Episode 135 - Father, Son, and Faithful Investing
Subscribe to the Podcast:
“Dad, when are you going to get a real job?”
Investors might find it hard to explain their careers to their kids, but that’s not the case in the Harris household. There, faith driven investing runs in the family.
Britt is currently the President, CEO, and CIO at UTIMCO, the largest public endowment in America, and his son, Matt, previously served as Vice President of the Blackstone Group and is now on the investment team at Draper Associates.
In this episode, we talk to both of them about being part of a family with shared faith and passion to impact culture through investments. Listen in as Matt and Britt discuss their intergenerational perspectives on the state of the market, ESG investment, and being a saint in the boardroom.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
John Coleman: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast. This is John Coleman and today I am privileged to be joined by two men who are legends in the investing industry in their own right. So Britt and Matt, thanks so much for joining us today and welcome.
Matt Harris: That's great to be here. Good to see you.
Speaker 3: We're excited.
John Coleman: Well. We're excited, too. And I'm looking. I know that Britt and Matt are big Texas A&M advocates, and Matt managed to wear his Texas A&M's shirt. They both got their rings on. So I suspect we'll have some advocacy for A&M today.
Speaker 3: But we're going to want to talk about this year's recruiting. But that's probably after The Good Stuff.
John Coleman: Yeah, the recruiting class was pretty strong this year, I think, after you saw Florida State's coach. So not bad.
Speaker 3: I think that was the that was free. He did that of his own volition.
John Coleman: Well, as we get started here, Britt and Matt, maybe Britt will start with you. Just give us a little bit of background in brief bio. You've been in the investing industry for many years now, Britt, and have had such an interesting journey through investing. Talk us through that a bit and let us know how you came to that and what your journey has been like.
Britt Harris: Well, you know, I was looking up what the S&P was the day I came out. Take a guess. What was the S&P in 1980?
John Coleman: Oh, gosh. 500. Am I going to sound ridiculous?
Britt Harris: 100.
John Coleman: Oh, my gosh.
Britt Harris: Yes, it was 100. You know, so at least for this cycle, you know, I've seen it all. But, you know, to help, I think everybody understands it really, for me to have understood my own journey. You know, I want to take you back for just a second. And I want to talk about two things that I learned growing up. One of them is it's very important that you are 100% on God's plan, not 90% on God's plan, 100% on God's plan. And that the second one is you have no idea what God can do with you. You know, you have no idea what God can do with you. None of the things that have happened to me, what I have ever imagined, you know, that's not false humility. It is just the way it is. So on the first point, you know, my father was the youngest executive that mogul had ever had. This is the sixties we're talking about. And at that time, Mobil Oil was in New York, and so we lived in Connecticut. And at the same time, you know, he was traveling all the time, but I don't remember he's absentee father at all. You know, he was a very involved father, a good dad. You know, he and my mom helped bring churches up and they brought missionaries into Ankara, Turkey where we lived for a while. And so he was an amazing man. But he's out there at a Little League baseball game. I'm pitching, you know, nine. And so they don't have an umpire. So you have to know my dad. So I'll do the umpire. Okay, fine. No mask like dad. You put a guy like dad, put a mask on. No, don't need a mask. That fastball hits him in the head, sent him in the hospital. In the hospital, he says to the doctor, You know what? There's my back. You know while I'm here. Can you take a look at it? And two days later, my dad was in the terminal condition where he didn't want to live for another. The doctor said, I don't know if you can live for another five days. And I'm nine at this point. And as I learned his story, he had told his dad, my grandfather, when he was in 17 or 18, he felt like God was calling into the ministry. And, you know, his dad said something is very logical. It doesn't make sense to me, like you're loaded up with math skills and all these business skills. Now, what? Preacher needs to know how to do math, and it made sense as logical. And so dad went on and he got a degree in petroleum engineering and he got in the business and he was really good. I mean, he really did a lot. He and my mom did a lot of great things, but he was only 90% on God's plan. So when he got this terminal diagnosis, you know, when the doctor left, he called up Southwestern Baptist Seminary and enrolled for the next semester. So all of a sudden, you know, I'm nine. You know, I left Fairfield, kind of Connecticut, a mansion, and went to Fort Worth, Texas, in a track house. And my dad went from being head of global sales to selling insurance door to door. My brother and I would actually go and tie the brochure on the door and he would come by the next day. And what that did is just I didn't have to learn that money was not the most important thing. You know, I'm nine years old at that time. I was on a baseball team in Connecticut. I'm on a baseball team down here. I have my family there. I have my docs in here, you know, whatever it is. And so early on, I think God showed me that money is not something that should control your life and it's not something you should obsess over. It's better to have enough, but, you know, it's a means to an end. It's a resource that's used. It's not something that's meant to control you.
John Coleman: And your dad ended up surviving that cancer.
Britt Harris: Yes, he did survive for another 20 years and ended up dying at 53, there was a miraculous recovery there, which is a whole another story. But so I have this background where I had a dad who was a preacher and a business guy and somebody say, I'm kind of half of both. And then so the stories I get out of them, this is very early. I mean, you guys cannot imagine how early this was and there wasn't even a computer. I remember when they brought the first computer out and they showed us like, here's a Suzy and here's the numbers. That first cell, you put a one in there you could punch. And I was like, black magic. This wouldn't go at 1985. And I was at Texas Utilities, which is not where you go. Normally, it's become a you know what I've had a chance to become. But I did work with some great guys, and all of a sudden they decided to merge five subsidiaries into one. And each one of those little subsidiaries had a little pension fund. And all of a sudden I remember $330 million. And you got to understand, this is big enough that somebody needs to look at it, but not big enough. Is somebody important needs to look at. So I'm like 26 or 27. The boss says, you take a look at and people ask me like, How did you learn this? And the truth is, I learned it on the bus. Everybody who's in any business, you know, it's kind of like how much you learn in a day. So all of a sudden, I don't know anything about venture capital, but I have a venture capital guy. Come in and talk to me. I ride the bus and I'm studying venture. Oh, that's what venture capital is. He tells me how it works. You know, you're faking till you make it right. And then I review it all the way home for three years, and I walk into the office one day. And. friend says congratulations. Britt. And I said, thank you very much. I have no idea what we're talking about. And I have been given the award, being on the top 25 investors in America, and I was only 28. Wow. Yes. It's a wow until you realize there's absolutely no competition. I only 29, you know, involved. You know, you get something like that on your resume. Well, actually, what the company did was they said, no, this is out of control. You know, we want you to be executive in this company, not an investor. I went to a service centers. The first person that they ever going to use in that kind of is senior management track. And I got seven offers, which I didn't surprise me and I didn't have this and this I was in with meter readers telephone. I didn't have any typewriter. I didn't have any. So how do I respond to these letters? I had a pencil and a piece of paper. I wrote out my resume and pencil.
