Mailbag, incl: Should overtime be tax free? September 20, 2026

25:18But if your tenant had been able to buy that house instead of renting it off you, would they be better off? Yes. Would you be slightly worse off? Yes. Overall, do I think that's a better outcome? Yes. It's kind of just my worldview, to use Ram's words. But would there be fewer investment properties? No. The one area where there would be fewer properties overall? No. There is X number of households and X number of dwellings in Australia. And how you divide that up between renters and landlords, between investment properties and unoccupied properties, the number doesn't change. Would there or could there be a change in the number of new properties built?

25:50Possibly yes. Now, the government has left the capital gains tax discount on those new properties because they are trying to either politically or economically say we don't want to harm new construction so we'll allow that benefit to continue for those properties. So your concern, mate, about will there be fewer properties? Almost certainly not because the incentive remains for new builds. Does it change the mix of existing properties between owner-occupiers and investors? Yes. Do I think that's a bad thing? I really don't. Because here's the thing. I wrote this in a Twitter thread. maybe a few months ago now, the simple reality is if you're getting rich, someone else is not getting their own property, and that's a distribution question.

26:33And again, you can say it's good, you can say it's bad. It's not creating extra wealth. It's just changing how that wealth is distributed, right? And that's okay. But when we say it's stopping people building wealth, what we're really saying is it's stopping people building wealth by making other people rent. And that's okay too, but it is what it is. There's no scenario in which the renter gets ahead or doesn't go behind and the landlord gets ahead and here's the other thing. To take it to its conclusion, if everyone in Australia bought an investment property, who would they rent it to? And if they can't all buy an investment property and rent it to somebody, then the investor is getting ahead on the back of the renter.

27:07And again, I don't mean that in any way with any kind of economic or kind of political or ideological view other than just that's the maths. Right, it's just the maths. And we can say it's okay, we can say it's bad, we can regulate it, we can stop regulating it, we can ignore it, we can do whatever we want with it. But yeah, to your point, it's a closed system. So, you know, the person who wants to get ahead by investing in property is saying, I want to make sure someone else can't buy that property so I can make the money off it. And you're totally welcome to do that. We have to acknowledge that's not a national benefit.

27:37That's an individual benefit for those who are the landlords. And again, totally fine. But if you're asking about policy, what's the Australian government's responsibility is to make policy for the safety, security, and wellbeing of the country? So they have a bigger question to answer and a bigger balance. I'm not saying the balance is easy to strike, but that's their job. And the policy you're after does absolutely help some people, but it will harm or avoid helping at the very least, the very kindest way to put it, those people who are renting. Sorry about that. That was a long answer. No, it's good.

28:10What it does fundamentally is it exacerbates the wealth divide as well. And to understand why. It must, yeah. Yeah, because I've talked before about the self-referential nature of credit creation here. What happens is you've got an asset that's largely bought with fractionally reserved, freshly created money. That sounds conspiratorial, but it is just fact what it is, right? And so that pushes prices up, which means that my collateral gives, I got more collateral on which to lend against, which means I can create more money. And it's like that wouldn't happen. I'm not going in the direction you think, But just the point of illustration and conceptual understanding, that wouldn't happen in a hard money system.

28:51If it was impossible for banks to print fresh money, then the only way for you to expand your property empire would be because you're generating sufficient cash flows that you could then reinvest into an additional property, which would be great. It would be a wonderful thing to do. No problem with that. But if I'm getting quote-unquote wealth, and I deliberately use quote-unquote there, just by virtue of an expanding monetary supply that is reflected in a scarce asset, i.e. property, that is going up for no other reason that more and more money is being printed, which gives me more ability, which not only puts my collateral up, but then gives me an ability to do it again.

29:30That's been the play. You jump onto TikTok, that's what every single property bro's talking about. Buy the property, get the equity, leverage that into another one, wash, rinse, repeat. It works insanely well. It does, it works insanely well. But you fast forward that for a couple of decades and you get to a situation where it's just like housing is like, anyone not on the inside of the tent is completely locked out of that. And we want to do more of that and we want to formally, more formally entrench that unfair opportunity. Like it doesn't, it's really, really, really perverse once you really start thinking about it, you know.

30:10I mean, there's a part of me that kind of thinks it's actually rational given how things are engineered. It's like maybe that is actually the rational thing to do. But it's certainly not equitable. Self-interestedly. Yes. And it's certainly not good for the country. And I think, look, this debate's been happening for a long time, but I think now in 2026 when we just look at, we're having to forecast anything, just looking at where we are now and where we have come from, where the average median home in a capital city is like$1.2 million or something and that the average person has to spend something like 13 times their income when their parents or grandparents had to spend three or four times.

30:48You know, when people are in debt into their mid-70s, the value prop on a house is the same now as it was in 1963. Like, it's the same and it will always be the same, that value prop. And it's just like the only reason that we have seen it and why we have seen it here more perhaps than in other places is because of all these incentives that we get later on. Back to my earlier point from Ashley's sort of question here, it's just like distortion, distortion, distortion, distortion, all in the name of something good, which is ostensibly good at face value, but these are the long-term unintended consequences of that.

