Transcript: Bill Oberndorf on Value Investing, Educational Equity, and Purpose-Driven Leadership

Good morning, and welcome back to the show. We are here with U.S. Class of 71 alum, distinguished philanthropist, and one of the world's most talented investors, Mr. Bill Obendorf. How are you, Mr. Obendorf? I'm good. Thank you, Charlie. No, it's great having you on the show. You know, we're really excited to have the chance to speak with you. To start off, could you tell us a bit about your family background and kind of just what your childhood was like growing up? So, I was born in Cleveland. My father went to university school. My mother went to Hathaway Brown, and I lived in Cleveland most of my growing up years, other than a few years when we lived in Dayton, Ohio, and my father died when I was 11. And so, at that time, we moved back to Cleveland. I was in sixth grade, and then I started at U.S. in seventh grade. You know, were there any kind of early experiences or influences from your childhood that you really feel shaped you into who you are today or really just made like a profound impact on your life? Well, I think when you lose a parent that young in life, it has a big impact on you. You realize your world. Your world can change pretty quickly and unexpectedly. So, I think I had to really learn some big lessons in life when I was quite young. I was one of three boys, but my brother was at boarding school, so I was the oldest at home. So, I kind of had to help my mom out a lot. And so, I did. I took on a fair amount of responsibility as a pretty young kid. And going off that responsibility that you had to take, did you have to take any financial responsibility? Do you have any early jobs to help support your family? Well, fortunately, I didn't need to support my family. I had two very successful grandparents, and they were extremely important. And my being able to attend U.S., actually, because one of them set aside funds for us. All my brothers and me to go all the way through high school, college, and graduate school. So, it was an incredible gift that I had from my mother's parents. But I worked when I—during summers, almost every summer, I had some sort of a job, whether it was manning the tennis courts at Laurel School. We had a window-washing business one summer with classmates of mine from U.S. and a couple of girls that we knew well from Hathaway Brown. And so— So, yeah, I always had some kind of a job during the summers, and that was fun. And I learned what it was like being a fledgling entrepreneur. Yeah, that's great. Well, you then—you mentioned you went on to attend university school for high school. And looking back, I'm sure you could answer this in many ways, but what does U.S. mean to you as far as what did it—what lessons did it teach you, and how did it kind of shape you into the person you are today? And I actually started at U.S. in seventh grade. So I was there for middle school through 12th. So by the time I got to U.S., I had attended four different schools. And that was because we were moving, having lived in Dayton, coming back, going to Roxborough for a brief period of time, and so on and so forth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then when I got to U.S., that I finally met a group of classmates, in this case boys, who were really interesting individuals and who I just felt intellectually we were at another level, the kids I was with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was a great experience. But it also gave me the opportunity just to try so many different things, whether it be sports or I was editor of the Yearbook. You know, I was, I think, vice president of our class. So I got a chance to, you know, try so many things. And I think that's one of the great benefits of going to a small school, where, you know, they just, you raise your hand. Yeah. and you can participate. And that's an incredible thing. There are very few places you can really do that. See, you really can try your hand at things. I also had, because I had gone to a lot of different schools, my education was pretty disjointed, I would say, and uneven. So academically, I was kind of in the middle of the pack of those who were admitted in my year. But thanks to a number of faculty members, like Cliff Reel, who, because I was behind in math, and, you know, he'd tutor me on Saturday mornings before football games. He just said, come on in, I'm going to tutor you. And he just took it upon himself to do it. I didn't have to pay for it. It was people like that early on, just amazing, who were just extremely, you know, involved on top of what was going on with me as a student. And so I found U.S. to be just an incredible place. After having attended different schools, I kind of had a sense of what other places were like when I arrived at U.S. You know, you kind of talked about participating in many different clubs and I would assume sports and different, as you said, your