Red Notice by Bill Browder – Episode 16

The buddies jump into the life of high finance, corruption, and murder in the non-fiction thriller Red Notice by Bill Browder.  This episode covers a number of topics ranging from, empathizing with multi-millionaires to teaching autocracy 101.  Austin Powers and Harry Potter were not mentioned, quoted, or used as a comparison in this episode, breaking a 15 episode streak. The buddies vow to do better next time.

Next Book: THE SONG OF ACHILLES  by MADELINE MILLER

Transcript for SEO 🙂

Welcome to the buddy book club. Thanks for tuning in. I’m here with my good buddy Keith breakdown some bestsellers. As always, this time around, we’re taking a detour to the nonfiction side of the library and checking out a political slash financial thriller. I guess.

That book now you said that wrong. It’s financial. Oh, finance, high mass. Yeah, thank you. There we go. Well,

the finance book we’re discussing here is read notice a true story of high finance, high finance, murder in one man’s fight for justice. This was chosen based on a lesser recommendation. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about any past episodes, you can visit our website buddy book club, comm site and our DMS on Twitter and Instagram buddy book club podcast. You can listen to us on iTunes and Spotify. So please download and subscribe. Now we got that out of the way. privyet Comrade Keith

another Russian book, I feel like we’re big into Russia.

Oh, yeah. Something about big into Russia and big into torture which we’ll which we’ll get to later. realize what’s true. Read notice is basically the story of Bill Browder, the grandson of the head of the American Communist Party, who brings capitalism to Russia. hilarity ensues. Is that accurate?

Totally, totally. Yeah.

Yeah. So that’s generally the story. It’s, it’s a decently long book. We both listened to this one, which I enjoyed the audio book I enjoyed here. I think the guy who did it was pretty good at like mixing accents in which could be difficult.

There’s nothing worse than and we’ll get to this later. But Tom Hanks played. What’s that movie the terminal, the terminal. Oh, my God, it’s terrible. has really high rated it’s too but I just can’t handle the the Russian accent.

I actually found it to be quite nice. It was whimsical.

It was alright. Well, we’re

not here to talk about the terminal. We’re here to talk about red notice. First, we like to discuss libation. Because, you know, we need to have a little a little something in our system while we’re discussing the book, especially when that’s 16 hours long. I feel like vodka just has to be the name of the game has to be done. Yeah. And vodka name is diminutive for the Slavic word for water. So I guess Russians must like it quite a bit, considering they just call it water. But it’s supposed to be like me. So I’m going to have just a little chilled vodka. I’m also going to have a beer, but maybe a sidecar if you will? Like that. Yeah, you’re going with a coffee

as always. Yeah, it’s only noon here. And West Coast time. So might be a little bit early for the kids. But

I do think this is a good time to discuss your creative drink, though. Covo which is a coffee like a correct tea. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, it’s. I mean, the thing is, most people don’t like it because they drink coffee so often, but I never drink coffee. I rarely drink coffee, and maybe once a week, and so you don’t really it’s coffee is so bitter to me that you don’t taste the vodka. So it’s like the best of both worlds, you get a really big boost, and you don’t taste the vodka at all. So it just tastes like a good drink. I like it hot. So you sell hot coffee. If you want to put a little cream in there a little, you know, little, a little fancy in there. You can do that too. And then you throw some vodka in there. It’s the ultimate pregame drink. TM, taking investors. So hit us up on buddy book club po*****@gm***.com If you’re looking for investment

as well, well, you were basically ahead of the Espresso Martini. I mean, you like it hot, right? It’s pretty much the same thing. Right? Yeah. Good for you. Yeah, good for you. Talking about read notice, do you have a favorite scene? This is a very long book. And I feel like it comes in three parts. It’s kind of like the first the first one which is like him building up his company and like getting involved involved in Russia. And the second part, which is kind of the downfall a little bit, you know, when the market crashes and things start to get tightened up on his company and the individuals and then the third part which is the whole saga, Sergei, Sergei part. So out of those three, I guess I think we’re both gonna agree that the first parts the best, but did you have a specific scene or area of the book you like the most?

I agree, I think the beginning part where he’s kind of building up the company, I don’t know if you’ve read shoot on but I kind of labeled that this Shoe Dog asked area. And what I really loved about this router dude was that everything he did was out of spite, which you know, someone I’m a big spike guy, big spike guy, and he was like, You know what I’m gonna be I’m a capitalist out of spite, and then he left and he’s like, went to college and he’s like, You know what, I’m going to transfer to a better school. And he just kept on doing everything out of spite. And I was like, I like this a lot. And the reason that basically sound like he would have been satisfied to stick with his company and that he’s currently doing all the dealings in Russia with if they just like given him the credit But instead they did it and he’s like, Alright fuck these dudes and you’re like out of spite started his own company. So everything he did was from that part. I love the build up like that it was very Shoe Dog esque where even read that, like the Nike founder basically do the same thing like he was a pretty good relationship with, I think was a Japanese company. Yeah, he was Tiger shoes or something like yeah, they like screwed about like a deal. And he’s like, alright, I’ll just start my own company. And then Nike became, and then you’d never heard of that other company anymore. So yeah, pretty, pretty funny. I loved it. Okay. Yeah, I liked

within that first part, I like the the Poland scene kind of when he’s starting to get into these emerging markets. And it was a consulting gig that he was in before he decided to start the fund. And it just it was like, right after the Berlin wall when the government was privatizing state owned companies, and shell selling shares at absurdly low values. But in more of an anecdotal story was just him, you know, in the shitty hotel room, with a tiny little bed, that’s just the shoe box. And his like Russian buddy driving him around, and just like wanting to get them or Polish buddy, excuse me, like, just wanted to get the fuck out of there. But at the same time, then realizing it was when he bought his first stock. So he’s realizing, Oh, my God, like, there’s a lot of opportunity here. And this is Poland. And maybe I should take this to Russia, considering my grandfather was such a commie that I should be such a capitalist.

out of spite, out of spite.

Alright, cool. Let’s get stuck up stuck down stuck up. I mean, this is talking about stock up. This is actual book about stocks. But what did you have for stock up in this one,

receiving bad news doc up. So there’s a common theme in the book. And I think I’m gonna get into this a little bit later as well. But every time you receive bad news, you kind of paint a picture like this. So I was at my five star hotel in Greece that cost $5,000 At night, relaxing for the first time hear it out at night, like 100 foot yacht, but then I received a call about bad news. I’m like investments not working. I always have sympathy for every single time. Here’s the bad news. He’s like, I was at a Michelin star restaurant. I didn’t really want to go there because I wasn’t feeling great. I’m like, bro, come on. Like, this isn’t how you like set up a bad news story. Yeah, he

named drops a restaurant by names like, oh, it’s one of those 18 courses gonna take three and a half hours. Like, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I just want to not be here. It’s like, okay, relax. And I was wondering how long it would take us to get into the amount that he talks about the wealth around him or like the things he was experiencing. So I’m glad it didn’t take very long because it was a big problem for me.

Yeah, it was a good way to receive bad news when you’re, you know, sleeping in your $5,000 night sweet. Alright, doesn’t seem that bad. I wasn’t really crying for him at that point didn’t really set out very well.

Also, all the calls started with B. I have some bad news. Yeah. Something’s going wrong in the for my stock up public speaking. Normally, not something people are really jazzed about, or even when you see one. It’s like, okay, that was fine. But old Billy be here. He’s a regular old Clarence Darrow, his prose is so well received. He often brings listeners to tears. He can he can barely get a full thought out before everyone gives him a standing ovation. He’s just like, he’s like Karpman addressing the house about stem cell research and the episode where Kenny dies, just like sings heat of the moment, and everyone’s clapping and crying. So that’s really be whenever he gets up in front of a crowd, he goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows that Harvard Business students are crying, random members of the House and Senate are putting down their BlackBerry’s to start weeping. It’s amazing. This guy is just one of the best public speakers ever seen.

I love that you have that because by literally next talk of us making people cry stock up. Everywhere Bill Browder goes, Yeah, people just weeping in the streets. Well,

I actually watched and by the way, if you don’t want to watch this, or read this book, listen to this book, however you want to consume it. You can just listen to Bill Browder’s TED talk, he goes to like TEDx Berlin. I watched that to verb in sync right now. So yeah, 15 minutes. It’s pretty much the entire story. And he only names drops, like a couple places he staying like once or twice, 15 minutes.

Although he did and that TED Talk. He’s like, Oh, by the end of this talk, you’ll know why Putin hates me the most but the end of it. I’m like, why does he hate him? Like I would have to read the book to know it.

