Paul Johnson: Why "Value Investing" Was Never the Right Name. Fundamental Investing — Not Value vs. Growth Is the Real Divide in Markets

My guest today is Professor Paul Johnson, a veteran value investor, long-time Columbia and Fordham professor, and co-author of The Enduring Value of Roger Murray, Pitch the Perfect Investment, and The Gorilla Game. He's taught in the same value investing tradition that runs from Benjamin Graham through Roger Murray, and he brings both a practitioner's and a historian's eye to our conversation today.

02:10 – Origin story: a teenage bet on a gold penny stock turned $250 into $2,500 and hooked Paul on markets with "no physical labor."
08:46 – Debut theory: the '73–'74 crash plus the rise of relative performance permanently reshaped investing after Graham.
10:54 – Buffett's 1991 letter: value and growth investing are "basically the same thing" — the label "value investing" is redundant.
24:54 – Correction for the record: David Dodd, not Murray, taught Security Analysis until 1961.
27:04 – Murray's core contribution: rigor and discipline — illustrated by the Leon Cooperman "400-number table" story.
33:26 – The magnet metaphor: intrinsic value pulls price toward it over time, though price can overshoot or undershoot.
42:28 – Paul pushes back on his own construct: ignoring the future still means betting value stays stable.
47:39 – Bruce Greenwald's addition: sustainable competitive advantage, and the 1997 "Competitive Advantage Period" paper with Mauboussin.
51:53 – Why growth concentrates in mega-caps: scale, internet infrastructure, and the "optionality" to acquire threats early.
58:45 – Framing device: "What if AI is just a normal disruptive technology?" — like electricity or the internal combustion engine.
01:16:14 – "I say the key to investment" — a superior value estimate plus the ability to hold through volatility.
01:17:33 – A Buffett-adjacent friend rode $10K to $1B because he "didn't want to disappoint Warren."

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