Policy Punchline

Princeton Investment Company (PRINCO) CIO Andy Golden walks us through Princeton’s investment theses and manager selection processes, speaks to the importance of value add in partnerships, responds to divestment concerns, and addresses upcoming challenges in the finance and private equity industry.

One of the most successful investors and endowment directors today, Andy manages Princeton's $26 billion Endowment through a global network of over 75 investment firms. He has grown the endowment from $3 billion when he arrived more than 20 years ago, and achieved an annualized return of 11.6 percent in the past 10 years – making PRINCO one of the highest performing endowments in the world.

Andy became the third President of PRINCO in January 1995. He came to PRINCO from Duke Management Company where he was an Investment Director. He previously worked as a Senior Associate in the Investments Office at Yale University.

Andy holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Duke University and an M.P.P.M. from the Yale School of Management. He earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. Andy served as a founding member of the Investors’ Committee of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, and previously served as a member of the Board of Directors of the NAB Asset Corporation, a publicly-traded commercial loan workout specialist. He is a Trustee of the Princeton Area Community Foundation, Rita Allen Foundation and Rutgers Preparatory School.

Before shifting his focus to investing, Andy was a professional photographer. A stand-up guy, Andy enjoys paddle boarding, and hopes to someday return to the pro-am shark wrestling circuit. He wishes he had time to learn golf — he wouldn’t use it to learn golf, but he wishes he had the time.

Co-hosting the interview with Tiger is Arsh Dilbagi, Princeton junior in the Operations Research and Financial Engineering department, who has interned at PRINCO as a summer analyst and is known for his entrepreneurial projects in robotics and beyond.

Joyce Chang is Chair of Global Research for J.P. Morgan, whose research capacities expand across equities, currency and commodities, fixed income, emerging markets, derivatives and structured finance. Ms. Chang’s team has been named the top global research firm for 2017 and 2018 by Institutional Investor.

In this episode, Ms. Chang tells us how the utilization of alternative data has revolutionized financial market research, as well as J.P. Morgan’s cooperation with social organizations in using big data to promote public good. What does the “Volfefe” index tell us about the relationship between Treasury bonds volatility and President Trump’s tweets? With technological change through big data and artificial intelligence, how does the role of an analyst evolve? How has the J.P. Morgan Institute contributed to a socially responsible investment environment?…

Ms. Chang also shares her unique experience as an Asian female working on Wall Street. Her insights into how she thrives in a traditionally male-dominated industry sheds light on how aspiring young professionals could break the “bamboo ceiling” despite of all the challenges.

Ms. Chang began her career as an Emerging Markets Strategist and held top rankings in Institutional Investor surveys for Emerging Markets research from 1997 through 2012, earning 25 #1 individual rankings. In 2014, she was inducted into the Fixed Income Analyst Society Hall of Fame. Ms. Chang was a Managing Director at Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers before joining J.P. Morgan Chase in 1999. She is the Senior Sponsor for J.P. Morgan’s Corporate and Investment Bank’s Women on the Move Network, the network for employees of Asian heritage (AsPIRE), and Nonprofit Board Service. She holds a BA from Columbia and an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.

“Most sports and entertainment companies are satisfied by taking a more traditional focus on game attendance, meaning ticket purchases and merchandise purchases as a measure of fan engagement, and they stop there,” said Iwao Fusillo, SVP of Data Data Analytics and Insights at the National Football League.

Since his arrival, however, Mr. Fusillo has spearheaded the NFL’s “data revolution” – from bringing on Amazon as a strategic partner for AI and machine learning technology to introducing wildly successful crowdsourcing programs such as the NFL Punt Analytics Competition and the NFL Big Data Bowl. Mr. Fusillo’s contribution to the NFL in the realm of data analysis have significantly pushed the culturally-significant sport of football forward in ways that even the most dedicated fans may not be aware of.

In this interdisciplinary podcast between data, sports, and the NFL’s business model, our co-hosts Tiger and Arjun talk with Mr. Fusillo about the rapid integration of the latest data analytics advancements into the entertainment and sports industries.

Mr. Fusillo also addresses some of the questions that consumers generally have about living an increasingly data-driven world: How does data analysis make football safer for its players? What are some of the fascinating models that the NFL is using to analyze and predict player performance? Is it a scary vision that our personal health metrics can be tracked at all times by future hardware devices? Is “Big Data” really something that every company should embrace in order to become successful?

