People just were enamored with your telling me i could get 12 % every year. That sort of thing's like bertie made off,. In retrospect, how people would blindly go in to a thing where even the numbers couldn't be trusted. People often ask me, if you could design one quant system, what would it do? And it would be it would return between 8 and 12 % a year and have the volatility of bonds does not exist over time. Take signd me up.
Our guest this week is renowned short-seller Jim Chanos, founder, and president of Kynikos Associates. Over the course of his long and successful career, Jim has publicly bet against companies like Enron, which Barron’s deemed the “market call of the decade, if not the past 50 years.” While many know him for these famous shorts, fewer know that Jim is also a passionate historian, and is a firm believer in the notion that history can act as a useful guide for investors today. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss:
- How Jim started his career in finance
- The Mississippi Bubble
- How past financial frauds and manias can be useful for modern investors
- Tesla
- Lessons from the Great Financial Crisis
- Jim’s financial history course at Yale and Wisconsin
- Theranos
And much, much more… we hope you enjoy.