How Long-Term Investing Sharpens My Executive Edge and Doubles down on my 2 x Masters Degrees
I have a confession to make. When I buy shares in companies like Palantir, Microsoft, CrowdStrike, The Trade Desk or C3 AI, the ticker symbol is only half the story. The other half is a front-row seat to world-class operators—an apprenticeship I could never purchase through an MBA alone. By following these firms with the obsession of a lifelong fan—reading every 10-K, live-tweeting earnings calls at 3 a.m., replaying conference keynotes on the treadmill—I’m continually honing may Executive Skills, the very skills my clients pay me to deploy: digital fluency, data-driven decision-making and disciplined execution.
Below is a glimpse of what that “on-the-job investor training” looks like, and how the lessons migrate straight into the boardrooms and project war rooms I inhabit every day.
1. Palantir – Operationalise the insight, not the dashboard
Watching Tampa General Hospital slice MRI turnaround times by 30 percent and build a live sepsis-detection service in six weeks on Palantir Foundry/AIP rewired my own mental model of transformation. The takeaway is simple yet profound: value is created when data flows all the way to the point of action—when analytics become applications that intervene, not just inform. I now challenge every client to ask, “Where does this report change a real-world decision—today?” Anything less is vanity.
2. Microsoft – Platform economics amplified by AI
Copilot’s enterprise pilots show knowledge-workers clawing back roughly half an hour per day, with 40 percent of employees already using it daily and entry-level staff saving up to 37 minutesbarrons.com. Behind those numbers is a masterclass in ecosystem leverage: Microsoft fused GPT-4o into tools the world already lives in, then priced the lift. That reminds me to look for adjacency synergies in my own product roadmaps—finding features that piggy-back existing habits instead of demanding new ones.
3. CrowdStrike – Threat-hunting at machine-speed
CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform now ingests trillions of telemetry events, feeding real-time AI that can spot eCrime tradecraft before it detonatesir.crowdstrike.com. Its architecture demonstrates that speed is a security feature, not a KPI. In capital-project risk reviews I borrow that ethos: shorten detection loops, automate escalation, hunt for leading indicators—not rear-view metrics.
4. The Trade Desk – Transparency as competitive moat
Jeff Green’s team is racing to migrate every advertiser from Solimar to the AI-powered Kokai platform by the end of 2025marketingdive.com. Why? Because Kokai surfaces impression-level cost curves and carbon data few rivals will expose. It’s a reminder that in opaque markets, radical clarity wins trust and share of wallet. I translate that lesson into procurement playbooks that publish real-time cost-to-serve dashboards for subcontractors—turning potential friction into loyalty.
5. C3 AI – Composable, domain-specific Gen-AI
C3 AI now ships 30-plus generative applications that orchestrate data retrieval, analysis and workflow initiation across siloed OT/IT systemsc3.ai. Each app is essentially a pre-trained “industry agent.” That modularity pushes me to design transformation programs as libraries of micro-capabilities that business users can mix-and-match, rather than monolithic roll-outs that suffocate under their own weight.
Cross-Pollination in Practice
- Healthcare scheduling → Construction logistics
Palantir’s MRI optimisation logic became the seed for a dynamic crane-time scheduler we built for a hospital expansion project. Same queuing theory, new context. - Copilot prompts → Executive comms
I adopted Microsoft’s “grounding” technique (feeding documents into the prompt) to help COOs draft board packs in minutes, cutting prep cycles by 25 percent. - Falcon’s “indicator of attack” → Safety leading indicators
We now monitor tool-tag data on-site; deviations (e.g., grinders used > normal hours) auto-trigger a safety huddle before an incident occurs. - Kokai transparency → Supplier scorecards
Our lifecycle-cost dashboards make visible the carbon and cash impact of every design choice, winning CFO support for early-stage V-value engineering. - C3 AI composability → No-code risk apps
Project teams assemble risk-heat-map widgets from a catalogue instead of submitting IT tickets—accelerating mitigation planning by weeks.
Why the Investor Mindset Matters
- Skin in the game – Ownership forces intellectual honesty. If a thesis breaks, the red ink is immediate. That discipline spills over into my strategy work.
- Pattern recognition at scale – Tracking multiple category leaders reveals convergent signals—platformisation, agentic AI, trust-through-transparency—long before they hit mainstream consulting decks.
- Language agility – Earnings calls are masterclasses in narrative clarity. Absorbing how Satya, Alex, or George Kurtz communicate lets me translate complex ideas into plain English for frontline teams.
- Optimism tethered to execution – Great companies dream boldly and publish the backlog. That balance inoculates me against both cynicism and hype.
Final Words
I’m under no illusion that owning a few hundred shares makes me a Steve Jobs in waiting—but I do believe studying the best is the fastest way to raise my own ceiling. If you’re wrestling with a gnarly operational knot—whether it’s data trapped in silos, security blind-spots, or a supply-chain crying out for transparency—consider borrowing from the playbooks of the firms already solving those problems at planetary scale.
Better yet, become a shareholder-student yourself. The tuition is volatile, but the curriculum is unbeatable.
Check out more: Missed out on the over all series?
Murray Slatter
Strategy, Growth, and Transformation Consultant: Book time to meet with me here!