vice president with the leadership roles during high school. How do you think those extracurricular kind of experiences shaped you? Or did they ever influence something that you kind of had later on in life? Well, I was on three varsity teams every year from ninth through twelfth grade. Wow. Cross country wrestling and track. And I really excelled at track. That was the thing I loved the most. And I. I doubled. I did the half mile and the mile. See, there weren't enough of us to field a team where you didn't have to do both. And doing two races in the same meet was, you know. Especially the long ones. Yeah. Yeah. So. But. And then it was, you know, the they those were interesting enough. Those were all individual sports. Right. All individual sports. But you really had to approach it as a team. So that's an interesting kind of analogy with investing where it's an individual sport, but you're actually better at it if you're doing it with other people in partnership. So I think that was kind of the sports thing was was really big. I. I. I actually did not like wrestling very much. I did not want to do wrestling my senior year. I wanted to go down to Cleveland State because they had an indoor track and start getting ready for track. But I was basically lobbied pretty heavily by the wrestling coach saying, we don't have anybody for your weight class. You aren't there. So we need you. So I said, OK, I'll do the wrestling. But I think that was just part of being part of the school community, part of the team, everything. And and then the friendships that resulted from those sports teams and activities also, you know, are still people I'm very close to to this day. Yeah. I mean, that's always something I find so cool about this school is we have not a large number of students, but we compete with the biggest schools and a lot of sports. Because everyone does their job. And so I think that's really cool. Well, transitioning a little here after graduating from U.S., you chose to attend Williams for your undergraduate degree. What what did you major in at Williams and why did you decide to study what you did? Well, I I decided to become a history major. And I think it just I was really interested in history. I had always been interested in history. And Williams had a fantastic history department in those days. It's still May, but it was it was just full of interesting professors who were really, really, really experts in their fields. So and I studied 20th century history, mostly World War Two. So it was it was it was. It was a wonderful, wonderful major. I think if I were to do it again, I'd probably do economics combined with maybe psychology. But as a lot of business is related to psychology, too, as we're witnessing today with the stock market being majorly off because of the tariffs. So something tells me, you know, there's probably a few bargains out there. There's probably a few bargains out there today. That's psychology. You know, after Williams, you went on to pursue an MBA at Stanford. What kind of made you go down that path? And can you kind of explain the whole journey to Stanford and to going into an MBA at Stanford's Graduate School of Business? Well, I had a job in between Williams and Stanford.

And it was. We were in a really. Coming off of a really bad recession in nineteen seventy five. So jobs were kind of scarce. Fortunately, I got a job at the Union Commerce Bank, which eventually was merged into Huntington Bank in Cleveland, down at East 9th and Euclid. It was because of some U.S. grads who looked out. After me that I was able to get that get that job, but they thought it was a summer job and it wasn't. And so we got to the fall and they were wondering why I was still there. So I better apply to graduate school. I'm not sure what I'm going to do after this. So I got into Stanford. So I went to I went to Stanford. It was the only graduate school I got into.

Seriously. I was. Really on. I didn't have really any business experience. I was twenty two and I was history major. So I hadn't taken any real business courses of any sort at all. So, you know, I said, hey, well, I'm going to go off to Stanford. So I packed up my car and I drove out to California where I had never been before, other than very briefly for a roommate's wedding down in Los Angeles a few months before. You know, during your time. At graduate school, one of the stories that you've told that I personally like that we've kind of researched about and learn about was the chance that you had to meet Warren Buffett and how you kind of talked, talk about him as an inspiration to you early on. Tell us kind of about that meeting and what impact it had on you. Well, in those days at the business school, they had an advisory board and it was full of luminaries. And the dean at the business school at that time was R.J. Miller, who had been the president of Ford Motor Company before he became dean. And he was one of the