Howard Marks
Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management · 3 appearances on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
investorfounderexecutiveauthor@HowardMarksBook ↗LinkedIn ↗oaktreecapital.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Howard Marks co-founded Oaktree Capital Management in 1995, building it into a global leader in alternative investments, distressed debt, and high-yield credit. He is widely recognized for his regular investment memos, as well as bestselling books such as The Most Important Thing and Mastering the Market Cycle.
50statements → 22claims → 14claims resolved → 86%fully supported → 3.84/5average certainty → 2.24/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 60said about them ↓
12 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 8 not checkable as stated how the 22 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
9 predictions · 13 assertions · 6 opinions · 15 insights · 5 disclosures · 2 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 22 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 14 are resolved, and 8 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Howard argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Marks: A period of market distress will occur by 2025
“The bull market is 11 years old. If there's not one in the next five years, that means we'll have gone 16, which would be a record by a wide margin. So my guess is that in the next five years, we'll have a period of distress, and my hope is that Oak Tree will …”
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
How they sound: speaking style how? →
232 words/min while actually speaking · 4.3 um and uh per 1k words
No argument clarity score for Howard Marks: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 29 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.
Measured by listening to 9,985 words across 3 episodes, but every recording we have of Howard Marks is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →
How the interview went all their pushback → series average →
Across 3 rated episodes:
host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2.7/10
setup questions received 52%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 19:43“How do you evaluate the state of kind of the public markets today, companies IPO-ing, given what we've discussed in some ways in terms of the fragility of the macroeconomy and the …” ▶ 16:49“Howard, that was a question that over 20 people emailed in, and it was, you know, with the lack of distressed debt and the massive liquidity that we just discussed, how does distre…” ▶ 6:25“I don't see it going anywhere, and so my question to you is, given that interest rate environment and the existing oversupply of capital, how do you think that industry shapes out …” ▶ 7:08“Do you think that's a fair concern given the fiscal and monetary policies that we've used over the last seven to 10 years, meaning we have little to enact such growth again?” ▶ 12:00“How long do you think it will take for the ripple effects of this to really impact valuations? Because, you know, obviously I invest today, and bluntly it hasn't rippled through in…” ▶ 12:50“And if short of the Great Depression, are there scenarios that could lead to a Great Depression-like environment?”
when Howard pushed back ▶ 3:14“I know you're going to ask a lot of macro questions, and before I start answering, I'm going to say for myself, but I think probably also for Bill, that macro predictions are very …” ▶ 25:05“The first lesson comes as I winced when you use the word invincibility.” ▶ 12:18“In the US, we have had that effect. As before today, I don't know where the market closed today, but it was up substantially, like, eight or so percent when I last looked. Before t…” ▶ 3:18“In other words, 60 years in three minutes.”
Everything Howard Marks said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Howard Marks: Waiting for market bottoms is cover for inaction
“Oak Tree rejects the concept of waiting for the bottom. It's impossible, intellectually, to know when you're at the bottom. And I think that terms like, don't catch a falling knife, and wait for the bottom, are cover for inaction during crisis.”
Marks: A period of market distress will occur by 2025
“The bull market is 11 years old. If there's not one in the next five years, that means we'll have gone 16, which would be a record by a wide margin. So my guess is that in the next five years, we'll have a period of distress, and my hope is that Oak Tree will …”
Howard Marks: Central bank interventions prevented a 2020 global depression
“With that disclaimer out of the way, first of all, nine months ago, a global depression was absolutely a possibility. With the, most of the developed countries Certainly outside of Asia, shutting down their whole economies in order to limit contacts and bend t…”
Howard Marks: Tech automation threatens long-term employment for manual laborers
“Longer term, I worry about employment, mainly because of the stuff Bill does. You know, his companies are replacing labor with computing power, to over-exaggerate. I worry about where people whose main asset is a strong back are going to get jobs in the longer…”
Marks: Record-low interest rates justify historical peak stock P/E ratios
“The lower the interest rates, the higher the asset price is justified. We have the lowest interest rates in history. That justifies, for example, the highest P.E. Ratios in history.”
