00:00:21.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:10.000Man, my story is one of coming from humble roots.
00:01:14.000I just remember being 14 years old and trying to convince McDonald's I was 15 years old so I could get a job.
00:01:19.000And from there, I just had a bunch of jobs.
00:01:22.000And then by the time I was, I think, 23, 24 years old, I really understood that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
00:01:28.000I was working at JP Morgan and was learning some great stuff, but I realized I was on the wrong side of the table for really how I was wired.
00:01:35.000I wanted to be that entrepreneur that was, you know, controlling those commercial banking accounts and building enterprise and being capitalistic.
00:01:42.000We live in the greatest country in the world.
00:01:45.000And we're losing part of it, but boy, there's so many great stories that come out of a free market.
00:01:49.000Oh, it's, I mean, the free market enterprise we have here is unbelievable.
00:01:52.000So just really at 23, 24 years old, started thinking about it at 25, pulled the trigger, started my first business.
00:01:59.000And, you know, it sounds complex and daunting when you think about starting a business, but it wasn't.
00:02:04.000I talked a couple of my best friends into joining me and went online, formed an LLC and got a website, and I was in business.
00:04:06.000So, you then went from automotive parts to what?
00:04:10.000You have a whole portfolio of businesses now, but walk us through the story.
00:04:13.000Yeah, so the story is this: I started my first company in the automotive industry, and I learned the concept of vertically integrating.
00:04:20.000So, what I learned is that if I could really get to know my customer and what their problems were, that there were plentiful opportunities to start additional companies.
00:04:28.000And so, over the course of about 10 years, I started 10 different initiatives, which really turned into 10 different businesses, all the way from products and services to the last business I launched in the automotive industry was a B2B e-commerce technology company.
00:04:42.000But all of that was by studying my customer and really understanding what their problems are.
00:04:48.000And that alone gave me just more fuel than I would ever need to start businesses.
00:04:53.000When you started, especially in the first couple of years, did you have a business plan or did you just have desire and energy?
00:05:00.000Because that's young people, all these students say, Well, I'm studying entrepreneurship in college.
00:05:04.000I think it's the greatest waste of time ever.
00:05:06.000Yeah, I don't think you study entrepreneurship.
00:05:07.000I mean, having been an entrepreneur for 10 years, in my own regard, you do entrepreneurship and then you adjust and you adapt.
00:05:19.000It had about five spheres on it, and uh, it said I was going to do these five different things.
00:05:24.000But ultimately, I never sat down and wrote out a plan.
00:05:26.000It was really about tenacity and drive.
00:05:28.000And, you know, entrepreneurs always talk about taking risk and it and entrepreneurialism being wired for the risk.
00:05:34.000I really saw it as being more about the mystery of you really didn't know what was going to happen, but you were going to go after it and you were going to be passionate and driven.
00:05:40.000And I learned early on that I was going to be as good as the people I could surround myself with.
00:05:45.000And the cool thing about being an entrepreneur is you can surround yourself with the smartest people in the world and you still get to keep your job because they're on your team and they're working with you.
00:05:54.000There's talk about how you select people on your team because that's a question a lot of young entrepreneurs give me: how do I select people and understand the different types of personality?
00:06:34.000I'm looking for someone that is tenacious, that's driven, that's committed, that's really a curious, ferocious learner, someone that just wants to keep learning, that's diving into education, whether it be through podcast, whether it be through having great mentors, whether it be through reading, whatever it is.
00:07:36.000No, I actually founded these businesses that ultimately became part of a much larger business in the automotive industry and just very fortunately had the companies acquired by Berkshire.
00:07:48.000And so what did you learn in that process?
00:07:59.000Yeah, and really understand how to build a business that has enterprise value and what that looked like.
00:08:04.000I never in my life had any idea that this set of circumstances would come together.
00:08:08.000But is what I learned is that if you build a business that is driven on profitability and truly building enterprise value and you're playing the long game, and you can align that business with super smart people, you never know who's going to knock on the door.
00:10:15.000Eventually, yeah, and then he put about $200 billion behind it.
00:10:22.000Look, it's kind of a confusing time right now to be in the housing market.
00:10:25.000In times of uncertainty and challenge, you need seasoned mortgage experts with decades of experience that are problem solvers and solution providers.
00:10:33.000Just this weekend, I was talking with my friends, Andrew and Todd from AndrewandTodd.com about a potential home that we might want to buy.
