You can find a full transcript of this conversation Compound (part I, part II).

Alix Pasquet III is the Managing Partner and portfolio manager at Prime Macaya Capital. Disclaimer: The information contained in this summary has been prepared solely for informational purposes and is not an offer to sell or purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell or purchase any interests or shares in any of the funds managed by Prime Macaya Capital Management LP.  Any such offer will be made only pursuant to an offering memorandum and the documents relating thereto describing such securities (the “Offering Documents”) and to which prospective investors are referred.  This summary is subject to and qualified in its entirety by reference to the Offering Documents.  An investment in those funds carries certain risks, including the risk of loss of principal.    While all the information prepared in this presentation is believed to be accurate, Prime Macaya Capital Management LP makes no express warranty as to the completeness or accuracy nor can it accept responsibility for errors, appearing in the presentation.  Other events which were not taken into account may occur and may significantly affect the returns or performance of the fund.  Any projections, outlooks or assumptions should not be construed to be indicative of the actual events which will occur. This summary is provided to you on a confidential basis and is intended solely for the use of the person to whom it is provided.  It may not be modified, reproduced or redistributed in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Prime Macaya Capital Management LP.

My conversation with Adam Mead, author of The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway.

You can find the full essay on Julian Robertson at: neckar.substack.com/p/the-tiger-that-was-a-wolf-lessons

This conversation was recorded in June 2022. You can find a full transcript at manual.withcompound.com.

Alix Pasquet III is the Managing Partner and portfolio manager at Prime Macaya Capital. Notes on substack. Presentation on youtube. Disclaimer: The information contained in this summary has been prepared solely for informational purposes and is not an offer to sell or purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell or purchase any interests or shares in any of the funds managed by Prime Macaya Capital Management LP.  Any such offer will be made only pursuant to an offering memorandum and the documents relating thereto describing such securities (the “Offering Documents”) and to which prospective investors are referred.  This summary is subject to and qualified in its entirety by reference to the Offering Documents.  An investment in those funds carries certain risks, including the risk of loss of principal.    While all the information prepared in this presentation is believed to be accurate, Prime Macaya Capital Management LP makes no express warranty as to the completeness or accuracy nor can it accept responsibility for errors, appearing in the presentation.  Other events which were not taken into account may occur and may significantly affect the returns or performance of the fund.  Any projections, outlooks or assumptions should not be construed to be indicative of the actual events which will occur.  This summary is provided to you on a confidential basis and is intended solely for the use of the person to whom it is provided.  It may not be modified, reproduced or redistributed in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Prime Macaya Capital Management LP.

I am a big fan Marc Rubinstein and his Net Interest substack and was very excited to finally record a conversation with him. Marc previously covered financials and fintech as a research analyst and hedge fund investor and now shares his takes on the sector with his readers on a weekly basis. It’s a very well written and insightful lens on a fascinating corner of the market. We talked about banks, fintech, the importance of incentives and culture, payments, the need to watch regulators, how alternative asset managers have been picking up business from investment banks, and the danger of relying on the view of CEOs too far removed from the risk. You can find show notes on the substack.

“We begin our lives as growth stocks and end our lives as value stocks.” I’m happy to share my conversation with my friend Nick Maggiulli who writes the excellent personal finance blog Of Dollars and Data. Nick just came out with his first book: Just Keep Buying: Proven Ways To Save Money And Build Your Wealth. He uniquely combines his data-driven research with a personal perspective and I really like that he distills the work down into rules that are effective yet pragmatic. His advice is free from some of the guilt-driven personal finance drivel (save on avocado toast to get wealthy..). We talked about the book, his writing process, the optimal level of fame, and why he thinks people should not pick stocks themselves. “Fear has a far greater grasp on human action than the impressive weight of historical evidence.” Jeremy Siegel “You have to keep reminding yourself of that quote. It's my favorite investment quote, because it's the only thing that keeps me from letting my behavior take over from my logic.” Nick Maggiulli

