TIP754: RULE BREAKER INVESTING

W/ DAVID GARDNER

TIP754: RULE BREAKER INVESTING W/ DAVID GARDNER

18 September 2025

On today’s episode, Clay brings back David Gardner to discuss his new book, Rule Breaker Investing. Throughout David’s investing career, he seemed to have taken all of Buffett’s rules to investing and thrown them out the window. In this episode, he shares his unique rule-breaking framework, providing you with the guidance and the gumption to win at investing by finding and owning the best companies of the future.

David Gardner is the co-founder of the Motley Fool and describes himself as the “Chief Rule Breaker”.  For over 30 years, he’s guided millions to outperform market averages through unconventional choices, and his investments in companies like Amazon, Netflix, Nvidia, and Tesla have defied traditional investing wisdom.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • Why David decided to ignore Buffett’s value investing principles and discover his own way to invest.
  • Why he decided to break Buffett’s number one rule of investing.
  • The story of David’s early investment in AOL, which rose by over 150x.
  • Why David neglects the phrase, “long-term investor.”
  • The six traits of rule breaker stocks and the six habits of the rule breaker investor.
  • Why David prefers to buy stocks that professional commenters say are overvalued.
  • Why the best companies are so good they almost seem to be cheating and don’t play by traditional rules.
  • What conscious capitalism is and how it enables all parties in business to win.
  • His Rule Breaker stock picks for 2025.
  • And so much more!

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

[00:00:00] Clay Finck: On today’s episode, we invited David Gardner to discuss his new book, Rule Breaker Investing. In the book, he shares his unique rule breaking framework that helped him find and own companies like Amazon in 2002, Netflix in 2004 and Nvidia in 2005, throughout David’s investing career, he seemed to have taken all of Buffett’s rules to investing and thrown them out the window.

[00:00:23] Clay Finck: As the co-founder of The Motley Fool, he launched his stock advisor service in early 2002, and he has publicly achieved an average annualized return of 20.8% versus just 9% for the S&P500 over that same time period. In this episode, we discussed why David decided to ignore Buffett’s value investing principles and discover his own way to invest why he proudly breaks Buffett’s number one rule of investing not losing money.

[00:00:50] Clay Finck: The story of David’s early investment in AOL, which rose by over 150 times. The six traits of rule breaker stocks and the six habits of the rule breaker investor, why David prefers to buy stocks that commentators say are overvalued. How the best companies are so good at what they do. They almost seem to be cheating and don’t play by the traditional rules, what conscious capitalism is and how it enables all parties to win in business.

[00:01:15] Clay Finck: His rule breaker stock picks for 2025 and so much more. With that, I really hope you enjoy my conversation with David Gardner.

[00:01:27] Intro: Since 2014, and through more than 180 million downloads, we’ve studied the financial markets and read the books that influenced self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. Now for your host, Clay Finck.

[00:01:51] Clay Finck: Welcome to The Investor’s Podcast. I’m your host, Clay Finck, and today I could not be more excited or happy as I’m joined by David Gardner. David, welcome back to the show.

[00:02:01] David Gardner: Thank you, Clay. It’s a delight.

[00:02:03] Clay Finck: So today we will be chatting about your new book, Rule Breaker Investing. I was just on a trip up to the northeast around Boston and read it during my travels.

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