Brad Jacobs, QXO, XPO, United Rentals & United Waste | David Senra

[static] I'm ready when you are, man.

Let's go.

I'm in the zone. I'm in the zone, man!

[laughing] We're gonna- [laughing] right? I hope we start with this. I love your energy. This is what I always tell people when... You know, I did the episode on your book, right? And since then, thousands, and this is not an exaggeration, thousands of people have sent me messages. But what I try to explain to people, they're like: "Well, what's, like, so different about Brad?" I was like: "Well, first of all, how long do you have?"

[laughing]

Second of all, he's got the best energy and the most energy of any person I've ever been around. So, like, I really appreciate you taking the time and agreeing to do this. One of my favorite things is your affinity and relationship that you had. You had a bunch of mentors, but one of your most important one that you mentioned, I think, four times in the book, is Ludwig Jesselson. You have a list of maxims in the very beginning of the book that you learned from other people. Uh, the maxim that you listed for him was, "Get the major trend right." So if you could just talk about your relationship with him and what he meant to you, I think that's a perfect place to start.

He meant a lot. So Mr. Jesselson... I never called him Ludwig. Mr. Jesselson-

Yeah

... he was, you know, significantly older than me and much more accomplished than me, so I showed him respect by calling him Mr. Jesselson. Mr. Jesselson, uh, was a special guy. This was someone who was deep, very profound, and had lived life fully and by principles. And he was a religious guy, but I wouldn't say he was, like, ultra-religious. He was more taking the, the morality of Judaism, the do's and don'ts, and ethical behavior, and honesty, and so forth, and, and that became the core of his life. That became the core of his personal life and his business life. Relationships, deep relationships, long-term relationships, honest relationships, relationships you can keep coming back to. And sometimes one person has the leverage, sometimes the other person has the leverage. Doesn't matter, you don't take advantage of that. It's long-term relationships. And he had, he had about a few dozen deep principles, and, and one of them is one, one you just mentioned, which is, 'cause he was a trader-

Mm-hmm

... ran the largest commodity trading firm in the world, Phillips Brothers, it was, "You gotta get the long-term trend right." You can get a lot of other stuff right-

Yeah

... but if you don't get the long-term trend right, you're kinda in trouble. So you gotta, you gotta figure that one out. You gotta say, "What, what's going on here?" You need context. You need to see what's happening, what did happen, what is happening, and what will likely happen in the future. And what are the different future states that could happen, and what's the probabilities for each one of those? And then you have your risk management. So yeah, the converse of that is, if you get the major trend wrong, you can do a thousand things right, you're still gonna lose. You're not gonna create alpha, you're not gonna create value there. So yeah, that, that was a big lesson from him.