The Billion Dollar Question

Last week, I was driving to work, listening to an episode of the podcast that I really enjoy listening to and have been listening since 2021 – it’s called Invest Like the Best by Patrick O’Shaughnessy. The episode is titled “Jeremy Giffon – Special Situations in Private Market”. This was one of the best podcast episodes that I listened to over the past three years. Jeremy offers remarkable insights into buying businesses from founders in private markets, providing a quick and reliable exit for them. At the 38-minute mark of the episode, Jeremy quoted David Senra, the host of The Founders podcast, and posed this thought-provoking query:

What could you not be paid a billion dollars to stop doing?

As soon as I heard this, I was like hold on. What had he just asked? I need to listen to it again. I rewinded a bit and pressed play.

I had to deconstruct this question to fully understand it. The nuances of double negatives often trip me up. The question is – if somebody pays you a billion dollars, could you stop doing what you do? Or in other words, what is something that you do that you cannot stop doing although someone is willing to pay you a billion dollars to stop doing it?

Never in my life have I ever thought of this wonderful question. I was so struck. Truth be told, at this point in my life, I would quit my job right now without a second thought if someone wanted to pay me a billion bucks. I mean, come on! A billion dollars? It’s a no brainer! But it made me to contemplate what I really wanted to do with my life. A billion dollars can transcend generations. It's the amount of money that can feed so many generations of your family that you could probably build a dynasty out of it. To have a pursuit that is so immune to the lure of a billion-dollar check, one must be fueled by something so passionate that he or she cannot just help but do it. If James Dyson, who built the most beautiful and convenient vacuum cleaner in the world, was asked to relinquish his wonderful plan of implementing the cyclone technology in his vacuum cleaner in exchange of a billion dollars, I don’t think he would have casually said, “Oh! Thanks! I’ll take a billion dollars.” Similarly, if Christopher Nolan were asked the same question to stop filmmaking for a billion dollars, I don’t think he would have taken it either.

When I look back my previous life, I was just doing things with no particular direction. Everybody went to school, so did I. Everybody got a job after college, so did I! This reminded me of the great film that I watched many years ago, The Truman Show. After spending his entire life within a predetermined construct, Truman eventually finds an exit and steps beyond without glancing back. It’s as if I’m my own Truman. I finally recognize that there are things that I can do other than just following a societal framework that is built around me. When I finished reading the Intelligent Investor, I thought I want to do something with this. A spark ignited in my mind, and I was like I want to be an investor just like Warren Buffett. Ever since then, I began to engross any value investing knowledge out there. Strangely enough, whenever I read and heard about individuals applying value investing principles in their work, I felt a strong connection. Even Jeremy Giffon, as featured in the Invest Like the Best episode, is a Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger fanatic. He runs his business, Tiny, using these timeless value investing principles that he learned over the years.

It's 2023, and I’m 28 years old. Some might deem 28 as too late to start something; others may think that 28 is such a young age to start anything. For the longest time in my life, up until a few years ago, I thought I was going to spend my entire life making a decent salary, have kids, buy a house, get old, retire, play some golf on the weekends, and eventually, die. But now I cannot let such a mundane life to happen. I want to have singularity. I want to be number 1 of something. I want to be a frontrunner. It may turn out in 50 years or so that I am the greatest salesman in the world or an accomplished investor, or even a skilled writer! Who knows!

But hey, at least I found something that I want to do. Now I just let the waves do its work.