Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Podcast Ep. 6 Stanford MBA ’95 Russell Eggers meets MBA ’25 Michael Liu

• Katharine McLennan • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Today, I’m joined by Russell Eggers, a seasoned executive from the Stanford MBA Class of 1995. Now a CEO and board director, Russell brings over 40 years of operational leadership across mining, aviation, and industrial enterprises. He’s known for turning strategy into growth in “old school” businesses—and for speaking candidly about the power of humility, hiring well, and staying grounded in the real economy.

 Joining him is Michael Liu, a second-year MBA student from the Class of 2025. Born in China, raised in Sydney, and soon to be based in New York, Michael brings a global perspective on finance—from investment banking at Goldman Sachs, to private equity at Warburg Pincus, to public equity investing at T. Rowe Price. At Stanford, he holds multiple leadership roles and is deeply interested in AI, economics, and equity market dynamics.

 Together, Russell and Michael explore what it means to lead across generations, industries, and ideologies—from manufacturing floors to Wall Street trading desks.


CHAPTERS


00:00 Introduction and Backgrounds

04:10 Cultural Perspectives: New Zealand vs Australia

07:08 Educational Journeys and Career Paths

10:14 Private Equity Landscape in Australia

13:04 Differences Between Private Equity and Venture Capital

15:59 Transitioning to Public Equity

19:16 The Future of Manufacturing and AI

22:06 Financial Considerations of Education

25:00 Trends in Career Choices

27:59 Investment Focus in Public Equity

31:03 Conclusion and Reflections

31:38 The Role of AI in Manufacturing and Data Analysis

32:52 Understanding Clientele and Competition in Finance

36:02 Active vs. Passive Investing: Finding the Edge

39:51 The Importance of Talent in Business

41:48 Navigating Age and Experience in the Workplace

46:49 AI's Transformative Impact on Business Processes

53:28 Concerns About Technology and Misinformation

01:01:02 Shifting Values: Family, Friends, and Career Perspectives


Join the Podcast Series
Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Each of these episodes will feature a different pair of Stanford MBA people -- one from the class of 1995, and one from the class of 2025.

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Contact: kath@katharinemclennan.com


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Katharine McLennan (00:01)
Hello, it is another podcast with Stanford 1995. This time Russell Eggers, one of my classmates and also one of my kind of countrymen. We both live in Australia, but originally Russell's from New Zealand and I am from the US a long, long time ago. And Michael Lu, how are you from actually at Stanford, the class of 2025? Welcome Michael.

Michael Liu (00:30)
Thanks for having me. I'm also from Australia. So we've got two people that live in Australia, one person from Australia.

Katharine McLennan (00:36)
Yeah, all of us are from Australia. Honestly, Russell and I have been here for like over 30 years, I would say. Yeah.

Russell Eggers (00:44)
Yeah, I

left in 93 to go to Stanford and never went back to New Zealand.

Katharine McLennan (00:49)
Yeah, well, that's a good place to start. What is New Zealand versus Australia? What's the reason, Russell, that you've

Russell Eggers (00:59)
I'm a very proud Kiwi. There's no two ways about that. But I'm also Australian now. Look, for me coming out of Stamford, I was always intending to go back to New Zealand and work in the industry that I came out of. But life just happens along the way and opportunities arose. I've been very happy. I love Australia. And I've been very happy living here and the opportunities it's given me. it's also taken me to other parts of the world through those opportunities.

Katharine McLennan (01:03)
Absolutely.

That's the note.

Yeah.

Sure is.

Russell Eggers (01:28)
And it's only three hours from New Zealand, so I could get back and see my family and see my friends and all that sort of thing. So, you know, it's a great place to live. And I'm not allowed to say that as a Kiwi, I'll have to have my passport back soon. But it's a great place to live.

Katharine McLennan (01:41)
Don't worry, we're going to make you the sixth state. Michael, tell me about how you're Australian. Where have you grown up?

Michael Liu (01:51)
Well, it's funny, I was born in China and my parents immigrated to New Zealand first. So I'm actually a New Zealand citizen as well. And then we moved as a family to Sydney when I was young and I grew up there. So I spent all my education there and then went to University of New South Wales in Sydney and then got the travel bargain, wanted to see the world. So I left and started working in Asia, did a couple of years in...

Katharine McLennan (01:56)
There you go. There you go.

Fantastic.

Michael Liu (02:20)
finance and then now I'm at the GSB. There's about five of us in the Australian New Zealand club so we're small but we punch much above our weight and have a big impact.

Katharine McLennan (02:29)
Of course you do.

Of course you do. know, Russell and I had the Australian New Zealand club and we had a few people, Russell. Do you remember that one?

Russell Eggers (02:38)
I think we started it when Bob Hawke, we found out Bob Hawke was coming to visit. So we go, we'd better make a club so that we can give an invite to Bob and come and speak to us, which was an interesting occasion in its own. yeah, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (02:41)
you

Wasn't it fantastic? And it's

for those people that don't know, it's one of our legendary prime ministers that I think was in office in the late 1980s. Is that right, Russell? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. And wasn't it an honor to talk to the prime minister who was a Rhodes scholar and just incredible to hear his stories. mean, you know, that's like

Russell Eggers (03:03)
I think so.

Katharine McLennan (03:18)
Kind of talking to one of our presidents, but maybe not as prestigious. I don't know. So fantastic.

Russell Eggers (03:25)
He was, it was interesting. And what I found for me coming from New Zealand, because New Zealand is slightly more reserved than Australia, having Bob Hawke sit there and I asked a question about our Prime, New Zealand Prime Minister at the time. And Bob just said, he's an idiot. The Americans in the room, he used slightly more colorful language than that. But the Americans in the room were aghast that a Prime Minister was talking about a recent, you know,

Prime Minister of another country in those terms. But that was Bob Hawke. He was just a man of the people and he called it as he saw it.

Katharine McLennan (03:53)
I know.

Well, the Americans have indicated they've changed a bit in their language. And I won't get into politics other than some general insights, because I don't want to be left or right. That's just an indication. So Michael, how did you end up at the GSB? Why did you go there? And what did you do in between you finished at University of New South Wales?

Michael Liu (04:20)
Yeah, so I finished at UNSW, went into finance, I worked for Goldman Sachs for a couple of years in Hong Kong. So I loved it, worked really hard. And then during COVID, I moved back to Australia. So I spent a couple of years in Sydney at Crescent Capital Partners, which is a private equity fund. And I really enjoyed that. And at the time, there weren't a lot of Australians that

Katharine McLennan (04:27)
In Sydney? in Halukon. That's okay. Fantastic.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Michael Liu (04:48)
study abroad or go do an MBA. It's not really a big thing in Australia. And so I had a couple of friends that were at other funds and they had a of a business school program and they were kind of applying for business school. And one of my partners at the fund that I was working at said that she had applied back in the day and decided not to go, but regretted it. And I just thought it sounded incredible, like two years to kind of

Katharine McLennan (04:49)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (05:17)
spend time in the US, see the world. And so it was really her influence that encouraged me to apply. And as I've got further along the application process, I kind of convinced myself that it was more and more so what I wanted to do. think I've got connected with people in the Australian and New Zealand club at the time. And then I started to speak more to alumni. And it just seemed like a really different experience from my Australian undergrad, where I kind of lived at home and

Katharine McLennan (05:34)
Fantastic.