Putin doesn’t give a fuck, bro. Like, I know it’s a big deal. Like it’s cool that he said your name but relax, relax. Oh, like we’ll get more into that later. So stock up, I guess recovered. You’re making people cry. I didn’t cry when I listen to the dead dog by the way, and I like to cry here in their financial terms. That’s another one of my stock ups. i We just love to gamble here. Both you and I we love to talk about football, gambling. I love gambling terms with teasers parlays All sorts of good stuff you can get in your dogs. Those are fun that not a dog. But 10 bagger that might be the best I’ve heard yet and a 10 bagger he explains in the book is when you hit a stock for 10x. So you buy it for $1. And now it’s like dollars. So you hit a 10 bagger. And then I thought about if I never had a 10 bagger, and I think I did with Tesla, and I felt really good about myself, I felt so good. I went to this sit down restaurant down the street here, let me explain. It’s kind of the Ritz Carlton, you know,

go on.

I was there with my Russian bride.

She was a model. She was

a model and she was also head of UNICEF. This fucking guy, but yeah, so the financial terms he drops him throughout. I love that stuff. So emerging markets, why not? What else you got for stock up?

Stock got white giraffes? I don’t know if you’re familiar with these. You could do a quick Google search there. Just giraffe. Yeah, I don’t know if they’re about albino. I mean, they’re pretty majestic. I think those are pretty cool. It’s also funny that he was dating one. Yeah. So he started dating Elena. And the way he described her beauty was a flawless porcelain white skin and a long regal neck. Are you turned on as much as I was after reading that? I don’t know. Long regal neck and porcelain light skin. I mean, huh? Whoo. Yeah. Hot in the streets. Yeah. Interesting.

I mean, you know, everyone’s into their own their own thing. And I respect that, that everyone you know, can can Yeah, no one’s gonna yell at anyone else’s yum. But being being interested, really in someone’s long neck.

What is Rico mean? Really means

a royal right? Well, I know. And in some, like African tribes, they use those like neck extenders, because that’s a big Oh, you

think he’s into that? Maybe? I

don’t know. Maybe she had an extra hand there. But I also

thought it was just the imagery was funny to me. Yeah. Well, also, maybe

it’s a cultural thing. Like, you know, ancient China, they used to do the foot binding. And that’s disgusting. So, and just torture us.

So get your ethnocentrism out of your head. I don’t want to hear it.

Did you have anything else for snuck up?

One other one, women bad guys stock up. Ooh, it was really refreshing. And this is a true story. But it’s refreshing to see some bad woman, women bad guys. This is a true quality when you start to see bad guys. And where were the bad the judge that Oh, like God refused to do anything. She was a woman and then the doctor. Yeah. And then the doctor that covered everything up was a woman. I just really liked that. I appreciate it that, you know, in Russia, I feel like that’s where the true quality is coming from and sounds like so. socket?

Well, Russians. I mean, this book is not good for Russia, that’s for sure. But one thing about Russia and communism in general, is they really kind of throw sexism out the window for the most part. So, you know, everyone’s a comrade. That’s all. That’s true. My last stock up was the buddy book club itself. You know, yeah, stock up for us. Because at the end of the book, Bill Browder basically says, the one thing you can do to help keep me alive is to talk about this story and share it with people. So what else are we doing here besides talking about his story and Jerry with people so lucky Putin? Where are Billy Browder side?

Yeah,

I forgot surrogate. So did

it too soon, to said,

there would be like, oh, like the day I heard Sergei died was the most traumatic day like what a traumatic day for me, I had to put down like gold fork, and, you know, get in my Rolls Royce. And I had to go and fight for Sergei, because if I wouldn’t do it, who would?

Jesus I feel bad because we’re treating this like a fiction book, but it’s actually real life. But we’re gonna You gotta do the same critical eye that you do on the fiction, so but it doesn’t matter. Of course, of course.

Plus, we like to really take things lightly. I’m sorry, but that’s just the what you’re that’s what we’re doing here. Anyways, I mean, I’ll talk shit about Billy Browder. I’m not going to talk to you about Sergei, for the most part. I’m

not talking about Putin, apparently. Oh, yeah.

We got to stay away from that. We don’t yeah. Okay, let’s move on to talk down. Would you ever knocked out

the superiority complex stock down when you went to Poland, as you mentioned, he was like, I’m so intimidated. I’m going to this new country, I have to leave this whole operation like, bro, you’re a Stanford MBA. You’re like one of the most prestigious consulting firms, you’re going to a place that doesn’t have heat that still has horse and buggies. I mean, like, I feel that you have some sort of superiority over these people when you go in. If this dude doesn’t have confidence with that, where does confidence come from? Like, how does anyone have confidence? Like, that’s where that you should have some sort of, Oh, I’m gonna fucking go in here and like, tell these people it’s good, but he didn’t have any of that. I don’t know. What do you think of that?

I mostly just didn’t like how He disrespected the food. Like, Oh, they’re eating brown stew for dinner. I could barely horse liver. I could barely even choke it down. It’s like, get involved in another country, man. Immerse yourself. Relax. Alright, Poland’s

gonna be on her side a little bit there. And then Paul’s got

dumplings. They got dumplings, man, just go find some dumplings. When? What else do you need? Yep. proviz. Always. Don’t complain to me, Bill. Okay. I don’t want to hear it stuck down for me. oligarchies slash governments on the hall, the oligarchies for that part is like handful people controlling the wealth of a nation, but equals bad for the moment, you know, for the most part. And we kind of have that here. Except it’s like corporations. Instead, we’re soon going to be a corporation controlled world. And we don’t want to get into government talk. But yeah, that’s pretty fucked up. Also, just the slow move, moving and bureaucratic nature of democracy, when Bill Browder actually tries to get stuff done here. It’s like, oh, yeah, we’ll do it, you know, takes a couple of weeks, everything goes a little slow. It takes a couple months. Now it’s an election year. And since both sides agree on it, it can’t get done, because we only want to talk about stuff that people disagree on. Why the fuck is wrong with governments? Just, it seems pretty cut and dry. And also, you know, Bill’s genius idea, which is, hey, instead of like going after the crux in their own country, let’s just go after their wallets and their visas seems pretty straightforward to me. And hey, I appreciate that. He went for that and like it worked out. But also like, what the fuck America? Why aren’t we already on top of that? Why would you just like give crooks visas so they can spend their money and like in the United States, and just keep it the United States? It was bonkers to me that this was even a thing. But hey, you know what, you just can’t trust governments. That’s really at the end of the day.

He wasn’t like criticizing one party or the other. He just was like, these politicians helped me and these like these people didn’t on both sides. He was criticizing didn’t matter, like his political affiliation or anything like that. Which is really what it should always be. I don’t give a shit what party you’re at. I just wanted this to get done. Yeah, totally.

I mean, he made he made John McCain seem like a wonderful person. And I think John McCain is a wonderful person. You know, I’ve no questions will be John Kerry, not so much. But hey, the guy kind of seems like a dick anyways. So I’m not really a big fan. And I’m from Massachusetts. So hey, I can say that shit. stuck down.

What else? You got white dinner conversation, stock down on a second date? He’s like, Yeah, the second date didn’t go that well. We didn’t really get into much serious conversations. He starts off the day immediately talking about politics and oligarchies and Russia and stuff like that. So interesting. Interesting. Strategically, they’re starting off the date with that. And then he keeps on talking about how like after that, like, everything was down here. We didn’t get any subjects or anything like that. Except that her father died tragically. Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, what? This is a second date. Or he’s like, we didn’t really get into much serious stuff. Like what is more serious on that? Like, holy shit. And the way he then he ends up getting her is by sending her a book that’s like about grieving your loss ones and sending that to her. And that’s how he basically lands there. I’m like, Holy shit, I’ve been doing the whole dating thing wrong. I’m usually like second date like, you know pretty nervous talking about the lightest stuff ever. He’s just going politics, jetting on her home country and death heart attacks.

Yeah, I forgot that stock up really should have been using a loved one’s death as advantage to get in their pants or that use someone’s death find out who’s important in their life that died and then use that as leverage to get in their pants is pretty much the Bill Browder method. That’s what I learned.

I mean, what we can do to that with Buddy book club is like, we can start to use the the buddy, the books that we’re reading as like, hey, I really thought about this, this book, that would mean a lot to you and send it to people because that’s what he basically did, right? Just found found a book.

Yeah, I liked this book, but I don’t think I’d be sending it. No, no, I’m

saying all the books we read. Someone just tells us some offhand story. We just say, hey, here’s I thought about you. And I was reading this book and sent it to him. And I feel like it’s a good pickup line at work. So yeah,

someone’s like, Hey, I found a dead body in the woods when I was a kid and traumatize me for like, your Stephen King’s the body. I hope you enjoy it. It might bring back some of your childhood trauma, also to tie into your story. Granted, I don’t know when I was gonna talk about this, but I don’t want to forget it. When he was married to his first wife, and like the marriage was on the rocks. He said, They went on vacation to kind of clear things up and just to get away.

