Book Club
My whole life I’ve been a reader. I’m curious; I want to know how things work. Even more importantly I want to know what is going to happen. And what’s going to happen is often related to what has happened., I read history, I read psychology, I read finance and business. I read a lot of biographies. I’m drawn to anything that makes me a better person, make me a better investor and make me a better philanthropist or just makes me more knowledgable about the world.
Seth Klarman
Part of our research strategy is getting exposure to new ideas and applying them to understand how things work. Reading is the most accessible way to do this and we invite authors to discuss important ideas from their books.
We host these with a group of investors, researchers, and operators who use their domain expertise and prior experiences to ask deep and thoughtful questions that are the most pertinent to the authors work.
If you have any recommended guests or would be interested in joining the next discussion, feel free to reach out.
Past conversations
8/25/2024 - Book talk on “Innovation in Real Places” with Dr. Dan Breznitz. Find my case summary here if interested. Dan is the Munk Chair of Innovation Studies at the University of Toronto with a cross-appointment in the Department of Political Science of the University of Toronto
1/7/2025 - Book talk on “City of Intellect” with Dr. Nick Dirks. Nick is Chancellor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and the CEO and President of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). Find my notes here if interested.
1/23/2025 - Book talk on “The Missing Billionaires” with Victor Haghani. Victor is the founding partners of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), a hedge fund which collapsed in 1998 and was eventually recapitalized and restructured. He is the CIO at Elm Partners, a wealth manager. Find my book notes here if interested.
2/26/2025 - Blog talk on “A Smart Bear” with Jason Cohen. Jason is the founder of Wordpress Engine, a $400M revenue software business that was started in 2010. Before that, Jason founded IT Watchdogs, which he sold in 2004.
3/18/2025 - Book talk on “The Genesis Machine” with Andrew Hessel. Andrew is a special one, mostly because we share the first name and Alma Mater. He has achieved a lot more than me though, as a pioneer in synthetic biology and early supporter of iGEM.
6/13/2025 - Book talk on “What We Don’t Do” with Nick Cooney. Nick is an investor at Lever and a thoughtful philanthropic thinker. Highly recommend this book for those who are interested in philanthrophic efforts.