Today we were delighted to host our good friend Ken Hersh, President and CEO of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Prior to his position at the Presidential Center, Ken was the co-founder and long-time CEO of energy private equity firm NGP. Ken’s first COBT appearance was in November of 2020 and since our last visit, Ken has written a new book entitled "The Fastest Tortoise Wins the Race: Winning in Industries I Knew Nothing About." The book was officially published on Tuesday, March 28th and we couldn’t be more excited to visit with Ken and discuss the book. As you will hear, our whole team got (and read!) advanced copies and thoroughly enjoyed it. 
  
In our conversation, we cover the broad array of topics Ken hits in the book and intersperse some of today’s energy hot button issues. We start with Ken’s inspiration for the book, cover some of the important moments in energy history that he has been a part of (the formation of Pioneer Natural Resources and of Energy Transfer, just to name a couple), re-live the journey of co-founding and leading NGP, and explore cultural and operational philosophies like "feeding your winners" and paying attention to signals ("yellow lights don’t turn green"). We also touch on the importance of betting on a team for the long-run, Ken’s early involvement championing energy technology and adaptation, the latest estimate of the IRA’s total cost and government spending in general, and what Ken describes as “leapfrog” opportunities in the energy transition. Ken walks us through his perspective on the clash between today’s fast-paced world and the deliberately slow institutions we have built in government and elsewhere, comments on the future of private equity, and some of the keys to building a collaborative and trusting culture. As we wrapped up, we of course probed him about what the future holds. In sum, we loved the book and the visit both. 
  
Mike Bradley offered up five highlights/observations from the past week and for coming weeks. He observed that markets are becoming "Comfortably Numb," meaning investors are gaining "comfort" that systematic risks are lessening but "numb" in the sense that recession fears are still heightened. He also observed that bond yields are temporarily stabilizing because consensus believes (hopes) rate hikes are over and that the next move might be down in rates. He highlighted crude markets rebounding back to a previous trading range, near-term SPR refills by the Biden Administration looks to be fantasy, OPEC will likely not change their previous production policy at next week’s meeting, and that the energy sector has temporarily become more correlated with regional bank equities than crude oil price. Mike also flagged the handful of traditional and new energy deals announced over the last week. He wrapped by highlighting a Richard Rainwater quote "where there is chaos - there is opportunity," and applied this concept to the recent purchase of Silicon Valley Bank by First Citizens Bank. Jeff Tillery also joined for today’s engaging session. 
  
We took a lot of lessons from visiting with Ken today and hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Our best to you all!