Was it a five star hotel?

It sure was. He talked about the resort, five star hotel, they went out. They went out to a beautiful dinner together. And he was talking about how the relationship he feel like had turned for the better, like things were going really well, because he was able to sit there and talk about Russia the whole time. The only problem was that his wife kept wanting to talk about their son, which he was just like not into he did Just wanted to talk about what was happening in Russia was like, bro, you just slid that in there. He’s like, look, she can bring up our kid. But like, other than that she listened to my Russia stuff. So the relationship was going really well. I was like, Wow, you are a self centered prick.

The dude does go back every weekend from from Moscow. I respected that. Or at least he said,

he said he said that, but then it was also was he still doing that when he had his second wife? It was kinda like something he

just did second was lived in England.

So his he was going back there anyways. And he also visited first, or is carrying around, whatever I’m not saying it again. I’m not saying these guys are bad dad. I’m just Yeah, I’m just saying it was he wanted to talk about Russia all the time. And people don’t want to listen to Russia. Like your wife doesn’t care about Russia. Simple as that. Stock down for me corruption. It just didn’t didn’t actually I’m gonna attack corruption and torture,

corruption selling out, right. We’ve had, we’ve had a lot of bought been buying a lot of torture. So if you’re gonna think that stock down now, that could be a story. But corruption nothing’s ever been really added much of a stock price. Yeah, well,

I’m selling torture, because it definitely didn’t work in this situation. The whole torture of Sergei was what led to the Magnitsky Act. So it kind of screwed the Russians over maybe if they didn’t torture, the guy just like, gave him a toilet, didn’t make him freeze to death, and then gave him a doctor. It would have been okay, but instead, they went a little too far. And now we got the big nightsky Act, which has been used, I guess, supposedly in Ukraine, which is interesting.

I mean, the big issue I had with it is that if you’re Russian and you want to really cover all the Shut up, why would you release the diary that Sergei was writing? Like, clean it up Russia? Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, there

was a lot of weird stuff where and he he went kind of day by day with the Sergei thing like what Sega his experiences were in prison. Yeah. And I’m assuming they just must have got that from the diary. Right? because how else would you know

at the end of it, they’re like, luckily, we got Sergei, his diary, which outlined every single thing he did, he kept like meticulous day to day journal. And I’m like, Well, why would you ever release that? If you wanted to cover this stuff up? Like, what are we doing?

Yeah. And also don’t make any sense. It kind of ties back to the the thing that’s going on recently, who’s the guy? Alexi? What’s the guy’s name? The Russian, like, I know, the Russian opposition guy who’s now in prison, they tried to murder like a couple times through poison. And then I know you’re talking about a hunger strike. But it kind of mirrors that where it’s like, okay, you’re letting all this information out. So you should probably either not let any information out and just murder people. Or Don’t imprison them and let all the information out. It’s a weird way. Yeah, wrong about it.

I feel like we’ve had multiple discussions about how to run a dictatorship and we gotta be you know, they gotta be better at this. Yeah, fact. No matter

autocracy 101 Yeah, we can teach you

Yeah. And it seemed like it was pretty obvious but me but

especially when you have someone like Stalin who like ran your country for years. Yeah. Do what Stalin did weren’t these

dude like 20 years ago the secret police coming in rounding people up? Like Like, I feel you should kind of be have a little bit more weariness than what they currently have, like a lot of these Russians have.

Yeah, also maybe dietary principles didn’t really work out for the most part. All right, well, what do you love about the

book Finally, a combination of Shoe Dog and too big to fail, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of too big to fail, because when I get to my hates,

I’ll get into that. But with to fail the Enron? One.

It was the 2008 like start, like just the financial crisis. Again, it was falling around like all the CEOs of the banks, which basically was sympathizing with them, which, again, we’ll get into my hates, I was also, but already said Browder super spy driven. You love to see that. I also think that I think the story was interesting. Like I brought it up, you know, a couple of times, like it’s dinner party kind of book where like, a lot of lawyers talk about a lot of people are in the politics can know about this. So I thought it was like, Oh, I feel like I’m getting smarter kind of reading this type of book. So that was also something I really liked about it. I think too. If if you get down with a book and you’re looking into it more, or a nonfiction story, and you’re looking into it more like anytime I see some sort of movie that’s based on true story. I was deep dive into like, what actually happened, you know, you 571 completely accurate. God no. I mean, I know submarine movies, but no discrepancies between the movie and in the actual real life. Like, same thing like Argo.

Hold on. What? It is a little more sarcasm on that. You’ve had seven one. Okay. Yeah, that’s like that did not happen. No, no, no, no. But Argo was the same way.

No, I think Argo actually, I don’t know I have to look into Argo. But I remember like getting on with Argo. And just like Alright, I gotta read this. Oh,

yeah, that’s a good thing about those those books and movies is if it hits you in the right way, you just immediately want to start Googling the story.

So yeah, I looked at like the YouTube videos, we looked at the TED Talk, like that’s, that’s how you know, it’s a good book here. You’re like, still interested? Yeah. And then the other thing was, it just seemed real, it seemed like, even though sometimes it dragged to seem real. The one thing I need to call out, that wasn’t real at all, and there was definitely some cover up here. Okay. All these companies are hiding their funding, and there’s some sort of corruption going on, which is basically hurting our profits, right? And they’re just trying to figure out like, how do we find this out? They go pull up to a stop at a at a light, and they’re selling CDs. And a guy just walks up and says, Oh, are you looking for all the transactions of this one company? I have them and they’re like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. What luck? Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, fucking right. You

call it act? Oh,

he hacked something or something. You got the illegal means there’s no way the old some guy walked up to me in the street as a who’s selling, you know, faked CDs. DVDs is, oh, I also have these corporate filings that you’re looking for what was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read?

He said, What do you got? kid? He’s like, I got the full catalog of Mel Gibson movies. He’s like, You got what women want in there. He’s like, damn, right. It’s an HD. He’s like, Huh, what about the microtransactions of all the Russian companies? You happen to have that too? How much do you want? $5? Perfect. That’s like,

so little too good to be true. Other than that, it seems very true. What about you for loves?

I mean, I really just love the first third of the book, you’ve gotten over it, how it’s like Shoe Dog or whatnot, which also I didn’t get through, I got through the first third of it or something like that. But

I really liked your dog. I just not right now. Fiction.

I think my, my loan ended with a library. So but I’ll go back. It’s one of those things.

It’s a great audio book. Yeah.

I like nonfiction, my nonfiction is are mostly like historical nonfiction. So okay. And I thought that that kind of dragged to, which is the, you know, that’s why I said, I love the first third of this book. I mean, working for Robert Maxwell, the Solomon brothers stories, you know, him trying to find a desk and like people not really believing him. It just was really similar to me to the how I built this podcast, which is an NPR show hosted by Guy Roz, which is awesome. But those are like an hour and a half long, maybe. And it’s just an interesting way to see how companies were built, especially big ones. And I thought this was a really interesting, emerging market story, which really, I didn’t have any idea what emerging markets were, I think I like if you ask me a bit, well, it’s like markets that are emerging. But but seeing it in, you know, happen in real time, especially considering it was in the mid 90s. Where we were alive for was like, wait, you could just buy these companies like the the countries were valuing them for so much less that you just had to go and I mean, the Russian part when they were giving vouchers away to every citizen for like a piece of a piece of a company. And instead they were like, yeah, just I’ll trade you this for a shot of vodka. And the whole story about how it was getting compiled. And then there was brokers who were compiling that it was crazy. And it was a wild west, it reminded me a lot of like the the marijuana stuff going on these days where like, banks won’t take checks and stuff, they have to go in with cash. And they have all these secret bodyguards. It’s, it’s just really interesting. I really enjoyed the first, the first third of the book, the survey stuff was definitely interesting. And I think that was very important. We’re not trying to make light of that. But it just went on for way too long. And I would have liked it more if it was more of like an action thriller kind of thing with like, more surveys storyline, or like having it done from his perspective, it didn’t all have to be from Browder’s perspective. So I really like that stuff.

A great I think, yeah, we both kind of like the entrepreneurial spirit part. But yeah, it did seem to drag at the end there. I guess getting into the hate side though.

Yeah, let’s hate Dragon The

end was number one. The The other thing too, is that investing it’s a zero sum game, right? Like, I don’t know, they’re either there’s like a loser and a winner there’s not a like it’s it comes out to zero at the end of the day. So like someone that sold it is theoretically losing money. If it goes up if any other way around. If you buy it and it goes down, then there’s no inherent value added to the world

when you when he was talking about the stuff I talked about earlier with the Russian people like trading vodka away for like their share. All I read throughout this whole book was like he made his money off the backs of all these Russian people like the Russian citizens who were poor, and didn’t know what the fuck was going on. And they just went and bought all this, all this stuff that was previously state owned. And now anyone can do it and I get that like, oh sure Russian people could have done it themselves. But then you have rich Hi educated people coming in, and pretty much pillaging their country from them. So that wasn’t so hot.