John Coleman: So that's not great advice for students entering the field today. I would imagine.
Britt Harris: It was unique, I guess using that at.
Matt Harris: Least.
Britt Harris: You know, and that was, you know, you can't lose bank because you got to race things, you know, and the next thing I know, Jerry and I are up in Connecticut Mass one and then I just ran the gantlet up there where first comes chemical combustion engineering and I got there and combustion engine was gone bankrupt. I looked into. A little more. They got acquired by coming out of stay around Bloomberg and I started first of all I was getting I had I think six different plans overseas. And they were very purchased combustion engineering, and they only kept two people. They kept me and they kept the head of HR. And there was a day that time when I was going to a party for all the people who were going to be let go because the company hadn't been running well enough to keep it going. And as I was walking out the office, they said, just before you go sign a check, and I signed a very big check for the CEO of the company who had not managed the company well enough to keep it out of this position as I was going to have a party for the people. And so along the way and there's other stories I learned that management is a sacred relationship with the people that you're overseeing. It's a sacred relationship for the people you're overseeing. It's about them. It's not about you. Then a guy named John Carroll came. He was one of the really programs of this business. And at that time, they were the most respected pension fund in America. And he was asking me to come and run their equity division. And we had lunch and Rob Nice and he said, sent me your resume. And I just took it as perfunctory. I thought he had no idea how young I am and I didn't send it to him did not because I didn't want to. Just didn't take it seriously. Third time around, you know, I sent it to him and ended up offered me the job and I called three people who knew him and knew me. And I said, John Carroll just offered me this position as the head of equity for DG, which is now for everybody split but Verizon and should I take it? And they said, no, wait a minute, guys, this is a rhetorical question. This is a big one and why not? And I said, because we know John and we know you, and he's a bull and verbal and you can't have the proverbial two bulls in the same place. And oh, by the way, you'll be the little bull. And so I went back to John. I said, John, it's a great offer, but our mutual friends have told me that we're just going to make each other miserable. So I don't think I should take it. And he said, Look, everything says correct. And when he didn't say, Is my dad, I'm 61, he was 56, that I am ready to stop running the company. So you can't you run a company and I run the board, step out on faith. And the minute I have the elevator. I ran that company and John ran the board. So I'm in my early thirties, so I got to watch a master at board level and I ran the company. So I was able also to bar his credibility for some crazy ideas I had. I once had the CFO of our company take my proposal, stand up and throw it in the trash. In the trash. And I don't know how I did it, but I got up and I got out the trash and I took it back and I said, Mr. Tristano, this is what we need to do, sir. And he looked over John Jack, it knows what he's done and wow. So that's credibility. And then John retired and I became the number one guy that was right in right into the heart of the tech and telecom crisis. And I was there. And then all of a sudden General Motors was asking me to come and run their fund and this was their public. And I was using Bridgewater as my reference. And Bob Prince and Ray Dalio are really good friends. But the Princess and the Harrises vacationed together.
John Coleman: For reference for listeners who might not know, Bridgewater is now the largest hedge fund in the world, I believe still and has been successful for many years now.
Britt Harris: It's the most successful private investment public investment operation. I mean, central banks rely on Bridgewater. And so I get this phone call. I'm in California, said they need to talk to you urgently. I call them. And I thought, oh, my gosh, what has gone wrong? Said, if you're going to actually go now we want you to come and be our CEO. So I did that and it was fantastic. I was literally on top of the world as far as the industry goes. And then I was struck with depression just out of the blue, on top of everything. And when it first happened, you look at what in the world happened here and you just just start going down and writing about who loved me and I love them. Don't quit. Don't we know you're. And that was loving advice, that terrible. So I did. And I went into a year of recovery. And I'll tell you.
John Coleman: What's this new for you? Or had you ever had a bout with depression before? They had a brand new.
Britt Harris: Brand new. And I found out later that my father had had a change, that maybe it's earlier, but I'll tell you that when I came out of it, I was more spiritually aware. Than I have ever been in my life. I mean, just. Everything was just alive. You actually knew? Kind of broke both sides. And that loss really a deeper faith. And there are certain things, you know, everything that God does or everything happens to you. God is going to use it to make you the person He wants you to be. And I don't think there's ways that I could have gone from who I was to who I became without that suffering. You know, towards the end of it, I walk on the balcony. We're baseball guys. And we knew that we would lose in the Little League world and a little process the third week of July, we always get knocked out. So we had a vacation the final week long, the whole this year we don't get knocked out. So all the family know leaves and Brother Will and I stay 6:00 in the morning. I want everybody to listen to this. 6:00 in the morning. I had been able to read the Bible, hadn't been able to pray. Really was kind of hard to focus on anything. And I'm there in Connecticut and my wife my wife has every translation of the Bible it's ever been created in her kitchen. What is it? And so I just grabbed one and I went out on the balcony by myself. Remember, this is Ridgefield, Connecticut. I'm looking over this beautiful forest early in the morning. And I just opened the Bible. And, you know, God does just amazing things at the end of Matthew Chapter nine. And help everybody understand what that was. That's the one that ends with the fields are waiting to harvest but the workers are few. Pray for the workers to come to the harvest. But right above that, it says Jesus saw all the people and he has compassion on them, for they were helpless and harassed like sheep without a shepherd. You saw all the people. You had compassion on them because they were helpless and harassed, like sheep without a shepherd. And look, I can honestly say it's ridiculous. Like, I had never thought that I myself needed compassion. I thought, maybe I'll give you compassion. It's 50/50. But now I've been through this situation. I can't deny I'm desperate, need compassion. And it says all everybody is. And because we're all helpless and harassed and the only difference in people's whether they have a shepherd or don't have a shepherd. And so that lost a whole new spiritual wave in my life and I'll just finished quickly. So I left Bridgewater. I came out. If there's a concept called suggested significance, we should mind that layer. But I was able to come to Texas teachers where I could serve 1.4 million teachers. And then I had a group with me and they got mature. And now I've moved over to Tameka, which manages my four University of Texas, Texas A&M and then V.A. Hospital, which is the second largest university in the country, the sixth largest university in the country, and the top cancer research facility in the world. And this is all happened over four years. We'll get to the markets in a little while because they're very different. And along the way, everybody's listening. Thank you know, I'm a nobody. Well, yes, that's correct. Does it matter? Does it matter? God's going to do what he what he wants to do. So I'm from Arlington, Texas, 25,000. You know, we sell citrus. My job in high school was to sweep up the cotton grain. Jen, how in the world does that guy become one of the top 25 investors in America? Become an adviser to the president himself. Become an adviser to the New York Stock Exchange. Adviser to the New York Federal Reserve and the Dallas Fed. And have been named one of the top five people in my field. It just doesn't make sense. It does not make sense to me. But you know what? That first lesson. I want to be exactly in God's plan. I do not want to be 90% off. God has used that, and I've been places that nobody ever gets to go and God puts his men and women where he is.