Michael Liu (05:45)
I was kind of working all the time and wasn't on campus. It's just a completely different experience. And here it was, everyone sees each other. You're a really tight knit community and you kind of hold that alumni ship with you for the rest of your careers. And so that was something I wanted to be a part of. And plus I'd never spent time in the US before. So that's why I'm here.

Katharine McLennan (05:46)
Ugh.

Well, you're in

the, were you in the good place? There's so many things there, Michael, my gosh. The universities in Australia, and I don't know Russell in New Zealand are so different from the American universities in regards to that, Michael. And, you know, it really shows in the alumni Russell for, for the rest of our 30 years. That doesn't sound good for the last 30 years. mean, some of

us are so close and know, I know Russell so well through all kinds of things and, the New Zealand, but we all keep up, don't we Russell?

Russell Eggers (06:39)
Yeah, yeah. Look, the thing I found out of university versus Stanford, and I make a very clear distinction between that, is that, you know, I have a couple of friends from university, because I went as an adult student into my undergrad as well. So, and then, you know, the contacts I have at Stanford are much more open, much more contactable. And, you know, you, you catch up.

Katharine McLennan (06:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Eggers (07:04)
once every five years or 10 years even and it's sort of like just opening the door as though you just left the apartment yesterday and you walk into the barn. It's all there. Everybody's very, very, I've found very happy to share.

Katharine McLennan (07:19)
Yeah, they sure are. The other thing that I noticed, Michael, in a lot of your classmates in 2025, you kind of said it was a great chance to be international. You guys are traveling all the time during your two years. What's your story? Where have you gone?

Michael Liu (07:36)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, this year, so the year below me, 2026 is the most international class ever. So I think it's 38 or 39 % international, which is incredible. And I think because we are a class that has happened after COVID, a lot of us have tried to capitalize on the missed two years of travel. So we've almost over-indexed on traveling. And so I went to Croatia for Yacht Week.

Katharine McLennan (07:43)
Is that right?

No way! Fantastic! Fantastic!

Russell Eggers (07:46)
Hello.

Michael Liu (08:04)
prior to school. I didn't go to Columbia, but I went to Morocco right afterwards. And then I've been all over Europe. I've got friends that are going to, I've gone to Japan over spring break. I've got friends going to Africa. Everyone is traveling a lot. And I think it's a function of the fact that we had two, three years that we couldn't travel because of COVID. And so now we're, yeah, going overboard within that respect.

Katharine McLennan (08:28)
And you guys also do a lot of study abroad. mean, not study abroad, but the projects you do during business school. Some of you guys did go to China, I believe. And some of the others, what, what projects have you done or?

Michael Liu (08:37)
Yes.

So it's called a GST, a global study trip. So I did Morocco with 30 of my classmates right before school. It was the best experience. My best friends at the GSB I met on that trip. I've got friends that went to Australia, New Zealand. They went to the UK where they met Rishi Sunak. They went to Japan. They went to Taiwan, Korea. And then a couple of them did a STEP exchange program, which is the Stanford-Qinghua exchange program with Tsinghua University in China.

Katharine McLennan (08:44)
Okay. That's Morocco. Okay.

Okay.

Yep.

Michael Liu (09:10)
And

so they would go there during Thanksgiving break and then they would host Qinghua University students in January. And so it's kind of this two-way exchange. So there's a lot of these things happening.

Katharine McLennan (09:16)
awesome

Yeah,

good. Private equity is interesting, Russell, and you might be able to help me. In Australia, when we came back, it was, I shouldn't say just forming, but it wasn't the most popular thing. I don't know, Russell, you can over-correct me. We, the consultants of us, the management consultants, watched some of our colleagues go into private equity in Australia and set up, you know, and 30 years later, they've done very well.

So, Russell, you've been involved a little bit in the private equity in Australia. You know, what, how have you experienced it? Because you've had some really interesting placements through families and private equity. It'd be interesting to hear.

Russell Eggers (10:08)
Yeah, I think when it started out, think because one of our colleagues from Booz Allen at the time started up one of the first firms and it was just an unknown. I mean, it was, you know, there wasn't a concept of it. In fact, I don't really even know how sort of you floated a business idea other than through regular bank or family funding, you know, at the time, you know, for small business anyway, know, large business was slightly different.

Katharine McLennan (10:31)
You didn't. You didn't. Yeah.

Michael Liu (10:34)
Okay.

Katharine McLennan (10:36)
Yeah.

Russell Eggers (10:36)
There just wasn't a space in the market. the likes of Archer Capital and people like that, they started out very small and they were a small business growing in a different business model. So I haven't spoken to any of the principals there about how they found it when they were starting up, but I imagine it would have been very difficult because

Katharine McLennan (10:45)
Yeah, they sure were.

Russell Eggers (10:56)
even coming back in 95, Australia was a relatively conservative, not necessarily out there business environment.

You know, it was was run by the big banks and the big mining companies, and it was sort of quite conservative in its approach. Subsequently, every man and their dog is trying to do it. You know, the firms that I got involved with were they were looking for operational backgrounds. I, know, private equity versus venture capital is two very different things. And one of the firms I worked for, the principals, they talk the same, use the same words, but meant entirely different things.

Katharine McLennan (11:08)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (11:09)
Okay.

Katharine McLennan (11:25)
Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Liu (11:28)
So,

thank

Russell Eggers (11:34)
which caused an awful lot of conflict in the firm.

Katharine McLennan (11:37)
Tell us the difference, Russell, because it'd be interesting to talk to Michael in his current perspective of 2020's private equity, but what were the differences that you saw?

Russell Eggers (11:45)
Yeah. So look, I'm not, I'm not involved in VC, I haven't been involved in VC, but my perception of VC is, you know, it's a, have a large portfolio of opportunities and you

fund them all. One of them is going to be a unicorn and it, you know, it covers, it's just a classic portfolio theory. Whereas private equity, you're investing in, typically in operating businesses, sometimes an idea, but typically in operating businesses. And coming out of

Katharine McLennan (11:58)
Yep.

Michael Liu (12:02)
you

Katharine McLennan (12:03)
if you're lucky.

Russell Eggers (12:15)
old industries and corporate, I actually found it quite hard because even though they're

investing in businesses and wanting them to grow, it's focused on the finances and it's focused on the multiples. The last meeting you have when you actually get the deal across the line and you've bought the business, the next meeting is how do we get rid of this? And how do we get rid of this at a multiple? Whereas

Katharine McLennan (12:28)
Absolutely.

