down 20% today in an okay quarter. What you see their CEO doing is talking about how tariffs are the biggest problem in the history of the world. And I don't disagree that if you're an importer of clothing from China, tariffs are a problem. There is no question about that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today's discussion is jobless claims, and we're going to discuss jobless claims in the context of all that's going on in the nation. There's daily discussions about tariffs. There's big ups and downs in the stock market based on concerns about layoffs around Doge, around tariffs and what it will do to the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
But in contrast, if they had gone down a lot and were very low on jobless claims, then you get to the spot where the economy is tight enough, inflation is strong enough, that Powell might have to keep rates low. up higher for longer. So in any event, what you've got going on is this fascinating discussion. We're now seeing all this noise out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
Everything that's going on, we're at a spot where jobless games are relatively flat. Unemployment's hovering right about 4.1, 4.2%. So still really good numbers. And at the end of the day, we're seeing a slight increase in unemployment numbers around the DC area. And where some of that's related to government contractors, but not a lot more than that so far.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
So I guess at the end of the day, the lesson for the week, and again, I'm recording this on Thursday. It'll be released on Friday when JavaScript came out on Thursday. So I don't know what happened to Mark the next couple of days, but I'll tell you at least right now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
Now we're sending all the noise, all the sort of puffing of the chest on the right and the left, all the discussion about how bad this is or how bad that is. It's all going okay. So for the weekend, I would encourage everybody, take a deep breath, relax. It's going to be okay. And keep on moving forward. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
economy and the global economy and so forth and so on. And there's also a great reduction in consumer confidence, at least measured by the University of Michigan study. But with all of this going on, all this noise out there, what we're seeing in the real front lines is as follows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
Jobless claims for the last week, new applications for unemployment benefits slipped versus rose and stayed relatively low. At the end of the day, there were 224,000 last week. That's a good, good number. It was right about right on forecast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
And with the release of that number, the market's somewhat stabilized today because one of the things you have going on is every time tariffs are mentioned, there's some great fear that goes on that essentially is, oh, my goodness, this is the end of global trade and the end of the economy and so on and so on. And then you get a stat that says, no, everything's kind of fine.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Jobless Claims, Market Reactions, and Economic Stability 3-28-25
And in fact, it's very fascinating because quite frankly, Java's claims are right at that golden clock spot at 224,000. If they had peaked a lot, it might give the market a little comfort, but give us concern about recession. The market comfort, because it might leave Powell and the Fed to cut rates a little bit quicker.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
Denn so viel wie die Welt so komplex und so schief wird, The more that you can focus back on the core things that work, direct contact with customers, directly taking care of customers, making sure customers are taken care of well, making sure you're connecting with your audience, making sure that if you're trying to do anything substantial, you're building a great team to do it with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
So many things that sort of become out of style become the reality constantly, and it's true in so many different things. If you want to get fit, there are so many different ways to do it, but you better exercise, you better eat better, you better eat less, you better take in less calories than you expend, and so forth and so on. And as much as the world changes, so much stays the same.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
So the next time a younger person says to an adult, No, no, it's so different today. What used to work doesn't work anymore. You almost need to take a deep breath and come back to the equation of, no, the reality is the more that things change, the more that they stay the same.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
And just remember to stay focused on whatever you do, whatever you do on the fundamentals and trying to understand what those fundamentals are. In any event, this is today's rant. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. One of the famous subjects that we come across often is people always saying, often to elderly people, oh my God, the world has changed so much, you don't know what you're talking about. And I find this to be a fascinating subject because so many things are different but stay the same.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
They pivot in a different landscape, in a changing landscape. And that's very complicated for people that aren't used to change, for sure. But many things still stay the same. So, for example, if you're trying to build a business, you still have to be very focused on your customer first. It's less mass marketing and one-on-one developing relationships and sales.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
It's finding product market fit and it's building a great team. Und so viel wie die Welt verändert wird, werden immer verschiedene Möglichkeiten vorhanden sein. Das Herz des Geschäfts bleibt, den Kunden zu kümmern, gute Kunden-Verhältnisse zu bieten und gute Teams zu bauen, nicht mit all den Veränderungen, die da sind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same 3-28-25
Wenn jemand dir sagt, dass es jünger oder weniger Erfahrung ist, oder so viel Erfolg, oder was auch immer, es wird nicht mehr so gemacht. Und es wird oft so sein, dass es nicht mehr so gemacht wird, Boomer. Das Konzept ist, dass so viel es verändert, so viel davon bleibt das gleiche. Und ich denke, wir werden alle sehr gesund sein, die Grundlagen von allem zu erinnern, was wir tun.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Rolls-Royce and companies can still be turned around. So think about Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce is a car maker, but it's more an engine maker and a lot of other things. A couple of years ago, it was essentially a burning platform, completely out of control, losing money hand over foot.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25
The CEO came in, smartly cut cost, refocused their business, and now the stock is thriving in an incredible way. It's up 14% yesterday, but more so it's up a ton over the last couple of years since the CEO took over it and took the right steps. And one of the things about leadership is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25
It is often unpopular to do the right things, and you don't get the accolades for it until a couple years later. This is a CEO that came up in under tremendous stress, tremendous pressure, tremendous criticism for the slashing of costs, the slashing of everything else, and so forth. And it's come out the other side in an incredibly better positioned company.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25
So I guess the lesson today is you have to have clarity about what you're trying to accomplish, why you're trying to accomplish it. You have to go ahead and do it. You gotta be willing to take the criticism on the front end. Then you gotta make sure it works out on the back end. So it's not easy. But it's something to be applauded versus discouraged.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25
Now, I don't know if there's comparisons to Doge. I don't know what makes them, because I think it's a very, very different situation. But clearly, there's a need in our federal government to cut some costs. But that's not the purpose of this podcast. Here, the purpose of the podcast is to applaud the leadership of Rolls-Royce.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Rolls-Royce & Companies Could Still Be Turned Around 2-28-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
And one of the things I hate is when politicians point to college debt as the problem, while ignoring the fact that college costs and college staff and college pensions and teacher salaries have gone through the roof at college institutions. And professors are often working very part-time and making great livings.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
And what happens politically is people are afraid to take those, because those are voters, and so they don't want to say what the real problem is, that college costs have gone through the roof. So instead, they talk about the symptom, which is college debt. And again, college debt is a real problem, but it's caused directly by the fact that college costs
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
Pensionkost, Salarykost, Buildingkost, Opernkost have gone out of control. Somebody's got to come up with a better way to do college education and keep it elite. And it doesn't seem like it's that hard to do, but most people don't have the discipline to do it. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, we hope you have a great day and a great weekend.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is college debt versus college cost. And this, I think, is a fascinating discussion. Many people talk about college debt as though this is the core of the problem for college students coming out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
Thank you for listening to Becker Private Equity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
And of course, it is a very big problem and a very real problem if somebody ends up with more debt than they're going to pay back reasonably over the course of their career and what they do. We're also a believer that debt essentially kills, we say it often, companies, countries and families.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
And so when these Doge people talk about a Doge Dividend, we think that's the most moronic thing we've ever heard. But that's not the point of this podcast today, because I think that Doge Dividend, whatever savings we get, should be used to pay down debt and reduce our deficits. But the real point today is, college debt is really a symptom of a larger problem of horrendous college inflation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
What's happening across the board is colleges go on mass building sprees, build up huge institutions, they have huge staffs and huge pensions. College costs have become out of control. To go to a great state school, if you're in state today, could cost you $30,000 to $50,000. To go to an out-of-state institution or a private institution can cost you $50,000 to $100,000 a year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
College Debt vs. College Costs 2-28-25
And those numbers are just absolutely awful compared to the value or what the incomes are going to be of people. So the real root of the problem is not college debt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the Elon Musk scorecard. And so we're going to take you through three or four different Elon Musk enterprises and give grades as to what we see so far. So this year, year to date, Tesla's down 30%. So I think the other EV stocks are also down a great deal. But the S&P's flat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
Twitter X. Twitter X, I ultimately give Elon Musk a A minus B plus grade. What he's shown is there was so much fat in that system, so much waste. My user experience on Twitter, it's a little bit crazy, it's a little bit insane, but it certainly is a fun place to be. And it's a far better experience than it was a few years ago. So on Twitter and X, I give Elon Musk an A minus B plus. SpaceX.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
SpaceX is the fourth thing we'll grade today. And again, there's so many other things that Elon is doing. You got Starlink and a bunch of other ventures that probably deserve very high grades. SpaceX, I also am probably at about an A minus B plus. It's hard to really fully grade SpaceX. And it's hard to say what's going to happen with SpaceX as we get further into this next level.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
you know, as it gets, as what they do gets more and more public, and as the government gets more and more careful on spending money under this administration. So essentially, when I get to SpaceX, I'm in the A minus B plus area, but it's harder to tell for sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
So that's, again, Elon Musk's scorecard so far today, in terms of, at the end of the day, Tesla, Doge, Twitter slash X, and SpaceX, you know, B minuses, Cs on Tesla and Doge, on SpaceX and Twitter, A minus, B pluses. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And we'll title this today, Elon Musk Scorecard, SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, and Doge. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
The Nasdaq's essentially flat. So I think we'd probably give Elon Musk a B-, C+, C on Tesla. We have a Tesla in the household that essentially I can't even stand, to be honest with you, and how it drives and everything else. And I'm an Elon Musk. hyper fan, not a little bit of a fan. I'm overall a hyper fan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
So, so in terms of where we're at on sort of this, you know, Tesla, my guess is he's taking his eye off the ball. Some, I give him at best a B minus C plus year to date. Doge, doge, doge. I don't know where to grade this yet. The, the, the notion that we need to cut government spending is, and get it back in line is so, so true that I applaud those efforts. Now, how do you go about it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
He's going about sort of cutting costs in the government. We went about cutting costs at Twitter. And at Twitter, he famously cut 80% of the payroll and ended up, from a user experience situation, almost no different than it was before those 80% of costs were cut. In terms of Twitter, we'll get to that grade in a second. In terms of Doge, I think the jury remains out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Elon Musk Scorecard: SpaceX, Twitter, Tesla, & DOGE 2-28-25
I'd be a much bigger fan of the effort at Doge if he essentially would have taken this, said, for 90 days, I'm really going to study this. Then we're going to really start working on suggesting cuts. Instead, he sort of has gone right at it in a huge PR way that I don't really love. So I give him at Doge, again, a B minus, C plus.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-28-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're bringing you today five stories that we're following this morning. And thank you for listening. It's Friday, February 28th, the end of February. From a market's perspective, I think we'll be glad to see this month over. First, the S&P 500 dropped almost 2% yesterday. It's now essentially flat year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-28-25
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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-28-25
Good news is, at least early today, it's pointing up. We'll see if that lasts. So, so far today, it's pointing up based on decent inflation results and reports. Second, NVIDIA dropped nearly 8.5% yesterday, and its market cap also fell to about $2.93 trillion. That's the first time it's been below $3 trillion in some time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-28-25
Chip firms, Marvel Technology and Astera Labs also fell on the headwinds of NVIDIA. Third, Tesla is now down 30% year-to-date. Salesforce, another perennial leader, is also down 10% year-to-date. Fourth, Bitcoin is now off 20% from January peak. MicroStrategy and Coinbase also fall and have fallen as Bitcoin fell. Fifth, Oatly, the stock related to oat milk, jumped nearly 20% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following This Morning 2-28-25
And that might seem great, but it had fallen about 34% the day before. So essentially rebounded some yesterday. And again, we'll see if the markets rebound some today from a horrendous day yesterday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you more later today. Thank you very, very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
teams with no hard assets and no other resources other than our talented individual yeah yeah 100 no i think that's i think that's right on and it just is the constant you know back in the day when we had in-person team meetings all the time it seems so much easier to stay really closely connected to everybody in today's world it is a a real effort by managers to stay closely connected to their people
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
in a different world, a different remote world, a different everything. And it's like, I'm amazed at people like you who do it so well. But it is more challenging, it seems like, in some ways than it was. And it's not, there's no way around it. We got to do it, even in a different environment, in a different world. But what a fascinating discussion. Amber, anything else you wanted to add?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
No, just absolutely fantastic. Amber, thank you so much for joining us on the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Again, Amber Walsh, Executive Committee Leader at McGuire Woods, one of our most listened to guests every single year. Thank you for joining us today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Yes, I think it's a fascinating, fascinating question. And what happens is, there's so many different pieces of this. Let's take an aside. People that have been lifers at the firm, at a firm, into their 40s or 50s, they're likely not going any place without people knowing that they're going someplace and so forth. Und dann kommen wir zurück zu einigen jüngeren Gruppen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Und dann gibt es Leute, die an sechs verschiedenen Firmen gearbeitet haben. Und wenn du glaubst, dass sie in deiner Firma für immer bleiben werden, ist es wahrscheinlich ein schlechtes Wettbewerb, weil sie sich immer versuchen, sich selbst und die richtige Kulisse und all diese Art von Dingen herauszufinden. Dann kommst du zum Herzen dieser Diskussion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Leute, die wahrscheinlich in der, weißt du, früheren Karrierephase, 25 bis 35, sagen wir mal, 25 ist das Jahr, an dem die Leute aus der Grundschule aufgehoben werden, wenn sie gerade durchgehen. Das sind breite Gedanken über die Gruppen. Aber diese Gruppe, die versuchen selbst herauszufinden, ob sie ihre langfristige Karriere machen wollen oder nicht, was sie tun wollen, was ihre Pläne sind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Und viele, wenn sie zum ersten Mal rausgehen, 25, 27, 28, 29, zumindest die Erfahrung für die meisten von uns ist, We're still not sure ourselves what we want to do for the long run, let alone commit to the firm and the team and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
But your point on this, the inability of those open discussions, even though it's very normal for somebody in an age group or a younger professional to not be sure what they want to do or they want to do it at this firm, what they want to do. But it's very hard to have those discussions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by one of our most listened to regular guests, Amber Walsh. Amber lives at the intersection of private equity and healthcare, but more than that, she's a true leader and thinks about leadership all the time. She's going to talk today about a concept related to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
And I remember one of our colleagues, when he was 27 or so, said to me, look, I know you're starting to invest a lot of time in me, but I'm likely to move back to Charlotte, no matter what we do here, because that's where our family is, that's where we want to be. And it took him a lot of guts to tell me that, because he knew there was a chance.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
He sat me down to tell me, because he wanted me to know, in case I wanted to stop investing time in him and building around him. Und ich dachte, es war faszinierend, weil es eine Menge Integrität und Geist genommen hat, um so offen zu sein, dass er nicht hierbleiben konnte, egal was, im Langraum. Es hat wirklich, wirklich gut funktioniert.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Aber ich denke, die meisten jungen Kollegen sind sehr schockiert, wenn sie ihren Mentoren oder Senioren erzählen, dass sie über andere Dinge denken und was sie versuchen, herauszufinden, weil sie Angst haben, dass sie negativen Rückwirkungen haben, dass sie nicht mehr arbeiten, dass sie nicht mehr in die besten Übungen kommen, dass sie nicht mehr in die besten Übungen kommen,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
is that you tell a mentor or a team leader and the team leader starts to sort of, not necessarily directly, but indirectly or not necessarily so intentionally stops viewing you as core to their team. So you sort of feel like you're out on a life raft there versus embraced because you've admitted to your boss or person you're working for that you might think about doing other things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
How do you sort of deal with that? and make it okay so you can do better career planning for both the person and the firm?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Die Teamleute versuchen zu entscheiden, ob das der richtige Fit für sie ist und was sie für ihre Karriere machen wollen. Und die meisten Leute kommen nicht aus der Wunde und sagen, mein Ziel ist, ich sehe mich gut. climbing the firm and becoming an equity partner, doing this, doing that, Rainmaker, Manager, Leader, whatever it might be.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
It's an evolution for people to get clear about what their goals are and what they want to do. And you have to be careful to live with people through that period of time while they're trying to figure out the level of their commitment. I mean, you and I, I can't think of hardly anybody who's become a leader in the firm where at some point they didn't have some growing pains
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
und versucht herauszufinden, was genau sie mit ihrer Karriere machen wollten und wie sie es machen wollten. Ich meine, ich kenne nicht sehr viele Menschen, die nicht einige dieser wachsenden Schmerzen hatten. Es ist einfach normal, als Mensch, nicht immer sicher zu sein, dass das, wo ich hin will, das ist das, was ich machen will, das ist die Art von Arbeit, die ich machen will.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Es ist einfach normal. Und ich denke, zu deinem Punkt, je mehr du dich normalisierst und diese Diskussionen akzeptierst, desto healthier ist wahrscheinlich die Umgebung und jeder ist. Ja, ich stimme dazu.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
No, absolutely. And to your point, one of the things you've done an incredible job of, Und es ist schwieriger in der virtuellen Welt, in der wir sind, so hoch verbunden zu unseren Kollegen zu bleiben und so verbunden zu bleiben. Und es ist schwieriger, weil in den alten Tagen sah man und sprach mit Menschen jeden Tag.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Und es war ein bisschen einfacher, Körpersprache zu lesen, Qs zu lesen und Menschen zu sprechen, was da los ist und so weiter. Du und ich, ich bin sicher, jeder hat eine Geschichte wie diese. Einer unserer besten Partner, das muss jetzt 10, 15 Jahre her sein, kam in mein Büro und schloss die Tür.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Und ich sagte dem Partner, und es ist jemand, mit dem du auch sehr nah bist, ich sagte dem Partner, oh mein Gott, du gehst weg, weil das ist das erste Mal, dass ich denke, dass dieser Kollege, der in Nashville geflogen ist, um einen Job im Haus zu nehmen, jemals die Tür geschlossen hat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Also habe ich mir gedacht, oh mein Gott, und natürlich war genau das, was er gemacht hat, er hat bemerkt, dass er weg ist. Und was passiert ist, zu deinem Punkt, In jedem professionellen Umfeld gibt es eine ganze Menge Leute, von denen man weiß, dass sie nicht so beteiligt sind oder moderat beteiligt sind.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Es gibt auch Leute, die wirklich beteiligt sind, die einfach großartige Arbeit als großartige Profis machen. Und es ist besonders eines dieser Teile, die man nicht erwartet, dass man sich überrascht, dass man sich fragt, ob wir etwas anderes gemacht haben oder nicht, oder was auch immer. Und es ist, was es ist. Aber du erinnerst dich an diese Dinge sehr stark.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Und als du über die Leute sprichst, die du überrascht hast, die verschiedene Fälle, verschiedene Entscheidungen nehmen, bin ich fast nie überrascht von der Person, die zu unserer Firma kam, von einer anderen Firma. Das waren die letzten drei Firmen, also drei bis fünf Jahre pro Jahr, wenn sie verlassen. Obwohl, da war einer von ihnen mehrfach. Er war hier für mehrere, mehrere Jahre.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Das hat mich überrascht. Der andere nicht so viel. Aber es ist faszinierend, um zu versuchen, wo die Leute sind und das Umfeld zu bauen, in dem sie sich zufrieden fühlen, wenn sie darüber sprechen. Du und ich erinnern uns auch an einen der großartigen Kollegen, mit dem wir gearbeitet haben. Wir sehen viele solcher Dinge in den großen Firmen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
Sie hatten sehr wenig Zeit, Bedingungen für sich selbst zu setzen und haben sich im Grunde genommen, zu Hause zu gehen. Just because she couldn't figure out how to set the boundaries internally or the firm wasn't good enough about supporting those boundaries. And you see a lot of that as well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Creating a Culture of Honest Career Conversations with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 4-25-25
People that just like, they're just great professionals, but they're naturally sort of alpha or a hardworking people and can't help but put in the maximum amount of hours, even though it's not necessary for success.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Und hier ist die Lektion in dieser Diskussion ist, wenn ich Warren Buffett mehr folgen würde, wäre ich wahrscheinlich eine viel reichere Person, als ich bin, die nicht sehr reich ist. Aber hier sind wir an diesem Punkt. Coca-Cola ist auf ca. 17-18% jährlich. Es ist ein kompetitiver Stock. Pepsi-Cola ist auf ca. 7% jährlich.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Und für mich, das ist nur noch ein Erinnerung, dass wenn ich Warren Buffett all diese Jahre folgen würde, wäre ich in viel besserer Form, als ich heute bin. Es ist, was es ist. Am Ende des Tages freue ich mich auf mein gesamtes Portfolio. Now it's gone, but I would have done better if I followed Warren Buffett all the way through.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the Warren Buffett portfolio. So here's the issue. Over the years, so many different commentators and analysts have said, you know, just copy the Warren Buffett Berkshire portfolio or invest in Berkshire.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Und eine der Herausforderungen, die ich in meinem Leben habe, ist, dass ich... Ich bin sehr diszipliniert bei bestimmten Dingen. Ich habe mit Becker Healthcare seit 30 Jahren gearbeitet. Ich habe mit meinem Wohnzimmer seit 30 Jahren gearbeitet. In verschiedenen Teilen meines Lebens kann ich nach oben oder nach unten gehen. Es gibt einige grundlegende Trends, die ich sehr gut verfolge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Ich bin ziemlich gut bei meiner Ernährung und Fitness. Ich bin ziemlich gut bei meinen Lebensmitteln. Aber in anderen Bereichen kann ich nach oben oder nach unten gehen auf die Kernkonzepte und was ich versuche zu tun. In der Investition bin ich sehr gut dabei, das Kernportfolio, das konservative Portfolio zu stecken.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Index-Funds und Treasury-Bonds und eine Mischung zu haben, würde einen Geldmanager denken, als wäre ich eine Person auf dem Golfkurs. Und Leute, die die Analogie folgen, ich hoffe, dass Sie das können, das bedeutet, dass ich nicht viel Guts und Glöckchen habe.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Warren Buffett Portfolio 4-25-25
Aber periodisch bin ich durch die Phase gegangen, mit der kleinen Teil meiner Portfolio, die ich in individuelle Stocks investiere, habe ich periodisch das Warren Buffett-Portfolio gefolgt und in seine großen Haltungen investiert. Ein paar davon sind ein paar Jahre her, conservative Dickholdings, Coca-Cola und Bank of America. Also Coca-Cola.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Brian Niccol Difference 4-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the Brian Nicole difference. So Brian Nicole is a famous CEO that did this incredible job of turning around and strengthening Chipotle. And Chipotle had great, great results under Brian Nicole. Then Brian Nicole went to Starbucks, which has been sort of caught in a slump for it seems like years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Brian Niccol Difference 4-25-25
And it's starting to work as magic there. I'm very encouraged by the signs there. So is the Brian Nicole difference all that it's cracked up to be? Right now, Chipotle's down 20% year to date. Starbucks is down 10% year to date. And you might say, well, if they're down 10% year to date, how good is it going? What you have to look at is the S&P is down about the same amount.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Brian Niccol Difference 4-25-25
The retail business is not doing great. So compared to the rest of the sector, I think he's doing pretty well. And again, it's sort of like one of these kinds of things. There's certain people you don't bet against. I think Brian Nicole is one of those people. So I bet with Brian Nicole.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Brian Niccol Difference 4-25-25
I'm not really putting individual dollars at Starbucks, so maybe I'm a week better, but I am to have money in my index funds, and I do watch this closely. I love watching this thing with Brian Nicole. The other thing, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. So one of the things I constantly do is I've become addicted to these Twitter polls where I'll raise a question, offer something on my mind. I don't want to be too vulnerable here or too weak or too anything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
I think everybody has these days. I certainly have them. A couple more responses I got. Some of these are my basics. Hydration, breathing, walking, jiu-jitsu, drink a glass of water. So many great ideas. Somebody else says, I spend all day working outside to exhaust myself mentally and physically. And I think that's great as well. So maybe I'm able to get a good night's sleep too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
I find the regular things I do, I go back to drinking X amount of water a day, doing X amount of steps a day. I go back to making myself more busy than not busy. I'm healthy when I'm busy than not. I will periodically, of course, talk to a therapist. If I'm really anxious, I'll take the anxiety drug that I take periodically, et cetera, et cetera. But I love this topic. I find it very real.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
I find it encouraging to talk through some of these issues of what do you do when you're feeling down? I know this might be a little bit too self-disclosure, but it's really just to get ideas for other people, for my close friends, not for me. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
