Rule Breaker Investing

The Motley Fool

David Gardner, co-founder of The Motley Fool, is among the most respected and trusted sources on investing. As a best-selling author, hugely successful stock picker, and financial authority, David has led The Motley Fool’s growth into a worldwide investment and financial advisory services company. Each week David shares his insights into today's most innovative and disruptive publicly traded companies -- and how to profit from them by following his signature “Rule Breaker Investing” principles.

Pre-order David's new book, Rule Breaker Investing, to dive deeper into these game-changing principles: https://lnk.to/rulebreakerinvesting

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21 episodes
Updated Yesterday

Episodes21

Newest first

Yesterday · 1 hr 1 min
Authors in August: Thi Nguyen’s “The Score”
Authors in August is back! It’s our 9th year featuring authors of books that David loves and thinks you’ll love too. So for the third time, philosopher and game scholar Thi Nguyen joins back with Rule Breaker Investing—and this time the conversation reaches far beyond games. What happens when the scores we invent to measure success begin quietly reshaping what we value? Together, in an incredibly wide-ranging discussion, David and Thi explore rankings, metrics, investing, institutions, artificial intelligence, and the subtle difference between playing a game… and letting the game play you. And we close with a rousing round, as ever, of Buy, Sell, or Hold? Whose scorecard are you living by? Host: David Gardner Guest: Thi Nguyen Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 29 · 48 min
July 2026 Mailbag: Year Twelve Begins
As Rule Breaker Investing enters its twelfth year, it is fitting to hand the microphone back to the people who have helped shape it from the very beginning: our listeners. This month’s Mailbag spans investing, artificial intelligence, financial freedom, World Cup soccer, custodial Roth IRAs, Rule Breaker stock selection… and even a soundtrack for Foolish living?! Along the way are a heartbreaking story, practical questions, imaginative ideas, and reminders that the best investing community doesn’t simply exchange stock tips—we help all of us become smarter, happier, richer. And perhaps a little wiser, too. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: AMZN, AXON, ISRG, MELI, NVDA, PLTR, RKLB, SERV, SHOP, TEM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 22 · 43 min
Five Idle Thoughts of a Summer’s Day, Vol. 3
It’s become something of a midsummer tradition on Rule Breaker Investing: set aside the markets for a week and simply follow curiosity wherever it leads. This year’s sampler wanders through technology, sports, business, demographics, literature, and a few unexpected places in between. Along the way are thoughts about how to get the most out of AI, a few tweaks that could improve the world’s biggest sporting event, a prediction about who may be becoming the world’s most valuable people, and a dramatic reading of one of David’s favorite short stories. Two pages. Idle thoughts for you, of a summer’s day. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 16 · 47 min
10 Years Later: 5 Brexit-Inspired Stocks
In the anxious days following Brexit, rather than predict the future, David asked a different question: Where are the opportunities? The result was a five-stock sampler built not on politics, but on optimism. Now a full decade has passed. Joined by longtime Fool Karl Thiel, we crack open the time capsule, revisit the original investment theses, score all five stocks against the market, and ask what a ten-year scorecard can teach that three years never could. Some ideas exceeded expectations. Others humbled us. All of them remind us why Rule Breakers look beyond the headlines and invest for the long haul. Host: David Gardner Guest: Karl Thiel Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: GOOGL, EEFT, HAIN, BKNG, TSLA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 8 · 45 min
Great Quotes, Vol. 22: A Nation Forever Young
Every so often, five quotations come along that don’t merely make you nod. They make you stop, put the book down, and think. This week we explore why the best investors first become students of themselves, why our minds work better when they’re surrounded by rich ideas, why business is one of humanity’s great engines for creating value, why prosperity may make societies not just wealthier but wiser, and why one vision of America argues that a nation’s greatest competitive advantage isn’t its geography or its resources—it’s its ability to continually renew itself. Five quotations. Five conversations. And perhaps one or two ideas that will quietly change the way you see investing, business, and life. Happy 250th to the US of A! Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: AMZN, MCD, NVDA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 1 · 34 min
What You’ve Done to Create Financial Freedom, Vol. 4
Each Independence Week, Rule Breaker Investing asks a simple question: What have you done over the past year to create financial freedom—for yourself or for others? This year’s answers feature a listener’s Declaration of Financial Independence and a young woman whose very first stock purchase turned out to be… Nvidia. Along the way, we revisit three favorite moments from the first three years of this annual tradition, discovering that the path toward financial freedom may be simpler than it first appears: Believe. Persist. Pass it on. Happy Independence Week—and may financial freedom continue to echo like a Liberty Bell. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: NVDA, SCHW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 24 · 44 min
June 2026 Mailbag: “Do You Know Its Market Cap?”