It’s just hard to sympathize with all these multimillionaires investing and you know, and then eventually losing money. This is like your money that you you’re saying, hey, I can put it in here and I can win it or lose it but if you’re already a multimillionaire you’re not losing your fucking back. You know, you’re not losing your, your kids college fund, you’re probably losing your your second yacht. So I really was hard to sympathize when things started to like yo arrived for them. Also, the reason the stock prices and the or the, the shares were so cheap, is because that’s built in the Russian corruption and the people of the government is built into the share price. That is the whole point. The reason why it was such a risky play is because you don’t know what’s going to happen there. That’s why he couldn’t get a deal on it. Like, that’s what kind of blows my mind is like, yeah, there’s corruption and there’s government upheaval, that’s what you’re investing in. You’re like, you know, like, so when they started to happen, they’re like, how could this happen? It’s like, that’s what you got to do on the shares. It wasn’t because like, you’re the smartest person ever. Everyone probably knew that. But they they were, he was willing to take the risk.

It’s because the government system is so shaky, and it’s just getting set up that yeah, the ruble might drop to a one a penny on $1, whatever you’d say, you know, right. But

it’s like investing in a startup and then being like, no, the startups not doing well. This is bullshit, like I should have done well, it’s like, no, you took the risk. And by you know, buying those shares, I definitely didn’t start out for them. No, he kept on being like, you know, Russia is the most corrupt place ever. But you won’t believe what happened next. It’s like something corrupt happened. They’re like you something corrupt habit. And he kept on saying that like five times around like,

Alright, leave it. The Russians have come and they’re taking our money. What? Oh, my God, hold on. Let me take the silver spoon out of my mouth. Oh, my God, I’m getting in my muzzle ready right now. And then I’m flying to a private jet over there and I’m gonna figure this out. We’re gonna lose all of our money. So one of the things I hated and we’ve been talking about this a little bit, but just Bill Browder’s hubris, it really came through. He thought he could transform Russian capitalism. He was like, oh, like, the ad, this markets pretty fucked up. But there’s all these crooks involved. So if I just exposed the cooks that are the crooks that are entrenched in his bureaucracy, then we can straighten the whole thing out, because I’m like, the white knight, you know, it was, it’s a pro here, urine, a foreigner here, you know, don’t just assume that you can come in here and change everything. And granted, I know that the stuff that they were doing was raw, there’s no question. You know, the cronyism was, was so bad. And I mean, it probably still is, I’m not a huge government person. But him thinking that, Oh, I’m Bill Browder. I can just come in here and show show people how fucked up this is. And they’re going to do it’s like, buddy, you’re coming into a country that’s, you know, 1000s of years a culture that’s 1000s of years old. And you think that you’re just gonna like expose things because you know, you’re super smart. I don’t know. It was it was a little nudge

so it may he made it sound like it was altruistic, but really, it was just

Yeah, and I think that was the my big thing was like, Oh, I’m doing this to help but it’s like no, you’re doing it for

yourself. The Sergei stuff. I

do think as I say, this is before Sergey Yang, right? He was just like, Oh, I’m gonna you know, expose all this stuff. Like you’re doing it for your fund. You’re doing it and I mean, you’re you knew the risks you knew the risks at hand that bad like stuff could go really wrong

it was that’s why it was built into the price of the share like yeah, like

like murder wrong you know, you knew this could be bad so I do get why he has some guilt over the whole Sergei thing because he really should

didn’t really like the the Russian parable or story there. I forgot how it goes. I think it was like a genie comes in. They can have whatever you want. And but your neighbor will get twice that. And so he’s like, oh, oh, my God. What I wanted my eyes. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I was like, holy shit. Yeah. Talk about spite. It’s called books. Right? I think.

Yeah. bite your nose to spite your face. No bite my nose to rip my neighbor’s face. Yeah. The only thing and I’ll say it again was just Billy be talking about wining and dining his second wife easily. So we went to this restaurant and then we went here and then we flipped and then we went to this hotel that had ceilings of Louis the fourth. It’s a bro we’re 12 hours into this book. Like, I don’t give a fuck. He spent 25 minutes talking about all the stuff he did to wine and dine his second wife had nothing to do with the store itself. We get it. Okay, let’s get into cash. the movie. This could be a movie for sure. I don’t think the rights have been taken. It’s kind of like a James Bond type thing except with like a nerd. Hence actually why. I’m going with Bill Browder. You know, the actor I’m going with for that for him is Ben Affleck because he did the accountant. He did the accountant. Yeah, and Argo. And yeah, sure, and Agha so it’s like a mix between the accountant in our go. He’s Yeah, good looking guy fits the right age type. You know, big, big strong guy. I believe it as him being like the financial whiz, but also willing to strong arm Vladimir Putin.

I like that. Yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, I only cast one person, but I did for him. I did. Tommy Hanks, I foreshadow. Okay, I think ham without the Russian accent will be good. I just feel like Tommy Hanks plays this type of role really? Well. I also think that the key would be having what’s the name as the writer there? Who’s the social network writer sarkin, because you’re gonna feel like crushes these real stories. When he did the social network. He did the Billy Beane one, those two should not have any, should not be entertaining in any way. But like he would make this dramatize to the max, you know?

Yeah, social networks. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year. I want I mean, I’ve seen it before, but I watched it again and fuck that movie. So good. So it’s Moneyball?

Yeah. Although I have a big argument about Moneyball with my when I remain because they end that movie. With them being like, they went on a 26 game winning streak, which is equivalent to winning five World Series, they made it they made it sound like they haven’t, they’ve never won a World Series with that principle. Your goal is to win the World Series. There’s teams that have had lower salary caps that have done it before them, and after them. You kind of romanticize something that really hasn’t been that successful matters. But at

the end of the day, it just matters if you win the series.

If you’re an ace, man, are you really that happy that, you know? Oh, we’ve done really well. The record season zero sum game, Keith. Okay. Thank you. Good, good. Yes. I don’t know.

The only other people I have forecasting was, I think, Elena, we could cast her Elena Moloch over his second wife. I’m gonna say it has to be someone that has at least somewhat of a decent Russian accent. So Elizabeth Olsen you are out. Whatever you did for the Marvel Universe was a sham and sadness. I was so happy and Wanda vision when she didn’t have that accent. It was it was wonderful, because I don’t know what that thing was, but get it out here. And so for some reason, I was thinking about why I like this person. But fom K Janssen. I don’t I butchering her name. But you’d know her she she’s in rounders. She played Jean Grey in the original X Men movie, faculty. And I was like, I feel like she’s done a Russian accent before. And it was in golden. I

was like, Oh, right. Yeah, she’s the one that kills people with their thighs.

Yeah, on top. Ah, something on top of Alexi on top honors.

She’s got a regal neck to definitely regal neck.

That was my number one thing. She’s got a little powder on the skin make her porcelain. Yeah. But then I was wondering, why did I think about her? And it was really because the person I really wanted in this movie was Alan coming. Who plays Boris from GoldenEye. I want him to be any Russian character that’s in this. Yeah, maybe the Kalashnikov. I mean, obviously, not his name. But whoever the main bad guy kind of was the guy who was leading that police unit or whatever. He had a cane name, corner, cough, corner coffee, something like that. But he could play any one of the bad guys in this. He could even play just a goon. But I just want his crazy Boris ness and the accent back because it was so good. And I’m sorry. I don’t know other Russian actors.

You’ve got mail. Charlie from New Freedom, Pennsylvania.

Yes. What’s up, man?

I was looking at our statistics. We have a lot of new freedom, Pennsylvania listeners. So I assume that’s from Charlie’s been listening.

You know, only thing better than freedom is new freedom.

Yeah, exactly. As I was saying the same thing. So where do you stand on Russia now? On the one hand, it’s corrupt, freezing and I want to make a footnote here. Shout out to city city of thieves episode, we talked about this as well there and you can get a prison and tortured at any time. On the other hand, Russian models apparently just throw themselves at easterners. And it’s seemingly pretty easy to invest their Westerners. Oh, yeah. Come on, Charlie. I think I read that or that wrong. I didn’t. He didn’t write around Westerners and seemingly pretty easy to invest there. So I think you might already touched on this, but where do you stand on Russia?