John Coleman: Well, one of the things you see consistently in the Bible and even in the modern world is that people do have to go through periods of experiencing failure in humility, often before God will put them in positions of authority so that they do know they need compassion. I was talking with a friend the other day about one of the things that's lost when you're extraordinarily young often, and it's the almost the temperance that comes with age, the understanding that you yourself are fallible, that you do need compassion, and the understanding that everyone else does too, that everyone you might have sat in judgment over is trying and sometimes failing, just like you have. And there's a real transition of wisdom there that has to happen, I think, before you're equipped to take real positions of responsibility and before often you can be trusted with those. Right. And I think that's partially what you're describing.
Britt Harris: It is. And what happens when you realize that you need compassion and so does everybody else. Fear goes away.
John Coleman: That's right.
Britt Harris: Fear goes away. No, there's a United States. Oh, my gosh. The guy needs compassion. You know, there's the schoolteacher. Oh, my goodness. She needs compassion just like me. And you give up the pretense that you don't, which takes a huge, you know, everything about developing a competitive advantage to align yourself with what's true and not being adverse. It kind of ran counter to what's true. And so for me to sit there and say, well, you know, I've got this, I got that, I don't need compassion, which is a false narrative. And to give that up in the language truth, you know, freed me up to be a better decision maker.
John Coleman: That's fantastic. Matt, I want to spend a little bit of time with you, if you don't mind. So you moved to Connecticut, 21 years old, and obviously you're growing up around this. Your dad's making a lot of interesting transitions. Tell me a little bit about your childhood, and particularly when it clicked for you that investment might be in your future.
Matt Harris: Yeah, I mean, I had a great childhood, really couldn't have been better. And I honestly think that's what made investing interesting to me. Right. Like I was fortunate to get to grow up with a lot of really successful people in the industry because we lived in Connecticut for I think when I was three months old, actually know 30 something. And then they surprised me and moved to Texas after I went to college in Texas, which is a different.
Britt Harris: House of rent still.
Matt Harris: I love Connecticut and Texas. I honestly was I was thinking about it like what really drove me in this direction. And it was really that childhood experience with those people, you know, just getting to be around people like the princes and like a son of Beschloss, as is were very close and several others. Flip flip is not in the investment business, but it just these people that I never would have had a chance to know that I got to be really close with because of who my dad was. And you get close to them and they're just fantastic, hardworking, honest people. So it's really my experience with the people growing up that maybe they'd be like, Yeah, I want what they have.
John Coleman: You know, in all of this. When did you actually start investing? Like, one of the things we think about with our kids, for example, is when to kind of expose them to the concepts of investing, even just in their personal life. Do you recall kind of when you actually got into it and did you ever consider seriously another career or was this very clear from the outset?
Matt Harris: I mean, I think just to riff off the story my dad just told in terms of like when I started investing and caring about it, like all this stuff was rising up really fast and being CEO of Bridgewater and all this stuff, like we had no idea that any of this was happening. Right? Like, I think my little brother story about the ice cream truck really drives that home. And so, like, I remember he tried to take me out to dinner one time in high school, explained markets to me, and I just was not interested at all.
Britt Harris: Really?
Matt Harris: Yeah. And so this stuff wasn't on my radar at all until really like second half of college when you start getting a job. And even then for me it was at that time it was more just about the people that I knew I would be exposed to. And, and, you know, so like 12 years in in the industry, it's been totally true.
John Coleman: Well, one of the things I've noted over the course of my life is that beside maybe every successful man is also a successful woman in relationships like this. Matt and I were texting earlier and he mentioned just how influential his mom had been. And so, you know, we're talking about father son. But maybe I mean, Matt if you don't mind telling me just a bit about your mom and the influence that she had and then Britt, perhaps your wife and the influence that she's had on you.
Matt Harris: I mean, I think a lot of things come to mind. You know, I think growing up, my dad was very strict and we did. And we still fight pretty much all the time. I mean, it doesn't really affect our relationship very much because we're both fine with conflict. But he was the strict one. He was the one grounding me, you know, all that stuff and being more the disciplinarian. And then my mom was kind of the softer side, and so they were a very good team in that sense.
Britt Harris: So when you look at couples, there's power couples and balance couples. And my gifts are administration teaching, giving. I'm very extroverted. You know, my other ones are compassion, you know, service, all that kind of stuff. And I married almost the exact opposite of me. So you can come to the Harrises for whatever you need and you're going to get help. But it's one of us is going to help you, not both of us, but we also merged into when you marry, you create a third thing. It's, you know, each person is individual person that you create a third thing, you know, what is your couple gift? And our couple gift happens to be giving because it's her third and my third. And so it rises to be our first together. So I think Matt got to see a lot of hospitality. But, you know, Jerry was the person making everything happened in the back and I was the person making everything happen in the front.
Matt Harris: And I think my mom, I think she saw early on that my dad had surprisingly developed this amazing platform to help a lot of people. And so she made, you know, and still makes the decision every day to have her life be about that.
Britt Harris: And so let's just talk about ladies for a second. Joy, it was called to stay at home. In fact, we never made a decision. She just she worked up to the day she had our first son and she just stayed home. Other women are called to go back to work. And so what I think is important is that the woman has the choice to do it. And so what I mean by that is you have your financial house in order because. Most people are not going to know what they really want to do until that child's their. And some are called a stay home and some are called to go back to work. But do not put your wife in a situation where she doesn't have a choice because you've set up your financial circumstances where if she doesn't go back to work, you have to sell your house or, you know, two cars and something like that. Give her the financial freedom to make that decision so she can make the money that God's dying her to. I've got lots of amazing ladies up here, and I'm so thankful that they're called to work. But in this case, she was calling home. Where is your cockles? Is that question.
John Coleman: One that will pivot in a moment, if you guys don't mind, to the markets. But I will say there are about three things that make me choke up in life. And one would be talking about my mom. One is probably my kids and one might be a really good steak. So I guess you are in good stead. I want to circle back to some of these deeper kind of theological topics related to investing a bit later in part two of the podcast. Before we do that, though, you two are incredible craftspeople in the investing industry. You know a lot about what you do. Matt Your expertize these days is in venture, although I know you have deep expertize part from that. And Britt, you have more of a macro perspective on the industry. We're obviously living through a very unique period of time right now on the economy and in markets, and I was hoping we could spend just a few minutes with you all commenting on what you're seeing and particularly where do you think we are right now in markets and help us place this particular period of volatility in historical context?
