Intro

My guest today is Lee Ainslie, the founder of Maverick Capital. Lee started his investing career at Tiger Management where he worked for Julian Robertson. In 1993, he left to start Maverick and has built the firm into one of the top-performing hedge funds of the last 30 years. Lee doesn’t speak in public often so this is a fascinating insight into what it takes to build an enduring investment business - both psychologically and operationally. Throughout the conversation, we flick between his lessons building Maverick, his perspective on the market, and what he’s learned about the craft of investing. I hope you enjoy this great conversation with Lee Ainslie.

Listen to Founders Podcast

Founders Episode 311: James Cameron

Join Colossus live in NYC with Patrick O’Shaughnessy and David Senra on Oct. 19.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

-----

This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. Tired of running your own expert calls to get up to speed on a company? Tegus lets you ramp faster and find answers to critical questions more efficiently than any alternative method. The gold standard for research, the Tegus platform delivers unmatched access to timely, qualitative insights through the largest and most differentiated expert call transcript database. With over 60,000 transcripts spanning 22,000 public and private companies, investors can accelerate their fundamental research process by discovering highly-differentiated and reliable insights that can’t be found anywhere else in the market. As a listener, drive your next investment thesis forward with Tegus for free at tegus.co/patrick.

-----

Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 

Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.

Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.

Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus

Show Notes

(00:03:00) - (First question) - Lee tells us about his relationship with Steve Mandel

(00:04:29) - Why he thinks Steve gave him a hand into the role he excelled at

(00:07:22) - The concept behind investment talent

(00:13:08) - Steps he takes to hire the right individuals for his team

(00:16:14) - Why he stepped out on his own to start Maverick Capital

(00:20:48) - What he thinks makes for a great investment or stock purchase

(00:25:16) - How Maverick maintains its edge over other comparable firms

(00:28:31) - Features of a business that get his attention in a unique way

(00:32:03) - What he learned from Sol Price

(00:38:21) - The difficult aspects of portfolio construction

(00:42:04) - How zero interest rates affected the long short style of investing

(00:47:22) - Positioning his team for success against other competitors 

(00:50:32) - How private market activity can affect public market activity 

(00:54:27) - Software companies and their strengths and weaknesses in the investment market

(00:59:33) - Things he tells his team to watch for

(01:04:10) - What Lee's learned about money

(01:07:02) - The most important conversation he’s had in Mavericks history 

(01:12:38) - Advice for senior executives trying to pass on responsibilities to others

(01:17:54) - What the next ten years for Maverick Capital look like 

(01:20:42) - Things Lee and Warren Buffett disagree on

(01:24:11) - The components of a great investment pitch

(01:25:08) - The hardest question anyone could ask him

(01:28:48) - What he thinks is important having started Maverick Ventures 

(01:31:32) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Lee