In this episode we cover artificial intelligence and the rise of decentralized finance.

Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer @ Bitwise

Jessica Raybeck, Head of Institutional CRM @ BlockFi

James Vermillion, Founder and CEO @ Vermillion Private Wealth

Artificial Intelligence is on the rise. If it takes on such functions as executing trades and picking securities, what are the benefits and the costs? Will there be a human toll? What are the benefits and innovations we expect from AI in the near future? In this episode I discuss these and other topics with Maggie Ralbovsky, Managing Director, Wilshire Associates, Dr. Ashby Monk, Executive Director, Stanford Global Projects Center, and Alex Stimpson Chief Investment Officer at Corient Capital Partners. This episode was originally recorded on March 30, 2021 at the ALTs LA conference, a special thanks to the organization for letting me share it here!

In this episode I interview Lex Sokolin, a futurist and entrepreneur working on the next generation of financial services. He is the Global Fintech Co-Head at ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company building the infrastructure, applications, and practices that enable a decentralized world. Lex focuses on emerging digital assets, public and private enterprise blockchain solutions, and decentralized finance and autonomous organizations. I highly recommend Lex's free weekly letter The FinTech Blueprint which can be found on Substack or at www.fintechblueprint.com You can also follow Lex on social media at:

Zach Coelius is a Founder turned Investor. In this episode we talk about Zach's journey from Minnesota to the Silicon Valley and how he got started as an Angel Investor. Zach takes us through his experience of starting a company, growing that business and then getting gutted by a tech giant. It was a painful but valuable experience with many lessons learned and ultimately helped Zach become a valued Advisor and investor. In this episode we talk about pattern recognition, investment vehicles and lessons learned along the journey. 

You can follow Zach on Twitter at https://twitter.com/zachcoelius 

If you are an Accredited Investor you can invest with Zach at https://angel.co/v/back/coelius-capital

In this episode Nick and I discuss investing in China and focus on the private equity space and portfolio construction. We talk about the growth in the consumer, healthcare and services sectors. The episode was recorded prior Covid-19.

As the head of Asian Investments, Mr. Lee spearheads Morgan Creek's investment strategy and activities in the region with a particular focus on China, investing in both funds and co-investment opportunities. Prior to relocating to Shanghai in 2011, Mr. Lee was based in Morgan Creek's Hong Kong office from 2009 where he assisted in all Asian private investment activities in the region. Mr. Lee joined Morgan Creek in its Chapel Hill headquarters in 2007 where he facilitated screening and analyzing private asset fund globally. Mr. Lee received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Commerce, with concentrations in Finance and Accounting, from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia.  Mr. Lee is fluent in Mandarin and has earned the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst SM designation.

https://www.morgancreekcap.com/team/nicholas-lee-caia/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-lee-39baa96/?originalSubdomain=cn

https://twitter.com/macrocrunch

https://macrocrunch.substack.com/

In this episode Cody and I discuss investing in revolutionary companies. Cody bought Apple at $1, Google at its IPO, Facebook at $20, Tesla at $200 and he still owns all of them! He is an investor in SpaceX and sees space exploration as a multi-trillion dollar opportunity. This episode was recorded in December of 2019 in Abu Dhabi.

Cody Willard is the publisher of a subscription-based investment newsletter TradingWithCody.com and the author of the #1 Amazon best-seller, "Everything You Need to Know About Investing" as well as several other books.

He was an anchor on the Fox Business Network, where he was the co-host of the long-time #1-rated show on the network, Fox Business Happy Hour, was the Wall Street Correspondent for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and was Larry's Kudlow's sidekick on CNBC's Kudlow & Company. He has had a featured investment column for The Financial Times, Marketwatch, the WSJ, TheStreet.com. Willard also served as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University where he taught class called "Revolutionomics" focused on technology, business and politics.

He began his career at Oppenheimer & Co. in 1996 (after his first job in New York City, a barista at Starbucks[1]) and was chief analyst at Visual Radio, a technology venture capital fund, and vice president of wholesale operations at Broadview Networks, a telecommunications company. 

https://twitter.com/codywillard

https://tradingwithcody.com/

https://twitter.com/macrocrunch

https://macrocrunch.substack.com/

In this episode Troy and I discuss portfolio construction, manager research, developing investment themes and go deep on Bank Trust Preferred Securities (TruPs) to illustrate how SkyBridge invest capital. We also touch on Opportunity Zones and there potential to economically energize communities. This interview was recorded in September 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, so a lot has changed, but the concepts are timeless.

