Well, thank you, George. Um, so I've sort of subtitled that uh how to succeed in business and life by shamelessly borrowing other people's best ideas. Um, so for sure this is the most provocative title today. Uh, way more interesting than investing the Stacy Murid way, you know. Um, so, uh, I suggest we get started, but before getting into specifics, um, I think everybody probably has their own view of the word cloning, but maybe we could just start so that we're setting the table here. What is your definition of cloning? >> Yeah. Well, so first of all, Professor George, thank you for having me. such a pleasure and uh to be able to do this uh our banter with Jeff is a dream for me. Uh we we never get to have enough time together so that's great. And uh so on your question of cloning uh I'll just take a step back. Uh, you know, Charlie Mer talks about mental models, right? And u and he had a a number of um incredible mental models and most mental models um are well known by humanity and followed by most humans. And if you follow those models, that's fine, but it isn't going to give you an edge because your fellow humans follow the same models. kind of like being an honest person for example, right? And uh but there are a lot of models where um most humans don't follow them. And the interesting thing about humans is even when you tell them that you ought to follow something, they usually will not listen to you, which is great. You know, makes these models enduring forever. Um and um and I I I still don't understand why it is that humans have an aversion to cloning. What I do understand is that humans do have an aversion to cloning. And it may be going back into our evolutionary history where if you wanted to survive in a huntergatherer society, following the crowd was the way to survive. you know going in the opposite direction where the tribe was going when the lion came was probably not going to good be good for survival. So basically we we learned probably herd mentality from uh you know our evolution. So for whatever reason most humans don't want to clone and most humans think cloning is beneath them and like most people want to start companies they want to come up with something innovative and what I found is that if you are a shameless cloner like yours truly uh it gives you a huge edge because there is so many things in the world that have already been been done by great people but the world can accommodate three of the same thing and if someone's done it once that doesn't mean there can't be two more versions or three more versions of it. So uh we benefit a lot by standing on the shoulders of giants. Uh we're not going to be able to figure everything out. I cannot figure most things out. So to me cloning is I mean my life would be pathetic without cloning. This is one of our fundamental mental models is um everything when I look at that I've done uh that has worked well has all been cloning and if I look back at my life there's hardly anything new that I came up with. It's just the way it is. >> Mhm. Mhm. So following on to that a little bit in the chapter in richer wiser happier about you uh William Green made the following comment. Intelligent people are easily seduced by complexity while underestimating the importance of simple ideas that carry tremendous weight. And so I just kind of want you to add on to your earlier comments framing that specific uh insight. >> Well, you know, Einstein said that there were four levels of intellect. You know, you know, uh smart, intelligent, genius, simple, right? So the highest level of int intellect is simplicity. And um and I've always felt that uh uh simplicity is a huge advantage uh because we can always have things straight in our head. We kind of know where we're going. If you're on a team, it's good to get the team directed in the same way. So I've always been naturally um uh naturally attracted to simplicity. I've also felt that when I'm making an investment, if I cannot explain the thesis of that investment in three sentences to a 10-year-old, there's something wrong with the investment. It's probably not going to work. And so the uh importance of distilling everything down to a set of very simple basic uh principles is important. And I think with cloning uh if you can understand what you are trying to clone and again boil it down to its simple essence executing that cloning becomes easy then. >> Okay. So you've obviously and you've already mentioned it you know the importance of Warren Buffett and and Charlie Mer uh as part of this whole process. I mean, you were operating Trans Tech when you were first exposed to Warren Buffett. So, that was kind of the light bulb moment for you. Can you take us through how that unfolded and why that hit you so powerfully? >> Yeah. So, you know, and this ties into the cloning idea. The Buffett partnerships which were one of the most successful partnerships run by any hedge fund uh ended in 1969. You know he ran it from 56 to 69. He actually shut it down in 70 but he was basically done with investing in ' 69. And I started uh Pabri Investment Funds in 1999 uh 30 years after Buffett ended his ended his partnerships. And what blew me away at that time which again reinforced for me the uh inability of humans to clone is that Buffett had a very unusual fee structure in his in his partnership. 