David Swensen walks into the office every day embodying Yale’s perpetual time horizon. The way he instills and reinforces that mindset is one of his many unique skills. Shortly after I left Yale and had a summer job at Brahman Capital, I was taking in a ball game in the old Shea Stadium with Yale’s longtime real estate star Alan Forman. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I distinctly remember Alan responding to a concern I had a few years away with one of the office's oft-repeated cliches, "Don’t be so short term.” At that moment, I realized how quickly and easily I lost sight of that all-important lesson, and I made a mental note to never forget it.
