Lars Stenlund co-founded the Swedish firm Vitec Software in 1985. For 35 years, he served as its CEO, and since 2021, he is the Chairman. In this interview, Lars shares his lessons and personal reflections from the journey with Vitec. The basis for our conversation is the book “Driven by Curiosity: Vitec – The First 40 Years”, published in 2025.

Fund managers Adnan & Oddbjørn from REQ Capital discuss their brand new book, The Compounders. The book highlights the journeys of nine companies from Sweden, North America, and the UK that have been exceptional compounding machines.

In this episode, we have the pleasure of welcoming back Stephen Penman, professor emeritus of accounting and security analysis at Columbia Business School. Stephen has been elected into the Accounting Hall of Fame and is also a distinguished author. We discuss his latest book, in which he shows how accounting helps you, how it doesn't help you, and how to use it when evaluating investments. Stephen also shares his insights on hurdle rates, the development of accounting, and the possible impact of AI.

Klaus Kleinfeld has been the global CEO of two Fortune 500 companies – Siemens and Alcoa. In this episode, we have the pleasure of discussing his book 'Leading to Thrive', where Klaus shares his lessons from heading big organizations, but also on how to live a good life.

Alex Morris, founder of TSOH Investment Research, shares his insights from Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella's book 'Hit Refresh.' We discuss the importance of empathy in leadership, cultural transformation, and finding your edge in equity research.

Economist and financial historian Lodewijk Petram discusses his book, "The World's First Stock Exchange," which focuses on the Dutch East India Company in the seventeenth century. We delve into the origins of the stock market, an IPO in 1602, and the similarities between historical and modern investor behavior.

We are happy to have Laurence (Lar) Endersen on the podcast. Lar is an experienced and thoughtful investor based in Ireland, where he heads his private investment firm Capstrive. Lar is also the author of books such as 'Pebbles of Perception'. We discuss his latest title – The Compounder's Element – a valuable and entertaining gem on long-term investing.

David Marcus is a US investor with decades of experience working for legends like Michael Price and Jan Stenbeck. We discuss Brad Jacob’s book How to Make a Few Billion Dollars and David’s fascinating journey as an investor and operator.

Phil Rosenzweig has been a professor at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, for about 30 years. We discuss Phil’s legendary book “The Halo Effect”, which debunks much of the classic management literature and explains how we tend to think that when a company performs well, the CEO is fantastic, the company has operational excellence, and the employees love to work there. We set a halo on the good performers.

Jaime Lester is a hedge fund industry veteran who has worked at firms such as Steinhardt Partners and David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and has managed his own investment fund for nine years. We discuss his book “Pause to Think,” which is a compilation of thirty-two mental models. Jaime also applies these models to various frameworks, such as how to make better decisions and how to become happier.

Will Barnes is the co-founder of the primary research firm In Practise and joins us to discuss their new book “In Practise”. The book has eleven chapters, each featuring an in-depth interview with an experienced operator helping us to better understand successful companies like Spotify, Danaher, and Constellation Software. In Practise is the first volume in a series of books that will be published over the coming years.

Asif Suria is an entrepreneur and investor in the US who focuses on a specific investing strategy that we haven’t talked about much in the podcast: event-driven investing or special situations. The title for this conversation is Asif’s book The Event-Driven Edge in Investing, in which he explains six different event-driven strategies, such as merger arbitrage and stock buybacks.

Brett Gardner is an investment analyst at the US-based investment partnership Discerene Group and, since about a week, a published author with his book Buffett’s Early Investments. The focus of our conversation is Brett's book, where he has uncovered a few of Buffett’s investments in the 1950s and 1960s that until now have been rather unknown.

Simon Kold is the founder of the Denmark-based investment firm Kold Konstellationen and was previously at Novo Holdings, one of the world’s largest investment organizations. Our conversation focuses on Simon’s upcoming book, On the Hunt for Great Companies, which details how to determine business quality. We cover the aspects we find the most interesting and encourage everyone to buy the book and read it in full. The book will be released on 29 October 2024.

Moritz Sitte is the investor at Antheia AB, a private investment firm founded by Daniel Ek. Moritz has previously worked as an investment manager at Baillie Gifford in Edinburgh for twelve years. We speak about The Clock of the Long Now and discuss topics such as investment philosophy, reframing one’s state of mind, and balancing the long with the short term.

Stephen (Steve) Clapham is the founder of Behind the Balance Sheet, an investment research and investor training consultancy. He has 25 years of experience as an investment analyst and has been a partner and head of research at two multi-billion dollar hedge funds. We discuss his book, the Smart Money Method, how he trains finance professionals, and his investment philosophy.

Torbjörn Arenbo is the Chief Analyst and Head of Corporate Advisory Sweden at Danske Bank. He has 25 years of experience working as a corporate finance advisor, portfolio manager, and risk manager. Our conversation is centred around Torbjörn’s book Capital Allocation and Value Creation, published in 2023.

Chris Waller is the Founder and Portfolio Manager of Plural Investing in New York. He previously worked in London at Goldman Sachs and holds an MBA from the Value Investing program at Columbia Business School. Our conversation is centred around the book “We Are Bellingcat” and covers how investors can deepen their research by better utilising open-source information.

This bonus episode features an interview with Eddie Palmgren – host of Investing by the Books – on Redeye Growth Day. Eddie shares some of his highlights and insights from the first three years of podcasting. The interviewer is Lars T. Andersson at Redeye.

In this episode we are joined by Staffan Salén – one of Sweden’s most prominent business men. The Salén family has a strong heritage spanning more than one hundred years, where Staffan and his brother Erik represent the third generation. In a fun and engaging conversation, we talk about banana boats, long-term investments, and high-speed lessons.