31:26And to sort of say, yeah, but it's worked really well for me and we should therefore keep doing it, it's like, you know what I mean? And actually, look, here's the thing. You've got your dream forever home and you've got an investment property. Now, presumably that's paying, you've got a tenant in there and that's paying you rent. And over time, even without any expansion in price to income multiples or price to rent multiple, whatever sort of metric you kind of want to use, you'll probably preserve your capital and generate an income stream for here until kingdom come. And you live in a house which you own outright no one can kick you out of.

32:02Job done. Job done. You know, like there's, that is a wonderful thing to think that you need added incentive on that, to me, just feels like, I don't know. Now, as an enterprising investor, I'm sure you could take your skills and look around at various markets and go, wow, there are properties that are selling below intrinsic value and I could take advantage of that. And I wish you well in that endeavour. And that's what I, in fact, try and do, different asset classes, but same kind, it's what all investors kind of try and do. Exactly. And it makes my earlier point, it's like that doesn't disappear because of some perverse tax incentive.

32:40Like that will always be true when there is an opportunity to be had and value to be realised, people will take advantage of that. And your opportunity to do that, I don't think fundamentally changes in the absence of negative giving. If it does, it probably suggests, the only way that that is true is that you've got so much debt and cost against it is that you're bleeding cash on this asset and you're waiting on someone else to flip it to at a higher price to make you whole and all the money you've lost in between. And yes, accounting for any tax savings along the way. And maybe that works out well, but that is not a healthy market.

33:15You know, that is, again, whether it's property or stocks or whatever, is pure greater fool theory. And it just never ends up, it never works out well, ever. And I tend to be fundamentally against things that, you know, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. It's the first law. and we're in a hole. Please, let's stop digging. Motley Fool Money. For more, subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. Mate, let's go on to a question, a comment slash question from Harrison. Hi, Scott. I came across this podcast. It is the David Williams podcast and the episode is England versus Norway.

33:59And Harrison says, it compares the economic journeys between Norway and the UK, focusing on some of their social, political and cultural differences, which he says led to the success of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. It got me thinking, what are some of the intangible things that you both value in management and businesses? And which of these would actually influence your decision to invest in them? And he finished by saying, oh, sorry. Thank you both for your continued wisdom, my Emperor King God Lords. Cheers, Harrison. Well done, Harrison. Thank you, mate. I'm trying to connect the dots between the two parts of the question.

34:39So he's saying there was things like cultural difference, social, political and cultural differences that led to the success of Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. And I haven't listened to the podcast, but I suspect the inference is that David Williams is saying that the UK didn't have or didn't do the same things because they had different cultural, social and political value systems or value system plural. And he's saying those things are intangible kind of. you couldn't, if we look at, compare the two countries, you'd say this many people, that many industries, that much GDP, the very hard kind of, you know, that much production, that much land, that many crops, the kind of hard outputs.

35:13And he's kind of making the argument, I suspect, and I'm inferring here, that it's the social, political and cultural, in other words, the intangibles, that were the difference between the UK and Norway and the reason that Norway was able to create, run and sustain a sustainable sovereign wealth fund. Yeah, I agree with that. And so on that basis, if that is true, what are the intangible things we look for in management and business rather than just the hard numbers that we otherwise look at? I was just drawing the line between the observation and management. Yeah, Buffett, what's he say? He's like, you want someone who's sort of like honest, intelligent and hardworking.

35:47But if you don't have the first one, then you definitely don't want the other two, right? Like it's sort of, I butchered that. You'll probably be able to find the right word. Such a nice line. But it is intangible and almost the most important thing. I want someone who is honest. And it kind of goes without saying. But it's also one of those things that some finance bro says on a podcast that that's what you want to look for. It's like, yeah, but how do you know? I always come back to that. It's like, yeah, well done, Sherlock. Okay, I want someone who's honest. How do I know? I've never met the person.

36:21and I've seen a couple of very staged, kind of curated, you know, interviews or analyst presentations. I don't know, they could be Hitler incarnate behind the scenes. And so it's super, super tricky. I mean, so yes, it's super important and that's something that I try and look for. I think the best you can kind of do is maybe, oh, maybe I'm just flattering myself. But over time you kind of develop a little bit of a,

36:53there are certain tells. I think when management says certain phrases or things, I immediately bristle and see lots of red flags there. But also just zooming out and looking at what they have said previously and how that has turned out. Not that they can't be wrong. I mean, we all say things that don't end up being true. And there's a very big difference between sort of malice and incompetence versus just, wow, the world just took a sharp left there for reasons well beyond my control and anyone's sort of foresight. But when you, you will see it when you start looking for it, you know, it's sort of like.

37:32So true. You know, results fall crushingly well below what management guided for and it was everyone's fault except their own and this and that. And it was like, yeah, but you never sort of sandbagged it before. It was always presented as a fait accompli. And when things go well, it's always their good work. when things go badly, it's always some external circumstance. So like a CEO management team that sort of comes out and goes, oh, this didn't go well and we screwed up and, well, here we go, we're going to fix it. It's like that to me is like that is rare but beautiful. A manager, we do like, I do so much.

38:05I actually counted them up. I've done just so 400 CEO interviews over. Wow. Yeah, heaps, man, over the years. And the other one would just sort of be a, whenever someone's pumping or telling me how cheap their stock is, that's a red flag. Whenever I have someone going, giving me a candid answer and kind of going, listen, I don't know, but this is how we're going to, we plan to sort of address this kind of issue. People who steer clear of ambitious, long-term, aspirational sort of targets. It's actually kind of like, it's handy to know how big is the opportunity, what you think you can do. There's a different thing to sort of put it at the first slide of every presentation deck and to dance around as if it's like just fact and it's going to happen.