Marks: COVID-19 downturn is not driven by a credit bubble
“This time around, we are not coming off a bubble. The banks are much less leveraged. And there's no analog as deficient in substance as the subprime mortgage.”
Marks: The US ran a $1T deficit during prosperity due to 2017 tax bill
“And thanks to the Trump tax bill that was signed in December of 17, we were already running a trillion dollar deficit in times of prosperity.”
Marks: United States national debt will never be repaid
“So the point is we're going to be going through the next years saddled with an enormous national debt that we'll never repay.”
Marks: Swift Government Actions Significantly Reduced Risk of a Global Depression
“My partner, Bruce Garsh, and I, talking, I would say, middle of last week, were afraid of a meaningful probability of a depression, with millions losing their jobs and businesses shuttered for long periods of time. Now, I think, with the government having done…”
Howard Marks: Market bargains vanish once uncertainty is resolved
“It is my opinion that when the knife is falling, it's terrifying. Buyers get great value. And when the knife stops falling and the dust settles and the uncertainty is resolved, the bargains are gone.”
Howard Marks: Europe Will Outperform US in Navigating COVID Crisis
“The U.S. Has a better underlying rate of growth and more economic vitality. On the other hand, I think that the U.S. Lacks the national leadership, which might be required to get us through this. My guess is that the, well, in this little instance here, I'm go…”
Marks: The market is in an advanced, elevated cycle stage
“I do think that we are in the upper advancing part of the cycle. You know, we've been in, it's been a long economic expansion, a long bull market, in both cases, the longest in history. Valuations of stocks are higher than usual. Interest rates and yield sprea…”
Marks: Investors should reduce risk and take chips off the table
“I don't think we're in a massive bubble. I don't think this thing is gonna collapse anytime soon, but I do think that there is more risk than usual, which means that you should be more cautious than usual. I'm not saying that we're not going higher. I'm not sa…”
Marks: FOMO and greed dominate early 2020 markets
“That's when you get the best bargains, and that is not a very good description of today. Today, people are eager to invest. Fear of missing out seems to have taken over from fear of losing money. People are risk tolerant. They're greedy. They're optimistic. Th…”
Howard Marks: Macro predictions shouldn't drive investment decisions
“Macro predictions are very hard to make, and I don't think either of us bases our investment decisions on macro forecasts. That's not a way to have a good batting average.”
Howard Marks: Economists are now disregarding the Phillips Curve
“So now I think the Phillips curve is being disregarded.”
Howard Marks: Strong economic recovery will follow COVID-19 herd immunity
“I personally believe that when we get to herd immunity, And when the number of cases falls, you know, radically, by which I mean, I guess, you know, a few hundred a day or so, I think that we'll have a very good recovery in the economy and in employment.”
Marks: Oaktree's distressed debt returns won't match past crisis levels
“We think our returns will be very attractive relative to the low overall level of interest rates, but nothing like in the past.”
Marks: Market trouble occurs when investors believe no price too high
“When people start saying no price too high, then the world tends to get in trouble, as they have several times in my life.”
Howard Marks: 2019 market conditions left economy vulnerable to pandemic shock
“And I think that the market conditions in 19, twenty-nineteen and the prior years made us vulnerable to an economic shock like the pandemic produced.”
Marks: High-Yield Bonds Have Been Central to 40 Years of Finance
“In 78, I was asked to start a high-yield bond fund, and high-yield bonds have been the, shall we say, epicenter, although it's an advised word today, for almost everything that's happened, interestingly, in finance in the last 40 years.”
Howard Marks rejects Modern Monetary Theory's view that national debt doesn't matter
“And there's a theory called modern monetary theory that it doesn't matter, which I find that hard to accept.”
