Episode 160 - Increasing Prosperity Around the World with Mark Stoleson
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What does Faith Driven Investing look like for a global firm dedicated to bringing prosperity across the world?
Today’s guest, Mark Stoleson, has wrestled with this question before as the CEO and Partner of Legatum, a global firm that wants to improve people’s lives by increasing prosperity across the world.
He joins us to talk about their approach, the power of building frameworks, and what it’s like to think globally about Faith Driven Investing.
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.
Luke Roush: So good morning. My name is Luke Roush and welcome to the Faith of an Investor podcast. I'm joined here by my co-host John Coleman. John Good morning.
John Coleman: Luke Good morning. We're recording this at 6 a.m. Nashville time. I know, so it is an early morning, but you seem delightfully energized this morning. Despite that.
Luke Roush: I am. I am. And we have a wonderful guest this morning. Our guest is Mr. Mark Stoleson, who is the chief executive officer and a partner at Legatum. We're going to hear more about the firm this morning, but he's been with the firm since 2006, served in a variety of capacities, including head of group investments. He's worked with his partners there to incubate a number of the firm's key philanthropic endeavors, including the End Fund, the Freedom Fund, the Luminous Fund, the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, as well as of the Legatum Institute Foundation in London. So prior to Legatum, Mark was an attorney so he's reformed out of that practice which is wonderful and he also hails a law degree from my alma mater, Duke University, which we have not connected on previously. So that's really fun. Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Stoleson: Luke. Thanks so much, John. Great to be with you both.
Luke Roush: Yeah, it's really, really good to have you on. I'm a long time admirer of Legatum Mark, as I shared in our lead up to this, But I want our listeners to be able to benefit from some of the things that I really admired as we talked through your background. But just give us oriented in terms of where you all are at Legatum. And so your website has this wonderful tagline of having an ambition to improve people's lives by increasing prosperity across the world. What does that look like for you guys? And maybe just take us down the walk and journey you all have been on?
Mark Stoleson: Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we could just start at the very beginning. So Legatum actually evolved out of another investment firm and it was a family run, sort of a family office investment firm that was 20 years old. And I work there as a young professional as you said, I'm a recovering lawyer, but a lot of those skills actually were really useful. So one of my jobs was working within our public equities portfolio, working on corporate governance issues, just trying to improve the governance and sort of what we would call ethical business leadership across our portfolio. So that was my start. What I found, and this is a really key part of the story, is that one of the principals in that firm and two of my colleagues all had a faith, and we discovered that early and oriented our friendships and the vocabulary that we use, that our outlook on things. And we wound up working very, very closely, very intensively for a couple of years. And then a shocking thing happened that we had the opportunity to stand out and create our own firm. And the genesis of Legatum happened around the table with all four of us basically saying, what do we want to do? Not just with our business, but with our lives? How can we use this business and this organization as a vehicle for purpose and for meaning, and to kind of focus on what David Brooks would call the eulogy virtues rather than the resume virtues in life. You know, when you cross over, you want to hear well done, good and faithful servant. What does that look like for your life? And that was an active part of the conversation. So we thought, well, number one, we want to keep doing what we're doing. We want to build and run a world class investment organization. We want to multiply our capital, not necessarily play it safe and conserve capital. That multiply capital. We believe God is a God of multiplication and everything is possible. So with that kind of piece in place and that is part of our aspiration, then it was, okay, now if we multiply our capital, how are we going to use those resources in a way that we think are meaningful and positive and helpful? And that's where Legatum, mission statement was born. A lot of companies have mission statements. We kind of feel like we carved ours out of stones right at the outset and it has never changed. So we're 20 years into this and Legatum mission has remained the same, and that is to generate and allocate the capital and ideas that can help others prosper and that word prosper and prosperity for us, just given our beliefs, has a holistic nature to it. Prosperity is like the biblical principle of shalom, prosper, your soul, prospers, prosper to all the ways that are meaningful and in a life well live in your relationships, in the opportunities pursued, in the responsibilities that you have within your family, within your community, within your nation. So that was it. And, you know, that was the beginning of the story. But everything that happened afterwards was an expression of that authentic mission statement that I can go through and tell you about. I'm sure during podcast will kind of unpack what we have done. But the thing that follows now, you know the why and. Kind of what we set out to do and everything that follows. It's been a journey of just trying things, failing, adapting, learning, trying to do better. A lot of things haven't worked, but a few have and have really scaled the things that have really come to exemplify that original mission.