0625, you know, 0% annual fields, 6% hurdle, and then above the 6% he got 25% of the upside. And the 0625 fee structure is a win-win for everyone. Uh the investor wins, the uh manager wins, everyone wins. And nobody went for this win-win structure. So I said, okay, we have the greatest investor ever with the greatest hedge fund ever. And that thing got put into cold storage in 69 and the Indian guy comes along in 99 30 years later and nobody has cloned the model. So I said hallelujah you know this is exactly what I thought my fellow humans are capable of. They cannot cloned. And so I said um the Indian guy is going to do it. So I basically set up a fund uh to do that. And what I did when I set up the fund is the early investors who came in, I reinforced for those investors in my investor meetings how important the zero fees were, right? Because I knew that they would not be able to find another manager with zero fees. And so I told him, listen, the zero fees is really important and your family money has to all be invested with zero fee managers. So go find all the other zerop managers and more importantly tell all your friends that they need to be with zerope managers, you know, and their friends came to me, which was great, you know, because I was a monopoly. So it's always great to be a monopoly. And um many years later when I became friends with Charlie and I was saying this to Charlie and I said you know Charlie this Buffett partnerships and ended in 69 and then 99 30-year period he says to me Monish um I have to correct you there were a few humans who had cloned Warren. I said yes but Charlie I couldn't find them and nobody could find them. He said, "Yeah, nobody would be able to find these people. They were very obscure and they're very few." And so to me, it has always been that uh cloning like that was an example where I base my whole livelihood on cloning that model. And that was 99. Okay. Now we at 2025. It's the same situation. There are no funds. So now it's been what uh 56 years. I'm still waiting for the cloners to arrive. >> Well, Ben Watsa actually has uh cloned that model. >> There you go. So, and he's scaling. >> Yeah, >> he's scaling because of that, which is great. >> Yeah. So, I mean that's cloning of the operational or the structural model of the Buffett partnership. There's still the whole investment piece and I I'm I want to emphasize to everyone here that Monish has adopted cloning in every aspect of his life and we're going to get to some of that but it seems to me the obvious question right now is okay I would guess that everyone in this room has read either books about Warren Buffett or a good portion of the Buffett letters. Um, so what were the the the best ideas that you cloned on the investment philosophy side of Buffett and Munger? >> Yeah. And I think so on the investing side, you know, the term value investing is a redundant term. You know, all intelligent investing is value investing. There's no such thing as, you know, anything else. So basically, really, it should just be investing. It's not value investing. Um, on the investing side, I feel that I did a terrible job at cloning. And the reason I did a terrible job with cloning is because I overdosed on Ben Graham for the longest period and I underdosed on Charlie Mer. And what really should have happened was the other way around, you know, and um but the thing is that when you clone, even when you clone suboptimally, you still end up in paradise, right? And so what took me the longest time to figure out, I mean, I I would say that uh I probably figured this out maybe seven or eight years ago. So I've been I've been a investor following Buffett etc. for now 31 years and I would say for the last uh more than two decades for first two decades uh in looking back I was actually in the wilderness >> you know even though I'd studied everything I was friends with these guys I mean I'm friends with Warren friends with Charlie and all of that even with all of that uh I didn't get it and I didn't get something really simple and uh the The simple thing I didn't understand is that if the job is done right, your portfolio is going to be 95% one stock. And if I look at a manager uh whose portfolio is not 95% one stock, then I know they've not they're not optimizing. And I also know that they don't get it, myself included, right? So why should it be 95% one stock? Well, the reason is that u there are very few truly great businesses run by truly great managers. And it's almost for sure that some of those businesses one way or another are going to make their way into most of your portfolios. And many of those businesses made their way into my portfolio. And the problem was that Monish was too much of an idiot to keep them, you know. So the the key is that when you end up with a great business with a great manager, you shut the brain off and you don't try to figure out anything optimal like intrinsic value and this and that. You just as long as the business is doing well and