Capital Allocators – Inside the Institutional Investment Industry

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

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

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

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

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)