Zack Fuss

@ReustleMatt Sorry, I will stop spamming you. Next time I need to borrow money to buy some LEAPs I will just call instead.

Cold soliciting me via email is fine. It’s like leaving a flyer in my mailbox. But cold texting me about 3 year, no collateral, credit facilities is like showing up in my bedroom. Please make this stop

@ReustleMatt @xvrmdf …Or it may read that an index of Zack’s guests is performing in line with the S&P whereas Matt’s are not.

@xvrmdf On a rolling basis, up 25.7% vs S&P at 41.7% and Russell at 10.2%. The marketing materials might read: "It's an index with only 1 of the Mag7 names."

Has anyone done an analysis of how stocks perform in the period after featuring on Business Breakdowns??

@ReustleMatt Need to see some output from the “Year of Building Furniture”

Every year a new hobby or pursuit to expand my range. What's in store for 2025?

@ReustleMatt Top.

Finally have a 50 bagger in the portfolio. Now we just need a double* and I will own at least one share until my life ends. *I am barking at the market gods and their karma. It only took 8 years... and if I didn't tweet about it, did it really happen?

Today, we break down one of the world's largest and oldest pharmaceutical companies, Merck. From humble beginnings as a small family pharmacy in Germany, Merck is now a $260 billion market cap business. Keytruda, arguably the world's most important cancer drug, is at the heart of Merck's recent success. This single medication now generates over $25 billion in annual revenue—nearly 50% of Merck's total revenue. Merck's future will depend on its ability to navigate an ensuing patent cliff for Keytruda in 2028, but the company's story is not only about Keytruda. It's about a business that has consistently pursued innovative science combined with a handful of bold decisions that resulted in the development of some of the world's first vaccines and breakthroughs in diabetes treatment. It's also a story about the high-stakes world of drug development, where billions are spent on research and patents are fought over the world's next blockbuster drugs. To break down Merck, @zbfuss is joined by @varma_ashwin97.

Help us spread the word on an important new role: We are hiring an Editor in Chief at @joincolossus. Our podcasts reach ~8m unique people a year and the scope of our ambition is growing.  We are building a platform to find and shine a light on the most interesting people and ideas on the frontiers of business and investing.  That'll include perpetual improvements on our existing shows, exploring new formats (there's already a print publication in the works!), and lots of experiments (content, guests, marketing, new shows)–always with an ear to our audience.  The right Editor in Chief will push our pace getting there while keeping our quality bar high and our voice consistent.  The only requirements are an incredible passion for business and investing, excellent taste, and serious operational chops.  You will work very hard. You will build a team. You will meet incredibly interesting people along the way. Your work will be an expression of your standards and interests. And, if we're doing our jobs, you will stoke curiosity and agency in millions of people. Apply here: joincolossus.com/eic Must be based in NY, SF, Seattle. Some travel is required in all cases.

@ReustleMatt Hah got a good laugh from this one. A couple take-outs and a couple bankruptcies. Sounds about right.

Listing some of my favorite “behind-the-scenes” moments/thoughts below. I’ll admit, I was skeptical this would work as a weekly show. My fear was coordination with so many people - guests, hosts, editors, designers, etc - every week. BUT that’s easily the most fulfilling part, the success can’t be attributed to any single person, it’s truly a humungous team effort. And each host and guest gets etched into some history (like SNL 😉) In no particular order: Favorite guest request: “The story I tell about [REDACTED] is super boring and you will lose listeners if it is not removed. It is very likely the worst story I have ever told. It is terrible. Please delete that story in the audio and in the transcript.” For all the chatter about the curse, 🤷‍♂️ Breakdowns Portfolio: +4.5% Vanguard S&P: +16.8%, Vanguard Russell 2000: -4.4%. The time I tried to grow the podcast by promoting in Reddit. Immediately getting banned from r/NFL. Never trying to promote in Reddit ever again. Final Score: 0-1 The guest that covered super litigious company only to have his own legal team spend the entire holiday weekend editing his comments in fear of litigious blowback ... which despite being a pain felt so authentic to the company! The time I re-recorded every question to an episode because the host that recorded couldn’t get compliance sign off... A friend jabbed at me because we covered a competitor of his… but then came back years later when they launched hostile takeover of that company @compound248 Babe Ruth'ing the Twitter breakdown. Archaea getting acquired in the 96 hours between recording and publishing that episode The guest who was at the hospital until 4AM, showed up for their Breakdown at 8AM, and was flawless. Many many more that I will be mad at myself for forgetting.. but just a major thank you to anyone who has ever listened or been involved.