the manager is good, just leave it in the portfolio. And if you do that, what's going to happen is that these even if a business starts at 2% or 3% or 10% of your portfolio, it's going to end up becoming 90%. And uh so and then you know the the second question that comes up is yeah but you know when you manage money how can you be 90%. Right? Well, I'm in that situation right now where I have two businesses in one of my funds and they make up like close to 70% of the portfolio. And now that finally Monish understands the way life is supposed to work, I just told my investors that here's the situation. We are not going to be diversifying away from these businesses. We're not going to be selling these businesses because they're undervalued and they have a good business, a good manager. So, we're not going to do that. If you have concerns about this level of concentration, redeem part of all of your interest and life will go on, right? And I also told them if you have less than 20% of your net worth in this fund, my suggestion is leave it alone. And so now I I sent this letter repeatedly to my investors. No one even called me or emailed me about it. It was It's like they were all immediately enlightened. I didn't get redemptions. I said, "Wow, what a truly gifted group." And so now at 70%, they don't seem to be losing any sleep. So why would they lose any sleep when we get to 90%. It's okay. So the question I want to ask you is you identify an an idea, a best idea that you clearly feel is worth cloning. You try it, but maybe it doesn't work for you. Have you ever had that experience as you've been uh moving on this uh continuum of of trying to uh clone everything in your life? Most things I have done in life cloned or unccloned have not worked. But the thing about life is there's an asymmetry in life. And Mr. Bezos understands asymmetry better than any of us. So Amazon keeps throwing stuff against the wall with all kinds of things they try. And you know these bets they make are small bets and they keep making one small bet after another. And most of these bets don't work. And so they lose 50 million or they lose 100 million or they lose 200 million and they move on, right? But when it works, like AWS was one of those bets they threw against the wall. When it works, it's so asymmetric that it doesn't matter. And that's the way life is. So we have to be willing to try many things. And we don't need that many things to work if the downside of failing at what we're trying is not meaningful. And so, uh, from my point of view, when I look back, many different things I did business-wise, etc. in life didn't work. But there was no downside. And the ones that work, they work so much that it pays for another 50 of these side bets that don't work. So, it's okay. >> Um, I know I I want to start to sort of branch out and get into some of the like personal traits that you've adopted by observing others. And maybe I'd start with uh I know you've been impacted by the David Hawkins book um the hidden uh power versus force, the hidden determinants of human behavior. And I think sort of boiled down, true power stems from traits such as honesty, compassion, and a dedication to enhancing other people's lives. Um, can you just talk about that? Cuz I know for you, you maybe you used the phrase earlier about overindexing on things. I mean, I think you would be self-proclaimed overindexing on truthfulness. And uh as as part of that, would you just maybe talk through so we're talking personal characteristics now? >> David Hawkins is this weirdo new age guru with a ponytail. Uh used to live in Arizona and he's passed away now. Most people who would read the book Powers is Force by him. Uh if I recommend it, I've recommended to a lot of people. They either want to throw the book back at me and hope it hurts me or they love it. No one has ever told me I was okay. you know, we I don't get a a it was okay because I react. It's either like this is such nonsense or amen. It's one of those two reactions I get. Um to me that book had a huge impact on me and uh the thesis of the book is really simple. What what David Hawkins was saying is that if I lie to you and in your conscious state you don't know I'm lying to you. In your subconscious state you do. And with most humans, there's a pipe that goes between the subconscious and the conscious. And that pipe is mostly clogged because of all that humanity has thrown at us. But there is still a signal that gets through. It's a very weak signal. And that signal can be measured on a muscular reaction. So if I'm lying to you, put some probes on you, there can be a muscular uh reaction that can be measured. I don't know whether that's true or not. I've never tried to experiment with it, but I took what David was saying as the gospel truth. And he said that this truth versus lies is a complex situation. So there are a lot of different levels of truth versus lies. So let's say for example, uh my wife and I are going off on a date, okay? We're going to have a nice dinner somewhere and she asked me, "How do I look?" Okay. And I think the dress sucks. Let's say I think the dress sucks. Now, the pre-David Hawkins