Capitalism’s Best Kept Secret: Follow the Fun | Colin Moran, Oxford History

In your research process, follow the funds. Follow the thing you want to just

funds. Follow the thing you want to just learn about and then good money-making opportunities will happen.

There's only three types of good founders.

Autism, megalamania, people on a revenge arc.

I can understand why people don't believe in God. I cannot understand why they don't believe in Satan.

Don't you think there's an insurmountable gap between the Christian and the Jew, namely on the the person of Jesus?

I think if you want to live, just live, you need to make some metaphysical claims. What is good and what is bad?

What is beautiful and what is ugly? What

is truth and what is falsehood?

Colin Moran is unlike any successful hedge fund manager that I've ever met.

He prefers the company of artists and writers to fellow investors. He has the disposition of a Catholic contemplative rather than an aggressive financeier.

His fund isn't dominated by quants or Ivy League athletes, but humanity scholars. And Colin himself studied

scholars. And Colin himself studied intellectual history at Duke and Oxford and for the longest time was planning on being an academic. And here's the craziest thing. Despite running one of

craziest thing. Despite running one of the best performing hedge funds on Wall Street for the last 20 years, despite making billions upon billions in returns, it's clear that he doesn't

really care that much about money. As

crazy as it sounds, Colin's returns almost seem accidental, a consequence of pursuing his genuine intellectual interests, what he calls following the

fun. In this interview, you're going to

fun. In this interview, you're going to learn how Colin's intellectual curiosities led to his best investments, how to decipher a company as if close

reading a text, and the limitations of reason in both investing and faith. My

name is Jonathan B. I'm a founding member of Cosmos. We deliver educational programs, fund research, invest in AI startups, and believe that philosophy is critical to building technology. If you

want to join our ecosystem of philosopher builders, you can find roles we're hiring for, events we're funding, and other ways to get involved on jonathanb.com/cosmos.

jonathanb.com/cosmos.

Without further ado, Colin Moran.

So Colin, if you go to the team page of your funds website, here are some of the profiles that you would be met with.

Managing partner, Duke, BA, History and Economics, Oxford Masters, Modern Intellectual History, analyst, U Chicago, BA in classics, Notre Dame PhD

in Theology, Chief Compliance Officer, Giuliard Bachelors and Masters in Music, and this is the one that always gets me, office manager, bachelors of music, piano pedagogy.

Why has this group of humanity nerds been so successful at running a hedge fund?

It had a lot to do with an appreciation of kind of businesses as human organisms. It's really easy to just see them as abstractions. Um, and like thinking of

abstractions. Um, and like thinking of companies as having cultures and thinking of them as sort of uh human

ecologies. And if you think of them that

ecologies. And if you think of them that way and if you kind of try to understand them in those terms, you end up with a lot of insights that you wouldn't get if you're just looking at them as financial

entities. What you always are trying to

entities. What you always are trying to understand are who are these people and even knowing which people matter is a big thing in most companies, right?

Because it's not obvious from the or chart right?

Yeah. Well, someday, you know, typically the CEO is very important, but who's really calling the shots and kind of where the energy is in the organization?

um where the value is really being created inside the organization. Those

are not obvious from the outset and the rewards to the person who can kind of find a really exceptional culture. Those are big. Shopify is a

culture. Those are big. Shopify is a good example of this when they became public.

Um it was pretty clear to us that there was both an unusual leader there and an unusually good culture that he'd fostered. Toby Lutka, the CEO, he had a

fostered. Toby Lutka, the CEO, he had a capacity for communication, like the clarity of his thought and of his communication. Um, and the sort of

communication. Um, and the sort of sincerity of his purpose, all that stuff. When I got into the business, I

stuff. When I got into the business, I wouldn't have really valued all of that stuff much. Um, but over time,

stuff much. Um, but over time, we got to realize how economically important those kind of seemingly non-economic human dimensions are.

Right. In our first conversation, you told me how you were writing a piece in first things about creativity and and the essence of creativity and you felt guilty about spending so much time on it, but then it led to the investment of

Shopify, which is one of your greatest investments so far. So, tell us about that story.

That essay was an effort to kind of decode why um a culture that interested me a lot, which I'll call the culture of religious

traditionalism seemed to me to have lost its sort of creative energy. it's kind

of vital spiritual kind of dynamism. Um

I just found that a really interesting question. So um it was in thinking about

question. So um it was in thinking about that that I started thinking about like what is creativity and both as an abstract and then what is it for me? Is

it kind of having in my life the kind of the presence I wanted to have? And because

what I observed is that in people who are do have creative gifts but aren't able to use them that can like build up like a zit under the skin and create this

inflammation. It might be this terrific

inflammation. It might be this terrific person and they're doing all kinds of crazy painful kind of dysfunctional stuff and you're like why are you doing all these things? And a

lot of times I think it's because they haven't found a way of kind of kind of giving life to this ability or this talent that's inside them. So I had

observed that too in people around me and I was like whoa if you could get this thing right that is a really potent sort of good. And when I thought about

it myself I just thought well let's let's let's have work be creative. When

I started investing, I didn't think of it as something that was remotely creative.

To me, this was like a way to make money, period. Just like playing poker,

money, period. Just like playing poker, right? Like creativity, what are you

right? Like creativity, what are you talking about? That's totally

talking about? That's totally irrelevant. Um, but after thinking about

irrelevant. Um, but after thinking about that subject for a long time through writing that essay, um, I realized that

it it could be and and and if I kind of gave rain to that interest, then I would I would just have more fun at work. So,

um, sure enough, right after finishing that essay, um, I said, I'm gonna start looking for companies that are just fun to study instead of what I I stopped looking for ones that going to make me

money. I that's got to happen

money. I that's got to happen eventually, but what I'm going to look for at first is companies that just are fascinating or inspiring or just

something kind of unusual that I want to figure out. Um and what happened by the

figure out. Um and what happened by the way is when you find that kind of company then you start imitating them like the things they're doing well you

start to say well oh even though we're that's a thousand person company and we're only 18 people it's the same issue we could we could do better something that they're doing really well and of

course you then you see that loop develop and you start reflecting on your company and that then helps you understand what's going on in this big thousand person Right. So, so Shopify,

you were attracted to it not with primarily a sort of a money-driven aim, but because it was fun, it was a creative culture. It was it was run by a

creative culture. It was it was run by a true craftsman. I just thought it'd be

true craftsman. I just thought it'd be cool to sort of participate in something that seemed so uh uh

dynamic and compelling. And um I kind of followed that in a way I wouldn't have because ultimately Shopify was way more expensive as a multiple of near-term gross profits. We never would have paid

gross profits. We never would have paid that multiple when we started. It was a much higher multiple than um I'd been kind of trained to think was appropriate. Um but when you saw all the

appropriate. Um but when you saw all the good things going on there, I was willing to sort of build into our model an understanding of a longer runway for growth than I would have otherwise. Is

it fair to character characterize your investment uh strategy as as as going through this this change where you started off with the more traditional just fundamental analysis and now culture itself has become primary in

some sense?

Yeah, for us that was kind of a really eye openening experience. Wow. When we

really kind of we talk about it as following the fun like in your research process, follow the fun, follow the thing that's interesting, follow the thing you want to just learn about and

then good money-making opportunities will happen. Um, so it was more kind of

will happen. Um, so it was more kind of not so much kind of a massive shift away. We're going to forget about money

away. We're going to forget about money entirely and we're just going to think about what's fun to look at, but it was more kind of trusting the fund to lead to a really good investment.

Yeah. You know, it's so funny you say that because um I started a fintech company was on the founding team uh when I was in senior year just to make money and then I made the very difficult decision about a year and a half ago to

do what I'm doing now which is purely just for fun. M

but it turns out even within within a year I'm presented with probably even better money making opportunities because of how much fun I'm having and the success that I'm having because of that fun. And so there it's this weird

that fun. And so there it's this weird paradox where in some sense the best way to make money is not to just to make money, right?

I I couldn't agree more. Yeah, it's true of a lot of things like like like if you if you sort of try to climb straight to the thing that seems important to you,

uh you never get there. Whereas if you sort of just focus on certain more elemental sort of good habits,

um then you end up getting to that sort of mountain top that you wouldn't have got to if you march straight at it.

So one of your favorite books is Robert Warshaw's the immediate experience and it's a book about how he goes in and he decodes a culture, right? Mhm.

So, so tell us about what you learned from that book and and how you go about approaching decoding cultures and deciding which cultures to invest in.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean just a quick background on Warsaw. He was a writer in the 50s who was one of the first guys to take popular culture kind of seriously as a serious subject for sort of what it

could say about the larger world. Um,

and he had a background as a cryptographer in World War II. So that's

what he was trying to do was kind of decode for example the western. He had a great essay on on the western. So um

yeah I mean normally what you have with a company is you have a puzzle. You're

normally there's some kind of critical question you don't know about them. How

good are they at developing products? Um

they're not doing something well now.

Will they get better at this? Um the CEO has historically done such and such very well. Will he keep doing it? Well, those

well. Will he keep doing it? Well, those

are the questions you kind of first of all you need to identify them. Um but

then you um in a sense you want to do what Warshow did in those essays which was just kind of like slowly probe the subject

and a lot of times you just can't get to the bottom of the subject and you just have to walk away because you can't end up with enough knowledge to know what you're doing. But what you get in a lot

you're doing. But what you get in a lot of his essays and I think what you get if you study companies with enough kind of listening to the music of the company and sort of and for us that means

talking to the people who work there a lot talking to the people who use the product using the product ourselves. Um

it kind of starts to tell a story and the story starts to sort of cohhere and pixelate. Um so maybe that's the analogy

pixelate. Um so maybe that's the analogy between our show and what we're doing.