Luke Roush: One of the things that I've really admired is that you all were contrarian before. It was popular to be contrarian, and there are some bets and some investments that you guys have made in specific areas of the world. You're a global firm. You said, I think in Dubai, split time between there in London, but you're active globally. Maybe just take our listeners down a bit of the walk that you all have been on. I think it's appropriate to start with the why and maybe kind of translate into the what you all have been working on over the last 20 years.
Mark Stoleson: Yeah, absolutely. So because we started and are investors, we can't help it. We've got an investors lens that we use for everything that we do. So we think about capital allocation, we think about return on investment. And so within our investment business, you know, it's proprietary capital that makes us a little bit unique. Obviously, our mission and our relationships, this partnership with four individuals has lasted for two decades. That's unique. The mission is unique. The fact that we have proprietary capital is unique. It's a huge blessing. What it enables us to do is invest with a long term perspective and actually follow that through. And so a lot of people talk about that. We know that, you know, just the power of compounding over time being patience and investments is really valuable, but not everyone can do that. So if you've got a fund life, you have to return capital to investors or you have redemptions. You know, you face forced selling at just the most inopportune times. We're super blessed and fortunate that we don't have to do that. And so throughout not just Legatum's history, but our prior firm, we would find that we could make some of our best investment decisions when everyone else is panicking, when everyone else is fearful, when markets are roiling. And you see this major disconnect between the actual value and the price of something. And it requires a lot of discipline. Even when you have proprietary capital, it requires discipline and sort of intestinal fortitude to deploy capital when markets are really shaking. But we've been able to do that well. So one example, just one small example was in Covid, where we watched the situation unfolding. We watched not just markets, but nations just panicking. We did our research and when we do it, investors do. We started to read. We started to research and started the thing. And our contention was, I mean, we're not scientists, we're not PhDs, but just using common sense, using our own experience, using our faith. We looked at and thought this could be bad, but it's probably not going to be as bad as is sort of current market prices are reflecting. And so, you know, we always carry some dry powder and some cash and we were down. I mean, our fund must have been down 25%, you know, in March, maybe February, March, April ish. And we had one position that was down over 50%. So we were definitely seeing the mark to market repercussions of all of this emotion and sentiment. But we did something that when Legatum does well, this is how we do it. We went 100% invested and for one of I think, twice in the last 20 years we borrowed money to invest, but we took a little bit of margin and just plowed it all in our existing portfolio. We know those businesses very well. We know everything about them. We know where their value lies. Got high conviction in their ability to create value in the long term. And we just went all in and that was one of our best performing years in the last 15 years was 2020. And so that's zigging when everyone else is zagging. But that's a great example of us doing what we're configured to do. We made the opposite mistake and lost patience, and we've lost patience. When things go down too much, too fast and we've lost patience when they go up too fast, all of our models get stretched in banks, which we don't. We like financial services and the price to book ratio goes like eight. In a country like India, even if the bank is growing at 100% for a year, we just, you know, we get rattled by that and sell out to it. And so we've made those mistakes over time. But one thing that really has taken root within the firm is the virtue of patience. And patience is the choice. And patience is a discipline. But when you actually use it in investment, it's like a superpower. And so when we're doing well, we have high conviction. We have a highly concentrated portfolio, and you've got a multi-billion dollar portfolio that's usually invested across less than ten. Names will go narrow and deep, high conviction and intend always to hold for the long term. So it's a bit like a private equity portfolio, but 50% of it is in the public markets.
John Coleman: Mark, I love that example, especially during COVID when you guys zagged as everyone else was zigging I guess, or zig when people zagged. What are the examples of that right now in your mind? Either countries where you feel like investors have panicked or have exited sectors? It's still a pretty choppy economy right now, I think globally with inflation, with rising interest rates, with softness in real estate markets, etc.. And so we're seeing a lot of places that investors are shying away from. Are there any high conviction spaces where you think people have overreacted now that you're focused on?
