David Swensen
David Swensen
David F. Swensenhas been the Chief Investment Officer at Yale University since 1985. He is responsible for managing and investing the University's endowment assets and investment funds, which total $23.9 billion. Realizing an average annual return of 11.8 percent on his investments over the ten years to 2009, Swensen's consistent track record has attracted the notice of Wall Street portfolio managers. He is notable for inventing The Yale Model which is an application of modern portfolio theory. Swensen was listed...
ability crashing dumb enthusiasm faith funds mindless people per problems reasonable seeing select
I wouldn't say that I have faith in hedge funds per se, but I have reasonable faith in our ability to discriminately select high-quality partners, ... You're seeing a lot of hedge fund problems now because there's such mindless enthusiasm on the part of the public. A lot of the entrants are low-quality, and you've got a lot of people crashing around doing dumb things.
enjoyed great guys learned life looked saw senior supporting time wall
I enjoyed my time on Wall Street, I learned a lot, and I still have a lot of friends there, but I never saw myself there long term, because when I looked at the senior guys there, that wasn't the kind of life I wanted for myself, ... Here, I'm supporting one of the world's great institutions.
markets
I see every day how competitive the markets are, and how tough. So the idea that you can do this yourself, that's out the window.
completed fair jim took
Without Jim's mentorship, there's no way I would have completed my Ph.D. here, ... It was fair to say that I lacked direction, so Jim kind of took me under his wing.