What about the leaders in a company specifically? Um, so St. Augustine

specifically? Um, so St. Augustine

writes in the city of God that what appear to be worldly virtues like the love of Rome was his example are actually vices in disguise. You know the these generals who would sacrifice everything they have to to defend the

motherland to put their hand in in in fire is actually vanity glory. Do you see that in the leaders that you invest in

that that there are some vices that make them perhaps bad people or maybe even stronger immoral people turn out to be great investment targets?

Um that is certainly the case that behavior that is not illegal or um explicitly improper but is is distasteful behavior

can result in really good business outcomes. We have historically tried to

outcomes. We have historically tried to avoid that kind of company when when it's when the leadership is getting its results that way. Um that sort of spooks

us and so we tend to go in the other direction. I mean Mars is a company it's

direction. I mean Mars is a company it's not as well known now but it's a um candy bar company and they were sort of famously both really effective and just horrible at least at the top level.

And their horribleness was the reason they were so so so successful. I think

like the it was it was the the two things were stitched together. I mean

the guy at the top was autocratic and I think kind of ruled through fear but fear can make people as as Mchavelli tells us, right? If you

can only choose one, fear or love, you choose fear.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it it depends on the business like like I think fear can work really well. Maybe if it's a business where you just kind of got to get people to march in formation and sort of

in businesses where you need a lot of creative and original stuff, fear might not be the thing you would choose first.

Right. Well, I was thinking a slightly different kind of motivation. Not that

they're necessarily um difficult to deal with, but that their own conception of what matters in life is heavily flawed because it takes a lot to run one of

these these companies. In fact, I was in this uh this VC dinner in San Francisco and they said there's only three types of good founders.

Autism, megalamania, and uh revenge. people on a revenge arc because otherwise, you know, why would you sacrifice your entire life to to

devote yourself to to to this thing? Do

do you see that? I don't agree that that only place that good founders come from.

I mean, Toby Lutka, who I was talking about, certainly wouldn't put him in any of those three categories. One thing you got to remember about the successful company is that you're looking at

something that's been selected uh you're looking retroactively and it's you're looking at it because it was successful. Now a lot of that is

was successful. Now a lot of that is luck oftentimes like like Toby to a great extent kind of stumbled on the idea. He was trying to start a um

idea. He was trying to start a um snowboard company and he kind of stumbled on to the idea for Shopify and for a long time he didn't want it to be that big. he just wanted it to be a

that big. he just wanted it to be a little kind of software at Um so yeah a lot of times what you're looking at is a fusion of a particular skill set a

particular personality and uh really good timing but a lot of these guys they're not forces of nature they're people who capably exploited

good service craftsmen is it could be craftsmen so one of your endearing uh philosophical interests is the role and limitations of reason.

Um, you wrote an undergraduate uh thesis about the failure of reason in in public in the Supreme Court and your master's thesis you wrote it on John Henry Newman and and his theory about how reason

operates.

So, how do you think about the the limitations of reason in investing?

One of the first things you do is beware of kind of big picture thinking, what I'll call system thinking. So there's a

constant tendency to sort of try to answer investment questions by looking at the economy or um kind of what people

talk about as macro prediction and that stuff basically is a backd dooror through which emotions come in and corrupt your reasoning process. M

so a starting point for kind of preserving reason is is keep it doing the things it can do well and don't assign it tasks it's never going to do

well and um kind of narrow it to what's possible. Um yeah, I mean I think

what's possible. Um yeah, I mean I think beyond that there's this perpetual tension in investing between um completing your work and getting to a

point where you have certainty and the fact that opportunities kind of open and shut really quickly sometimes.

Um so you're always sort of wishing you knew more um when the opportunity is there. I

don't have any formulaic answer to that other than just um um doing a lot of the work up front and then hoping the opportunity. A lot of times what we do

opportunity. A lot of times what we do is we build up an inventory of companies we've studied and then just wait for the price to get there rather than um kind of forcing it by right

one thing people tend to do is the more I've studied something the better an investment is. The more I know then the

investment is. The more I know then the better the riskreward is and that is a total fallacy. The better risk reward is

total fallacy. The better risk reward is a better risk reward. It has nothing to do with how much you know. Now, whether

you know enough to recognize the good riskreward is important, but people sometimes get sucked into thinking I've worked so long on this that I'm sort of tied to it now.

I'm tied to it and I'm sort of entitled to invest in it because because I know so much about it. Knowing a lot about it doesn't that it the investment couldn't care less how much you know about it. The

investment only cares about what the risk and reward are in reality.

Well, let's talk about your first claim against macro, which is quite interesting because there are global macro funds who all they do is do this, right? Is

this is that just a front for like insight trading with governments? Like

like what's your read on that?

Yeah, I don't know. I I um I think some people maybe can figure this stuff out. um particularly the quants maybe they've like you know kind

of discerned patterns that um people couldn't figure out before they had heavy duty computing or the math they were bringing to bear on this. Um so

yeah I I I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying I can't do it.

done. I'm saying I can't do it.

You can't do it. You recognize

I'm not saying reason can't do it. Just

saying like your reason.

Yeah. My reason the tools I've got. Um

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, but but that's a very uh it's a very contient move, right? It's it's to circumscribe reason. The important thing

circumscribe reason. The important thing is to know it's like investing. The

important thing is saying no to things, right? Saying no to opportunities. And

right? Saying no to opportunities. And

this matches your portfolio. You guys

only you guys are very long and very concentrated in a select group of stocks.

And so in the same I'm not surprised by your answer because in the same way it's about circumscribing reason. That's

the most important first step.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so much of the trouble not only in investing but anywhere is is people not having good self-awareness about where they are in terms of how well they know an answer to a question.

Um, you know, CEOs have this problem. Um,

investors have this problem even outside of investing in politics or government.

Let's call it like uh uh a good match between your level of conviction and your level of uh understanding. That is

a in my opinion a very rare thing. You

certainly don't see it in our public discourse, right?

Um and and the great thing about investing by the way is it ferociously enforces discipline on this. You know,

they're actively punished.

Yeah. Like like an academic or a pundit, they can write whatever they want. It

doesn't matter. Markx, you know, succeeded brilliantly because he had a terrific sense of kind of his own destiny as a thinker and sort of intellectual theatricality and

salesmanship.

um that flies in the intellectual world.

Um it does not work in investing. And so

investing is terrific at sort of enforcing um and teaching and inducing uh a sensitivity to reality that that

normal intellectual discourse at least that I see does not.

Right. Uh, if I didn't know you and I would have I were to guess guess your your spiritual beliefs from what you just said, I would have guessed agnostic,

right? Someone who's extremely

right? Someone who's extremely cautious about what he can and cannot know.

Mhm.

But that couldn't be further from the truth. You're a very devout Catholic.

truth. You're a very devout Catholic.

You we're going to talk about this.

You're putting your your money philanthropically to all these different Catholic projects.

Explain to us this this is the thing. the whole sort of sensitivity to reality doesn't mean uh to do nothing. It doesn't mean do nothing.

Doesn't mean nothing, right? Because

because if you do nothing, if you take no risks, you're going to end up like the u the the parable of the talents, the guy who just buried the You don't want to be that person. You don't want

to sort of do nothing. You want to kind of um uh uh make claims about reality and sort of participate in life. Um, and

so you you you have to make bets. And

that's true in investing too. Um, you

just want to make the right bet. What what's really interesting, right, is in some sense you're saying, look, I can't tell you the nature of interest rates, but I can tell you the

nature of the true God. Right? You see,

I'm trying to say there's there's an epistemic mismatch almost between these two domains. Yeah. Because you're so

two domains. Yeah. Because you're so humble on on one on this side. Like even

interest rates, I'm not going to tell you how they inflation. Who knows?

Yeah.

But the nature of God, well, let me tell you about that. Right. So, tell tell me more about this.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. Um

I'm I've been really interested recently in this um uh Polish philosopher named Lea Kolakowski. And this question

Lea Kolakowski. And this question tortured him. I believe his father was

tortured him. I believe his father was burned alive by the Nazis during World War II. He was just I think 13 or 14

War II. He was just I think 13 or 14 then. So um uh he emerges from that

then. So um uh he emerges from that experience and he one of the things he said is later in his life was I can understand why people don't believe in God. I cannot understand why they don't

God. I cannot understand why they don't believe in Satan.

And um this idea that that if I'm going to if I'm going to be able to even affirm that what they did to my father was wrong, I've got to be able to make some

metaphysical claims. um runs through all his work, he's actually got to make some commitments or he's going to be left with not even the

ability to say that what the Nazis did to his father was wrong. So, I think we're all in that position. If if if you want to actually have conviction

in something, you need a basis for it.

Um you must make commitments or you're not sort of left just with a pure truth. you're left

with nothingness.

I see. I see. Another way to to frame what what you said is in order for me to make moral claims. I don't need to know the nature of interest rates, but I do need to know

the nature of God. That's the kind of it's to have a Yeah. I mean, exactly.

Like in investing, I can invest very successfully without needing to know make macro predictions. I can't live life successfully without without making

some claims I don't think about the certainly about what is good and what is bad what is beautiful and what is ugly what is truth and what is falsehood I I

I can't I can't even kind of get off the dime in sort of living life and sort of believing in life I don't even know why you would live and and this is in my

mind a very real issue with with um it's it's what we're talking about is not a hypothetical. Some people cannot find a

hypothetical. Some people cannot find a ground to live.

