Gary Burrows

This transcript has been edited for better readability: Henry Harrison Welcome to the Entrepreneurs, Business and Finance podcast. We’re fortunate to have Gary Burrows on the show today. Gary is a young retiree, which by itself says a lot about the level of success he has achieved in life. He’s also a terrific guy and a friend of mine. He’s able to go skiing four times a year if he wants and enjoy a lifestyle that a lot of people dream about. But I’m sure that kind of life didn’t come without a lot of work, discipline, and challenges. So today we’re going to talk about how he got started, how he built his career, how he approached investing, and then wrap up with a very interesting story about his family and American history. Gary, why don’t you start by telling us how you became an expert in high-tech, computers, and the kind of work you did in your early career? Gary Burrows That goes back quite a long way. I was more of a theory-oriented person at first. I studied mathematics and originally thought about going into education. But a variety of things led me to people who were already out in the workforce at different companies. I put my resume out there and got intrigued by some of the opportunities that came back. At that stage, I really didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, so I accepted every interview and seriously considered every offer that came my way. Then I made my decision from there. I ended up working in what today might be called systems engineering, data analysis, or data science, applied to the telecom network. Back then, if you called it high-tech, people today might laugh because it was a very different era. A lot of the work involved optimization theory and mathematics, and I always loved mathematics. That background became the foundation for my career. I started at a company called Bell-Northern Research, which no longer exists. It was a fairly theoretical environment, but I met a lot of people from different backgrounds, and many of them were applying mathematics not only to engineering but also to investing. That’s really how I first became familiar with applying mathematics to investments. Some of the theory I already knew from school, but I didn’t yet know how to apply it in the real world. A lot of that learning came through networking — learning from other people, seeing what they were doing, and gradually understanding how those tools could apply outside of theory. I spent about ten years in that part of my career, and one of the biggest lessons I learned was how to apply mathematics to real-world problems, not just theoretical ones. The other major lesson was discipline — the discipline to keep doing the work consistently. Henry Harrison That’s fascinating. I know there was also a turning point where you moved from that applied mathematics environment into more of the business unit side of the company. Gary Burrows Yes, there was. A colleague and I had worked in the applied mathematics and systems engineering group for quite a while. We were paid fairly well, but not exceptionally well. One day we were wandering around the business unit area — what we called “the tower” — and we noticed that people over there seemed to live better. They had nicer offices, better lunches, better cars, and a different kind of lifestyle. So we decided maybe it was time to move into the business side of things. We each built a strategy to do that, and in some ways that ended what I originally thought would be my long-term career in applied mathematics. But really, it just shifted how I used it. Once I moved into the business world, I found a whole new application for mathematics — especially in investing. That’s where I began taking my retirement money more seriously, rolling my 401(k) into a self-directed IRA, and making my own investment decisions. Henry Harrison That’s one of the things I’ve always found especially interesting about your story. Most people with a 401(k) might go to a financial advisor, pick a diversified set of funds, and let it ride over the long term. But you were actively choosing individual stocks, using options, and really managing your own money more like a professional investor. You weren’t simply handing it off to someone else. You were doing the research yourself and making the calls. Gary Burrows That’s right. If someone doesn’t have the time, the interest, or the willingness to do the research, then they’re probably better off putting their money in some kind of mutual fund or diversified vehicle. But it isn’t impossible to do it yourself — if you’re willing to learn. One of the things that helped me was that I focused on companies that were already around me in my work life. In telecom, we worked with a lot of suppliers and technology companies, so I was constantly exposed to what those businesses did and how they fit together. Later, once I moved into the business unit and got involved in market research, I learned even more about companies in the tech world — semiconductor companies, chipmakers, memory companies, and others. A key concept you have to understand is the value chain. If you look at one company, you also need to understand all the players around it — who they buy from, who they sell to, who is actually making money in that chain, and where the value is being created. The end user may be at the bottom of the chain paying for a service, but that service provider is buying components from others, and those suppliers are buying from others still. Everyone is connected. If you understand the value chain well enough, you can start to identify who the winners and losers are likely to be. That’s one of the things that led me to do all my own investing. Over time, it became almost second nature because I had already identified a small handful of companies I wanted to follow closely. You don’t need to own 100 stocks. In fact, if you’re just one person, you probably can’t manage that properly. But if you do your homework and focus on a smaller group of strong companies, it can be done. The key is discipline — especially in the beginning. Your portfolio is not always going to go up. You have to know when to cut your losses. A lot of people will say, “It’s down now, but I’ll wait and it will come back.” But while you’re waiting, something else may already be going back up, and you miss that opportunity because you stayed tied to the wrong position. So discipline matters on both sides — discipline in research and discipline in knowing when to move on. Henry Harrison I know you also traveled the world and gave presentations to large groups. That seems like a big shift from