I’m good. I’m good on Russia. But hard pass for me to pass. Okay. It’s just there’s nothing that really makes me want to go to Russia. It’s super far the food Not super great, you know, not super great, although I do love a good stew. And I feel like there’s two people. But outside of that, it’s just it’s nothing. The language is very confusing. And truthfully, I go and read it a lot. And I see Russians, like Russians crashing into people in cars and like being really crazy. And like hating on gay people. So just not someplace that I’m excited to go to.

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

Welcome to the buddy book club. Thanks for tuning in. I’m here with my good buddy Keith breakdown some bestsellers. As always, this time around, we’re taking a detour to the nonfiction side of the library and checking out a political slash financial thriller. I guess.
That book now you said that wrong. It’s financial. Oh, finance, high mass. Yeah, thank you. There we go. Well,
the finance book we’re discussing here is read notice a true story of high finance, high finance, murder in one man’s fight for justice. This was chosen based on a lesser recommendation. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about any past episodes, you can visit our website buddy book club, comm site and our DMS on Twitter and Instagram buddy book club podcast. You can listen to us on iTunes and Spotify. So please download and subscribe. Now we got that out of the way. privyet Comrade Keith
another Russian book, I feel like we’re big into Russia.
Oh, yeah. Something about big into Russia and big into torture which we’ll which we’ll get to later. realize what’s true. Read notice is basically the story of Bill Browder, the grandson of the head of the American Communist Party, who brings capitalism to Russia. hilarity ensues. Is that accurate?
Totally, totally. Yeah.
Yeah. So that’s generally the story. It’s, it’s a decently long book. We both listened to this one, which I enjoyed the audio book I enjoyed here. I think the guy who did it was pretty good at like mixing accents in which could be difficult.
There’s nothing worse than and we’ll get to this later. But Tom Hanks played. What’s that movie the terminal, the terminal. Oh, my God, it’s terrible. has really high rated it’s too but I just can’t handle the the Russian accent.
I actually found it to be quite nice. It was whimsical.
It was alright. Well, we’re
not here to talk about the terminal. We’re here to talk about red notice. First, we like to discuss libation. Because, you know, we need to have a little a little something in our system while we’re discussing the book, especially when that’s 16 hours long. I feel like vodka just has to be the name of the game has to be done. Yeah. And vodka name is diminutive for the Slavic word for water. So I guess Russians must like it quite a bit, considering they just call it water. But it’s supposed to be like me. So I’m going to have just a little chilled vodka. I’m also going to have a beer, but maybe a sidecar if you will? Like that. Yeah, you’re going with a coffee
as always. Yeah, it’s only noon here. And West Coast time. So might be a little bit early for the kids. But
I do think this is a good time to discuss your creative drink, though. Covo which is a coffee like a correct tea. Yeah,
yeah. Yeah, it’s. I mean, the thing is, most people don’t like it because they drink coffee so often, but I never drink coffee. I rarely drink coffee, and maybe once a week, and so you don’t really it’s coffee is so bitter to me that you don’t taste the vodka. So it’s like the best of both worlds, you get a really big boost, and you don’t taste the vodka at all. So it just tastes like a good drink. I like it hot. So you sell hot coffee. If you want to put a little cream in there a little, you know, little, a little fancy in there. You can do that too. And then you throw some vodka in there. It’s the ultimate pregame drink. TM, taking investors. So hit us up on buddy book club po*****@gm***.com If you’re looking for investment
as well, well, you were basically ahead of the Espresso Martini. I mean, you like it hot, right? It’s pretty much the same thing. Right? Yeah. Good for you. Yeah, good for you. Talking about read notice, do you have a favorite scene? This is a very long book. And I feel like it comes in three parts. It’s kind of like the first the first one which is like him building up his company and like getting involved involved in Russia. And the second part, which is kind of the downfall a little bit, you know, when the market crashes and things start to get tightened up on his company and the individuals and then the third part which is the whole saga, Sergei, Sergei part. So out of those three, I guess I think we’re both gonna agree that the first parts the best, but did you have a specific scene or area of the book you like the most?
I agree, I think the beginning part where he’s kind of building up the company, I don’t know if you’ve read shoot on but I kind of labeled that this Shoe Dog asked area. And what I really loved about this router dude was that everything he did was out of spite, which you know, someone I’m a big spike guy, big spike guy, and he was like, You know what I’m gonna be I’m a capitalist out of spite, and then he left and he’s like, went to college and he’s like, You know what, I’m going to transfer to a better school. And he just kept on doing everything out of spite. And I was like, I like this a lot. And the reason that basically sound like he would have been satisfied to stick with his company and that he’s currently doing all the dealings in Russia with if they just like given him the credit But instead they did it and he’s like, Alright fuck these dudes and you’re like out of spite started his own company. So everything he did was from that part. I love the build up like that it was very Shoe Dog esque where even read that, like the Nike founder basically do the same thing like he was a pretty good relationship with, I think was a Japanese company. Yeah, he was Tiger shoes or something like yeah, they like screwed about like a deal. And he’s like, alright, I’ll just start my own company. And then Nike became, and then you’d never heard of that other company anymore. So yeah, pretty, pretty funny. I loved it. Okay. Yeah, I liked
within that first part, I like the the Poland scene kind of when he’s starting to get into these emerging markets. And it was a consulting gig that he was in before he decided to start the fund. And it just it was like, right after the Berlin wall when the government was privatizing state owned companies, and shell selling shares at absurdly low values. But in more of an anecdotal story was just him, you know, in the shitty hotel room, with a tiny little bed, that’s just the shoe box. And his like Russian buddy driving him around, and just like wanting to get them or Polish buddy, excuse me, like, just wanted to get the fuck out of there. But at the same time, then realizing it was when he bought his first stock. So he’s realizing, Oh, my God, like, there’s a lot of opportunity here. And this is Poland. And maybe I should take this to Russia, considering my grandfather was such a commie that I should be such a capitalist.
out of spite, out of spite.
Alright, cool. Let’s get stuck up stuck down stuck up. I mean, this is talking about stock up. This is actual book about stocks. But what did you have for stock up in this one,
receiving bad news doc up. So there’s a common theme in the book. And I think I’m gonna get into this a little bit later as well. But every time you receive bad news, you kind of paint a picture like this. So I was at my five star hotel in Greece that cost $5,000 At night, relaxing for the first time hear it out at night, like 100 foot yacht, but then I received a call about bad news. I’m like investments not working. I always have sympathy for every single time. Here’s the bad news. He’s like, I was at a Michelin star restaurant. I didn’t really want to go there because I wasn’t feeling great. I’m like, bro, come on. Like, this isn’t how you like set up a bad news story. Yeah, he
named drops a restaurant by names like, oh, it’s one of those 18 courses gonna take three and a half hours. Like, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I just want to not be here. It’s like, okay, relax. And I was wondering how long it would take us to get into the amount that he talks about the wealth around him or like the things he was experiencing. So I’m glad it didn’t take very long because it was a big problem for me.
Yeah, it was a good way to receive bad news when you’re, you know, sleeping in your $5,000 night sweet. Alright, doesn’t seem that bad. I wasn’t really crying for him at that point didn’t really set out very well.
Also, all the calls started with B. I have some bad news. Yeah. Something’s going wrong in the for my stock up public speaking. Normally, not something people are really jazzed about, or even when you see one. It’s like, okay, that was fine. But old Billy be here. He’s a regular old Clarence Darrow, his prose is so well received. He often brings listeners to tears. He can he can barely get a full thought out before everyone gives him a standing ovation. He’s just like, he’s like Karpman addressing the house about stem cell research and the episode where Kenny dies, just like sings heat of the moment, and everyone’s clapping and crying. So that’s really be whenever he gets up in front of a crowd, he goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows that Harvard Business students are crying, random members of the House and Senate are putting down their BlackBerry’s to start weeping. It’s amazing. This guy is just one of the best public speakers ever seen.
I love that you have that because by literally next talk of us making people cry stock up. Everywhere Bill Browder goes, Yeah, people just weeping in the streets. Well,
I actually watched and by the way, if you don’t want to watch this, or read this book, listen to this book, however you want to consume it. You can just listen to Bill Browder’s TED talk, he goes to like TEDx Berlin. I watched that to verb in sync right now. So yeah, 15 minutes. It’s pretty much the entire story. And he only names drops, like a couple places he staying like once or twice, 15 minutes.
Although he did and that TED Talk. He’s like, Oh, by the end of this talk, you’ll know why Putin hates me the most but the end of it. I’m like, why does he hate him? Like I would have to read the book to know it.
