WTT: The Sydney Sweeney Interview

Josh Wolfe and Brett McGurk are Partners at Lux Capital, a $5 billion venture capital firm that specializes in emerging science and technology companies that turn sci-fi into sci-fact. Josh co-founded Lux and is a repeat past guest on the show. His first appearance from 2018 discusses his story, including phrases: 'chips in shoulders put chips in pockets,' 'failure comes from a failure to imagine failure,' and 'directional arrows of progress.' Brett joined Lux last year, following a 20-year career in public service where he advised four U.S. presidents and helped shape national security strategy across the Middle East. Our conversation kicks off with Josh's state of the venture industry and Lux's positioning within it. Brett then describes his background, sovereign ambitions, and geopolitical risks. We discuss directional arrows of progress across AI, cap-ex maintenance, biology, defense systems, and space. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Josh Wolfe is the co-founder of Lux Capital, a $1.5 billion venture capital firm formed to support scientists and entrepreneurs who pursue counter-conventional solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time. Josh's innovative thought process across his activities offers frameworks and insights applicable across the spectrum of investing. Our conversation covers Josh's early passion for science and finance, building a competitive advantage in venture capital from scratch, sourcing ideas, conducting due diligence, making investment decisions, constructing portfolios, making exits, learning from mistakes, navigating a challenging private equity environment, posting on Twitter, active vs. passive management, dinner table conversation, and life lessons. Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list  Access Transcript with Premium Membership     Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

This Sponsored Insight features Robert Boucai and James Broyer. They are the Co-Founders of Newbrook Capital Properties, a multifamily real estate investment platform built to generate optimal long-duration, tax-efficient income. Robert is also the Founder of Newbrook Capital Advisors, a hedge fund he launched twenty years ago that today manages $1 billion across long-short and long-only strategies. He was born with sensorineural hearing loss and today serves on the Board of the Hearing Health Foundation, which is dedicated to preventing and finding cures for hearing loss. Our conversation covers Robert's path from real estate to hedge fund investing and back to real estate. We discuss the real estate strategy he designed with James, including alignment, market and asset selection, property improvement, and supply-demand drivers to create durable rental growth. We close with risks, synergies with Newbrook's public equity business, and plans to scale the real estate platform. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

John Khoury is the Founder and Managing Partner of Long Pond Capital, a hedge fund that specializes in publicly traded real estate securities. After 15 years in the business, Long Pond is one of the few remaining firms in the niche. Long Pond recently launched an active ETF, ticker: LPRE, which invests in the most attractively priced stocks from Long Pond's list of the highest-quality real estate businesses.  Our conversation covers John's path into public real estate investing, changes in the investable universe, and the impact of passive flows and pod shops on the sector. We turn to Long Pond's investment process, focused on identifying and exploiting asymmetry, and cover John's perspectives on the major real estate sub-sectors. We close with a discussion of Long Pond's new actively managed ETF.  Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Our continuing exploration of the intersection of private wealth and alternatives takes us to Future Standard, one of the largest distribution platforms bringing the wealth channel exposure to the middle markets. Michael Kelly is Co-President and Chief Investment Officer of Future Standard, a $90 billion alternative asset manager focused on private middle-market strategies for the wealth channel. Michael has been in the alternatives industry for three decades, starting as an analyst under Lee Cooperman and Julian Robertson, helping build FrontPoint Partners, which began the institutionalization of hedge funds, serving as CEO of ORIX USA, where he led the acquisition of $250 billion global asset manager Robeco, and for the last decade turning to the democratization of alternatives. Our conversation covers Michael's path from working in hedge funds to building alternative asset businesses, including lessons about incentives, leadership, and culture. We then discuss his pivot from the institutional market to the wealth channel, and the growth from a single strategy at Franklin Square with $12 billion in assets to a full suite of strategies under the rebranded Future Standard with $90 billion across private credit, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, and multi-asset investing. Michael also shares his views on performance expectations and what the flood of new capital means for the institutional market. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

This Sponsored Insight features Daniel Mahr, Head of MDT, the $26 billion quantitative equity investing group at Federated Hermes that oversees a suite of actively managed mutual funds, ETFs, collective investment trusts, and separately managed accounts. Dan joined the firm in 2002 as a junior analyst and took over leadership of the team six years later, guiding its evolution through vast changes in data, computing power, and investment methodology.  Our conversation traces Dan's path from flipping IPOs as a college student to running machine learning models across global equity markets. We discuss the development of MDT's decision tree framework — a "glass box" approach to stock selection that blends transparency with sophistication — and how the team balances analytical rigor with human judgment. Dan explains lessons from two decades of modeling markets, including the challenges of overfitting and underfitting data, and MDT's steadfast focus on analytical edge, rather than informational edge. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

David Lyon is Managing Director and Head of Capital Solutions at Neuberger Berman, where he oversees $10 billion of AUM and deploys $2-3 billion each year originating large scale financing solutions to premier sponsor-backed companies. Over three decades, David was the first arbitrage analyst at Och-Ziff in the mid 1990s, an associate at one of the then largest private equity firms in the late 1990s, and a fundamental, distressed debt investor at quant hedge fund DE Shaw through the GFC. His experiences offer a deep understanding of both sides of the balance sheet, which he brought together in hybrid capital solutions over the last decade. Our conversation traces his journey, lessons learned along the way, and perspectives on today's private markets. We then discuss the need for flexible capital solutions to address private equity liquidity challenges, competitive differentiation in the space, and the process for making it happen across sourcing, creating solutions, and managing risk. Along the way, David shares his refreshingly honest views on investor expectations, leveraged capital structures, good and bad investments, and incentives that help navigate an increasingly crowded marketplace. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Ted breaks down a recent viral video to highlight three important interviewing techniques shared at Capital Allocators University. Read Ted's blog here. Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Jay Ripley is the Head of Investments and Deputy Managing Partner at Global Endowment Management, or GEM, an endowment-style outsourced CIO overseeing $12 billion. Jay joined GEM in 2014, following six years in private equity where he developed an analytical rigor and mindset of an owner-operator. GEM's Co-CIO Matt Bank joined me on the show last year for a broader discussion of the firm, and that conversation is replayed in the feed. Our conversation dives into manager selection, particularly with early-stage funds. We discuss Jay's entry into the business, transition from GP to LP, and GEM's approach to identifying and backing emerging managers across buyouts, venture capital, and hedge funds. Jay shares insights on the evolving landscape for independent sponsors, the challenge of manager selection amid dispersion, and the art of staying early without chasing scale. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Matt Bank is the Deputy Chief Investment Officer at GEM, an OCIO that manages $12 billion for forty clients. GEM was founded in 2007 by investment leaders at The Duke Endowment and Duke University Investment Management Company. Our conversation covers Matt's path to investing under recent guest David Salem and lessons learned about risk and governance while under his tutelage. We then turn to Matt's move to GEM and its positioning in the OCIO industry. We cover GEM's approach to asset allocation and manager selection, and close with Matt's thoughts on active and passive investing, venture capital, hedge funds, and drivers of success going forward.   Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership   Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)