38:51As I say, I'm not really giving you a very concrete, definitive kind of answer, but I'm just looking for a type of character who is grounded and reasonable and realistic and honest and it's hard. And I don't even say I'm not saying, well, it's hard to do and you could never do it, but I've got, no, I'm definitely not great. And it's one of my greatest weaknesses as an investor is I had this immense desire to believe what management say. And every single one of those interviews I've walked away going, this is the best company ever. Every single time, right? Because it's like, wow, articulate, they know their stuff, yep, I'm sold, right?

39:25You really need to go and jump in a cold shower straight away and just remember, you know, that that's not always true and that you can't take everything at face value. And, you know, you want that help. Somewhere between sort of healthy scepticism, you know, and grounded reality? I don't know. It's hard. It's hard and I'm just rambling at this point, Harrison. How would you answer it, mate? So I think you're right, mate. Funnily enough, I've heard this before. I've had the opposite problem. I don't believe anything management ever say and so I'm less likely to, without first-hand experience of a category or a company or a product, I find B2B companies really hard to invest in because I'm like, I can kind of do the channel checks and I can kind of see it from the outside but how much faith do I put in it?

40:07And I tend to be too sceptical. and that's made me, that's lost me a whole lot. You know, whatever you've lost by being too trusting, I'm sure I've lost more by not being trusty enough. And so there's a really fine line between those two. Harrison, I, actually, Ram, I'm going to read you the, so Farnham Street is a great blog. And with. Oh, Shane Parrish. Yeah, Shane Parrish. With due respect to Shane, I'm going to read what he's written about the quote you just said. I should have mentioned that when someone was talking about good podcasts the other week. That's true, actually. Yeah, that's good.

40:34I was going to read a little bit of what he wrote about the quote you mentioned, mate, just in passing and then I'll come back to the answer. Here's what Shane Parrish wrote. Quote, students often go to visit Warren Buffett and when they do, he often plays a little game on them. He asks each student to pick a classmate, not just any classmate, but the classmate you would choose if you had to have or you could have 10 % of their earnings for the rest of their life. Which classmate would you pick and why? Are you going to pick the one with the highest IQ, asks Buffett? Are you going to pick the guy who can throw a football the farthest?

41:09The one with the highest grades? What qualities will cause you to pick them? Then he changes things up again. Who would you think least likely to succeed? Why? He asks the students, take out a piece of paper, list all the positive attributes on the left and the negative on the right. Inevitably, says Parrish, the most useful qualities have nothing to do with IQ, grades or family connections. People pick based on generosity, kindness and integrity. He then asks the students which of the qualities they are incapable of having and which are they incapable of stopping. To Buffett, the answer is none, writes Michael Eisner.

41:47These qualities are the choices people make. People decide whether or not to be generous. They decide whether or not to take credit for things they didn't do, whether or not to keep score in life, whether or not to be envious. Parrish goes on, it is quite simple in the end. Develop qualities from the left and try to stop doing the ones on the right. Now, here's the quote. You're looking for three things generally in person, in a person, says Buffett. Intelligence, energy, and integrity. Okay. And if they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two. I tell them everyone here has the intelligence and energy.

42:21You wouldn't be here otherwise. But the integrity is up to you. You weren't born with it. You can't learn it in school. God, it's hard. You decide to be dishonest, stingy, uncharitable, egotistical, all the things people don't like in other people, argues Warren. They are choices. Some people think there's a limited little pot of admiration to go around and anything the other guy takes out of the pot, there's less left for you. But it's the opposite, end quote. And that's the end of the article from Parrish. I think you're right, mate.

42:57The intangibles in a business are easier. For me, they are actually not really intangible at all other than as ways to explain excess profitability. So you almost work backwards. I mean, you can do it either way, but to identify what they are, does RC Cola have a brand? Of course it does. Does home brand Cola? Yeah, by definition. Does Pepsi Cola? Yes. Does Coca-Cola? Yes. So is brand enough? I mean, Coke's brand is the source of a lot of excess profit, but having a brand is not enough. So you work backwards and go, So there must be something about Coke's brand based on their excess profitability or their scale or their low cost.

43:39So those intangible competitive advantages are things you absolutely can look for. They are intangible, so you won't find them in the balance sheet, but the balance sheet and the profit loss will give you a sense that they exist. In management, I'm with Ram, candor, candor, candor, candor, and candor with a lot of humility on the side. and the reason simply is that you, it's also the reverse. The negative screen is arrogance and excuses and that for me, I won't name them because I don't want to spend$100 ,000 in payouts. There are CEOs who I would not touch with a barge ball because I have no sense that their egos aren't writing checks that their businesses can't cash.

44:25I have no confidence they will acknowledge or recognise their own mistakes because they are so full of their own stories, not other things, stories, and they're so caught up in not being wrong and being seen a certain way and doing a certain thing, that is going to bring them undone. Here's the thing, if it doesn't bring them undone, they'll be lucky. If it does bring them undone, I won't be surprised. And let's throw a manga quote in because we're supposed to. I mentioned this last week or the week before. Manga said something like, it's amazing how rich we've become just by not doing stupid things.