With trends indicating that most major companies are implementing data into their operations, Mr. Fusillo offers a unique insider perspective of the technological and business revolution happening across industries beyond tech companies. Listen now to learn how data-driven decision-making will be ubiquitous across the business world in the near future – and also to hear all the funny banter between Mr. Fusillo, Tiger, and Arjun!

Andrew Winston is a prolific writer, consultant, and globally recognized expert on how companies can navigate and profit from climate change while transforming their businesses to be more environmentally friendly. Andrew's first book, "Green to Gold," was the top-selling green business title of the last decade. His latest book, "The Big Pivot," provides a practical roadmap to help leaders build resilient, thriving companies and communities in a volatile world.

In this interview, we tackle some of the most essential debates about climate change and our economy. How can businesses remain profitable while transforming themselves to be more responsive to climate change? What has prevented more businesses from doing so? How can we make sure that debates about climate change are not affected by partisan politics and lobbying efforts? ...

Andrew is also a respected and dynamic speaker, reaching audiences of thousands with an entertaining message of practical optimism: the world’s challenges are great, but businesses have the tools, resources, and creativity to create a sustainable world. He has spoken all over the world – in Europe, Russia, Brazil, the Middle East, and China – bringing his ideas to leadership meetings of the top executives of Fortune 500 companies, large industry conferences, and high-profile events like the World Innovation Forum and TED.

An American singer-songwriter, Mr. Pete Muller forged a rather unconventional path. He founded and now runs PDT Partners, one of the most successful quant investment firms in our world today. But he is also a famous musician, having just recently released his 4th studio album, "Dissolve," and is touring all around the world.

In this interview, Mr. Muller talks about his educational and music journey with us – from studying math at Princeton to starting his hedge fund; from starting his music career in California to pushing himself as a live performer playing on the New York City subway platforms and stages all around the world. He speaks about his morning routine of yoga and cardio, as well as his way of finding a balance between music and finance.

Mr. Muller has long been a champion of music education and the arts. In 2017, he spearheaded the Berklee School of Music's acquisition of New York City's Power Station recording studio, saving the iconic space from being shuttered. In partnership with the city, Muller is helping transform the beleaguered studio into a world-class facility that Berklee will use as its first New York outpost for students.

Beyond his ambitious financial and musical careers, Mr. Muller still finds time to pursue other passions. He is an avid surfer, dedicated yogi, and prolific crossword puzzle constructor – you can find his challenging, music-themed, "meta-puzzles" monthly in the Washington Post.

We are honored to host Mr. Muller on our show and cannot wait to spread his music and ideas to more people.

It seems that American politics has reached a new level of tension. The Democratic and Republican parties have become more polarized over years, and Congress is currently mired in an eye-opening impeachment inquiry, which could alter the course of American history.

But has Congressional partisanship actually gotten significantly worse than before? Are there in fact fewer bipartisan legislations getting passed? Will the Trump impeachment remain a partisan issue or can the two parties ever reach consensus? Do we see reasons of remaining optimistic in the current political climate, and is the pessimism in our current social discourse overblown?

Here to provide some very refreshing views on the impeachment and Congressional partisanship is Prof. Frances Lee, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Professor Lee is one of the country’s foremost scholars on Congressional politics. She has written extensively on American politics, including the award-winning books "Sizing Up the Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation" and "Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles, and Partisanship."

Are you constantly getting inundated by notifications from your phone? Do you fondly remember the good-old-days when cellphones were just a tool and not an extension of our personalities? How can we make sure that phones and tech products do not induce anxiety in our lives but can actually improve our living quality? ... In this episode, we talk to Kaiwei Tang, Founder of Light Phone, a product that aims to cater to all your unplugging needs – aesthetically and purposefully.

Kaiwei Tang, the CEO and co-founder of LightPhone, hopes to design a product that would give people the opportunity to unplug from the hyperconnected world and eliminate all the distractions from a normal smartphone. One can use a Light Phone for basic utilitarian purposes such as navigation and booking a cab, while remaining disconnected from social media. Kaiwei’s intent behind his entrepreneurial venture is to offer people the peace of mind and a happier lifestyle by eliminating distractions and stress of social media, news, and notifications…

In this episode, we also learn about Kaiwei’s entrepreneurial journey of creating such a product. He also discusses how social media has fundamentally altered human values portending a change in the way we generate ideas and connect with other people. We also talk about the purpose of technology in today’s world and what we can do to fix the problem of over-indulgence in our phones.

Currently, Kaiwei’s company is based in New Lab in Brooklyn. He started his journey by working as a mobile device product lead for almost 8 years with a background in industrial engineering and product designing. He received his master’s degree in Design and Business from Design IIT, Chicago and became the only designer to ever receive full sponsorship from Google for its design incubator program.