Britt Harris: I think the first thing that people need to understand is that there are these short term business cycles, you know, and then there's a very long, long term cycle. And so we have just finished 40 years of the same cycle actually, I think was last week or earlier this week. Right around now, you know, we're getting to the 40 year mark. Remember, the S&P was 100, now is at 4200. You know, I hope when we actually play this is the same level in interest rates. When I came into the market discount rate was at 20% know went down to zero. The inflation rate was 13%. You know, it got under one, you know, Treasury bonds were 14%, you know, got under one. What had happened was the prior era, you know, ended in the latter part of the 1970s as inflation started to stoke and stoke and stoke. And I want you to just imagine a train this climb up a mountain and all of a sudden people act. We can't stop this thing and people start to jump off the train. And that's when you see gold start to outperform commodities, just by the way, because people are getting out of the system, that this is going over the top, this is the end of the world. And then Paul Volcker came in and all of a sudden stop the train. I think it was the ski slope. We were at a 14,000 foot high ski slope. The multiple in the market was like eight times. We're talking about the treasury markets are 14%. Just think about how much as interest rates go down, how much discount rate factor you're going to get from a 14% reduction. And so in 1980, also, we were talking about energy finally enough. And our big problem then was we are not energy independent. We have got to get ourselves and we're dependent on foreigners for our energy source, which means they can cut us off at any time. And our debt to GDP was 30% of GDP. And so here comes the interest rate down. Inflation is going down. You know, the bonds are going down. By the way, bonds are playing a really terrific part in diversification because, yeah, if you have a longer term bond, your stock market goes down in 2020, 36%. You're bottom up 21. Yeah, it's great diversification and this is a 40 year period. So in the ski slope analogy, we skate around, we're now at the bottom of the ski slope and so we're going to have to go sideways for a while or this is a better outcome. We're going to have to replace multiple expansion for everybody who's out there. You know, the price of the stock going up relative to its earnings because the interest rates changing, we've got to replace that with actual earnings, not just our interest rates. I think we can do that. But so people are very confused right now because a 40 year period in the past is overlapping with the four year period going forward. And so we're getting statistics every day. They're baffling people. Yes, my father followed 12 economists religiously and these guys are pretty good. Every one of these guys in the first quarter and the second quarter, not just got the degree wrong, they got the direction wrong. People criticize the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has been given some very bad numbers and they've acted on those numbers. And you know, so and then on top of it, of course, we have the Russian situation comes out of the blue. We have China who has moved into their third phase, first phase with industrialization. Second phase is becoming an industrial country. The third phase is taking over the world. And so now we have this monstrous competitor over there, and that's a completely new factor. We've got this whole climate change, which I know you want to talk about. And so if this overlapping, you know, these these circumstances, we just can't get the day right now and everybody thought the market was don't go down right now. It's gone up. Our models just say, you know, we have a very slow trigger for a bear market and our models did not signal a bear market. And when it pierced the bear market, that, oh, no, you know, our models are wrong. Well, that lasts about five days and came right back down again. So, you know, we can play anything else that you want. But the main thing is, you know, we have two years overlapping plus these extraneous factors of the war, plus these long term factors are going to be for a while with the energy transition and so on.
John Coleman: Yeah, I think that's one of the most confounding things. I was speaking with our team just yesterday and it's so difficult to predict what the next 6 to 12 months will look like, right? You've got incredibly tight labor markets. There's a question about whether the economy is in recession or will go in recession, although that has seemed less likely recently, financial markets took a steep dove over the last 8 to 12 months before kind of recovering, at least in public markets. And there are just all these conflicting variables. And you mentioned some of them supply chain tightness, military activity overseas that make it quite challenging, I think, to really predict with any certainty what the next six or 12 months will look like and are proving to be quite different than the late 1970s, which I think was an analogy that some folks were turning to for the period that we're in now.
Britt Harris: Yeah. So what we do is we have a series of pre described economic regimes. And we know exactly how many times we've been in that regime over 50 years. We know what happens in that regime. We know where it's historically gone when it changes regimes. None of this. There's no physics in here. There's no sanctions of gravity. Like the apple must fall from the tree so that we can go up and go sideways. But at least we know what's happened in the past. And so we've had this model for 15 years, and it's never once pierced into the inflation region, never once over 15 years. And last, I think it was October or November. All of a sudden it pierced into the inflation area, but it was high inflation and high growth. So inflation doesn't have a huge effect if you have enough growth to offset the higher inflation. It does lower your real return, but it's not a big hit to your pocketbook. And we stayed in there and then we flipped over to high inflation but low growth. And in that scenario, just to your point, we bump back like when did this happen before? Was 1975. 1979 and 1981. Now just the exact same times we're having a problem with oil. And of course, 1991 was the Gulf War. So I was actually pretty comforted by the fact that the markets are operating normally. This is the same scenario we had then. The markets are doing the same thing. What we have to have is we've got to get inflation lowered and have a super low, just got to be lower and we got to have enough growth. If we get into this period where there's relatively high inflation and not enough growth and the Fed felt focus on stopping inflation instead of stimulating the growth, then, you know, we can have problem for a while. I mean, these are all things are all for a period of time.
John Coleman: Matt, let's let's turn to you for sure, because probably the area that's been hit the hardest is growth equity in public markets. Growth oriented securities. And then late stage venture growth. Equity on the private side, I think was the earliest area to get hit and one of the hardest hit. You're spending every day in venture markets. What are you seeing right now and how are you thinking about the next six or 12 months in venture?
Matt Harris: Yeah, it's been interesting. One of the interesting things is because I spent the first ten years of my career in oil and gas between 2010 and 2020. I've actually been through several of these cycles and I would say so far this doesn't even count as one, to be honest. Like it's not even close. I think my, my, my experience in those ten years is that these things get way worse than you could ever imagine. And we're not even close to that. It's a good time to ask the question, because normally my role on the team is sourcing and doing diligence in negotiating the investments that are making. And I don't necessarily zoom out every day, but I do write our quarterly letter to our investors, which I actually just finished this morning, which has a market update. And it is really interesting. You know, on the one hand, as of a week and a half ago, when I when I wrote this part of the letter, the Nasdaq was down, I think was the mid-twenties. And we looked at the Goldman Sachs non-profitable technology index also as a proxy in that that had gone peak to trough 54% down, and it was 40% at the time. And so that was a little bit of the dissonance that makes for some, you know, you wouldn't expect early stage entrepreneurs to be dialed into the markets, but like they were looking at, you know, S&P and the Dow Jones and just living their life and thinking like things don't seem like they've changed very much. But when you look at specifically at the companies that you mentioned, you know, the small high growth public technology companies, they just gotten destroyed. So that's like one part of the equation. But then, you know, in Ventures, our firm is Pre-Seed Seed and Series A, so we're pretty much as early as you go for an institution. And so far the data mostly from Pitchbook shows no change. I mean, the trend is down off of 2021, but 2021 was kind of a wild year. And so I don't think people count that as a trend yet because it's still way, way higher than historically. But in terms of, you know, funds raised and the number of deals done and valuation, you know, at everything except the very latest stages of venture, you basically haven't seen a change. So there's this weird tension between I think we're on track to do like 15% of the IPOs we had and 2021, which you would think at some point that's going to feed back into the system and slow everything down. But also we have three years of dry powder. It's done the last 12 months investment pace. And so it is a really interesting time. I mean, from like a blocking and tackling perspective, you know, what am I seeing in the market? Like, things have definitely cooled off a lot. Like I've had two companies call me in the last week. We make a lot of investments in our funds doing really well. But I've had two companies call me in the last couple of weeks saying, you know, we can't raise money and we're out, and so we're going to try to sell it and salvage what we can. That was not happening six months ago. And you're starting to see just a lot of stuff like that happen, a lot more investor friendly environment for the moment. But then at the same time, you've got I we were just talking on the way here. The main indices like the Dow and S&P are down like 8% now, peak to trough, which is like a bad day. And so it's a really interesting time and absorption to see how it plays out in the next the back half of the year.