44:56right? And so is it stupid to back a manager with ego? Maybe or maybe not. I mean, Elon Musk's got one the size of, you know, spaceship. And he's made a lot of money for a lot of people. But overall, I would... Musk's confidence has not got him in trouble. Am I sure that in 15 parallel universes when the same experiment is run 15 times, the result is positive? I don't know. I don't know. So the existence of one that disproves the idea is the exception that proves the rule, not the rule itself in my view. So, yes, ego, arrogance, avoid like the plague, candied humility, absolutely looking for. A manager who treats shareholders as equals, as part owners of the company.

45:41They all spin these days and they kind of can't help themselves. It's a bit of a relative rather than absolute measure, I have to say. There is no company out there that doesn't try and put on the best case, the best face they can. You could argue that it's a fiduciary duty to... I mean, they are representing the business. They are the custodians of shareholder wealth. You know, you don't want a CEO is going to go out there and go, God, this place is a dumpster fire. You know, like... I'll be like, oh, yeah, paid next week. You want them to be honest and candid to the point that they can, but you don't want them to be so...

46:11Yeah. Yes. I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but there's just the reality... Don't make it absolute, but yes, exactly. Look for as much of it as you can find. Now, that's not enough, by the way, to make a bad business good, by the way. You can't put a candid, honest manager with integrity in charge of a buggy whip company and outsell cars. There's only so much you can do. But I'd rather have, yeah, just keep the economics of the business in mind and then the intangibles. That's about all there is, mate. That's all you can do. And try and be sceptical without being cynical. So assume you're being sold to, because you probably are, and try and unpick the difference.

46:53And, again, you can't always do that, but the extent you can find it, you're probably overall better off. Yep. Yep. I think another tell for me is just recognising what you can control and what you can't, which is actually a good philosophy in life as well. I'm trying to think of the Desiderata or one of those old monk poems. Or give me the serenity to know what I can change and what I can't and the wisdom to know the difference between the two. Again, I'm butchering quotes, but, God, it's another banger. And it is sort of like it's that hubristic personality. It's like we're going to do this, that, and the other.

47:27I'm like, yeah, but, you know, do you really have that much sway over global markets and consumer preference? I don't know. You know, I always like actually for me I love managers that just return to the basics because I always ask the question, You know, how are you sort of going about, you know, about the business? And it's sort of like, well, we've got to create value for customers, right? And the money that we'll be making in five years will be due to the allocation decisions that we make today. So I'm making long-term investments with return on that capital as my North Star, you know. And that will come if at the end of the day I am providing a good or a service that people value to the extent that it's more than what else is available.

48:17It's like, so quick tangent, I've been talking to you a bit about GrokBot. I'm not going to go too far down the thing. It's an agentic sort of AI thing. It's pretty cool. Anyway, the SpaceX thing, and they had a three-day, it's actually happening right now, where there's a team of people and they're building a business in GronkBot over three days to sort of demonstrate how you might sort of use it, right? And so I started, it's long, and I started watching it. And at the start, it's like, you know, one of these like hyper-intelligent people, but young, and it's like, hey, we're going to start a business.

48:55And then the start of the question was, so what is a business to you? And it was all of everything was thrown on the table. And at one point someone said, I guess you've got to create value for someone. Honestly, yes. Everything else you said was kind of secondary, tertiary or not even relevant whatsoever. It is everything about a business. Because if you're not creating value, you're either forcing someone to do something that they otherwise wouldn't and that's not business. I don't know what that's called. I'm sure there's a name for it. No one is ever going to voluntarily exchange their time or their money for your product or service if it doesn't improve their lot in some way.

49:38Obviously. And it's just so blatantly obvious that, you know, that I think too often it gets skipped. Have you ever dialed into an analyst call and it's always, oh, this and then we're straight away. We're into note 4C of the financial statements and what kind of amortisation rate. He's like, what the flip do you actually do? What is it that you guys do? And I don't mean, don't throw a bunch of jargon at me, oh, we help business-to-business sort of platform synergise. Synergise. What the flip? What are you doing? And not only what are you doing, how does what you do compare to other ways to solve that particular problem, right?

50:21Is this like, do you do it cheaper? Do you do it better? Do you do it with more style? Like, how do you do that? I just don't think every interview I've ever done starts out with that. It's like, what do you do? Dumb it down for me. I'm not a smart man. Tell me what you do. Why would I do it? Why would I not use something else? Why do you think people will continue to do more of that? And it's sort of like I think people are embarrassed to ask that question because it feels like it's too dumb a question to ask, but I think it is the question to ask. How do you make your money? That's how you make the money, right?

50:57I think if you're sitting there and we all, you know, envisaging how you might start a business or whatever, it's like you have to solve a problem for someone. How are you going to solve that problem, you know? And if you can't get past that. Cheaper, faster, higher quality than someone else already doing it. That's exactly it. Exactly it, right? And if you can't, and there are plenty of business, lots of businesses that can't answer that question and actually sort of get away with it for a while, right? And just because of hope or really good, really charismatic promotional CEO can sort of cast this sort of vague vision of the future, you know?

51:38And it's sort of like until you can sort of return to those kinds of basics, I just think it's all a nonsense, you know? Or I'm just not smart enough to understand it, which is cool too. That's actually also signals. I was like, I'm sure that people in offshore drilling who need this really weird bespoke niche widget that's critically important but I have never touched and never will and have no understanding of what it does, it's like, I just can't go there, right? I don't know. No, it makes perfect sense, mate. It also reminds me, you mentioned the promotional CEO and there have been companies we've looked at before that it turns out the CEO is also head of sales.