Michael Liu (12:29)
you

Katharine McLennan (12:31)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Yep.

Russell Eggers (12:42)
For me, working in operations and being in a corporate, the timeline is much longer around

strategy. It could be a five-year, it could be a 10-year timeline with a very clear goal. And you recognize that over those 10 years, there are going to be different people driving the program all the way through. And you'll have a small piece of the plot to play, but it's a part in a story that you can sort of see the end of. And sometimes you get there, sometimes you don't.

Katharine McLennan (12:57)
Absolutely.

I got

to come back to that because I think some of the things that you did, especially when you left in Dino Nobel were so fascinating. But Michael, give us a perspective of guests of Australia, but Goldman Sachs is a little different in terms of investment banking up in Hong Kong, but private equity, what have you experienced and is that something you want to continue to do?

Michael Liu (13:28)
Yeah, well, it's a very mature landscape now. I think there's a lot more foreign, we call limited partners, who are the people that invest in these funds coming into Australia. They like the governance structure. They like that it's a more mature market.

Katharine McLennan (13:35)
It is.

Michael Liu (13:45)
and they like the kind of population growth that's happening in Australia. So I think there's a lot of kind of structural tailwinds that are really helping the industry. And so in the past, I would say maybe 15 to 20 years, there's been a really big inflow in terms of LP capital, as well as new funds that have started up. And at the same time, there's been a lot of global funds that have entered the market as well. So like we call them mega funds or we have

Katharine McLennan (14:10)
Sure has, yeah, that's right.

Michael Liu (14:15)
kind of sovereign wealth funds that are opening in office and it's coming in an increasingly important part of an Asia portfolio because it's interesting. Oceania sits as part of Asia, but it's really quite a mature westernized market. And so it kind of is a little less risky than entering a full emerging market. So I really enjoyed it. I think it taught me a lot about how to operate businesses, business acumen and how to...

of think about things in an analytical way. And so I'm taking those skill sets and distilling what I liked about the job. And so I'm actually moving on to public equities, which is kind of still in an investing role. But I would say the feedback loop is a little quicker. There's less focus on the operations, more focused on kind of the analysis. And so that's just my kind of personal preference and what I've distilled from my time in finance. But I really enjoy it.

Katharine McLennan (15:08)
I don't even know

what public equity means, tell us in a nutshell. Okay, okay. Okay.

Michael Liu (15:12)
So basically buying and selling stocks, basically a stock picker. There's hedge funds

and mutual funds, but the whole bucket is public equity. So you're investing in public companies. The skill set is very similar, but the feedback loop is a lot shorter. So you kind of know if you've made the right decision quite quickly compared to in private equity where it takes a long time to know if your investment's going to run out.

Russell Eggers (15:32)
Ha ha ha.

Katharine McLennan (15:38)
Of course you do.

Could you be part of a bank to do that? Because I know the equities in many banks often play in the markets.

Michael Liu (15:44)
So are we joining?

Yeah, I'll be joining a mutual fund which kind of invests a lot of 401k money or retirement money. You could also join a hedge fund, which is a kind of a different structure, but they have different kind of incentive structure. the essential job is the same.

Katharine McLennan (15:49)
Okay.

Gotcha. Yeah.

So you're staying in the United States.

Michael Liu (16:01)
I am staying in the United States. I'm moving to New York after graduation. I haven't had enough of the US yet. I've really enjoyed it here, so I want to spend a bit more time here. But I will visit Australia a lot.

Katharine McLennan (16:04)
How could you do that?

I hope so you got to visit us and New York is a is a country on its own anyway so but Russell you went to the US didn't you after Stanford I was trying to remember.

Russell Eggers (16:23)
Look,

I'm a yeah, I am a little bit of an American file in terms of, you know, because I did an exchange year at high school in the US and I loved it. Had a great old time and it was in a dying industry town, Cleveland. You know, it was a very industrial, you know, auto town sort of thing that that wasn't sexy, but it was a fantastic place to have a year as a high school student with work. Yeah. After Stanford, when I got involved in mining and explosives here, I got

Katharine McLennan (16:31)
I didn't know that.

Russell Eggers (16:54)
I went back with an opportunity to Salt Lake for a few years and then Connecticut for a few years, working for a Norwegian company of all things, but based in the US. And again, look, I like the US. love it. I cannot understand the success of the US because when you meet Americans in a business context and stuff like that, everybody's relatively, I liken it to Vanilla Plain.

Katharine McLennan (16:56)
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Eggers (17:21)
But something happens in terms of the US economy and how people get driven and it works. I've really enjoyed it. I've enjoyed the time I've had in the US. But I do like Australia, Michael. You can have New York for so long, then you've got to come back to Sydney or somewhere over this part of the world.

Katharine McLennan (17:41)
I came here 35 years ago and went from here to Stanford and back and I'll never look back. But if you haven't experienced New York, you got to go. But Russell, what's interesting is one of the things he wrote is kept all this AI stuff. We still need companies that actually manufacture. We're still hoping we're going to keep on some of that manufacturing in Australia, but also do the heavy lifting, so to speak.

over your career, even the starting, it's interesting that you started at Air New Zealand. But we can't do AI yet to zoom ourselves over there or mine or do that kind of stuff. So I'd love to hear your comments on that.

Russell Eggers (18:28)
Yeah, we were chatting a little bit beforehand in terms of, I'm not sure I even joined the internet age, Michael, to be quite honest, because I've always been in old industries, let alone the information age. I'm not a big data person. I always hired another classmate of ours whenever I needed data problems. went and got a, yeah. But, you know, I look at

Katharine McLennan (18:37)
Hehehehehe

John. John McNamara, you better be listening.

Russell Eggers (18:54)
my kids in terms of what they're looking at and going into the business and into the world. And there's still an opportunity for one of my frustrations here in Australia is that everybody seems to have to go to university. You you've got to go to university, you've got to have a university degree. But there are lots of roles, especially in the social area, know, nursing education, where people come out of university with a hell of a lot of debt in Australia, and into relatively low paying jobs. And my

Katharine McLennan (19:15)
Yeah, big time.

Russell Eggers (19:23)
My view is, know, there are, or there used to be alternate pathways to gaining that experience and getting a good professional career without going to university. Nursing is a prime example in terms of, you know, they used to train in hospitals, they used to get paid to train. Now, and I'm not 100 % certain, but pretty much you have to go to university, you'll come out with $40,000 or $50,000 worth of university debt and going into a socially responsible, caring role, relatively low paid.

with a burden. And, you know, as I get older, I get more concerned about our willingness as a group and a social group to fund those social necessities of education, health, welfare, that type of thing as a society. And that's my age coming through. I would not have had this discussion when I was 35 coming out of Stanford. There's no two ways about it.

Katharine McLennan (20:17)
Well, in some ways, Russell, it'll be interesting to talk to Michael for one thing. Australian universities are considerably less expensive than the US ones. But do see, Michael, the Stanford? I always thought it as a ticket, know, ticket to re-enter, enter, re-enter, but choosing from Australia to go to a very expensive university. What's the tuition now, Michael?

