35: My Bet with Warren Buffett: Ted Seides, Founder of Capital Allocators

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Today’s conversation is with one of America’s most successful investment podcasters, with over 5 million downloads, and who has also worked with one of the investment greats, David Swensen at Yale University Endowment and put himself in the firing line by having the infamous bet with Buffett, whilst at his former firm, Protege partners.

Ted has a gilt-edged education, Yale and the Harvard Business School and he describes beginning his investment journey at the Yale Endowment under Dave Swensen, who so sadly has just died. Ted is also author of 2 books on investing, “So you want to start a hedge fund” & just released “How the world’s elite money managers lead and invest”

Ted describes his upbringing, education and how he secured the job at Yale after listening to a lecture by Swensen. He then talks about his decision to leave to study for an MBA at Harvard Business School before then starting Protégé partners.

He describes how he came to make the bet with Warren Buffet, that a portfolio of Hedge Funds would outperform the S&P 500 over 10 years, which taken early in 2007, looked heroic. Time however, reversed it, in favour of Buffett, and Ted describes the interactions with Buffett and his perspectives thereafter when building capital allocators. He talks about the biggest gain from the bet, which was getting to know Buffett personally.

Ted talks about the lessons he has learned from interviewing some of the great money managers and allocators of capital and his perspectives on what great investors do, what they often avoid doing, and why “our brains are hard-wired to make bad decisions”!

Ted talks about the Hedge Fund paradox, where he comes out on the active v passive debate and how he would think about populating an investment committee

Finally he offers some valuable advice for youth, for investors and why we here at the Money Maze Podcast think his new book is a “must read”.