52:22But more than that, the CEO's relationship was actually what made the sale rather than even the product and doing the job. And, well, that might be too strong. Maybe the new CEO that replaced that person was just crap at sales and didn't understand their role and couldn't do it. But either way, there is, and you mentioned intangibles, and I guess this is the reverse of that, but just to say that, particularly in small companies, just be mindful of what a CEO is actually doing. If they're head of sales, head of marketing, head of tech, head of something else, and they walk away, then it can be really meaningful.

52:52And I think you ask about the other intangibles. The other one's probably... Yeah. But the intangible other side of that one is I'll call it culture. And I don't even necessarily mean culture. I more mean company DNA. And so there's those kind of... And maybe it's directly like key person risk, as you say, mate. The key person risk there can be... Starbucks is a classic example. Howard Schultz, the bloke who started Starbucks and grew it. And I'm pretty sure he resigned twice and came back twice. had three stints as CEO. And every time he had it rains over to someone else, they blew it up and they screwed it up.

53:26They had to come back and fix it. And he left and he had to come back and fix it. And there's something to that which is worth understanding. And is it key person, he was the only bloke who could work out where to put a Starbucks, how much to charge for a coffee and what the coffee bean should taste like? I mean, maybe. Or maybe the DNA was actually the way he strategised, the way he expanded, the way he bought that to market. And that's a different version of key person risk where it's not, I mean, obviously, you know, Howard Chilts isn't serving the coffees, right, in the same way that a small software company CEO is making the door knocking, right, doing the actual sales calls.

54:00But there's something to that. Now, how do you identify that? It's really stupidly hard. So I'm actually going to say you almost can't, right? But the flip side is it's why we generally, I do anyway, love founder CEOs because they have the box and dice. And it's just a reminder when a fan CEO does leave, just it's really hard to do, so I'm not going to give you any answers, so I'm going to give you more questions than answers, but I hope that's also useful because it's thinking about what is that person bringing to the table? And if and when that's no longer there, what does it do to the investment idea?

54:33And so think about companies that have hopefully, for the most part, enough... You must be intangible at things about companies. Think about brand, for example, right? Does it matter who runs Coke? I mean, kind of. It's possible to screw it up and it's possible growth isn't quite so good, but when X gazillion people a day want to drink a Coke, it's a pretty good starting point, right? You're not making personal sales calls to make that happen. Even in Starbucks' case, even though they overexpanded, they had to correct, the Yanks still love Starbucks. I've still drinking plenty of Grand Lay latte, pumpkin spice lattes they drink over there.

55:06And, you know, so I'm not just doing consumer companies at all, but I am saying, think about intangibles. The more the business runs by itself, the more the customer base is diversified, is large, the more the products I repeat purchase or repeat use, rather one-off sales, here, buy a truck, I bought the truck, now I've got to sell another truck to somebody else, versus I use this software every week, I buy a Coke every day. That can give you some sense of the intangibles that companies have past the management intangibles that give you more of a sense of lower risk. Now, probably lower return too, by the way.

55:41By the time you get this Coke size, you're not going to 10X, right? It's not. So there is some trade-off between what risk do I take? And without wanting to re-prosecute the case, think about portfolio as well. So does every company have to be bulletproof? No. I mean, it would be lovely if they were, but if it's going to be bulletproof, you end up with Woolies, Coles, Telstra, News Corp, and CSL or something. I'm making names up now. I'm just picking large companies. As good as those companies are, as well as they've done in the past to get to where they are now, the growth story is over. Now, that's great for downside protection for the most part, although CSL shelves might beg to disagree, though that was a share price issue more than a business one.

56:17The reality of how you think about growth means you are taking more risk to get that growth because there is less certainty. There is less repeat purchase. There is less track record. There's also a much more potential upside. Decent downside as well, so do both, but just kind of keep that in mind. Yep. Raph? Yeah, it's a fuzzy one. I mean, we could... It's a great question. It is such a great question and it is all, As I've said before, it's the more and more I put emphasis on the things like, you know, culture and honesty and all these warm fuzzies. But I don't know how to make it into a formula.

56:51That's the tricky part. And you kind of just have to guess and your guesses will often be wrong. Or that you're absolutely right in terms of those characteristics being what you want, but there was another factor that was just far more dominant in that particular period, you know. Yeah. Can I tell you one thing I hate? Hate's just a stronger word. You know Glassdoor? It's kind of gone off the boil a little bit these days. Oh, yeah. Glassdoor was this idea of employees giving kind of either named or anonymous reviews of their workplaces. And ideally it was supposed to be this idea of you can see the culture from the inside.

57:22Yeah. And I actually think that the concept is really, really beautiful. The reality is there were two, in my opinion, well, I shouldn't say reality, my perception of the reality is there's two groups that use the next door a lot. The next door, Glassdoor. The first group is those who've got an axe to grind, right? So, it's like the Motley Fool, right? We have a trust pilot and the people who complain about us, give us one-time trust pilot. I bought the stock they recommended and it went down and those guys suck. It's like, all right, I mean, you're tired of having a review, but, dude, we never said, anyway.