Putin doesn’t give a fuck, bro. Like, I know it’s a big deal. Like it’s cool that he said your name but relax, relax. Oh, like we’ll get more into that later. So stock up, I guess recovered. You’re making people cry. I didn’t cry when I listen to the dead dog by the way, and I like to cry here in their financial terms. That’s another one of my stock ups. i We just love to gamble here. Both you and I we love to talk about football, gambling. I love gambling terms with teasers parlays All sorts of good stuff you can get in your dogs. Those are fun that not a dog. But 10 bagger that might be the best I’ve heard yet and a 10 bagger he explains in the book is when you hit a stock for 10x. So you buy it for $1. And now it’s like dollars. So you hit a 10 bagger. And then I thought about if I never had a 10 bagger, and I think I did with Tesla, and I felt really good about myself, I felt so good. I went to this sit down restaurant down the street here, let me explain. It’s kind of the Ritz Carlton, you know,
go on.
I was there with my Russian bride.
She was a model. She was
a model and she was also head of UNICEF. This fucking guy, but yeah, so the financial terms he drops him throughout. I love that stuff. So emerging markets, why not? What else you got for stock up?
Stock got white giraffes? I don’t know if you’re familiar with these. You could do a quick Google search there. Just giraffe. Yeah, I don’t know if they’re about albino. I mean, they’re pretty majestic. I think those are pretty cool. It’s also funny that he was dating one. Yeah. So he started dating Elena. And the way he described her beauty was a flawless porcelain white skin and a long regal neck. Are you turned on as much as I was after reading that? I don’t know. Long regal neck and porcelain light skin. I mean, huh? Whoo. Yeah. Hot in the streets. Yeah. Interesting.
I mean, you know, everyone’s into their own their own thing. And I respect that, that everyone you know, can can Yeah, no one’s gonna yell at anyone else’s yum. But being being interested, really in someone’s long neck.
What is Rico mean? Really means
a royal right? Well, I know. And in some, like African tribes, they use those like neck extenders, because that’s a big Oh, you
think he’s into that? Maybe? I
don’t know. Maybe she had an extra hand there. But I also
thought it was just the imagery was funny to me. Yeah. Well, also, maybe
it’s a cultural thing. Like, you know, ancient China, they used to do the foot binding. And that’s disgusting. So, and just torture us.
So get your ethnocentrism out of your head. I don’t want to hear it.
Did you have anything else for snuck up?
One other one, women bad guys stock up. Ooh, it was really refreshing. And this is a true story. But it’s refreshing to see some bad woman, women bad guys. This is a true quality when you start to see bad guys. And where were the bad the judge that Oh, like God refused to do anything. She was a woman and then the doctor. Yeah. And then the doctor that covered everything up was a woman. I just really liked that. I appreciate it that, you know, in Russia, I feel like that’s where the true quality is coming from and sounds like so. socket?
Well, Russians. I mean, this book is not good for Russia, that’s for sure. But one thing about Russia and communism in general, is they really kind of throw sexism out the window for the most part. So, you know, everyone’s a comrade. That’s all. That’s true. My last stock up was the buddy book club itself. You know, yeah, stock up for us. Because at the end of the book, Bill Browder basically says, the one thing you can do to help keep me alive is to talk about this story and share it with people. So what else are we doing here besides talking about his story and Jerry with people so lucky Putin? Where are Billy Browder side?
Yeah,
I forgot surrogate. So did
it too soon, to said,
there would be like, oh, like the day I heard Sergei died was the most traumatic day like what a traumatic day for me, I had to put down like gold fork, and, you know, get in my Rolls Royce. And I had to go and fight for Sergei, because if I wouldn’t do it, who would?
Jesus I feel bad because we’re treating this like a fiction book, but it’s actually real life. But we’re gonna You gotta do the same critical eye that you do on the fiction, so but it doesn’t matter. Of course, of course.
Plus, we like to really take things lightly. I’m sorry, but that’s just the what you’re that’s what we’re doing here. Anyways, I mean, I’ll talk shit about Billy Browder. I’m not going to talk to you about Sergei, for the most part. I’m
not talking about Putin, apparently. Oh, yeah.
We got to stay away from that. We don’t yeah. Okay, let’s move on to talk down. Would you ever knocked out
the superiority complex stock down when you went to Poland, as you mentioned, he was like, I’m so intimidated. I’m going to this new country, I have to leave this whole operation like, bro, you’re a Stanford MBA. You’re like one of the most prestigious consulting firms, you’re going to a place that doesn’t have heat that still has horse and buggies. I mean, like, I feel that you have some sort of superiority over these people when you go in. If this dude doesn’t have confidence with that, where does confidence come from? Like, how does anyone have confidence? Like, that’s where that you should have some sort of, Oh, I’m gonna fucking go in here and like, tell these people it’s good, but he didn’t have any of that. I don’t know. What do you think of that?
I mostly just didn’t like how He disrespected the food. Like, Oh, they’re eating brown stew for dinner. I could barely horse liver. I could barely even choke it down. It’s like, get involved in another country, man. Immerse yourself. Relax. Alright, Poland’s
gonna be on her side a little bit there. And then Paul’s got
dumplings. They got dumplings, man, just go find some dumplings. When? What else do you need? Yep. proviz. Always. Don’t complain to me, Bill. Okay. I don’t want to hear it stuck down for me. oligarchies slash governments on the hall, the oligarchies for that part is like handful people controlling the wealth of a nation, but equals bad for the moment, you know, for the most part. And we kind of have that here. Except it’s like corporations. Instead, we’re soon going to be a corporation controlled world. And we don’t want to get into government talk. But yeah, that’s pretty fucked up. Also, just the slow move, moving and bureaucratic nature of democracy, when Bill Browder actually tries to get stuff done here. It’s like, oh, yeah, we’ll do it, you know, takes a couple of weeks, everything goes a little slow. It takes a couple months. Now it’s an election year. And since both sides agree on it, it can’t get done, because we only want to talk about stuff that people disagree on. Why the fuck is wrong with governments? Just, it seems pretty cut and dry. And also, you know, Bill’s genius idea, which is, hey, instead of like going after the crux in their own country, let’s just go after their wallets and their visas seems pretty straightforward to me. And hey, I appreciate that. He went for that and like it worked out. But also like, what the fuck America? Why aren’t we already on top of that? Why would you just like give crooks visas so they can spend their money and like in the United States, and just keep it the United States? It was bonkers to me that this was even a thing. But hey, you know what, you just can’t trust governments. That’s really at the end of the day.
He wasn’t like criticizing one party or the other. He just was like, these politicians helped me and these like these people didn’t on both sides. He was criticizing didn’t matter, like his political affiliation or anything like that. Which is really what it should always be. I don’t give a shit what party you’re at. I just wanted this to get done. Yeah, totally.
I mean, he made he made John McCain seem like a wonderful person. And I think John McCain is a wonderful person. You know, I’ve no questions will be John Kerry, not so much. But hey, the guy kind of seems like a dick anyways. So I’m not really a big fan. And I’m from Massachusetts. So hey, I can say that shit. stuck down.
What else? You got white dinner conversation, stock down on a second date? He’s like, Yeah, the second date didn’t go that well. We didn’t really get into much serious conversations. He starts off the day immediately talking about politics and oligarchies and Russia and stuff like that. So interesting. Interesting. Strategically, they’re starting off the date with that. And then he keeps on talking about how like after that, like, everything was down here. We didn’t get any subjects or anything like that. Except that her father died tragically. Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, what? This is a second date. Or he’s like, we didn’t really get into much serious stuff. Like what is more serious on that? Like, holy shit. And the way he then he ends up getting her is by sending her a book that’s like about grieving your loss ones and sending that to her. And that’s how he basically lands there. I’m like, Holy shit, I’ve been doing the whole dating thing wrong. I’m usually like second date like, you know pretty nervous talking about the lightest stuff ever. He’s just going politics, jetting on her home country and death heart attacks.
Yeah, I forgot that stock up really should have been using a loved one’s death as advantage to get in their pants or that use someone’s death find out who’s important in their life that died and then use that as leverage to get in their pants is pretty much the Bill Browder method. That’s what I learned.
I mean, what we can do to that with Buddy book club is like, we can start to use the the buddy, the books that we’re reading as like, hey, I really thought about this, this book, that would mean a lot to you and send it to people because that’s what he basically did, right? Just found found a book.
Yeah, I liked this book, but I don’t think I’d be sending it. No, no, I’m
saying all the books we read. Someone just tells us some offhand story. We just say, hey, here’s I thought about you. And I was reading this book and sent it to him. And I feel like it’s a good pickup line at work. So yeah,
someone’s like, Hey, I found a dead body in the woods when I was a kid and traumatize me for like, your Stephen King’s the body. I hope you enjoy it. It might bring back some of your childhood trauma, also to tie into your story. Granted, I don’t know when I was gonna talk about this, but I don’t want to forget it. When he was married to his first wife, and like the marriage was on the rocks. He said, They went on vacation to kind of clear things up and just to get away.
Was it a five star hotel?