If you've got a suggestion or an idea on what you do when you're feeling down, feel free to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
But the question we were raised yesterday that we did a poll on is, what do you do when you can't find your motivation, you're a little bit down, stuff like that. And I got a tremendous amount of great responses. You know, one person said, massive amounts of caffeine and a good night's sleep.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
And again, and the person went on to say, some days are just going to be bad days and life goes on and you deal with it. And I think that's right on. Another person said, and there are a lot of these, prayer, meditation, high interval intensity training, even when I don't want to do it. So I love that response as well. Again, the massive amount of caffeine I go with all the time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
Another person said creatine and worked through it at the gym. More and more people seem to be crazy about this creatine thing, and at some point we'll have to try that out and see if that's really as good as people say it is, creatine. A couple other suggestions, and I love these. Music, walk, call someone in your inner circle. You know, it's almost phone a friend, and I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Twitter Poll: How Do You Bounce Back When Your Energy is Low? 4-25-25
Certainly do that a lot. A couple more people said... 30-minute power nap, 30-minute power walk. I think, again, great ideas. Dr. Pescatori said nothing better than a nap. Couldn't agree with that more. Dr. Freitz said, I go for a run. I think that's also a fantastic day. So, so many different options. What do you do when you're doing poorly, when you feel down, stuff like that? And I may...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant founder, entrepreneur, leader. We're joined by Lauren Deutsch, and Lauren's going to talk to us about what she does, Lauren, academic services, and a lot more. Lauren, I've known you for a long time, brilliant, brilliant person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
Thank you. And take a moment. You've moved from Chicago to Northern California. Do you miss the weather in Chicago? Do you miss the winters?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
There you go. So either way, great. And talk about what you're most focused on and excited about this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
Take a moment and tell the audience about what you do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
Yeah, that's fascinating. And And how did you start the business you started? Talk a bit about, was that an anxious time? Was it an exciting time? How do you think about that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
Talk for a moment about what you're seeing in terms of diversity in the healthcare workforce, in the physician roles. What are you seeing in terms of diversity?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
No, thank you very much. It's a fascinating subject because at the end of the day, we're dealing with two shortages. One, an overall shortage in the workforce of physicians and nurses and all kinds of health practitioners. And second, underrepresentation of minorities and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
And really, I think as much as possible, the answer ought to be we've got to address both problems, not one or the other. So when we address one, not the other, we don't solve the bigger problem. And it can't be a zero sum game because exactly the communities we are concerned about lose if it's a zero sum game. So I think it's really it's got to be as much as possible, both.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
We need more doctors, more nurses, and we need more that are of color and so forth, too, but a constant challenge. Let me take you forward to another question. You're a founder. You're a leader. You're an incredible person. Talk for a second about, Lauren, what advice would you give to other founders? I mean, you've been somebody who's stuck so close to your mission now.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
You've had success and you've loved what you do. I love watching what you do. Just take a moment and sort of like, you know, advice you would give to other founders, because in some ways you're so nontraditional because you just love what you do so much. It's so clear the passion in it versus somebody selling widgets or some other kind of business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
You just seem to love what you do and care about it deeply. But talk about that as a foundation for business, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
Lauren, I want to thank you again for joining us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I just love the passion you bring to what you do. It makes you a special leader, a special person. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Loren Deutsch on Transforming Education, Healthcare, and Leadership Coaching 1-24-25
And how did you get started in this? You do remarkable work. And how did you get started in this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to quickly take you through 14 stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Ranked this week number two and number one on the Apple Business News Podcast rankings. It's been a great week and we're thankful to our listeners.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
And Amex is also up 8% year-to-date. I've not pulled the trigger on any of them. And, of course, wish I did on the two that are up. Seventh, I was having a conversation with somebody yesterday that's been back and forth trying to get in touch. And at some point, the person I was talking to was just fantastic, said to me, you know, I've been trying to reach you and connect with you. You're so busy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
And I think when I am so busy, it's not a good sign. What it really means is I'm doing a poor job of prioritizing and a bad job of saying no to things and probably trying to please too many people and not being very effective. There's a great Jamie Dimon discussion in this. We talked about Jamie Dimon a moment ago as the JPMorgan Chase CEO and just magnificently
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
He talks about people that are frenetic and saying, oh, the situation's frenetic. And the reality is it's usually not the situation. It's usually me that has to calm down and get myself clear. And that's really what I take out of that conversation when somebody says, you've been so hard to reach or you're so busy because I'm doing a poor job organizing myself.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
Eighth, we had near record advertising revenues last month on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Just a terrific month. We specialize in business-to-business webinars and podcasts. A lot of discussions recently about tariffs. Tariffs may be the right thing for various reasons. It may help our workforce in some ways by reducing competition from overseas manufacturers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
But make no mistake, they're generally not a good thing in the long run and ultimately can really cause trouble for fighting inflation and cause other problems as well. So I want to get that excited about the tariff bandwagon. Tenth, some people are the most thankful and appreciative people I ever get to work with, and I so love and appreciate those folks who are built like that and like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
First, Electronic Arts took it on the chin yesterday, as did some other stocks. They dropped nearly 17% on lower revenues than anticipated. So that was Electronic Arts just got tanked. Second, American Airlines also dropped almost 9% on weaker demand, missed revenue estimates, and higher fuel costs. Third, Boeing reports a massive cash flow loss of $3.5 billion and nearly a 10% revenue miss.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
Eleventh, five of the healthcare companies we're watching this year, Abridge, founded by Dr. Shivdan Rao, ACASA, Hippocratic AI, founded by Munjal Shah and funded by Andreessen Horwitz and General Catalyst, Nimble Solutions, where I serve on the board, and Midstream Health, founded by Venkit Mukherjee and a co-founder. We also continue to watch the success of Intuitive, Surgical, and of Lintas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
Had a chance to work with both of them through Becker's Healthcare. Brilliant, brilliant companies. 12th, we talk about earnings coming in, estimates coming in, and so forth. Our family Amex bill, for the first time, came in 20% lower than I anticipated this last cycle. I never see that, but I will say that we made up for it through other spending.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
13th, very excited to have record attendance for a healthcare PE deal trends webinar coming up. That features a couple of partners from McGuire Woods, the founder of Caber Hill Advisors, and Matt Wolf from RSM. That's February 6th. Registration is now closed. If you still want to join, of course, we'll find a way to let you join.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
14th, if you're ever interested in being featured on a podcast, a business-to-business podcast or webinar, please reach Scott Becker. Pricing, rational. Let us help you reach your audience. Finally, P.S., a big congratulations to Rick Smith, also to our colleague David Copeland. And if you get a chance, listen to our other podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
It's not the driver stupid, which is a metaphor for constantly trying to find the quick fix rather than just working on my golf game instead of just buying a new driver, buying a new driver, and buying a new driver, which I'm a constant sucker for. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you to Grace Lynn Keller, who I get to record with today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
I don't get to do it often. God bless you, Grace. And thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
Not good news there. Fourth, Intuitive Surgical saw revenues rise 25%. It met its estimates, but didn't have quite the growth the market was hoping for. Fifth, JPMorgan Chase, the bank ran by Jamie Dimon, rose to a record high in 2024 as its deal makers and its traders went to windfall and had a very busy year. Reuters reports there. Sixth, two of the things that we're watching this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
14 Business News Stories We Are Following Today 1-24-25
First, the big three market cap companies, Nvidia's again taking the lead over Apple and Microsoft. So Nvidia's number one, Apple's number two, Mercosur's number three. Second, a key part of my own watch list right now, I'm always looking at stocks investing, although I do much better investing in index funds, is Apple, Nvidia, and Amex. Apple's down 11% year-to-date. Nvidia's up 7%, 8%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try each day to bring you business guests, business information, private equity information, great guests, and to make sure we're learning and you're learning and we're entertained and so forth. Today's podcast is, you are so busy. So four key points. So here's the context for this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
I view the concept of you are so busy not as a necessarily a compliment. It's meant as one, but it really means that I'm doing a moronic job of managing my business and my life and my time if somebody says to me, you are so busy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
Jamie Dimon, who is the brilliant CEO of JPMorgan Chase, probably maybe the best CEO of this generation, particularly if you take out the tech companies, probably the best of this generation, has this great discussion about being frenetic. And he talks about it, and it's worth watching. You can find it on YouTube. You can Google it and find Jamie Dimon talking about being frenetic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
And I just thought it was great. What he talked about was the environment's not frenetic. It might be. but you're being frenetic. And what he meant was that it's your responsibility to manage your life, to balance your life, so you're not nearly as frenetic, so you can bring to things calm and do the things you wanna do, not do the things you don't wanna do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
I find myself sometimes saying yes out of
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
boredom or out of wanting to please people or the dopamine fix of saying yes when I should be saying no and it's a discipline but I do take this concept of you are so busy and I think what it really means is I'm not setting priorities I'm not saying no I'm trying to please too many people and it reminds me of the Jamie Dimon talk where he says you know essentially The environment's not frenetic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
You're frenetic. When I think about this further, I've been listening recently to a fascinating book by the fascinating film producer, David Lynch. David was a film and TV producer, very, very successful. And he talks about catching the big fish, meditation, consciousness, and creativity. And I think for a lot of us, there's a huge amount to be said in making the effort to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
to slow ourselves down, set better priorities, and really work towards saying no and not trying to please everything. When I am told I'm too busy or you're so busy, it really means I'm doing a horrendous job of organizing my days and my weeks and so forth. It's a reminder about channel capacity, about setting priorities, about saying no, and a lot, lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
So thank you for bearing with me today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. I love the comment from the woman I spoke to, you're so busy, but it causes me to reflect that sometimes I'm busy in the wrong way. That's the concept for today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
And it's a lesson for all of us, certainly a reminder for me to set priorities, say no, do the things I want to do, not versus not things that I'm sort of pushed to do or sort of say yes to out of weakness. If you're the first person to listen to this all the way through and you send me a text at 773-766-5322, we will send you a 100-hour Amazon gift certificate. Thank you so much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
know someone said to me that was trying to track me down by phone and so forth and someone who i wanted to talk to have great respect for we finally got on the phone and one of the first things that that person said to me was just a wonderful person she's a philanthropy person philanthropy person from one of the great institutions that we are involved with and we're a huge fan and she said to me the first thing she said was you know thank you so much for us finally getting it together you are so busy
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
And when somebody says to me, I am so busy, what it forces me to do is reflect on what am I doing wrong? And here are four thoughts on this. You know, it almost goes to a different podcast we did earlier on the golf thing. It's not the driver stupid thing. The real answer should be if I'm so busy, it means that I'm doing a poor job of a few different things. I'm not setting priorities very well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
“You Are So Busy” – 4 Key Points 1-24-25
I'm not saying no enough. I am a middle child, and the concept of middle children is always trying to please people. I'm sometimes trying too hard to please people. So those are the first three thoughts. I'm not setting priorities well. I'm not saying no enough. I'm not putting enough space in my calendar, trying to please too many people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We try to make sure you're learning, that we're learning, that you're entertained some, that I'm enjoying it, and so on. If you ever have a comment on a topic, feel free to Text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
is concerns about what that IT spending will look like, who's going to have influence on it, and a lot of other things. So both Booz Allen Hamilton and other players in that sector all took it on the chin a little bit today. When I last looked at it, Booz Allen Hamilton, Booz was down about 4.5% to 5%. So again, three big losers. Electronic Arts, the biggest loser.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
This is not a good loser like you want to lose weight. These are losers in the stock market as of Thursday. American Airlines down 8.65% and Booz Allen Hamilton down about 4.5%, 5%. Three big losers on Thursday. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
So thrilled to be ranked in the top one or two this week in the Apple Business News rankings for business news sources right next to three or four Wall Street Journal podcasts. So God bless you all for listening. Today's discussion is three stocks that tanked on Thursday. And so we're going to go through Electronic Arts, American Airlines, and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
And faster to see what's going on here. So Electronic Arts, EA, missed revenues by an absolute ton, by about 20%. Its stock, it missed what was expected by Wall Street estimates, came in at 1.8 billion versus 2.3 billion. That's a big, big difference than what was expected. Their stock finished down about 17% on Thursday. The second stock we're talking about is American Airlines.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
There's been so much positive press about the airlines over the last couple months that this was a real surprise. Again, American Airlines had some specific problems this quarter, some computer problems, some other problems. They're blaming it on weaker demands and higher fuel costs, but they missed earnings by a good deal. They've projected that things are going to be tough.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Big Losers on Thursday 1-24-25
Their stock is down 8.65% when we last looked at it on Thursday. And finally, the third stock, Booth Allen Hamilton. And Booth Allen is a fasting firm. At one time, it was really a traditional consulting firm. Then over the years, it became more and more involved in IT and the military. And now what's happening in D.C.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled to recently pass 7 million downloads on the podcast. Also thrilled to recently be at the very top of the Apple Business News rankings and reach 20,000 plus subscribers on our newsletter.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
But far more important than that, we've got today one of the most brilliant colleagues I get a chance to work with, David Pivnik. David joins us regularly. He's one of our most listened to guests. And he's absolutely brilliant. Aside from being a valedictorian analyst, in law school, meaning he finished number one in his class, which is just incredibly difficult to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
I think that is so fantastic. I'll take a different cut on that. This concept of good things come to those who wait. I'll give you two different thoughts on it. First is anybody who's been in any kind of business or trying to prove it anything knows that at the end of the day, Urgency is important. So you better bring some urgency to whatever you're trying to do. So I think that's right on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
The second thing is I remember a senior partner to me years ago who – when I was building a great practice back in the day, had said to me, you know, you ought to slow down. And it was sort of, in some ways, a very vested remark in trying to make sure that instead of keep on building the practice, that I kept on working for his clients. And so I remember it vividly and thinking like,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
Well, that's not very good advice, is it? And it so clearly came from a place of self-interest. I thought it was fascinating. But I love this concept, good things come to those who wait, and not necessarily being the right advice. Go deeper on that. Tell us some more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
And I think that's such great advice. It's such a great take. When I see people that are trying to blend in, what happens is they also just don't stand out in any way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
And so whatever you're trying to do, whether you're trying to lead, whether you're trying to build a practice, whether you're trying to do great work, if you're just trying so hard to stay in your lane versus trying to improve and show and and stand out, you can do so mediocre.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
He also is well-read and he's well-opinionated on almost any subject under the sun. David, today we're going to take a question. You so often get from people in podcasts and interviews and discussions, you know, what's the best advice you ever got? What's the, you know, what did your mentor tell you? What did you read that was the best advice? We're going to take the opposite tack today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
I remember there's an old Japanese proverb, and somebody had shared this with me a long time ago, like the nail that sticks up gets hammered down, and the concept being that you shouldn't try and stand out. And I think what happens is that in terms of actually trying to
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
build things and grow and do things beyond the mediocre, you got to be willing to fight through that and not live with that proverb of being so scared to stand out, to step up, to be the nail that sticks up, even though periodically you're going to get knocked down. I love that. That is an idea for bad advice. Good things come to those who wait and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
And also this concept of just try and fit in, don't try and stand out. I think that is right on. David, any other thoughts you'd like to add there on advice you've heard over the years that just is really, it can be good advice, but generally to people like yourself and myself, it rings very hollow or poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
Right, right. I mean, sometimes people will tee you up to take a shot at things and try and beat the fastest Canadian hockey player alive at 42. And you're absolutely right. That might have been bad advice, though there's always time for revenge and a comeback. No, I tell you, throughout one's career, you get all kinds of bad advice. One of the worst pieces of advice I remember was,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
It's given in professional services settings all the time. It's given in college applications all the time. And it goes something like this. The concept in a Professional setting is, well, you want to work with everybody throughout the entire firm so that everybody knows you and so that when you come up for promotion or partner, you're broadly known and broadly thought of and stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
And this sounds so nice and so vanilla and so right, and it is the worst advice you could give somebody. It's far more important –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
that if you're developing a professional career you are hyper important to a handful of clients hyper important to a handful of people that are totally reliant on you that you're invaluable to there is nothing good about being useful to 20 different people five percent of the time you want to be hyper valuable to a handful of leaders all the time to where if you're not raised you're not promoted
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
You're not treated right. They feel the pain. They want to make sure. No, no, we need David Pivnik. He's a leader. And if you work for a billion different people and nobody really relies on you, you never get there. It's the same thing in college resume or applications. The college counselors will say, we've got to put 20 different things down that you did in high school.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
And when I hear people say you got to put 15 things down, 20 things down. It means that they were very shallow on a lot of different things rather than being deep in a few things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
I'd much rather have somebody that had gone deep in a few activities, student government, sports, chess, whatever it is, and their grades and their performance than having touched 20 different things and been sort of like all over the place. That's another, to me, one of the worst pieces of common advice given is that you got to work for everybody or be a little bit valuable to everybody.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
No, no, no, no. You got to be hyper valuable to a handful of people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
Today's discussion is David Pivnik on what's the worst advice you've ever received. And I'll add in some of my thoughts as well. David, let me ask you to tee it up. What's some of the worst advice that you've been given or seen people give over the years?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
Right. You had mentioned something a moment ago about law school interviewing it already being that season. And I had forgot to mention and I'll have some back to this. It is about the law school interviewing season. And again, I, of course, went to the Harvard Law School. So I'll be doing some of that interviewing this year. We're doing it preliminarily on on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
Zoom, but that's actually starting in a week or two, which seems so soon. But yes, I went to Harvard Law School. I didn't know, David, if this year they are, if York University, if we're interviewing at York University, or if it's not the year that we're interviewing at either Oakton or York, and whether you'll be doing some of that on-campus interviewing too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
You know, here I am trying to be benevolent, and what do you get? Actually, you know, it's so funny you mention that, because I went to the University of Illinois as an undergrad, and it's actually a magnificent, magnificent place. David went there as a law student and finished the number one in his class.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
And when he says about, I'll take my credentials over yours, I can assure you I was nowhere near that at the Harvard Law School. He was number one, which is an incredible feat at any law school and particularly at the University of Illinois. David, I want to thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. What a pleasure to visit with you. What a great guest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
David Pivnick on the Worst Professional Advice He’s Ever Received 5-23-25
David Pignik, what's the worst professional advice you've ever received?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is golf, sports, and peace of mind. So here is the challenge. The last couple of weeks have been an incredibly busy period of time. Had a large conference, had a meeting in Atlanta, a McGuire Woods conference where I got to interview this brilliant, brilliant
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
So just trying to get my head on straight in the mood for it. And what I find with my middle-aged sports is the more that my head is not centered and then I'm overwhelmed in a million different places and the more poorly I do in all my middle-aged sports and all my recreational activities. And now some of those know how old I am.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
So when they say middle-aged, like, what do you think you're to live to one 50? No, I understand that I'm not exactly middle-aged and I don't want to hear it. In any event, we'll hope for the best tomorrow. We're we're, we're very trepidatious, which means nervous because I know that when I'm in that head space where I've been all over the place, I've really practiced. I've really worked at it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
I generally don't play well in these things. And I just have to simplify what I'm trying to do. So that's the goal for tomorrow. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Don't be a moron. Try and not take big chances. Just do the best I can. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
My golf game feels a little bit like the Titanic right now, which is never a good reference, but we'll see how it goes. Thank you for listening. Again, if you have comments, questions, if you really want to know how poorly I do in this thing, feel free at any time to text me, 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
woman astronaut, scientist, investor, Anousheh Ansari, who is just absolutely brilliant, born in Iran, has been here for a long time, flew to space for 11 days in Russia, just a brilliant person. Also had a chance to give a speech at a meeting in Atlanta for the young health leaders. Just an incredible pleasure. So many positives the last couple of weeks.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
Now, one of the challenges with being so busy and being sort of all over the place and over-caffeinated is, My middle-aged sports suffer, which is not the biggest deal in the world, other than too much of my esteem comes from my middle-aged sports because I'm a loser. But it is what it is. That's a different point.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
The point is, yesterday I got an email that – and this is so embarrassing, so bear with me – that our club has a golf tournament this Saturday that I signed up for. And I didn't realize this. One sister's in town from out of town from Atlanta – We have a blended family, so five kids are in town, actually six when the one that lives in town is here too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Golf, Sports, & Peace of Mind 5-23-25
So there's just way, way too much going on this weekend. And thus, I get into this mindset to realize that I'm playing in this golf tournament tomorrow and I'll give you updates if anybody wants them, but it is likely to be a disaster because mentally I'm in no mood for any of this right now. I just really no mode to play, no, no mood to deal with it. And yet, you know, tomorrow's this tournament.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariff Discussions Loom Again 5-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Today is Friday, the day before Memorial Day. And what you're seeing today is one of these days, again, where the president had a bad night's sleep.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariff Discussions Loom Again 5-23-25
And I say that somewhat jokingly, but when he has a bad night's sleep or he wakes up loaded for beer, he says something about tariffs and those tariffs reignite challenges in the market. So last night, the concept is tear of threats at Apple, the EU, and more, slowing down and closing the gap with China.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariff Discussions Loom Again 5-23-25
And so you end up in a situation where the market, of course, takes it on the chin this morning. This is just after the markets recovered yesterday after a bad day two days ago. So what you see is the president hitting it hard, potential tear of threats. The S&P down 1%, down 1.5% a couple days ago.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariff Discussions Loom Again 5-23-25
And the challenge for those of us that are close market watchers or investors is it's almost like the one who got away. We get to the spot where the market finally recovers for the year a few days ago or early this week. And then the tax bill passes the house. That seems to have leveled or stabilized the markets, not hurt or harm the markets. But then he gets going again with tariff threats.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariff Discussions Loom Again 5-23-25