57:53So, you know, those who are in the next grind will absolutely be vocal. Those kind of mildly happy and pretty happy, you're probably going to jump on a review site and leave a long, you know, detailed review, right? If you feel like you've been badly, badly treated by someone, rightly or not, you're going to throw it out. This is that group. The other group is I worked for a company, Lorraine Nameless, who used to run internal campaigns on great place to work competitions effectively. You know, there's great place to work surveys. And so they made it a point of pride. A wonderful psychological tick, like great examination.

58:23Hey, they're looking for a great place to work. Everyone should jump on and tell them so we can win. We want to be the great place to work. And it was really cynical of management like, I don't care if you like this place or not. I want you to do your own evolution. I want you to help us win. We'll all win together, right? And it was a beautiful reframing of what was supposed to be this anonymous kind of this is what we all think and like let's all win this thing. And so we even jumped online and they came, I'm going to say top ten in Australia for a memory, this is a long time ago, on this great place to work thing because management incentivised or not incentivised, we just encouraged everyone because everyone wants to win.

58:55Don't you want to work at the best place to work? Yeah, I do. Let's go and tell them we're the best place. Okay, let's do that. Yes, we almost won. It's like we just, it was, I mean it was cynical as hell but it was beautiful. So, honestly, the glass door stuff, I would love it unbiased. If I could literally be the fly on the wall, that sort of stuff would be great. The reality of the people who fill it out are the ones who want to win the competition or those who've got an axe to grind. In either case, you're probably getting, in most cases, I suspect, a very distorted view of the inside. So just be careful of what metrics you use for that as well.

59:23My wife left this morning and I was like, do you have, I haven't rung a bell or something. Is there, you've got something on this afternoon? She goes, oh, bloody staff wellness day. afternoon and I just thought kind of what you said there reminded me of it it's like it's like no one wants to be there this is the opposite of start like let me go home to my family that's right don't don't make me stay longer in a job that is brutally you know just crushing and it takes every waking hour and make me you know do some juvenile game with lego bricks or whatever and you know it's just like i just want to go i just want to go i will do anything to not go and it's sort of like i i find those um workplaces it's weird right because on one hand you kind of think what a great initiative hey we really care about our our employees we want to we want to we want to do some stuff for them you know and it's like but but there is there is the we're doing the other day there's the intent and there's the outcome right so what you've got to look forward here too is not just things that sound good.

1:00:32Hey, we do this and we do that and this is wonderful and this is fantastic. Like, yeah, but the reality is everyone hates it and it's actually counterproductive to what you're actually trying to do. I don't know how you tease that all apart. Best thing's hard. I like to say it every week. It's hard. It's hard. Yeah, very good point. Mate, let's finish off with a question from Jared. He says, G'day, fellas. Thanks for the pod machine. Really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us all. I've got a question about getting the next generation started on the right foot financially. I've got a 17-year-old who'll be turning 18 soon, and he'll be getting a few dollars from family for his birthday.

1:01:13I'd like to make him earn it, not by doing chores, but by reading or listening to a couple of books that might give him some understanding and guidance around money, investing, and building wealth. Someone mentioned that Scott might know of a book about investing. I was going to say, I was like, this is set up. Is there a book that might? I don't know. Someone's written like, it could be like a one-page kind of guide, nice introduction to investing. More of a plan than a guide. More of a plan, yeah. More of a plan for investing. I don't know. Yeah, it's a bit like. I'll do a Google. I'll see if I can think of a title.

1:01:52All right. I'll read while you Google. Yes. Someone mentioned Scott might know of a book about investing. It could apparently be explained on one page, says Jared. I haven't read your book yet. Well, Jared, I don't know. Don't expect me to answer your question if you don't read my bloody book. No. So here's your chance. Pitch it to me. No, I'm not. Well, I will a little bit. Why should it be the first book on my list for my soon-to-be 18-year-old? You're very kind. And if you could recommend one other book for him to read before he starts earning more than part-time wages and investing his own money, what would it be and why?

1:02:21Thanks a lot for the help. Hopefully you can save me from giving him another lecture about compound interest that he'll promptly ignore. Cheers, Jared. So I'm not going to pitch it to you, Jared, because people need to make their own decision. If you're still listening to me by now, you either think I'm an idiot or you want to read something you have written and you guys make your own choices. I received a question from a podcast. It's actually I'm going to be on soon. They sent me the questions in advance so I could prepare them. That's very nice of them to do so. And the question was along the lines of, you did something that other people don't do, which is explaining why investing works.

1:02:59And so if I was going to say to you, Jared, if there's one reason for a 17 or 18-year-old to read the book, it's at 18, mate, the maths is not going to help in and of itself. The lecturer is not going to help. Me doing discounted cash flow is not going to help. I love, I love, speaking of great quotes, mate, I'm going to look it up because others will butcher it. Antoine de Saint-Experie, I'm sure I've horribly butchered his pronunciation of his name. There's a spectacularly great quote that I have used plenty of times and I'm still trying to find it because I can't. The name of Exabel, I'm sure I know it.

1:03:33Yeah, you know the quote. Here we go. If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. Oh, so good. I know, bastards. All these people have got this great price. I wish I'd said that. Yeah. What does it say? It says, if you want to teach someone to invest, don't show them the formulas and tell them how much to save. Just show them what can be achieved by doing so. Yep. Right? You're smart enough to know this, Jared. That's what he said, right? So from an investing perspective, what I've hoped I've tried to do with the book is the plan itself is really simplistic.