whiz kids, which was this group that that Henry Ford hired after World War Two to come in and really rethink Ford Motor Company. So R.J. was one of those. And another one was Robert McNamara. Who had been secretary of defense in the Kennedy administration and Catherine Graham, who owned the Washington Post and Buffett was on the board of the Washington Post. So he became a friend of that circle. And then there were several other people. And you could sign up to go have lunch with. When they were on campus, which is usually really only one time a year. And there were like only six of us who signed up to have lunch with with Warren Buffett. It's pretty expensive to have lunch with him today. You know, it gets auctioned off for a couple of million dollars, I think. But we we had to do a sign up and he had shut down Berkshire Partners. And. There is his Buffett Partners, excuse me, and he was running Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway stock was about two hundred dollars a share and and I wish I had bought some Berkshire stock then, but I didn't have any money, so I didn't have like I couldn't do that. But we had six of us. We had literally a baloney. We had a sandwich lunch with with Warren Buffett at a table at somebody's rented house up in Woodside. And Warren was forty eight years old then. And he's explaining value investing. And the primer was buying. If I can buy a dollar for a discount. Buy a dollar for a discount. Buy a dollar for a discount. in the public market like 80 cents on the dollar and that dollar grows it doesn't have to grow it in a wild rate uh but let's say it grows at six percent eight percent ten percent but you bought it at 80 cents on the dollar he said just put that into your hp calculators and it's a pretty uh attractive outcome without taking a lot of risk and uh what he did not talk about was that he was going around buying insurance companies and that gave him zero cost of capital because he could use the float as long as they was there was good underwriting at the insurance companies and so you put great stock picking and and and and analysis on top of no cost of capital and you have rocket fuel there uh and that is why warren was able to build what started with the saint in seven public companies into the massive enterprise that it's become today uh so i decided that day you know and i i think i think i knew i wanted to be an investor but i said i think maybe i want to be a value investor uh and so it was an incredibly important moment uh having the opportunity uh having the opportunity to meet uh meet him and i really didn't um see him for a long time after that uh it was probably uh i know exactly when it was it was like uh it was like 16 years later and i was at a birthplace and i was at a birthplace and i was at a birthplace and i was at a birthplace and i was at a birthplace and i was at a birthplace and i was at a birthplace and i was at the berkshire hathaway uh berkshire hathaway uh berkshire hathaway uh annual meeting and uh i think today there are like 60 000 70 000 people that show there were only 400 people there in 1994 it was in the basement of the ortheum theater in downtown uh omaha and there were just a few you know little uh stands in displays now it's a whole you know uh convention floor below and all the different berkshire businesses but i said i were i said i remember meeting you in uh jack mcdonald's class in uh 1978 uh it's now 1994 he said i knew more than and uh that's just uh how what a humbling experience it is to invest yeah well that's a seminal seminal moment seminal seminal moment and so you said you knew after that you wanted to go into value investing but what were the early careers of early years of your career like did you get your break into that world uh right away or did you have to kind of work through a couple different opportunities well uh i uh uh when uh i was in business school um um i became very good friends and am to this day very good friends with a fellow named tim bliss and uh tim bliss uh lived in santa barbara and he had worked for a fellow named uh reese duca and uh what tim and i did uh during our second year of business school was to meet different investors and so i'm uh and we offered to do some research on a company go visit with them just like i'm kind of visiting with you guys today and uh and so uh i met a fellow named uh johnson scully not of apple uh or pepsi uh fame but uh another john scully who was a classmate of reese's and um and uh john uh was uh looking uh yeah i was he was he was a sole practitioner um and i'm it was very hard to find uh somebody you could go do fundamental research analysis with as a value uh investor in in those days there were some really big uh funds uh uh like tiro price that were around that did some hiring but few and far between but because of that uh connection uh i uh asked john whether he'd be interested in hiring somebody and uh reese then gave me