BackStartups

Interview · Global & US

Invest Like the Best

with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Long interviews with investors and operators about how they actually make decisions — less about specific companies than about the reasoning behind allocating capital.

Format Weekly, roughly an hourListen joincolossus.com ↗

Why an angel should listen

Where most investing podcasts ask what someone thinks, this one asks how they think. The interviews are structured around process — how a decision was reached, what the disconfirming evidence was, what the interviewee has changed their mind about — which is far more transferable than any individual view.

For an angel that emphasis is the useful part. You will not be able to copy a professional allocator's access or their diligence resources, and you can absolutely copy their habit of writing down what would have to be true, or their discipline about separating the decision from the outcome.

The guest range extends well beyond venture into public markets, private equity and operating roles, which is a feature rather than a distraction. Some of the most useful ideas about concentration, position sizing and holding periods come from people who have never seen a seed round.

Where to begin

Start with these

  • Any episode with a guest who runs a concentrated portfolio — the position-sizing discussions transfer directly to angel investing.
  • Interviews with operators rather than investors, for how businesses actually work from the inside.
  • Anything where the guest is asked what they got wrong. Those are consistently the strongest episodes.

In short

Good for

Decision-makingPosition sizingInvestor mindset
Listen at joincolossus.com

Invest Like the Best: common questions

This show is mostly about public markets — why is it on an angel list?
Because the transferable content is about process rather than about asset class. Position sizing, concentration, holding periods and separating decisions from outcomes are the same problems whether you are buying listed equities or a SAFE.
Where should I start given the size of the archive?
With a guest who runs a concentrated portfolio, since the position-sizing discussion maps almost directly onto angel cheque sizing. Ignore chronology — the episodes are self-contained.