Pods & Recs: No. 183
Today we have Doug Leone on leading top VC firm Sequoia, the man who started the indexing revolution, and Leigh Drogen on his quantamental approach to crypto.
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Investing
***Must Listen*** The Twenty Minute VC: 20VC: Sequoia’s Doug Leone on What Has Been Instrumental To Scaling Sequoia Over Generations, How Sequoia Thinks About International Expansion and What They Learned From China and India & Why When You Lose Pre-Seed You Become Private Equity. Doug Leone is the Global Managing Partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s most renowned and successful venture firms. The majority of the episode is on the qualitative aspects of running a firm in a way that enables people to perform at their best. He shares the principles of the firm, his maturation process as a leader, and how he’s created a culture that results in employees putting the success of the firm over themselves. Leone also covers what he thinks about new entrants into the VC space and what his mindset was behind Sequoia’s expansion into China back in 2005. [September 14, 2021–49 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
Trillions: Meet the Unsung Hero of the $11 Trillion Index Revolution. This episode is with John “Mac” McQuown, who worked with the head of Wells Fargo to develop the first index fund. He shares the struggles of launching it and what led to his friend, Jack Bogle, to bring it to the masses instead of Wells Fargo. You can read about this story here. [September 2, 2021–46 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The FORT with Chris Powers: #171: Chris Bloomstran — President & CIO at Semper Augustus — Finding Value in the Public Markets. Chris Bloomstran is the President and CIO of Semper Augustus Investments Group and is a fundamental value investor. In this episode, he walks through his path into investing, how he fits monetary and fiscal policy into his framework, and his sourcing and position sizing process. He finishes the episode with his thoughts on Berkshire Hathaway. [September 14, 2021–2 hours] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker
The Derivative: Researching the Risks of Return Stacking with Corey Hoffstein & Rodrigo Gordillo. Hoffsten & Gordillo discuss their paper, Return Stacking: Strategies for Overcoming A Low Return Environment. They argue that in a world where expected returns are low, investors can seek higher returns with less risk and low tracking error by using new products which, in combination, can provide more than $1 of exposure for every dollar invested. They elaborate on how this works and then address the higher fees and potential for lower diversification during a market downturn. [September 16, 2021–91 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
Excess Returns: Gregg Fisher on the Future of Value, Investing in Innovation and Lessons From 20+ Years as a Quant. Gregg Fisher is the founder of Quent Capital and previously grew Gerstein Fisher to over $5 billion in assets before selling it in 2016. The episode spends a lot of time covering Gregg’s research, including why dividend investing may be overrated, why investor behavior results in stocks not following a random walk, and what he thinks about the future outlook for factor premiums. [September 16, 2021–54 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Meb Faber Show
#350 — Startup Series — Saad Alam, Hone Health — 40% Of Men Over 35 Have Hormone Imbalance With Testosterone. Saad Alam is the founder and CEO of Hone Health, a company that helps you fix hormonal imbalances and low testosterone by offering at-home blood tests, 30 minute telehealth consults, and medications delivered directly to your door. He shares how a personal struggle led him to start the company to help other men. He discusses the reasons for the decline in both testosterone and fertility in men and then walks through the process of getting your testosterone levels tested with Hone Health. [September 13, 2021–48 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
#351 — Leigh Drogen, Starkiller Capital — If This Thing Isn’t Dead Yet, It’s Not Going To Die. Leigh Drogen is the General Partner of Starkiller Capital, an institutional investment firm employing both quantitative and fundamental strategies to blockchain based digital assets. He starts the episode with a look back at his time running Estimize, the largest estimates financial platform in the world, and his takeaways about the asset management industry. Then he shares what piqued his interest in crypto and what the process was like to build a trend and momentum model that led him to push his chips all in last October. They talk about the importance of crypto’s incentive structure, what things like staking and crypto lending mean, and some of the biggest risks in the space. [September 15, 2021–77 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
The Best Investment Writing Volume 5: Jack Vogel, Alpha Architect — Value Investing: An Examination of the 1,000 Largest Firms. Listen to Alpha Architect’s Jack Vogel read his piece, Value Investing: An Examination of the 1,000 Largest Firms. [September 17, 2021–17 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Doug Leone (Global Managing Partner, Sequoia):
Campbell Harvey (Duke Professor):
