About The Rational Formula
I didn’t set out to become an investor. I was an art major once—right after a stretch in psychology and just before deciding, briefly, on sociology. Across a dozen years and six colleges, I declared nine different majors. It took me a long time to find a path that made sense.
When I finally discovered value investing, it felt like it had been waiting for me.
Everything I’d been drawn to—psychology, systems, philosophy, behavior, complexity—suddenly converged in a field I’d spent years misunderstanding. I grew up in San Francisco in the ’90s around venture capital and big ideas, but I never imagined myself in finance. My dad was a successful VC— extroverted, and wired for risk. I was the opposite: quiet, reflective, obsessed with how things work. Investing didn’t seem like something people like me did.
That changed when I took an economics class in college and, eventually, a finance course that introduced me to Warren Buffett. I discovered value investing in my final semester, and within five years I’d become a full-time investor. That was over 15 years ago. I’ve been supporting my family through investing ever since.
I fell in love with investing early, went all-in, and had the freedom and obsession to treat it like a life’s work. Most people don’t get that chance. And yet, they still need access to better ideas—ones that go beyond index funds or market hype. I’ve always felt a pressure to share what I’ve learned. Over the years, people have asked for help, for insight, for guidance. And because I hadn’t worked to create anything shareable, I’ve mostly failed to help them.
That’s what The Rational Formula is meant to change.
This Substack is built to give investors, especially those starting out or unwilling to dive as deep as I did, a way to benefit from the same system that’s served me for years: finding under-the-radar companies with strong fundamentals and unreasonably low valuations. I focus on small stocks because that’s where the most interesting opportunities still live. Most investors never look there—or if they do, they don’t have a process they trust.
I built this to show them it’s possible.
Fifteen years in, I’m still doing what I’ve always done: turning over small companies, looking for strength the market hasn’t priced in. But now I’m going to start bringing others along. This journey has been too interesting, and too useful, to keep to myself.
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