Oh yeah.

And and they walk away from it. And you

can walk away from life either by putting a bullet through your head or you can do it by um uh strolling through life without quitting on it even while you're sort of living

a zombie. Yeah. And and I think there's

a zombie. Yeah. And and I think there's a tendency to talk about that decision um to walk away from life as kind of that would only happen if somebody's um

you know kind of body or emotional equipment is malfunctioning. I

don't think that's right at all. I think

you can do it because metaphysically you have nothing to believe in.

And um so I do think I mean this gets to your question. I think if you want to

your question. I think if you want to live, just live, right?

We can talk later about how you'll live, but just live. You need to make some metaphysical claims. So, it's not the same um affirming, let's say, you know,

the trinitarian God. It's we're not we're not um in the same kind of decision we are when we're saying, I'm not going to make a claim about how fast

the economy grow. I can afford not to do that. I don't think I can afford not to

that. I don't think I can afford not to make a claim.

That's so interesting. The diff why you can claim to know one or not the other doesn't have anything to do with how easy it is to make the claim but how necessary it is to make the claim,

right? And how important it is. So

right? And how important it is. So

um let's talk about your master's thesis uh on John Henry Newman because this was one of the key questions he was trying to answer. Yeah. Yeah.

to answer. Yeah. Yeah.

Which was like in the scientific age where objective certainty is clearly not possible, how does one have certitude?

Mhm.

Tell us about that.

Yeah. So, Newman um emerges from this kind of English tradition where there's this heavy emphasis on kind of what we might call

uh human empiricism. If you can't see something, put your finger on it or at least verify it empirically. it doesn't exist, it's

it empirically. it doesn't exist, it's not real. So, stop talking to me about

not real. So, stop talking to me about these metaphysical nonsensicalities.

Um, and Newman feels that that argument um quite deeply. And um he's also really

impressed with the difficulty of believing in a Christian faith that says it it it it is a kind of absolute truth

but which exists in history and is constantly seemingly changing and in some ways seeming to contradict itself.

So Newman is for a lot of people um an incredibly important sort of resource because he's he's feeling all these pressures inside inside himself.

He's facing the challenge head on. He's

not turning away from modernity.

Right. Right. And there's a lot of people certainly in the Catholic Church who just want to look the other way from these intellectual pressures. Um and he doesn't. So his his his whole notion of

doesn't. So his his his whole notion of the development of doctrine is one response to this and his whole notion of knowledge as something that um partly

consists of things you can write down but only partly and there's a whole kind of knowledge and and sort of um uh uh

character of experience that can't be reduced to words. um when baby chicks are born, it's really hard to tell whether they're male or female, and it really matters because what you're going

to do with the chick. So, um they found that some people could just kind of determine without really saying what.

They just kind of had a sense of which was going to be female and which was male. And this Newman would say, well,

male. And this Newman would say, well, this is this is the illative sense.

That's the term he came up with. um

judgment that um you yourself can't say how you got there. You just sort of know it somehow. So um that to him is a big

it somehow. So um that to him is a big part of what we mean when we talk about reason is people are reaching. Another

metaphor he has is like the rock climber who climbs up a cliff and he gets there and he sort of goes here and goes there and just kind of gets to the top and he couldn't tell you all the moves he made

in rationality. sort of judgments

in rationality. sort of judgments arrived at through grounds that you

can't um specify or articulate. Um

that to him is reason. And um if you can if you can call that reasonable, then you can start to believe in metaphysical claims um in a way that you can't if you

just demand that QED a math proof, right?

Yeah. Well, either a math proof or, you know, you kind of empirically verify it, right? I see. So, what he eventually

right? I see. So, what he eventually defines certitude as, I think, is a state where more evidence would not make you more sure,

right? So, so, so, uh, why I'm certain

right? So, so, so, uh, why I'm certain that Colin's in front of me, not because, you know, I have a metaphysical proof that things are real, that this is not an illusion. It's that there's

nothing I can do to be more more sure that you are in front of me. like me

poking like this and this is not a screen is not going to make me more sure because I'm already as sure as possible.

Is that also how you think about certainty in your own faith or or investing tradition?

Yeah. Um, it's funny you asked that because I remember 18 when I was, I think, 17 and I was reading that and Newman was talking about how he was more certain of God's existence than of the

the the fact that there was a hand on the end of his arm and I thought I don't have anything like that kind of certainty about God's existence. And I

remember talking to the priest in our parish about that and he said Newman had achieved a level of kind of um spiritual depth that isn't granted to a lot of us.

So, no, I don't I don't have that kind of certainty that Newman has. I I I think kind of at least for me and for an awful lot of people I know, belief is

something like it's more like a plant that you sort of water and strengthen and feed uh than it is something you achieve and then put on a shelf and go

about life with.

Right. But I guess my question is even as an ideal, do you think this is the right ideal of certainty? Because I mean there's a way to even read Jesus as not having this kind of certainty, right? Oh

God, oh God, why hast thou forsaken me?

I'm I'm sure there's other ways to read that passage, but one popular way is that no, even Jesus kind of doubts in these extreme moments somewhat.

So do you think this kind of ideal that Newman holds is is probably a bit too strong even in the realm of faith? I I

think you always want to truthfully describe your own kind of experience. So I think it it it is

experience. So I think it it it is terrific if you're dealing with reality and you get the kind of certainty Newman did which was I think coming out of this intense you

know kind of inner experience he had. I

I think if that's not what you have, if you have something much more like doubt or uncertainty, um you want to be truthful with yourself and with um right

anyone else about that, right? Don't convert before you're ready

right? Don't convert before you're ready or something like that, right? Like

Yeah. Now, there is this there is this sort of um iterative quality between action and belief. So that you you the things you do

condition your level of certainty. So if

you act as if Christ did die on the cross and was resurrected, uh it will tend to be the water and the fertilizer of your

certainty. Yeah. How do you think about

certainty. Yeah. How do you think about your own religious faith as regards to the existence of the Christian God and how you go about making investment decisions and and the certainty and the certitude that you you you need there

because there obviously you don't have the Newman kind of certainty either that know and there is a good analogy because um when you look back on your great investments it's it's there's a tendency

to think oh that was so obvious it's not obvious the my old boss said you don't make big money without big fear and all the really good investments, the the

really like great investments, there was a lot of fear there, including fear we felt um necessarily. So there was never a big

necessarily. So there was never a big investment that was just like ah obvious.

No, not in my experience um because the opportunity is created by there is something people are worried about. In

2008, we bought this company called Staras. It was a um home heating oil

Staras. It was a um home heating oil distributor. It's actually in the New

distributor. It's actually in the New York area and um people were terrified.

I mean the the system seemed to be melting down and um that stock with that company was trading at about one times free cash flow which is the cheapest

I've ever seen a company in in the public trade markets. Um and uh it was terrifying but we to bring it back to your analogy and this is kind of this

question you know we were frightened but we were also sort of uh there was a sort of a combination of fear and serenity we had. We knew we

were right. If the kind of investing we

were right. If the kind of investing we do makes any sense at all this is the time. So in that case we put a third I

time. So in that case we put a third I think it was about a third of our money in that one stock. Yeah. wish was scary.

Um but um I kind of think that's actually a decent analogy to um kind of religious belief and not just

religious belief but believing firmly in any good thing is you're it's going to feel stupid sometimes. It's going to feel like whoa you're wrong. Yeah. It's

you're you're you don't have any proof.

We didn't have any proof when we did that investment that it was going to work out. But the difference obviously

work out. But the difference obviously is that as you say investment gives you feedback loops in a way that intellectual life doesn't and religious life it does give you in some sense

right you feel a deeper connection with God and and but but it's also not very clear like you don't know no until it's too late basically it is different you know if you get

feedback from the market within 12 months versus uh let's say you um you know stand up for some truthful thing and it cost you your job and you're out on your butt and you're having trouble

providing your family.

Was that in fact the right thing? And um

I think reflecting kind of prayerfully on life does provide maybe not the kind of proof you get from the market, right?

But it does provide feedback like you do you do kind of learn about you can metaphysical reality has different feedback loops than material

reality. And so at least what I've found

reality. And so at least what I've found over time is things do come around. You

know there is kind of um uh a logic to a lot of these claims about give us an example. Yeah. What kind of feedback are you getting? Yeah. Um, I

met this guy from um this this college, Deep Springs, and um uh he I just was struck and and it has been every time I've met somebody from that college um

about this kind of willingness to selflessly give to the group in question that this guy had.

What I've noticed over time is that people who bring that attitude with them to things, they may or may not end up as

the richest. they will be people at

the richest. they will be people at peace with themselves what I've observed.

Um, so that's the kind of right but but but that's a feedback on on morality.

Yeah. I mean you can be I guess what I'm getting at is like it's it's maybe a feedback between um the moral life and the psychological

life.

Oh that I I'm totally there. But if I'm asking you on the feedback of religious life.

Yeah. Well, but that's that's that's that's telling you something, right? If

if I do the right thing um and over time I tend to sort of uh my life gets better, right?

Yeah. My experience of life is better.

And I don't mean to say, by the way, that's a strict, you know, statement.

Yeah.

