Speaking to Legends

Howard Morgan is currently the Chairman of B Capital. He co-founded First Round Capital with Josh Kopelman as the first professional Seed Stage Fund, where he remains Senior Advisor. Prior to First Round, Howard helped found Idealab with Bill Gross, and served as President of Renaissance Technologies, which he co-founded with Jim Simons. Prior to his move into the business of technology, Howard served as a professor at the Wharton School and the Moore School, both at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as at Cornell University. He is also an Executive Fellow at UC Berkeley. Howard’s research on user interface technology and the optimization of computer networks was critical to bringing the ARPAnet to Philadelphia in the 1970s.
Through this early internet participation, he helped corporate and government agencies use technology to improve the efficiency of both large and small organizations. He also has deep experience with very large databases, and served as the first Editor of the ACM Transactions on Database Systems Journal. Throughout his career, Howard has sought out great people and nurtured them so that they could realize their dreams. His mentees have included both PhD students researching a key topic, and early stage entrepreneurs building companies and taking them from seed stage through initial public offerings.
He currently serves as a Director of Idealab, and he is on the board of several non-profits including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and Math For America. He has also served on a number of public company Boards, including Franklin Electronic Publishers and Internet Brands, Inc. He was CEO of Kentek and Franklin during various turnover or transitional periods and in 1997 he was named Delaware Valley Entrepreneur of the Year. Howard is a respected author and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences. Howard received a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University in 1968, and a BS in Physics from City College of the City University of New York in 1965.

Mark Mobius is one of the most recognised figures in money management and in 2011 has been named as one of the “50 Most Influential People”. Mark spent over 30 years at Franklin Templeton running its Emerging Markets Investment Trust which grew 500 fold and reached over 50 billion in AUM during his tenure. In 2018, Mark founded Mobius Capital Partners which offers an innovative private equity approach to public markets. In this episode we learn about Mark’s path into finance, his never-ending passion for learning, days at Templeton, key lessons along the journey as well as what he thinks was the biggest contributor to his success and what he wants to leave as his legacy.
For links and more information see our episode show notes on our website.
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Fiona Frick is the CEO of Unigestion, a Swiss based boutique asset manager with $20bn in AUM, and she has been recognised as one of the most influential women in finance on numerous occasions. In this interview, we discussed how Unigestion created a collaborative ecosystem for conducting cutting edge research, the importance and adoption of ESG, the general trend for passive vs active management and how to be an early adopter of emerging trends.
For links and more information see our episode show notes on our website.
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Victor Niederhoffer is one of the most famous investors and a true pioneer. After rubbing shoulders with a few of the future Nobel Laureates at the University of Chicago, he started a trading firm and made $20 million from the starting capital of $50k within 6 months. In the 90s, he was the right hand man of George Soros and with a 34% rate of return over 20 years, in 1996, he was recognised as the world’s best trader. However, next year he was on the wrong side of the trade and lost all of the capital. In this episode, we discuss the emergence of quant investing, how he started trading for Soros, what are some of the lessons he learnt while being an active market participant for 60 years straight and why he think that Jesse Livermore was a horrible trader.
For links and more information see our episode show notes on our website.
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Mark Yusko, Founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, is a household name in hedge fund investing and spent over 30 years identifying, seeding and growing some of the most successful funds. In this episode, we discuss the mindset and approach of discovering and investing in the next big technological innovation, the evolution of hedge funds, state of investing during COVID19, what are some of the implications of FED's infinite Quantitative Easing and why he is bearish on the fiat-fiasco and bullish on crypto.
For more information, see our episode show notes on our website.
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