Month: January 2023

Vidrio Yt Feature Ep 5
Improving Alpha: Greg Steinmetz on History’s Indispensable Asset Owners

Improving Alpha: Greg Steinmetz on History’s Indispensable Asset Owners

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When considering some of the richest people in history, you may immediately think about names like Buffet, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller and more. However, there are two others that could be pulled from the pages of history that helped to shape the financial landscape that investors navigate today. They are Jacob Fugger and Jay Gould.

In this episode, Michael Oliver Weinberg, co-founder, Improving Alpha Podcast Series, is joined by Greg Steinmetz, Author & Securities Analyst, Ruane, Cunniff and Goldfarb to discuss his latest research into the world of Fugger and Gould and how that research shaped Greg’s books, The Richest Man Who Ever Lived and American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street’s Biggest Fortune.

Greg discusses: 

  • How did Jacob Fugger’s calculated wealth of $400 billion make him indispensable to the Pope and Habsburg family.
  • How can allocators today learn the importance of due diligence by reviewing the cold-blooded calculations that Fugger used to evaluate his business and those of his competitors.
  • Did Fugger’s fortune survive the periods of extreme market volatility through today.
  • Switching to Jay Gould, how have lessons of the past, like buyer beware, be applied to a Madoff discussion or even cryptocurrency.
  • Why don’t we hear more about the Gould legacy in comparison to those of Vanderbilt, Carnegie or Rockefeller.
  • And more

Resources:

Connect with Greg Steinmetz:

About Our Guest:

Greg Steinmetz is an analyst for the New York City money manager Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, which manages the Sequoia Fund mutual fund. They invest in public equities across a variety of sectors based on deep fundamental research. Greg has written two books: American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built America’s Biggest Fortune (Simon & Schuster, 2022) and The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger (Simon & Schuster. August, 2015). Before joining Ruane, Cunniff, Greg was a reporter and editor with The Wall Street Journal.

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg: 

To learn more about our host visit: https://www.vidrio.com/blog/improving-alpha-podcast-gregsteinmetz-richestman

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.

Yt Feature Image Shai Davidai
Improving Alpha: A Zero Sum Behavioral Psychology Approach for Innovative Allocators

Improving Alpha: A Zero Sum Behavioral Psychology Approach for Innovative Allocators

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In the world of finance, there are many discussions around the topics of economic challenges or inequality when it comes to how asset managers or asset owners navigate the market. The volume certainly increases on this theme around bonus time when performance incentives are being paid out despite market volatility and declining returns.

 In this episode, Michael Oliver Weinberg, co-founder, Improving Alpha Podcast Series, is joined by Shai Davidai, Assistant Professor, Management Division, Columbia Business School, to go under the hood of economic behavioral psychology at work across asset managers and owners.

Shai discusses: 

  • How economic inequality is different from economic mobility and why we tend to overestimate upward mobility. 
  • How philanthropy factors into the internal attributions that people assume about the person that is promoting their Giving Pledge.
  • How does the hypothesis of a zero-sum game factor into an asset manager or owner’s strategic plan?
  • How does the zero-sum game tie itself into organizations and retaining talent by offering either a zero-sum incentive program vs. a non-zero-sum program.
  • And more!

Connect with Shai Davidai:

About Our Guest:

Shai Davidai is Assistant Professor in the Management Division of Columbia Business School. His research examines people’s everyday judgments of themselves, other people, and society as a whole. He studies the psychological forces that shape, distort, and bias people’s perceptions of the world and their influence on people’s judgments, preferences, and choices. His topics of expertise include the psychology of judgment and decision making, economic inequality and social mobility, social comparisons, and zero-sum thinking.

His work has been published in top-tier journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Perspectives on Psychological Sciences, and the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.

Shai received his PhD from Cornell University in 2015. Prior to joining Columbia Business School, Shai spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University and 3 years as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research

Connect with Michael Oliver Weinberg: 

To learn more about our host visit: https://www.vidrio.com/blog/improving-alpha-podcast-columbia-business-davidai

The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Vidrio Financial, and/or our host, Michael Oliver Weinberg. The Content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.

The release date may not correspond to the recording date.