But I think what you are I mean the the the sort of mode of reaching conclusions about things like morality and beauty

and truth is that uh you are looking for wisdom that's kind of playing out of of course good things do not always happen to good people right and and in fact I believe Augustine actually gave a

defense of why this is because people are like if God is just surely you know bad thing to bad people good things to good people and one of the things he said is that if God makes it too onetoone

people are going to do the good things instrumentally do choose the right actions instrumentally to get the good things. Yeah.

things. Yeah.

So there has to be some kind of uh mismatch here. But my issue by the way

mismatch here. But my issue by the way my my struggle I think with finding faith is not that I don't see the things that that you're seeing. It's how do I choose between com competing religious

interpretations because very well what you said about the deep spring college folks the Buddhists have their system of karma right that in this case it sounds like

adequately explain how this uh uh cycle uh happens and so what's really interesting when I read your your your essay on Newman was that Newman was responding to modern skepticism

right this idea of the cartisian demon how do we know how do we absolutely know um but my issue my struggle with faith I I grew up Christian I went away from the

faith and now I'm I'm struggling is of ancient skepticism sexist empiricus and the issue is not of well do I objectively know it's what he calls equivalence

it's when you have two competing claims that you cannot distinguish between them and so what you said about the deep strings is a great example is this because a good god has built our

psychology in a that rewards good action or is this because of the mechanisms of a karma and for me this is my this is my struggle right now and do you think Newman has anything to

to offer that or I think that's not just your struggle that is you know anybody who's really

trying to sort of find the good is is facing this um this guy I mentioned Kolicowski um very clearly despite growing growing

up in this Catholic culture which he had rejected at first um is is what I can tell maintains an

ambivalence about this to the end. Um

I think what Newman would say is that what you have in Christ Chesterton certainly develops this argument. What

you have in Christ is a kind of a a force and a sort of voice

that I don't think is the same as uh the other traditions. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean it's this is new and something different in history when it arrives and it's felt that way. I mean,

it kind of hits the world um almost like uh kind of a bell. And um so I guess my thought would be

I mean basically sort of the more attention I give to the notion of kind of the incarnational

word like the logos the ordered power behind the world being incarnate.

I I just kind of I don't want to go anywhere else other than into that.

Right.

I know that's not like um kind of a bulletproof proof.

Yeah.

It's just I I do think there is something kind of um right I don't know almost tractor beam like about Christ. But the but the the issue

about Christ. But the but the the issue of course is that the the great you know saints and theologians of the other traditions will say the exact same about their faith right that that Allah pulled

me in such a way I mean think about I mean a gazali like like think about the Islamic golden age like these people were not slouches and they can go toe-to-toe with an Augustine and Aquinus and and they were fully convinced of

this I mean the great Buddhist scholars like Nagarjuna and so that's why for me this is a a problem of equivalence which I understand like when you're in in the position.

Yeah, I could see why you don't want to go anywhere else. But maybe here's another

anywhere else. But maybe here's another way to think about it, which is um let's say you have a Jew who's never heard of Christianity. Yeah.

And he he told you the same thing. And

you say, "No, no, no." But

you you're so close. Okay. Like just

just step outside a little bit. Just

just come here. Come to from my vantage point and see how this plays out.

But the issue is the Buddhists make the same claim about the Christians that like Christ is one manifestation of the Buddha. And if you come to this is this

Buddha. And if you come to this is this is one of the interpretations of course.

Yeah. And if you come to our side, you'll see how there's a more all-encompassing system.

Yeah.

Right. And and so it's that kind of um I guess my question for you is and maybe there's an investment equivalent here which is if you haven't explored all these other possibilities and and not just you know the surface level

Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, but but the the best articulation of these traditions.

Yeah.

Why are you so confident in in in your own?

It's a great question. I mean, can anybody confidently believe in the Christian religious tradition without having exhaustively studied all the others?

Well, once you put it that way, it kind of becomes implausible to exhaustively study all the others, right? But yeah.

Well, I mean, so much of what belief is, and when I say belief, I don't just mean belief in Christ. I mean belief in there being such a thing as good. Belief in

just being existence being good. these really like rudimentary intuitions. If you're

rudimentary intuitions. If you're listening, if you're careful, if if if you you are both recognizing that

reality is elusive but in some sense knowable or knowable enough to give you a path. Um

a path. Um then you kind of trust in what you've been given. Um, I I I don't All I can

been given. Um, I I I don't All I can say is nothing I've ever read about and I haven't read enough to for this to mean much, but

I I've never been drawn to anything other than Christ at the center of things. So, yeah.

things. So, yeah.

Well, well, tell us a bit about your own religious upbringing. Were you were you

religious upbringing. Were you were you raised Christian and and did you ever have, you know, a time where you strayed away from the faith or Yeah.

Uh, yeah. Our family was Catholic and we um uh yeah we grew up going to mass and um saying prayers at night. It was I would say a reasonably traditional

background but of course I mean growing up over the last you know whatever uh several decades in the US what was happening at home was only a small part

of what was going on inside you because there's just such a massive transformation going on in society at large. So, I don't know. For me, it was

large. So, I don't know. For me, it was it was just I I was kind of I don't know, from stone to stone. Like early

on, Newman was very important to me. Um,

and then I I just kept getting into these different saints. St. Francis, I

had kind of a whole St. Francis phase.

And then I got really into Thomas Aquinus. Um, and each of these I was

Aquinus. Um, and each of these I was kind of reading in my own idiosyncratic way. I didn't by any means become an

way. I didn't by any means become an expert on these guys, but those were sort of resources that I guess were constantly kind of like fertilizing this

sort of um orientation toward the Christian faith.

I see. Yeah. One of my friends made a very interesting observation where he said a lot of the people who are most aggressive with their leverage in in trading and who blow up sometimes spectacularly like Kathy Woods

turn out to be Christian and so he's he's a crypto trader and he sees a lot of these levered up people to be Calvinists.

Yeah.

Now, of course, what's really interesting about the Calvinists is they have the the strongest version of faith in some sense in the predestination, right? That's the claim. That's the

right? That's the claim. That's the

defining claim. Do do you see a kind of kind of equivalent there where where somehow religious faith gets translated in the investment domain?

It's possible. I guess I'm I there was also the famous story I think of the archaos guy. So it's certainly possible

archaos guy. So it's certainly possible but I I would I would distinguish you know between kind of like um it's possible to detect these

connections. It's also possible to

connections. It's also possible to imagine them, you know, like like like the craft of investing um is its own thing. You can do it well without being

thing. You can do it well without being religious. Um and you can do it well

religious. Um and you can do it well while being religious.

Although it's quite interesting about the parable of the talents that that you mentioned right?

That the person who keeps it safe is is kind of not rewarded and the two people who risk it and ended up doubling it is rewarded. And it's almost um if you put

rewarded. And it's almost um if you put it in a modern context, it's almost quite weird, right? someone who levers up and and and puts it in something risky is rewarded, but the the person who safeguards it isn't. So, tell us about

this is such an interesting point because Catholic morality got reduced in a lot of ways, at least in terms of how it was presented to kind of a set of nos. Here's the things you

don't do. Go to the commandments. Don't

don't do. Go to the commandments. Don't

do this. Don't do that. Don't do that.

That was never where Catholic morality come from. where it came from was an

come from. where it came from was an understanding of life that created this tremendous sense of opportunity. This

this is attracting the adventurers. You

know, these are the seekers like St.

Paul right?

Augustine. These these early figures are the concistadors.

Um well, that would be another um maybe slightly more problematic adventurers in a different sense. But

yeah, but they certainly had this tremendously dynamic energy in them that was certainly consistent with their Christianity. So anyways, my point is

Christianity. So anyways, my point is just morality used to be um and and is in its essence this sort of resourceful

guiding of a like really thick appetite for life and like just the word greedy is too pjorative but just like like this this this this um gluttonous of living or something like that.

Yeah. Well, and you think about Christ.

I I I came that you'll have life more abundantly. Um, and so, so it's I think

abundantly. Um, and so, so it's I think a misreading and a kind of a rationalistic distortion

of Christian ethics to reduce it to kind of the things we tell you you don't do.

And and I say that as somebody I think to a great extent like I sort of absorbed that somehow. And it's really through um reading um some of the more

modern Dominican writers that um I kind of arrived at this understanding that that like morality should be understood as this resource for

um developing a dynamic, compelling, poetically

uh sort of uh rich life. So let's take a step back and uh better understand your journey um about starting Abdal. How did

you decide to uh you know leave academia and then and do do this right? So I was in law school and I was

right? So I was in law school and I was thinking about a career in the academy because I did like I liked law school and but I I didn't I wasn't excited about it. I enjoyed studying. I didn't I

about it. I enjoyed studying. I didn't I wasn't excited about either being a lawyer or being an academic. I I did like poker a lot. Uh and I'd always played a lot of poker. Um, and I'd

always won um in these kind of pickup games, not in like real serious competition, but um and I didn't really know why until I read this book about Warren Buffett and um the decision

principle he uses, which is a very simple one, which is he basically holds out until he has a sure bet um and then he bets heavily. That's basically what I

had been doing kind of intuitively with poker. Um, so I figured if I could do it

poker. Um, so I figured if I could do it with poker, I could probably do it with investing. And then as I got into it, I

investing. And then as I got into it, I realized that investing did have this this kind of property to it, which is if you're somebody who really cared about

this kind of um, you know, thing we were talking to earlier about like like how well does your conviction match your actual knowledge of the subject? And I I thought I was pretty good at kind of

like intellectual self-awareness, like kind of knowing where I was on the sort of knowledge spectrum in a given area.

Um so I felt like both the decision principle and just kind of like the kind of thing I like to do, which is sort of try to sort of burrow into the bottom of

a subject. Um that might be a reason to

a subject. Um that might be a reason to end up as a career with investing. Why

um are you attracted to intellectual history and intellectual biography specifically? I've always just kind of

specifically? I've always just kind of enjoyed the the sort of the play of ideas. Like kind of to me that's like

ideas. Like kind of to me that's like just always been fun to sort of just take ideas and think about them, see what light they shed on this or that

part of the world. Um, but I've never really wanted to kind of study like kind of ideas on their own. I've always

wanted to come at them through the life of, you know, and thought of Bickl or uh, Aquinus or Newman for some reason.

Um, can I can I venture a guess because I'm the same way. I I'm I'm absolutely in love with intellectual biographies.

Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown was one of my favorite. Duty of Genius about Wickenstein is another great one. Mhm.

Um Nietze had this uh one one line, it's infamous about the validity of the ad hominin.

Um what his funny example is that why does Socrates like ideas so much? Well,

he's ugly. You know, he's he's a really ugly man. And so that's why he talks

ugly man. And so that's why he talks about all these forms, right? The unseen

world.

Yeah.

What's behind this kind of provocative suggestion is that ideas are generated by individuals and their psychology tells you a lot about the ideas that the ideas themselves wouldn't reveal. In the same way that a

wouldn't reveal. In the same way that a company culture might reveal to you things that the balance sheet might might not.

So that's one direction. But in in the other direction, niches also cares a lot about how ideas actually manifest in the world, right? Like uh you know

right? Like uh you know your economic theory is good and all on paper, but what actually happens when you implement this darn thing in history? That's also going to tell us a

history? That's also going to tell us a lot about the ideas. And so by both you know there's a two-way street going on here where you better understand the ideas not only where it came from but then how it goes and impacts reality. Is

is that right?

Yeah. Well in my case whenever you see an idea it's this sort of you know sentence and it really has its life and meaning within kind of a particular

conversation. So there's people talking

conversation. So there's people talking to each other at any one and it could be talking across time. Kant could be talking to Aquinus, but it's really this

conversation. So, it's real people um

conversation. So, it's real people um doing this. And so, that's

doing this. And so, that's for me always been kind of like like I can't really understand these ideas if I'm just looking at a sentence on a

page. I need to know what that guy or

page. I need to know what that guy or that person, whoever it was, I need to know sort of what the idea meant to them. It's very

similar like I I I have a very hard time enjoying classical music apart from some kind of human narrative. So if I hear

there's this Handles Messiah piece in um in the funeral scene in the movie called Manchester by the Sea and I respond to that music. I I think

I've listened to that piece two or 30 hundred times now. In a way, I I the music would have been completely empty for me if I just heard it on Spotify

independent of that movie.

So, I I've always seem to need some kind of connection between abstraction and the drama of a person's life to make myself care about the abstraction.

Two things came to my mind um when you were just saying that. Number one is that liking intellectual biographies in some sense very Christian because Christianity is the word made flesh, right? It's the embodied word. That that

right? It's the embodied word. That that

that's who Christ is. That's just just a thought. And the same thought that came

thought. And the same thought that came to my mind is this is actually how you invest intellectual biography. Yeah.

intellectual biography. Yeah.

Because you go in there and you you try to cut their heads open and try to find out what what motivates people, right? It's

it's a very interesting point because Yeah. Like typically with particularly

Yeah. Like typically with particularly with a company run by a founder the the the company is the person's memoir you know this is this is their kind of

autobiography the product is their personality you know and so like the reason

in our case a lot of times we study the person and the product is we're trying to understand this sort of um this sort of DNA that governs the company and it's

not just the DNA of the person, it's the DNA of his really specific experiences like the circumstances in which a CEO had success dominate the rest of his life

and and it can dominate it quite quite yeah like a lot of these founders they stumble on an idea it's good they develop it and they find success and a lot of times the way they find success

is by um just kind of prosecuting the growth of the company and and they don't have to worry for example about like this foundational concept of business which is return on

capital. They achieve great success

capital. They achieve great success without giving any attention to that whatsoever. And that actually works for

whatsoever. And that actually works for for a while.

For a yeah for a while and then they um get to a point in the life of their company where it doesn't work. You do

have to start thinking about return of capital and it's very unnatural to them because that's not how they succeeded. M

and so um they succeeded by thinking about growth for example and that's that's one very specific example but yeah like a lot of times a person um tries two or three different things in

their life something finally works and then they endlessly try to repeat that the best CEOs are the ones who keep on learning they don't they're they're not prisoners of success

right and in some sense uh this is what you described your superpower to be as well which is a recognition of one's own limitations, right? Because I'm I'm

limitations, right? Because I'm I'm reading a lot of Plato right now. What

is critical for the philosopher is an awareness of his own ignorance.

Like you need to know what you don't know. You need to know that like you are

know. You need to know that like you are doing this to even want to be able to begin changing course to begin with.

Yeah. Uh I mean I certainly that has always been for me uh like like that kind of confrontation with reality. It's

a very unpleasant process because it typically involves learning something uh you don't want to know or something.

Yeah. You don't want to know some some aspect of your self-standing turns out to be false and that's a painful and aversive experience and so you try to

avoid it and a lot of people do. Um, I

noticed this by the way outside of business, but like with writers, there's a huge premium today on writers not getting editing they do through Substack

and they don't like the reality that the editor inflicts on them. And so they you have these long rambling geralus pieces in which only 10% of it's any good

because nobody's inflicting the reality on them. Maybe this is um a little far

on them. Maybe this is um a little far field, but yeah, I mean I I think in the early stages what a CEO needs oftentimes

or a founder needs is kind of um just sort of belief in possibility. And then

what you need at a later stage is something much more like um uh kind of sensitivity to and a and like a really

an ear closely listening to kind of what reality needs of you now that was different from what it needed in the past. That so that's your love for

past. That so that's your love for intellectual biography. Another part of

intellectual biography. Another part of your uh academic background that I'm really curious in is your interest in law. M

law. M you went to law school both your undergraduate and your your master's thesis which they weren't law degrees it had to do with law in some way

why law is particularly the common law tradition is the place where empiricism

meets kind of reason in this like investing yeah it's very similar to investing you're right I mean law is like like what you're always dealing with in law

is kind of um kind of solving very discreet like like human smallcale problems and doing it in some way that's

kind of orderly like the way um lawyers you know present opposing briefs and going through the experience of reading reading one brief and thinking well that's clearly right then you read

another brief and you think well that's clearly right and then you've got to somehow integrate the two of them certainly a judge would have to do that um I don't know I just love that that

that sort of sensitivity to reality that that you know kind of emerges out of that process.

Yeah. Yeah. I I I'm noticing a trend now throughout throughout your different answers between your love of intellectual biography, what you said about it most attractive about investing, reality check

and now law is that you want the ideas to be real in some way, right? Like like

that's the common thread I think throughout your entire journey which is you like you do like the contemplative life, but it has to be Yeah. And I think we're going to talk

Yeah. And I think we're going to talk about this later on. This probably also why this explains your love for architecture and art and and like embodied ideas, right?

Yeah. I mean, I I guess that's just an area of my own thing I've relatively recently trying to develop is the connection between sort of um ideas and

forms of art.

Right. I see.

um you come off as quite an odd hedge fund manager, quite an odd successful hedge fund manager. M I mean my understanding of

manager. M I mean my understanding of hed funds manager is like billions and of course that's in caricature but in my experience of of money manager not by much right and I suppose you know I

was really struggling to put put a put put put put my finger on what how you're different from that archetype and I think it's the lack of a fundamental aggression not not not ambition but a lack of a kind of

you know what I'm talking about like almost like the the the the frat boy a bit older. Do you agree with that by the

bit older. Do you agree with that by the way that that you kind of stand out among your your you know hedge fund peers?

I'm very interested to hear you say that. Um yeah I've never there's of all

that. Um yeah I've never there's of all the subset of hedge fund people out there the percent that I want to spend time with is really small as a percent

of the total as you say like the billions thing is not that far a lot of the time. Um yeah, the aggression thing

the time. Um yeah, the aggression thing is interesting because um my old boss who is a linebacker in college and um a

very aggressive guy in a lot of ways, he was kind of a natural contrarian. So

there is a kind of um maybe the word isn't aggression, but when you talk about contrarianism, but there is a kind of a desire to be unique implicit in investing

for you. You mean

for you. You mean certainly for me? Yeah. Yeah, a desire to find uniqueness and have it be something worthwhile, not just sort of unique because, you know, I have

whatever, right? Six fingers for unique

whatever, right? Six fingers for unique as a Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Right.

Maybe another way to frame the sort of lack of aggression is is almost like I suppose this isn't surprising from our conversation, a kind of contemplative mode to life.

Um, just like a fundamental curiosity like almost like chasing the fun. Were

you like this when you were young or or or or like because because I I see this a lot of people they have that aggression they're successful and then they go back into the contemplation contemplative mode which is not a good

model for young people who want to get there right like you know it's funny I mean it's really hard to know what you were like when you were young. I I I was I ran into an old girlfriend uh recently

and she said oh yeah I remember you were very brooding which is not how I remember myself as brooding. Um, and I even sometimes I would see like, you know, little clips of videos or

something of myself in 11th grade. And I

don't know, it probably was kind of this this brooding sort of um slightly like depressive almost a

dark melancholic kind of um kind of kind of slightly morbid preoccupation with um things going wrong, you know, because the investor gets paid for that

preoccupation if it doesn't become too exaggerated.

um a kind of a a consciousness of how the things that the way that is things have been presented to you will fail to materialize. I don't know. Yeah.

materialize. I don't know. Yeah.

Actually, another former girlfriend asked me, "So, are you still cynical when I caught up with her?"

So, um and you don't think about yourself as that way.

No, but I mean there's cynical and brooding from two. So, I guess yeah, there is that interesting maybe. And so what success

interesting maybe. And so what success has made you less of those two things that you're you're now more comfortable or Yeah.

Uh I certainly comfortable meaning existentially comfortable of course. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I

think there is something to kind of like getting out of that stage in your 20s and 30s where it seems like there's this

sort of thing you got to climb and and there's this place out there that you don't really know what it'll be like, but but it's just really worth getting to and you don't even sort of

think very hard about why that is or what's waiting for you there. And then

at a certain point, I think this is probably true of a lot of people.

You you you in some sense get to that point and it's actually not that great.

It's not that great. It's not that different. It's just kind of well, yeah,

different. It's just kind of well, yeah, it's sort of nice. Not quite as many people ignore me when I walk in the room or something like that. But the degree

of satisfaction in your life is um uh in in modest by only the most incredibly small amount. And so that's a pretty um

small amount. And so that's a pretty um uh arresting experience because because if I spent all that time and effort doing this and then it was only like

this much better, then what does that tell me about spending all this? Yeah.

And for a lot of people, what they're chasing after is is money, right? That's

that's a big thing. And so I'll read to you uh I'm sure you're you're familiar with this. Matthew 19:24. And again I

with this. Matthew 19:24. And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. So as a Christian hedge fund

of God. So as a Christian hedge fund manager, how do you interpret um one's relationship with money?

Yeah. Um,

I think in the Christian tradition, um, I mean certainly that quote, your relationship to money is in general, um,

you do best to think of it, um, as something that's not really yours.

It's much more something that's been entrusted to you.

And you're a steward.

You're a steward. Now, um, what you also learn pretty quickly is just sort of indiscriminately giving money away is

not a particularly sort of, um, productive response to the job of stewardship, even to the people you're giving off.

Yeah. Because you you can screw people up as easily as help them. It's it's

it's I mean, anybody who does it finds pretty quickly. Now um you can give it to organizations who may use it well but you got to study the

organizations just like you got to study a company right because there are bad philanthropic investments now there's not the same feedback but there is definitely the same waste I mean I my guess is the

philanthropic world the world of the quote nonprofit my guess is that you have in a company and there's massive amounts of waste in companies and they have the whole profit motive So

right if there can be that much extrapolate that yeah and take away the profit motive you're really going to get a lot of waste and that's what we've I've certainly observed is um I mean look at the

university today like the modern elite university Harvard my guess is you know you could take out I would bet like a third of their

workforce and it wouldn't damage the mission at all in fact it might improve it. Yeah. So, um, that's what you're

it. Yeah. So, um, that's what you're contending with when you're a steward is that, um, giving can actually make things worse. And when you do give, you

things worse. And when you do give, you got to basically do diligence just the way you do when you're investing for profit.

Yeah. Well, we'll talk about stewardship a bit later. I I want to zero in on something you said about how you wanted the money when you were younger, like hedge funds was just a way to make

money, nothing else.

So you had to go through an evolution in your own thinking there. Is that fair?

Um yeah. So um what what money always really meant to me was independence like that I could I I wouldn't have to work on the terms that somebody else gave to me. That's that's what I really cared

me. That's that's what I really cared about. I

about. I it was never a status or it was never that was never the allure.

I I don't I mean I probably everybody's after some combination of material comfort um status um sort of independence. I I there's probably a lot

independence. I I there's probably a lot of things going but for me when I thought about it that's like you know in 2008 after we started the fund um we uh

got hit by the global financial crisis and it was um it was ugly you know we were down a lot um and we had just started so we're very small so it didn't

look like there was any business there um and if I think back on that time first of all we were having you know

just a great time. Even though it was kind of miserable, it was just exciting.

It was an adventure. Yeah,

it was an adventure because I was I was I was thinking about having to move out of my apartment cuz I was worried, you know, if the market went down another 20%. I wasn't going to have any money.

20%. I wasn't going to have any money.

Um and all that stuff, but even that I I the last thing that was on my mind, and I think my partner was like this, too.

Um we weren't thinking about status. We

weren't even really thinking about how much money we'd ever make. We were just thinking about much more sort of keeping doing the adventure because we

were just having a lot of Wait, but I thought you said that initially it wasn't for the adventure of the craft. It was just to make money.

the craft. It was just to make money.

Yeah. So, so I would distinguish between adventure and and sort of creativity within the adventure. So,

it's a great point. I mean, what what I really liked was being my own boss and and the adventure of making money.

Yeah. Kind of kind of kind of being my own boss, kind of contending with the world and and this sort of contest

to sort of be somebody who understood reality well enough to sort of make my own living at it. That interested me a lot. And and I also just wanted to have

lot. And and I also just wanted to have a living. Like I didn't want to be out

a living. Like I didn't want to be out of, you know, my streets. Yeah. And not

have anything to eat. Um, so yeah, but that's what was at the top of my head.

Making a ton of money really that was kind of an objective, but it was pretty far down. And status there was I mean

far down. And status there was I mean there was no status and leaving going from I started at Goldman Sachs and so

leaving there was like a status degradation. Going to work for my fund

degradation. Going to work for my fund was very well regarded but not like Goldman. and then leaving again to

Goldman. and then leaving again to manage a fund that had no assets.

Status was just never really the the the the criterion.

I see. Um but your relationship as you've already hinted at with Abdil has changed quite considerably, right? So so

tell us about what what is motivating you now dayto-day, right? Because if it's

dayto-day, right? Because if it's contemplation, well, you have enough money you can just be a scholar, right?

if it's, you know, to to impact the world, maybe you start an AI company or something like that. So, what yeah, why why continue?

Yeah. Well, it's a wonderful question and I think anybody in this business who's still doing it, you know, who who's kind of made it work for them

after the ages of the mid-4s ask themselves that. Um, I I really like the team that has come

together. Um I mean I just get a lot of

together. Um I mean I just get a lot of satisfaction out of interacting with everybody. So that's and that's not

everybody. So that's and that's not something we I when I started I thought it was just going to be me and I didn't really have a concept of a team. So that

is very motivating for me to work together with this team. Um another

thing is just um I mean we have clients and we matter to them and our results matter to them. The other thing I think

is just like um there is stuff that um I guess the concept of stewardship applies both in the for-profit world and in the

nonprofit world. And that is to say like

nonprofit world. And that is to say like so we made all this money. That's great.

Well, what are you going to do with it?

Well, I mean make it grow. Again, it's

back to the guy with the the talents.

Yeah. Like like you you were given this ability. You've been given this team.

ability. You've been given this team.

You've been given this time in the history of the world. So go make it grow and then do something good with it. And

that's really where um I think like there's a sort of a nexus between these philanthropic interests that have developed and like the desire to continue and grow Abdel, right? So AB deal is not just a way to

right? So AB deal is not just a way to make money for your philanthropic efforts. You also enjoy the craft so to

efforts. You also enjoy the craft so to speak of of the day-to-day. Is is that is that roughly right?

Very much. Yeah. Like so I mean like just succeeding at this task like doing it really well so that we're proud of it.

That's just that that's very much kind of the ethos of the original firm I was at. And by the way that is not the ethos

at. And by the way that is not the ethos of most Yeah. Yeah. I mean the normal thing is

Yeah. Yeah. I mean the normal thing is like is like um you know get a burst of good performance, use it to raise a ton of money and then just kind of hold on

to it and milk the fees. Um and um that just we never wanted to do that. My the

the firm the guys who trained me is firm called Chieft Capital. They they really um had the opposite. They had a craftsman's view and we really ported that in to AB deals. So

right.

Yeah. I think that's that's doing doing the doing the craft well and imaginatively and um kind of succeeding at it is a big

motivation too, right? Um when you talk to a lot of VCs,

right? Um when you talk to a lot of VCs, I think they overexaggerate how how much they matter in the grand context of things because contrafactually they don't at all. if it wasn't their term sheet that

all. if it wasn't their term sheet that they would have taken, it was it would be someone else given how competitive some of these early stage VCs have become.

Do you think there's a important social roles not not for AB deal particular but for for hedge funds in general or are they just kind of a you know if if your hedge fund doesn't invest someone else is going to invest. Is there is there anything to be said on the social

benefits of Yeah, I think there is. So, I mean, um, capital markets don't function unless a

lot of people are thinking hard about how to price assets. So, um, why do you care if capital markets function? Well,

take a look at 2008. I mean, if capital markets aren't functioning, the whole uh sort of wellspring of what makes our

society so prosperous um doesn't function nearly as well. So, that's a different question.

well. So, that's a different question.

Having capital markets function well and playing a role in that is a different question from whether there are too many or too few people doing it, right? What

you're talking about in venture capital, it may be there's too many people doing it right now. there may be too much money in it.

Um, and that may also be true of the public equity markets, but that's true of a lot of fields. I'd argue there's too many

of fields. I'd argue there's too many bureaucrats working at Google now.

There's too many people at certainly at the major elite overendowed universities. So, um, yeah, I think

universities. So, um, yeah, I think there's a big distinction between sort of the legitimacy of the thing and whether a marginal whether we should add a marginal new one and how good you are at it. Like it might be that being a

at it. Like it might be that being a hedge fund manager is a really noble profession and not enough people are doing it, but you're terrible at it. So

you got several questions you want to answer there to decide if this is a worthwhile thing you're doing.

I see. Um so tell us about stewardship.

How are you thinking about that? Uh

yeah, I just feel this really intense kind of obligation to sort of um

I don't know, just do something fruitful with these things. Um and I've tried a lot of different things both in the for-profit area and in the nonprofit.

And you know, there's a sort of constant experimentation in both those areas. Very different

kinds of experimentation. Um but yeah, I mean I guess the stewardship for me is is kind of um it's kind of I guess it's a form of gratitude, you

know, like this incredible material well-being has just been showered down on like our entire society, certainly my

generation um and me in particular. And

so like like I guess a way of being grateful for it is to kind of go make it. Yeah, the word I would use is

make it. Yeah, the word I would use is fruitful.

Who do you like to hang out with if it's if it's not with other hedge fund managers?

There's some entrepreneur types. There's

some um uh kind of a lot of like writer artsy types. Um yeah, it's it's it's a

artsy types. Um yeah, it's it's it's a lot of people not in the investing world.

I see. Um the last topic I want to talk with you about today is uh conservatism and culture. So you you identify as a

and culture. So you you identify as a national conservative.

Um tell us a bit more about uh what yeah what what makes this movement distinct.

So the um the the the received story we've all been given is that is that um we kind of had this sort of retrograde static society more or less trapped by

Christianity. And then the enlightenment

Christianity. And then the enlightenment came along.

um everybody started sort of using their heads rather than just like blindly following Yeah.

whatever the priest said and um the world kind of snapped into focus and we started to get all kinds of democratic

um uh institutions and um prosperity.

This is totally false in the way of thinking of kind of national conservatives which I would call like more broadly traditional uh

traditionalism. So the um Anglo-American

traditionalism. So the um Anglo-American tradition which produced all these terrific uh political innovations, call it separation of powers, the bill of

rights, um the basic elements of self-governance, that stuff all had been developed within England before the

enlightenment arrived. Um the

enlightenment arrived. Um the enlightenment thinkers who uh I would associate with like the stream of thought I would call rationalism.

um really get credit for things that were developed through the English common law tradition which was really kind of um a political culture dominated

by the Bible. So um I would say a core understanding of national conservatism is that um

there's a body of thought that predates the enlightenment that has in fact been highly creative. It's not simply a

highly creative. It's not simply a reaction and a break or what Roger Swooten called it a pause within liberalism. It has its own affirmative

liberalism. It has its own affirmative vision of the good that really derives from the Bible at least the Anglo American vision of conservatism. So that

whole understanding of conservatism I didn't have until I read a lot of the stuff coming out of um Yoram Hazone and of Hyver who um are kind of the architects of the national conservatism

conference that um I ended up helping sponsor.

And how does this defer from like a more classical liberal tradition? Another

strand of popular conservatism today.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, so I mean the definition of conservatism that I was working with um really

became um I think for a lot of people and for me infected with uh a kind of um uh

rationalism that um certainly was present present for example in Bush's war in Iraq. this

this incredible hubris that we could just take American institutions, drop them into a totally uh alien culture. Yeah, I mean I mean

alien culture. Yeah, I mean I mean linguistically different, geographically remote, historically uh quite remote um religiously.

Religiously remote in all ways culturally um uh having um no kind of um uh evidence to suggest that our American

institutions would work there. And

that's I would call like a classic expression of the rationalist mindset.

We've got the best system. We worked it out. John Lock told us so we just reason

out. John Lock told us so we just reason back from that. All we got to do is control C controlV and boom we'll have democracy.

And I think um that attitude and the results the disastrous results that we got from that attitude um were kind of a

watershed for a lot of people. like

watching that catastrophe unfold um I think brought to the surface uh the difference between traditional conservatism which was the body of thought coming through the

Anglo-American tradition coming through Burke um and um this kind of much more sort of hubristic uh rational Yeah.

Yeah. this confidence in in our reason and our our our model and our theory. I

mean, you could see that seizing hold of the progressivist mindset. What's

amazing was that the right in this country adopted that and prosecuted it in in certainly in that way. But that

wasn't the only way too. I mean I mean the the generally speaking the kind of um preoccupation and kind of tremendous difference to markets and economic

freedom which is of course uh important in the in the sort of what I'll call like the traditional conservativism traditional conservative movement um

that uh is another way the um nation's attitude towards immigration how much immigration is appropriate um what is

the importance of the nation um relative to these super national institutions?

All this kind of um classical liberalism has quite different answers than traditional conservatism does. And the

right had gotten sucked into using the resources of rationalism to answer that rather than its own resources the the ones we get out of for example the Burkian

tradition. So if I understand this

tradition. So if I understand this distinction, um the classical liberal and the traditional conservative, the national conservative can agree on what the ideal state is in terms of

institutions. It sounds like private

institutions. It sounds like private property, market economy, maybe even democracy and freedom being the central ideal. But it sounds like where they

ideal. But it sounds like where they disagree is what are the prerequisites for that? Whereas whereas the classical

for that? Whereas whereas the classical liberal as as you're describing it thinks that you can plop it in into anything. The the traditional

anything. The the traditional conservative realizes that there's a lot of more culture, history, religious prerequisites you need to build up that good system. Is that fair?

good system. Is that fair?

Uh I think so. Yeah. And that the system itself to work well is a kind of an organic

expression of the underlying society and culture that the system should be the clothes that fit the sort of the person the person being

this very distinctive um entity that's emerged. So classical liberalism has no

emerged. So classical liberalism has no such interest in institutions being bespoke to the culture or nation in question. It doesn't even have a real

question. It doesn't even have a real use for the nation.

Right?

Why do you need it? And why not have a global um governance system? There's no

there's no logic in classical liberalism why you couldn't. The other thing too is that conservatism is not it it is

suspicious of the government and wants to control it, but it does have an affirmative vision of the good. It's a

vision of the good informed by a biblical understanding of what people are here for, what is good for the person. Classical liberalism has no such

person. Classical liberalism has no such vision of the good. In fact, it's it's it's very consciously trying to take that question off the table when we when it comes to structuring your political

institutions.

I see. Um I noticed in a lot of your writing you you group the uh the Jews and the Christians together, right? And

so you use language like this. I'm going

to give you another quote. Those who

seek the God of Abraham, Jews and Christians will increasingly see themselves as a cultural we rather than just as members of disperate religious denominations.

Why exclude Islam from that? because

they also seek Abra the God of Abraham from Ishmael um in general um I'll just give you an

example when we've at first things we are um it's an ecumenical project of Jews and um Christians

in general um we have not had success getting Muslim writers to write in a magazine where Jews are as prominent as they are at first things.

Oh, so it's the Jews they have the issues with, not the not the Christians.

When I posed this question, I was told it was Muslims don't want to be in a magazine with the Jews. Now, um there are I think there is like a deeper

answer to your question than just um pragmatical.

Yeah. Um there's a kind of a continuity between Judaism and Christianity both kind of historically I would say to

great measure uh ethically and morally and um in extraordinary measure devotionally

um that I don't think is there between Christianity and Islam. It's it's a much

more fraught and I think discontinuous um connection between Christian and Islam.

That that's interesting because and maybe this is the difference between the intellectual historian and the philosopher. Right. Right.

philosopher. Right. Right.

Because historically I totally understand where you're coming from the crusades and where you have you know Christians and Jews not always living in peace together but you know a lot more in harmony than just Yeah.

Um persecutions of course. Um but for me I I've always worried that Judeo-Christian was uh a marriage of modern political convenience rather than theological coherence

in the sense that it seems like the Christian has a much easier ally in the Muslim on the central figure of Christ

because the Muslims I I went to Istanbul and in the Haga Sophia right this is a you know a church for our listeners that they turned into this chief mosque. the

only paintings you have actually are of Jesus.

Um because they obviously the Muslims don't have any of their own symbols. So

they've only kept the the Christian ones and Christ for them is a prophet.

He's a genuine prophet and a messenger.

But only uh one the one that that that the Christians have mistaken to be a God.

Yeah.

But the Jew is my understanding at least the dominant Jewish interpretation however of who Christ is is is a deceiver.

Right. So he's primarily negative whereas and so it's that theological tension um that that makes me have this worry. Does that make sense?

worry. Does that make sense?

That's fascinating. Uh uh so when I say the cultural we and I and I think of Jews and Christians, um that's I I think

I think there's both a strong theological basis for that. I mean we are working Christians are intellectably

tied to the Hebrew Bible. Um,

all our liturgy comes from Judaism. I

mean, it's been evolved and developed, but this stuff goes right back into um, Judaism. So, um, I don't know, there's a

Judaism. So, um, I don't know, there's a sense of brotherhood there that um, is rooted in the Bible and in our

history. And then also just culturally,

history. And then also just culturally, I mean the um the kind of antagonism you see between Islam and Judaism and Islam

and Christianity, you just don't see between uh Judaism and Christianity today. There's much more of a sense of

today. There's much more of a sense of like locked arms and cooperation, right?

Which is why I said I worry it's a marriage out of political convenience, right? Because like historically it was

right? Because like historically it was a very fraught relationship of like Spain expelling all their Jews, right?

Like all these all these various Yeah.

various movements.

Yeah.

Right. I mean hopefully it's not just, you know, of sort of political uh advantage to both. Hopefully it's

they really have both advanced in their understanding of how to relate to each other. And I think that advance has not

other. And I think that advance has not yet happened with Islam visav these two other religions.