Michael Liu (20:44)
I

think the tuition itself is around $160,000, not including board and travel and other incidentals.

Katharine McLennan (20:58)
So that's a big investment. Yeah.

Michael Liu (21:00)
big investment. I

was just thinking that, like, I do see where you're coming from, Russell. But at the same time, it's still, University of Australia is still a lot less expensive than the US. And there's kind of hex so you can take out a non-interest loan from the Australian government. And so it does make things a little easier. I would say, Catherine, it's a really good point. I think that's also an inhibitor to international students, especially for

Katharine McLennan (21:28)
hour.

Michael Liu (21:29)
countries where the exchange rate is not doing so well. A lot of my savings were in AUD and so coming here everything just becomes extremely expensive and also it's a little harder to get loans as an international student. My student loans were at higher interest rate and it was also an interesting time where the interest rates were really high.

Katharine McLennan (21:42)
Sure.

gosh.

Michael Liu (21:53)
That was a consideration. I would say you kind of have to spend some time convincing yourself that the benefits will outweigh the costs. And I see it as an investment in kind of myself and my career and the ticket to kind of at the same time. That's also why I want to stay in the US is you will be earning US dollars. And so that kind of helps to pay off the debts. But it's definitely

really big financial decision and I think for some people there is bit of inhibition with regards to the huge amount of money it costs.

Katharine McLennan (22:26)
So, okay, so you know where you're going, Michael. You're going to New York, it sounds like you have a job and curiosity is for your classmates, how many are going into the venture capital equity world? Is it big time for us? We had a small percentage Russell, the people that had the adventurous spirit to go into venture capital.

and Sand Hill Road, pretty much. But a lot of us went to consulting and investment banking and back into corporate. So what do see, Michael, in terms of your classmates?

Michael Liu (23:06)
Yeah,

yeah, it's an it's an interesting question, so.

Coming in, about 20 % of the class comes from an investment professional kind of background, so VC or private equity. And then we have a lot of consultants and some bankers. We don't know for our class what that looks like yet. So I think a lot of people are still recruiting and looking for jobs. But I think typically what we see is, you know,

Katharine McLennan (23:15)
Yep. Yep. Check.

Yep.

Michael Liu (23:34)
people follow whatever is kind of hot or trendy, NBA jobs follow whatever is hot or trendy. And so a couple of years ago it was crypto, like right now it's kind of AI, everyone wants to be a part of that. I think before, in the late 90s it would have been tech. And so it's interesting to see, I think there's a lot of interest in...

Katharine McLennan (23:42)
Yes.

Michael Liu (23:54)
stride ups and venture capital and trying to do something with an AI adjacency. There's a lot of interest in product management, which is kind of a blend of the business and technical side. And so I will get back to you on how many people go into kind of private equity and venture capital. I would say one thing that has changed is I think there's less people going into consulting and investment banking now. I would say it's definitely less than what used to be.

Katharine McLennan (24:17)
Yes, I, I,

that's what I understand, which is interesting to hear. was talking to a friend of mine that used to be a partner at one of our big consulting firms and she was saying, wow, we're just not getting a lot of the talent that we would, we'd like to. So where, what's interesting for us, Russell is in our country, well, you comment, mean, you're, you're the expert, but in our country over our tenure, we've lost a lot of the manufacturing base.

in Australia, we are an economy, well, you know this, Michael, but I'm always fascinated. You know, we're called the lucky country. And I'm always fascinated by how much reliance we have on the mining sector, which Russell would know. And we continue to do so. And my guess is we're going to continue to do so. And we keep thinking, when's it going to run out? And I'm curious, Russell, how you've seen the manufacturing.

sector in Australia, the mining sector, what do you think our country is going to continue to do?

Russell Eggers (25:19)
My sense is there'll be less of it. Sorry, there'll be less employment in it because AI will have a huge impact on factory jobs and production, not simple production, but process production. think AI will take over all of that, whether it's mining, whether it's food manufacturing. I don't think the population base is going to be necessary to support that activity at the same level that it's got now, or even if it grows.

Katharine McLennan (25:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Eggers (25:49)
just because jobs will be lost to robotics and AI.

Michael Liu (25:49)
.

Russell Eggers (25:55)
The problem I have is we're, so I have one of my businesses as a small, one of the business I'm responsible for run is a small joinery manufacturing business in Tasmania. That's the hardest thing in the world to get good capable people. And, know, we offer apprenticeships, we offer trade training, we offer as much as we can to try and get people interested out of school, because it's a necessary school. There's no, we have to have people to do those roles, jobbing type roles. And it's

Michael Liu (26:01)
Okay.

Katharine McLennan (26:20)
Absolutely.

Russell Eggers (26:25)
it's very hard to get, it's okay to get people, it's very

hard to get the people you want to be in the business with the right attitude and the right skill set. And that's, think, the challenge going forward. Because if, if our high schools and universities aren't focused on having some strong operational courses and training, where's those, where are those skills going come from? And they will be necessary, maybe not in the same volume that we have today. And, you know, I

Michael Liu (26:29)
Okay.

Russell Eggers (26:53)
I don't read enough about it, but my sense is, know, places like India and China, do seem

to have, and as I say, I don't know, they do seem to have a focus on making sure that they have engineers and technologists and people able to turn their hand to that type of thing. Whereas here in Australia and the US, my sense is that we're much, a much stronger service orientation or purely intellectual technical sort of endeavors.

Katharine McLennan (27:17)
We are, definitely.

Russell Eggers (27:23)
And I don't know where the balance is going to come because the old economy still drives a lot of things on you need farmers. There's no two ways about it. Now, again, that'll be an area where there's even less employment going forward because of the automation. But you still need people on the land to feed those everybody in the city sort of thing.

Katharine McLennan (27:34)
That's right.

It's really interesting. And Michael, when you say yourself go into New York and you say public equity, what do you think you guys will be, I don't have the word for, let's say investing in and then getting out. What are the sexy industries you think that you'll be acting?

Michael Liu (27:58)
Yeah,

yeah, it's a good question. there's kind of different buckets of industry coverage. So everyone will be assigned to a different coverage. I spent the summer covering technology and tech, is where a lot of the gains have come, I would say. But it's interesting if I think to Australia, where the Australian public markets, it's actually primarily the banks and the miners.

Katharine McLennan (28:13)
that thing.

Yep,

Russell Eggers (28:26)
Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (28:26)
yep,

Michael Liu (28:26)
And so those are the biggest companies that drive

kind of a lot of the public market trading volume. And so it's just a very kind of different scale. Like you don't have the huge M7 tech companies that are kind of making up a huge part of the index. And so it's a very different kind of equity investment landscape. And so my answer to what I'll be investing is probably tech and looking at kind of

Katharine McLennan (28:42)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (28:53)
We talk about AI adjacencies or things that will benefit from the shift in AI. so it's things like data centers, it's things like workflow automation, anything that can try and make these AI processes more efficient. It's semiconductors and semiconductor adjacencies. So we talk a lot about people that are selling the pits and shovels.

maybe a certain part of a value chain that could be valuable. And so that's kind of what I think a lot of US equity is really excited about. If I spoke to a counterpart in the Australian office, they would probably see something different, just by virtue of the different nature of the equity.