It sure was. He talked about the resort, five star hotel, they went out. They went out to a beautiful dinner together. And he was talking about how the relationship he feel like had turned for the better, like things were going really well, because he was able to sit there and talk about Russia the whole time. The only problem was that his wife kept wanting to talk about their son, which he was just like not into he did Just wanted to talk about what was happening in Russia was like, bro, you just slid that in there. He’s like, look, she can bring up our kid. But like, other than that she listened to my Russia stuff. So the relationship was going really well. I was like, Wow, you are a self centered prick.
The dude does go back every weekend from from Moscow. I respected that. Or at least he said,
he said he said that, but then it was also was he still doing that when he had his second wife? It was kinda like something he
just did second was lived in England.
So his he was going back there anyways. And he also visited first, or is carrying around, whatever I’m not saying it again. I’m not saying these guys are bad dad. I’m just Yeah, I’m just saying it was he wanted to talk about Russia all the time. And people don’t want to listen to Russia. Like your wife doesn’t care about Russia. Simple as that. Stock down for me corruption. It just didn’t didn’t actually I’m gonna attack corruption and torture,
corruption selling out, right. We’ve had, we’ve had a lot of bought been buying a lot of torture. So if you’re gonna think that stock down now, that could be a story. But corruption nothing’s ever been really added much of a stock price. Yeah, well,
I’m selling torture, because it definitely didn’t work in this situation. The whole torture of Sergei was what led to the Magnitsky Act. So it kind of screwed the Russians over maybe if they didn’t torture, the guy just like, gave him a toilet, didn’t make him freeze to death, and then gave him a doctor. It would have been okay, but instead, they went a little too far. And now we got the big nightsky Act, which has been used, I guess, supposedly in Ukraine, which is interesting.
I mean, the big issue I had with it is that if you’re Russian and you want to really cover all the Shut up, why would you release the diary that Sergei was writing? Like, clean it up Russia? Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, there
was a lot of weird stuff where and he he went kind of day by day with the Sergei thing like what Sega his experiences were in prison. Yeah. And I’m assuming they just must have got that from the diary. Right? because how else would you know
at the end of it, they’re like, luckily, we got Sergei, his diary, which outlined every single thing he did, he kept like meticulous day to day journal. And I’m like, Well, why would you ever release that? If you wanted to cover this stuff up? Like, what are we doing?
Yeah. And also don’t make any sense. It kind of ties back to the the thing that’s going on recently, who’s the guy? Alexi? What’s the guy’s name? The Russian, like, I know, the Russian opposition guy who’s now in prison, they tried to murder like a couple times through poison. And then I know you’re talking about a hunger strike. But it kind of mirrors that where it’s like, okay, you’re letting all this information out. So you should probably either not let any information out and just murder people. Or Don’t imprison them and let all the information out. It’s a weird way. Yeah, wrong about it.
I feel like we’ve had multiple discussions about how to run a dictatorship and we gotta be you know, they gotta be better at this. Yeah, fact. No matter
autocracy 101 Yeah, we can teach you
Yeah. And it seemed like it was pretty obvious but me but
especially when you have someone like Stalin who like ran your country for years. Yeah. Do what Stalin did weren’t these
dude like 20 years ago the secret police coming in rounding people up? Like Like, I feel you should kind of be have a little bit more weariness than what they currently have, like a lot of these Russians have.
Yeah, also maybe dietary principles didn’t really work out for the most part. All right, well, what do you love about the
book Finally, a combination of Shoe Dog and too big to fail, even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of too big to fail, because when I get to my hates,
I’ll get into that. But with to fail the Enron? One.
It was the 2008 like start, like just the financial crisis. Again, it was falling around like all the CEOs of the banks, which basically was sympathizing with them, which, again, we’ll get into my hates, I was also, but already said Browder super spy driven. You love to see that. I also think that I think the story was interesting. Like I brought it up, you know, a couple of times, like it’s dinner party kind of book where like, a lot of lawyers talk about a lot of people are in the politics can know about this. So I thought it was like, Oh, I feel like I’m getting smarter kind of reading this type of book. So that was also something I really liked about it. I think too. If if you get down with a book and you’re looking into it more, or a nonfiction story, and you’re looking into it more like anytime I see some sort of movie that’s based on true story. I was deep dive into like, what actually happened, you know, you 571 completely accurate. God no. I mean, I know submarine movies, but no discrepancies between the movie and in the actual real life. Like, same thing like Argo.
Hold on. What? It is a little more sarcasm on that. You’ve had seven one. Okay. Yeah, that’s like that did not happen. No, no, no, no. But Argo was the same way.
No, I think Argo actually, I don’t know I have to look into Argo. But I remember like getting on with Argo. And just like Alright, I gotta read this. Oh,
yeah, that’s a good thing about those those books and movies is if it hits you in the right way, you just immediately want to start Googling the story.
So yeah, I looked at like the YouTube videos, we looked at the TED Talk, like that’s, that’s how you know, it’s a good book here. You’re like, still interested? Yeah. And then the other thing was, it just seemed real, it seemed like, even though sometimes it dragged to seem real. The one thing I need to call out, that wasn’t real at all, and there was definitely some cover up here. Okay. All these companies are hiding their funding, and there’s some sort of corruption going on, which is basically hurting our profits, right? And they’re just trying to figure out like, how do we find this out? They go pull up to a stop at a at a light, and they’re selling CDs. And a guy just walks up and says, Oh, are you looking for all the transactions of this one company? I have them and they’re like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. What luck? Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, fucking right. You
call it act? Oh,
he hacked something or something. You got the illegal means there’s no way the old some guy walked up to me in the street as a who’s selling, you know, faked CDs. DVDs is, oh, I also have these corporate filings that you’re looking for what was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read?
He said, What do you got? kid? He’s like, I got the full catalog of Mel Gibson movies. He’s like, You got what women want in there. He’s like, damn, right. It’s an HD. He’s like, Huh, what about the microtransactions of all the Russian companies? You happen to have that too? How much do you want? $5? Perfect. That’s like,
so little too good to be true. Other than that, it seems very true. What about you for loves?
I mean, I really just love the first third of the book, you’ve gotten over it, how it’s like Shoe Dog or whatnot, which also I didn’t get through, I got through the first third of it or something like that. But
I really liked your dog. I just not right now. Fiction.
I think my, my loan ended with a library. So but I’ll go back. It’s one of those things.
It’s a great audio book. Yeah.
I like nonfiction, my nonfiction is are mostly like historical nonfiction. So okay. And I thought that that kind of dragged to, which is the, you know, that’s why I said, I love the first third of this book. I mean, working for Robert Maxwell, the Solomon brothers stories, you know, him trying to find a desk and like people not really believing him. It just was really similar to me to the how I built this podcast, which is an NPR show hosted by Guy Roz, which is awesome. But those are like an hour and a half long, maybe. And it’s just an interesting way to see how companies were built, especially big ones. And I thought this was a really interesting, emerging market story, which really, I didn’t have any idea what emerging markets were, I think I like if you ask me a bit, well, it’s like markets that are emerging. But but seeing it in, you know, happen in real time, especially considering it was in the mid 90s. Where we were alive for was like, wait, you could just buy these companies like the the countries were valuing them for so much less that you just had to go and I mean, the Russian part when they were giving vouchers away to every citizen for like a piece of a piece of a company. And instead they were like, yeah, just I’ll trade you this for a shot of vodka. And the whole story about how it was getting compiled. And then there was brokers who were compiling that it was crazy. And it was a wild west, it reminded me a lot of like the the marijuana stuff going on these days where like, banks won’t take checks and stuff, they have to go in with cash. And they have all these secret bodyguards. It’s, it’s just really interesting. I really enjoyed the first, the first third of the book, the survey stuff was definitely interesting. And I think that was very important. We’re not trying to make light of that. But it just went on for way too long. And I would have liked it more if it was more of like an action thriller kind of thing with like, more surveys storyline, or like having it done from his perspective, it didn’t all have to be from Browder’s perspective. So I really like that stuff.
A great I think, yeah, we both kind of like the entrepreneurial spirit part. But yeah, it did seem to drag at the end there. I guess getting into the hate side though.
Yeah, let’s hate Dragon The
end was number one. The The other thing too, is that investing it’s a zero sum game, right? Like, I don’t know, they’re either there’s like a loser and a winner there’s not a like it’s it comes out to zero at the end of the day. So like someone that sold it is theoretically losing money. If it goes up if any other way around. If you buy it and it goes down, then there’s no inherent value added to the world
when you when he was talking about the stuff I talked about earlier with the Russian people like trading vodka away for like their share. All I read throughout this whole book was like he made his money off the backs of all these Russian people like the Russian citizens who were poor, and didn’t know what the fuck was going on. And they just went and bought all this, all this stuff that was previously state owned. And now anyone can do it and I get that like, oh sure Russian people could have done it themselves. But then you have rich Hi educated people coming in, and pretty much pillaging their country from them. So that wasn’t so hot.