John Coleman: Go ahead. I was just going to say, my colleagues and I, you know, we think a lot about early stage venture as well, Matt there is this tension where you would think the challenges that have taken place in public markets, particularly the lack of an IPO market, would begin to filter down. But there's been so much capital raised by these mega funds that deal in late stage venture. There's a real question about whether early stage venture companies won't find a source of capital because of all that dry powder. And I think that's one of the things that's more opaque about the industry. It's harder to see then public markets that might support earlier stage ventures. You're describing where that money has to be put to work somewhere, and an early stage venture doesn't seem to have taken quite the hit that later stage venture growth equity has taken.
Britt Harris: So our portfolio, I think we're the fifth largest venture capital portfolio in America. So in 2021, we and everybody who had a really good venture capital strategy that we're all up 100%, and that just in that one year now, you know, venture capital kind of laid fallow for quite a while. But venture capital has changed because at this point, companies are staying private longer. You know, companies that would have gone IPO maybe two or three years earlier staying private. Longer for a whole bunch of reasons. And so there are more mature companies. You know, when they actually do come out for an IPO, I'll just give you kind of a fun and terrible story. Now, we had bought Coinbase and we had $1.9 million in Coinbase. Which we sold for 740 million. Yes, but one other thing is changes. You don't really get your stock distributed. You know, it's just terrible because these leaks out forever. Coinbase attributed all their shares before they took it public. And so we had the opportunity to sell everything, which you did on the first day, which a lot of people do when they're you know, we've been here for 12 years to get to this point. And so we you know, our guys sold it things like 374 or something like that. And, you know, the stock today is what.
Matt Harris: Is it, 90 now. It came back after the blackout.
Britt Harris: Got down to below 50. But this industry which I'm at, this is a digitization of America. It's also a, you know, an alternative form of doing business. You know, it's not going to go away. And I guess the last thing is it's interesting, small cap stocks in the public market. I struggle in part on what people are using as an explanation has these seed companies. Now you get public is not all right. My main product is already obsolete because there's a seed company out here chasing my market and so they go public and kind of, I don't care about you anymore. I'm going back down to the guy who's got the next new thing. Is innovation getting faster and faster for listeners?
John Coleman: I didn't do the math here formally, but I think a 30,000% return on investment is pretty solid for a venture investment Matt could check my understanding, get the industry.
Britt Harris: Okay, it's okay.
John Coleman: It's not bad. Yeah, just fascinating, guys. But I do want to check in on one other topic that I know our listeners are quite interested in, which is ESG and values investing. You know, one of the things that we focus on a lot is faith driven investing, obviously, like the name of the podcast. And Christian's thinking about whether and how they should try and express their values through their investment portfolios, something obviously the mainstream world has been very aggressive about over the last 30 years with the development of ESG in various types of impact investing. Just a brief question for you all is how do you think about ESG and values investing broadly right now and how do you think Christians should be thinking about it?
Matt Harris: Oh, I'm going first on this one. Okay. I mean, I guess I'll just say, like the obvious thing that I'm not the right person to go first on this one. But I think what I found is where I work at Draper Associates, I found really strong alignment with faith and with ESG. And what I mean by that is I think the venture model creates the best alignment with customers. I'm only going to do really, really well if our customers do really, really well. There's not sort of the really big base, really big bonus every year structure. It's all in the area. But I think that creates really good alignment and really good opportunity to just serve customers as well as you can. You know, our organization in particular is is actually very mission focused alongside generating those returns for our customers, that mission being proliferating freedom all over the world. You know, I think our view and what my boss, Tim Draper, has been big on his whole career is that, you know, entrepreneurship is the engine for protecting and promoting freedom all over the world. And I find great alignment with that in my faith just because I think it says right out of the gate, you know, we're meant to be free, we're meant to have a choice. But there are consequences to the choice that we make both on Earth and eternally. So I think those two things, you know, the the freedom orientation is very aligned with faith and the compensation structure. I found it to be really good for things like social and governance, right? Like if I see color in my job, I'm not going to make money because I'm very incentivized just to pick the best entrepreneurs, regardless of who they are or what they are, where they are. And to do otherwise would be to work against myself because of the way the compensation structure is set up in early stage venture where the funds are smaller. I mean, on the energy stuff, I personally think that any conversation on energy first needs to start with the thank you to the hydrocarbon industry. You know, the population of the world has grown, I think, between three and four times since I think 1960. You know, the poverty has gone way down and wealth has gone way up. And it's I would say that's because of democracy and capitalism and hydrocarbons. And I don't know how you could argue otherwise. And so before we get into like where the industry is going, we should thank these brilliant engineers for what they've done. And, you know, I'm excited about being a millennial. I'm excited about how we're going to be the generation to make this sustainable and make this into something that can last forever and not force us to have to move to Mars or whatever it might be. And I work on quite often in my job, actually, but I think it's, you know, it's important to be realistic, right? Like I forget the number, but it's something like I worked in energy for ten years and I'm still being educated on all this stuff. It's very difficult to be fully educated on energy. But for example, you know, I think something like 80 to 90% of primary energy demand is still from hydrocarbons and there's really no replacing 80%. Yeah, there's really no replacement for it in things like ammonia, which is like basically the reason that we've been able to feed this population growth from the fertilizer, you know, plastics, cement and steel. There's really not a replacement for hydrocarbons in these things. And so I think it's important to be realistic about what we can do with energy. I'm all for making it sustainable. I do think we have a problem, but we need to go about it in a way that makes sense. And I think there's an education side, like some basic stuff to overlay. It seems like the general public may not be aware of is that, you know, oil and gas wells, the climate, right? Then I'll just come online and stay at the same production rate for the rest of their life, especially in the U.S., where it's mostly shale wells. Like these wells are coming off 50 to 80% of their first year in the US. I don't know the latest numbers, but, you know, 10% of global production. And so if we shut off oil and gas production from the US, then this is a very inelastic market and you're seeing that now out in the real world. And so anyway, that's a lot like I'm excited to be part of the generation that's going to make this work and make it be sustainable. But I think we need to be a little more thoughtful about it and I think. Most people would agree now that we're seeing it come through at the pump, basically.