Hello everyone, I’m excited to share my second conversation with Sebastian Mallaby. Last time, we discussed his book More Money Than God. A quote from that conversation stuck with me: “The key was to do an unreasonable amount of preparation work. It shows you're serious and not wasting people's time by asking the obvious questions." This time, we discussed The Power Law (see my write-up) in which he tackled the history of venture capital. The two worlds make for an interesting contrast: venture capitalists, networkers by nature, are more willing to meet and chat. But they’re also natural storytellers which presents a challenge in the search for truth. In his book, Mallaby tried to disentangle luck and skill in venture investing, how to build winning and lasting cultures, and the importance of VCs for silicon valley. And while he admits that individually “the story of every bet can seem to hinge on serendipity,” he argues that over the long run, “the best venture capitalists consciously create their luck.” Individual venture capitalists can “can stumble sideways into fortunes” and at times it seems like luck beats diligence and foresight. The best however, “work systematically to boost the odds that serendipity will strike repeatedly.” “The great challenge at venture partnerships is that the principals must refrain from killing each other.” Michael Moritz “When people write about the venture business, they’re always writing about the startups we back. They never write about the most important investment we make, which is in the business.” Michael Moritz. "The fast moving of ideas, people and money until they reached their optimal use, that’s what made Silicon Valley worked. That’s what made innovation turbocharged. "But where did that fast circulation come from, and my argument is it comes from venture capitalists." I had a lot of fun digging into these questions with him. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

I’m excited to share my conversation with Mary Childs, author of The Bond King (and co-host at Planet Money) on the rise and fall of legendary bond manager Bill Gross. Mary and I talked about Bill’s breakfast habits (did low blood sugars end his career?!), his card counting days, the culture of paranoia at PIMCO, how he combined multiple sources of edge into “structural alpha” for long-term outperformance, the difficulty for a founder to leave their firm, Bill’s desire for fame, and how emotions ultimately got in the way of investing. Some highlights from the conversation: Opening the door to a story: “If you're staring at a closed door … you just have to come up with a little piece of information to get that person to open that door, to crack it open. A little piece of gossip, a story that everyone's talking about. In and of itself that gossip is useless to you as a journalist, of course. But you can asking somebody, Hey, I keep hearing this ridiculous story. You have a little nugget of truth in there. You don't know what it is yet. … A lot of people want to help you understand and don't want to see the story misrepresented.” Traits of a founder: “The things that make someone capable of achieving the track record that Bill Gross did, building the kind of firm that Bill Gross was a part of, those personality traits are: you're going to be exacting. You're going to be really intense and focused. You're going to be a perfectionist, a micromanager. You're going to keep a really tight grip. These things, generally speaking help contribute to the success of the firm. … For the most part, these are things you see very frequently among founders, and also that toxic culture that can often come along with some of those traits. Those traits also make it very difficult, if not impossible, to have a graceful transition away from that founder. Because the minute they start to loosen their grip, they freak out. … The tight grip is who they are. This firm is who they are.”  Being the house: “Bill gross learned from Ed Thorp’s book called Beat the Dealer that you can count cards. … I think that this sensibility of both understanding the math but also feeling the pace of the table and knowing when you have that edge and when you don't, and also watching all the people around you who have no edge whatsoever and who were just flopping around taking dumb chances. All of that helped to inform how he approached the market and who he saw as his competitors. His competitors, aren't the dumb people doing the dumb stuff. His competitor is the market, is the dealer. This shows up when PIMCO figured out that the US government wasn't going to let certain institutions fail in the financial crisis. That there was going to be a government backstop … If I know that the US government is the house, I'm going to be the house, I'm going to try to align my own interests. … The point was to do what the government's going to do, but do it first: buy what they're going to buy and then sell it to them or ride that wave as the news of their purchase causes the price of those assets to soar. And that's exactly what happened.”