Ep. 4 - Bert Hochfeld: Becoming an Expert Tech Investor

Bert Hochfeld will help you become a better tech investor. He's been in the game 50 years and he really knows technology inside and out. Thank you so much for listening, we really appreciate you. If you have found this valuable, please consider leaving us a review as it will help more people find it! Thanks you're awesome! You can find more information and content by going to these places: Website: https://www.investingcity.org YouTube: Investing City Twitter: investing_city Instagram: investing_city Or feel free to email us at service@investingcity.org Again, we really appreciate that you would take the time to listen. Hope it was valuable. Let us know if you have any questions! Below you will find our entire conversation transcripted for those with hearing problems or just if you like reading more than listening. Enjoy! Ryan Reeves We are live and just so excited to have Bert Hochfeld on the podcast. Bert is a legend in the equity research space. And we're just so honored to have you on. Bert Hochfeld Well, that's very nice. I don't know if I'm a legend- if I'm a legend, I hope It's a good one. Ryan Reeves Okay, so let's just hop right into it. Bert, can you give us a little bit of your background and how you got interested in the stock market and maybe just kind of your progression to where you are now? Bert Hochfeld Sure. Well, that's a bit of a long story. But I've been interested in the stock market for, believe it or not, 60 years or something like that. My parents encouraged my interest. And my father tried to teach me a little bit about the stock market. I've always been fascinated by how the financial markets work. And I was fortunate enough to go to the University of Pennsylvania where the practice of econometrics was being developed in the early 1960s. And then I went to HBS, and then I went to work for IBM (IBM). And so I had a good background in this area. And I after I worked at IBM, I worked at several other tech companies, Raytheon Data Systems, BMC software, etc. And then finally, I decided I wanted to come back to the northeast after I was in Houston. And so I came back up here 25 years ago and got into working for a variety of companies. I set up my own independent research company, when that became the way of doing this business. I set up a hedge fund as well that invested in the tech area. And over time I decided that I would set up a website subscription service for people that are interested in investing in tech investing. And that's called Ticker Target. And I welcome listeners to subscribe. That's where I am today. Ryan Reeves So your first job out of HBS was at IBM. Was that kind of a turning point in you becoming really interested in technology or had you been interested before that? Bert Hochfeld I've been interested in technology for a long, long time and had been interested in working at IBM for a long, long time. And I had that opportunity back in 1969, IBM was kind enough to hire me after my military service. And so I went to work there as a financial analyst doing pricing and planning. And I got to understand how the computer industry worked at that time. From the perspective of the dominant player. I mean, it's hard to believe today, it's a sad story. But IBM as you may or may not be aware, basically was the number one company in the space and it had the opportunity to remain a dominant player for many years. Sadly, it didn't choose to grasp the nettle so to speak- it was always an issue with IBM, the level of money they might leave on the table, if they innovated too rapidly. Ryan Reeves From your perspective do you think there's something that they, obviously, should have seen -- some paradigm shift in tech, because you read all Clayton Christensen's kind of literature on these big companies being disrupted. And how...