AI dominates headlines and investment conferences these days…often to excess. Sensational stories like “Here’s the robot that will steal your job” and charges of “Disrupt, transform or die” fill our feeds and raise fearmongering narratives that channel Issac Asimov’s I-Robot or James Cameron’s Skynet--of course from the Terminator series. Quant shops, hedge funds, and algorithmic trading firms have embedded AI in their models for over a decade. But have we hit a tipping point where applications of these accelerated computing capabilities are ready to invade the more traditional asset management business? What are those use cases and which are most promising? And how should we think about peaceful future co-existence of the human and the machine in managing portfolios. Martin Escobari and Dave Morehead join us to unpack this provocative topic.

Introduction (0:48)

Halftime (42:35)

Guests (50:44)

Guests:

Martin Escobari, Co-President, Managing Director, Head of Global Growth Equity, General Atlantic
Dave Morehead, Chief Investment Officer, Marketable Investments, Baylor University

Episode Sources

Today’s asset management business has quickly transformed into a race to build out a stable of thoroughbreds--investment strategies across a spectrum of conventional public equity and debt as well as offerings across the continuum of private capital--equity, credit, secondaries, real estate, infrastructure etc. What makes recent history particularly unique are the crossover deals from traditional managers with alternative managers. For several decades, traditional long only mutual fund shops and institutional firms stayed in their lane and idiosyncratic, complex private capital partnerships lived in a different world---there was a peaceful co-existence and mutual exclusivity. Those distinctions and parallel worlds have evaporated. We explore why with two of the most revered leaders in the industry and compare and contrast their different approaches to meeting this challenge.

Introduction (0:47)

Halftime (47:03)

Guests (53:15)

Guests:

Jean Hynes, CEO, Wellington Management

Jenny Johnson, CEO, Franklin Templeton

Episode Sources

No investor claims to be short-term but in the face of the seductive siren call of the emotionally volatile markets, even the most disciplined of investors buckles at the knees. The apparatus and systems in which we work---governance, investment policy, benchmarks, asset allocation frameworks, compensation systems along with the behavioral spiral that haunts us all in times of market trauma tend to perpetuate herd mentality. With the help of some of the best minds on the subject, we work to define long term investing more precisely, explore the virtues of a multi-cycle horizon, and warn of the common pitfalls that so easily break our convictions.

Introduction (0:48)

Halftime (50:00)

Guests (55:50)

Guests:

• Geoff Rubin, Senior Managing Director and One Fund Strategist at CPP Investments
• Sarah Williamson, Chief Executive Officer, FCLT Global

Episode Sources