Katharine McLennan (29:33)
Well, Russell and

I can do that because we studied supply chain and Russell went on to study supply chain operations. We just don't know how to add AI yet. I don't know, Russell, what do think?

Russell Eggers (29:42)
Whoa.

I know, I still remember the goal. Did you get the book, the goal? Actually, I give it to all of my operating managers as something to read. And some of them actually read it. Yeah, written as a novel, it's a very light read, but you get most of the theory through it. And it is a very light read. I don't know where it's going to end up.

Katharine McLennan (29:48)
Yes!

Is that the like the theory of constraints and the buffers? Yep. Yep. That's right.

Russell Eggers (30:13)
I honestly don't know where it's going to end up because the power of AI and the ability to sift through so many conflicting bits of information and find a kernel of, I hope, truth amongst it is so much greater than my capacity to think through these things. So at the end of the day, as managers in an operating business, what value do we bring for an operating manager running a

Michael Liu (30:32)
.

Russell Eggers (30:41)
production line and things like that, if AI can actually review hundreds of thousands of data points and then distill that to here's an issue or here's not an issue, what do I bring other than maybe managing people, which is always going to be a part of the equation. But, you know, my manufacturing supervisor, I could see it at some point being a laptop, you know, because, you know,

Katharine McLennan (31:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Russell Eggers (31:08)
optimizing all the stuff we did when we were consultants. All of that can be done, the data manipulation will happen and then all of the output will be much as what we did but just so much faster, so much quicker and having dealt with so many more inputs than we could comprehend.

Katharine McLennan (31:12)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (31:16)
Nothing.

Katharine McLennan (31:27)
I was doing the inventory turns on A, B, and C. anyway, have we still got me and Michael? You're still there? Yeah, there you are. Michael, who are your customers? What's your clients? Who are you acting for?

Russell Eggers (31:31)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (31:38)
Yeah.

Russell Eggers (31:38)
Yeah,

Michael Liu (31:46)
Yeah, so it's a lot of 401k money. we've got kind of retirement funds and then we have people that aggregate kind of those funds. So we've got kind of pension plans, endowments. And so primarily those are kind of the people that but it's mainly institutional money. So it's not kind of individual. Actually, that's not true. There are a couple of individual client accounts. So think of like a Fidelity or Capital Group.

Katharine McLennan (31:49)
Okay, okay. Gotcha.

Yep. Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yep. Yep.

Michael Liu (32:14)
Tiro price. So

Katharine McLennan (32:15)
Yep.

Michael Liu (32:15)
that's kind of who that's when you kind of have 401k that's kind of where the of the managers of that.

Katharine McLennan (32:22)
And who do you compete against? Who your main competitors?

Michael Liu (32:25)
So, yeah, so primarily other mutual funds. So funds like the names I just mentioned. Also, you know, more and more so there's a rise of passive investing. So I'm talking about active stock picking, but passive is getting a lot bigger because, you know, it is really hard to be an active stock picker. And so

Katharine McLennan (32:30)
Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Liu (32:49)
companies like Vanguard and BlackRock, which are a lot of ETFs and passive ETFs. They're affecting a lot of inflows. yeah, we compete with passive as well.

Katharine McLennan (32:51)
Yep. Yeah. Yep. That's right. Yeah.

Russell Eggers (33:00)
I still remember Kath, our finance lecturer, who was the guy who did the Nobel Prize in the Black Shoals.

Katharine McLennan (33:07)
yeah, yeah, yeah, can't.

What was? Yeah, I know there was another one, another one.

Michael Liu (33:09)
Wilm Scholes.

Russell Eggers (33:11)
Yeah. No, it was, yeah. But anyway, first, first,

first day of class, you know, we walk into class, everybody takes their seat, looking forward to this amazing guy who's going to teach us stuff. He walks in, very nondescript, and writes eight numbers up on the board. And it doesn't say anything, and he turns around and starts talking to the class. And then I can't remember who it was. It might have been Volker or somebody like that. Put their hand up at the back and go,

excuse me, because everybody dutifully, he wrote it up and everybody dutifully wrote it down in their notebooks, because there weren't too many people with laptops. Everybody dutifully wrote it down. And then someone at the back, after a little while goes, excuse me, but what was the number? He said, look, if you take nothing away from this course, nothing, because he was teaching portfolio theory and all these things, nothing away from this course, remember that number. So then the 50 % of the class who didn't write it down obviously didn't write it down.

Katharine McLennan (33:43)
Mm-mm.

Russell Eggers (34:02)
And I said, well, what is it? And he says, it's the number, I think it was for Vanguard funds. He said, it's a low cost, low cost fund, buys the market and you'll never lose. It's the best advice you can get in this class. So, you your passive investment was, you know, that's exactly it.

Katharine McLennan (34:08)
That's right. That's right. That's right.

Michael Liu (34:11)
Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. You'd be surprised at the number of hedge funds that can't outperform a passive index.

Katharine McLennan (34:21)
Well, that's right. But Michael, so what's your edge then? You guys are active pickers. So what's your edge? How can you outperform these guys?

Russell Eggers (34:22)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (34:30)
Yeah.

we engage in something called fundamental equity analysis, which means just analyzing the fundamentals of a company. And so that comes by spending a lot of time and having really good management access. And so there's different things we can do, but it's essentially doing deep research into a stock, speaking to management, talking to them and understanding what's mispriced about the stock. you know,

Katharine McLennan (34:39)
Okay.

Michael Liu (34:56)
everyone's process is different, but for me, it means talking to everyone. So customers, suppliers, employees, ex-employees, management, competitors. And so understanding the mosaic of what's happening in the company, whether things are getting better or worse, and where expectations are. So I think something that people don't appreciate about public markets is it's often about where expectations are, not if it's a good or a bad company. So a good company could be a bad stock.

Katharine McLennan (35:20)
Yep, absolutely. That's

Michael Liu (35:24)
and a good

Katharine McLennan (35:24)
right.

Michael Liu (35:24)
stock could be, you could make money in a bad company. What matters is where people's expecting the stock to go and whether or not there's any dislocation in those applications. And so what happens within media is they beat expectations, they make a ton of money, but the stock still doesn't go up. It's because people were expecting them to hit it even more out of the park than they did. And so it's a great company, it hasn't recently hasn't been a great stock.

Katharine McLennan (35:30)
Absolutely.

That's it.

That's right. Yep.

So that's, yeah, go Russell.

Russell Eggers (35:50)
Michael,

you said something in terms of access to management for this analysis. If you found what you think is a great stock or a great investment, but don't get access to management, how heavily does that weigh on your decision making?

