A lot of the people that have been with LSS have been with LSS for more than 10 years. And so I acquired a team that was extremely knowledgeable and are just, just fantastic and amazing at what they do. And so I felt like, you know, I was not only was I buying great business, I was buying a great team.
Acquiring Minds
Buying a Wide Moat in a Consolidating Industry
Excerpts · 417 segments · ~1:28:37 long
Short excerpts only — hear the full conversation on the publisher's site.
And that really excited me because, again, I knew nothing about the industry. So I needed to have this strong team that would help me get up to speed and would be okay with that. And they were fantastic with that at the beginning and they still are.
I say all the time, like, I don't know, ask so and so, right like they're, they're the boss of that department, not me. I don't know the answer for, you know, the specific number of jewels one AED goes up to at the second shock. Right. Like, ask them. They know that way better than I do.
So that was another really appealing reason why I wanted to buy this business.
You seem to have no problem admitting you know what you don't know. A lot of people, you know, kind of people who might be listening to this podcast, who are types of people who buy businesses don't like that feeling or just they don't like the feeling of not knowing. They don't like to admit that they don't know.
So there's partly ego, but partly, there's a. There's also a practical question of this ties into the kind of professionalism versus not thing that we were talking about earlier, where at some point people are going to expect you to know and it's not going to be okay not to know. And so, and so you feel like, you know, in the early days it's okay, I assume you correct me if I'm wrong.
In the early days, when you're new and everyone understands that it's okay not to know and just don't hide that eventually you will be expected to know and. And you fully expect that you will over time as you accumulate information.
Exactly, exactly. But I actually think there's nothing wrong with obviously over time. Like, you don't want to always be saying I don't know. Like, if you're always saying I don't know, like, that's not a good thing.
Right. But there's always going to be things that you don't know. I always strive to be the dumbest person in the room. So whenever somebody else likely could answer something better than me, I'll always give them the floor.
Right. And this is actually one of the first things that I learned working on the trading Institutional equities Trading desk was on. I think it was like my first roadshow. I think it was actually the first one, my managing director.
He pulled me aside. I hadn't even. Nothing had happened. It's not like it was like a conversation. But he said, the one thing you need to drill into your head about this industry and this job is management teams and investors are going to ask you questions and you are not always going to know the answer.
Do not, do not try to make up an answer or whatever you think is the right answer. Just say, I don't know, but I will get back to you and then get back to them when you find the answer. It's as simple as that.
Want what comes before or after? Hear the full episode on the publisher's site ↗