an assist uh so uh i took the lowest paying job of anybody in my class at business school and um and went to work with john and we were partners for 33 years wow you know by the late 1980s you kind of co-founded the investment firm spo partners can you kind of tell us the story about how spo partners came to be um and from there what did that really just become to you so uh we decided uh charlie that uh uh when we got to uh uh the early 90s um that we wanted to have some uh outside capital in addition to the vast capital they had been our sole capital source for 20 years and uh that was uh the resulted in the formation of uh spo partners uh which was uh john scully uh myself and bill patterson uh and uh uh i had met uh bill uh when he was a student at stanford business school and uh i knew in five minutes i wanted to hire him i i sensed he was extraordinary um and um this you may get a sense i how i make decisions sometimes uh i i don't think i'm impulsive but uh in particular although you might ask my wife what she thinks about that but uh uh but i think the uh you know kind of decision become about people and deciding what you want to do i was able to be pretty clear about that uh and uh bill proved to be an extraordinary uh partner uh and uh you know sadly died when he was 48 years old of a brain tumor, but, uh, uh, we had, uh, in 2012, but we became partners and then built, uh, built the, uh, the, uh, a real firm, uh, at that point. Uh, so it was pretty exciting. Um, and you know, it wasn't easy, even though we had 20 years of, of, of investing under our belts at that point, it was a pretty good track record. Uh, in early nineties, we were only able to raise $40 million after having access to a lot of capital, uh, in the, in the bass world. Uh, so that we just rolled up our sleeves and, and built what I think was a wonderful firm. Um, well managing a large investment firm and handling other people's money, you know, it's a big responsibility. So how did you handle the pressure? That comes with, uh, making big financial decisions that affects many stakeholders? Uh, yeah, that's a, that's an important question. Uh, and, uh, I think we, I felt it was always important to put the partners first in everything we did. And if we did that, everything else would take care of itself. Uh, there also was tremendous alignment because we had virtually all our capital up. Side by side with our partners, we weren't doing other things with our money. Um, and just always putting yourself in their shoes, um, and, uh, being completely transparent with them. Uh, so I think that, uh, eased, uh, some of the sense of responsibility, but if you, if you really take it seriously, you will, you know, it is a big responsibility. A lot of people don't take it that seriously. Uh, and, uh, uh, but we had really good, great partners. Um, and, um, and for the most part, they, they really understood what we did, trusted what we did. You know, you led SPO partners for over two decades and had just so much more experience. In about 2012, you decided to retire from the firm and kind of focus more on the philanthropy side of that. What led you to make that decision to step back from running SPO? And kind of what was the outlook for the rest of your life at that point? Well, uh, I decided that I didn't want to, uh, manage a firm any longer. Uh, and, uh, but I didn't retire. Uh, I actually set up a family hold co, uh, and it's known as Oberdorf Enterprises. and uh i uh uh brought in a really talented group of people to work with um in managing our family assets uh and um as their wealth has uh increased they're my partners side by side it was kind of back to the beginning it was a little like um bass brothers enterprises was that's uh so i i took that name and said well let's call it sober door founder prizes and um what that's evolved into today is um that uh uh susan and i have uh two children uh peter and will and peter does our real estate for us um and we invest in uh in commercial real estate hotels multi-family uh uh will uh uh really uh uh uh started um and uh it was a sole practitioner doing very early stage venture investments and had a portfolio of about 50 companies uh that he did over eight years uh and he is now winding that down uh and uh starting uh an ai uh focused firm uh and i'll be chairman of that working with his team and then we have putting our equities uh and i've got a team of five uh people on the equities here so i'm pretty busy with the with the business stuff still in fact it's really busy right now uh but