Michael Liu (36:07)
That's a really good question. I think it's very important. People weigh it differently, but I think it's incredibly important because you want to know how the people that are running the company are thinking, what their strategic priorities are. you through a lot of reps and touch points with these managers, you kind of get a sense for how they're speaking and what their kind of overall pulse on the company is. And so it's incredibly important. And also that's the benefit of working for one of these.

large mutual funds is because you have so much, so many assets, assets under management. So one, two, three trillion dollars of assets. And so these companies are very willing to speak to you. So they're in terms of management access, they will sit down with you and be willing to share, you know, an hour or two hours of their time and explain exactly what they're working on. Whereas with the hedge funds, which typically are, I would say a little bit more aggressive, sometimes they trade on the quarter. And then so they take it, you know, take positions quickly, but also exit positions quickly.

they are probably a little less willing to talk to you. And so your management access would look like, you know, 10 hedge funds around the table. You have one hour and you probably get one question in. Whereas with a mutual fund, you're spending a lot of time with them. have a relationship with them. They're telling you a lot more. And so that really gives you an edge because you've just got better access and you know more about what's going on.

Katharine McLennan (37:24)
One of the things I wanted to do, I'm a career under, like I've analyzed cultures and leadership and everything else. And I've continued to go to the venture capital and private equity world and say, you need this skill. You have no idea. I can tell you what you've got in terms of talent. Now, when you're turning it over fast and you're getting over, know, getting rid of management quickly, then you don't care, Michael. But is that what you care about? How good the leadership is, how solid the culture is?

Michael Liu (37:55)
100%, 100%. And that is one of the biggest takeaways from the GSB as well. We have a lot of classes here. One of the most famous is called managing growing enterprises. And the key message in that class is that A's hire A's and the number one most important thing is to hire good talent.

Katharine McLennan (38:05)
You

Michael Liu (38:16)
A good way to reframe and redefine a lot of things is to think about every business as a talent business. Talent matters in every single organization. so even as an investor, that's what we're looking for. We're looking for people that can motivate employees, that can kind of support people and train people and lead them to do their best work. And so that's also what we're kind of testing for. And so people have reputations. We know that certain companies have incredible management. And that's a really big factor.

Katharine McLennan (38:22)
Say aye.

I am

Michael Liu (38:46)
day.

Katharine McLennan (38:46)
so glad to hear that. That's been my career. I've actually relabeled myself talent agent, but Russell, you've lived in leadership and you know good people and you have to bring John McNamara in because you don't have the talent. So, what have you learned over the years about the importance of people? Talent.

Russell Eggers (39:07)
Okay, the smartest guy in the room concept is a death to good management. know, Michael, I am not the smartest guy in any room that I participate in. But what I have learned is that, and fundamentally, I'm quite lazy, which is not a bad thing for management because I try to find the easiest way to do things. And if the easiest way to do things is hiring somebody better than me at doing it, that's what you've got to do. My worst...

Katharine McLennan (39:10)
you

you

Michael Liu (39:19)
Data.

Katharine McLennan (39:23)
So

Yeah.

Yeah.

Russell Eggers (39:35)
business experiences have been with people or people reporting to me or people above me who don't like hiring people better than them. And I've just, you know, my whole career, post Stanford has been making sure I've got people better than me working in the organization because it challenges me, but it also makes my job a hell of a lot easier to be quite honest. You know, it just gives you answers that you don't, you can't come up with yourself. That's the thing.

Katharine McLennan (40:01)
It got

it. would. And Michael, the, the experience you have, it's interesting. Might I ask your age? you that hovering around 30 ish? I see, you know? Yeah. So it's interesting. when you are that age, having remembered that a little bit, you know, I loved working with talent. I loved working that, but I wonder is the 30 age now with what companies you're going to be looking for.

Michael Liu (40:10)
I am turning 30 this year, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (40:30)
What's the challenges do you think you're gonna have? You would have gotten some wide perspectives from being in Hong Kong and Australia. What do you think you're gonna be challenged by in New York?

Michael Liu (40:42)
Yeah, I think I liked private equity because I got a lot of exposure at a very young age to a lot of boardrooms and very senior people. But at the same time, you can't help but wonder, you know, I look a little younger and, you know, people will kind of question, well, you know, what's your experience? And there's kind of a question mark put around the comments you made. so I think, you know, going into

Katharine McLennan (40:48)
Yeah, you did.

Michael Liu (41:09)
this year and actually coming to the GSB has just made me a lot more confident. think Silicon Valley in general is just, there's a lot of young people doing a lot of ambitious things. And so people here kind of value what you have to say rather than what you look like. And I think that's also an idiosyncrasy of the US and Silicon Valley. It's all about the content and what you're willing to build rather than what you look like. And you see that every day.

Katharine McLennan (41:15)
Fantastic.

Michael Liu (41:39)
on campus. You've got undergrads raising a ton of money. They're like raising all this capital to, you know, change the world and have all these interesting things. And so for me, what will be challenging New York? think still like coming to terms with understanding the US and trying to understand the landscape here. I think we have a really interesting political environment. We have a really interesting difference in culture. I've New York and California obviously are two

many countries, but then you've got the whole middle America, which is very different. And so trying to learn more about how to connect with people, because it's not, this is not a homogenous country by any means, it's so different. So trying to get to terms with that, think that's something that will be challenging.

Katharine McLennan (42:20)
It'll be interesting Russell, because one of the things I know in, in growing older, we're all hovering around sixties or whatever, some older, some younger. But one of the things I've noticed about it is I look at you and I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're, we're about the same age. This guy is like a, you know, I could talk to him just across the board table and there's that, know, and I don't think you guys see that, but Russell, don't know if you experienced that. I, I had a big age chip when I was.

coming out of business school. So if I was working with 60s, I would very much defer to their judgment and be quite somewhat intimidated. I don't know. So the age is interesting. The age kind of collapses as you get older. What do you think, Russell?

Michael Liu (42:52)
It's.

Russell Eggers (43:05)
I think it's about the age, but think also people are much more accepting of youth and talent now than what they were when we were, you know, when I first started in New Zealand, you weren't allowed to be a manager under 40. It matter how good you were in the engineering group, no one was hired as a manager or put in a manager role under 40. And no matter how good you were. so, and that was just a, that was part of the culture of the business and business at the time. I think now,

Katharine McLennan (43:13)
Yeah, absolutely.

No way!

No way! my gosh.

Michael Liu (43:35)
Okay.

Russell Eggers (43:35)
where people see things moving so quickly, it doesn't matter who you are, it's the value of your ideas. And I think that also, that flavors my thinking coming from Stanford, because it was my first, when I go through engineering, there's a lot of rote learning, there's a lot of, here's how we do it, here's how you approach it, blah, blah, blah, logical thinking, all that sort of stuff. At Stanford, it was the first real time where you had to think and support

your ideas in the classroom.