1:04:13And by the way, stupidly effective. I'm not saying it's, you know, 90 % of your investing returns will come from following the plan. The other 10 % might be from picking the right stocks or, you know, whatever, whatever. Why? Because we said on Friday, nothing new. I'm just trying to regurgitate what I know in a way that helps new investors start and then stay the course. It's literally all it is, right? And it's really simple. And so the idea there, so why read the book? Because I try and explain why I think it's likely that businesses will continue to do what they do and create immense amounts of value, which is what you made before, Ram, coupled with the Vanguard index chart, which Vanguard very kindly allowed me to reproduce in the book.

1:04:56And that's – if you can't look at the Vanguard chart and then look at the growth of technology and business and all those things and go, imagine what the future might look like, that's it, Jared. If I had a 17-year-old sat on a essay, do that. There's lots of – honestly, in most of the rest of the book, I mean, when you're getting started, I hope you read it all because it sets him up right, but that's why. Read it because it tells you what has happened and what's likely to keep happening. And the maths of exponential returns, there's not a lot of maths in the book. There might be two formulas, I think, and none of them involves any exponential powers.

1:05:30It's just very simple. So that's probably why I would do it. And I think whatever else you are going to get him to read, it's that. If he's business-minded, he loves business and you want to turn that part of him on, then there's lots of business books. But honestly, it is just that idea of what can happen by just putting a little bit of money aside and making it work. I haven't read for a while, Ram, so I just made a horrible, horrible recommendation, so correct me if I'm wrong. The millionaire next door is the other one. And the why is because, Jared, I want your kid to go, I shouldn't say kid, seven, eight, your young bloke to go, I understand it and I think I can do it and I think it's worth doing.

1:06:12And most importantly, I'm prepared to defer a bit of consumption for a little bit of time because the result is worth getting. That fundamentally is it. One last point from our thread of RAM. If it doesn't work now, wait until he's 25 and do it again. And I only say that because I love young people, I love teenagers and people in their early 20s. But it is stupidly just biologically difficult for an 18-year-old to think about being 65 because it's just, I mean, when I was 18 I thought 30 was old. When I was 30 I thought 40 was old. When I was 40 I thought 50 was old. Now I'm here I'm thinking, gee, I feel like I'm 30.

1:06:48God, I wish I was 40. Right. It seems so young. And it's a horrible cliche, you can't put an old head on young shoulders. And often that's used to disparage young people and I don't mean it at all this way this time. What I actually mean is we can't expect 17-year-olds to make decisions to benefit them when they're 57 or 67 or 87. You just can't. It's not, they don't have the life experience, the frontal lobe development, the context. They've lived for such a short amount of time. I mean, double their lifespan. They're only 36. Triple their lifespan. They're 54. And you ask them to think about retirement?

1:07:20It's really stupidly hard. So give it a go, mate. I hope it works. I hope it's useful. But realistically, I think, so two things. One is do it now. If it doesn't work, do it again at 25. And don't hate on him if he doesn't get it now. The other thing is do him and yourself a favour if you can. Get him to say, I know, Dad, you're badging. Just stop. Leave me alone. But do him a deal. Mate, you don't have to listen to me, but do me a favor. At least put 10 % of your pay aside every time you get paid, no matter what, in a long-term investing account. I know you can't understand why. I know it sucks.

1:07:54I know you'd rather spend it at the pub or buying it on a computer game or whatever it is you want to do with your life. But just please, please, for me, make it a personal plea. For your old man, please just put 10 % aside and just trust me that at some point it'll be useful. Do you know what? Do that and match it. For every dollar you put aside, I'll match it or something like that. You know, that's a pretty strong incentive too. If you're working full-time, that might be a harder ask than you might have was. That is true, yeah. But for younger kids particularly before they're working full-time, that is a monty of an idea, Matt.

1:08:28I actually read that for my young bloke. He gets a little of pocket money or he takes some cans back or he gets some gifts for family. And we don't make him put the money aside, but we say if and when you do, I'll match it. And that is super powerful. Yep.

1:08:44So I'm going to mention the B word but only for illustrative purposes. Oh, come on. One of the great – I'm kidding. Bitcoiners will bemoan with great frustration why no one gets it. And the harsh reality is it's not them, it's you. You know, and the set of arguments that allowed the penny to drop for you will be a different set of arguments for someone else. That's a good point. And, you know, there'll be some people who will just resonate with some weird niche Austrian hard money perspective. And for everyone else, like, what the hell, man? I don't give a crap, you know? Yeah, yeah. I had a friend, dear long-term friend.

1:09:29He works for one of the major unions. He's as left as you can possibly come in all the best ways, right? And he was always against it. And what I realised was none of the arguments that I was pitching to him were landing because I was pitching him the wrong thing for him. Now, he also happens to care greatly about the environment, as I do, as I think a lot of people do. And one of the big hurdles for him to overcome was, is like, I can't support anything that's bad for the environment. And the point is that I could show him a bunch of stuff that shows that it's good for the environment. I don't want to unpack that because it's a whole other thing and I really don't even want to talk about this.