00:10:40.000And we were talking about the pros and the negatives and the cons.
00:12:46.000Yeah, so how do you balance margin with doing something beautiful?
00:12:48.000Well, the more, I mean, my experience has been the better quality product you make and the better brand that you can deliver to the marketplace, the higher price you could charge.
00:12:56.000And ultimately, the more margin you're going to have.
00:12:58.000So I think your greatest insurance against protecting margin is to have undeniably the absolute best quality product or service that you have in the marketplace.
00:13:07.000And if you have that and it's undeniable, I don't think you get beat up on pricing as much.
00:13:11.000Yeah, and that's contrarian to how some people try to flood the market with cheap nonsense, right?
00:13:18.000Or they try to, you know, erode the quality, you know, do things overseas and all that sort of stuff.
00:13:26.000So let me, so you, you, you're, one of your life's calling is to raise up other world-class leaders and innovators.
00:13:33.000We have a massive crisis in our country of a decline of entrepreneurship.
00:13:50.000So I think it's happening because the education system that's in place is definitely not aligned with the skill set and the tactical knowledge that someone needs to have to be an entrepreneur.
00:14:03.000Quite candidly, the education and the information that you need to be an entrepreneur is far less complex and complicated, in my opinion, than what you learn in traditional academia.
00:14:15.000I also believe that your vision needs to be based on your knowledge.
00:14:20.000And ultimately, we have a lot of people in our country that unfortunately have a vision based on hope and aspiration, and they really don't have the knowledge behind what it takes to deliver that.
00:14:30.000So look, I had a great experience in college.
00:14:44.000I don't know what else we did, but I met my beautiful wife there.
00:14:47.000So, you know, I had a great experience, but I would tell you that based on what I do today, the four years that I spent in college were not a great use of my time as it pertains to what I was doing on campus.
00:15:00.000I just don't think our academic system is aligned with what people really need to understand to be an entrepreneur.
00:15:14.000I'm afraid of the people that are right on the edge, the people that could become entrepreneurs, and they might get saddled with debt and bad ideas.
00:15:21.000We need a society where we have more entrepreneurs.
00:15:24.000We have more people that are rising up and more people that are taking risks.
00:15:35.000And we live in the greatest country in the world, even despite our challenges.
00:15:39.000We live in the greatest country in the world when it comes to free enterprise and capitalism.
00:15:42.000And listen, there are some things that are challenging that right now.
00:15:45.000But I could tell you, if entrepreneurs rally together and rise up, that's what's going to win this.
00:15:49.000Let's, but I want to talk about, yes, it is great, but it's not for everybody because tell me, I'm sure there was a time that was a fork in the road, or maybe you had nothing but success, but where you had to probably say, I don't know if we're going to make payroll or talk about that because that's also not for everybody.
00:16:20.000Yeah, being involved in an entrepreneurial environment, I believe, is for everyone because it's healthy, it's invigorating, it's life-giving, and it's opportunistic because as the business grows, it creates opportunity for everyone involved, unlike big bureaucratic organizations.
00:16:37.000I mean, I remember in probably 2007 or 8, we were in a hurry to ship some product to one of our customers at an automotive dealership, and we were shipping it from Dallas, Texas, trying to get it to California.
00:16:50.000And we couldn't get it there fast enough.
00:16:52.000We thought we were going to lose the customer.
00:16:54.000And I had a shipping manager that had the bright idea that we were going to put these highly flammable chemicals via an overnight flight.
00:17:02.000And sure enough, the product leaked, didn't cause any damage, but the plane had to make an emergency landing.
00:17:55.000And then I had to deal with my shipping manager that decided, you know, he was going to put some product on a FedEx plane that only needed to be shipped around because it was a highly flammable, combustible chemical product.
00:18:09.000And you talk about what allows businesses to succeed.
00:18:12.000And I think a big part of what allows businesses to succeed is not giving up on people and making the investment and growing and developing people.
00:18:19.000So the guy that made this horrible move, I put my arm around him.
00:18:23.000It may have been more like a headlock, but I put my arm around him and explained him the mistake he made, told him what he cost the company.
00:18:42.000And I have, you know, Charlie, you ask about these stories of making payroll.
00:18:47.000You know, there were definitely a lot of tough days of knowing if we were going to make, not knowing if we were going to make payroll or not.
00:18:52.000But we also had some product failures early on where customers really could have given up on us.
