Management interviews: the most underdeveloped skill in investing | Ross O'Toole

Summary

Ross O'Toole, author of Breaking the Script, joins Andrew Walker to discuss how investors should conduct management interviews. The conversation covers why interviews are a double-edged sword, how to test management credibility over repeated meetings, question framing, note-taking and recording, positive versus negative examples, management grading, and activist dynamics. The video is primarily about investment process and due diligence, not specific stock or asset recommendations.

• Management teams are skilled salespeople, so interviews can create false confidence as easily as insight.
• Repeat interviews build a longitudinal baseline that helps assess management credibility over time.
• Preparation, recording or verbatim notes, and a separate note-taker can improve interview recall and analysis.
• Asking 'what' rather than 'why' may reduce defensiveness and produce more expansive answers.
• For every positive example, investors should ask for negative examples and push for the opposite case.
• Management interviews may matter more in technology and biotech than in commodity-driven or deep-value situations.
• Activist campaigns can be more effective when investors bring deep business understanding and a rational capital-allocation argument.
• The discussion includes AI's potential to amplify alpha from unique interview data, but no specific AI investment is recommended.