we're a philanthropic things as well you know i kind of like to ask some advice based on your own financial experience i mean looking to almost our perspective if you're an 18 year old again and kind of starting out today what if anything would you kind of do differently in terms of your financial or even career decisions uh well you know uh charlie's worked out pretty well so you know i what would i do what would i do differently um i actually think the best structure on the planet is what buffett did with a holdco and i would have done that a lot sooner uh than i did so uh i the the partnership uh uh construct uh is it's good but i think the having a a holding corporation is something that um i really enjoyed um and uh it even though we had wonderful partners at at spo we have no outside uh capital here at all uh so uh i i would have done it i would have done it sooner than i did you know people often talk about kind of pursuing careers for passion versus just financial security how do you balance kind of the fight pursuit of like financial success with finding that personal fulfillment or just meaning in everything you do well uh i think if you're really fortunate enough to have um uh a really great education and your motivation um uh and there's something that excites you um uh and and that's the passion uh you you it and you may decide that something that really excites you isn't going to be particularly uh uh remunerative but um you will be wake up every day excited about what you're doing it's tough and to go through life without being excited about what you're doing but a lot of people don't have uh don't have that as uh as an as an option i remember reading this um article uh a reporter was um uh talking to a you know extremely impoverished uh woman in a third world country about the pursuit of happiness and she had kind of a quizzical look on her face like she didn't understand what he was even talking because day day-to-day life was just tough right and some people just don't have choices so for those of us who have uh choices uh which i think really comes from um our education uh and um and motivation uh there's just so much you can do so uh i don't think that um it's be passionate do something that you're really passionate about but also make sure that you know you aren't going to get yourself to a point in your life where you haven't been able to take care of yourself financially yeah switching gears a bit here um one area that you're well known for is your involvement in education reform um especially the school choice movement um in the early 1990s you i believe you partnered with the late john walton to create what's now the american federation for children um so what inspired you to get involved in advocating for school choice well i think it goes right back to uh my own experience which i touched upon a little earlier is that um i felt so fortunate to have had the opportunity to go to university school and uh that was only because my grandparents uh set aside funds uh for me uh to be able to do so and if i hadn't had that opportunity i honestly don't know uh how my life would have ended up so it kind of i traced it back there and i think it's a great tragedy in our country that so many kids are attending schools that are not of quality and they're getting passed through they're finishing 12th grade without a skill without a real opportunity to move forward with their lives and that is uh uh uh something that uh i find intolerable uh and uh so i have devoted over 30 years now to try and bend the curve of that you know we kind of talked about the fact that you worked with late john wall and what was it like working with john wall and in the wand family on this cause and can you kind of share some memorable moments or challenges that you kind of had from those early days of pushing for school choice well uh john was extraordinary uh i mean he was uh he was really the johnny apple seed of uh of uh of of school choice he would uh what uh andrew carnegie was to libraries john walton was to education uh and he was uh about the most modest person you will ever meet uh for those who might not know who john walton uh was john was one of uh of four children of helen and sam walton and sam walton of course was the founder of walmart so uh uh i uh uh i heard of john and uh this was in the early 1990s and we had had a an initiative on the ballot here uh for there to be a school choice and it uh lost uh uh by a big margin and uh but john was living in san diego i had given it to him he had given to it and uh somebody gave me his uh name and phone number and said well you should call john wall i said yeah but will he take my call and uh and uh the guy said yeah he'll take your call so i called and uh here's his voice on there this is john uh and uh that's the way john did everything in a very personal manner and we got together we had lunch and that began this incredible partnership of working together and uh you know he always called me partner i was your partner but he never made me feel that way and uh he'd say bill you go run this i don't want to run it but i'll come to the board meetings uh but i'll come to the board meetings and i'll come to the board meetings But he was thinking all the time about how he could help solve this problem. And sadly, John died 20 years ago in 2005.

