The Art of Quality

Hosted by AOQ

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May 2026

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About the show

Welcome to the Art of Quality, the podcast that explores the lived experience of guests who have a deep familiarity with quality in the domains of business, entrepreneurship, investing, and the arts. We have learned like the stoics, stories carry most of the wisdom.

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28 recent

May 29, 2026Episode 311 hr 2 min

Quality in the Age of AI with Eric Markowitz

In this conversation, John Candeto, Eric Markowitz, and William Oliver dig into the cultural panic surrounding AI and push back against both the techno-doomers and the hyper-optimists, arguing that the real story isn't about the tools themselves but about the worldview that treats humans as machines to be optimized away. Drawing on Eric's recent essay "It Was Never About AI," they explore why the companies, careers, and lives that endure are built on the things AI can't touch: relationships, trust, struggle, craftsmanship, and the slow accumulation of quality over time. What emerges is a hopeful case that we may be entering a bull market in the humanities, where the most radical act isn't rejecting these tools but refusing to let them flatten what makes us human.

April 16, 2026Episode 3051 min

Finding Quality in the Field with Nadim Abi Abdallah

In this episode of The Art of Quality in Attention, William sits down with his friend and former colleague Nadim Abi Abdallah to explore the practice of fieldwork as a core component of the investment research process. The conversation focuses on how Nadim approaches fieldwork and what quality looks like in the fieldwork process - drawing on years spent in direct conversations with operators, building a ground-level understanding of businesses, developing deeper understanding of companies through firsthand insight. They discuss what it means to conduct fieldwork in an effective, responsible, and professional way, and why this method remains underutilized despite its potential. The episode offers a practical look into the mindset, discipline, and curiosity required to do this work well, and aims to provide valuable tools for investors seeking to deepen their investment research process.

March 4, 2026Episode 2959 min

Quality on the Far Side of Language with Chris Mayer

Chris Mayer returns for his second appearance on The Art of Quality and Attention. Chris is the co-founder and portfolio manager of Woodlock House Family Capital, a Maryland-based hedge fund, and the author of several influential books on investing, including 100 Baggers and his most recent work, The Unspeakable Level. In this conversation, we explore the ideas at the heart of The Unspeakable Level - a book that explores questions that are often difficult to articulate, yet fundamental to how we understand the world. Chris invites to adopt a deeper humility about what can truly be known. In particular, he challenges the common tendency - especially in business and investing - to mistake familiarity for understanding: believing that because we can name something, read about it, and analyze it through numbers or language, we therefore grasp it. The result is a conversation about perception and attention - one that offers practical ways to see more clearly and avoid the conceptual traps that often mislead even experienced decision-makers.

February 27, 2026Episode 281 hr 10 min

Quality in Ways of Knowing with Nicolas Michaelsen

In this episode of The Art of Quality and Attention, William welcomes Nicolas Michaelsen. Nico is a Danish entrepreneur who, after years of building companies, turned his attention toward his own spiritual practice and the cultivation of wisdom within the business world. He writes the Substack Ecologies of Wisdom. Over the past year, Nico has been a thoughtful voice on the subject of bringing one’s inner and outer worlds into alignment, speaking with openness and vulnerability about his own ongoing quest. In this conversation, William and Nico explore that journey in depth — discussing the practice itself, its mechanics and pitfalls, and the question of how we come to know what we know. They reflect on different ways of thinking about knowledge and truth, asking questions such as: How do we know what is true? How do we recognize what we are meant to do? And how do we serve with integrity? These are some of the themes they enjoy riffing on throughout the episode.

January 31, 2026Episode 271 hr 3 min

Quality at the Edge with Tom Morgan

In the first conversation with Tom Morgan a year ago, the focus was on the personal journey that led him to build The Leading Edge - a home for curious leaders navigating transition, meaning, and personal evolution. In this second episode, Willy and Tom move beyond origin stories and into lived practice. Their conversation explores what it means to cross thresholds - psychological, relational, and spiritual - when there is no clear map. They discuss how love often becomes the most reliable compass when certainty falls away; and why the quality of attention may be one of the most powerful yet overlooked forces shaping relationships and inner life. Willy and Tom also touch on subtler dimensions of experience: experience of syntropy - the pull toward coherence and connection. Throughout, they return to the importance of community.

January 16, 2026Episode 261 hr 2 min

Quality in Leadership with Patrick Boland

In this episode of The Art of Quality and Attention, William sits down with Patrick Boland. Patrick is a psychotherapist, leadership consultant, executive coach, and the author of The Contemplative Leader. He founded his consulting firm, Conexus, in 2013, and since then has worked with senior teams and leaders in global organizations ranging from Google, Unilever, Accenture, and Salesforce, to name just a few. Patrick was introduced to the show by fellow Art of Quality host Paul Higgins. Over the last couple of years, William has had the pleasure of getting to know Patrick and has been struck by the quality of his presence and the depth of his capacity to listen. William’s own experience of Patrick’s book, The Contemplative Leader, has been that of an excellent guide to shaping relationships and systems in ways that use one’s power and influence for the benefit of those around us. As Patrick himself would put it: The quality of presence we embody in our interactions fundamentally affects everything we do. The conversation that follows is a practical investigation into the qualities inherent in effective leadership, drawn from the lived experience of a seasoned leadership coach.

January 10, 2026Episode 2553 min

Quality Through Iteration: Reflections on 2025

In this episode, we look back on 2025. We reflect on stories from this year’s guests and on our own lived experiences in a shared pursuit around studying and practicing quality. Quality regularly shows up as something hard to define - becomes easier to see when you experience it, when you come into relationship with it. A common thread across our conversations is that this wisdom is earned through practice, not in the theory. In John’s words, success is iterative. He saw this firsthand in Geneva, learning from some of the world’s oldest watchmakers how iteration has allowed them to endure for centuries. This theme also runs through Paul’s conversation with Victor Wooten, and our episode on quality in nature, where we observe that nature itself is the result of countless ongoing experiments. What continues to excite us about The Art of Quality project is how practical these ideas are - and how directly they apply to everyday life. Thank you for being on this journey with us.

December 19, 2025Episode 241 hr 2 min

What Can the World’s Oldest Companies Teach Us About Longevity? Notes from the Field with Eric Markowitz Part 2

Our guest today is Eric Markowitz. Eric is a partner and the director of research at investment firm Nightview Capital and a former investigative journalist with bylines in the New Yorker, GQ, Fast Company and other outlets. A near-death experience prompted Eric to wonder why some cultures, companies and products dramatically outlast others. Eric is traveling the globe on a quest to answer one question, what allows a rare few systems to outlast? He has just returned from trips through Switzerland, Portugal, France, and Australia. This is the second episode in our Notes From the Field series with Eric, as he moves closer to publishing his book titled Outlast with Scribner, the flagship imprint of Simon and Schuster. Listeners will also enjoy our first episode in the series, which is linked here: https://theartofquality.co/investing-eric-markowitz-ep-5/ Today we discuss why practice is more important than ideas, why digging down into the work is more important than climbing the ladder to the top, and the most undervalued asset a firm has.

November 14, 2025Episode 2353 min

The Quality of Paying Attention with Ed Halliwell

Ed Halliwell is a mindfulness teacher and author with more than 20 years of experience leading public mindfulness courses, workshops, and retreats. He has introduced and taught mindfulness in a wide range of workplaces, including Accenture, the Houses of Parliament, and UNICEF UK. Ed is the author of Into the Heart of Mindfulness and Mindfulness: How to Live Well by Paying Attention. William first met Ed at a School of Life event in London in 2014 and was struck by the quality of Ed’s presence and the gentleness of his teaching. About six years ago, as William was founding his business, he began working with Ed one-to-one in what Ed describes as mindfulness coaching - a practice that helps people unhook from automatic thoughts and behaviours, meet difficulties with greater awareness and kindness, and make choices aligned with their needs and values. William credits this work as an ongoing foundation for sustaining a flourishing life through the practice of paying attention. In this episode, Ed Halliwell lays out how the quality of our attention shapes the way we perceive the world - often far more than we realise. When our capacity for observation is distorted by desire, greed, fear, or subtle expectations about how things should be, we lose touch with what is actually happening in the present moment. Our perception becomes clouded by psychological projection. William and Ed explore how attention, when cultivated with clarity and kindness, allows us to see more accurately, respond more wisely, and live with greater alignment. Their conversation ranges from the mechanics of mindfulness coaching to the ways in which our inner habits shape our outer experience. It is a deep and practical discussion about paying attention as a lifelong discipline.

October 31, 2025Episode 221 hr 14 min

Finding Quality Through Power Laws

The Art of Quality hosts re-convene for a conversation about power laws: what they are, why they matter, where they show up, and how they help us understand quality itself. Early in life John was struck by the notion that there is a fabric-pattern to reality, and we can learn some of it. That realization sparked a pursuit: to find the patterns that give rise to the good, the true, and the beautiful. As he dug deeper, John began to recognize clear patterns of quality in the natural world – across organisms, species, and galaxies – and saw the same patterns reflected in the social world: in cities, companies, and people. These patterns, he realized, follow power laws. And wherever power laws appear, they serve as a kind of signal – a beacon – for impact. In a world obsessed with averages – average performance, average experience, average outcomes – John saw that this framing was wrong. Power laws, not averages, rule the world. That insight reshaped the way he invests capital and led to a multi-year exploration of power laws: what they are, where they appear, and how we can act on them, which will be published as a book in 2026.