Britt Harris: That's good. So now from the other generation, first of all, you talked about this values on investing. It is true that, you know, millennials, you know, they want their money to do more than just make money. Now, they're not willing and they shouldn't be willing to make less money, you know, to express their values. Now, that's not something, unfortunately, the human condition is ever going to support in general. So initially, a lot of them said, you know, we can make more money, you know, with the same risk. And there's really not any real evidence for that. But what they found out is like we can make the same money and take out the oil or take out the whatever cigarets or no kind of whatever's that you want. This idea is new and it started in Europe. About 70% of the funding of all the climate change money is coming from out of Europe. The annual flows. Europe is, number one believing that China is number two. We're number three. But with even with that said, one third of all capital flows for the last three or four or five years have gone into some kind of renewable structure. And people are on the one hand, millennials want to express their values. On the other hand, this is becoming law all over the world. You know, it's not like just suggesting that you lower hydrocarbons is now a law and it's kind of out of the gate. And the UN plan, I mean, they're doing the best they can, but they haven't. Unsolvable problem. How would you like to negotiate with 178 countries all at the same time and it's just impossible problem. But if you sort of boil it down, the U.N. plan is marketed by politicians, you know, supported by European scientists and created by activists. And so what that comes down to is the plan is a utopian plan. It's not a plan you can actually implement. You know, not people have ever had to create energy in any way. For the most part. They said, well, we can just do this. And it's a utopian plan. And what's happened is even for them, you know, the Russia situation, California, Germany, the U.K., they were so far over their skis because they were trying to lead this too fast into the future and they're all using coal. Yeah. So the second thing is. The word existential risks. I want everybody to hear what the reports actually say. And you know, when you do a report, you know, it's a scientist or a researcher and they're trying to decide something and they come up with a best case scenario, a worse than base case, a better than base case. Or they come up with this distribution, you know, 1 to 100, the population can happen. So when people say scientists say it's actually centuries, that is actually true. But what it implies is, is the base case and it's not the base case. If we have a worst case scenario, it could be existential risk in some places. So there's this kind of deception that's going on because I'm going to get the money. How much do you think McKinsey has said this energy transition is going to cost the world having any idea?
John Coleman: It's tens of trillions. I know, but I don't know exactly how many.
Britt Harris: 275 three.
John Coleman: 275 trillion. Holy smokes.
Britt Harris: Yeah. The Earth's entire economic value today is about 100 trillion. We're almost three times the value of the earth that's going to be going to this situation. And so it's going to be about $10 trillion a year. And people are trying to make it sound like a small number. So it's only three victory knowledge incremental where, you know, what, three or $4 trillion is to create a new Japan or Germany every year, every year for 30 years, you create a new Japan or new Germany. You know, it's just it's so big that people have no idea how difficult this is. Now, what San Jacinto is going to talk about is, you know, we don't need a utopian plan. We need a practical plan that we can actually implement and be successful in that plan rather than starting out with the rich people. Now, you start with the poor people. You know, when they're talking about doing something immediately, you know, if they don't get a huge carbon tax, then anyone who's poor or living anywhere near the poverty line, 70% of the world is is going to be sunk. And so we think we should start with compassion and we should say no. What can we do to make sure that these folks who there's a billion people in the world who have no energy access whatsoever. It's things we can't even conceive.
John Coleman: Yep.
Britt Harris: And so we want to start with compassion. We want to be pragmatic, and we want to be affordable. And here's the other thing. This is super important. Everybody, when you're talking about the planet we're on right now, there's nothing about human flourishing in that plan. Absolutely nothing about human flourishing. And the match point, if you look at your history, how long you think the world's been? Around 5 minutes or 50 billion years. Whatever time you think it was around, there was absolutely no growth. Absolutely no growth for all that time. The way you grew is you captured something, read the castle and took their castle. There was no growth when hydrocarbons was discovered. You know, of course, they just thought it was going to be a lamp. But hydrocarbons are critical to our food supply. They're critical to our medical industry. They're critical to our ability to transact business. They're just critical to the whole operation. Now, one down here. So there is a limit. You know, a good thing can come a bad thing, you know? So there's a limit to how many hydrocarbons we can get in our atmosphere without having some effects. And so, you know, when you're talking about 1900, we're so far from the limit. But you know, what happens is Europe goes out first. Europe's emissions have been going down since 1985. U.S. goes out. Second, U.S. two nations have been going down since 1995. Hmm. Down now. They're still too high. They need to go down more. But they've been going down. If you ask a typical person on a street what direction our nations are going. They think you're all going out. They're not even going to do that. Now, that's why you listen to this podcast. And, you know, this is a global thing, like this has to work. Everybody has to be in here, because if any major country doesn't do it, it undermines everything else everybody else did.
John Coleman: So Britt and Matt, I now want to talk a little bit more about some theological topics or some integration of faith and work topics. The first I know that you both have is this idea of work as worship, and that work itself can be a mode of worship. Would you talk to us about what you mean by that and what work is worship looks like in the investment industry?
Matt Harris: For me, I think it means I think everyone on Earth is not only made in the image of God, but also has any gifts and talents. I think one of our key sort of tasks is to figure out what those are and then put them to at least one of the best use cases that's out there. And so for me, I mean, I think there's a couple of places in scripture where it talks about, you know, spiritual gifts and giftedness and it gives you a good list. So going off that, I mean, I think my gifts are business administration, which is fairly common in our industry. Maybe the less common one for me is a gift of encouragement. What I like doing it. I've always been that kind of person. And I think venture capital is a great place to encourage people when you consider, you know, what these businesses end up being and how hard it is and how many kind of lows there are for these entrepreneurs. And so for me, you know, other than kind of stuff I talked about earlier where I was, you know, being aligned with our customer, but it's also, you know, figure out what your [....] is, which is the story my dad can tell you what you're meant to do, what you're built for, how God made you, and then try to find the cleanest expression of that as you can. And for me, that's a lot of why I pivoted over to venture capital, to start to realize, you know, not only do I love encouraging people, I love startups. I'm also like a wildly optimistic person. Just just I mean, I've learned to be very inquisitive, but I see the upside. I see the vision. I believe you. I think you can change. You know, I do all of the things that maybe other asset classes shouldn't do, but at the preceding seed stage of what we should do. And so that's what it means to me.