1:10:10But my point is that once you start recognising that as part of the evangelical crusade, which is part of your God-given duty as a Bitcoiner, is that... Willingly taken on, by the way. Willingly taken on. Give me some more burdens. That's right. Load me up, baby. What you learn is that you've got to meet people where they are and you've got to pitch them in what resonates for them and it's going to be different. For some people it will be like the removal of money and stayed. You know, for others it will just sort of be I'm just really not, you know, whatever, there's a thousand different things.

1:10:51But all of a sudden it becomes very powerful And so your 17-year-old will have things that they care about more than others, you know. And I think it's about trying to figure out the pitch that's going to land for them. And what lands for them will be different from your other kid, you know, and from someone else. You know, what got me, you know, like what got me originally was I am lazy and I like money. and not in a hedonistic kind of way, although partly that too, but it's just like I like the freedom that money provides to, you know, for all of us, for our eternal pursuit of happiness. Yep.

1:11:36Not happiness because I'm consuming more or I'm driving a nicer car. I just mean that I'm not chained to some soul-crushing job that I hate and I just like drag myself out of bed every day, you know. And for me it was sort of like, wait, I can give someone else money and they do all the work? Yeah. What? And so while I'm sleeping, there's like an army of people out there working to make me richer? Yeah. What? And so that was really powerful for me. It was like, I need to learn about this. I could not give a stuff about financial statements, you know, certainly back then, right? I couldn't give a stuff about industry dynamics or, you know, exchange rates and interest rates.

1:12:17The most boring thing in the world, I just wanted something that would make my life easier and better and more comfortable. Because when I was 18, I didn't want to work. I didn't want to do it. I just wanted to hang out with my mates and play computer games and drink beer and all the things that you were saying, you know. But that was the hook that got me. It was sort of like it was a means to an end. Like I wasn't investing for the love of the game. It kind of evolved that way actually. And it's sort of like I really like this. But the initial spark was that. So, you know, an elder relative, father, parent, whatever, who was going to try and make the pitch for me, none of that other stuff was going to land for me.

1:12:56But if someone sort of said, hey, do you want to, like, retire early and have a more comfortable life? They're like, I'm listening. Yes, I really do. I'm listening, right? And even then it doesn't guarantee anything. But my point is meet people where they are and find the thing that resonates for them. And if it doesn't land first off, try something else that might land. There's another friend I've got, not Bitcoin but with shares, a very ethical kind of person. He's like, oh, they're very anti-capitalism, all bad, and it's just destroying everything and it's the source of all evil in the world.

1:13:34And I was like, well, there is a thing called ethical investing. You know, you could actually deploy your capital in a way that for your, or, you know, you feel is doing good for the world. You can actually complain or you can put your money where your mouth is. Now, it's just like I don't want to unpack ethical investment. We've talked about it before. But my point is is that I found a thread to pull on that they were going to pay attention to. They've got a portfolio today, right? And because that was the thing. They were like, yes, I want less of that and I want more of that and that's bad and that's good.

1:14:10and it's like, well, you work, you save money, you want to provide for your family and grow, you know, increase prosperity going forward. Do you know that you can actually do that in a way that aligns with your ethical compass, you know, that will make you feel good about that? Like up to that point it was completely discordant. It was one or the other. You couldn't make money and be a good person. And cracking that particular, you know, putting a bit of crack and that dam was what ultimately let the dam collapse. And every time I see them, it's this stock and that stock, you know. And it's kind of like, yeah, I'm flogging a horse at this point.

1:14:51Meet them where they are is what I'm saying. I like it. What I'll just quickly add is I think your point about not retiring early is probably the key one for most young people is if you can scare the hell out of them, dude, you're going to be working for the next 50 or 49 years, right? You're 18, you're going to try it at 67. that's assuming the government hasn't left their retirement age. 50 years is a long time doing any job. If you're lucky, you'll love it and you'll skip to work every day and you'll do it just for the fun of it. And I don't know what your life is, Jared, or other people you know, but it's like do you really want to do this for 50 years?

1:15:20You want to do that 50 years? You want to do that 50 years? What if you could put some money aside now and cut that in half? Just pick a number. Maybe they don't make it half. But, you know, if you put some money aside now, you could retire at 40 rather than 67 or 45 or 50 or 55. If you cut some work a lot, would that be attractive to you? I don't know what your son's like and hopefully he loves his job and loves what he's doing, he's got a great idea for what he wants to do full-time and going to do uni or a trade and just can't wait to do it. That's great. But I think, Ram, your point. Again, as you say, I'm giving an answer when you've just finished saying, it depends on what works for them.

1:15:53But on top of my answer, I think that's a really attractive one, is just, you know, what if you – and my 13-year-old already doesn't want to work forever. Like, great, that's the seat. And so that's, I think, what I would use, if I could, to put a bit of urgency and a bit of a why now, even though I want to go to the pub. And by the way, Remy, you mentioned beer and computer games. That's what you were doing when you were young. Mate, when we were young, it was Tui's draft in Atari. It wasn't the sort of thing. It wasn't IPAs and multiplayer online games, let's be honest. It was fun, man. Not exactly the same thing.

1:16:20It was good fun, man. It was fun. It was fun. Anyway, hope that helps, Jared. I reckon we probably hit a virtual wall, not a wall, a stopping point, a pause point, because we'll be back on Friday. So if you want to listen to more Motley Fool Money, make sure you join us then. It's appointment listening is all I'm saying. But until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend. Enjoy your week and Fool on. Yeah, thanks for listening. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned. General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation.

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