But we've continued on with the work, and the family's been very generous to helping to bring us where we are today. Yeah, well, that's amazing. And what do you hope ultimately to achieve for students and families through your work pushing this movement? Well, John and I felt that the downside in what we were doing is we'd help a lot of kids. And the upside was we could change the trajectory of education in America by injecting competition. Into K through 12. And that it was only by causing the traditional public school systems across the country to compete for kids that they were going to improve their performance. It just seems so obvious, right? It hasn't been an easy road. Here we are 30 years later. And there were no charter schools when the private school choice movement began, by the way. It predated charters. So where we are today is after all these years, this year marks the first year where we have crossed the million child threshold of children who get on average about $7,000. A piece of state money across 34 states to attend, for the most part, modest tuition, inner city schools across the country. We have about three and a half million children attending charter schools. And then, and this actually predated COVID, but it has ramped. And we're not sure exactly what the... The numbers are, but we have between somewhere between three and five million children being homeschooled in the country. And a lot of them are in pods and things like that that came out of COVID and about 30% of those kids are living in cities too, by the way, they're not out, you know, in, you know, the mountains side somewhere. So that's, that's a whole big thing that's changed because of COVID. The, the best measure of, so I think we, we know we've helped a lot of kids, but the best measure, can you really change the trajectory in, in the country is a few states where that has actually happened or happening. And Florida, Illinois. Indiana, Arizona, and Ohio, where the number of kids has got to be so significant. In the state of Florida, 49% of all the children who live in Florida have some form of choice today. Wow. And on the standard measure, the National Assessment of Education Progress. Florida. It was like 33 out of 50 states and it's gone to, I think, 17 now. And Indiana went from 26 to four. So you've seen big movements and Ohio shown some very nice moves. Those states, they have no choice, like California, where I live, has gone from 44 out of 50 to 41 over the last 20 years, just virtually no movement. So we're seeing that where there's choice. So we're seeing that where there's choice. So we're seeing that where there's choice. It causes the public school systems to get to get better. And it's why Miami-Dade, it is now the number one performing urban district. It's the fifth largest district in the country. And there you have all forms of choice in, including a lot of very robust, traditional public school offerings now, like international baccalaureate. uh and uh uh it's very exciting what's uh what's gone on there for for for the kids so we're seeing some really remarkable things uh charter schools too uh which are part of the work we do now um there's a wonderful uh uh program called success academies and um in new york city run by an incredible woman eva moskowitz and she has 28 000 children who attend success academy schools uh that makes and they're mostly minority kids that makes her the seventh largest school district in new york state and she beats westchester county and all the fancy suburbs so it can be done and we're the country's in serious trouble because this has been ignored everybody should be focused on this issue you know do you kind of approach your philanthropy work with some of the same kind of strategic mindset that you use investing i mean for example do you look for kind of like a return on kind of the money that people do and donate and kind of spend to help out such a great cause like school choice uh charlie some uh things are easier to measure than others um but yes we really look at those metrics in uh in school choice and we also look at them like what we're doing uh in trying to reform san francisco government uh here uh but uh we have we raise maybe 20 million to 30 million dollars a year we're now up to 30 but we've been at 20 for many many years and we've seen a real nice increase the last few years at the american federation for children but when we pass this legislation in the states which is recurring we are getting um uh usually six or seven hundred billion dollars of recurring dollars for that 30 million we spend plus we're we're doing defense work to maintain the program we have so that's a really high return on your philanthropy and you can measure that very uh directly uh and uh when you're doing uh when you're doing work um on uh basic research um the uh like we're doing at uh the university of california san francisco uh where i shared the board there for nine years but i've been involved there for 25 years uh it's harder to measure the progress because the breakthroughs can take a long time but when they come they're so completely transformational yeah well speaking of supporting education you've funded multiple scholarships here at university school including the obendorf scholarship and the jarvis scholarship that you and your wife susan made possible and that's just given countless students including myself the opportunity um to attend university school that wouldn't have had the opportunity if not so what inspired you to establish those scholarships here at university school well uh first of all uh uh the jarvis scholars is uh named after uh uh tony jarvis the reverend f washington jarvis uh tony was the most influential teacher i ever had uh and um uh that his entire school life their styles and all those attributes that he did uh really made me smart and open-minded i i remember when i was learning college i remember what the small houses meant to young people and i remember i remember были a large business play a great business building for young students and it was at a time when uh and i've only just finished my bachelor's degree in native 1945 so we left our uh so our class went into