Longevity as the Moat

`2:09:41`

And maybe that's not even that long, all things considered, but it's quite long for most. Yeah. No, that's incredible. And it was awesome, and most of these are family-owned small businesses. They just nailed some things and got them right, and I love businesses like that have been around for a long time. — I'm not talking about us here, but there's something about, if it's been around that long, it's not a fluke. You can have something that's hot for a while, and it can go out. That's kind of a fluke, or a trend, or a fad, or something. But to be around for a long time signals that there's something, that is repeatedly right about this thing, right enough to stay in business for a long time. A lot of these businesses are tight. Like, you could have a dry cleaner, their margin's thin, and maybe it just is enough for them to get by.

`2:10:28`

But they'd rather still be doing that than something else. And so, they're in it for a long time. It's not that it's a great business, but it's a sustainable business. And that, to me, is a great business. If they can keep doing that, Right. There you go. It's the same insight you had earlier with the leaf. You're like, "Why don't you look at this leaf- — Yeah. —...it has evolved forever." — Yeah. — Do you know who Mark Spitznagel is? — No. — I read his book called "The Dao of Capital," and this was probably seven years ago. — Hmm. — He runs this hedge fund. I don't even know if he's still doing it anymore. But he has an entire chapter in that book on conifer trees. — Uh-huh, yeah. — He's like, "They're the tree that is present and can survive in the most- — Yeah. —...extreme environments on Earth." — Yep. — "They've been evolving for extreme time period," and he was drawing all these parallels between a great business that could survive- — Yeah. —...using the insights he derived from studying these trees,

`2:11:15`

which I think is, is very fascinating. — Yeah. — I love it. I've often thought of our business as an oak tree. I love oak trees. Oak trees are trees that I love. — Bezos uses the analogy of Amazon as an acorn that grew into an oak tree. — Hmm. I don't think about it as the acorn so much. That's cool, though, — Yeah. —...especially "A," "Acorn," "Amazon." — Mm-hmm. — There you go, whatever. Wonder if he thought about Acorn as a company? — No, it was... — Never. — You remember this. You're old enough. — Yeah. — The directories were in alphabetical order, like... — Oh, yeah, that's why... — Remember? — That's right. Remember, there wasn't that many websites, — That's right, that's why he named it. —...so you could actually list them all. — That's right. I remember that. I remember reading that. — And he almost did, like, "Abracadabra." — Hard work or something like that? Yeah. — No, it's like Abracadabra or something like that. — Yeah. — And then people thought it was cadaver, and they're like... — Ah. — It's like, that's not a good association. — Funny. They don't sell cadavers there, do they? — No. — No, they don't. They don't. It's amazing. The "Everything Store" doesn't sell cadavers. — Yeah. — Okay. So, I've always thought about our business as an oak tree,

`2:12:03`

which is like a... You know, oak trees are very stable. They can withstand a lot of storms. They don't grow very fast. They're actually quite slow-growing. Some are faster than others. But in the Midwest, where I came from, a bur oak is a very slow-growing tree, but it lasts a long time, can weather a lot of storms. And I've always found that to be a very appealing kind of tree to be, versus a cottonwood, which grows really fast, makes a lot of noise. Like, you can hear cottonwoods when it's windy. They make a big mess. Everyone notices them because there's cotton all over the place, and they die in about 75 years, or something like that. And they come down hard. It's just not as interesting to me. I don't need to be flashy. I don't need to leave signs all over the place that I've been here. Just going to be nice and quiet, build a great business, keep a solid foundation, add a little bit every year, so it just feels more stable,

`2:12:50`

and weather storms. Over the years, in the tech world, there's a lot of... If something comes out, it's like, "It's a killer. It's a Slack killer. It's a Basecamp killer. It's a whatever killer." When you've been around for a long time, you see that played over, and over, and over. There's a lot of things that are killing, supposed to kill something else, but very few of them can withstand and outlive the storms that come. So, you can be hot for a while. But the hardest thing is just to stay around, to stick around. So people are like, "How do you compete?" Well, we just stay around longer than everybody else. — Yeah, the line I have on this that's repeated over and over again in these biographies is, "You just stay in the game long enough to get lucky." There's going to be- -Yeah. —... something that happens in year five, 10, 15, 20.