Katharine McLennan (44:03)
Yeah.

Russell Eggers (44:04)
And I've just take, well, hopefully I've taken that across the rest of my career. You know, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but any idea is a good idea. And you can't think while you're talking. You think while you're listening. it's, you know, those sort of things make a difference going forward, I think.

Michael Liu (44:06)
.

Katharine McLennan (44:14)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's why it's Michael, it's going to be interesting for you to pick because a lot we're just going into the unknown. Now, let me remind you, I was an investment class with

Professor Van Horn, my favorite. I was actually doing fine. I love finance. But it was we actually had the opportunity to have Warren Buffett. I can't believe Warren Buffett is still Warren Buffett 30 years later. my God. Anyway, we have the opportunity. He was still lauded. He was, you know, he was.

Michael Liu (44:42)
Wow.

Katharine McLennan (44:51)
And we had the opportunity for him to come and we said in 1994, whatever it was, 95, who would you or who are you most interested in? And we were all kind of excited about this emerging. We called it Mosaic. It was a web crawler that eventually became Netscape. Netscape went public in 1995, was the first public listed brand. But anyway, we asked him, what would you invest in? And he said, I wouldn't invest in that technology. It's hard, still capped.

Michael Liu (44:59)
Thanks.

Katharine McLennan (45:20)
boots, you need to be able to understand the product, touch the product, touch that. But now Michael, we're going into not even the information age and data and big data, the internet, but we're going into this really weird world. Like, is that the stuff that you're going to be looking at for ideas? How do you even conceptualize a good idea out of that?

Michael Liu (45:43)
Yeah, well, it's interesting. We had Lisa Su, who's the CEO of AMD on campus last week, and she was speaking about how AI is probably the most transformative technology she's seen in her career. And I honestly, even in the past year, I see it.

Katharine McLennan (45:50)
Oof.

Michael Liu (46:00)
in our day-to-day lives. We have chat GPT now that people are using in the classroom. It can generate an entire essay for you within seconds. We can. There's a policy. There's an official policy. It depends on the professor. But typically, you can use it to assist and help with generating ideas. But you have to have a final review of it. And you have to make sure that it's your wording. But you can use it to help you.

Katharine McLennan (46:08)
And you guys can use it, right? You're allowed to use it. Yep.

Michael Liu (46:29)
For me, it is exciting. feels like I was born in 95 and that was the cusp of the internet age and now graduating and it's the cusp of the AI revolution. I think looking for ideas, it's where can there be processes that are streamlined or made better and where are people's lives changing? think that's always really important when looking at consumer investing is which parts of people's lives are

Katharine McLennan (46:37)
Absolutely.

Michael Liu (46:58)
having less friction and where are people willingly spending their time and where is the value being added? I think, yeah, I was skeptical of ChatGPT in the beginning and now it's just become, you know, the latest version has just become so proliferated on campus that it's incredible and the speed at which it's changing is just crazy. So I can't wait to see what happens.

Katharine McLennan (47:21)
Well, my partner thinks I have another partner because it's with me all day long. I'm serious. love it. mean, I just like, yeah, well, I do. My God. You know, it's fantastic. The idea. Well, see, what's interesting, Michael, is the idea generation that it allows me to do without the stuff like, you know, doing, for example, I do a lot of CEO succession. And so I say, OK, tell me the really good cases, business cases of CEO succession and the really bad cases.

Russell Eggers (47:21)
Mm.

Michael Liu (47:28)
You can chat with it.

Katharine McLennan (47:51)
all over the world. Now tell me about Australia. Now tell me about Hong Kong. It's amazing. go back to what you said, the consumer, what makes their life have less friction. Give us an example of something really cool that maybe one of your colleagues do or what you're seeing. How are you going to make our life easier? Or what the companies?

Michael Liu (48:12)
Yeah,

yeah, I mean, there's kind of a ton of things, but one thing that I can think of is just changes in how people work. I mean, Zoom is a huge example that is reducing kind of travel times and, you know, there's differences in people's views about how long you should be in the office. essentially, if you believe that, you know, people are wasting time, you know, driving to work, then you're

in theory meant to have more kind of time that you can work. And then there's also companies that, you know, things that are doing virtual mailboxes, right? It's no longer necessary to have a, have a physical address anymore. You don't need to have a mail room. You know, it's all kind of a lot more efficient. And so I would say that's where the friction is being reduced. And so that's where I like to spend my time. It's kind of on ideas that are making my life easier and letting me spend more time on things that, that matter. And, know,

Yeah, I think Zoom is a good example. there is kind of, I was looking at a travel aggregator the other day that kind of would plan out my entire itinerary. So I'm no longer spending time kind of trying to manage across time zones. And also there's kind of virtual EAs now. So, you know, they will respond to emails as if they're a real person and they'll schedule everything for you. So all those things are really exciting.

Katharine McLennan (49:28)
Yeah.

this.

Back in the days, Russell, I don't know. Actually, for me, internet age made things crazy more and more time. I mean, when I worked before Stanford, we had to leave. you know, six, there were no computers. We don't bring a huge computer home and it's not like we could connect to any internet. What's your experience over 30 years, Russell, with technology and the way it has affected our lives?

Russell Eggers (49:37)
Mm-mm.

It's insidious, know, and it takes over without really notice. Sorry, takes over is the wrong word. gets involved without really a conscious decision on our part. You know, we find a technology that's great. To Michael's point, I'm going to Europe later this year with my partner and I want to go for a nice restaurant. So I had two options. I ring Francois Josseron, one of our classmates who lives in Paris.

Katharine McLennan (50:08)
It is a great word.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Russell Eggers (50:33)
and another

French chap I know here in Sydney and they give me four restaurants and I go and chat GPT and I go I'm staying at this hotel I need four know Michelin star restaurants within a five minute walk done it got four out of the five of the same recommendations that my friends gave me now that's great but what I worry about is it will it mean that I don't talk to my friends because that because that human interaction

Katharine McLennan (50:59)
Yeah.

Russell Eggers (50:59)
You know,

some of our daily lives and interaction with people is just mundane crap, you know, that you just go through, but it causes the interaction. Whereas AI, I'm going to use chat GPT for my next holiday because it'll just do it for me and it'll be done quickly and it's done like that. But I'll miss that. I won't call Francois. I won't call, you know, some of my friends from Stanford and parts of the world because I did it on chat GPT. And that's, that's a little bit what I worry about. that how insidious it can get.

Michael Liu (51:16)
Okay.

Russell Eggers (51:28)
to having your EA on your phone or having

your best friend as chat GPT, that's not a conversation with the real world.

Katharine McLennan (51:36)
You're so right, Russell. One of the arguments I'm writing about is, we heading into sort of in an integration where chat TBT can do all this or isolation where we're by ourselves? Michael, what do you guys think at Stanford? Are you worried about the culture that's emerging that you'll will be leading, especially given some of the political aspects, socioeconomic, all that stuff that is interesting?