bonus should have said, "You look great. Let's go." Okay. And the post-David Hawkins says, "You know, I don't think the dress works." Now, when I do that, I don't think the dress works. The date night might be over. Okay. But what happens is the relationship becomes stronger. So, you take some short-term pain for some long-term gain because she knows that when I ask him how's this or how's that, I'm getting a real answer, right? I'm not getting some whatever. So, the the important thing is to wipe out the white lies and wipe out the small lies. So, this truth versus lies, the truth is on a log curve. So if you go to the extreme end of the law curve, you are now getting to people like Jesus and Buddha and Gandhi and of course we're not going to get there. Okay? But you go a little bit below on the law curve and now you get to Warren Buffett and Charlie Mer and all of these guys that we can actually see and touch, right? So we may not even get there. But if you make a deliberate attempt to go as far up that log curve as you can, like what Munger says, the world does not work on contracts. It works on trust. And to be trusted is a huge advantage. And so when you when you start applying this principle of you know truth versus lies and inner scorecard outer scorecard and you don't just give it to the world unvarnished and you prefer truth over diplomacy and all of that to me that's a very powerful mental model because it gives you such a big edge in life and so that's why I like David Hawkins. >> Well you're making me feel inadequate right now. Uh, I've never done that on date night. >> But, but now, Jeff, you're going to >> I'm not sure actually. >> You can get there, Jeff. You can get there. >> Um, I it's actually important to me to ask this next question because I think what you've done is phenomenal with Doc Shauna Foundation. And so I'd like you if you feel comfortable just to share what the purpose of doc is, how it came into being. But even there you were cloning and there were some principles of how you brought the foundation into being that were cloned ideas. Um but just would love to hear an update on dakshana and some of these uh concepts. The Dakshina model is so far beyond my pay grade that I could never come up with it. So there is no possibility the Monish would have ever be able to come up. So it it's a it's a cloned model like everything else is a cloned model. And uh I'll explain the model in a second but this guy in Bihar in India which is a very desolate place uh I read an article in business week in 2006 and he was running this amazing model where he was taking he was a very gifted math teacher. He was identifying 30 extremely poor kids in Bihar, mostly kids of farmers and laborers who were like fourth grade educated whatever and he was taking them in providing free room and board uh in a slum in in uh in Bihar and 10 months later uh he was getting 90% or more of them into IIT which is the MIT of India. So the uh IITs in India are a pure meritocracy. So they don't have any essays. They don't have any legacies. They have no you know set aside for people who donate money or any of that. There is one test and probably the hardest test in the world and basically your rank on that test determines whether you get in or not. Uh 2 million kids take that test every year for uh about 16,000 seats. So it's the admit rate is less than 1%. And uh extremely hard to get in and uh if you if you get rank one uh out of the 2 million uh what the IITs ask you is which campus and which major. If you get rank one, they all go to IIT Bombay computer science. I Bombay computer science closes by rank 80. And the IIT Bombay computer science undergraduate class. There is no classroom in the planet that has the brain power that is in that classroom. It's not at MIT or Stanford or any of the other elite institutions. So that's why Bill Gates says that if he had to recruit from only one school on the world, he would recruit from the IITs. Now to get into IIT are extremely hard. But once you get in, it's pretty much free to attend because the government subsidizes it. So if you take a very poor kid and you somehow and the coaching to get into IIT is very expensive. It's about $5 to $10,000 of coaching and then after you take the coaching there's a 1% chance that you're going to make it after spending that money. And in India there are families that are around like you know $2,000 a year or $1,000 a year there's just no chance that they can even pay for the coaching. So this guy was basically making that coaching free and he was doing that for 30 kids a year and he was getting 90% of them in versus the national 1% admit rate. So I went and met him and I said let's scale this because this is this is awesome. And uh he said I don't have any interest in scaling. So I said do you mind if I clone the model? And I had to explain to him what cloning meant. And uh he said this is a very good thing. You should clone it. I'll try to help you whatever. And so I said, "Okay, good. We'll clone the model." So we took that model that he had and he was doing 30 kids a year and we are now doing a thousand kids a year. And uh we spend about $3,000 for a kid to get them through this coaching with the room and board and whatever else. And the $3,000 of coaching basically takes a family which is maybe making $1,000 or $2,000 a year to one that's making a 100,000 or 200,000 a year, right? They'll be hired by Google or Microsoft or whoever. And so if I were to say to anyone that, you know, identify a random poor family and I'll give you $5,000 and change the trajectory of that families where they're no longer poor. And it basically can't be done because the there just too many but but a great brain and and a very impressive brilliant brain is coming to us for free and it's not developed but we can develop it and so there are two systems that we rely on to make dua work. There's the IIT system which is free. So once we get somebody trained, somebody else pays for it. And then there's the J&V which is the magnet school system from which we pull the kids which is also free. And so these two systems uh collectively spend about close to uh $250,000 on a single kid. The IITs are spending about 60 to 50 60,000 a year per kid because they're basically a sort of undergrad one year would cost and the J&Bs are spending maybe another 15 20,000 over the thing. So basically Dakshina spells 3,000 the government does a I don't know 60 to1 or 70 to1 subsidy. Thank you. The government of India and uh makes us look great and so we are transforming these thousands of lives every year and um I was really surprised that the whole thing worked. It blew me away actually. >> What are the latest statistics on the number coming through the Doc Shauna program that get accepted? Well, the the latest numbers actually are even better than what I had ever imagined. So, even more difficult than the IITs to get into India is the AllIndia Institute of Medical Sciences, the Med School, which is like the Harvard Med School of India. The admit rate on the as admissions is.1%. So, it's not even 1% like the it.1%. uh 25% of our kids that we have now a medical part that we also do are going to as it's a 25% hit rate which is extremely high. The ones who don't make it to as get to other government medical colleges but the 25% blew me away. I mean that's a unheard of. It's a 250x uh higher rate than the general population and uh and those those doctors coming out of as those are some of the best doctors in the world. Um Deepak Chopra for example is a as alum and a lot of the many of the top US doctors etc from Ames. So >> yeah, um, listen, I I think that's amazing. And so I'll tie it back to your inner scorecard and I know you're humble, but you know, on your inner scorecard, this must give you a lot of personal satisfaction what you've done. You know when I when I first started Dakshina in like 2006 2007 um I had a very lofty goal that whenever I passed away people would not remember at all that I was an investor but they would remember that I was had something to do with Dakshana and I still think I have like three four decades to go. I have about like 30 years to go actually and it's there. It's already there in many ways. It's really and you know uh my daughter she's got the Dakshina logo tattooed on her back. Highest accomplishment for a dad. Couldn't imagine that. You know, this just blew me away when I saw that. I'm not a big tattoo fan, but I was okay with that. When have you booked your appointment? >> I'm sorry. >> When have you booked your appointment? >> Not there yet. >> Um, I know we're getting starting to get tight on time before we we go to to a Q&A. So, I have kind of two more quick questions. I know one of your favorite quotes is, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." That's Pascal. Um, just talk to me about that. >> I was just going to tell you I'm not capable of coming up with that quote, but uh, yeah, that was Pascal and I just edited it to say all investment manager misery stem from their inability to sit quietly in a room alone and do nothing. So basically, you know, the single biggest issue we face is activity. And what we have to get really good at, which is what took me so long, is we have to become really good at watching paint dry and enjoying the process of watching paint dry. I'm trying to get better at that. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, look at my last question before we throw it open. I mean, you're on this journey uh to clone the very best ideas that you can find. Um along the way you've got to course correct from time to time cuz something isn't maybe what you thought it was as an idea or perhaps it just doesn't work for you. But in your own mind how far along this journey would you say you are? >> You know I don't really have a plan like that. I think the thing is you keep putting one foot in front of the other and uh you try to leave the world planet a better place than you found it. So I think from my point of view, I aspire to become a better investor, aspire to become better at giving money away, aspire to be a good uh good person for society, and that's about it. You know, there's really not much else there is. >> Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you. All right, we'll throw it open to questions.