Britt Harris: Every time I go into a new company and this is my seventh one, the first thing I say is what kind of culture deal don I want to have? Because every great company has to define culture that's extreme. Every great company has to define culture. That's extreme. I'd say that's about 10% of companies maximum. And so I say, you know, what kind of company, what kind of culture do you guys want to have? And every single time, as you can imagine, the top vote is work life balance every single time. You know, and so, I mean, I want work life balance, too. I've got lots of interests [...] with my son, my granddaughters know I've got teaching. I got lots of things that I'd like to do, but I have to go and say to them, look, there are people in century, they're working 24 seven and. If we think we're in front and working 8 to 5 then, we're either very naive or very arrogant. So we got to come up with a floor here that we can take advantage of in their plan. And I you know, I've run some of those teams. And it's not actually 24 seven, but it's close enough to them. It feels like 24 seven. And I also know these are the least efficient operations known to mankind. And it's not that the work is super hard. It's just super inefficient and it's super slow. And, you know, Matt talked about if you know about what Scripture says, it says every one of us has got some set of spiritual gifts. I call it personal genius. And there like Goldman Sachs was a fine company. This is a typical example. You know, they're doing everything by brute force. And like, you're smart. We pay you a lot. You go over there and make it happen. And they're not really you know, they're getting better with not too concerned about what your stage of life is and what you really understand. They don't do a lot of time optimizing like, what are you really good at? And so the way that we try to compete is we find out what everybody's that. And you know, we don't call them spiritual gifts, but through personal Jesus example, it all from God. By the way, I'm not sure everybody knows that Myers-Briggs, one of the two of them, was a Christian. And that whole yeah, the whole thing. There's probably an enrollment which says gifts offering and it lifts all the gifts which one ever was read that scripture and thought, I wonder how we can make this, you know, more mechanical. And so let's just say that work 10 hours a day, 10 hours a day, but they are in the area of personal genius and it feels like 5 to 10. But they get 20 into productivity. Because they're in the flow with what God designed to do.
John Coleman: I've heard you touch on this before, this idea of giftedness. And in a related idea, I think about the narrow path. And you've talked about how Joseph demonstrates that so well.
Britt Harris: So there's a scripture, the end of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is closing down and he says, Enter by the narrow gate. For wide the way and broad the path that leads to destruction, and most take it, but narrows the way and narrows the path that leads to life. And few find it. And so in both these college classes and with the people I've yet to develop, I just say, we're trying to make you narrow path here. We are trying to make you narrow pathway. We need leaders who lead or led to life, lead their families to life, lead their communities to life, lead their companies to life and in some case their country to life. And if you say, well, no, there's more people doing that than they're doing this. Yeah, that's exactly what Bob says. Yeah. Most leading to destruction, because they're operating in the way the world works. There's also a companion verse in Matthew Chapter nine, which is the battle chapter, Jesus say, not ready now. And there's a verse where Jesus says, His disciples. You are sheep among wolves be as shrewd a serpent and as innocent as dove. This sounds what you are. A sheep. A sheep among wolves. Is Jesus telling us like you're just going to go to slaughter here. No, he's given a battle plan. He said, look how we're going to defeat the wolves. Be as shrewd as serpent. And as innocent as dove. So. If go back to the fall, think about Truman's nurses. They weren't together, were they? There were shrewdness in the snake that were innocent to people, the shrewdness of the world defeat the innocence of people. Mm hmm. Is that the. Hey? Huh? You guys need to be shrewd as well. Not shrewd in the way the world, shrewd in God's ways. That's the story of Joseph. So the shrewdness of God [....] the shrewdness of the world. That doesn't mean you totally ignore it. Like, if your football team is playing the national championship, you don't just say, I don't want to know anything about that other team. And then you get failed that linebackers all-American of they're super aggressive but they got a really quick defensive back. But the guys are only five seven. And you say, all right, we're going to run a lot of counter plays to offset their aggressiveness. I'm going to put three people on that linebacker and we've got a six foot seven guy to put on that five foot seven guy. And you're using this as the example, of course, you know, using God's wisdom, which will overcome the world's wisdom and you conduct yourself blamelessly and you conduct yourself blamelessly. So shrewdness of God plus blameless dialog equals victory in a secular world. So the reason I want to talk about Joseph is there are several examples in the Bible of a CEO. Several Daniel, on your address but for me, Joseph is the best one. That was a great do, but I just want to see how God works. If you go read the scripture we meet, Joseph, when he's 17 years old and here is Scripture, he is entitled, is lazy, is arrogant, is rude. His brothers hate him. His brothers hate him. And, you know, he even tells his parents to a dream like I'm better than you. Makes everybody furious. But his dad, at the end of that work says that knew about his dream. He kept that in mind. And I want you to listen to Joseph's life, because we know that Joseph is going to be the second most important person in Egypt in 13 years time. We know that's what could happen because we know the end of the story. And so just stand back and just let's watch what happens. Joseph has three problems. His character is really low, he's not in the right spot. And he has no experience whatsoever. So the first thing that happens to Joseph in the pit. In the pit. Guys and gals. I'm sure Joseph wasn't completely transforming in that pit, but he was in process. There was no more arrogance. There was no more entitlement. There was no more laziness. God was changing his character, because he need to be changed for what God wanted him to do. And when he is being sold into slavery as a good option. You know when you're going to get killed with other option. So it's elements of slavery. Just I want to think about Joseph. And your essence is point just for rise up, Joe. Love, are you in God's plan? Joseph. Joseph, are you on God's plan? I gotcha. I I'm trying to be a man of faith, but I can't.
John Coleman: He seems pretty off plan when you're in the pit or when you're being sold into slavery. Yeah.