It’s just hard to sympathize with all these multimillionaires investing and you know, and then eventually losing money. This is like your money that you you’re saying, hey, I can put it in here and I can win it or lose it but if you’re already a multimillionaire you’re not losing your fucking back. You know, you’re not losing your, your kids college fund, you’re probably losing your your second yacht. So I really was hard to sympathize when things started to like yo arrived for them. Also, the reason the stock prices and the or the, the shares were so cheap, is because that’s built in the Russian corruption and the people of the government is built into the share price. That is the whole point. The reason why it was such a risky play is because you don’t know what’s going to happen there. That’s why he couldn’t get a deal on it. Like, that’s what kind of blows my mind is like, yeah, there’s corruption and there’s government upheaval, that’s what you’re investing in. You’re like, you know, like, so when they started to happen, they’re like, how could this happen? It’s like, that’s what you got to do on the shares. It wasn’t because like, you’re the smartest person ever. Everyone probably knew that. But they they were, he was willing to take the risk.
It’s because the government system is so shaky, and it’s just getting set up that yeah, the ruble might drop to a one a penny on $1, whatever you’d say, you know, right. But
it’s like investing in a startup and then being like, no, the startups not doing well. This is bullshit, like I should have done well, it’s like, no, you took the risk. And by you know, buying those shares, I definitely didn’t start out for them. No, he kept on being like, you know, Russia is the most corrupt place ever. But you won’t believe what happened next. It’s like something corrupt happened. They’re like you something corrupt habit. And he kept on saying that like five times around like,
Alright, leave it. The Russians have come and they’re taking our money. What? Oh, my God, hold on. Let me take the silver spoon out of my mouth. Oh, my God, I’m getting in my muzzle ready right now. And then I’m flying to a private jet over there and I’m gonna figure this out. We’re gonna lose all of our money. So one of the things I hated and we’ve been talking about this a little bit, but just Bill Browder’s hubris, it really came through. He thought he could transform Russian capitalism. He was like, oh, like, the ad, this markets pretty fucked up. But there’s all these crooks involved. So if I just exposed the cooks that are the crooks that are entrenched in his bureaucracy, then we can straighten the whole thing out, because I’m like, the white knight, you know, it was, it’s a pro here, urine, a foreigner here, you know, don’t just assume that you can come in here and change everything. And granted, I know that the stuff that they were doing was raw, there’s no question. You know, the cronyism was, was so bad. And I mean, it probably still is, I’m not a huge government person. But him thinking that, Oh, I’m Bill Browder. I can just come in here and show show people how fucked up this is. And they’re going to do it’s like, buddy, you’re coming into a country that’s, you know, 1000s of years a culture that’s 1000s of years old. And you think that you’re just gonna like expose things because you know, you’re super smart. I don’t know. It was it was a little nudge
so it may he made it sound like it was altruistic, but really, it was just
Yeah, and I think that was the my big thing was like, Oh, I’m doing this to help but it’s like no, you’re doing it for
yourself. The Sergei stuff. I
do think as I say, this is before Sergey Yang, right? He was just like, Oh, I’m gonna you know, expose all this stuff. Like you’re doing it for your fund. You’re doing it and I mean, you’re you knew the risks you knew the risks at hand that bad like stuff could go really wrong
it was that’s why it was built into the price of the share like yeah, like
like murder wrong you know, you knew this could be bad so I do get why he has some guilt over the whole Sergei thing because he really should
didn’t really like the the Russian parable or story there. I forgot how it goes. I think it was like a genie comes in. They can have whatever you want. And but your neighbor will get twice that. And so he’s like, oh, oh, my God. What I wanted my eyes. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I was like, holy shit. Yeah. Talk about spite. It’s called books. Right? I think.
Yeah. bite your nose to spite your face. No bite my nose to rip my neighbor’s face. Yeah. The only thing and I’ll say it again was just Billy be talking about wining and dining his second wife easily. So we went to this restaurant and then we went here and then we flipped and then we went to this hotel that had ceilings of Louis the fourth. It’s a bro we’re 12 hours into this book. Like, I don’t give a fuck. He spent 25 minutes talking about all the stuff he did to wine and dine his second wife had nothing to do with the store itself. We get it. Okay, let’s get into cash. the movie. This could be a movie for sure. I don’t think the rights have been taken. It’s kind of like a James Bond type thing except with like a nerd. Hence actually why. I’m going with Bill Browder. You know, the actor I’m going with for that for him is Ben Affleck because he did the accountant. He did the accountant. Yeah, and Argo. And yeah, sure, and Agha so it’s like a mix between the accountant in our go. He’s Yeah, good looking guy fits the right age type. You know, big, big strong guy. I believe it as him being like the financial whiz, but also willing to strong arm Vladimir Putin.
I like that. Yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, I only cast one person, but I did for him. I did. Tommy Hanks, I foreshadow. Okay, I think ham without the Russian accent will be good. I just feel like Tommy Hanks plays this type of role really? Well. I also think that the key would be having what’s the name as the writer there? Who’s the social network writer sarkin, because you’re gonna feel like crushes these real stories. When he did the social network. He did the Billy Beane one, those two should not have any, should not be entertaining in any way. But like he would make this dramatize to the max, you know?
Yeah, social networks. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year. I want I mean, I’ve seen it before, but I watched it again and fuck that movie. So good. So it’s Moneyball?
Yeah. Although I have a big argument about Moneyball with my when I remain because they end that movie. With them being like, they went on a 26 game winning streak, which is equivalent to winning five World Series, they made it they made it sound like they haven’t, they’ve never won a World Series with that principle. Your goal is to win the World Series. There’s teams that have had lower salary caps that have done it before them, and after them. You kind of romanticize something that really hasn’t been that successful matters. But at
the end of the day, it just matters if you win the series.
If you’re an ace, man, are you really that happy that, you know? Oh, we’ve done really well. The record season zero sum game, Keith. Okay. Thank you. Good, good. Yes. I don’t know.
The only other people I have forecasting was, I think, Elena, we could cast her Elena Moloch over his second wife. I’m gonna say it has to be someone that has at least somewhat of a decent Russian accent. So Elizabeth Olsen you are out. Whatever you did for the Marvel Universe was a sham and sadness. I was so happy and Wanda vision when she didn’t have that accent. It was it was wonderful, because I don’t know what that thing was, but get it out here. And so for some reason, I was thinking about why I like this person. But fom K Janssen. I don’t I butchering her name. But you’d know her she she’s in rounders. She played Jean Grey in the original X Men movie, faculty. And I was like, I feel like she’s done a Russian accent before. And it was in golden. I
was like, Oh, right. Yeah, she’s the one that kills people with their thighs.
Yeah, on top. Ah, something on top of Alexi on top honors.
She’s got a regal neck to definitely regal neck.
That was my number one thing. She’s got a little powder on the skin make her porcelain. Yeah. But then I was wondering, why did I think about her? And it was really because the person I really wanted in this movie was Alan coming. Who plays Boris from GoldenEye. I want him to be any Russian character that’s in this. Yeah, maybe the Kalashnikov. I mean, obviously, not his name. But whoever the main bad guy kind of was the guy who was leading that police unit or whatever. He had a cane name, corner, cough, corner coffee, something like that. But he could play any one of the bad guys in this. He could even play just a goon. But I just want his crazy Boris ness and the accent back because it was so good. And I’m sorry. I don’t know other Russian actors.
You’ve got mail. Charlie from New Freedom, Pennsylvania.
Yes. What’s up, man?
I was looking at our statistics. We have a lot of new freedom, Pennsylvania listeners. So I assume that’s from Charlie’s been listening.
You know, only thing better than freedom is new freedom.
Yeah, exactly. As I was saying the same thing. So where do you stand on Russia now? On the one hand, it’s corrupt, freezing and I want to make a footnote here. Shout out to city city of thieves episode, we talked about this as well there and you can get a prison and tortured at any time. On the other hand, Russian models apparently just throw themselves at easterners. And it’s seemingly pretty easy to invest their Westerners. Oh, yeah. Come on, Charlie. I think I read that or that wrong. I didn’t. He didn’t write around Westerners and seemingly pretty easy to invest there. So I think you might already touched on this, but where do you stand on Russia?
I’m good. I’m good on Russia. But hard pass for me to pass. Okay. It’s just there’s nothing that really makes me want to go to Russia. It’s super far the food Not super great, you know, not super great, although I do love a good stew. And I feel like there’s two people. But outside of that, it’s just it’s nothing. The language is very confusing. And truthfully, I go and read it a lot. And I see Russians, like Russians crashing into people in cars and like being really crazy. And like hating on gay people. So just not someplace that I’m excited to go to.