I had a fantastic call with @nathanworden, @tecantra, and @sidnistandard last night discussing options among other topics. During our talk we all were learning about each others investing styles and strategies. What was amazing was how differently we all approached due diligence (DD) but I believe we all learned a few new tricks from one another. The lesson I want to drive home with this memo is how important knowing who the CEO of a company is that you are investing in. It often gets overlooked, people dig into the fundamentals or the technicals but often forget the VERY HUMAN ELEMENT of investing and that starts at the top.

So let's talk about why you should get to know your companies CEO's and what to look for.

Why you should care: This is actually fairly simple to answer. The CEO is the captain of the organization and who the analysts are BASING THEIR ESTIMATES ON. The CEO is the proverbial "Horses Mouth" to the market.

Who is this person? Do you like them? If you don't like them.. odds are analysts won't care for them either.. I do not know about you but if I don't like the person behind whatever it is I am involved with in any capacity.. I probably won't like what they represent. That implicit bias can come out in the tone analysts use what articles they write and if they even bother talking about them at all.

Who would you pick in a fight? not exactly literally here.. but are they a strong leader or someone who will likely back down? Marc Benioff of $CRM is a prime example of this. I was listening to him on an earnings call a few years ago and some poor analyst had the audacity to ask him if he was worried about Microsoft entering the cloud space. His response was classic.. he basically laughed the guy out of the room and told him "We have been eating Microsoft lunch in the cloud for years and that isn't going to stop". That told me everything I needed to know.. I literally sat in my car listening and thought to myself.. well damn. I am doubling my position tomorrow. This guy is the man. Look at $CRM's chart.. go on do it.. its up and to the right year after year.

Have they done this before? again, sounds simple enough but it is really important. I bought into $TELL heavily over the past year mainly because of Charif Souki this is not his first successful play in the Natural Gas space. He was CEO of $LNG before he had a falling out with Carl Icahn and left to start $TELL. The second time around is always a bit easier for me personally anyway so I can't imagine it isn't for him.

Are they trustworthy / believable? for this one let's look at a bad example.. Dara Khosrowshahi of $UBER.. this guy was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread but I hate to bring it to everyone's attention.. he is just never right about what matters.. I personally drank his Kool Aide a bit too long before I came to this realization.. All the ideas and concepts he sells to the market sound great but they have one problem. They do not know how to make money. For that reason the stock is exactly where it was during its IPO two years ago. I know this is shots across the bow a bit but really what has he delivered to shareholders other than the promise of profits and then some Adjusted EBIDTA B.S.? "Hey Dara.. you can call me Dan Rather because I have news for you.. if you are going to adjust your earnings at least adjust them enough to be profitable." I know they report this week and are trading in sympathy with $LYFT today but when I signed up at IPO I did not expect to be in the same place two years later.. So here is Mr. Wonderful to tell you what I think.

I will now step off my soap box and hope you all start looking at who is leading the companies behind your stocks. I have found great success simply betting on the right people over any fundamental or technical analysis. The right people find a way to be successful invest in those people.