doing analytical work behind a desk to speaking in front of large audiences, often internationally. A lot of people might assume that someone who is very strong in mathematics and analysis would be less comfortable speaking to crowds, but that clearly wasn’t the case for you. Gary Burrows That’s true. I had done a lot of teaching in graduate school, so I was never really uncomfortable speaking in front of groups. Even earlier than that, I had been involved in speech and drama in high school, so being in front of an audience wasn’t something that made me nervous. I think people at work recognized that, and as a result I ended up doing many presentations in many places, often for large audiences in 25 countries or more. In the early days of wireless, we were traveling everywhere talking about that technology. If you practice what you’re going to deliver, there really isn’t much reason to be nervous. Most people in the audience don’t know you personally and may never see you again, so there’s no reason to be afraid of the moment. Henry Harrison That’s a very logical way to put it. I didn’t ask earlier about your academic background. What degrees did you earn? Gary Burrows My undergraduate degree is in geophysics, and I have a master’s degree in mathematics. Henry Harrison Terrific. Toward the end of your career, what kind of work were you doing? Gary Burrows After systems engineering, I moved into market research, which then broadened into consumer research. A lot of what I did involved studying what consumers liked, what they were willing to buy, and what they were willing to pay for. It was really a combination of market understanding, consumer behavior, and what today would probably be called data science. Some of that involved surveys, but not in the simplistic way most people think of surveys. The questions are carefully designed in order to reveal meaningful patterns. One of the methods I really liked was something similar to simulated shopping. You might give people four different product options, each with different features and different prices, and ask them which one they would buy. Then you vary the combinations, collect the data, and do statistical analysis. That allows you to understand very accurately what features people value, what they are willing to pay more for, and what tradeoffs they are willing to make. We used that kind of work extensively with phones and telecom products. A simple example might be asking whether someone would rather have a phone that charges very quickly or a phone with a much larger battery. Those kinds of tradeoffs tell you a lot about what people actually value. Henry Harrison You now have a son who has recently graduated and is entering the workforce. What kind of advice would you give someone early in their career — especially someone who might someday want to achieve the kind of financial freedom you’ve built? Gary Burrows There’s a lot of advice I could give, but one of the biggest points is this: If you want to become a real subject matter expert, you need to focus intensely for probably about three years. More broadly, though, the best advice I can give is to think about where you want to be three years from today — and start working toward that now. Don’t wait until you suddenly decide you want a change and then realize you haven’t prepared for it. Most meaningful changes take two or three years of preparation if you want to do them properly. So you need to be looking ahead. I also advise people to periodically do a job search — maybe once a month or once every couple of months — not necessarily because they’re planning to leave, but because they need to see what companies are looking for and what trends are emerging. And every year, without exception, you should learn something new. That may mean deepening your expertise in one area or adding a new area entirely, but every single year your career should be growing. Because right behind you is another graduating class, and they’re coming in with the newest information. Professors are teaching the latest concepts, and the workforce is always refreshing itself. So if you want to stay competitive and keep your career dynamic, you have to manage it intentionally. You need to know where you want to go, where the market is moving, and how you want to grow. Henry Harrison That’s really excellent advice. Before we wrap up, I want to touch on one more topic because I think it’s a fascinating story. You have a family history connected to the early settlement of Texas. Can you share a little bit about that? Gary Burrows Yes. On my grandmother’s side, the family came over many years ago from Devonshire, England. Someone had gone there recruiting people to come to Texas at a time when there really wasn’t much here yet. So they got on a boat — basically sight unseen — and came over. They landed somewhere around New Orleans, then made their way by riverboat toward Shreveport, and from there continued by wagon to Carrollton, Texas. They had a large family — eight children — and my understanding is that they acquired land partly through a land grant and partly by buying it for about 50 cents an acre, even though they had never actually seen the land. There’s a book about their life called Sixty Years in Texas, written by one of my relatives, Jack Henry Jackson, and it tells the story of what life was like back then. This was a time when there were still Indian raids, when the Comanches were still on the plains, and when life was physically hard in ways most people today can barely imagine. When I read about their life, I’m struck by how difficult things were compared with the way we live now. But they made it. They survived, and they built lives that eventually gave all the rest of us — their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren — the chance to prosper. It’s an incredible story when you think about starting in Devonshire and making that journey to Texas with a wife and eight children, not really knowing what was waiting on the other side. Henry Harrison Just the thought of making that trip by wagon is amazing. No paved roads, no comfortable transportation, no air conditioning, and a completely unknown future ahead. It really gives perspective on how much determination people had to have in order to build a life here. Gary, you’ve had a very interesting life, and clearly there’s a lot more still to come. We may have to do a follow-up conversation sometime. Gary Burrows Anytime. There’s plenty more we could talk about. Henry Harrison Thank you so much for coming on, my friend. Have a great day, and we’ll talk again soon. Gary Burrows All right. Bye-bye.