Stanley Druckenmiller with David Novak

"You get your grades in the paper every day. There's no hiding in the investment business. The numbers are what they are, you can make up all the excuses you want."

This past week, Stanley Druckenmiller appeared on David Novak’s How Leaders Lead podcast. Druckenmiller mostly recounted his life’s story. If you’ve been a long-time reader or have listened to a lot of his interviews, you’ll know most of the stories already. He made some cautious and bearish comments consistent with his recent appearances at Palantir and Ira Sohn.

“It's always dangerous for anybody to listen to me because I can be in love with something on Friday and then on Wednesday I'm actually short. And they say, well, Druck said this or that.”

I still enjoyed the conversation at lot. You can find my favorite quotes and highlights below.

• Passion and work ethic

• Markets as a puzzle

• There’s no hiding in the investment business

• Emotion

• “This is the most unprecedented cocktail I've ever been served up.”

• The current bubble

• Too young to know better

• Better to be lucky than smart

• Luck and Volcker crushing inflation

• Even Druckenmiller couldn’t raise money

• Winning and learning are intoxicating

• Working for George Soros

• The European currency shorts

• Managing analysts

• The 2000 bust

• Getting his mojo back

• 2008: “It was obvious”

• Retirement and risk appetite

• Competitiveness

• Bearish bias

• Learning from failure

• Demographics and entitlements

• Druck-isms:

  • Never invest in the present

  • Put your eggs in one basket and watch it carefully

  • Invest now, investigate later

  • Observe leading industries

  • The obvious is obviously wrong

• China

• The idiot savant

• Parenting