00:18:58.000I remember we had a product that we launched in 2003, 2004 that measured the tire pressure of automobiles.
00:19:06.000And we pre-installed this product on 400 vehicles.
00:19:12.000And our commitment with this product was that tires were going to stay properly inflated because of this product that we brought to market.
00:19:19.000And we installed these products in Phoenix, Arizona in July.
00:19:24.000And there was a plastic seal, and we had 1,600 flat tires.
00:19:29.000So the very opposite of what we said we were going to do.
00:19:32.000We had a customer call us that had 400 vehicles on their dealership lot and they had 1,600 flat tires.
00:19:38.000And there was a lot of screaming and yelling that was going on.
00:19:55.000And we sold that product into the marketplace for another 10 years, and we never had that happen again.
00:20:00.000But, you know, I have found that customers that you collaborate with, that you work with, that you bring into the fold of what you're trying to do, that they're not only your best customers, they become your best friends.
00:20:12.000And I had a lot of people as I was building businesses that, you know, there was no work-life separation.
00:20:48.000We focus on people that are out in the field, whether it be women, men, children, families that are out hunting.
00:20:55.000And we build highly sophisticated rifles that are built around accuracy, primarily built on a carbon fiber stock chassis and with carbon fiber barrels.
00:21:38.000We have amazing customers and business is really good.
00:21:41.000You know, obviously during COVID, a lot of people learned about the outdoors, all the way from taking on shooting as a sport to hunting to just being outside.
00:21:50.000And it certainly helped our business in a big way.
00:21:53.000But we've been able to maintain the momentum.
00:21:54.000So let's talk more broadly, more macro.
00:21:57.000You're involved in a lot of businesses.
00:21:58.000One of the ways that I think the three enterprise system is being put in jeopardy is inflation and the central bank policies.
00:22:06.000You know, I think that we are in an environment right now where government's trying to be big and they don't exactly know where their place is and what they need to do.
00:22:17.000But one place that I feel like government does have a place, if any, is in helping us have regulatory systems around banking.
00:22:26.000I think that's really important that we have that.
00:22:29.000As Americans, I know we want to make sure we have a sovereign, strong banking system in place.
00:22:34.000And I think that's a place the government can help us.
00:22:39.000So the one place that, you know, we really need our government to take a hold, being good fiduciaries, make sure that there's compliance across the banking institution network, and they completely failed us.
00:22:53.000I think it's sad and it's completely unnecessary.
00:22:57.000You know, the bank that was a catalyst that really caused all of this to start, which obviously is nowhere near over, we're just beginning, had very poor management systems and processes in place.
00:23:09.000And, you know, I think the victim of what's happened with the banking system over the last few weeks are not the banks.
00:23:18.000It's the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and the hundreds of thousands of employees that are that are missionally driven, that are trying to build extraordinary businesses.
00:23:26.000And who to think in the United States of America that we could have a bank that fails?
00:23:30.000And it's happened before, but it's so rare.
00:23:49.000But the reality is that's something in our country we shouldn't have to worry about.
00:23:53.000And we're worried about it because the government just, quite candidly, didn't do their job.
00:23:59.000I mean, and it's, and the fact that we have all of these bailouts in place and now we're bailing out the bank.
00:24:05.000But are we really bailing out the bank?
00:24:06.000I don't know about you, Charlie, but I'm excited to get my stock certificate for what I'm going to own of these banks since I know my tax dollars are towards buying it.
00:26:27.000And the real estate is the real business.
00:26:29.000A business where you can really differentiate yourself in the market and you're not a commodity where you can do something different, right?
00:26:35.000And you could think about, you know, a great story as there were, you know, hundreds and thousands of coffee shops around before Starbucks came.
00:26:41.000But as Starbucks came to market, they really took a blocking and tackling business and they made it experiential.
00:26:47.000And it's been wildly successful because of that.
00:26:50.000So I look at opportunities to innovate and really where you can take products and you could innovate.
00:26:55.000You could take services and innovate is what I'm so passionate about.
00:26:58.000And so I love, I love a lot of different sectors.
00:27:01.000I love tech, but I also like hard products.
00:27:06.000And so for right now, there's two things I'm looking at: businesses that are great value buys, which, by the way, there's some that are starting to come available because the economy is a little off.
00:27:48.000I want to know everything I can because every business that I'm in today, our growth and our success is totally dependent upon having extraordinary people that make the business grow.