a um crisis needing uh financial support but there was a beautiful uh value in it which was that we were uh handle a uh attract uh incredibly talented uh boys uh from uh northeast ohio who otherwise might not know about us or might not be able to attend uh uh and uh at the same time i i wanted it to be uh really uh uh based on uh academic strength um admitting uh the boys uh there's also it's important that they're going to be good citizens of the u.s community so uh that was the kind of inspiration for that and i i felt that um and we'll we're going to see this is still a very much in process um program next year will be our first cohort of seniors uh next year and i just can't wait to see where uh this group ends up matriculating to to college uh but i think they have really uh added a lot to the community overall and um i think it also has has helped uh to stabilize and increase middle school enrollments too uh because uh did that that was another thing that we were hoping uh hoping would happen and uh uh uh from what i understand uh uh you guys are uh doing a great job it and being good good good members of the u.s community and academically uh really rising uh to the occasion and taking full advantage of what u.s has to offer so that's what we hoped would happen um uh i i'm i'm really excited about the program and uh i'm uh equally excited about uh the the scholarships that we established to for for uh really for low-income kids um and we wanted to have scholarships that were for both groups a hundred percent free um so you could come to u.s take full advantage of everything that was going on at the school and uh be a full participant in the community and uh uh so it they're they're kind of two different uh groups of kids but we have some extremely talented uh uh kids academically as well as other things are doing of our oberdorf scholars so uh it's uh it was great to be back this fall and uh visit with uh most of the students and uh i think it's been a really great experience for us and uh i think it's been a really great experience for us and uh i think it's been a really great experience with them. We did it over two days because I guess we have 40 boys involved overall in the upper school, but it was really fun to do that. You know, how does it feel for you to see the impact of these scholarships on students' lives? I mean, you stayed very involved with the university school since then, so how have you kind of hoped to see them grow even after this next senior class ends up graduating? Well, you know, Charlie, I actually am in touch with a couple of the boys who've gone through the program because they reached out to me, and so I've continued to have a dialogue with them and mentor them on the way, and they're just first-rate people, and they're really just off doing wonderful things. So, yeah, that's exciting. You know, I do the national work. There are a lot of children involved, and the nice thing about this program is, and what we're doing at U.S., is, you know, it just gets you closer to what's actually happening with the recipients. Yeah, and you've stayed involved with university school, obviously, supporting these scholarships, but also as a trustee and, I believe, as on the board of directors. What has it been like to watch U.S. evolve since your time as a student, and how does it feel to be a part of kind of guiding its future? Well, you know, it's such an important institution, and as a director, you're really a guardian of the institution, and we're really fortunate to have... Patrick Gallagher is head of school. I think Patrick's been doing a really wonderful job, and I think U.S. is... Under Patrick's leadership, there's been just a lot of thought that's gone into the curriculum and how the lower school curriculum works with the middle school curriculum that works with the upper school curriculum, and our goal as a board is... To have U.S. be one of the finest day schools in the United States. So that's what we're aiming towards. It's not easy to do that. It requires a lot of financial support, but I think it's a virtuous kind of wheel, if you will, that, you know, we have a lot of... alums out there who don't live in Cleveland, such as myself, and will never be sending our children to U.S., but we know that that experience was so important to all of us that being engaged in helping the institution to ensure that it can continue to provide those kinds of opportunities for people. I think it's really important. Yeah. And I think the next generation of boys such as yourselves is something that I feel is incredibly important to do. Sue and I have always... We've been very concentrated, actually, in our philanthropy. It's a little like being concentrated in our investing approach here, and this is just one of those places that I feel was so instrumental in my life. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a really important part of life that I want to make sure that it is an absolutely first-rate, top-notch experience going forward. And I think U.S. is educationally a better place than it was when I was there. And I hope you are having as much fun as I had when I was there, too. I had a really good time. I made so many great friends. But I got to... I just have to be honest. I just happened to be there when you had your field day in the fall, and that was great, just to see everybody out there having a good time. Yeah. We're definitely having... We're having fun. Yeah. You know, kind of going to the impact that you've seen in just our students at university school, when you're considering hiring or even partnering with younger people who may have come out of college or a little bit further down in their career in your different ventures, what qualities or skills do you kind of look for that make someone really stand out? Well, I want to see a few things. One is a track record for us to hire somebody because we don't do that many hires. But, you know, what's been kind of the record of achievement that a person's had up to that time? And then how motivated are they? And equally important, and this is often the trickiest part, you know, what are their values? And so, and are they just, are they good people?