Mark Stoleson: It's a great question. I mean, just for a second, dialing back the talk a little bit, the whole heritage of this firm is in going places that other people don't want to go. So, you know, in going places, that would be fashionable tomorrow, but that are out of fashion today, whether that's a company or a country. And so a lot of the history is investing in Brazil. In the 1990s, no one wanted to go there investing in the former Soviet Union. So from the Czech Republic through to Russia during those years over throughout our history, we've invested in most countries. So we've invested in China and India and in Europe and in North America, South America. So I think if you look around the world today and ask where is the most out-of-favor country for investors, you know, at least somewhere near the top of the list right at this moment would probably be China. And so you have to look at it, study and think really hard. You're looking at a situation that is driven by politics and geopolitics in addition to just economic fundamentals. That would be the type of place that Legatum would be monitoring, I would say, in looking for opportunities. China is a huge country, huge population. You know, it's still growing and has, you know, hopefully its best years in front of it and it creates some amazing companies. So it's a place that we would probably look. But right now when you start to see fear begin to reach sort of a peak stage, you can take your pick. You can find amazing companies in America that are out of favor in certain sectors, whether that's within the energy sector and other places. So basically anywhere that's out of favor is a place that we would be keeping a close eye on.
John Coleman: But one of the things I love about you all is the global footprint of the firm. In fact, here in Dubai, I think is your primary home office. I guess, Mark, I had the privilege of living and working in Saudi Arabia for a while and Afghanistan spent a lot of time in Dubai. Obviously, such a fascinating region. At the micro level. How did you decide upon Dubai and what is working as a faith driven investor look like in Dubai? And as you zoom out, how does that influence and shape you as a firm, that global footprint?
Mark Stoleson: Yeah, great question. So the choice of Dubai for Legatum, it was just really pragmatic. Frankly, we don't have any investments that we own our own building. So we rented out we have tenants [.....] and whatnot. But that is really our only investment in the entire region. So Dubai is a bit of a bedroom community for Legatum, but it served us very, very well over time and what we were looking for and we asked ourselves the question every five years or so like, should we still be in Dubai? Because we could be anywhere. But the key drivers of that decision were, you know, number one, we wanted a place where we could recruit and retain world class talent. So where can you find good schools, a good standard of living? It's a safe place to raise a family. Then we wanted a place that logistically would serve our global footprint. So from Dubai, Dubai now has the world's busiest airport. You can fly to Hong Kong in 7 hours, London 7 hours, Cape Town in 10 hours. The US is a little bit further, but you can kind of get a lot of places that we want to be and we love to be boots on the ground. Go visit countries, visit companies and really get a close perspective on our portfolio and on opportunities. So that's a key part of our strategy. So logistically, Dubai is fantastic. And then third is just a really business friendly place. It's easy to set up a business, it's easy to run a business. It's the legal framework. The infrastructure is fantastic. So, you know, we've looked around for other places to be, and some have one or two of those attributes, but very few have three. And so we've stayed in Dubai. What is it like to be a faith driven investor in Dubai? It's awesome. Dubai itself is part of a republic. It's part of a group of smaller sort of emirates. Or little countries within a country, the UAE, the United Arab Emirates. Dubai only has probably 2 million people in it, but it has 200 nationalities that live within Dubai's. It's a very cosmopolitan place, very international place, and it's a very tolerant place. So you can practice your Christian faith. You know, I live on the Palm Jumeirah and I had people that were renting the home across from us or Orthodox Jewish people or who walk around with the yarmulke, you know, kind of traditional Jewish wardrobe. So Dubai is just a very tolerant, very open, very cosmopolitan place. I belong to an amazing church in Dubai. And we found that that type of openness and tolerance made it easier and made it possible for us to retain and recruit amazing professionals as well.
Luke Roush: One of the things that I think also has just attracted so many people to Legatum over the years and has really built, you know, your brand in a way that I think also reflects the faith of the founders is this idea of prosperity and what that looks like in and through your firm and the investments that you make and then how you select investments. So you talk a little bit on your website around the prosperity model and your prosperity ladder framework. Would to have you just unpacked that model, the framework? I think most firms don't have a theory of change, how their work translates to change that we want to see in the world. But maybe could you take a couple of minutes and just unpack that for us, Mark?
Mark Stoleson: Sure. Absolutely. So if a God whose mission is to help promote prosperity is to help people prosper again, as investors, we want to do our homework and study like, oh, what? How do you make that happen? What are the component parts of prosperity? And we didn't know literally when we started, we pulled out. I had a yellow legal pad and we were sitting in a room. We were like, I don't even know what prosperity means. It sounds like money, but what does it mean? So we I went to the Webster's dictionary and looked it up, and it turned out that prosperity is really multifaceted. It's got a lot of things going on. And we realized probably we're going to need some help. So we visited some professors at Oxford University here in the UK. So I'm talking to you from London today. And we got seven professors together who all had like an angle on what's prosperity. And we asked them to deconstruct prosperity into its component parts and tell us, how do you do it, what's it made of? And it's made of the things that we've already talked about. But of course it takes wealth, but also what we call wellbeing, which is all this stuff that makes life worthwhile. It's the quality of your relationships, it's the amount of opportunity hope, you know. How do you measure hope and how does that get factored into it? Safety, security, health. All of these things. And after we had these genius professors kind of deconstructed it for us, we thought, okay, well, let's put it all back together and do an assessment like how prosperous is the UK? How prosperous is the US? And once we started to pull on that thread, we thought, Wow, you can actually compare countries against each other. And gosh, if you can do that, that sort of feels like an index. You could have a league table or an index of prosperity of prosperous countries. And so our Legatum Prosperity Index was born on 2007. And looking back on that document today, which Legatum Partners co-wrote together. It looks really amateurish, really, you know, very basic. And over time, we hired an amazing group of folks to do things called regression analyzes and a whole bunch of other super high tech stuff, too. And I think they've got 88 different components to our prosperity index. And it's a very sophisticated look at what drives prosperity on a national level and what restrains prosperity on a national level. And the idea was if we can create that kind of framework. For national leaders and decision makers. That's a public service. If you're a national leader who wants to see your country prosper, this can give you a good idea as to how to think about that and maybe where to allocate your time and allocate your resources. So that's the prosperity index, the prosperity ladder. One of my partners, Alan McCormick, literally just wrote it on a napkin one day because he realized everything we do and the way that we think is about capital allocation and we understand how to allocate capital in the public equity markets. But then there's sort of private equity and then there's venture capital and then there's sort of angel. We're all familiar with those sort of different strategies of capital allocation. But we realized we're doing a ton of work just in philanthropic efforts and charitable work, and that has all of the same attributes of capital allocation. You want to do your assessment, you want to allocate capital wisely, you want to look for a return on investment. You need to monitor that. What does an exit look like in philanthropy? And so we wound up just creating that prosperity ladder that we got some amazing feedback from it because it really does just sort of provide this taxonomy of capital flows and capital allocation in these different to meet different needs, basically.
John Coleman: One of the things I love about what you all do is the diversity of investment strategies you're involved in. And as you mentioned, that even extends into philanthropy. Luke went through some of those at the beginning of the call, just in the different focuses that you all have as legatum. Could you unpack that a little bit and tell us what are those different strategies and why have you all chosen to get into each of those in a way that influences prosperity as you just described?
