Original Post: http://blogs.forbes.com/schifrin/2010/11/18/your-pushy-wife-may-be-your-ticket-to-billions/?boxes=Homepagelighttop
Last week Bloomberg Businessweek ran a cover story on China’s dominant search portal and stock juggernaut Baidu (BIDU). The story reported on Baidu’s smart, cut-throat and compromising approach to becoming China’s Google. In the story there are accusations that Baidu rigs its search results to favor advertisers and kowtows to Communist party wishes. Those who believe in “socially conscious” investing should check their fund holdings for BIDU. (Here is a list of 22 ETFs holding a BIDU).
However what was really interesting to me about the Baidu cover story was a sentence in the 22nd paragraph of the story. It points out how billionaire CEO Robin Li, decided to become an Internet entrepreneur because his wife Melissa urged him to do so. According to the story “Melissa pulled him(Robin) away from the screening and declared that she would like her husband to be an Internet company founder.“ The incident took place at Stanford University in 1999 while the couple was watching a documentary film featuring an interview with Yahoo (YHOO) founder Jerry Yang. The story goes on to say: “inspired by Yang and pushed by Melissa,” Li decided to build an Internet search engine for China.
Today Robin Li is worth $7.2 billion and he is China’s second richest person. Baidu’s stock of course has been a super hero for its shareholders. Stock is up 163% year to date and 1,425% in the last five years.
This got me thinking that an untold number today’s successful men probably owe a great deal of thanks to their wives for being the catalyst or the driver of their great wealth and fame. Strong women behind great men are nothing new. As far back as the Bible’s Rebecca and Esther do we find influential ladies out of the limelight but having a big affect on their spouses choices.
Of course one of the reasons that I noticed this particular factoid in the Baidu- Robin Li Businessweek story has to do with one of the Warren Buffetts Next Door I profile in my new book, Mike Koza. He readily admits that if not for his wife Maria, a Filipina immigrant he met in the personal ads of the Sacramento Bee, he would not have taken control of his portfolio and began investing on his own.
Civil engineer Koza was content spending his weekends whitewater rafting in California’s Central Valley and figured that his under-performing Morgan Stanley broker was about the best he could expect. She was the one who shook him out of his comfort zone and got him to to fire his stockbroker and take control of his nest-egg. That was about a decade ago.
Since then Mike has had an average annual return on his portfolio in excess of 30% per year according to Marketocracy.com and he has turned a $100,000 portfolio into a $3 million nest-egg. I have seen the proof and reviewed his trades.
Mike is a value investor who spends hours each day online reading about the companies he invests in and listening to downloads of management conference calls. He looks for companies being mispriced by Wall Street and figures out his own intrinsic value for stocks using discounted cash flow analysis. (Click her to watch a video of Mike Koza explaining his investing approach.)
During the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, Mike made big bets on financial stocks like Radian Group (RAD) and Trina Solar (TSL) and profited handsomely. Right now has significant investments in several Chinese stocks including China Media Express Holdings (CCME) ,a Hong Kong based company has a television advertising network displayed on buses and other urban areas.
In researching my book I interviewed both Mike and his wife Maria because I knew she was the driving force behind his investing success. Maria has had a hard life. In the Phillipines she grew up in poverty and before meeting Mike she worked for more than a decade as a nurse in the Middle East, and then as a low paid nanny in the U.S.
Maria is petite and speaks with a soft, heavily-accented voice. Here is what Maria Koza had to say about her role in the family’s success:
“It’s a team effort. I guess I am the visionary and he is the doer.”
Comment below if you know of any other great men, whose pushy wives were the catalyst to their success.
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