You just figure he's probably had a bad night's sleep, is in a bad mood. He usually is able to bring these things back to a reasonable place through negotiation and so forth. But my God, you do need to have a calm temperament, which I do not, to deal with all the ups and downs and all the discussions this way and that way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tariff Discussions Loom Again 5-23-25
I mean, that's what we're sort of watching today is the new effort at potential tariffs and threats and more, which is rolling the markets. It is what it is. Just try to get used to it. buy and hold, know your allocation, don't sell into the troubles, and it should all be okay. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the tax bill, 16 quick notes, no editorial opinions. So we're going to try and just walk through 16 thoughts or concepts on the tax bill. Just as an aside, recently passed 7 million downloads on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
This additional deduction phases out at higher incomes. Seventh, the bill increases the child care credit to $2,500 from $2,000. Eighth, The bill also increases the estate plan exemption by around another million dollars to $15 million per person or $30 million per couple. That means you get to exempt from estate tax up to $30 million of your estate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
Ninth, it increases the state and local tax deductions, the exemption, to $40,000 from $10,000, i.e. the SALT exemptions. So that goes up. It also curtails some of the things that people were doing to work around those SALT exemptions. Tenth, it largely eliminates electric vehicle credits with some minor exceptions. Eleven, the bill eliminates taxes on tips with certain limits still to be defined.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
And this is the concept that was talked about a lot on the campaign trail, getting rid of taxes on tips. Twelve, the bill also eliminates taxes on overtime with certain limits. The concept that you could get paid for overtime over a certain amount of hours per week, and you don't get taxed on that. Thirteenth, the bill includes a deduction for interest on U.S. cars. So if you're buying a U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
car built here with financing, you get deductions on that up to a certain amount. Fourteenth, the bill also doubles the standard exemption. Fifteenth, The bill includes permission to increase the deficit by another $4 trillion. This, again, is intended. This will increase the deficit, will give allowance to increase the deficit of $36 to $40 trillion.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
And recently ranked number one on the Apple Business News Report for Business Podcast. So God bless that and thank you. So here are 16 points in the tax bill. First, the bill is more than 1,000 pages long. So it's going to take some time to really get through a full analysis of it and really understand it, even with all the AI tools and everything else as to what's really relevant and not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
And finally, 16, the bill also includes several challenges in tax provisions aimed at tax-exempt organizations and university and other endowments. Again, those are 16 core notes on the new tax bill that was passed by the Republican majority Senate and inspired or encouraged by President Trump. But we'll see how this plays out.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
Second, the bill passed the House by just one vote. It still needs to pass the Senate. Then the two bills got to be reconciled. No easy route to do this. It passed the House by 215 to 214, which is really barely passing. And that's with keeping most of the Republican votes intact. Third, the bill is expected to increase the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next 10 years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
Some analysts project closer to $4 trillion plus. Fourth, it largely extends tax cuts from the original first Trump administration bill, which was passed in 2017. So it largely starts by keeping those tax cuts in place. Fifth, it goes much less far in cutting Medicaid than originally feared by the healthcare community.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The New Tax Bill: 16 Quick Notes – No Editorial Opinions 5-23-25
It largely focuses on work and trying to require work requirements and also testing eligibility for Medicaid versus necessarily actual cuts. It does disallow coverage for illegal immigrants. Sixth, it adds $4,000 to the standard deduction for seniors. This is intended to help protect seniors from being taxed on Social Security up to certain incomes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber is on the executive committee at McGuire Woods. She lives at the intersection of business and healthcare and law, private equity. She's an absolutely brilliant lawyer and person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
Anousheh Ansari, who's this astronaut, CEO of XPRIZE, which is a fasting organization, entrepreneur, investor, advocate for women entrepreneurs. I mean, what a remarkable, remarkable person. Talk a little bit about some of the thoughts that you saw, some of the things you saw, et cetera, et cetera.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
Amber, you had the experience last week of helping to chair the 21st Annual McGuire Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference. Maybe you'll share with us today a few different highlights and thoughts that come out of your thinking and what you're seeing at the conference and in general.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
No, we couldn't agree more. She was absolutely phenomenally inspiring. She doesn't keep a high social media profile. You guys found her as a keynote speaker. She was remarkable. She also led the Women's Leadership Breakfast Conference. speak where you got a chance to moderate with her and just fantastic.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
And Amber, tell us what else is on your mind coming out of the conference and why conferences like this, not just ours, but anybody's conferences can be so uplifting and so motivating. Talk a little bit about that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
Yeah, no, 100%. We did a separate discussion on this about Lance Armstrong earlier. And this is a concept that we talk about is that People that are somewhat flawed or that have had their scars are often the most interesting and explosive keynote speakers as you watch them try and evolve and figure themselves out, whether we've had over the past years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
People like Rick Pitino, who went through a famous downfall and then came back to lead St. John's. Lance Armstrong, who's now has tried to reposition himself, rehabilitate himself. I mean, sometimes these people that are flawed, as we all are, are often the most interesting keynotes because they're just, it's fascinating to see somebody who's had their problems be very real.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
I mean, even I go back to having Bill Clinton on stage several times, who went through the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal. And just, you know, knowing that he's imperfect also makes him kind of more interesting, too. And sometimes there's more to learn from the people, I don't know if it's right or wrong.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
But, you know, fascinating to watch these people that if he had some some scars and flaws that have been very public, you know, still be in the public eye and their perspectives and just literally fantastic and fascinating. I mean, the room was people for all you know, we got it. Whenever you book a keynote speaker like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
and I wasn't responsible for booking, but I'm a huge fan and supportive of the concept, you get 20% of people in advance of the conference saying negative things. How could you have this person speak? How could you have this person do this? And you get that about lots of speakers from different sides of political aisle as well. But what was fascinating is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
How explosively positive he was to the audience and how the audience responded to him. It was jam-packed. People were very excited. People went to a workout session with him at some point during the conference, too, that was done for charity. It's just an absolute fantastic thing. I think there's just so many interesting pieces to that about human nature, about what we all find fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Amber Walsh on Industry Insights, Fresh Perspectives, and Inspiration from the McGuireWoods Healthcare PE Conference 5-23-25
No, fantastic. Again, we are so thankful today to be joined by the Amber Walsh of McGuire Woods, a leader extraordinaire. Amber, thank you so much for joining us today on the Vector Private Equity and Business Podcast. Just a pleasure to visit with you. Thank you, Scott.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nike – Be Like Mike 3-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. In the old days, we used to cheer for Nike, be like Mike, and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nike – Be Like Mike 3-21-25
Since back in the day where Nike just stood for utter competitiveness, it's worked hard to change its brand into being cool, to being different, to being something else besides just the utter competitiveness that people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods sort of represented. And again, it's hard to have grown up in my genre, my vintage, and not be a huge Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods fan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nike – Be Like Mike 3-21-25
even if they've got their flaws like all of us do. And they play in a very big state, so you see those flaws big. So here's what's going on with Nike. Nike is down another 5% today. It is down 9% or so year to date. It's down 30% in the last 52 weeks. It just came out with earnings that were okay. Revenues were beat expectations, but the expectations were about a 10% drop from year over year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nike – Be Like Mike 3-21-25
So if I was Nike, I would go back to attacking everything with competitive fervor as opposed to every single sort of like social cause of the day. Because as much as the social causes are cool, some of us agree, some of us disagree, whichever the social cause of the day is that they've got going on. But I do love my Nike high-top golf shoes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Nike – Be Like Mike 3-21-25
And even though I'm the only person in the world that thinks that a middle-aged man looks good in those high-top golf shoes, I still love them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, the lesson for Nike is be like Mike.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are six of the stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thrilled this week to be ranked in the top three most of the week in the Apple Business News Podcast rankings. So thank you for listening. So first, Nike is down again today about 6%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
Estera, like my beloved Chicago Bears and Cubs, might be ready for a turnaround, and maybe this is the year, so I won't give up now. Well, I've got no real clear conviction around it. Finally, sixth, the S&P index is down about 5% year-to-date. By and large, when I look at all the fluctuations in individual names,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
I ought to just stick to index funds, but sometimes I don't have the discipline, but largely I do. Index funds and treasuries, then a smattering of individual stocks. Individual stocks are so hard to predict. They're all over the place. It is what it is. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
It had a solid earnings report, but projects a soft outlook for this year. It also saw its revenues for the quarter go down by more than a billion dollars, about 10% year over year. That's a bad sign. Nike, like anybody else who's been struggling, says that tariffs are going to kill margins. Based on those different factors, it's down some.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
Second, FedEx is down 7% or so on a very cautious outlook, notwithstanding solid earnings. Third, Palantir Technologies, a company we made a bet on. It's not gone so great, so we made that bet. It remains up about 15% year-to-date. We'll see if that holds. Fourth, Booz Allen Hamilton, and this is fast because Booz Allen was always one of the great consulting firms in the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
It moved largely into government-contracted consulting the last several years. It's been a very profitable part of their business. They are now getting crushed as the government looks at cutting some contracts. They're down 20% year-to-date and around 8% yesterday. Similarly, Accenture, the huge consulting tech firm, one of the spinoffs of Anderson at one point, also was down significantly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 3-21-25
The concept, it was a billion-dollar contract from the government. It is amazing to me how many billion-dollar contracts the government has out there between all these different places they go to. Estero Labs is down 48% year-to-date. You may think, who cares about Estera Labs? And that's a great question. I care because I hold it directly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant investment banker. We're joined today by Stephen Richards. Stephen's a managing director and he's the head of healthcare investment banking at Palm Tree LLC. He's also a Kellogg graduate in the greater Chicago area.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
thank you very very much i'll ask you one final question and and steven you'll let me know if this is too complicated a question okay so bear with me and let me know if you can handle a complicated question steven let's fire away let's see we'll see in about 30 seconds so here is the question here is the question You know, are you more of a Northwestern fan or an Indiana fan?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Where do you wind up there? And who do you cheer for in the Michigan versus Ohio State game? Those are really – it's a combined set of questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
God bless. And who is is Bob Unite, your favorite coach of all time in Indiana? Is that is that you could say that with a straight face, right, without getting political retribution for that? Or is there somebody else that you love as a coach besides Signetti?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
No, and then Bill Self. Bill Self is a Kansas Jayhawk fan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
just for a moment if you're an illinois person i grew up at university of illinois bill self taught me that when a coach says he's never leaving i'm never leaving illinois that is a certain sign that he's in the middle of negotiations and leaving any thoughts on bill self are you still a kansas fan and i guess he's done an unbelievable job with kansas so you can't not like him
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
But as an Illinois fan, he did what Gary Barnett did to us as a Northwestern fan, you know, told us I'm never leaving. And at least I understood then that means they're leaving.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Fantastic. And we could talk about Roy Williams, who went back and forth between UNC and Kansas as well, but I'll let that go. You've nailed all the questions today. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us. Again, Stephen Richards, head of healthcare investment banking at Palm Tree, just a fantastic leader and banker. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Stephen, we're going to talk today about trends in investment banking, trends in the healthcare marketplace, and a lot more. Take a moment and tell us a little bit about your background and whether the Indiana Hoosiers are ever going to be fantastic again in basketball and football and a lot more. Stephen, tell us about yourself and Palmtree.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
And so let's talk about that, because you mentioned multiple different things. There's the continuation vehicles, which is one of the newer things we've seen the last five years. But also talk about the tainted asset concept. Somebody goes to market. They don't get the price they want. They pull the deal back or they go to market and the deal falls apart at some point. How much is that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Both economically, it's a concern because they've spent money on legal and accounting and all those things. But how much is it a concern when they go back to market that they're going to be perceived as a tainted asset that prejudices them about trying to go to market in the first place if they're not sure that there's actually the right process at the right price?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
No, thank you. That makes sense. And are there deal areas? For example, there's parts of the practice management area right now. that have really slowed between sort of Fed funds rates, interest rate costs, debt costs, compared to margins being challenging. But there's other parts of the practice management universe that seem to be going fine. What's your sense out there of practice management?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Are there deals going on there? And then where are you seeing a lot of deals? Are you seeing them in the sort of healthcare light, RCM area? What areas? Clinical research? Where are you seeing a lot of activity?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
And let me ask you a question, because that's something that nobody ever saw coming, was Indiana under Cignetti become this fantastic football school. I guess once they hired him, he saw it coming, and the players that came with them, and Hoosiers had the best season ever. And basketball, hopefully, is back on the right track.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Thank you very, very much. No, absolutely fascinating. And talk for a second about when you look at what you're most focused on, you're most excited about this year. Talk about that. And I want to ask you one other question about the software as a service companies, the tech companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
There was always this discussion in the market of those wanting to trade as a multiple of revenues versus a multiple of EBITDA. What are you seeing out there in terms of the tech valuations, the software valuations and so forth? And then let's talk about where you're most focused and excited this year.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
Right, and that's a fascinating perspective because years ago, everybody was looking for the very, very best point solution. They talked about it best in class.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
I mean, Bobby Knight was one of the great coaches to watch of all time and fascinating. I'm going to turn from that for a second, although I could talk about that, Indiana basketball, football all day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
And then over the course of years, I was on the phone with somebody today that said one of the large systems has 2,700 different apps or modules going that they know of, and they're trying desperately to cut that down to less point solutions and more platform solutions and so forth. And that becomes a very real issue in healthcare because as you're in for companies, nobody wants to be running.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
They want to run a handful of enterprise programs,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
thousand apps depending on what size they are but not 2700 and and it really you get caught in this fine line i remember a company i invested in uh that was a point solution it got merged into a larger company it was venture funded by a serious venture name but the point solution company i invested in i think my investment went to a zero so i watched it closely and understood
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
even better than I did before the difference between point solutions and platform solutions and people not wanting to have so many solutions is a, is fascinating. And talk, let me take you back to the next question about what are you most focused on and excited about this year and what advice for founders or entrepreneurs looking to go to market? Those two questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Healthcare Investment Banking: Insights from Palm Tree’s Steven Richards 3-21-25
talk to us about the environment and healthcare investment banking today what are you seeing what's active what's not active give us a sense of what you're seeing out there in the healthcare sort of deal world currently absolutely i think the first thing that we need to do to evaluate that is to actually zoom out and look at the broader landscape you know we had a period of time where deal activity
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's concept is 10 mantras, concepts, and sayings. We'll work through 10 of these. This is in preparation for a talk we're giving in May. We're going to go through 20 to 30 mantras, concepts, and sayings. But hopefully some people will find this interesting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
But this constant concept of more meditation, more calm, more moderation of coffee. The third concept we'll talk about is an investment concept, and I love this concept. I'm not sure who coined it, but I love it. It basically says, save like a pessimist. Be careful about your spending, keep putting money away, and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
And then invest like an optimist, meaning for the long run, put some money in equity so they could ride with optimism over the long run. The economy is going to get better and better and that you're going to see returns in the long run if you invest like an optimist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
Now, all of us, we talk about constantly this concept of really working your allocation of assets and having an emergency fund so you can go ahead and go ahead and keep things where you want them. When the market dips, you don't feel compelled to sell. So save like a pessimist, invest like an optimist. I love that concept. The fourth concept we talk about is, and again, this applies to anybody.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
I'll use the phrase that we use. The phrase that we use is, don't let the old man in. And this is the concept, and it's not an anti-concept of tempering oneself, because you have to constantly temper yourself so you don't beat your body up. But if you slow down too much or you put on too much weight, it's very hard to then take it off.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
If you slow down too much, your muscles get so sore, your body gets so sore that the effort to really get back at it is very, very hard. And so physically and mentally, the concept is don't let the old man in because once he's in, it's much harder to recover and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
And so people that have injuries and have to rehab, you know, we have great empathy for trying to keep yourself relatively busy and moving. So as you do get better, you're able to do things you want to do. Or if you take too long off of anything, it makes it much harder to reattack things. So the concept is don't let the old man in. The fifth concept, I love this, and it's about management.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
First concept is what we think of as change it, leave it, or accept it. In other words, double down, stay the course, or abandon. So this is really for any business line, any personal pursuit, you're always sort of making this choice. Do you double down and do more of it? Do you stay the course, just keep on doing what you're doing or do you abandon it?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
is that in many organizations you have a core job to start with. Let's say you're practicing law, you're practicing accounting, and then as you get the basics of it, then at some point you move towards your practicing leadership. So you start with practicing law or your profession, and then you move towards practicing leadership, and that's the next concept there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
We used to have people that were fantastic at what they do, tremendously task-oriented, would be fantastic at tasks, They have to move from being able to be great at tasks to be able to apply analytics to it, analysis, and to practice leadership in that context. The sixth concept, and we talk about this in business always, is whatever business you're in,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
You want to really understand the business and the landscape. It's why 100 years ago in media and in law, and it's entirely in healthcare. So I could know law, I could know media, but I could really apply them in the context of the industry that I really started to understand. And it's not so much as a lawyer, you've got to be a business expert and everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
But it really helps to understand the context you're in. It puts you so much further ahead of other people in terms of getting from point A to point B and being able to problem solve. So really understand the business and the landscape you're in. The seventh concept is one that as you get older, you become more and more familiar with this. And this is this concept of injuries versus illness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
So for those of us that have injuries... we have to almost view that as a huge positive because injuries, you know, you have a knee blowout, you've got eyes that need surgery on, both of those that I had in last year, that may suck, but it sucks a lot less than having cancer or a serious illness that could threaten your life or really threaten your longevity and what you can do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
So constantly being almost viewing it as a blessing. You don't want the injuries, but injuries over illness always. The eighth concept we talk about here in Montress concepts it's saying is, As the economy weakens or it's challenging, it's very important to do a few things. Prioritize your spending. It's what you think it should be, whatever's critical. Go very easy on escalating debt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
Look at how you could reduce debt and keep debt in check, but don't blow up your cash cord to pay down your debt because you need cash. Cash is king. I see some of these companies recently doing big share buybacks, but they're leaving themselves with lots of debt. I hate that. Go easy on debt. understand your asset allocation, which we talk about often, and maintain your emergency funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
Make sure you've got enough emergency funds that you could withstand things, that you don't have to sell to the market at a bad time, that you're fine, that you're solvent. The ninth concept came out of a specific discussion that was had in our household
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
is that whenever you have any work done, whether it's by lawyer, electrician, painter, anybody, computer project, whatever it is, that you always ask for an estimate up front before you decide on hiring the person. Just to give you a sense, every once in a while you're just surprised that often to the negative on the cost of something.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
But I will tell you, there's one or two that I work with regularly on who produces images and media. I'm always shocked at how much less expensive she is to work with than most people, but always ask for an estimate before starting a project. Finally, the 10th thought, and this is hard for people to fathom, but it takes tremendous discipline if you get wealthy to stay wealthy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
You know, I have friends that made so much money and I could never understand how they went broke. And then they would explain to me how they had bought a yacht, truly, or a house for $12 million or this or that. And then all of a sudden, the aha goes off in your head. Well, I could actually see how you go broke after making $100 million.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
And I think these are always choices as to what you're making. So currently I'm working with two vendors, both terrific, but I'm not sure if I'm actually getting value out of that. The easy choice is just to stay the course, The harder choice, but probably the right choice, is to abandon what I'm doing with those two and use the money in some other places.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
So one of the concepts is, and there are a tremendous amount of stories of professional athletes, lottery winners, all kinds of people that never really understood how quickly money can go through your hands if you actually get it. It's this concept of, we often find, It's great to get wealthy or rich or whatever you are, but it takes tremendous discipline once you get there to stay there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
Very hard. When the market's going up, you want to spend it, but then you don't have it when the market goes down. But the concept being very hard to stay wealthy once you get wealthy. Thank you very, very much for listening to this version of the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Ten mantras, concepts, and sayings, things that we think about. Thank you for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
So sort of double down, stay the course, or abandon it. You know, same thing with whatever's working in business. You double down on it, or do you stay the course, or do you abandon it? And the things that are working well, you generally double down on. Things that are fine, you might stay the course. And other things you might choose to simplify life, simplify business, to just sort of –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
10 Mantras, Concepts & Sayings 3-21-25
abandon it. The second concept is it's a part of this comes out of a Jerry Seinfeld concept. But this kind of work on is in terms of clarity day to day and being able to function day to day at the highest level, at the most optimal level. It's this concept of constantly taking care of one's mental health. more meditation, more calm, and for me personally, trying to ease coffee.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly heads up the healthcare department at McGuire Woods. In addition to talking to us today about healthcare private equity trends and what she's seeing, we're also going to do a quick shout out
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Fantastic. What does that mean for deals? What are the new thresholds? How much more complicated is this going to make getting deals done? You know, right now, unless you're doing huge deals, it seems like the HR doesn't become that big a problem. You know, at least for most private equity driven deals, once in a while for a big private equity driven deal, you get a second request.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Certainly on the health care side, the hospital side, the government often blocks deals. hospital deals where they think there'll be market concentration but generally for the pe bolt-ons and so forth hasn't been that much of an issue what's your sense and what are people saying out there
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