And over time... You know, we all get better, hopefully, on the judgment scale of things. But people who so far exercise pretty good judgment in their lives, yeah, I want to see that too. Yeah. We've talked a lot about your business and philanthropy, but outside of work, how do you spend your free time and kind of unwind? Do you have any hobbies or passions that you enjoy? Well, we spend time. Our house in Napa, where we have a vineyard, I love it up there. And then we also have a place in Aspen, so we spend time out there. And so we're pretty busy. And I think the, you know, really, I spend... The bulk of my time on the weekends, I'm still doing my non-profit work. And it's kind of seamless, my days. You know, I go for-profit, non-profit, and then I have a good dose of fun, too, traveling. Yeah, quite a bit. Yeah, that's great. Well, it's become a tradition on our show to ask. So even after achieving so much, you continue to stay very active with your investments in philanthropy. And so I guess we just want to ask. What is it that got you motivated at the start? And then now, as well, what keeps you working and giving back, rather than just, you know, taking the traditional route and kind of leaning, taking your feet back and retiring? So I guess the question we want to ask you is, Mr. Obenorf, what is your why? Well, you know, I think I, going back to kind of my early childhood experience, I realized that I was going to have to make... If anything was going to come of my life, I was going to have to make it happen. And I also was fortunate, and I knew that there were other people who were there to help me along the way. And I think just as a matter of my faith, actually, I said, I think... We're put here to try and make things better. And so I want to stay as fully engaged as I can to do that. And my business is really a flywheel that allows me to have the financial resources to be able to work to try and make things better. But I think people who... There's some people who retire who are very happy. Being retired because they've got all kinds of hobbies and stuff like that. I don't really have a lot of hobbies. But I have a lot of interests. And so that's just not something I envision ever doing.

Yeah. Well, looking back over your life and career, how's your definition of success evolved from when you were younger to now? So I guess, what is success to you? Well, you know, I think it is really the how, if you will. You know, there are a lot of people who have made a lot of money. And it's really how you went about doing it. Were you decent to other people? Were you honest in your dealings? I think, you know, I'm certainly not perfect, but I've tried to use that kind of framework. And to me, that really defines success. And building teams and friendships in the process, that's part of the success. Nobody really can do anything on their own in understanding that. And it's a big problem we have in our country today, where some people think they can do whatever they want, and we're seeing some of that stuff go on daily now, and that it doesn't have repercussions, or they think they're right, and oftentimes they are. And so I think success is really, you know, it's not how much money you pile up. It's really what you do with, if you're fortunate enough to have some skills, success in business, what you actually do with your financial resources and with your time. You know, you've made an impact in so many different areas throughout your life, whether it's business, education, philanthropy. What do you kind of hope will be the lasting impact of your work when it's all said and done? And what is one moment where you were most proud of what you accomplished? Well, I think, Charlie, the, the School of Choice work has really been, you know, over 30 years. That's, I'm really, I'm really proud of that. The, the work we did at UCSF, which is one of the most important medical research institutions in the country, where we really transformed the board there, and in the process, raised a lot of money for the institution. And that will have been an important thing. And then the other work I'm doing there in the neurosciences. And, and then, you know, I think having, having a wonderful family has been, uh, uh, obviously, you know, very, very important, um, uh, as well, uh, having, you know, a great marriage, uh, and, um, to, uh, really good kids and now a great daughter-in-law and a six month old grandson. Oh, congrats. Well, I'm sure you've received a lot of advice over that over your career and just life in general, but if you could pick one piece of advice, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received and who gave it to you? Oh, wow. Uh, that's, that's really, um, I'd have to, I've got to think about that. Um, uh, I, I think looking at, in, in people who you admire and really trying to model yourself after that is a really, that if, as I think about advice, maybe, uh, that's to me, you know, really a really good way to think about, you know, staying on the right path and, you know, what would, what would Warren do? What would John Walton do? What would my partner Bill Patterson do? Uh, you know, I think about those things a lot with people who, just really, uh, I really admire so much. Well, Mr. Obendorf, it has been great having you on the show today. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights, experiences, and great stories with us. To our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and we'll hope you'll join us next Wednesday for the next episode of The Late Start Show. Thank you, Mr. Obendorf. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys.