John Kim, or Kimmer, has raised more than $70 billion across his career for leading venture capital and private equity firms. Kimmer recently distilled three decades of lessons into The Tao of Fundraising, the best book I've ever read on fundraising for investment managers. Since then, Kimmer joined a General Catalyst portfolio company, Lila Sciences, as Chairman and President of Corporate Development. Our conversation covers Kimmer's philosophy about raising capital, the sales process, art of persuasion, best practices in a meeting, frameworks determining fundraising success, taxonomy of institutional investors, ideal sales team structure and compensation, and the features he carried over from capital formation for funds to a new operating role. Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership

Josh Steiner is a polymath of the New York and D.C. power corridors across government, media, and finance, and co-author of From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn't Own You.

Josh rose to national prominence as the youngest-ever Chief of Staff at the U.S. Treasury in the Clinton administration, where he made a high-profile mistake he unpacks in the book. He pivoted to finance as a media investment banker and co-founder of private equity firm Quadrangle Group in 2000, worked as an operator at Bloomberg in the 2010s, has served on Yale's Investment Committee for nearly a decade, and five years ago returned to private equity as co-founder of SSW Partners managing capital for a few families.

Our conversation focuses on mistakes, quite a contrast from other discussions on the podcast. We kick it off with Josh's big mistake at Treasury and analyze the nature of mistakes and what happened to Josh. We then turn to his mistakes in investing across deals, managing an investment business, managing people, and serving on Investment Committees. We close with frameworks to avoid mistakes and with Josh turning the table on me to discuss an impactful mistake I made that I've never discussed before.

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Today's show discusses an innovative joint venture between asset owners and a multi-manager hedge fund that seeks to deliver smooth, equity-like returns at a lower cost than available in the marketplace.

My guests are Will England, Derek Drummond, and Tony Caruso. Will is the CEO and CIO of $12 billion multi-strategy hedge fund Walleye Capital. Derek is head of external public markets investing at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, and Tony Caruso is Managing Director of hedge funds at UTIMCO. Together, they co-founded Dockside Platforms, a managed account platform that gives institutional allocators direct access to portfolio managers using the infrastructure, risk systems, and financing capabilities of a multi-strat underneath.

Our conversation traces Dockside's evolution from a barstool brainstorm to a platform with more than 60 managers and billions in assets. We discuss the accessibility of talent through managed accounts, differentiated manager sourcing, due diligence with trade-level transparency, capital efficiency across portfolios, hedging, risk management, and onboarding and exiting managers on the platform. All told, the combined heft of large asset owner capital and the sophisticated infrastructure of a multi-manager hedge fund have created a win-win for everyone involved.

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Sloane Payne and Dave Joerger are the COO and CCO of WCM Investment Management, a firm chronicled over the years for its remarkable culture and growth to $120 billion in assets under management. This special conversation was hosted by Scott MacDonald on our affiliate Investment Management Operations podcast.

Their conversation describes WCM's culture in practice that includes hiring for character over credentials, trust as an operating principle, overtrusting before proof exists, generous compensation and shared equity, values as a daily practice, connection through relational investment, making mistakes feel survivable, scaling culture by modeling behavior, accountability alongside kindness, and succession planning without financial burden. Sloane and Dave believe the atypical human blend of these disciplines has been the primary driver of the firm's success. Although not the origin of its name, it's perhaps not surprising that WCM also stands for Why Culture Matters.

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Alex Sloane and Matt Perelman are co-founders of Garnett Station Partners, a $4 billion private equity firm focused on buy-and-build investments in founder-led, core economy businesses. Alex and Matt are lifelong friends who took an unconventional path out of business school, acquiring a 23-unit Burger King franchise in North Carolina that they scaled to 1,100 locations before selling it back to the franchisor. That operating experience became the foundation for their investment firm.

Our conversation traces that evolution from operators to investors. We discuss their "shared desk" partnership and culture of debate, and the Garnett Station playbook, from sourcing "lighthouse" businesses and moving quickly in fragmented markets to building diversified platforms through disciplined capital allocation. We also cover lessons from scaling through cycles, the role of speed and integration in buy-and-build strategies, and how they think about risk, exits, and long-term value creation.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Ascension.

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Rodney Comegys is the CIO of Vanguard Capital Management and its Head of Global Equity Indexing, where he oversees $8.5 trillion in index assets across domestic, international, and multi-asset strategies. Rodney joined Vanguard twenty seven years ago and has worked across operations, customer service, risk management, and investing.

Our conversation covers the philosophy and mechanics behind running one of the world's largest index fund operators. We discuss Vanguard's ownership structure, values, product selection, and mechanics of delivering an index fund. We then turn to common issues around indexing, including concentration in U.S. equities, corporate governance, private assets, and AI.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Thema.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Randall Stutman is the founder of Admired Leadership and one of the most sought-after executive coaches in the world. He's known across Wall Street, the hedge fund community, professional sports, the Olympics, and the White House entirely by word of mouth. Randall was a past guest on the show six years ago in a rare public appearance, and that conversation is replayed in the feed.

Our conversation covers the framework for uncovering the behaviors and best practices of admired leaders and then dives into examples around giving feedback. We also discuss how admired leaders both generate results and develop followership, and a few extra behavioral gems for investment leaders.

Last year, Randall launched ALEX, an insane AI coaching tool trained solely on his insights. It's effectively an executive coach available 24/7 for only $300/year. We use it regularly, and always for situations with elevated stakes. Give it a try at leadwithalex.com.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: OWL.

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Randall Stutman is founder and co-head of the Leadership Practice at CRA. and the Admired Leadership Institute. Randall is probably the top executive coach that you've never heard of before. He's spent 30 years coaching and learning about the behaviors and routines of extraordinary leaders. To give you a sense, he was worked in the White House and the Olympics, with something like 2,000 senior executives and 400 CEOs, and in our world, the most senior executives at JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Blackstone. Randall is also well known among the titans in the hedge fund community, where he's worked with many of the industry's leading funds. And he's done all of this entirely by word of mouth referral. Randall was one of the first people I asked to come on the show three years ago, and he respectfully declined – at that point in time not wanting share the uncovered behaviors that drive his work. A few months ago, he and his partners launched Admired Leadership, an online course with short videos of 100 behaviors repeated by the most talented CEOs. The course is extraordinary. It's so ridiculously good that I started sharing a link to it in my email signature as a gift to those who don't know about it. Our conversation covers Randall's path to coaching and the coaching process. We cover behaviors common among hedge fund managers, the admired leadership course, and examples across inspiring others, decision making, time management, and elevating performance. We close with Randall's thoughts on behaviors that allocators can identify in their manager research.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

My guest on today's special episode is Joel Holsinger, Co-head of Ares' $50 billion Alternative Credit strategy. In addition to his long and stellar career in the credit markets, Joel spearheaded the launch of Promote Giving, a philanthropic initiative similar to Warren Buffett and Bill Gates' Giving Pledge, designed for alternative asset managers.

Our conversation covers Joel's path to engaging in philanthropy, starting from humble beginnings to now making grants of $5 million in 2025 through Ares and launching Promote Giving in October.

The proposition of Promote Giving is simple – GPs commit up to 5% of their promote on at least one fund to give to a charity of their choice. With ten signatories and more than $35 billion in AUM pledged to participate already, Promote Giving is quickly growing the movement to managers across asset classes. It's the Giving Pledge applied to investment firms, and I can't imagine a better use of this space than to spread the word.

Learn more and pledge to give at promotegiving.org

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Bruce MacDonald is the CEO and CIO of the Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Company, which runs $2.5 billion for VCU's endowment and health system. Bruce joined the University in 2015 and shortly thereafter, had the opportunity to sell the portfolio and start fresh. Since being promoted to CIO in 2022, VCU has been a top decile performer with a team of just five investment professionals.

Our conversation covers Bruce's unconventional path from a religion major at Wesleyan to fixed income investing at Putnam and endowment roles at Columbia and UVIMCO before arriving at VCU. We discuss the principles of VCU's approach, including building a portfolio around secular tailwinds like India, Vietnam, gold, and artificial intelligence while maintaining abundant liquidity to act countercyclically during market dislocations. We explore VCU's team-based underwriting process, lessons learned from mistakes, and personal influences that have shaped Bruce's investment philosophy.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Ascension.

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Kieran Goodwin is a Partner at Saba Capital, a $6 billion hedge fund manager that seeks to identify dislocations in credit and equity markets to generate convex returns in volatile times. Kieran has been one of the top credit traders on the Street for the last three decades across roles at investment banks in the '90s and early 00's, King Street, his own hedge fund, Panning Capital, and most recently, Saba that he joined in 2024.

Our conversation covers a tour of Kieran's background, including early experience with credit derivatives, growth at King Street, lifespan of Panning, downtime between stints, and re-engagement with Boaz Weinstein at Saba. We then turn to risks in the private credit market, including its rapid growth, asset-liability mismatches, pricing marks, leverage, liquidity, default risk, and the potential for reflexive problems. Kieran shares how managers should navigate the environment and how he is positioning Saba to benefit.

Learn more about our Strategic Investments: Thema.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)