But but don't you think there's an insurmountable gap between the Christian and the Jew, namely on the the person of Jesus? Like do you see what I'm trying

Jesus? Like do you see what I'm trying to say here? Like

Well, well, when you say insurmountable gap, I mean I mean like like you you disagree with him on the most fundamental thing that makes

Christianity Christianity. Um you do um

Christianity Christianity. Um you do um you've got a lot in common too. You can

differ fundamentally with people with whom you have other fundamental agreement. I mean you you believe in the

agreement. I mean you you believe in the God of Abraham, they don't believe in Christ. Um so it's I mean to me there's

Christ. Um so it's I mean to me there's tremendous possibility in that kind of coexistence and there always has been historically. I mean the Hebrew Bible

historically. I mean the Hebrew Bible that has never disappeared and and people wanted to make it disappear people within the early church

and it is a very um kind of uh challenging document um at least um to modernize reading what is a truly

preodern document. Um and so

preodern document. Um and so making that sort of um reception happen within Christianity I think has been one

of the most fertile source one of the great sources of Christian kind of creativity is is retaining the Old Testament. Um, you've

grown to care a lot about culture, not just with the companies that that you invest in, but also our culture, the culture at large in in society, specifically in art, music,

architecture, where you're directing a lot of your stewardship, your phil philanthropy, and tell us about this this this concern for culture.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm particularly interested in what I'll call like the culture of um religious traditionalists. There's a

great line from um the prior pope or two popes back Benedict 16th where he talks about imagine a world in which the Catholic Church disappeared and and

what a purifying for all its mistakes and all the trouble it's had over the last few decades like what a purifying presence it is in the world and so I

mean to me this is this is the great thing the world has going for it is this is this spiritual and intellectual tradition But

I also think, you know, within a given tradition, you have waxing and waning of kind of energy and dynamism. And I think we're at a period where at least as

regards the cultural fertility, let's call it, or the kind of creative dynamism of this tribe, which I'll call religious

traditionalism. it's it's um at a fairly

traditionalism. it's it's um at a fairly low point relative to where it's been historically. So, I'm very interested in

historically. So, I'm very interested in that. Um and a lot of my philanthropy is

that. Um and a lot of my philanthropy is aimed at sort of um finding little embers and kind of trying to get them some oxygen and um and it's the same

thing as I'm doing in the for-profit world, which is basically finding entrepreneurs and kind of getting them um resources. Now, unlike in the public

um resources. Now, unlike in the public markets, um, what you often times find is there's no other game in town. Like,

if I don't, what I'm pretty much aiming for is people where if I don't give them money, they're not going to be able to do this.

And so, um, right. There's that counterfactual

right. There's that counterfactual quality that might not exist in BC or Yeah.

Yeah. um some of these programs like you know certainly like um this university I've worked with in Rome the Angelum um even first things although it's um in

very good shape um these things take a lot of care and and what I tend to do is both um donate money and then spend a fair amount of time on it as with the

for-profit side I I like to either not invest or invest sort of a lot of time and um a high percent of the um money

I've got available. So um yeah, the the sort of idea here is that the idea unifying a lot of these things is that

our tradition is incredibly dynamic and potent and full of kind of capacity to to

enrich the world, but it is in many ways um forgetful of its potential. And so

I'm looking for the people who are kind of able to help it recover that.

This is one of my favorite quotes from your written work. The relative

infertility of the Orthodox is puzzling.

Christianity sees man as made in the image of the creator charged with finishing the world begun in Genesis.

This calling invites not generic obedience but varied creation that bears witness the uniqueness of each human soul.

Why has this tradition lost its fertility? Um

fertility? Um success has a kind of narcotic quality to it, particularly worldly success in entrepreneurs as well as in movements

all everywhere. Yeah. It's so horrific

all everywhere. Yeah. It's so horrific um success and it's and it's deadly to um kind of uh a sense of mission. You

see this I I keep mentioning our universities money the kind of money they have is deadly to a sense of mission and and I think you see that there and I think that happened to the church. There's a very good analogy

church. There's a very good analogy between uh the church coming out of the Renaissance and all that power and

wealth and and and um tremendous um architectural and vis fertility in the visual arts and just just general

sort of uh self-confidence it had. It

got sucked into being conservators rather than creators just by virtue of sort of um uh what you might call the

sloth induced by um too much confidence in what was and not enough focus on what needed to be. And this that's by the way another great um implication from

investing. Investing the most dangerous

investing. Investing the most dangerous time is when you're up when you're way up. That is your moment of supreme

up. That is your moment of supreme peril. That's when you need maximum

peril. That's when you need maximum self-awareness because the process of moving up is like a drug and it is it is naroti or it is ren it is functional

like a narcotic on you and I think that can happen to cultures too.

And what's the issue in investing is that you you you hold on to it beyond what you should or or Yeah. You think you're amazing. You

Yeah. You think you're amazing. You

can't do you can do no wrong. You you

you you you bought these companies. They

went up two threefold. You're up a lot.

Why is that? It's because you're so smart.

I see.

And in fact, A, you're not that smart. B, you're

lucky. C everything just got really expensive and therefore it's the riskreward got terrible. But seeing that is quite hard when you're drugged by your own success.

I see there's another quote. Um, since

progressives love to break boundaries and experiment, creative energy has always been and always will be their exclusive preserve. Case closed. That is

exclusive preserve. Case closed. That is

clearly wrong.

What is wrong with this idea that uh, you know, progressives are about breaking down boundaries and that's a natural channel to innovation?

Yeah. Well, this this is a a a a kind of a notion of creativity that almost collapses it into the idea of change um for change's sake, right?

Yeah. The progressive understanding of creativity um uh puts an emphasis on novelty and newness and they make the word

disruption which traditionally has had a pjorative character. It has now a

pjorative character. It has now a positive one. So you can see in that the

positive one. So you can see in that the fact that disruption has been turned into a positive good. What we ought to be talking about is improvement and they

don't they use these words like like like effect change is a favorite phrase there and um and and disruption. So, um

I I think what I was getting at there is that progressivism in equating

um creative action with sort of change itself um has too little connection to kind of an objective notion of good and too much

of a kind of a worship of novelty.

And you can see this in in the in the buildings these people make. I mean,

they kind of come out shiny and new and then within like nine years you're wondering why did anybody build this stupid warehouse looking glass box? I

mean, look at I mean we could come up with examples all over the city but um novelty wears out fast and that's I think the problem with this notion of

creativity. You know, the the um the

creativity. You know, the the um the Renaissance is a great example of a creative movement that saw itself as recovering something from the past.

They didn't aim at disruption. They

aimed at recovery. M

and in the act of recovering they created this incredibly fertile good thing that was both incorporating so many of the kind of achievements of of

antiquity but which they gave kind of new expression to. That to me is kind of the

expression to. That to me is kind of the ideal kind of creativity as opposed to this sort of thing that's all about change and

disruption and not enough about good.

There's a danger I think with the uh renaissance as an example of Christian creativity. Um and I think you know NZE

creativity. Um and I think you know NZE has a very perceptive critique here which is that what appears to be this is a correlary I suppose of the Augustine virtues are actually vices and you know how

megalomaniacs can sometimes be founders is like you look at the great Christian art were they created out of love and humility and no I mean out of the Renaissance certainly not right talk about the

Medici funding everything if you talk about like the David the Sistine Chapel the are coming out of these family rivalries the the vanity of cities that that was the drive. It was these

pagan psychological forces that that was what was driving this Christian creativity.

Is is that a danger? Is that Yeah, I think this distinction between what makes good art and what makes a good person.

Um and uh it is important to really recognize that they have two pretty different sort of and what makes a good founder and what makes a good person, right? It also

Yeah, I was going to mention that earlier. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean

earlier. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean I I I don't think it needs to be a requirement of great art that the people

making it be virtuous.

I think it is a requirement of great art that it have some orientation towards the transcendentals

um that we find in our tradition. You

know, someone might ask, why why is it important to to even recover this cultural form for Catholicism anyways?

Like, shouldn't it be a monk, right, or a saint kind kind of meditating in the desert on the top of a pillar or something like that?

Yeah.

Why is that important for the faith?

The way I think about you, great architecture, that's kind of the form I respond to most kind of viscerally. Um

it those are forming us you know I mean there's the famous quote from Churchill first we make our buildings then our buildings make us something like that I

think there's these sort of kind of magnificent ideas in our tradition and they're just kind of lying there um if they don't sort of live

through actual forms if you just read them if you just read the kind of verbal propositions um you can't understand them and or you can't understand them as fully as you

can if you start to receive them through a movie through you know this spectacular building that you visit through like this poem somebody wrote through like I mean just when I see

people somebody like listen to like Allegri Allegrey's Miser it's a psalm that's set to music and and um it just

melts people so and they understand something about religious faith that they didn't um when they were just reading say the story of the gospel.

And this it rounds our conversation full circle because you want your ideas to be embodied in some explicit way.

We're back to the intellectual biography.

Right. Exactly. All right. Thank you,

Colin. Thank you so much for taking the time.

My pleasure.

Thanks for watching my interview. If you

like these kinds of discussions, I think you'd fit in great with the ecosystem we're building at Cosmos. We deliver

educational programs, fund research, invest in AI startups, and believe that philosophy is critical to building technology. If you want to join our

technology. If you want to join our ecosystem of philosopher builders, you can find roles we're hiring for, events we're hosting, and other ways to get involved on jonathanb.com/cosmos.

Thank you.

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