Shaun Stewart is currently the CEO of New Lab, a frontier tech incubator located in Brooklyn supporting over 150 startups and 600 entrepreneurs who work on innovations ranging from quantum computing to hydroponic gardening, from autonomous driving to AI in medicine…

In this episode, Shaun discusses the process of incubating frontier tech innovations and supporting entrepreneurs through business development initiatives. He tells us about some of the most exciting innovations happening at New Lab, as well as his personal journey from being in the hotel management industry to the world of tech and entrepreneurship. We also dive into conversations about antitrust regulations for big tech and the intersection of technology with human lives in the modern world.

Shaun was appointed the CEO of New Lab in December 2018. An “inspiring space,” as Shaun calls it, NewLab is the confluence of technological innovators, medical scientists, computer-science geniuses, and climate change combatting pioneers in Brooklyn, an area with the potential of becoming the Silicon Valley on the East Coast.

Prior to heading New Lab, Shaun was the Chief Business Development Officer at Waymo, Google’s self-drive cars initiative, from 2016 to 2018. At Waymo, Shaun was a member of the executive leadership team leading the Operations, Business Development and Strategy functions. Shaun started his career in the online hotel booking sector, working at Expedia from 2002 to 2010 as a Regional Director of Market Management. He then co-founded Jetsetter, a company later acquired by TripAdvisor. He was then invited to help expand Airbnb’s business as the Global Head of Vacation Rentals from 2014 to 2016 before joining Google X. Shaun received his Bachelors in hotel management from Cornell University.

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist specializing in writing about China’s long-term social issues, such as the country’s search for faith and values, as well as its political and religious challenges. In this episode, Mr. Johnson explains the complexity of Chinese religion and how it is often misunderstood by Westerners, the nuanced relationship between religion and the Chinese government, the ills of the current state of journalism and its implication on the coverage of China, his take on the refugee crisis in Europe, as well as his prescription for creating a more-unified society with meaningful values in the future .

Mr. Johnson is a regular contributor of articles and commentary to The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and speaks in the media or to public audiences about China. He also teaches undergraduate courses on Chinese society and is pursuing a doctorate in Sinology at Leipzig University. His two books The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao and Islam in Europe are major focal topics in this episode.

Johnson has also spent a significant amount of time working in Germany. He attended graduate school in West Berlin from 1988 to 1992 and worked as a free-lance writer at the same time, covering the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification for Baltimore's The Sun, The St. Petersburg Times, and The Toronto Star. He worked as The Wall Street Journal’s Germany bureau chief and senior writer from 2001 to 2009, leading coverage on European macro-economics and societal issues.

He is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on China, Stanford University's Shorenstein prize for his body of work on Asia, a grant from the Open Society Foundation, and a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University. In the past year, he was also the recipient of the American Academy of Religion's "best in-depth news writing on religion" award for writing on religion.

Blair Effron is one of the most successful American financiers today, having co-founded elite boutique investment bank Centerview Partners and prominently involved in Democratic politics. In this episode, Mr. Effron tells us about his journey as an investment banker, the importance and intellectual excitement of advising companies through their lifecycles, his take on the socio-political gridlock in America, as well as his optimism for humanity’s progress going forward.

Centerview provides advice on mergers and acquisitions, capital restructurings, and other financial matters to 20% of the 50 largest companies in the world by market capitalization. With 50 partners including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as well as some of the most successful investment bankers in the world, Centerview has risen to become one of the most active and leading institutions shortly after its inception in 2006 with over $3 trillion in advised transactions.

“Our relationship has always been more with Blair Effron than with any one bank,” said Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo. Indeed as those words have shown, Mr. Effron has built relationships with and advised Fortune 500 and multinational corporations across a wide range of sectors – from 21st Century Fox’s $6 billion acquisition of Dow Jones to GE’s $200 billion spin-off of GE Capital... Mr. Effron is also active in Democratic Party politics and was a prominent supporter of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. He has also hosted President Obama and Secretary Clinton multiple times for political events, and still acts as an important voice bridging the political and financial sectors.

Mr. Effron currently sits on the boards of trustees of The Council on Foreign Relations (Vice Chairman), Lincoln Center (Treasurer), the Metropolitan Museum, New Visions for Public Schools (Co-Chair), Partnership for New York City and Princeton University. He also sits on the advisory board of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative affiliated with the Brookings Institution.  He holds a BA from Princeton University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.