Troy A. Gayeski, CFA is a Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager at SkyBridge.  As Senior Portfolio Manager, Mr. Gayeski oversees the firm’s discretionary portfolios and institutional separate accounts. A regular speaker and commentator, Mr. Gayeski appears as a frequent guest on various broadcast networks including Bloomberg News and Fox Business Network. Mr. Gayeski’s responsibilities include portfolio management, manager sourcing, research and due diligence across a wide variety of strategies. He oversees the Event Driven and Relative Value Arbitrage strategies. Prior to this, he performed similar duties in the Hedge Fund Management Groups at Citigroup Alternative Investments (CAI), Bank of America and Yankee Advisers. 

Mr. Gayeski earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT and is a CFA charter holder.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trustpreferredsecurity.asp

https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-a-gayeski-cfa-720366197/

https://www.skybridge.com/about

https://twitter.com/macrocrunch

https://macrocrunch.substack.com/

In this episode, Arun and I discuss portfolio construction and the importance of re-balancing your portfolio on a consistent basis.

Arun Muralidhar, has experience in and has written extensively on asset allocation, currency management and the importance of re-balancing portfolios. Arun is Co-Founder of Mcube Investment Technologies LLC (www.mcubeit.com) and Co-Founder and Client Portfolio Manager of AlphaEngine Global Investment Solutions (AEGIS), an SEC registered investment advisor that is a subsidiary of Mcube. Both firms assist institutional investors in asset allocation, currency management and external manager oversight through customized investment advice and the award-winning AlphaEngine® technology. Arun is the author of Innovations in Pension Fund Management – Stanford University Press, 2001 (translated into Japanese and Chinese). He is also co-author with the late Prof. Franco Modigliani on a book on reforming Social Security, titled, Rethinking Pension Reform – Cambridge University Press, 2004 and edited European Pension Reform, Luxembourg Institute of International Studies, 2007. His book titled, A SMART Approach to Portfolio Management, published in 2009 lays out how the SMART Approach can be applied to all aspects of fund management and would have helped funds in 2008.

Arun has served as Managing Director at FX Concepts Inc (2001-2008), Managing Director/Head of Currency Research, at J.P. Morgan Fleming Asset Management (1999-2001) and prior to that, he was Head of Research and member of the Investment Management Committee at The World Bank (1992-1999). Arun has also written a number of articles on investment finance and risk adjusted performance measurement and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences globally. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the George Washington University School of Business. He has taught courses/delivered seminars at the MIT Sloan School of Management (for Prof. Modigliani), University of Tokyo (Center for Advanced Research in Finance), George Washington University (Masters of Science in Finance), Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy and Nomura School of Advanced Management. He currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Journal of Performance Measurement and Journal for Investment Consulting and has served on the Board of the Journal of Asset Management. He holds a PhD in Managerial Economics from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.S. from Wabash College.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arun-muralidhar-74b2182/

https://www.mcubeit.com/

https://twitter.com/macrocrunch

https://macrocrunch.substack.com/

In this episode Mark and I discuss portfolio construction, the endowment model and the importance of innovation and growth investing.

Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. He is also the Managing Partner of Morgan Creek Digital Assets. Morgan Creek Capital Management was founded in 2004 and currently manages close to $2 billion in discretionary and non-discretionary assets. Prior to founding Morgan Creek, Mr. Yusko was CIO and Founder of UNC Management Company (UNCMC), the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before that, he was Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office.

Mr. Yusko has been at the forefront of institutional investing throughout his career. An early investor in alternative asset classes at Notre Dame, he brought the Endowment Model of investing to UNC, which contributed to significant performance gains for the Endowment. The Endowment Model is the cornerstone philosophy of Morgan Creek, as is the mandate to Invest in Innovation. Mr. Yusko is again at the forefront of investing through Morgan Creek Digital Assets, which was formed in 2018. Morgan Creek Digital is an early stage investor in blockchain technology, digital currency and digital assets through the firm’s Venture Capital and Digital Asset Index Fund.

Mr. Yusko received a BA with Honors from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago.

https://twitter.com/MarkYusko

https://www.morgancreekfunds.com/

https://twitter.com/macrocrunch

https://macrocrunch.substack.com/

A brief interview with "Pomp" on all things Bitcoin.

Anthony Pompliano is a Founder and Partner at Morgan Creek Digital  Assets. He was previously a Managing Partner at Full Tilt Capital, which  was acquired by Morgan Creek in early 2018. In this interview we discuss how Pomp got into Crypto and his framework for investing in blockchain companies. This interview was recorded in March of 2019 in San Francisco with a small group of 20 institutional investors. 

https://twitter.com/APompliano

https://digitalassetindexfund.com/

https://twitter.com/macrocrunch

https://macrocrunch.substack.com/