Mark Stoleson: Yeah, absolutely. So maybe I'll start just for 2 seconds on the financial investment business. So the way that it's configured today, it looks a lot like Warren Buffett. It's got a little bit over 50% of the public equity markets, and that's on an unlevered basis. We don't borrow any money, we're not shorting anything. It's long on the highly concentrated portfolio and then we probably have about 40% in private equity. And private equity is probably a better fit for Legatum because we don't feel like we're traders or even investors. We want to be business builders, business owners, and that's our mindset in investment. And then probably about ten or 15% of the portfolio is in venture capital. But venture capital is not our wheelhouse. We wouldn't be good as a venture capital firm, but we do strategically want to be exposed to certain geographies or certain sectors and need a way to do that. And so we have about seven different venture capital fund partners that we've allocated capital to because they're just way better at it. But we want the exposure. So one of the ways that Legatum thinks about investment is what we call as SBI is simple, big ideas. So if you think India is growing at seven or 8% and it's got a population of over a billion people, there is an SBI, which is the rise of the Indian consumer, how do we express that simple big idea? And then we'll express it through kind of the sectors that we like that we understand consumer discretionary tech, maybe financial services and banking. So that's kind of how we think about our core financial investment business. We don't think a whole lot differently about philanthropy. We want to look for value. We want to look for an outsized return on investment. And to do that kind of guy, go looking in the same types of places, places that are overlooked. So let me give you an example. Luke mentioned the end fund. The end fund stands for Ending Neglected Diseases. And what the end fund is all about is deworming people. So that story started with one of my business partners reading the Financial Times. He discovered that 1.5 billion people around on planet Earth have one or more forms of worms, intestinal worms. They can kill you, they can make you blind, they can make you lame, they can keep kids out of school, keep people away from work. So it has a major harmful effect on the health of a community family nation. You will only find these diseases in the poorest countries on the planet. So you won't find them in America, you won't find them in UK, Japan. Why? Because, I mean, all these diseases are global diseases. The worms are everywhere. It's because in America we deworm people with a pill and we deworm animals as well. And there are a lot of countries that just don't have access to those pharmaceuticals. So as we did our research, we discovered that pharmaceutical companies were actually, to a large extent, give you the medicine for free. The patents have run out. They don't make any money out of it, but give it to you if you have a credible plan for kind of supply chain management distribution. Legatum chose two countries, Burundi and Rwanda, and said something that's never really been done before is what's called a Mass Drug Administration program on a nationwide level. We thought if working closely with the ministries of health. Those two countries, we just wanted to figure out if you could do a national process over 7 to 10 years, so long term time horizon to control and then eliminate these diseases. And what we found was the results were just off the charts, exceeded all expectations. We found that in some pockets of those countries, you have like 70 or 80% of a local population infected with these diseases. And with two treatments a year, you could get the disease prevalence down into the single digits, even down to zero in some places. So incredible results having proven the model, having de-risked it, which is just again, the investors lens, we thought, well, we don't have the capital to roll this out to the whole planet, so we're going to need to collaborate. And the end fund was born out of that spirit we took the Legatum name off of. It wasn't the Legatum of Deworming initiative anymore. It became the end fund and we invited other donors and investors to join us. And today the End Fund is the world's largest privately funded deworming campaign. It did over 200 million treatments last year alone. So it's just it's operates in over 30 countries. And to me, that kind of the punchline of that story is somebody has to have the risk capital. Somebody has to go out there and risk failing and prove the model. And once you've done that, the other part of the story is taking your name off the door, in some ways, opening it up to everyone else and making it something that people can collaborate on and feel a sense of ownership on.
Luke Roush: So, Mark, that's remarkable story. I mean, 200 million treatments in the last year alone. Just unbelievable. There's aspects, you know, when I hear you talk and we had a chance to talk a little bit before this as well, when I hear you talk, I mean, we're talking with you on the Faith Driven Investor podcast, but there's also a faith driven entrepreneur podcast, and there are elements of you and your partners and how you think about translating simple big ideas that SBI into reality. That really is akin to what we see in venture capital founders. Maybe speak a little bit about just the transformational potential with entrepreneurship and how you and your partners are wading into that idea.
Mark Stoleson: Yeah.
Luke Roush: Different parts of the world on both a for profit and maybe concessionary capital perspective?