This month’s Mailbag ranges from Washington, D.C. to Germany, from the SEC to the moon, and from individual stock ownership to the deeper question of what freedom is actually for. Along the way, fellow Fools write in about transparency, curiosity, market caps, parenting, AI, adding to winning investments, and what can happen when decades of patient investing quietly compound into opportunities to help others. As always, the best part of the Mailbag is you. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: HAS, ISRG, JEPI, KO, MAT, MSCI, NKE, NVDA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 17 · 1 hr 6 min
Market Cap Game Show: The King-Sharon Rule Debuts
The Market Cap Game Show returns for its 42nd installment, with longtime Motley Fool personalities Charly Travers and Jason Moser battling for a coveted spot in next March’s Market Cap Madness Final Four. But this episode marks something new. For the first time, players can invoke the King-Sharon Rule, adding an extra layer of strategy, risk, and reward to the game. Agree or disagree is no longer the only choice. Feeling confident? Call “higher” or “lower” and put an extra half-point on the line. Ten stocks. Two seasoned competitors. One brand-new rule. And for reasons that only became apparent while recording, an unusually heavy concentration of food, cars, food delivered by car, food consumed after getting out of a car, car parts, collector cars, and at least one company that makes spices for the food. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: DASH, GPC, HGTY, MKC, MTN, OC, RACE, SYY, TDG, TEAM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 10 · 47 min
Stock Stories, Vol. 12: Time Travel Investing
For the twelfth time, we gather around the campfire for one of RBI’s favorite traditions: Stock Stories. Five Fools. Five investing lessons. This summer’s tales share a surprising common thread: A biotech shell company that refused to die. An old gift of IBM stock quietly compounding for decades. A Fool who finally bought Alphabet nearly twenty years after he first meant to. A company called Life360 proving that “obvious” doesn’t mean “fully valued.” And a producer awakening to stock-market investing in his 50s. The lesson? You may think you missed it. You probably didn’t. Pull up a chair, grab a marshmallow, and join us around the campfire. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: GOOGL, IBM, LIF, UBER (and some random CUSIP#!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 3 · 36 min
I Fought The Law (And The Law Won), Vol. 3
Why do some organizations seem unable to solve the very problems they were created to fix? Why do seemingly rational people end up chasing the wrong goals? And why does one innocent purchase so often lead to five more? In this new volume of RBI’s recurring cerebral series, David explores a handful of memorable laws and principles that help explain how people, businesses, markets, and institutions actually behave… from the sublime to the silly. Some are famous. One is his own. All are useful. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 27 · 49 min
May 2026 Mailbag: Divvy-Pops, Jellybeans & the Kids of Kopachuk
What happens when Nvidia’s annual dividend suddenly exceeds David’s original Motley Fool cost basis—six times over? This month’s Mailbag brings back a Foolish old term, “divvy-pop,” while also revisiting the power of doing less, holding more, and letting great companies keep surprising you. Also inside: a Buffett-meets-Rule-Breaker reflection from British Columbia, a jellybean contest gone mathematically sideways, a GameStop question that runs straight into the Snap Test, and a closing shout-out to Mr. Ernst’s personal finance class at Kopachuck Middle School in Gig Harbor, Washington—where the next generation is already learning that investing means ownership. Companies Mentioned: AAPL, AMZN, ANET, BIDU, BN, BRK.A, BRK.B, CHWY, EBAY, ⁠FFH.TO⁠, GME, GOOG, ISRG, MELI, META, NFLX, NVDA, SHOP, TMFC, TSLA Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 20 · 1 hr 1 min
60 Thoughts As I Turn 60
To mark his 60th birthday, David delivers what may be the most distilled episode in Rule Breaker Investing history: 20 thoughts about investing, 20 about business, and 20 about life—gathered from decades of entrepreneurship, stock-picking, reading, losing, winning, and trying to stay Foolish along the way. From the “Ship of Fools” and the spiffy-pop, to optionality, fads that weren’t fads, the hardest thing in life, divergence and convergence, and why the longer Frank Lloyd Wright lived, the more beautiful life became… this is a fast-moving collection of convictions, stories, quotes, and life-earned observations designed to stick with you long after the episode ends. A milestone birthday. A landmark episode. [And yes: somehow, he fit 60 thoughts within 60 minutes.] Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Companies Mentioned: ABNB, AMZN, CROX, GOOG, LUV, NFLX, SBUX, TSLA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 13 · 43 min
What You Have Learned from David Gardner, Vol. 7
Once a year, around David’s birthday, listeners send in notes sharing what they’ve learned from this podcast over the years—about investing, business, and life. This year’s volume includes reflections on “dips wait for dips,” learning to appreciate mistakes instead of fearing them, the surprising power of simply doing nothing during market volatility, and why optimism itself may be one of the great competitive advantages in life. Along the way: a physician assistant on the front lines of COVID, a renowned cancer surgeon who juggles, a Foolish Leprechaun who finally stopped trading and started investing, and a Scotsman reminding us all to look for L’Optimisme in the world. Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 6 · 55 min
10 Years Later: 5 Winners in a Thinking World
What happens when you actually do the thing most investors only talk about… and hold stocks for a full decade? This week, David welcomes The Motley Fool’s Tim Beyers and together they go back exactly 10 years—to the week—to revisit five companies picked in May 2016, scoring how they really did and, more importantly, asking why. From biotech to big data to media to real estate, this episode is about both the scoreboard and the lessons only time can teach. If you’ve ever wondered what a true 10-year mindset looks like—voilà. Host: David Gardner Guest: Tim Beyers Producer: Kristi Waterworth Companies Mentioned: CELG, DIS, MNDY, SPLK, TWTR, Z Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 29 · 39 min
April 2026 Mailbag: Harbor, Hawthorne & Higher-or-Lower
From buying in thirds instead of waiting for dips, to a dishwasher hack that still requires the humans to remember the hack, to one listener’s beautifully rebalanced “harbor-and-horizon” portfolio, this month’s mailbag is as motley as ever. Along the way, David cleans up a long-used reference to Heisenberg vs. Hawthorne, hears how Magical Athlete has become a family hit, and considers a pair of listener suggestions that may permanently improve the Market Cap Game Show. Companies Mentioned: ADBE, DUOL, HUBS, INTU, ISRG, MELI, NBIS, NVDA, RKLB, TSM Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 22 · 56 min
Three Fools Vol. 2, with Bill Burke & Mahan Tavakoli
What happens when you bring together three storytellers, three themes, and a podcast devoted to making you smarter, happier, and richer? You get Three Fools, our continuing episodic series! This time ’round, David is joined by superstar guests Bill Burke and Mahan Tavakoli as they each share three stories—one to educate, one to amuse, and one to enrich. From investing lessons that last a lifetime to laugh-out-loud anecdotes and heartwarming life insights, these nine stories are packed with inspiration and practical takeaways. Host: David Gardner Guests: Bill Burke, Mahan Tavakoli Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 15 · 48 min
Gotta Know the Lingo, Vol. 8
Some financial terms sound scarier than they are. Others sound familiar… right up until you realize you don’t actually know what they mean. This week, David returns with Volume 8 of Gotta Know the Lingo, welcoming Fool analysts Alicia Alfiere, Amanda Kish, and Nick Sciple to help translate the language of investing for the rest of us. Some terms are simpler, some more advanced, all of them useful—and if you’ve ever nodded along to financial jargon hoping nobody would ask a follow-up, this episode is for you. As always, there’s a scoring system, a little Foolish fun, and a few concepts that may stick with you longer than the ticker tape. Host: David Gardner Guests: Alicia Alfiere, Amanda Kish, Nick Sciple Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 8 · 44 min
Mental Tips, Tricks & Lifehacks, Vol. 11
Can you quickly decide which AI companies deserve your attention—and which to skip? What do you believe that most people don’t? And is there a simple trick, learnable in one afternoon, that can delight kids (and maybe yourself) for a lifetime? This week, David returns with Volume 11 of one of our OG episodic series: Mental Tips, Tricks & Lifehacks. He shares seven small ideas that punch above their weight: from a clever $10 household fix, to a mindset shift borrowed from Kevin Kelly, to dialing down big ambitions into “little bets” that actually get done. Oh, and some recent boardgame picks! Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 1 · 36 min
Blast From The Past, Vol. 12: ABB
Some truths are too good to say only once. This week, David re-blasts five timelessly powerful ideas from the past—about identity, investing, serenity, frameworks, and questioning—and brings them together in a fresh 2026 mix. One quietly powerful idea runs underneath: What you do, repeatedly, becomes who you are. Along the way: A single line that might rewire how you think about your own habits (and your portfolio) A Silicon Valley inversion that flips investing on its head Shakespeare, serenely out-investing most of Wall Street Why Warren Buffett shouldn’t have bought Amazon—and why that’s good news And a modern upgrade to “question everything” for the age we’re actually living in Companies mentioned: AMZN, CMG, ISRG, MELI, NFLX, NVDA, SHOP, TSLA Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
March 25 · 35 min
March 2026 Mailbag: Habits, Hacks & “Boom”
March Madness may be over, but the Mailbag is just beginning—and as always, you’re the star of the show. This month we hear from listeners who tracked the data on our Market Cap Game Show strategies (does “always disagree”… really work?), revisit a thoughtful challenge from Professor Jason Corso on whether Rule Breaker Investing is built on habits, recipes, or something closer to an algorithm, pick up a clever Google News hack that lets you see the world through another country’s headlines, and yes… return to Pet Peeves territory with a “Bamm!” vs. “Boom!” breakdown of locker room acoustics. Along the way, we touch on how we think, how we learn, and how we behave—in markets and in life. And we close with one Fool’s simple question: Does the Snap Test apply… beyond stocks? Sign up for The Motley Fool’s Breakfast News here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.fool.com/breakfastnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Order David’s Rule Breaker Investing book here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1804091219/⁠⁠⁠ Companies mentioned: AXON, DIS Host: David Gardner Producer: Bart Shannon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices