Drew Cohen: Deep Research Method for Uncovering Hidden Moats: Reading Decades of Company History to Find What Others Miss

Drew Cohen is the founder of Speedwell Research and a portfolio manager at Davidson Kahn Capital Management, who uncovers competitive advantages by reading entire company histories spanning decades of transcripts and annual reports.

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3:00 - Drew describes his early money attraction, collecting dollar bills at age five and discovering the power of interest at his bar mitzvah, leading his father to introduce him to stocks.

5:00 - First investing experiences: buying leveraged ETFs at 14, making $100 in two minutes, then immediately losing $100, learning markets can create and destroy wealth quickly.

8:00 - Exploration of technical analysis through Dow Theory and Elliott Wave, realizing these pattern-based approaches kept adding rules to fit outcomes, concluding they were “BS” and abandoning them.

10:00 - Discovering “The Snowball” at 17 changed everything, learning Buffett’s lessons without having to lose more money personally through trial and error.

15:00 - Deep research methodology explained: reading every transcript and annual report since IPO to find patterns that map onto future transitions and understand how companies behave under different conditions.

20:00 - Meta example: three instances of monetization fears (desktop to mobile, feed to stories, stories to Reels) that all proved unfounded when studying company history.

23:00 - Copart case study: finding one 2004 earnings call where they mentioned market share, crucial data point never discussed again but essential for understanding current competitive position.

35:00 - Discussion of reading as filtering mechanism: eliminates 95% of companies immediately, leaving only truly interesting businesses worth deeper analysis.

45:00 - Career trajectory: Goldman Sachs sell-side to Capital Group buy-side, learning institutional constraints firsthand before founding independent research firm.

55:00 - Sell-side research revelation: buy ratings are relative to coverage universe, not absolute recommendations, creating fundamental misunderstanding of analyst intentions.

57:00 - Buy-side problems: short-term performance pressures, peer judgment, window dressing (adding Nvidia when it’s hot to satisfy clients), non-investment prerogatives polluting decisions.

59:00 - Buffett’s genius: structuring Berkshire with long-term capital he controlled, avoiding quarterly performance pressures that would have produced completely different results.

1:00:23 - Success definition: doing what you want each day without trading tomorrow for today, echoing Naval’s concept that you’re retired when you stop deferring gratification.

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