for the McGuire Woods Healthcare Private Equity Conference, which is May 14th and 15th in Chicago at the Ritz-Carlton. Spectacular event with only 1,500 attendees. If you're interested in that event, please reach Holly Buckley at McGuire Woods or just text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322, and we'll get you to the right people. Holly, let me take a step back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Thank you. And that makes sense. Thank you very, very much. And tell us what else you're watching out there. The new HSR rules. I think some people, I think we're hoping those go away, go away under Trump administration. So far, not so much. So what else are you watching?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Thank you. And that's the kind of thing that's going to just be additional headaches for people doing deals, correct? I mean, that's really what that sounds like, just additional headaches. Right now, most private equity-sponsored companies don't at least intend to get in the middle of professional judgment. I guess you could say anything does so. But what do you see there?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Tell us what's going on in the private equity world currently in the healthcare world. What are a couple of the trends that you're watching closely?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Thank you. And what else are you watching? We're talking about the HSR rules. We're talking about new state rules. What else are you watching currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
no thank you and i know that we have happened to have um vmg on our podcast yesterday talking about cyber security risk and due diligence transactions so a lot of that out there no thank you very very much in how is you've got in new hsr rules
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
so the new state rules on private equity deals, you've got private equity a little bit slower into the specific provider area, but certainly heavy into the consulting area, the revenue cycle area, digital health area, lots of other areas, anything else that's top of mind currently for you that you're watching?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity: Trends, Regulations, and Growth Areas with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 2-21-25
Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Holly. Always fantastic to visit with you. We'll keep on following up with you. Again, Holly Buckley, Chair of the Healthcare Department at McGuire Woods, just absolutely brilliant leader in the healthcare private equity sector. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And this is again going to be a somewhat non-business podcast. It's somewhat of a takeoff of somebody's Twitter post. The Twitter post by Keith McCullough says, the need, want for humans to have a narrative to attempt to simplify the complex remains our community's behavioral opportunity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
though I might be getting there, I'm not sure. I'm trying to watch this administration. But I certainly think RFK is a moron. So can I hold in context these two different concepts? I love some of the policies that he has. I do love cutting some of the blowouts out of government, but I don't want a recession.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
I do love some of the other things he's doing, but I certainly think RFK and Dr. Oz are morons. But can you hold these different thoughts in place and make that work? Today's discussion, again, is simplifying, categorizing, and stereotyping of very human behavior. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
And I don't know if it's our community's behavioral opportunity. When you talk about simplification and stereotypes, It's very important to sort of understand why a lot of this happens. It's not necessarily stupidity. It's that people can't handle too much information. So we're constantly trying to simplify and dive towards a narrative.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
It's why so many people in our country religiously watch one set of cable networks, MSNBC, or another set of cable networks, Fox, you know, the Fox, whatever it might be. Because it's very hard as a human being to sort of juggle through all these different conflicting thoughts. And so you have people more and more trying to simplify, categorize, and stereotype.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
And again, that's not a defense of simplifying, stereotyping, and categorizing. Certainly a defense of simplifying and categorizing, not of stereotyping. but it's a very human behavior to need to understand the narrative that you're in, the spots that you're in, to sort of simplify things, because you can only handle so many conflicting thoughts at one time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Simplifying, Categorizing, & Stereotyping – Very Human Behavior 2-21-25
Thus, what happens is we end up in a situation where the right and the left for all I can tell, are largely screwed up, at least on some of their positions, some of their situations. At the same time, we're very much in a position where people almost have to adopt, as a litmus test, all the right positions or all the left positions. Now, I'm not an anti-Trump person particularly,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is JP Morgan, the IRS, and smoke and mirrors. And these three aren't necessarily related, so bear with me. So here are the three stories that we're talking about here, and that'll be the title, JP Morgan, the IRS, and smoke and mirrors. So the first concept is JP Morgan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
I'm conflicted about all this stuff because at the end of the day, I do believe the government is probably way overboard. We've grown payrolls that we don't need to have. And at the same time, it's very real people that will be laid off and have to find work if they're laid off.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
and so forth, and the government still has to function, but I think there probably is a ton of inefficiency and waste in government. So those are our first two stories, JPMorgan Chase and the IRS. The third story is, and this is, I think, fascinating. This is the smoke and mirrors.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
What you see going on right now, for the first time in a couple years, a lot of companies are reporting earnings and trying to use different kinds of excuses for why their earnings are a little bit more challenging than they expect.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
and we're seeing a lot of that we call that the smoke and mirrors defense you know a company's got their car sales going down for the next quarter and they say that's not really their car sales it's something else no no no it really is your car sales another company says you know we're making great progress we're still losing a ton of money but our gross profit is up but our ebitda still sucks and and that's the same concept we're trying to get our cost of good sold down
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
But the only way to do that is explode our number of vehicles sold. And this happens to be Rivian I'm talking about here, whether it's Rivian, Carvana, whatever. You're seeing more and more of the dodge, the smoke and mirrors and earnings releases. And we'll see how that goes. But, again, those are our three stories this morning. J.P. Morgan, Chase, takes it on the chin a little bit, down 4.43%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
The IRS, look at the job cuts, probably down. needed, probably need to do a lot more to technologically improve our government as the rest of the world starts to improve their governments. And third is the smoke and mirrors earnings and just seeing a lot and lot more of that. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast this morning. Just a great pleasure every day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
If you listen to this all the way through, you send me a text, 773-766-5322, and you talk about, give me your opinion on either the IRS cuts or on the smoke and mirrors earnings releases, and love to send you $100 gift certificate if you're the first person to send that in. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
JP Morgan, with the other big banks, dropped several percent yesterday. It was down about 4.43%. It's literally about as good a well-run bank. Jamie Dimon is as good a leader as they come. We're a huge Jamie Dimon fan. We're not shy about that. Huge fan of the person, about the most center principal leader that I know out there. Just fantastic. But J.P.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
Morgan took it on the chin yesterday with the other big banks. The IRS is number two, and this is complicated. The IRS, you know, the Trump administration, DOJ, is going to lay off several thousand employees at the IRS today. This is going to cut into the auditing of small businesses, self-employed people and so forth, the auditing of that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
But the concept here is really challenging because at the end of the day, I think most of us know that the government's probably way bloated and also probably doesn't rely enough on technology and relies too much on probably human labor. And often we don't know what that human labor is doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
So the challenge is, of course, that we probably have an over bloated federal government and state government at many, many levels in many, many states. At the same time, when you do do job cuts, it does have even though on a statute, it might look good on a P&L sheet. It might look good in the reality.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
JPMorgan, the IRS and Smoke & Mirrors 2-21-25
It impacts real, real lives and people that are paying bills for their families to take care of their families and so forth. So we often joke and it's not so much a joke. The recession is when the economy is going in the wrong direction. A depression is when you yourself lose your job. So that's sort of the second story today, the IRS.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is... A mountain man, a skokie person, and a Canadian. So here's what happens in life today. In life today, all of us have different text threads that are going on amongst our friends, our colleagues, our business people, and the people that we're in the closest contact with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
It is what it is. That's Skokie. And finally, you've got the Canadian. The Canadian in some ways is the most complex because you get people ordinary, intelligent, conflicted. Doesn't know if he should be chairing for the United States or for Canada. Some days he wants Canada to be a 51st state. I say it as a joke, probably never does.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
But there are days where you'd like the United States to be another province of Canada. I mean, that is so silly, but it is what it is. But sort of has this love-hate relationship with both himself and with the United States and with Canada. You know, you'll always sort of like,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
And that, I think, leads to that constant ornery, sharp wit that he can't control because he's that Canadian and that conflicted Canadian. In some ways, you look at that as a sign of brilliance. I mean, the beauty of the Skokie guy, the beauty of the mountain person, you know what they're doing. The mountain person is trying to populate the world and educate the world, often through homeschooling.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
The Skokie guy is just upwardly mobile, trying to get by in a difficult world. And the Canadian is a little bit conflicted. Ordinary, intelligent, sharp, witty, hard to make sense of often, but as good as they come. That's what you get today. A mountain man, a skokie man, and a Canadian. It almost makes for a joke. The three of them walk into the bar. What happens, God only knows.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
That's all I've got for you today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We know this is a ridiculous episode, but if you identify with any of the stereotypes, the mountain man, the Skokie man, or the Canadian, please text me at 773-766-5322. And we will send you a $100 Amazon gift certificate if you are the first to respond to this podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
This constantness of the text threads. You saw it with the USA Hockey team recently, where three of the guys, I can never pronounce it right, the Kachuk brothers and this other guy, J.T. Miller,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
ended up really planning out that they're going to have fights at the start of the u.s canada hockey game you know just literally buddies on a text thread and that's what you have in life what i've got today is some spin-off of that is i've got one of the strangest text threads i have involves a skokie guy meaning myself a mountain man which is its own story and a canadian and here's how i sort of see this what you get from these three different stereotypical people
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
You get from the mountain man someone who wants to do just good in the world, wants to populate the world, wants to make sure everything's going right, the highest integrity you could possibly have, just really fantastic, has like 83 children, and homeschools the kids. This is the mountain man.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
High integrity, Notre Dame, everything that Notre Dame means, stiff upper jaw, varsity athlete, that kind of person. That's the mountain man. and literally 83 children or something like that. I lost count a long time ago, hard to keep track. Then you've got a Skokie person and Skokie person stands for sort of like
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Mountain Man, a Skokie Person, and a Canadian 2-21-25
lower middle class, upwardly mobile, trying to make it, you know, feels that the world's stacked against them, chip on the shoulder. It is what it is. That's sort of the Skokie person. And, you know, people could take it all kinds of ways, but that's how we perceive the Skokie person, sort of, you know, trying to be upwardly mobile, trying to make it go in a world stacked against the person.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart, UnitedHealthCare & Facebook 2-21-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Walmart, UnitedHealthcare, and Facebook. So here's the gist today of what's going on. Walmart dropped 6.5% yesterday. Again, there is some issue. Walmart protects slower growth for next year. There is some of this content of as Walmart goes, so goes the nation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart, UnitedHealthCare & Facebook 2-21-25
Those are some of the things we're watching currently. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart, UnitedHealthCare & Facebook 2-21-25
It's a top one or two company in revenues in the country with it and Amazon sort of hand in hand. But it's projecting a little slower growth, a little tighter on consumer spending. Obviously, if the government actually goes through with cutting deficit some or cutting spending some, we're probably going to see more of that caution because people have less money to play with. Good and bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart, UnitedHealthCare & Facebook 2-21-25
Second, UnitedHealthcare is down 8% today on news of the Department of Justice investigation into Medicare billing and coding and so forth. That's a challenging news, again, for one of the biggest companies in the country, both United and Amazon. Walmart right up there in the top five in revenues in the country. I think United currently number three, Walmart number two or one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart, UnitedHealthCare & Facebook 2-21-25
So always a bad sign when the two of them get hammered on stock price in terms of investors. The third company we're following this year is Facebook Meta Platforms. And this company continues to perform well. Mark Zuckerberg continues to knock it out of the park. They're up about 18% year to date. Again, a couple other things that we're following. The U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Walmart, UnitedHealthCare & Facebook 2-21-25
lost to Canada last night in the four-nation faceoff, the finals there. Great, great hockey. Probably good for Canada, given how many challenges they have anyways to get a win there. And then the markets are down today significantly, at least at the time that we're recording this. We'll see if that lasts. But again... Walmart and United getting crushed a little bit. Facebook doing great.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Right. People that have been through this for several years or that are older have seen the ups and downs and probably breathe a little bit better. Wie wichtig ist es, dass jemand, der seine Allokation richtig hat, einen Notfallfonds hat, damit sie diesen Art von Verlust durchführen können, ohne zu viel zu paniken?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Und wie oft kriegst du Leute, die nicht wirklich auf ihre Allokation gearbeitet haben und vielleicht nur hochwertig auf die Quote warten, aber dann einen schwierigen Zeitraum haben, durch den Marktverlust zu verfolgen?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
How often do you hear people, because I hear this so much, and it must be hard to listen to, somebody that, when the market is going up, talks about how they invest in Nvidia, SoundTown, Apple... Und sie sind ein Genius. Wie oft hört man das, wenn der Markt hochgeht, dass alle über ihre Stockpicks und die Picks, die sie individuell gekauft haben,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
And how do you deal with that when the market goes up and goes down?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by a terrific professional who does a ton of speaking and leading and really a good, good person. Chad Koh. Chad, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what your career, your career and what you're focused on currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Danke, und du hast etwas erwähnt, das ich einfach großartig fand.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Es gibt dieses Konzept, dass wenn man sich die langfristigen Ergänze der S&P oder der Dauer anschaut, oder so etwas, es könnte 8-10% pro Jahr über 50-100 Jahre sein, aber die meisten Leute genießen das nicht, genau weil du gesagt hast, dass sie nervös werden, sie verkaufen es, sie kaufen wieder rein, wenn es wieder nach unten oder nach oben geht. Sie genießen diese Erhöhungen nicht wirklich,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Ich möchte Sie zwei Fragen stellen. Wie viel sehen Sie da draußen, die Leute, die Sie hören über diese Ausgaben der S&P und der DAO, aber die meisten von ihnen genießen sie nicht, weil sie nicht nur ihre Geld reinhalten, sondern weil sie ein bisschen nervös sind. Ich blöde sie nicht. Und zweitens, hören Sie nach Indexfonds, individuellen Stocks? Wie denken Sie über diese Probleme?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Und dann die gleiche Frage auf der Bondsseite, Treasur-Bonds versus Immunis, und wie denken Sie darüber?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
100 Prozent. Also ETFs, Indexfonds, ein bisschen individuelle Stocks, aber das ist wirklich ein Gambel auf die individuellen Stocks, solange man so viele von ihnen sehr divers ist. Auf der Bondseite, individuelle Bonds gegen Bondfonds, sodass man nicht so viel mit Interestrisken handeln muss. Man handelt sich trotzdem mit einigen Kreditrisken.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
What's the balance between treasury bonds, corporate bonds, municipal bonds? How do you think about those things?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
There are some well-heralded investors, the Warren Buffetts of the world, there are so many others. Are there particular investors that you think of, not so much to model yourself after, but that you particularly have admired over the long term? Are there anybody that you think of like, yes, that's someone we're really a fan of?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Danke, nein, ich liebe das absolut. Dein Bruder ist eine brillante Person, ein guter Investor, er hat viel gelernt, fantastisch. Was hast du am meisten gefokussiert? Chad, du hast auch ein paar öffentliche Reden gemacht, du hast ein paar Mastermind-Gruppen gegründet. Erzähl uns ein bisschen über das, was du tust, wenn du es nicht mindest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Nein, ich finde es absolut fantastisch. Welche Überraschung für die emerging business people, die emerging leaders, gibt es? Welche Gedanken würdest du den emerging leaders oder emerging businesspersons geben?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
And talk to us about CoFinancial Group. Tell us a little bit about the trends you're watching in financial planning. Are people sort of able to manage through the recent market chaos? How much does the phone ring? How much of your time is spent almost just counseling people through the challenges? Talk a little bit about what happens during market turmoil.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Chad, I want to thank you. It's amazingly impressive what you've built over the years. The intellect, the energy, the common sense, the thoughtfulness. I just love getting a chance to visit with you again. Chad Coe is joining us today. Chad, the name of the company where people can find out more about Chad Coe.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Building Wealth, Abundance & Resilience with Chad Coe of Coe Financial Group 4-18-25
Wir sind Theresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA, Hertz, United, & Eli Lilly 4-18-25
NVIDIA now is down to a $2.5 billion market cap. That means it's lost in market cap. 2,5 Trillionen in der Marktzahlung. Das bedeutet, es wird in der Marktzahlung etwas wie 700 bis 800 Milliarden Euro über die letzten mehrere Monate verloren. Und das scheint viel Geld zu sein. Nun, das bedeutet nicht, dass ich nicht der größte Mann von Jensen Wong bin. Ich bin es wirklich.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA, Hertz, United, & Eli Lilly 4-18-25
Ich denke, er ist wirklich unglaublich. Aber eine faszinierende Anzahl von verlorenen Dollar und verlorenen Marktzahlungen in dieser Zeit. Wir sind Theresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA, Hertz, United, & Eli Lilly 4-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to be Nvidia, Hertz, United and Eli Lilly. So these are four of the stocks that are moving a lot, doing interesting stuff, some good, some bad, but let's talk about them quickly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA, Hertz, United, & Eli Lilly 4-18-25
Eli Lilly hat gestern 14% auf großartige Testresultate, großartige Resultate, Trialresultate für einen ihrer weichgelassenen Drogen übernommen. Sie hatten einen wirklich positiven Tag, Novo Nordisk, im Vergleich zu einem, der in die falsche Richtung ging, als ein Komponist für Eli Lilly. Zweitens, United Healthcare, United Health Group, droppte gestern 22 Prozent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA, Hertz, United, & Eli Lilly 4-18-25
Das ist der größte Dropp in 20 plus Jahren, mehr als 20 Jahre, als ihre Einkommen verpasst wurden. Und sie projizierten auch viel höhere Verlustratien für den Rest des Jahres. Hertz, im Gegensatz, ist 44 Prozent auf der News gesprungen, dass Bill Ackman, der Virgin-Square-Investor, wie wir wissen, ein Investor, auch in Hertz investiert wird.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
NVIDIA, Hertz, United, & Eli Lilly 4-18-25
Avis ist auch auf diese News gesprungen, also das ganze Rentenwagen-Business, das es möglich ist. Letztens, NVIDIA. Und wenn man NVIDIA schaut, It comes out of me listening to so many amateur stock pickers who brag about, oh, I watch this stock, I watch that stock, I invested in this, I invested in that. And they are so silent when things go solid. But here's the deal.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today we're going to talk about index funds, individual stocks, private equity funds, and investing in individual private companies. So here's the issue in the discussion. And I think Vanguard's founder and Warren Buffett have said this right, that
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
So it seemed like getting to the Holy Grail and not so much there as much as it was. I used to say about one VC fund, it was harder to get into and be a regular investor in that fund than it was to get into Harvard and Glasgow, which is true. But again, like you catch the car and it's maybe not so great that you made it there. The next thing we talk about is investing in individual companies.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
Once it happens is once you start investing in individual companies, you look like the guy at the, I'm not sure what the right, you know, a good investor to join companies, a someone who looks like they can help and they want your money and all those kinds of things. And what you find again over time is that,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
that it's again like the dog that caught the car, that it's not as good as it sounds because for every one that goes great, there's 15 of them that, oh, that turned into a zero. Or this one calls and says, you know, we've made a big change to our business plan. And like, what do you mean you made a big change to our business plan after we already put in so much money?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
But what you find is this holy grail of investing in individual private companies, this holy grail of investing in private equity and venture capital funds, not as much of a holy grail as you thought it would be. And probably closer to back where Warren Buffett was saying, you know, you're far better off just putting most of your money in broad based index funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
Now, the subject of individual stocks is. Again, unless you have so much money you could diversify so broadly and follow the individual stocks, you are at such a disadvantage to everybody else. I can assure you that when Nvidia dropped the other day by 7% because of potential impacts and not being able to ship to China, There are a whole cadre of people that knew that before we knew it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
And that made sure that just a huge distinct disadvantage whenever you're investing in individual stocks. And I'm not saying the whole system is rigged, but I am saying parts of it are less rigged than others. And you're better off sticking to those parts that are less rigged than others. In any event, fascinating to watch this issue of.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
Index funds, individual stocks, private equity funds, and private companies, and where to go. And as exciting as it seems to be able to invest in private equity funds, and as exciting as it seems to be able to invest in private companies, all I can tell you is the grass may look greener, but it's often not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
And you're going to do just as well putting your money in broad-based index funds, as John Bogle used to say, and quite frankly, as Warren Buffett used to say. Here's what I'll tell you. They were right. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
Most of us should spend 95% of our investment time just investing in broad-based index funds. But I'm going to take you through the other three investment categories. And as you become a little bit more affluent, a little wealthier, you feel like you've really arrived when you can invest in private equity and venture capital funds. And people actually allow you to when they want you to.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
And this goes back a little bit ago when it wasn't just so open to retail investors, but where you actually directly invest in private equity and venture funds. And I was explaining this the other day. You feel that when that happens, you've really made it. You know, oh, my God, I'm investing in private equity funds, the venture capital funds. I've made it to the promised land.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Index Funds, Individual Stocks, Private Equity Funds & Investing in Private Companies 4-18-25
And I'll tell you what this feels like in real life as an investor, right? In real life as an investor, it feels as follows. You're the dog that tries to catch the car. You're chasing the car, and you finally catch the car and find, oh, that wasn't so great. And I'll tell you, that's a little bit how it is investing in venture and private equity funds over the last five to seven years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-18-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are nine of the stories that we're following this morning. Again, it's April 18th. It's Good Friday and the markets are closed. So that's probably good news for a lot of us. First, the markets are closed today, which is a welcome change for everyone and a chance to catch their breath.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-18-25
Thank you very, very much for listening.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-18-25
The S&P is down nearly 7% over the last month. The NASDAQ is down nearly 8.5% over the last month. The market being closed today is like talking about the Chicago Bears playing today. They can't lose today because it's summer. They're not playing. Same thing with the market. We can't lose today. Second, the markets were relatively flat yesterday. Third,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-18-25
Moody's ratings is boosting its forecast for defaults this year as escalating trade wars globally may weigh on economic growth and make financing harder to get. Fourth, President Trump, at least reportedly, is having good meetings with the European Union. A lot of people would like to see that work out well and some of the trade stuff work out well.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-18-25
Fifth, for a discussion of Trump versus Powell, listen here. There's a separate podcast we have on Trump versus Powell and the ongoing fight they have. Sixth, Eli Lilly and company jumped 14% yesterday. Seventh, UnitedHealth Group dropped 22%. We've got an article on the Becker Private Equity site, see UnitedCraters, not a good situation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
9 Stories We Are Following Today 4-18-25
Eighth, Hertz jumped 44% yesterday on Bill Ackman's investment. Finally, ninth, NVIDIA lost approximately $750 billion in market cap over the last few months. That's been incredible to see that much money lost over the last several months. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you today with a few more episodes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
This is Scott Becker, and today we've got a longer form podcast webinar. This is the recording of a webinar we had done with an audience on 25 thoughts, mantras, and concepts for business and life. We hope you enjoy this greatly. The first concept is, it's an investing concept, and this has come up so much often as the market's been up and down
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And he talked about as you move out of just results into process driven and enjoyment driven and trying to change people's lives driven, how much of a better leader you become. And I think that lines up nicely with this concept. That ultimately life is a game. It's not just about winning. It's having fun while playing and trying to grow and do what you're trying to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