Britt Harris: Yeah. But that's where they go in. They're going to Egypt, God has put him in position. And so the last thing is he needs to have managerial experience, not just he needs to have it, but needs to experience it. And that's where we find out that this guy is a CEO. He's loaded up with business. And this is a good thing for people like how can, you know, Christian can't be successful in business because business is secular thing. That is the biggest myth and probably the single most terrible thing that gets Christians on the sidelines. There's a think out to become a saint. You become of your true self. We can come back to that if you want to, but you become your false self because you think that's going to make you successful and you're going to crash and burn. You got to stay with your true self, which is God. And so we read the scripture, number one says, and God was with him, talk about Joseph, he's in captivity. God was with him. And listen to this, he says, and he bless Potiphar's house because of Joseph. God was with Joseph the whole time and he bless Potiphar's house because of Joseph, and he goes to jail again. In Pharaoh's Palace. Got his file. You've got your character, right? You're in Egypt. You've got to manage your train. I'm going to put you right into position. And again, says, God is with him, this is what we got to remember. God is with you and God blesses other people because you're there. And he interprets somebody's dream. And the guy gets the job back under Pharaoh. And he says remember me. And he doesn't. And there comes a day. When Pharaoh has a dream. It is a great time back in and I want everybody to realize he has the smartest guys in the world available to him. Who apparently had been able to interpret dreams before. And he turned to them Oxford, Stanford, Yale, Harvard. Guys what is this move? And they're kind of like, we don't get this when we don't know. The world's wisdom is incredible. It's not super high, but it's limited. And all of a sudden, this guy said, Oh, I remember there's a guy back in the jail who interpreted my dream, and I want everybody to put themselves mentally into this spot. Joseph has been in captivity for 13 years. He did two things. This is what my message is for myself. Joseph did only two things. He continued to worship the Lord and he brought all of his gifts every day out into the world. He didn't withhold his gifts and he didn't capitulates to the world. He worship God and he brought his gifts. That is all he did that we know about. And he's sitting over there, has no idea what's happening. And I would imagine that Pharaoh dispatches a group of soldiers to go get him. And all of a sudden, you know, they ram down the doors and they like, who is Joseph? Everybody's going. Because they think they're all in trouble. Probably. Joseph looks at he is stunned. Come with us. Describe a very scary moment. And we don't know the time. But let's say 60 minutes later, he's going to be standing in front of Pharaoh. Like you, 60 minutes from now. Wherever you are, you're going to be standing in front of presiden Biden. You don't know about. Didn't know about till just now he's filthy. They gotta clean him up, get him a new robe. He gets there. And Pharaoh says, I heard you interpret dreams. And what he says next blows my mind. Pharaoh says, I heard you interpret dreams. You know, he says, No, I can't interpret dreams. And he must've been stunned. But then he says, But God can and he will interpert through me, that's all this happening. God does things, you know, if we're lucky, God does it through us and the nations in hell. And so Pharaoh gave him the whole dream. And I think what happened was. He knows the answer. I'm sure he looked over at these guys like. Really? No, I don't want to. No answer. That's not the answer. Here's a little sidelight. Go ahead. You guys don't get this one because Joseph is operating on a totally different level. He's operating on God level. They're up and out in the world. And it's very easy to interpret the dream. Now, when that happens. What's he supposed to do? Go stand by the wall. Stop talking. Salesmen may stop talking. Go stand by the wall. But he is loaded up with the gift of ministration. He is a business guy. He is a CEO, and I can almost see him there and will say anything until he can't stand it. So this is what he got to do. You got to bring things into the barn. You got to have a security system. He lays out a strategic plan right there. Remember, he's the only godly man maybe in the country, certainly anywhere in that room. And he's just professed God and he's just told them what to do. You are like, Oh, did not know, he's a godly man, so they're going to want him. Get rid of him. Christians who are operating with God's plan are super viable, super viable. And Pharaoh says this is why he's managing them. Okay, I get that part. What happens is what's supposed to happen with these squirrely guys over here, the Harvard and Yale? There's one thing. Just a second. Joseph. Pharaoh, could we talk to you for a minute? This guy just got here.
John Coleman: Yeah.
Britt Harris: Maybe we're going a little too fast. Let's make him an analyst. No. You know, even they say yes. This guy's the wisest guy in the country. And they know he's a man of God, right? They know it and they don't care. They just know he's fantastic and they want him on the team. And then Pharaoh says, you know, the most amazing thing, you know, it gives all ring, all that kind of stuff. And everybody saying, like, how can I influence my company? How can I change the culture in my department? Well, there's no what Pharaoh says, owing to the only godly person. That we know about in the entire country, other than my word. From this day forward, this man's word is law. This man's word is law. The only guy persevering after he'd given up his true self. If he decided, you know, God's treat me poorly. And I'm sure he had no idea what God was doing. But whatever is happening to us, God is not necessarily causing it. But he will use it for something that's going to make you a totally different person and be ready for something in your future. And the world needs narrow path people. Christians, we're never going to be in the majority. We're not going to be a majority. We are the defense. You know, we're the defense. We're holding back with God, the evil that's in the world. And so I kind of like this role of defender. Especially if I know Jesus is in front.
John Coleman: What a great word, Britt. And also reflects the lesson we talked about earlier where, you know, sometimes you have to have a humbling experience to know that you need compassion, that you need help to bring it to what we talked about earlier. You know, we are coming to the end of our time today. One of the things we like to ask folks as we close is just what they're learning from God through scripture right now. And we just had a great example of some of that from Britt. Although after deep reflection, Matt, I was wondering if we could turn to you to close us out. What are you learning from God through His Scripture right now that you'd want to share with our audience?
Matt Harris: I mean, I think James is probably my favorite book in the Bible. And so, like, I've got three kids and one's three months old. So the trials come to mind not only for that, but also, you know, we are in a tough time in the venture cycle and I'm having to have a lot of hard conversations with really good friends. And so these are trials that, you know, we'll get through together and we'll all be better off for. And another thing that I've been thinking a lot about is, you know, I've always thought there was kind of a controversy around what James says very bluntly, which is faith without works, is dead what I've been more focused on recently is that that's actually a very prevalent theme in pretty much every book in the New Testament. And it's not saying that you can earn your way into heaven. You know, he's very clear that there's an order to things. But I've just been thinking a lot about how, you know, I feel like I'm bursting at the seams faith wise, and I'm just kind of praying and looking for where else that's going to come out and works. I'm focused on that.
Britt Harris: Just one thing I want to pass along I'll be very short it's that it's been in my life and it's just had a huge positive effect. And we have a deep culture here. And about a year ago, I was convicted to write in a new phrase, and the phrase I wrote in was, Speak the truth with love, to speak the truth with love. And I thought, you know, we got some great people here. And I don't know how people to feel about this. This right out of the Bible. Well, it's been the best thing we put in there because it really resonates with people because it's three things. Do you speak? A lot of us don't speak. So we may be able to tell the truth and we could do with love, but it doesn't matter because we never speak. And we have to learn how to speak. And we have to allow them to speak. Now, the people, you know, like most of us, we speak all the time, but we don't necessarily hold ourselves accountable for truth. That's our problem. Or, you know, we speak the horrors of a camp where truth, but we do it in such an unloving way that nobody wants to hear. So every one of us has a problem. And one of these three areas. And like my company, we're the second biggest endowment in country. So this is not a little bitty place. Everybody here is not a Christian. They're all great people. This is God's word, and it resonates. And believe it or not, I gave this instruction to the 100 scientists for this conference on climate change. So we're going to operate on these principles. We're going to speak the truth with love in whatever you believe. We're going to get a chance to speak. But when you get up, don't tell us it's a fact if it's not a fact. You tell us your story or it's a fact. In almost all this story is. SMITH It's kind of like this. They've done a lot of work, not home. And we're going to speak with love. And at the end of this conference, we put in God's word, five words, speak the truth with love into a totally secular, high IQ, high intelligence audience. I didn't see this coming when I closed the conference and just started to walk off. There was a standing ovation from the entire crowd.
John Coleman: Wow.
Britt Harris: Innovation from the entire crowd. And you know why? It was because we had a conference where they spoke the truth with love.
John Coleman: That's powerful. Matt Britt This has been wonderful. It's been great to get to know you all, to hear your perspective on markets and certainly to hear your perspective about the integration of faith and work and how faith can manifest in investing. We are grateful for your time and hope we can have you back to the Faith Driven Investor podcast sometime. Thank you very much.
Britt Harris: We'd love it. Thank you.