I should say, I mean, I'm watching US news. I think the whole world's watching US news. I'm addicted to it. So what does your class worry about or get challenged by how you're going to have to lead this world emerging? That's a huge question.

Michael Liu (52:22)
That is a big question. I

love it. I don't think we're the best group of people to ask about concerns about technology because we're just in the thick of it. There's a lot of cool way drinking, have to be honest. People are raising a ton of money and everyone's super bullish on AI.

Katharine McLennan (52:32)
Interesting. Yeah.

yes yes yes yes

Michael Liu (52:46)
Sometimes it is a little, does feel like a little bit of a bubble. And I think it's important to have other perspectives that question the ethical and the lifestyle impacts that technology will have. So I absolutely agree with you on that. think to be honest, I think if I think about what our class is worried about, it's kind of two things. One is finding a job and as is with every single MBA student, finding a job and then more, you know,

Katharine McLennan (52:59)
Mm. Mm.

Absolutely.

Russell Eggers (53:11)
Yep.

Michael Liu (53:14)
more in a macro perspective, just like the political environment that we're entering into. think there's a lot of uncertainty. At the same time, there's an administration that's doing a lot of things and having a lot of changes. And so there's really very tangible and real impacts that will happen. I think a lot of international students are worried about their visas. I think a lot of people are worried that their kind of industries will be affected.

Katharine McLennan (53:39)
Mmm.

Michael Liu (53:43)
by the tariffs. I think that's kind of the bigger worries. I think the technology side of things, most people are very, very bored in just by virtue of the fact that we're Stanford.

Katharine McLennan (53:43)
Yeah.

Well, Michael, it's interesting because that's Russell. found out the same, you know, it's, and that was what Buffett was all about. mean, sure. He's got technology all over his stuff, but at that point between 95 and 2000, when there, the bubble burst, we had exactly the same thing, you know, because none of us knew, you know, we could go internet. Oh, great. We'll throw some money at you. Great. Great. And so

That's what happened. so it'd interesting, Russell, do you remember that time between 95 and 2000?

Russell Eggers (54:29)
Everybody talked about one of the most important KPIs in a startup was the burn rate. How quickly are you using your money? Don't worry about revenue, income or profit. How quickly are you using the money that people are providing you? And it was all about getting ahead of the curve or getting on, at least getting up to the curve and on the curve. And the only way people saw it as being able to do that was by spending, expanding the business, growing the business with no recompense to pay.

Katharine McLennan (54:34)
Yes, yes, Good money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Russell Eggers (54:57)
profitability or just the business fundamentals that you loved in your finance course, But so, look, yeah, it's, I don't know, it's, the internet was a fantastic thing. And I loved it when I was at Stanford, you know, I had to laugh when I was listening to one of the odd podcasts and you mentioned the pigeonholes, you know, and I think that was how we communicated across the group.

Katharine McLennan (55:02)
I did. I did.

I hate it.

They're little,

Michael, they were little boxes that we each had across the wall. to do what you did, a blast, we had to literally put paper in every single.

Michael Liu (55:34)
I think we should reintroduce those, it might be fun.

Russell Eggers (55:37)
No, no, don't. Now, there are some advantages to the internet age. But the thing, I loved it. I loved the whole idea of freedom of information and getting to that. But I only had one concern. And this is coming from a technical background, was peer review is a great arbiter of value in terms of ideas. It's also conservative and it also maintains status quo in a lot of cases.

Katharine McLennan (55:39)
No.

Michael Liu (55:43)
Yeah.

Russell Eggers (56:06)
worries me and I've got a question for you Michael at the end of this is, you know, there is no peer review on the internet. There is no sort of recognized validity to the ideas that are out there and I think we see that in terms of some of the stuff that's out on the net today. And my question for you is where do Stanford students go for the truth? Because I look at my old sources of information and news about the world and I struggled to believe any of them because

I just struggle to believe it. So where do we go for the truth when we want to make considered decisions about things that affect us and our families and the world in that regard?

Michael Liu (56:48)
That is a really good question. And I think it's definitely something people talk about on campus. think, you know, there's a lot of misinformation out there and there's a lot of kind of fake news and it's disappointing that even with AI that there can be even more fake news. So things like deep fakes are really concerning as well. So it's interesting where I think people go for the truth is also where there's the most misinformation and that's to it. now it's X.

Katharine McLennan (57:17)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (57:18)
It's

Katharine McLennan (57:18)
Yes.

Michael Liu (57:19)
just the feedback loop is a lot quicker and it's unfiltered. At the same time, there's a lot of misinformation out there, but sometimes it can be the fastest indicator of what is really happening. And then you try and verify it with other more reputable sources. Try and look at different types and sources of media that are not just on either end of the political spectrum, international media as well.

It is hard. it's definitely a concern, think, even for me, like, as I think about my future, when I have children, like the world that they're coming into, like, where is the absolute truth anymore? Right. It's hard to sift through that. And so, yeah, I think that's a really loaded question. I don't know if there is one kind of right answer.

Katharine McLennan (58:14)
Well, that's what the social world is dealing with. And I'm so glad to hear that Stanford's allowing you to use chat TPT because it really puts the onus on you guys to sort it out, sift it out. And I'm fascinated by that. As we come to the end, what Russell, you're, we'll just say you're over 60.

What has been, if you look at your life now and you say, and I say to you, what is your absolute favorite part of your week? And you know, what has been, you know, what do you love? What's important to you? How do you see that shifting from 30 ish to 60 ish? Easy question, right? Yeah. What? five words.

Russell Eggers (59:07)
Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure we have time for this one.

having, so I'm not retired, but I'm considering it and I'm winding down all those things. My favorite part of the week is anytime I come home. Anytime I'm with family and friends, that's my favorite part of the week. And I wouldn't say that previously, because lots of times you're driven by different things as you go through your career and you meet fantastic people in a business context and that was amazing. But now it's, you know,

Katharine McLennan (59:21)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (59:28)
you

Russell Eggers (59:43)
Family and friends are much more important to me in terms of the scheme of things across my life. So that's always, sorry, that's always a good thing. Yeah, so that's it. That's my favorite part.

Katharine McLennan (59:55)
It is, and it's interesting how it shifts.

A question for you, Michael, and wrapping it up is how can our generation help you and help you, your generation?

Michael Liu (1:00:08)
Think.

Our generation is digital native, really ambitious, wants to change the world. think responding to requests for advice or help and passing on the knowledge because it's a really interesting time. Everyone has grown up with or seen the rise of technology. so I think sharing lessons about what things were like during the tech bubble, trying to mitigate these risks and these things happening again.

Katharine McLennan (1:00:14)
Yeah.

Michael Liu (1:00:40)
And kind of just lifting up kind of people that are really ambitious could be really helpful.

Katharine McLennan (1:00:46)
thank you. I'm glad we still have some use. Thank you, Russell and Michael. I really appreciate that conversation. And we are, I'm going to.

Russell Eggers (1:00:49)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha