Announcements and Gratitudes

* I’m looking to bring together what I’ve been developing the last two years – managing a multi-asset portfolio, the manager discovery and access created by the podcast, and the brand equity and goodwill built up from a sophisticated audience – with the goal of helping to build a next generation investing platform in a single or multi-family office, private wealth practice, or institutional investing group. If you’d like to explore collaborating or know someone forward thinking who might, please send me an email at ted@capitalallocators.com.

* For those who hear the call to adventure, sign ups for this summer’s Hero’s Journey Immersion experience are ready to go.

* Special thanks to those who reached out to our sponsor Canoe Intelligence. Measuring the success of podcast ad campaigns is allegedly difficult, but with Canoe receiving 10x its historical inbound interest after advertising on Capital Allocators, I think we might be moving towards statistical significance.

Reading (Ordered by reading time: tweets first, books last, and blog posts and articles in between) 

1. Podcast Guest Dinner Compilation.  Every few months I gather past podcast guests for dinner graciously sponsored by Peter Tiboris at Strongpoint Wealth Advisors. At April’s gathering, each attendee had to ante up by answering the question “What have you learned recently that has most stuck with you?”  The answers were so good that we put them together for premium subscribers. I’ll likely share these with everyone next month or the following, but if you have an urge for immediate gratification, sign up for a $249 premium membership and access the compilation along with the full library of transcripts.

2. Why David Swensen is the Roger Federer of Investing. My latest piece in Institutional Investor describes how many institutional investors play a different game from others, and that passive investing can replace only a small percentage of sophisticated, multi-asset class portfolios.

3. Scrutiny on Private Equity GPs.  Jon Harris of Alternative Investment Management put out a call to action for LPs to step up and push back on the increasing liberties private equity GPs are taking in their fund documents.  It follows nicely from The Hidden Tax on Private Equity Investors that I wrote a year ago, suggesting that private equity firms would soon face the kind of wrath from LPs that hedge funds have.

4. David Brooks, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life.” The piece is a teaser for Brooks’ recently published book that describes the way in which our culture inflames the ego and numbs the spirit, and how the experiences of people who face significant setbacks in their life plan (the first mountain) can recover to embrace a more meaningful life.

5. David Perrell’s blog. David is a prolific FinTwit writer and host of the North Star podcast.  I picked up his post What the Hell is Going On? and was blown away by the thoughtful exploration of the impact of technology on commerce, education and politics.

Listening
Capital Allocators
Episode 93:  Dan Ariely – Investing in Irrationality
Dan discusses how he measures and applies factors of human capital to an investment strategy.

Episode 94:  Ted Seides – Interviewing and Manager Meetings
I appeared on the Meeting Strategist podcast to discuss the nature and importance of meetings in our business.

Episode 95:  Paul Rabil – Lacrosse and Entrepreneurship
The LeBron James of lacrosse is launching the Premier Lacrosse League in June and tells the story of its formation and model.

Episode 96:  David Zorub – The Path to a Hedge Fund Launch
Experienced hedge fund investor David Zorub discusses his career and launch in a difficult environment in front of a crowd at Columbia Business School.

Episode 97:  Matt Levine – Money Stuff
Bloomberg View columnist discusses his writing process and favorite themes.

Best of the Rest
Michael Lewis’ Against the Rules podcast. Bestselling author Michael Lewis launched a podcast this month to tell the story of the decline of referees in our society – it’s eye opening.  He discussed it on Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz.

The Ron Burgundy Podcast with Deepak Chopra. Will Farrell is probably the funniest man alive. He created a podcast in the character of Ron Burgundy from Anchorman, and had Deepak Chopra try to teach Ron how to meditate. Too funny.

Have a good one,
Ted