So that's the fourth of this group of five concepts. The last concept also I'll talk about in this group is also something that I view as one of the great half truths of everything that I see out there. And there's a concept that goes like this, that how you do everything, how you do anything is how you do everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And this is the content that says that in every single subject, you've got to do fantastic 100% work. And every single thing that you have to do, you have to compete like the world is ending. And we all know people like that. One of my closest friends used to be impossible to play sports with because he would treat sports like business. And everything we did, he treated like a death match.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And so it was just no fun. I'm a big believer that for most of us, We could be great in a handful of things. And the other things that we do, we can't expect to be great in, and we have to treat as hobbies, not as professional pursuits to be the greatest that we could ever be. Most of us don't have that much discipline, that much willpower.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And if you want to screw around with individual stocks, go ahead and do so, but recognize it shouldn't be the core part of your portfolio. So many people you talk to, you don't hear – you hear about so much, oh, I invested in Apple. I invested in Nvidia. I invested in this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You figure out the things that you're great at, you do those things to the best of your ability, and then you have to give yourself a break in other things. if you want to do things sustainably for the long run. So that's that concept there. And I hate this concept. How you do anything is how you do everything. I'm a half believer in this, like I'm a half believer in some other concepts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
But that's the thought there. So five more concepts here. There are times in business where no new idea should be the rule. Don't look for conflict where you don't need to have it. Love your 90 percenters. Marketing and sales not marketing instead of sales. Life is a game. You better enjoy it, not just try and get results. You better enjoy it too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And this concept of how you do anything is how you do everything, we believe, again, is a great half-truth. So let me stop for a second and take two quick questions that have come up. One of the questions that's come up, and then we'll get back to this core concept is, What are your comments on how leaders manage technology to improve processes and efficiencies?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Some technology does, but constant change seems to impede efficiencies versus improving. This comment and question, of course, is absolutely right on. It's very important that you pick carefully which technologies you're going to implement, that my cardinal rule in picking up new technology or using new technology or invested technology is, I am never going to be a first user.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I'm going to start with a reference case. If somebody can't give me a good reference case and I can't talk to that reference case or a client very closely about how they're using it, what's going on, then I can't do it. Because every time that you introduce new technology, it's very disruptive to your team. It costs money. Some technology ends up with 3% users. Some ends up with 50% users.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And you have to be very thoughtful. I'm a big fan of being intentional versus opportunistic in technology. My other rule of thumb is I'm never going to be a first user. You can be if you're a massive company. You can be in certain situations. But we're generally not a believer. And it's constantly trying to, are things user-friendly? Do they have great support?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Is it a company that's going to be there for the long run that you're working with? And really picking and choosing how many things you're going to attack at any one time. I think it's a great, great question and comment. There's another comment about how do you factor in tariffs and I would say uncertainty into what you're doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I can assure you that most of those colleagues that tell you that have not done that successfully over the long run and don't talk to you when Apple's retreated, when Nvidia's retreated, or about their other stocks have done poorly. I was fortunate to invest in a company called Palantir, which has done great. It now went down 12% the other day as it had less growth than expected.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And I'll talk about it from a business perspective and an investment perspective. On an investment perspective, I'm the biggest believer that you have to understand your allocation of assets, bonds to equities to cash, and how you could live with that and the potential impacts really well as you start to seriously invest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And you have to have an allocation you could live with through good and through bad times. Many of us learned this, you know, 20, 30 years ago, I went through the dot-com bust when I had most of my assets in equities and technology equities, and it went down 20, 30%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
That was my wake-up call to really try and learn about asset allocation and what worked for me, not work for my broker, what really worked for me. You have to have an asset allocation, and I'll get to the business part of this as well that somebody asked about too. You have to have an allocation that you could live with in good and bad when the market goes up and goes down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And a huge concept of the right allocation, the right emergency fund, so you don't have to sell into the dip. You don't have to panic. And for all of us, that allocation will be different. There are fantastic tools online. Vanguard has a great set of tools that you could look at different asset allocations.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And how many years those allocations will result in a negative versus a positive to try and understand how you might react when the market goes down significantly. For many of us, it doesn't matter that the market's gone up 20% in the last couple of years.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
When it goes down this year, we still get very nervous and anxious, even though we know we're playing with ahead of the game because we're still uncertain about that. So understanding your market allocation and really having the allocation you can live with is so important because there's all this change and tariffs and everything that's around.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
From a business perspective, we talk about this a lot in healthcare. There's so much noise right now about potential Medicaid cuts, reimbursement cuts, and so forth.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And the best leaders I know can largely stick to their core plan, filter out a lot of the noise, not get into 1,000 different contingency plans, but also be smart about their business planning and understand, okay, I know that there's going to be potential cuts. I don't want to hire a million people right now. I don't make a ton of investments. I want to go very easy on debt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
But other than that, trying to stick to the core, because there's so much uncertainty always, whether it's tariffs, changes in reimbursement, whatever it might be, that you can't, as a leader, every two minutes, change your plan or change what you're going to do. You can't be a little bit more careful. in terms of times where there's great uncertainty.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I'm always a big believer in going really easy on debt. I'm a believer that debt kills countries, it kills companies, it kills families, and so forth. But I do think a core plan plus some sensitivity planning, if you've got this great uncertainty, is really wise. Let me sort of work through the next five issues we talked about, the next five mantras we have. One of them we've already talked about
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Here, inadvertently, it's number 11 on your list. Allocation is critical. Don't get bullied by an advisor into a more aggressive allocation that you could live with. You need to understand market allocation very closely and have an emergency fund.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And you do understand what's called behavioral finance, how you apply to it versus optimal finance versus what might be the perfect market allocation versus what you can live with. That's one of our core points. I am not a financial advisor. I don't sell financial services at all. These are things I've learned throughout my life from business and from investing that have gone right and gone wrong.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Another individual stock I invested in was Astera Labs. Astera Labs is famous for being one of the greatest losers this year in the stock market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
The next concept is, and we say this to anybody that will listen, don't quit your job during a recession. Don't quit your job during a period of fear. I'm not a believer. You see on Twitter all these people that are, burn the boats, get out of your job and just start your internet business, whatever. I am not a believer in that. I'm not a believer in the burn the boats philosophy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I'm a huge believer in keep your job, start your passion. Don't let it interfere with your job. Do a great job at your job. But if you want to start a separate business, start it, but don't burn the boats to do so. Don't quit your job during recession. Third concept, just a very basic concept, is this. Show up early to every business meeting or meeting of any sort. If you're organizing a meeting,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
It almost should always be shorter than the norm. I'll tell you, this webinar, I'm going to end up longer than I expected. The longer I go, the more people that will dial out. It's the same with every meeting you ever have. The best meetings I used to hold as a leader in the law firm, in the company, were the 10, 15 minutes. We did a status check on important things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I sat the other day through a four-hour board meeting for something. If I had my druthers, that board meeting would be an hour or 30 minutes. Almost always your meeting should be longer, shorter versus longer. And the next concept goes with that. Just like I don't believe this concept that culture is everything. I believe it's culture plus talents plus brights.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
80% of success is just showing up every day and doing what you're supposed to do. And that add out of that brights, drive and personal skills to make great success. We're a big believer in success. that it starts with just showing up on time and being at everything on time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
The concept, and again, it's a very small part of the portfolio that I invest in individual stocks, but you get constant reinforcement as to why it's a bad idea and why you're far better off not timing the invest, not timing the market, and sticking to index funds. So that's sort of mantra one. Don't time the market. Don't invest in individual stocks. The second concept is this.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
If you're holding meetings, if you're holding events, whatever you're doing, you're holding talks, shorter is almost longer than better. We did a study in our podcast. Our podcasts do much better on downloads when they're three to five minutes versus 30 to 40 minutes, different type of engagement. We know, but they do much better in terms of listenerships and downloads.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
We used to have at our conferences, people that want to speak for an hour and we used to have to explain to people Every audience member wants you to speak for shorter, and every speaker wants to speak for longer, and we're trying to hit this down the middle between the two, what our audience really wants and what our speakers want.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
The fifth concept here is constant communication is almost everything. In any business you're in, any relationship you're in, regular constant communication is so, so important to long-term success. The next five concepts are as follows. And once you get to a leadership position or once you get wealthy, the dirty secret is it takes tremendous discipline and
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
To stay the leader once you become the leader or to stay wealthy once you become wealthy. There's a great concept by Andrew Grove, founder of Intel or CEO long-term leader of Intel, only the paranoid survive. Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth there that you really have to stay very disciplined and very accurate if you want to stay great at anything that you're trying to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
So that's that concept. The next concept, some of these come out of just life experience, and we see this constantly, whatever you're doing in business or in life, always ask for an estimate before starting any project, whether you're hiring a lawyer, a consultant, you're hiring somebody to do painting.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I am a big believer in trust plus verify that there's always, you should always ask for estimates before you get going. So you don't end up getting surprised. Saw somebody recently get surprised with a huge legal bill. So it happened with a painting project, you know, and again, all fine, but we're a big believer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
One of the lessons is always ask for the estimate before starting the project, legal consulting, painting, anything you're doing, technology, whatever you're doing. Three more concepts in these five,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
As the economy weakens or struggles or you have uncertainty, always important to prioritize your spending to what you think is critical to go easy on debt, understand your asset allocation, and maintain your emergency funds. So that's the next concept there. The next one is a health one, injuries versus illness.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
As you get older and even as you're younger, you see more and more people with life-threatening illnesses, cancers, and so forth. I went through a period last year where I had two or three eye surgeries and injuries to the knee and knee surgery. And I have to tell you, you have to be so thankful for things that are injuries and at least largely reparable.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
versus the illnesses that other people suffer for. So be thankful if you have a repairable injury, it's no fun, but be thankful for it and that it's not the kind of illness that can kill you or be chronic and so forth. Another business concept, it's we find the very best business people are
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
really know their own business really well, and they know the business that they're in really well, and then they apply what they do in that context. One of the greatest compliments I ever heard about a CEO, and it's not that everybody should be a micromanager, this CEO managed surgeries throughout the country.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
We made so many people that have a great success in one thing. And when they have great success in one thing, they often think that this means they'll have success in everything else that they do. I was talking to a founder the other day, an extremely successful founder, and he's trying to deal with the next great concept that he's working on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And one of the things one of his lieutenants said was that Bruce, and his name was Bruce St. John, would know if a two-by-four fell in the surgery center in San Antonio before it happened. And it wasn't exactly true, but the concept is he knew his own business that was going on really well. In any business you're in,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You really got to know your own people really well, know your best customers, your best people, where your profits, your revenues are coming from. I mean, we view those as so, so important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Another concept that's similar to this, and this is really for people building professions, building businesses, and about the evolution of careers and growth, that you practice whatever you do, whether you practice medicine, you practice law, you practice PR, whatever you practice, You practice that. You get good at that. And then you practice leadership within that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Then you grow into a leader into that. And that's sort of how we view that. I'm going to stop for a second. Somebody asked another question about if I had one core business and leadership thought that I rely on. And I would say I break it down into three. But even there, I think there's one that overrides it is we break down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
business into three core concepts, then we add on a lot of concepts from there. We're a believer, at least for what I've built over the years and seen built successfully, to be niche-centric, to really be great in the niche. Second is to be hyper-customer-centric. Every customer, especially as you start to understand it, is really, really important.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And you have to tear your customers into the more important versus less important. And third is everything is about being team and talent-centric. If I had to look at one of those as the most important, team-centric, customer-centric, or niche-centric, I would say that it's team-centric. Every place I've had great success, we've built great teams.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Every place that I've failed is where I try and do the Twitter thing of being a solopreneur. If I look at one thing more important than anything else, it's building great teams. Jim Collins has a great theory. He's probably the premier business writer of my generation. wrote the book Good to Great and Others, that if you get the right people on the bus, you can figure out where to steer the bus.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And I do think having the right colleagues, the right teammates, and doubling down on those is everything. If I had to have one cardinal concept, it's that. Then it goes with being niche-centric, customer-centric, finding product market fit, and a number of other things. So I love that question. So thank you very much for the gentleman who asked that question.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I know it's gentleman because I know the person, but thank you very, very much. The next concept we talk about, and it goes back to investing, is this concept of save like a pessimist, invest like an optimist. So if I'm a pessimist, I would have so much money in emergency funds and cash and bonds, and I'm safe no matter what.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
One of the great pessimists of our time would be Warren Buffett, who's sitting on, I think, at Berkshire Hathaway, something like $300 billion in some crazy amount of cash to invest. I'm a big believer that he's got things much more right than wrong. Save like a pessimist, invest like an optimist. I'll also invest a part of my money into index funds, long-term equities,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I've got some in private equity funds, some in venture capital funds. We could have a whole different discussion on whether that's been successful or not, and in private companies. But yes, I'm going to invest X amount in equities because I'm optimistic in the long run. That's going to help me fight inflation and help us be wealthy and do great. But save like a pessimist.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Make sure you've got your nest egg taken care of. You've got your emergency funds taken care of. You've got your right ratio of bonds, equities. cash, et cetera. I love that concept. The third concept is, and anybody who's older will be able to appreciate this. There's a concept of don't let the old man in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And this is somebody that's had crazy success, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. And he spends all his time thinking about big, big ideas rather than incrementally growing again. And what I find is people that have had success in one thing, they have often had success in one thing for the right reasons. They really worked hard at it. They really put the effort into it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I don't know who originated this concept, but if you look at your friend group, you're a certain age, you move to young age, some of your friend group has done a great job of staying fit, trying to stay at it, trying to stay healthy. Others have let themselves go. And the great challenge of letting yourself go is It is harder and harder as you get older to get back at it if you let yourself go.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
There's a great book by Peter Attia about health, you know, and he talks about healthspan versus lifespan. And if you don't make the effort to sort of, if you let the old man in, if you slow down too much, physically, mentally, otherwise, you end up in a spot where tremendous challenges ever recover to where you want to recover.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Anybody that's taken days off of exercise or had to because of injuries know how tight things get, how creaky they get, and so forth. And the longer you let yourself not do stuff, the easier it is for it to become a permanent state of mind or state of physical being. Two more concepts I'll talk about. One of them comes from Jerry Seinfeld.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
He talks about he gets by on meditation, lifting weights and coffee. I'm a believer that I got to try and consolidate this balance of a little more meditation and a little more breathing, a little more calm to go with my generally hyperactive self and a little bit less coffee. Again, to do these things, more meditation, more calm, less coffee, to me is solely, of course, aspirational.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I struggle with them, but we try. The last thing we talk about, and it's really true about business, it's probably true about a lot of other things, is I hate people that complain. We think about things as either double down on it, stay the course, or abandon the effort. If you're building a new business, At some point, you got to make the decision.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You keep doing what you're doing, or you're going to double down or abandon the effort. Everything I've ever done well in life, at some point, incrementally, we've made the decision. It's now time to double down on this. And so we work on that concept of, okay, now let's double down on this. So again, these are the core starting points of the 25 business mantras, concepts, and thoughts.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
This is a different talk than the core talk we give on building a business that we've got a bunch of keynotes this year on or on healthcare trends where I've built most of my professional success around Becker's Healthcare and the business of healthcare. Again, Scott Becker at LinkedIn or text me at 773-766-5322. We'll wrap up now. Thank you all for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I really appreciate getting a chance to work on this discussion. i hope that you enjoyed it thank you very very much and thank you to michelle byers uh robson and and uh rosa mckenzie and team just fantastic madison thank you all at scora for your help and thank you for joining this becker private equity and business podcast webinar thank you very much
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And they often started small and grew from there incrementally. And what I find often in founders is once they've had that great success the first time, they tend to forget what it took them to have that success the first time and how they had to start small to get that kind of success and really find their product market fit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
So one of the things we talk about with people, if you've been a founder and been successful, or you've done anything and been successful, you can't take for granted you'll be successful in the next thing. You have to really work at the next thing like you worked at the first thing. The real lesson that you learn from the first thing is,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You know, either one of the kids, an in-law, a colleague asks me, oh, should I buy the dip now or should I sell the dip now? Should I sell now because the market's crashing and I'm scared? And the first concept we start with in everything, and people have heard this a million times, but it's been so pertinent recently, is you can't time the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
how much effort and some principles it takes to be successful at what you do. And then unfortunately, there's often no shortcut to the next thing. You've got to repeat those things. And so there's no assurance of success in the next thing without really digging in and starting at ground zero again on the next thing. And again, we use this mantra.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
We talk of this mantra because we see so many people that have success at one thing, think the next thing is a given and it's largely never is. The third concept that I just absolutely love comes from Nancy Lopez, and I'm older than a lot of people on the call. Nancy Lopez was one of the great original women's professional golfers. It uses the concept, the simpler I keep things, the better I do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And I think this is true in business. It's true in sports. It's true in almost everything that you do. The more that you could clarify, here's what we do down to a few core points, the better off that you do. The more that you're trying to do everything or all kinds of different things, the harder it is to really excel. I think it's true in golf.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
The more you stick to core swing, the better off you do. The more you stick to core game plan, the better off you do. That might not get you to play at a professional level, but to play the best you can play. And it's certainly the same in business. The more that you take care of customers in the same way, the more you understand this is how we do things, the better off you are.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I love the mantra from Nancy Lopez. The simpler I keep things, the better I do. The fourth concept is, that I think has been so overused is this concept that culture eats everything or culture is everything. There's this concept that's been talked about often in the business literature, culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And again, culture is very important because you have to align the right talent and the right team to do things well and keep them with you for a long time. So culture is very important. But this concept that's become a modern age discussion that cultures everything is, I think, very misguided. You can't listen to the fact.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
that it's culture plus strategy and really talented people are everything. And you might get those really talented people through culture, but I think there are so many people that have mistaken culture for also needing talent and strategy. You need both.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You need the best people around you, you need a great culture around those people, and you need a clear strategy, a clear plan for what you're trying to accomplish. But I think it's this concept that culture is everything. I hate that concept. I think it's important, but I don't think it's everything.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
The fifth concept that we talk about often in building things is we talk about this concept of digging ditches. Let's say you're starting a production and you want to have 50 attendees there. The first time you do it, that may be hard, but the reality is you get better and better at building that audience, at one-to-one reaching out, at developing what you're trying to develop,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
the easier it gets. And like in everything in business, you have to get to a flywheel concept to where you've done it so many times. We used to say in business, in building a legal practice, in building a healthcare media company, in building a business media company, that we have to dig 10 ditches. We have to reach people so fully
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And do what we're doing so well and have people so grasp on that at some point you get a flywheel going and those ditches start to dig themselves. But you have to sort of put so much effort in the front end to do that. If I'm trying to get 50 people to a show, I'm going to have to reach out to 300 people, 500 people, 700 people to get 50 there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
There are so many stats published about how the average turn of the S&P over 100 years is 8% or 9% or 10%. But the actual average that most investors get is far less than that because they end up trying to time the market. They end up selling out at the wrong time, buying in at the wrong time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And then once I learn how to do that, and I've got a regular list of people that will come to that show, at some point it may become easier and easier. But I've always got to make sure for each time we're creating the right vibe, doing the right thing, really working at it. When I think about that, that's how I think about things, is we have to dig 10 ditches until they start digging themselves.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And it's a metaphor for how much work it takes to get something going and keep on going and keep at it. And so many people that I've worked with over the years Many people have taken that to heart and realized it's going to be a couple years until they start to really, really see results.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Others have never gotten to that spot where things start to dig themselves, where things start to work out as they should. And so those are at least the first five consoles we talk about. You can't time the market. Having success in one thing is no assurance of success in the next thing. The simpler we keep things, the better we do. Culture is everything. No, it's not.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And to really get something going often takes tremendous work on the front end. Those are our first five concepts. So let me go through the next five concepts. And again, some of these are against traditional wisdom. That's sometimes why I like the concepts the most. The next concept we talk about is the concept we use of no new ideas. So everybody's heard this concept. There are no dumb ideas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
There are no bad ideas. There are no dumb questions. And the reality is, it's not that there's dumb questions. It's not that there's dumb ideas. But there comes a time in anything that you're doing where you've done enough thought and strategy on the front end that it's time to execute.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And it doesn't mean that as you're executing, you will add on some ideas and so forth, but execution is the core of what you're trying to do now. So let's say you've produced a show, you've produced a webinar, you've produced whatever you're producing. Now it's time to get to work on filling that webinar up, selling that webinar, whatever business you're in and doing whatever you have to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And what happens is there are, You can get in a spot, and we've seen this in different businesses, and some of the businesses I've served with or been a part of have grown into $500 million businesses, $800 million businesses, really successful businesses. We've seen a spot where leadership has to be very good at saying to others, it's execution time.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
We're happy to have your ideas, but right now it's execution time. We have to execute on whatever it is that's in front of us, whatever our big priorities are for the next couple of months or whatever period of time it is. So this concept of there's no new ideas, we get into certain periods of time. In the media business, it's a renewal season where there's really no new ideas.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And there's a ton of history that shows that if you miss just 10 days a year in the market, a few days a year in the market, you've missed most of the year's returns. Like there was one day a few weeks ago when the market went up 10%. If you had panicked and sold out before that, you missed that. And you can't time the market, trying to time the market, trying to buy the dip, not buy the dip.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
We've got to focus on renewals. We just had an annual meeting at Becker's Healthcare, 4,700 people, the largest meeting we ever had. There was some point leading up to that meeting We've got to get out of everybody trying to be the creative new idea person and get down to business and just making sure the business and the meeting executes how it's supposed to execute.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
So we're a big believer at some point, no new ideas. The next concept I'm going to tie together with two concepts that we think about often. The first concept is many leaders get really good at understanding they don't need conflict all the time, that there's a period of time where you don't need to upset the apple cart, that not every single thing has to be an argument.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
Not every single thing has to be a hill you have to die in. You could disagree with somebody on something, but you don't have to make it an argument or have a tiff with them about every single thing because it's just not necessary and not productive. So don't look for conflicts where you don't have to have them. Now, not everybody loves that. Some people are just prone to conflict.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I find people that are hyper prone to conflict aren't good to have in a business or aren't good to live with or what have you. So don't feel like you have to have conflict at every single moment. You pick and choose where you need to have it. There's a similar concept that we use in business that we have titled love your 90 percenters. And one of the things we see in business is
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You will have people that do a fantastic job that are A minuses, A's, B pluses, whatever they are, they're critical to what your business is doing, and they perform at a 90% to 93% acceptable rate. They do a great job overall. When I see leadership mess up, it's when I see leadership that focuses on that other 7% or 8%, that other 3% they do wrong.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
If somebody is doing something 90% plus right, you just embrace and love that person and what they do, and you don't deal with – you almost don't deal with that other 5%, 7% unless you could really do so in a positive, constructive way. But getting mad at that person or beating up on them over that 5% to 7% is almost enough to –
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
teach a manager to go back to management school, just a bad, bad concept. So those are two concepts tied together. Don't upset the apple cart. Don't create conflict where it's not needed and love your 90 percenters. The next concept, marketing versus sales. And this is, you know, again, goes back to the discussion. I'm trying to fill up a venue with 50, 75 people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
I could put out a thousand flyers through what I would call marketing air support, But reaching out directly to 100, 200, 300 people that are in the area is more likely to fill up that venue. And we constantly think about companies that want to skip the building of a sales team and want to spend a lot of money on marketing. And again, I'm in the media business. I'm in the marketing business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
But at the end of the day, marketing without a sales team is almost always a complete waste of time and money and energy. Marketing is ear support for sales. I mean, there are certain businesses, this may not be the case, where things are consumer, click on the button, buy it types of stuff.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
These are just fool's errands. And so constantly with that thought, and then the concept related to this that we use, and again, on your list of concepts, this is 25th, but it's not 25th in terms of importance. You shouldn't invest in individual stocks. Your core investment portfolio, at least for the huge majority of us, It should be built around index funds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
But in most of the businesses I've been in, which are business to business, media companies or professions, or working with companies, there is marketing. But at the end of the day, business is really built one-to-one, with customers, with clients, and your sales team to do that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And you almost, you might think you could skip the hard work through lots of marketing, but iPhone found marginally that it's not the case. Marketing, if it's lead generation, lead to leads, but you still need salespeople to really harvest and work with those leads. And similarly, this concept that in everything you do, Don't put the cart before the horse.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You need to, on a parallel path, build a sales team and build a marketing team if you want to do something substantial. So that's sort of the third concept of these five or the eighth in total. The next concept is a tweet we had seen, and I feel so bad because I forgot to put the name of the person on here, is life is a game. It's not only about winning. It's about having fun while playing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
And I think for everything that one does, I'm not one of these believers that defines your passion and just do that, just follow that. But I do believe in that whatever you're doing, if you want to do it successfully, the fun of it, the game of it, the challenge of it should be overriding.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
When I was first building a media company, first building a legal practice, we weren't thinking about dollars. We were thinking about building. And the fun was in the building, not the harvesting of dollars. Harvesting of dollars is always nice. But the fun is in the building. And you better love talking to people, visiting with people, whatever you're doing as a business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
You better at some point love it and cultivate that love. And you better have fun while you're doing it if you want to do it for a sustainable period of time. I always saw people that were investment bankers that they could go through the grind for a few years if they didn't love it and try to make so much money that they could just then do whatever they wanted.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
But by and large, if you're doing something for a sustained or longer period of time, You better find a way to enjoy it as well. It's for example, those people that talk about practice is so important. You got to find a way to make practice fun. So you actually could keep on doing it and enjoy it where it becomes almost as important as the outcome and the results.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
25 Thoughts, Mantras, and Concepts For Business and Life 5-16-25
But, but this concept that life is a game, not just about winning, but also the process. I had a chance to interview Nick Saban, the famous college football coach class. We get one of our meetings and he talks about his evolution as a leader and From, you know, there's leaders that are strictly results oriented to leaders that are transformational.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Trump Pivot 5-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the Trump pivot. So here's the deal. And increasingly, you see this from President Trump, where he takes out a position and then he pivots. And in some ways, it's fascinating to watch. And I don't necessarily think it's a negative, but I do think he is a learning, evolving person in his own insane way.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Trump Pivot 5-16-25
But the latest Trump pivots as follows. A couple months ago, he was all in on the U.S. creating a sovereign wealth fund. And again, many of us had the perspective that, well, instead of doing sovereign wealth fund, and there's all kinds of negatives of sovereign wealth fund because people end up favoring their allies, colleagues, something like that. I'm not generally a fan.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Trump Pivot 5-16-25
But instead of a sovereign wealth fund, wouldn't it be better to pay off debt? And sure enough, yesterday, President Trump announced that the next effort is to actually pay down debt versus creating a sovereign wealth fund. So this to me is the very latest in the Trump pivots. But it's quite frankly a Trump pivot I agree with, and it is fascinating to watch this presidency.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Trump Pivot 5-16-25
Whether you love him or hate him, it is made for TV presidency like no other, maybe the first one. Anyways, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Delta Wins the Survey 5-16-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Delta wins the survey. So here's the deal. If you fly regularly and you're on one of the big three airlines, meaning Delta, United, and American, You are consistently seeing changes in service, changes in how the flight attendants and team treat the customers, changes a lot of different things.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Delta Wins the Survey 5-16-25
And this is different than the logistics of the flights as to how often they're on time, not on time. But you get clear differences over time in how you are treated by the different airlines. So we did a quick survey yesterday as to who is your favorite airline of these big three, Delta, United, and American. So no surprise to me, Delta outperformed the other two.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Delta Wins the Survey 5-16-25
Delta by a wide margin was viewed as the nicest airline to travel on compared to American United. Of course, there were plenty of people that said they hate all the airlines, they're scared to travel, et cetera, et cetera. The second thing I was curious is as to whether there's a correlation between customer service and stock price. So here's what we found, not really.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Delta Wins the Survey 5-16-25
Delta and United are both down about the same amount year to date. American, which has been taking on the chin in the press and the customer service, is down about 31% year-to-date. So again, Delta United down about 15% year-to-date. In contrast, you've got American down about 31% year-to-date. So that's what we're watching. I just find it fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Delta Wins the Survey 5-16-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
I've got brilliant partners in my law firm. Some have decided to be on the senior counsel track because they want to spend more time in different ways in their life or don't want to take their practice of law, take so much of their mind space. Others have decided they are all in on leadership and have evolved to be leading the firm.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
Einer kann großartig sein und in beiden Situationen habe ich gesehen, dass beide die Leute, die ich in diesen Räumen denke, einen fantastischen Job machen, auch großartige Familienmitglieder zu sein und mit ihren Kindern und Haushalten fantastisch zu sein, aber nicht einfach. Aber in jedem Fall denke ich, dass beide wirklich glücklich sind mit ihren Entscheidungen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
Und ich denke, die Schlüssel mit all dem, dass es eine lange Rehabilitation ist, ist deine eigene Intention, deine eigene Selbstdeterminierung. Ich denke, das ist größtenteils alles. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity in Business Podcast. Today's discussion is intentionality and self-determination. So this topic came up in two different places over the last couple of days. First was, I was asked for advice for young careerists when I was speaking at a conference in Atlanta about the Young Health Leaders Summit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
And people asked me, what's your best advice? And my best advice for long-term happiness in your career Es ist ein gewisser Eindruck deiner eigenen Intention, was du mit deiner Karriere tun willst. Und das kann einfach und schräg klingen, aber in meiner Meinung sind so viele Profis und Leute, die ihre Leben durchgehen, wo sie auf einem Weg sind, wo sie tun, was sie tun sollten.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
They're really somebody else's agent. And that may be fine if that's what you choose to do. So there's something fantastic about being a 9-to-5 worker who just wants a job and then to be home and live the rest of their life. As long as that's what you choose to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Intentionality & Self Determination 5-16-25
But there's also something fantastic about choosing, I want to be a rainmaker, I want to be a leader, I want to become the premier expert in this or that, I want to carve out my own path in whatever it is. In my own sense is, None of those are necessarily more self-actualized than the other. Rather, the entire key is that you've chosen what you choose to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, I'm going to go through three quick stories today. I'll also give you again the Elon Musk scorecard for those that didn't hear it on the other podcast. So first, Oscar Health, one of the managed care stalwarts, tanked about 9% yesterday. It was followed by RH, which also tanked about 10% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
Finally, I'll talk about Tesla. And again, I'm not touching on the Boring Company and some of his other efforts. He's got so many. Tesla's down 40% year to date. It was the original transformative electric vehicle company. I'll give it a C currently. And again, these rankings are, of course, subject to change. This is an ongoing effort in review. We find it fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
As an aside, we'll keep on following closely inflation in tariffs and more. But now the Elon Musk scorecard, I love to watch this guy. Obviously, he's he's one of a kind, incredible energy. Maybe a little crazy. I don't know. But I'll briefly go through our scorecard. And I'll start with Starlink, which is this incredible satellite thing that's become so critical throughout the world.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
And we give that an A. We also jokingly give him an A for populating the world. I think he's got 10 kids. And again, it's not a commentary on his parenting skills, but I give that an A as well. We'll give Doge a B-minus. obviously sorely needed to cut debt and deficits. I don't know if we'll actually do it, but he's a bit all over the place.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
So we'll just give it a B minus until it all plays out more fully. SpaceX, overall, amazing how it's transformed space and how we deal with space travel. You know, it's almost taken over from NASA. Lately, they've had a few crashes, so I bring the grade down to a B to B plus, but truly amazing what they're doing. X or Twitter, overall, this is moving in the right direction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Quick Stories + Elon Musk’s Scorecard 3-14-25
I got to tell you, I've become addicted to Twitter slash X. We did our first Twitter poll on whether the government should reduce spending. 78% said we should. But again, I've become addicted to Twitter, even though it's ridiculous. I give it a B plus currently. It's obviously a bastion of a lot of crazies on it, but it's really interesting to see the dialogue on it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should We Reduce Government Spending: Twitter Poll Results 3-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to do two things this morning. We're going to talk about a poll we did on Twitter as to whether the government should reduce spending. Second, we're going to give shout outs to a handful of people that are stalwart leaders in business and in leadership. So I'll start with the Twitter poll. We did a Twitter poll.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should We Reduce Government Spending: Twitter Poll Results 3-14-25
Should the government reduce spending? And again, Twitter seems to bias a little bit to the right, so I'm not surprised at all by this answer. We got 1,800 responses on the poll, should the government reduce spending? It essentially came up with this, that 78% voted the government should reduce spending, 22% didn't agree that the government should reduce spending. I am not sure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should We Reduce Government Spending: Twitter Poll Results 3-14-25
As I parsed through all the stuff going on with Doge and And the Trump administration, I'm not sure that we actually will reduce spending in any serious way or not. I know we need to. But at least a large percentage of the country, at least based on this survey, which is completely unscientific, believe 78% believe that we should reduce government spending. I found the whole exercise fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should We Reduce Government Spending: Twitter Poll Results 3-14-25
What's also fascinating is on Twitter, you get all kinds of comments from the crazies on every side of the aisle. And it's great fun for me to watch that. A special shout out today to three of my close business colleagues, Howard Sutker, Nancy Temple, and Kelly Jo MacArthur, three incredible leaders. I'll also give a special shout out to two of the funds I've had a chance to work with.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should We Reduce Government Spending: Twitter Poll Results 3-14-25
Shore Capital Partners and Aqualine, two amazing groups of people and movers and shakers. So that's our shout out for today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you have a podcast suggestion, please feel free at any time to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you for listening today. We're going to walk through eight stories that we're following today. And thank you very much for joining us. First, as we see it, three key headwinds are causing the markets to fall. Tariffs, threats of government shutdown and potential cuts to government spending.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-14-25
Second, the risks of a government shutdown appear to be easing. Hence, the stock market is pointing up today. Let's hope that that lasts. There's an article in Bloomberg, Schumer retreats on government shutdown threat. Third, investors took money out of the U.S. stock market this past week in the biggest numbers we've seen in a long time. They've moved it largely to U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-14-25
treasuries and to European equities. We'll see how that goes. Fourth, PE exits are moving fairly slowly, but capital costs for LPs are starting to come very rapidly. Fifth, Intel Corporation jumped nearly 15% yesterday, a news appointment of an industry veteran as the new CEO. Sixth, the CEO of Starbucks is a winning CEO. Brian Nicole is revamping the chain quickly and making an impact.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
8 Stories We Are Following Today 3-14-25
The stock's only up 5% year-to-date, but you have to remember that the markets themselves are down significantly. I would bet on him and Starbucks. Seventh, RH... a company we love to hate, dropped another 10% yesterday. Finally, eighth, we'll keep following closely inflation, tariffs, and more. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI, Eli Lilly & SoundHound: 3 Stocks from One of Our Favorite Stock Pickers 2-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is SoundTown, Tempest AI, and Eli Willey & Company, three stocks from one of my favorite stock pickers. So here's the backstory. One of my favorite stock pickers has picked these three stocks as a couple of his core bets. And this stock picker has knocked it out of the park.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI, Eli Lilly & SoundHound: 3 Stocks from One of Our Favorite Stock Pickers 2-14-25
I'll just give you a quick rundown. Tempest is up 148% year-to-date. The founder of Tempest lives near us, has a private jet. Some of my friends ride on his private jet often. I just want to make sure he's got our phone number, 773-766-5322. If either the person with the private jet either wants one, a $100 Amazon gift certificate, or two, wants to give me a ride in the private jet.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI, Eli Lilly & SoundHound: 3 Stocks from One of Our Favorite Stock Pickers 2-14-25
I say that jokingly. Not a close friend. Good, good guy. But not somebody who's private jet. I'm going on. I truly only fly Air Abramson. Second, Eli Lilly and Company is up 13% year-to-date and still rocking and rolling. The third stock from this person is SoundTown, and that's down 13% today in the market. But at the end of the day, I don't worry so much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Tempus AI, Eli Lilly & SoundHound: 3 Stocks from One of Our Favorite Stock Pickers 2-14-25
It's been up like 500% over the last year. Again, three stocks we watched from one of our close friends, SoundTown, Tempest, and Eli Lilly. That's what's going on with those three. Sound Down's had a great run. Tempest is hitting it out of the park. And Eli Lilly is just doing just fine. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Crocs Surge 24% 2-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Crocs. So Crocs, which is that absolutely horrible footwear, I don't even think anybody that I know wears it anymore. If they do wear it, they're probably strange. And I say this, of course, all jokingly because I don't want to get canceled by Croc Nation. But Crocs rose nearly 24% yesterday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Crocs Surge 24% 2-14-25
And what essentially was an outbreak of people that are strange going to buy lots and lots of Crocs. I say that all jokingly. I know a lot of people love the Crocs, very comfortable in the weird kind of plasticky rubber way. It is what it is. But again, that stock is on fire. It's back to even year to date or so. It rose 24% yesterday. I don't think anybody saw that coming.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Crocs Surge 24% 2-14-25
If you're the first person to call me at 773-766-5322 and tell me that you love Crocs and you hate this podcast, we will send you a one-hour Amazon gift certificate. 773-766-5322. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 2-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are six of the stories that we're following today. And thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. First, the markets are relatively flat today after just a great day yesterday, a great recovery day yesterday. So we'll see how the day finishes, but overall relatively flat.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 2-14-25
Second, Bitcoin and Coinbase both jumped yesterday. Coinbase rose almost 9%, 8.5%. What a great day there. Third, Hims and Hers continues to rock and roll. It rose 27% yesterday. It's up more than 100% year-to-date. Valentine's Day may be driving the results of Hims and Hers. So that's what's going on there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 2-14-25
Fourth, Nvidia has scratched back to be up year-to-date after taking it on the chin after this deep-seek scare. Now it's a market cap of $3.3 trillion or so. It's squarely number two behind Apple and in front of Microsoft. Fifth, Microsoft is flat year-to-date and is a market cap of $3.05 trillion, putting it squarely in third place in the market cap wars.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
6 Stories We Are Following Today 2-14-25
Finally, sixth, oil prices are rising as the U.S. says it's committed to reducing Iran's oil imports and, quite frankly, putting sanctions on Iran. So those are six of the stories we're following today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much for joining us.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by a fascinating leader who's brilliant across both business, private equity, and healthcare.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
Thank you very, very much. And talk for a second about AI in health care, large learning models and so forth. What is some of your take on how these are going to impact health systems? I saw, for example, AdventHealth just hired a chief artificial intelligence officer. Is that something we're going to see more of? And where do you see some of the implications?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
We're joined today by Sarah Fuentes Molina, and Sarah's going to talk to us about what trends she's watching, where she's most focused, some of the digital health changes that are going on, and a lot more, and AI, too. Sarah, can you take a second and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your career?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
And it's really that intersection. I love that point. It's that intersection of the software or technology background with the healthcare background so people could really make sense of how to put these things to work. I was talking to a CEO yesterday and he was explaining that he's got, you know, a relatively young AI person on the phone.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
who just was able to command the entire call because that person knew everything about everything. And my colleague, who's closer to my age, felt sort of like, oh, my goodness, thank God that this person's with us because I just can't navigate this stuff. It's people who need help sort of navigating at that intersection of AI and health care, AI and whatever they're doing, don't they?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
Thank you very, very much. And Sarah, take a moment on what are you most focused on and excited about this year? Where are you most focused and excited?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
But that's really an important point because there's many, many companies, small, midsize, even large, that don't want to sort of, you have to work entirely with huge, huge tech companies where it's often their way or the highway.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
And obviously there's certain enterprise programs where you have to, but there's plenty of room where there's opportunities outside of that, but you have to make sure whoever you're working with outside of that is substantial enough could constantly improve enough and constantly get better. So you haven't made a bad choice in picking somebody that might be easier to work with, but not as large.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
Sarah, no, I love that perspective. And where can people learn more about you or contact you? Are you on LinkedIn? Where can they access you if they want your help in some of this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
AI & Healthcare Innovation: Sarah Fuentes Molina on Digital Health Strategy 2-14-25
Sarah, thank you so much. I want to thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, Sarah Fuentes Molina, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Thank you for joining us today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, MGM, Crocs, and Dutch Bros Coffee 2-14-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to go through hims and hers, MGM, Crocs, and Dutch Brothers Coffee. So here's the deal with these four stocks. Hims and hers, which I can't find the relationship between them and Dutch Brothers or Crocs or MGM. Maybe people go to the casinos and use hims and hers products if they're behaving poorly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, MGM, Crocs, and Dutch Bros Coffee 2-14-25
I just don't know. But all four of these stocks are really crushing it today. MGM's up about 16%, knocked it out of the park in earnings. Hims and hers are up more than 100% this year. Who the heck knew they'd be so successful at what they're doing? Crocs is up 19% today. Who wears Crocs anymore, and how are they doing so well? It strikes me as just literally ridiculous, but God bless them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, MGM, Crocs, and Dutch Bros Coffee 2-14-25
And finally, Dutch Brothers Coffee, also knocking out of the park, up almost 29% today. They skyrocketed on an absolutely great fourth quarter in their outlook for this year coming up. Amazing. So those are four stocks knocking out of the park. Whenever we talk about Hims and hers. We try and talk about Grindr as well. But to be honest, I have no idea how Grindr is doing today.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, MGM, Crocs, and Dutch Bros Coffee 2-14-25
But maybe when we talk about hims and hers, we should move to talk about Eli Lilly as well as they move into the weight loss category and try and clean up there. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. We hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy recording.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Hims & Hers, MGM, Crocs, and Dutch Bros Coffee 2-14-25
And also thrilled to see the Becker Private Equity Podcast ranked number one today in the Apple Business News category. So God bless you all for listening. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
Yeah, no, and it seems like there's lots of, there is a lot of chatter about The economy in general had its own issues prior to sort of engulfing in sort of a trade battle or trade war. And so you sort of have two big macro things going on and obviously will also be quite connected. zu dem, was mit dieser Handelskriegswahl mit anderen Ländern und den Tarifen und allem passiert.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
Und wie viel hat das ein bisschen einen Twist und Chill auf der globalen Ökonomik? Und dann zweitens, und faszinierend so, was passiert mit der Ökonomie generell? Gehen wir in eine Rezession? Sind die Rates steigend? An welchem Punkt gehen die Rates zurück zu wirklich niedrigen Rates, wie unter Covid?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
And even if Powell can control short-term rates, he can't really control long-term rates, because that's really based on how many people are willing to buy US Treasuries. And we do face some challenges if we end up in an international trade war of people stepping back from buying US Treasuries, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
So it does seem like, unfortunately, a tremendous amount of uncertainty after the markets had had a bump and deal activity had a bump after the certainty of a presidential election being done. It seems like a lot of the uncertainty has been unwound as we sort of go back and forth based on whatever the policy of the day is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by one of our top three most listened to guests of all time. We're joined by Matt Wolf, who's a brilliant, brilliant analyst. And Matt talks to us regularly about what's going on in the PE world, what's going on in sort of the M&A world and a lot more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
But what a challenging time as an M&A person, a deal person, a business person to try and figure out next steps. Matt, what else are you hearing from your investor clients, from private equity funds and so forth?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
Nein, und dein Punkt ist gut genommen. Ich meine, jeder Verhandlung, jeder Verhandlung kam bereits mit einem Rezession-Szenario, wo jeder geschaut hat, was passiert, wenn es um eine Rezession geht. Und jetzt scheint es so, in Bezug auf Verhandlungsdiskussionen,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
Those discussions have become paramount as to what does this asset look like, what does this business look like in the case of a real or serious recession. And that really does cause either people to really want to price it a serious discount to take into that account or just really, as you're saying, just hold off on deals until this clears out a little bit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
But it is causing a lot of uncertainty. And we'll see how it plays out. Matt, as always... Wir sind Theresa und Nemo und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Private Equity Outlook: Recession Risks, Market Uncertainty & Deal-Making Slowdown with Matt Wolf 4-11-25
Matt, it's been a fascinating time in the market. Some good, some bad, some ugly and a lot more. Tell us about yourself and your background and then let's talk about what you're watching currently.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by Chris Feldman. Chris is the Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Consulting at Palm Tree LLC. Palm Tree is a remarkable mix of a consulting firm, an investment bank, and really, really bright, bright people.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
Thank you. And take a moment, you know, in this time where M&A is a little bit softer and just starting to maybe get moving again, there's been so much discussion of tariffs, uncertainty, and so forth. How important is operations consulting and businesses just having their house in order and in great shape to make sure they're thriving either way?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
How important is that part of the business to your customers?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
We're going to talk to Chris today about sort of the deal market, the business market, and in light of tariffs, some economic concern that seems to be up and down, some days really positive, some days a little more concerning, but just a world in which there's a lot of uncertainty.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
No, I think that'd be great. I mean, there was just a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about increased challenges and people trying to figure things out through that, as well as recent talk by Mark Rowan, the CEO of Apollo, about challenges and almost a pause in the M&A environment.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
What is your sense of some of the shorter term challenges, the longer term challenges, and what people could do about that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
Thank you. And then in the services world, you know, outside of that sort of the sort of hardcore goods world, are you seeing a different take on tariffs or similar concern? What do you see here out there on the services side versus the good side where people are importing goods and so forth?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
Chris, before we get started, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and Palmtree?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
Thank you. And we saw over the last two weeks, since things hit a really bad spot a little bit ago in the stock market, the deal market, all of a sudden we saw a record run of positive days in the S&P, all of a sudden more optimism, things looking a little bit more exciting and positive. The stock market's back up, which often is, it's not directly correlated to the P.E.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
deal market, but it gives people some hope that things are looking more positive. where is some of the good news on the horizon? Where can we see some of these silver linings, as you just mentioned?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
Thank you. And what are you most focused on and excited about currently? You head up the Chicago office, you co-head consulting. Chicago seems to remain vibrant from a business perspective. And the consulting remains one of the core, core areas. What are you most focused on and excited about currently?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Navigating Tariffs and Market Uncertainty: Value Creation in M&A with Chris Felderman of Palm Tree LLC 5-9-25
Simply fantastic, the work that you and your team do. Again, we're visiting with Chris Felderman today, Palm Tree LLC. Great, great group. Chris, I want to thank you as always for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. You've got about the brightest team in the business. We really appreciate you spending time with us. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
We Need More Doctors Now 5-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's podcast is titled, We Need More Doctors Now. So here's the issue. We are becoming so short doctors in our country that this is a disaster happening right in front of our eyes. And Jess, notwithstanding all the discussion about everything,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
We Need More Doctors Now 5-9-25
We need very tuned in, very smart doctors to help diagnose and take care of our people in our country and to make sure things are done correctly. You can argue all that you want that preventive health, technology, artificial intelligence, physician assistants, and nurses will take care of all these problems. And I think they're all helpful.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
We Need More Doctors Now 5-9-25
But at the end of the day, we also need the best and brightest doctors very badly as well. This is our core thought for the day. We're watching the health care system become dauntingly short of doctors in so many places so quickly that it's damn frightening. Thank you for listening to this rant on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Match vs. Grindr 5-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is match versus grinder. And again, this is not a discussion on being hetero or not or being gay or not. I don't care what anybody is. I think everybody should have the right to do whatever they want. I don't care. But match group versus grinder.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Match vs. Grindr 5-9-25
And again, if you're the first person to comment, we'll send you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Match vs. Grindr 5-9-25
There is a concept here that match group relates to longer-term relationships, people trying to find their match. And I'm sure this is totally wrong because I'm sure people matches all kinds of assets that are short-term and long-term. I don't know. I've been out of that market for some time. God bless. But the point being, match group dropped 10% yesterday and Grindr is up 37% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Match vs. Grindr 5-9-25
So I don't know if that means that more people are moving towards less heterosexual relationships, which is all fantastic. God bless you. God bless anybody who does. I don't care. I love everybody. Or if this means people are moving towards more short-term types of hookups versus longer-term relationships. Again, I don't know, and I don't judge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Match vs. Grindr 5-9-25
I guess the real point is, and I'll bring this back to the stock market is, I have no idea what the macro trends mean for the dating scene, whether LGBTQ or heterosexual, nor do I care.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Match vs. Grindr 5-9-25
I guess my advice would be is to buy index funds because I don't know if I come up with serious analysis out of the short-term dating that goes with Grindr and how well their stock is doing versus Match Group getting knocked down 10% yesterday. I don't know. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. I would love your comments and thoughts on this. 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The S&P 500 Rebounds 5-9-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the S&P 500. So here's what's going on at the S&P 500. And this is the signal for investing, just something people should all think about as they look at investing. First, the S&P 500, after being down significantly this year, is now down about 4% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The S&P 500 Rebounds 5-9-25
And that's simply a remarkable turnaround from being down nearly 15% to 20% at the height of the tariff scare. There's really three lessons that come out of this, at least. One is, you have to buy and hold for the long run. You can't, number two, try and time the market. That's a fool's errand.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The S&P 500 Rebounds 5-9-25
And then the third lesson is, and we talk about this often, is you have to know your allocation of S. That's equities to bonds to cash. So you're not so overweighted in equities that when things go in the wrong direction, you don't panic and sell. So three quick thoughts. Buy and hold. Don't try to time the market. Know your allocation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The S&P 500 Rebounds 5-9-25
If I was going to add two more things onto that, have an emergency fund and also don't Get yourself in too much debt. Keep yourself out of too much debt. So five quick thoughts to go with the S&P. Thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Amber Walsh. Amber's a leader at the intersection of healthcare and private equity. She joins us regularly. She's from McGuire Woods, talks about trends she's watching in the deal world, the private equity world, and more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
Thank you. And when we see these carve outs, we're seeing so much in the private equity world of people having a harder time exiting the sponsor deals. Like I just came across my desk, a sponsor deal where they're selling the deal, but they're selling it to another company controlled by the sponsor and more and more of that different ways to exit.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
When you look at the corporate carve outs, what are you seeing there? What what's going on? What's driving a lot of that activity?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
Amber, I think you're coming to us today with six quick bullet points, trends that you're watching. Tell us what those are. Tell us what you're seeing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
opened up a and this has been going on for you know as long as there's been private equity but again last year saw an uptick including in health care thank you and i think that's that's part of the point is that these are often good assets they're just caught in a corporation or company where it's not the primary goal of that corporation or company is that a fair statement
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
No, fascinating. It makes a ton of sense. And Amber, any more observations? We're seeing sort of private equity is trying to put money to work. but having a hard time hitting that exact price number between them and the sellers.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
And this might make a different avenue for private equity funds to put money to work because these are deals that are not necessarily, the corporation's trying to get a great price, but they're not as responsive to other investors and they've got other corporate reasons to exit the business.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
So it might be easier to find a price, to come to agreement on price with the buyer and seller in these deals.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
Yes. No, and that's fascinating. And right, the founder to sponsor, the sponsor to sponsor. I mean, so much of the deal world revolves on sponsor to sponsor. Sponsors from the existing deals are having a hard time getting the price they want from the new sponsors. So you've got these new ways in which sponsors
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Healthcare Private Equity Carveouts: Trends and Insights with Amber Walsh of McGuireWoods LLP 3-7-25
New sponsors or existing sponsors have money to put to work or trying to put money to work. What a fascinating ecosystem. Amber, as always, I learned something talking to you. I appreciate it so much. I know our audience does too. Again, Amber Walsh, Executive Committee at McGuire Woods. Fantastic, Amber. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Taking it on the Chin 3-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is seven stocks that we watch closely, taking it on the chin. And I'll just walk through seven of these stocks pretty quickly. The first is Carvana. And I'm not an investor in most of these companies. I'm an investor in one of them. That one's not doing any better than the rest.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Taking it on the Chin 3-7-25
Carvana dropped 13.5% on Thursday. Had a tough, tough week. Always unsure if it's smoke and mirrors or a real company. Second, Marvel Technology in the semiconductor chip business dropped 20%, a disaster. Hims and Hers dropped 16% on Thursday. Palantir, a company we're investing in directly, I was the biggest fan of. One of my biggest winners is no longer that. It dropped 11%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Taking it on the Chin 3-7-25
Netflix dropped also around 8%. So Netflix and chill, I guess. My portfolio is chilling. Tempest AI, the brilliant cancer oncology company, I company dropped 8%, 9%. And Peloton, and who uses the Peloton anymore, dropped again by about 9%. So it's a disaster in the market for those companies and many, many more. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
7 Stocks Taking it on the Chin 3-7-25
Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Does the Economy Suck Enough for the Fed to Cut Rates? 3-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, and bear with me on this, is the economy sucks, but does it suck enough for Chairman Powell to lower rates? So this is the sort of very sort of Goldilocks situation that we're in. New jobs created this past month were less than expected, about 151,000 to 160,000,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Does the Economy Suck Enough for the Fed to Cut Rates? 3-7-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Does the Economy Suck Enough for the Fed to Cut Rates? 3-7-25
new new unemployment claims were also lower than expected they expected about 236 we only got 221 000. so what you've got is a slightly softening jobs market and and that's enough to cause fears of recession
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Does the Economy Suck Enough for the Fed to Cut Rates? 3-7-25
But not quite a slow enough job market and not quite enough slow enough inflation and all kinds of concerns around inflation riding around tariffs that we don't know what Fed Chairman Powell and the Fed will do on rates. So what you've got consequently is a slowing market, slowing job market, pretty stable inflation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Does the Economy Suck Enough for the Fed to Cut Rates? 3-7-25
What people think of as quote unquote stagflation, stagnant economy and inflation. And that's leading the Fed to have to hold still and not reduce rates. And that's leading the market to take this quite negatively, as well as responding to all the tariff talk.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Does the Economy Suck Enough for the Fed to Cut Rates? 3-7-25
And so you've got the situation where things suck, but they don't suck so bad that the Fed's going to lower rates and try and boost up the availability of credit and to make credit cheaper. So that's what we're sitting on now. I hope you liked this simple analysis. I hope it's understandable to all of us. Always feel free to text Scott Becker with ideas for podcasts, ideas for talks, 773-766-5322.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're going to discuss today three private equity, private credit, and investment questions from readers, plus three stories that we're following today. So I'll start with some of the reader questions and also mix in some of the news of the day.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
The second question from a reader is, what is going on with PE exits and multiples? So at the end of the day, multiples remain fairly steady and only very high in premier deals. Multiples generally have not gone up over the last few years. They've softened as financing has gotten more expensive.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
We don't expect currently multiples to go up until we start to see the Fed reduce rates and the cost of financing go down.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
In serious rate cut environments, when the rates were really going down, private equity funds made out really well because they could sort of ride the escalator up to find what their company, even if it did okay, and just the rising multiples would help them arbitrage as it bolt-ons or just kept things moving in the right direction, and you were able to get exits at higher prices.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
Now, as multiples have stayed very steady to lower, it's been much harder for private equity funds to make out and make profits on exits like they did in a rising multiple environment. The third question we got from a reader is, who are the biggest players in private credit?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
So largely the biggest players in private credit are some of the largest PE funds like Aries Management, Blackstone, Apollo, KKR, Goldman, and others. There are also great next level players like Sixth Street, Emerald Capital, and many others. The industry is as big today as the traditional bank syndicate market, if not bigger,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
And again, anytime you have a reader question or a question, a listener question, feel free to text Scott Becker at 773-766-5322. We'll also drop these into some separate, shorter podcasts, too. First, how do you adjust your investment strategy due to tariffs?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
And we'll quite frankly continue to grow until the federal government decides that they need to regulate private credit, private debt, or if they do banks. At this point, private credit, private debt is a lot more freedom and flexibility than does the banking market. So those are three of the questions that we're answering based on reader questions.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
Three of the stories we're following today, and I'll get to the jobs report too. Walgreens Boots Alliance, big, big story, going private and $10 billion deal with Sycamore Partners. The sort of a fascinating what was a retailing behemoth going private, the full value of the deal could be as much as $24 billion with additional earnouts as well as debt assumption and more.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
The other story we're following, other couple stories we're following from a general business public today, Elon Musk's wealth has lost about $102 billion in the last two months as Tesla stock hits the skids. That's reported in Business Insider. Finally, sixth, a few stocks are taken to the chin. Carvana dropped 13.5% yesterday. Marvel dropped 20%. Hims and Hers dropped 16%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
Palantir dropped another 11%. Netflix, Tempest, and Peloton also dropped 8% to 9%. So a lot going on there. Finally, jobs report, new jobs created, not so hot, about 151,000. The unemployment index creeped up to 4.1%. We'll see how that all goes. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
I'm generally a believer that as you get serious about investing, that you should spend a good deal of time up front understanding your allocation of assets to equities, to bonds, to cash, also your domestic versus international exposure. In looking at your overall allocation, you shouldn't forget about the private part of your portfolio, too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
And you also should have a serious emergency fund in case things go badly or so you don't panic when the market goes in the wrong direction.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
Then, if you get your allocation right, you shouldn't generally be making a lot of changes as the markets go up and down, whether tariffs or other types of things, assuming in the long run that they're probably somewhat temporary versus long-term negatives on the market.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
Now, of course, there will be some investors that are just gurus, brilliant short sellers, people that play the market in a totally different way that will make out like bandits when the market has big turns, ups and downs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Reader Questions + 3 Stories We Are Following Today 3-7-25
But for most of us, it really starts with understanding your asset allocation, really focusing on that, learning what works for you and sticking to that versus changing it a lot based on tariffs or not tariffs. Great article today in Reuters about U.S. equity funds seeing outflows. But generally, get an allocation right, have an emergency fund, and stick to your allocation.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is TIROS, the good and the bad. So here's the issue with TIROS. And we'll talk about the bad second because there's plenty of bad in TIROS. But the good or the purpose in tariffs shouldn't be lost on us. The reason for tariffs is as follows. One, the U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
That's sort of the purpose of tariffs, if done in a thoughtful, intelligent way, is to try and protect American workers' salaries and wages, even though it has an inflationary impact. and to try to implement other policies that we're working on.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
For example, if China uses child labor, which I haven't seen recent articles about China using child labor, and we're importing from China at very low cost, that would be a good reason for tariffs to increase the cost of buying goods from China so more goods are bought here. The final thing with tariffs that's on the good side is that when you employ tariffs
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
You make it more attractive to manufacture here, and then that leads to more better-paying middle-class and lower-skilled jobs than we've had, and that provides a bolster to the middle class. So that's sort of the reason why you like tariffs is our import imbalance is huge. Our deficit's huge.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
A lot of places that we're importing from are using wage workers much, much lower than our wages, which means our workers are losing jobs to them overseas. And third, by engaging in tariffs, we end up hopefully helping and spurring on some of the manufacturing here. So that's good. Now, here's the bad.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
I'm quite frankly not against reasonable tariffs, particularly when our lunch is getting eaten by overseas countries. What I'm against is what feels like a whipsaw policy or a policy by sort of the seat of the peons.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
If we want to work on, and there's multiple reasons that are wrong with this, if we want to work on a coherent trade policy that speaks about tariffs, fine with that, quite frankly, at reasonable levels. The challenge that you have now is, Every day comes a different tariff and a different exception in a different situation. This is a problem because U.S.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
manufacturers, if we want to move back manufacturing here, if it's done by the seat of the pants, even if it's done without political consensus, then any investor here or manufacturer here knows that this might not last throughout this administration or throughout the week, because it's very hard to really bring back manufacturing here.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
So we have to have some clarity in this trade policy, some ongoing clarity about what is planned, what the intention is, so those here can plan around it. That's absolutely critical. The other thing that's happening with TIRAS – and I saw this today – If you criticize the Democrats for constant special interest politics, you know, I saw a lot the last few days.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
I know so many NGOs for political causes that Democrats supported were supported by the federal government. That to me is abusive and horrible. But if I hate it on the Democrat side, I got to hate it just as much on the Republican side when the last person that goes to President Trump's office, in this case yesterday or today, the big three, get some exemptions from tariffs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
has a horrendous trade imbalance with the rest of the world where we import a lot more goods than we export. That's good in that we ultimately end up getting goods for cheaper prices overseas. It's like a net whoosh of dollars out of our country to other places.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
If we're going to have a coherent trade policy and a thoughtful trade policy, let's have a coherent trade policy and a thoughtful trade policy that's not so based on special interest and who talked to the White House last. So that's our thoughts on tariffs. So Good, they might serve a real purpose.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
Bad, if they're done without part of a coherent trade policy, they're just a ridiculous mess and stupid and ultimately counterproductive. I mean, the other negative on terrorists is if we believe that trade with other countries leads to peace with other countries, sort of ramping up a trade war without a coherent, thoughtful framework is a horrendous thing to do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. And thank you to our wonderful producer, Chanel Bunger. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
It's also bad in a lot of places because when we have imports that are much better than exports, much bigger than exports, it often means that we're buying from countries where the minimum wage is a fraction of what our minimum wage is, and we want our workers to make a good wage. Second is we're also buying from countries that don't enforce environmental protections like we do.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Good and Bad of Tariffs 3-7-25
So we're indirectly, by importing a ton of goods, supporting much lower wage labor and also supporting a lot more pollution and less environmental protections than we have. So why don't we talk about those things? Trade imbalance and buying from countries so much where the workers are getting paid very little and where essentially the environment is being beaten up horribly.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
This is Scott Becker from the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're joined today by David Pivnik, and we're going to discuss today prima donnas in business and sports and a lot more. David, I want to take you through really three topics at least. One is the Luka Doncic trade.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
How important is it as a potential marquee player Like Patrick Holmes, who's now a marquee player, of course. How important is it that he's paired with a great coach? And if you're a young quarterback, do you feel like your opportunities are so different based on who your guide or coach is? Or how do you view that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And let me ask you a final question. We've talked about, you know, Eagles Chiefs. We've talked about the Luka Doncic trade and what it means for the Lakers and the Mavericks. And also the Mavericks get to avoid the $325 million contract, but they're giving up one of the greatest players in the game.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
We've talked about Zach Levine and Jimmy Butler and the Michael Jordan and the evolution of leaders. I'm going to ask you one more question. And you are, not only are you a sports expert, you're a brilliant lawyer, but But you're also our expert on all things Canada, because David, as people might know, is both a Canadian citizen and an American citizen.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And we're watching President Trump because he can't help himself at some times. And I'm not an anti-Trump person. I'm just not that much of an anti-Trump person. But makes this joke about Canada being a 51st state. And just give us the Canadian perspective on that, because that must just be annoying and irritating. Or do people take it as a joke and realize it's just being ridiculous?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
But what is the take on this when President Trump says something like that? You're a Canadian expert. You're a sports expert. You're our legal expert. You wear a lot of hats, David. Give us a sense of this of this issue of, you know, how does Canada take it when Trump says something dumb or jokes about Canada being a particular state?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
You know, and then then Trudeau sort of fights back and tries to go after red states versus blue states. What is going on between the U.S. and Canada? And how do we bring this back to a, you know, to a to a comfortable, you know, a comfortable spot? Because obviously great, great allies and great, great friends.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Yeah, it just seems like to be making enemies for no reason. And like you said, there's going to be X percentage of the population that really is vitriolic about it and views it as like we should get arms ready because of President Trump. It's just stupid. It's not necessary. And I'm not an anti-Trump guy. I just don't think it's necessary to create fights we don't need to have.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
We're going to have conflicts in the world as it is. But fascinating to watch. I appreciate your thoughts. We will finish today's rendition just because I am a patriot for sure. But I feel like we almost ought to finish this rendition of the podcast with a mix of O Canada and the National Anthem to bring that brotherhood back between Canada and the United States. And if I could sing, David...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And I know this, I cannot sing, I can't dance, I can't run, but I could do so better than you can. If I could sing, I would sing O Canada in honor of our Canadian friends and then also sing the, you know, America the Beautiful. We do them both. Thank you so much, David.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
A hundred percent. But no, we're huge fans of our friends in the North, whether they're bright or not bright. You know, we're a huge fan of the whole Canadian nation, the Mounties, everything. I know there's more to it than moose and Mounties, but one of the great countries in the world. David, thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity Business Podcast. What a pleasure.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Talk about this, because there are people like Charles Barkley saying that this is actually going to work out better for Dallas than people are projecting because of the combination of Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis and that between the Supermax contract and some other reasons there are people in Dallas that wanted Luka gone. What's the reality of this? Because this seems such a strange thing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Luka is a top-five player, and some of the speculation is that Dallas management didn't love him. But what is the speculation on this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
We're going to talk sports today, mostly, so people that just want to listen to business and private equity, we're going to let you know right away. We're going to talk about Luka Doncic. I'd like to talk about the Eagles Chiefs. And then I'd also like to talk to you about Zach Levine and Jimmy Butler. People talk about the parts being greater than the sum. I want to talk about why some leaders...