@nachkari When it comes to inflation, somehow nobody wants to talk about compounding

@nachkari Hope lower. Think higher

@ReustleMatt Never had you pegged as an expensive denim guy. Love it

5 days vs 5 years = cardboard vs comfort

@chrispronger @jspujji @patrick_oshag @Benioff @DanielSLoeb1 @sama @Oprah @JeffBezos @patrick_oshag ^ Chris would be a pretty cool conversation.

@jspujji @patrick_oshag @Benioff @DanielSLoeb1 @sama @Oprah @JeffBezos 🤷🏼‍♂️ thought i would get a tap Jesse. LOL 😂

People I’d love to interview - @Benioff - @DanielSLoeb1 (😏) - Tepper - @sama - @Oprah - Griffin - Hohn - Mala Goankar - @JeffBezos - Moritz - Cucinelli - Ellison - Icahn - Burry - Feroz Dewan - Speiser - Hoffman - Lisa Su - Fred Wilson - Cohen

@patrick_oshag @JunctionOctopus @domcooke On it, sorry Junction!

@JunctionOctopus We know and are on it cc @domcooke

There’s lots of great content about Constellation Software… …but I think this is the best introduction and overview available Zack and Chris cover every angle of the unique business model, it’s history, and it’s potential future (non-software?!) joincolossus.com/episodes/23981…

@patrick_oshag @IlirSela @AswathDamodaran @FoundersPodcast @bizbreakdowns @domcooke Would love to dig in to the economics of a pizza joint and everything around adjacent to it.

@IlirSela @AswathDamodaran @FoundersPodcast Could be a great @bizbreakdowns ! @domcooke

Our 4 most downloaded Invest Like the Best episodes this year: 1. @AswathDamodaran 2. Eric Mandelblatt 3. Frank Slootman 4. @FoundersPodcast Our 4 most downloaded Business Breakdowns: 1. Rolex 2. Berkshire 3. Goldman Sachs 4. McKinsey ~14 million downloads this year!

Great fun to talk about my second favorite business in the world :) Thanks @patrick_oshag @zbfuss for the kind invitation 🙏

We started @bizbreakdowns because we wanted in-depth explorations of companies that most piqued our curiosity. We wanted them to be detailed AND entertaining. We think every business has something to teach us. Here’s a recap of the companies we’ve explored so far this year:

@compound248 @mattcoutts @ReustleMatt @patrick_oshag We tend to be better at calling tops than picking bottoms, but we got lucky this time.

@mattcoutts @zbfuss @ReustleMatt @patrick_oshag The timing of the pod drop was certainly fortuitous!

This podcast is probably why Elon can raise 45b for a 🤡🚗 without a diligence period @compound248 @zbfuss @ReustleMatt @patrick_oshag

@BillBrewsterTBB Preference would be both levered and unlevered ROI metrics. Hopefully the management team is looking to solve for the highest returning projects and then using a capital structure that drives a stronger ROE without putting the business at risk. Two somewhat separate decisions

Incentive wise, does Return on Net Assets get you to the same place that Return on Invested Capital does? Seems like it incentivizes debt usage. Want to make sure I am not missing something obvious though.

@Vathashimo @patrick_oshag Which would you like to see? Give us a couple companies and we will try and find somebody who has studied the business.

@patrick_oshag @zbfuss Barring Alibaba & Pinduoduo, most of the business breakdowns have focused on US & European Companies. I would love to see great businesses from rest of the world featured as well. Surely, there are a few exceptional ones in Latin America, Africa, Asia.

We’ve explored Stripe and dLocal in the past, and today we breakdown payments giant Adyen @zbfuss and Michael Willar explore the business model, platform and technology, growth strategy and everything else Enjoy! joincolossus.com/episodes/30866…

@tclaugus2 Herdez, Gruma and Sigma (via Alfa) are all great Mexican based food businesses with increasing exposure to North America. Eventually should probably be US listed without an ADR

$HERDEZ is moderately illiquid. However less than 14x next year EPS. Never a down year in revenues. 10-15 yr low ev/sales. It’s good to be short peso so if you have an IBKR I suggest shorting the peso against the position. It will add to the return over time. Net debt<2.5x

@patrick_oshag @mattcoutts 👀 👀 👀

This breakdown of John Deere by @zbfuss and @mattcoutts was especially interesting to me, because I knew almost nothing about farming I also love that Deere, which is 180+ years old, is becoming more technology focused…“the empire strikes back” Enjoy! joincolossus.com/episodes/51435…