Mark Gandy

According to Mark Jacobsen, he had been steeped in books about failing fast, failing forward, resilience, grit, and moonshots as a startup founder. But what happens to the founder when that world comes crashing down on the hopes and dreams who started that journey? While there are numerous books about epic business collapses, few exist on dealing with personal failure where Mark shares his inner battles in his book, Eating Glass.

I enjoyed reading about Guy Spier’s lunch with Warren Buffett in his book, The Education of a Value Investor. That gave me an idea. What if I could pull off a virtual dinner with this deep-thinking value investor? With a huge thank you to Adam Mead, author of The Complete History of Berkshire Hathaway, that satisfying conversation became a reality. Grab a sandwich and your favorite beverage, and be prepared to learn from this gifted value investor.

I have read many investment books over the past 30 years, and one of the titles easily in my Top 5 is The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier. In the world of value investing, Guy needs no introduction. He’s been interviewed hundreds of times and he’s also been a Talks at Google presenter. With thanks to another author, Guy gladly said he’d join the show, and he certainly delivered.

Steve Wexler is one of my favorite teachers in the data visualization space because he’s easy to understand and doesn’t speak over our heads. He’s the co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards, and his newest book is The Big Picture. Our topics include preattentive attributes, the love affair with stoplight colors, dead-end dashboards, and important tips when building visualizations. We also talk about the so-what of three different chart types.

Once upon a time, I was all business. I was overly analytical and a bit too direct on every project I worked on. I was never mean-spirited, at least I didn’t think I was. I just thought everyone should be like me when working on critical projects. Four years into my career, some people who cared about me said, “Mark, you’re smart, but you need to go to charm school.” That was a transformational experience.