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Let me ask you this question on that, because one of the things that happens is, and I've been in boardrooms where this is the case. I've been in businesses in this case where,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
We're, you know, the criticism that the Lakers are taking, if there's any at all, most of the stuff on the media is very positive towards the Lakers, is that, and I think your point on a transition from LeBron to the Luca era is right on. But what about this concept of this double threat of Luka and LeBron?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And other people are saying there's just not enough basketball for the two of them to be on. You know, there's just not enough ball to be passed around for the two of them to both be happy. What's your what's your sense of that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Some players, some business executives are so hard to build into teams. Let's start with your take on the Luka Doncic trade, your take on the Eagles Chiefs, and then let's talk about why some players are so hard to make teams better. David, what are your thoughts on the Luka Doncic, Anthony Davis trade, Lakers, Mavericks, big surprise to the league. What are your thoughts on this?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
A fascinating take. Let me take you through two more players, and we've watched them closely. They were both periodic, the Alpha, the Superstar, and the Chicago Bulls. Both of them take a bad rap for different reasons. I don't know if it's a bad rap, but let's talk about Jimmy Butler and Zach Levine. I mean, Zach Levine's gone for a night.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Watch the Bulls last night, and it already seems like they're better, even though he's such a crazily successful offensive weapon. It already seems like it's opened up some more space for some other people. And what's the deal with this? How are these guys so good? Jimmy Butler's an outright talent. Zach Levine's an outright talent.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And Jimmy Butler, different teams have gone far with Jimmy Butler, with Zach Levine not so much. Talk about talent versus building cohesive teams that really work. And give me your take on Jimmy Butler and Zach Levine and, you know, why Jimmy Butler can't get along and why Zach Levine just never wins.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Let me take you to Zach Levine for one second. Because at the end of the day, no one is upset that Zach Levine is gone. I don't think anybody's upset about that, even though he's a great offensive talent. you know, we always thought he'd be piece of a piece of the part of the puzzle. And we get a couple more guys like Don chicken, LeBron, you'd have a couple of talented guys and they'd get better.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
But, but nobody's upset at this point to see him go. Are they, I mean, eight years here and nothing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Yes, and no one's excited about Patrick Williams, quite frankly, either, correct?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Thank you. Now take us to Jimmy Butler. What is the deal with Jimmy Butler? This is a crazily talented player. What is the deal with Jimmy Butler? Is he Dennis Rodman-ish in that he's so talented, but has so many mental or mental health issues? What's the deal with Jimmy Butler?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Your point is so well taken, and there are translations, of course, to the business world. Zach Levine would be a great talent, but never as effective as one expected him to be. Michael Jordan as a leader evolved to at some point, and there's all this discussion about Phil Jackson and Tex Winter and trying to get Michael to realize that his teammates were important too.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And he would say, yes, but you finally got me some talent to go with me and Scotty Pippen and Horace Grant and other guys over the years. But Michael was an evolving, evolving player and person. who didn't win until he evolved some and started to value his teammates, his fellow executives, if you will. And then Jimmy Butler was also talented.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And you would say is not nearly as if Zach Levine had a knock on him, it would be that he's a little soft as a player, even though he's a crazily talented scorer. Jimmy Butler is not that, but you would say Jimmy never softened the way that Michael did towards being able to play with other teammates or executives.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
Thank you. Let me take you to the last subject of the day, Eagles versus Chiefs. And this is a fascinating matchup. I mean, Patrick Mahomes is generally very, very well liked, but it seems like the general temperature people that I talk to are just sick of the Chiefs winning. What do you project is going to happen here? Eagles or Chiefs, who's going to win?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Prima Donnas in Business & Sports with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 2-7-25
And is Patrick Mahomes one of the greatest of all time? Where are we at on that?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
There’s a New Champion in Town 2-7-25
this is scott becker with the becker private equity and business podcast today's discussion is there's a new champion in town and this is not about you know one of my golfing buddies none of them are champions tennis friends none are champions none of them are this is about amazon amazon is now the new and reigning champion
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
There’s a New Champion in Town 2-7-25
It's going to be the leading company in the world in revenues at the end of 2024, as it likely overtakes Walmart, which it's been behind seemingly forever. Amazon's going to clock in at $638 billion in revenues, almost 2.5% of the U.S. economy. And that's a crazy, crazy, or 2%, something like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
There’s a New Champion in Town 2-7-25
That's a crazy, crazy thing to think about, that a handful of companies make up a serious percentage of the total U.S. GDP. But in any event, Amazon came in. Record revenues, record profits. Now, it's down a few percent today, basically on the news that it's expecting, a sort of softer first quarter forecast. But nevertheless, $638 billion in revenues.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
There’s a New Champion in Town 2-7-25
The new king, there's a new champion, a new king in town, and that's Amazon. Apple's the king in market cap. Amazon is now the king in total revenues. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 2-7-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're coming to you today, Friday, February 7th. Thank goodness it's Friday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, just past 7 million downloads. We passed 17 million downloads of the Becker Self-Care Podcast. We are so thankful for our listeners. Thank you so, so much. Today's discussion is the agony of defeat. So here's the story. And I hate to... bother your start of your weekend with my golf problems.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
We're tied. We go to a playoff hole, a final hole. And I screw up the playoff all. And this is where I feel. I feel the agony of defeat. And that's, again, an old great phrase from the wild world of sports. But my God, I lived it today. Congratulations to Scott Levy. I've already zelled you. I don't want to hear about it. I'll be back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
But I snuck out, as I often do, to play nine holes against a buddy of mine who's very sarcastic, a guy named Scott Levy, terrific guy, love having a chance to play nine holes with him weekly. And usually I win a lot more than I lose. But that has not been the case this year so far. This year, the first time we were out, we tied today. When you talk about the agony of defeat,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. People my age recognize that that was the tagline for the wide world of sports, one of the great programming things of all time back in the day. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Today we go and we're just playing nine quick holes, trying to get it in between work and stuff like that.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
And I'm up, I think, two or three holes and just knocking the socks off of the ball and playing focused golf and just really playing brilliant golf like it's supposed to be played. Like they had it originally meant to be played when they invented it in Scotland or they invented it. This is the golf I'm playing. Then, of course, the caffeine that I've had this morning kicks in. My nerves kick in.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Agony of Defeat 6-6-25
My general distractions kick in. I start looking at the phone, figuring out what we're going to podcast about today. I should have known we're going to podcast about my awful closing out of this golf match. And I fall apart. He plays fine for the remainder of the holes. I end up going, I'm up two or three. Then I'm down up two. Then I'm down one. Then, of course, we get to the last hole.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Microsoft vs. NVIDIA 6-6-25
Jetzt kostenlos testen auf shopify.de This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Microsoft versus Nvidia. And here's where we're at on this. You as an investor shouldn't view this as either or. Microsoft now has a 3.51 trillion in market cap as of currently. NVIDIA ist aktuell bei 3,47% im Marktkurs.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Microsoft vs. NVIDIA 6-6-25
Als Investor bin ich individuell in Microsoft investiert. Ich bin nicht individuell in NVIDIA investiert. Natürlich bin ich es durch Indexfonds und alles andere. Ich wünschte, dass ich es war. Ich wünschte, dass es der Fall war, dass ich mich individuell investiert habe. Aber die Realität ist, dass du gerade noch einen Spot hast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Microsoft vs. NVIDIA 6-6-25
Nachdem Apple der langfristige Marktkurs-Kreis war, ist es in der Verfügung von Microsoft und NVIDIA. Microsoft, von Satya Nadella, ist Nummer eins. We're at a spot where NVIDIA, ran by Taiwanese immigrant and brilliant person Justin Wang, is number two. 3.47 trillion mark. That could change at any time. Yesterday they were almost even. This morning there was a bigger gap. Now they're closer.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Microsoft vs. NVIDIA 6-6-25
We'll see how this goes. But what a fascinating thing to watch. These behemoth companies continue to grow. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is RH or Restoration Hardware Part 3. So here's my promise to our listenership. I'm done talking about RH for a while. I'll tell you, RH, just to give you a background on this, plunged 40% yesterday. It's down 60% today. It's down 67% year to date. It's a bit of a cluster.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
My friend teased with me about it to this day. But it's part of my love-hate relationship with RH. So I, since then, said to my friend, I hate their business model. They just got 20 really nice locations. You can't buy anything on site. It turned out their business model was pretty good for a while. I don't know if I was right or wrong, but because of how I was treated on that one occasion,
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
I take a certain schadenfreude joy in watching them be down 67% year-to-date, 40% yesterday, 15% today again. And I know that's horrible. It's almost Tim Walz's in its obnoxiousness, because I don't want to wish bad on anybody who's doing business in America, or really doing business almost anyplace. God bless you for being an entrepreneur and trying to drive our economy.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
But RH, I do have that love-hate relationship. It comes out of a very dark place of, you know, growing up as a seventh grader that was a little bit chubby and always being a little bit insecure. It is what it is. But God bless our rates down 67% year to date. And thank you all for listening to the Becker Private Equity in Business podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
The CEO's got one of the biggest egos of anybody in the world. They just did a stock repurchase and some other things to try and goose up the stock price. Took out loans to do so. Morons, moron financial moves. I hate these financial engineers. It is what it is. But I'll tell you why I hate RH. And again, it's down 6%, 7% year to date. I love the furniture. We have lots of it in our house.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
It is what it is. I think it's a good upper market brand that's not insane, but very nice, but can be insane. But the story is, when I grew up in a family that was not wealthy at all, periodically had challenges and so forth. Talk about too loud. You might offend some people and so forth and so on. But when I finally had money as an adult, went to RH to shop.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
And of course, I dressed how I always dress, which is not well. And one of my close friends describes it as, God, you dress like my buddy who doesn't care how he looks. And I thought that was offensive, but he didn't mean it in a bad way. But I go to RH. We have one of these beautiful salespeople.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Restoration Hardware – Part Three 4-4-25
looks at me, looks at, I'm there with one of my best friends, a guy who owns an auction company, and looks at me, looks at him, and immediately walks past us to the next potential customer that looks more like a real customer. I then said one of the things I regret saying about, you know, I can afford to shop here, et cetera, et cetera, and it was so embarrassing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, should I buy the dip or should you buy the dip? So here's the great question. People ask as though they could really time market and really understand when a dip is a dip or when it's just the start of a dip. There's all these different phrases, these idiomatic type phrases like
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
Buying the dip is the kind of stuff that Stupid people say advisor stay because nobody knows really what the dip is. You don't know if it's going to dip another 20% or not. What you do know is if you keep an allocation that's the right allocation for you, that you can live with the downside, win on the upside, then that's what you want to work towards is the right allocation for you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
Don't catch a dropping knife or something like that. Should I buy the dip or not buy the dip? Here's what you should do. One, you probably shouldn't sell into the dip. Two is you don't know when the dip is. What you really want to do is take the time to study what is the right allocation for yourself and your family in terms of what should be your balance of stocks versus bonds.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
then what happens is you try and keep that allocation. And everybody's got a different sense of what that allocation should be. You know, the old adages, if you're young, you could have a much higher allocation equities because you could live for the long run and know that it'll likely bounce back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
The flip side is if you're a nervous Nelly, which some of us are, you ought to keep a balance of equities to bonds, to cash, so that you can sort of deal with this however it plays through.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Should You Buy the Dip? 4-4-25
I know 100 years ago when I was much younger, and so one of the first market professionals of my lifetime, I spent so much time on allocation studies to understand what allocation works for me from a behavioral finance perspective. This, of course, made me the investor version of a nervous deli or whatever you want to call it. But it is what it is. You got to figure out what works for you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion, will the markets rebound next week? And this seems to be the thought or question that in everybody's mind, it's what we did is what we now find myself loving doing. We did a Twitter poll on this question and we've got so far 2,500 votes. It gives us a sense of where people are thinking.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
Anyone who thinks this is going to be a quick fix for decades of trade imbalances needs to wake up. And that's probably fascinating as well, because you have this situation where we have been running these horrible trade imbalances. We probably had to do something. But at the same time, this is scary for a lot of us. And so we'll see how it goes.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
Another person says, and he calls himself the horrible semi-fascist, I think. If tariffs are so bad for an economy, why do 170 countries have tariffs on U.S. products? Perhaps try using some critical thinking instead of anti-Trump rhetoric. Another person says, huge bounce back Monday.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
Again, not a scientific study, but what I get overall is people saying that we're not going to see a quick rebound yet, but at some point we'll see what happens. We'll see how it goes. What a fascinating thing to watch. You know, will the market rebound soon? I don't know. Got a bunch of different thoughts on it. Got a bunch of thoughts that think it was, that hate what Trump is doing.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
A bunch of people that think it's about time he did it. The investors right now are not liking it, but we'll see how it goes. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
So far, and I'll give you a lot of the comments in the poll in the background. So far, 40% people say the markets will rebound next week. 60% say no. I view Twitter as probably a little bit today with Elon Musk and everything else, maybe a little bit right centric. So if the results show 40, 60, maybe that's really 30, 70. So less likely to see it rebound next week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
Let me just go through some of the comments from people. One, give it about three weeks for all the new trade agreements to be publicized, and we'll see how that goes. If that does happen, if we do see a lot of trade agreements publicized, then we probably will see a rebound. Second, similar thought, the markets will rebound when new tariff agreements get signed.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
Third comment, may not be next week, but they will rebound, then explode. Another comment, and I think speaks for a lot of us. God, I hope so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Will the Markets Rebound Next Week? 4-4-25
mine is getting crushed meaning their holdings are getting crushed another person says give it a month another says we're heading into a full-blown depression let's hope not somebody else says not unless these tariffs get walked back i could see this decline going on for a while could be next year the change has to happen and there's a lot of people that have that those thoughts as well and i'll just give you another one
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Notes on Tariffs 4-4-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's podcast is going to be a short podcast, three notes on tariffs. First, the markets tanked yesterday and they look like they're tanking again today. Truly a tough week for investors. Let's hope for a better week next week.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Notes on Tariffs 4-4-25
Second, one of the most interesting and telling headlines I saw in as to how we got here from the Wall Street Journal today. The Wall Street Journal has a headline story that says the rest of the world is bracing for a flood of cheap Chinese goods. I find this fascinating because this is part of the problem. And I'm not sure I love how President Trump is handling it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Notes on Tariffs 4-4-25
But this is part of the challenge. And I'll go to point three. I am not a big fan of tariffs. At the same time, I do understand it is very hard to have higher wage jobs here if we are buying goods that are made for $3 an hour overseas. Again, I'm not a fan, but I understand some of the concepts. That's sort of our three quick points on tariffs this morning.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
3 Notes on Tariffs 4-4-25
And we're in for a bit of a wild ride right now. We'll see how it plays through. But that's what we're seeing. That's what we're talking about. Thank you for listening to us on the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Anytime you have a comment, an issue, a question, feel free to text Scott Becker, 773-766-5322. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, & Becton Dickinson 5-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, and Becton Dickinson. So here's what's going on with these three. Coca-Cola, which has seemingly been outperforming Pepsi, took it on the absolute chin yesterday and dropped 12%. It's now down 6% year-to-date or 5% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, & Becton Dickinson 5-2-25
The company Coca-Cola is a Berkshire Hathaway total staple. Second, Eli Lilly, which seems to have been forever on a tear the last couple of years, was down almost 12% yesterday. His Novo Neurodisk caught a key deal with CVS to have their GLP-1 be listed as the core drug on the formulary for CVS.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, & Becton Dickinson 5-2-25
Finally, Becton Dickinson, the medical device company, fell 18% yesterday, has released solid earnings, but it projected reduced guidance for the year. So even though it had a great quarter, it projected softer guidance for the year, and the stock literally tanked 18%. So that was a big negative for Becton Dickinson yesterday. So that's, again... Coca-Cola down 12%. Eli Lilly down almost 12%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, & Becton Dickinson 5-2-25
And Beckton Dixon down 18% yesterday. A lot of moves out there. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The EV Stocks & the Bank Stocks 5-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is the EV stocks and the bank stocks. So here's what's going on with the EV stocks and the bank stocks. I'll do the bank stocks first. Thus far, Bank of America is down about 8.6% year to date. JP Morgan itself is up 3% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The EV Stocks & the Bank Stocks 5-2-25
So in the battle of the big banks, JP Morgan outperforming Bank of America thus far. Second in the battle of electric vehicle makers, Tesla down 30% year to date, Rivian up 3% year to date, and Lucid down 60% year to date. One of my friend's spouses is in the process of buying a Rivian. I know spouse A would like to kill spouse B for spending that much money on a vehicle, but it is what it is.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The EV Stocks & the Bank Stocks 5-2-25
Again, that's here to date, the big bank stocks and the big EV stocks. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Gives you a sense of what's going on out there.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 5-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. These are five of the stories that we're following today. It's Friday, May 2nd, and thank you for listening. First, the markets point way up today so far. They're up almost 1.5% at the S&P, a little bit more at the NASDAQ. Ultimately now, through the end of April, the start of May, the S&P 500 is now down around 4% or so.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 5-2-25
Lucid Motors is down 16% year to date and Rivian's up 3% year to date. We'll see how that finishes out. Again, those are five of the quick stories we're following today. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 5-2-25
After today, maybe a little less than that. That's not very bad after the year started so horribly, so that's good news. Second, Microsoft jumped 7.6% yesterday and now has a market cap that's up to $3.16 trillion. Apple was down about 3% pre-market, but China and the U.S. are starting tariff talks. Maybe that'll help Apple. Apple's down about 14% year-to-date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 5-2-25
It opened the day with a market of $3.2 trillion. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day, Microsoft, again, takes a top spot for the highest market cap company from Apple. There's been a lot of trading around the last year where NVIDIA at one point was way up there at number one.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 5-2-25
Third, Apollo Global Management, the massive private equity fund, had solid earnings, but it remains down about 16% year to date. So far, it's doing well essentially on fees, but not so well on true deals and exits, which is applicable to the market as a whole. Fourth, Astera Labs is the single biggest loser in our own portfolio this year. It's down 47% year to date.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
5 Stories We Are Following Today 5-2-25
So whenever I think I'm a genius, I just remember my investment in Astero Labs, which is down 47% year-to-date. Fifth, just very quickly, the big EV stocks, Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian. Tesla remains down 30% year-to-date. There are plenty of people that are bullish on Tesla in the long run, others that are bearish but fascinating.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion comes out of a discussion I had the last few days at one of our conferences where somebody boldly proclaims to me, I'm just trying to pay it forward. And when they say that, I'm immediately taken aback because I'm a believer that let's say I do something for charity.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
So what I found was our audience, at least our pollies, the people that filled out the poll, are overall less skeptical people than I am. So 29% said, take them at their word. 5% said, look at them strangely. 19% said they're full of crap. They're full of BS was the word we used in the poll. And finally, 47% said, take it with a grain of salt.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
So maybe people do see it like me, but I was so caffeinated when the person said this, I literally just wanted to smack the person. And of course, I would never do that because you can't do that, particularly at a conference, professional business conference. Somebody says something that sounds so disingenuous, you just want to slap them.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
But you're not allowed to in today's society, which is right, which is good. You can't slap the person who says this kind of thing or punch them or do whatever you want to do because it's just not appropriate. But you can take it with a grain of salt. 47% agreed with me to take it with a grain of salt. 90% probably agreed with me even further that they're full of crap, full of BS. 5%.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
took the position I actually took, which is to look at them strangely. And then 29% said, take them at their word. And that's the most generous group of people in the world. So I applaud that extra 29% that said to take them at their word. I'd really like to break down, do they really believe that or not? Are they just saying it in response to Paul? But it's anonymous, Paul.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
So you can say whatever you want. In any event, I found it to be a fascinating discussion. I can't stand people that are so obviously, to me, so disingenuous. We're all somewhat self-motivated in different ways. Some people are more giving than others. No question about it. But even when we're giving.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
Few of us have the ego to not want to have some recognition or some thank you or some appreciation for that giving. In any event, I found it to be a fascinating discussion. I hope I haven't offended anybody too much. But the concept of that we are just doing this to pay it forward, to give it back, is enough to often leave me with a great sense of nausea.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
When somebody does something for charity, and that would be maybe one example of paying it back or giving it forward or whatever you want to call it, there are usually multiple motivations for giving to charity. You want to feel good about yourself. You want to help others. You want to be recognized for your charity. You want somebody to know that you did it.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. If you listen to this podcast and you like it or hate it, if you think I'm a horrible person or a good person for thinking like this about the person who said this, feel free to text me 773-766-5322. And I'll be happy to send you the first one, a $50 Amazon gift certificate.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Thank you very, very much.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
There are lots of different reasons why people do things. And what I find is almost always the motivations are mixed. They're not just pure. It's not just because you're trying to just give it back. So when I hear somebody say, I passed on a great job and took this job, because all I really want to do is pay it forward and give it back.
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
I am always a little bit, I mean, I'll tell you what my real response is. My real response is, I want to slap the person silly because I think they're so damn disingenuous or so lacking a self-awareness. So that's my real response. Slap them silly. But I was trying to figure out, am I alone in this thought? And am I just a bad person for believing that they're so full of BS?
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
What We Think When People Say They Are Paying it Forward 5-2-25
And so what I did is, which I often do, is we did a Twitter poll on this. When somebody says to you, I do what I do to pay it forward and to give back. Do you take them at their word? Do you think they are full of crap? Do you look at them strangely? Do you take it with a grain of salt?