00:27:57.000So I'm bullish on the talent that's out there.
00:28:01.000And I'm definitely bullish on, I think there's going to be an opportunistic time to buy.
00:28:05.000But in our companies right now, let me tell you what we're doing.
00:28:08.000We are absolutely sharpening our pencil.
00:28:10.000We're building the tightest models we ever have.
00:28:13.000We're trying to gain operating leverage.
00:28:15.000And operating leverage is really hard.
00:28:16.000So when you have margin contraction and you have supply chain issues and you have costs going up in every area, it's hard to really optimize your operating margins.
00:28:28.000And yesterday I was with one of my teams all day and we were going through our model figuring out how can we protect this business and protect our margin in a down economy.
00:29:04.000So at any rate, that's what we're doing.
00:29:06.000But I'm excited about the opportunities that are going to be out there.
00:29:09.000And for me, every business I've ever been a part of has been about having extraordinary people.
00:29:15.000And so I think the more of a bench I can have of extraordinary talent gives me more opportunity to go seek opportunity, to go buy companies, which I love to do.
00:29:26.000And you're going to be getting a lot of calls to buy companies and start companies.
00:29:44.000Well, yeah, I mean, over the weekend, I called some really smart rich people I know and asked them just about real estate because things are starting to go down a little bit here.
00:29:53.000And I said, what do you think is going to happen?
00:29:54.000From the range of spectrum, I'm talking about really rich, smart people.
00:29:57.000They go, okay, Charlie's going to be worse than 08.
00:29:59.000It's going to be Nicaragua to actually, I think high-income housing is going to pick up over the summer.
00:30:04.000And it's all, you know, I think that the buyer's market, if you blinked, you already missed it.
00:30:08.000I'm like, that's a really, you have two really smart rich people that are completely disagreeing.
00:30:14.000So I just think it's guessing is where we're at right now.
00:31:17.000At the same time, we got so many problems.
00:31:19.000I mean, we talk about the problems all day long, but I think ESG is a structural problem that if we don't sort this out and put this to bed, it could be a massive hindrance on our growth.
00:31:40.000If you're someone that is held accountable and responsible for building businesses that are going to financially support the economy and financially support families, and you think about profitability and you think about the long game, it's really hard to figure out where ESG comes into play.
00:31:58.000Obviously, we all have, as Americans, we have tremendous responsibility to be good stewards of this earth, of the people, of everything that we want to talk about.
00:32:07.000As capitalists, we're charged with that as well.
00:32:11.000But to have such a nebulous, strange policy in place.
00:32:16.000It's a social credit system, isn't it?
00:32:20.000And I have businesses that it affects more than others, but I can tell you when I look at whether it be net income or whether I look at EBITDA, it's not like EBITDA plus ESG.
00:32:35.000If somebody that does the ESG rating is an anti-gun person, they could just say you have a bad rating because you don't have social governance because I don't like that you make guns.
00:32:44.000It's very unfortunate how our political system seems to be very lenient towards people that are on their side and quite the opposite for others.
00:33:10.000So first of all, it's a challenging time, but with adversity comes opportunity.
00:33:16.000And I believe that the generations right now that are in school are going to have an unbelievable runway of opportunity because of, quite candidly, a lot of misfits that are in place right now that'll go away.
00:33:28.000So my motivation is learn things that are practical, that are practical, that are real.
00:33:35.000Gain knowledge in areas that ultimately are real.
00:33:40.000If you look at businesses that are just driving revenue and are hype, you know, go look at their financial statement.
00:34:25.000But at the end of the day, be a part of a business that makes a profit, that makes a real profit.
00:34:31.000It's the best insurance you could ever have for success.
00:34:35.000And if you're, you know, a young emerging business person, whether you're going to be a professional or you're going to be an entrepreneur, so you're going to work for a company or you're going to be an entrepreneur, you want to be entrepreneurly-minded.
00:34:48.000I have a program today where we train up young professionals and entrepreneurs on how to really go tactically execute in business without having to go to college.
00:35:04.000And it's like, okay, that, you know, the issue about a profit-driven business is it's not going to get a 10, you know, 1,500 times, you know, EBITDA or earning valuation or user valuation, right?
00:35:16.000No, it's going to have a nice, you know, profit and it'll pay the bills and you'll have low debt and you'll be able to then build a life from that.