Blake Bos: Speaking of companies, so often it's easy when you're investing to just look at the financials and everything's numbers. So often, I think investors forget the qualitative aspects of companies.
I want to talk about CEOs; some CEOs on your radar, because they are the lifeblood of the company. Things come from the top down. They set the tone for the company, and I was wondering what your expectations were there.
Isaac Pino: Yeah. Great leaders, I think, are how I make my investments. I'm looking at companies that have great leaders, often founders of the company.
One person who really piques my interest and I'm just fascinated by is Larry Page, over at Google (GOOGL -1.23%). As a CEO, he's talked about these ideas of taking "Moon Shots" at Google. What he means by moon shots is really reaching for the stars, making investments in very, very forward-thinking projects, and they're fascinating.
It's the Google Glasses that communicate to us information in real time as we walk through our world, the Google driverless cars -- a self-driving car that you just hop in. All of a sudden you have everything at your fingertips and you don't even have to focus on the road.
These are things that are not even really tangentially related to Google, but they're making investments in them, and I think CEOs that are willing to take those risks, but then understand that if they can monetize them and make them -- because innovation is essentially invention plus monetization or commercialization of an idea -- I think that's incredibly critical to an investment that I'm looking at.
I think General Electric (GE -3.19%) is another company with just incredibly deep pockets, so Jeff Immelt there, running the show ...
Blake: Great CEO.
Isaac: Yeah, a visionary leader. Of course, not the founder of that company -- it's been around for over a century -- but I think he's making bets on things that you haven't even thought about at this point.
The industrial Internet, so instead of connecting people and ideas, connecting things; manufacturing equipment, cars, all kinds of machines. It's called "the Internet of things."
Blake: Solar.
Isaac: Solar. We talked about design a little bit ago; 3D printing, obviously a fascinating industry, one that I think is going to disrupt supply chains and how they do things.
The other CEOs that I'd like to mention, of course, Steve Ells over at Chipotle (CMG -1.34%). I think he's disrupting the fast food market in a really interesting way.
Mickey Drexler over at J. Crew, not a publicly traded company, understands retail. It's in his blood, and a lot of things that he's identified about how to run a successful retailer are starting to show through the market.
Blake: Translate down and ...
Isaac: Exactly, and vertical integration, I think is important. J. Crew is trying to take control of their brand, from start to finish. Whether that's like Apple or whether that's like other retailers that have done that -- perhaps a Michael Kors is their coach -- I think that's a trend that will stay in retail because at the end of the day you'd rather control your brand and the essence of your company.
Blake: Yeah, it seems to be a big theme Everybody has their own branded stores now. I'm not saying they're all the same. It's a different experience, but brand stores are a big deal.
Isaac: Yeah, a lot of disruption in that industry. I would say Steve Ells, Jeff Immelt, Larry Page, some of the really fascinating people to watch. Jeff Bezos as well, of course, at Amazon (AMZN -2.56%).
Blake: Yeah, you've got to love those founder/CEOs, and Immelt as well. Well, Isaac, that's some great CEO picks. I encourage everybody watching to get online, look at these companies, check out these CEOs, do a little research. Fool.com has some great tools.
Thank you for watching, and Fool on!