Mark Stoleson: I mean, I think we as investors, we just instinctively love entrepreneurs, love the creators and the risk takers. But as we studied, prosperity didn't take long to realize there is no prosperity in a nation without entrepreneurs. And these are the people that create the opportunities. They create the jobs. They are the engine that drives the ecosystem of finance and that really they are major servants for our national economy and prosperity. And so. But for us, entrepreneurship is even more. And the reason why we set up this Legatum center at MIT and the way that that works is we realize there are brilliant young folks from really, you know, disadvantaged backgrounds or countries that are very poor, just kids that could get into MIT but can't afford it and have a bench or a calling to entrepreneurship. And we thought, gosh, if we can kind of come alongside them and just with a little bit of funding, give them access to that level of education and that level of network. And if they go back to their country, they'll start a business, they'll run a huge business. They may want to be running the whole country. And if during their time at M.I.T. as a Legatum fellow, if we could also give them a vision for the power and the virtue of entrepreneurship. So if they wind up in a position of political power and authority, maybe they can play a part in sort of removing obstacles and sort of paving the way so the more entrepreneurs will serve that society and drive more prosperity for everyone. That was the thesis behind setting that up. And the reason for that is when we look at entrepreneurs, we feel like and again, you know, entrepreneurs are people and people are are flawed. But big picture to us, entrepreneurship represents a basket of values, right? I mean, these are people who want to be creative and people who will put themselves out there and fail and then adapt and try again. So you've got perseverance, you've got patience, you've got audacity and boldness. There are so many. Character attributes that are so good about entrepreneurs that you just want to see, you know, spread out. You want to see sort of leavening a whole society, a culture of a society. So we love entrepreneurs because they do great stuff and create opportunities and jobs. But we love the idea of entrepreneurship too, because of what it represents in terms of values.
John Coleman: Going back to the global nature of your firm, Mark, in the way that you work with such a variety of people. I mean, you even just described it in things like the end project that you're working on, where you're working across countries. This is the Faith Driven Investor podcast from a Christian perspective. But we've also highlighted Jewish investors here. We've got a muslim investor coming up. You're working alongside people of all belief systems in the work that you do. Any advice for folks on just navigating that as a person of Christian faith, working well with those who are sincerely motivated by other value systems or in a diverse environment where those value systems are represented?
Mark Stoleson: Absolutely. So Legatum has sort of three basic core principles that everyone signs up to and animates everything that we do. And the first one is excellence and elegance. And the second one is culture of honor. And the third one is flawless compliance. So because we operate in lots of different countries and lots of different cultures and lots of different sectors as well, whether you're deworming kids in Africa or you're deploying capital in the Japanese banks, you know, for us flawless compliance means you say, well within the safe zone, the right side of the line at all times, no exceptions. And we've got a team that's, like you said, in London and in Dubai and also, you know, in the US and other places. So that's really important. But the key, the twin kind of heartbeats of Legatum are really excellence and elegance and a culture of honor. And with excellence and elegance. It's not just being, you know, masters of our craft, like really always looking to improve, always looking to do better in terms of how we invest and just how we conduct ourselves. The elegance part is we want it to be beautiful, but we want the relationships to be beautiful. We want our work product to be beautiful. We want them got a brand and what it represents to be not just excellent, but also beautiful. And the culture of honor is probably the most important part of what makes Legatum and I think really special and what makes it so effective in different cultures and with different faith traditions, because we don't feel like it's our role to tell anyone how to think or what to do. We come to serve it in the posture of a servant of wanting to come alongside people and help and contribute and honor other people. And that starts I mean, it starts at home for us. That means that starts within the Legatum team and within the Legatum family. And so something that we pay a lot of attention to is how are we treating each other? How do we make decisions? And culture always comes from the top. And within Legatum the top is the partnership of these four individuals, and we take a very intentional and disciplined approach to maintaining right relationships with each other. A couple of principles that really stood the test of time for us. One is what we call the power of agreement. And what that means to us is that we want to move in unity at all times. So especially with anything material for the firm, it doesn't mean that we have to agree on everything. But if we wind up in a situation or a decision that we're discussing that we need to take and we're not in agreement, we make the highest priority to be in unity regardless of whatever we decide. And the second is what we call keeping short of counts. And so when you walk a journey with anyone, whether it's in a marriage or a business relationship for two decades, you're going to have good days and bad days. You're going to misunderstand each other, you're going to offend each other. It's human experience. But the one thing we can do is keep short of counts and to raise issues quickly, not let things fester, not let any sort of bitterness take root, forgive each other and move on and just be very, very intentional about that. So when you see those principles, really something that we make a big priority with in the partnership, you can see it fed through the entire organization and the culture of honor that we strive to live by.
Luke Roush: I think those are great tips, Mark, and great stories of how you and your partners over 20 plus years have been able to stay together, stay unified, you know, engage in the merits when hard decisions need to be made, but ultimately come out and move in unity. I like that a lot. One of the things that we like to do at the end of each podcast is just take time to hear what the Lord is saying to you in and through Scripture. Sure. And how that maybe impacts your work and leadership of Legatum. So maybe just take a few minutes and share what the Lord is teaching you right now in this season.
Mark Stoleson: Well, I mean, two things that come to mind that are really sort of top of mind right now. And I'm sort of pondering why the Lord is raising these things now. But one is, you know, in Isaiah when it talks about the prophesying, the coming of the Christ is prophesying the coming of Jesus, and it says the government will be on his shoulders and it talks about these attributes. And one of them is that he's the Prince of peace. And we normally hear those words around Christmas time. But for whatever reason, I feel like God really put that on my heart recently. And I think what he's saying and I'm still really sort of noodling on this, is something about the importance of just good governance, good governance, good governments, good leadership, and whether that's in your family or whether that's in your organization, whether that's in a nation, there's this connection between good government, Christlike government and peace. Like if you're not seeing peace, there's probably a link to the quality of the government. And that's really struck me because as a leader and as a leader of leaders within our organization, leaders have different personalities. And some people are more by confrontation, easier calling people out, calling people higher. Other people really are just more wired for harmony and they don't want to confront things. And it's something that I'm working on with some of our young leaders is just the necessity as a leader to bring peace. But sometimes you have to bring peace by raising the tough issues, by calling things out, by holding people accountable, by making it clear what you will tolerate and what you will not tolerate as a leader. And that's hard. That can be awkward, that can be uncomfortable, that can make you unpopular, that can make you lonely. And yet it's totally fundamental and necessary as a leader. So this link between good government, like Christlike government, I just for some reason I was really struck by that. The government's on his shoulders and, you know, there will come a time when every new about every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. When that happens, we will experience what that level of peace looks like because we'll be living under his government alone. And it's awesome. But I feel like it's part of our role, not just as believers, as Christians, but as leaders to do our part to try to bring heaven to earth, to try to bring some of that within the authority that we have been entrusted with. So that's one. And if we've got time, I'll give you the second one. Second one, it does go to the power of unity again. And, you know, I've been really reflecting just on when Jesus talks about how his disciples will be known, it's that you will be known not by what you achieve, but you will be known by your love for one another. Yeah, that's how people are going to know that they're Christians. That's how the people are going to see a reflection of Christ those other people are going to encounter. The Divine is through our love for one another. And so even within the bottom context, even though the God him is not an evangelical Christian organization, we have people of all faiths and no faith that work within Legatum, and are very successful within Legatum. But that's the perfume that I want to see coming out of the God is a love for each other and a love for humanity and a love for our neighbor. And that through that, I feel confident that God will make itself known, that his presence will be revealed if we love one another. But as a corollary to that, I just have noticed over two decades of doing this with my partners that when we are in unity, I feel like something spiritually powerful is unlocked and we can see it in fruit and in the oil of God's favor in the activities. It's almost like you get the relationships and it's almost like it's not always the case, but it feels like good things happen. And when you're in disunity and disharmony, it feels like it just at least for us, it feels like it has a a restricting effect or almost feels like a kind of cauterize is God's favor. And so it's something that it's just hugely important to get over yourself, make things right and run. Don't walk back to a place of unity.
John Coleman: Mark That's an encouraging word. We're really encouraged by the work that you're doing at Legatum and around the world. I'm really hoping to get to visit some time on a trip to Dubai. Luke It seems like we're probably overdue for a trip out there, but just really thankful that you would come on today and share your insights and the insights of your firm with the Faith Driven Investor podcast and with the audience that we're reaching. So thank you so much for being here today and for the work that you're doing.
Mark Stoleson: John Luke Guys, thank you. Not just for this time, but thank you for what you're doing with the faith driven investor, faith driven entrepreneur, the whole movement that you guys are stewarding. It's super important. I hope that this is useful for someone out there as they hear it. And you're both more than welcome in Dubai. We look forward to your visit.