Howard Marks: Above-Average Returns Require Resisting Crowd Psychology
“What that means, Harry, is that if you operate emotionally or psychologically, like the average person, you will have average results, which for the most part means buying high and selling low. In order to be an above average investor among all the various req…”
The other half of the tape: Howard Marks's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 58 times in 26 episodes on 20VC. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 22Bill Gurley 16Mike Maples 7Michael Eisenberg 3Scooter Braun 2Mitchell Green 1Julio Vasconcellos 1Everett Randle 1
Statements about Howard Marks, by other people (2)
Warren Buffett reads Howard Marks's memos before anything else
“It was Warren Buffett himself that said once, when I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they're the first thing I open and read.”
Gurley sought macro advice from Howard Marks and Stan Druckenmiller
“Funny story, about two or three years ago, when interest rates were heading into unprecedented territory, I told my partners I needed to talk to some macro experts, and I did everything I could to find my way to Howard and Stan Druckenmiller, and I was thrille…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- Mitchell Green: Why 50% of VCs Should Not Exist · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Anthropic's Fable Banned by US Government | Wix & Adobe Hit All-Time Lows | Mistral Raising at $20BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Why You Need a $1B Fund To Do Series A | SpaceX at $2TRN & Data Centers in Space | Groq's $20BN Deal · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 4 mentions in 1 episode
2024 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Doug Leone, Bill Ackman, Bill Gurley and Orlando Bravo on "Does Price Matter"; When to Pay Up vs When to Stay Disciplined, The Biggest Lessons on Price Discipline from 8 of the World's Best Investors
- Michael Eisenberg: How China Could Overtake the US in the AI Race | E1167 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Scooter Braun on Being Enough, Insecurity, Wealth, Investing, Fame, Marriage and Much More | E1002 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Mike Maples: Lessons from SVB; Crisis Management Tips; USD's Status as the Reserve Currency | E993 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 10 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: 13 of the Great Investing Minds on When to Pay Up vs When To Remain Disciplined and Walk Because the Price is too High: The Ultimate Guide to Price Sensitivity
- 20VC: Former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney on Why "Only the Niche Will Survive" in Crypto, How Governments and Central Banks Retain Control in a World of Decentralised Finance & The Winners and Losers in Crypto Exchanges and NFTs
- Julio Vasconcellos: Scaling to $100M and 1,200 Employees and then Cratering | 20VC #928 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: The Memo: Bill Gurley, Doug Leone, Keith Rabois; Investing Lessons from Prior Busts, How Their Investor Psychology Changed, What Can Be Applied To Today's Market
- Fabrice Grinda: The First Person to Predict the Collapse of Credit Suisse? | 20VC #886 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: WTF Is Going On? 3 Outcomes for What Could Happen From Here; What Needs to Happen To Avoid Recession? Why Stagnation is Most Likely and What This Means for Startups and Venture & Why Catastrophe is More Likely Than Ever and Switzerland Could Be a "H
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 9 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg on The First Signs of an Impending Bust, What Happens with a Market Crash, How Do Public Markets Impact Private Valuations & The Biggest Lessons from 20 Years Investing in Venture
- 20VC: Benchmark's Peter Fenton on The Single Question That Defines The Art of Early Stage Venture, Marketing Timing Risk, Why The Oversupply of Capital Is Good & His Biggest Lessons from 12 Years On The New Relic Board
- 20VC: Aleph's Michael Eisenberg on Why Generalists Over Specialists, Why Boutique Smaller Firms Over Multi-Stage Firms, Portfolio Construction Theory, Capital Concentration Limits and How To Think Through Reserve Allocations with Market Cycles in Mind?
- 20VC: Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone on The 3 Stages of Wealth, The Return To Twitter in 2017 and the Associated Missions and Challenges & Why Silicon Valley is not an "Insiders Only" Universe?
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Portfolio Construction, Optimising SPVs, Opportunity Investing "Between Rounds", Being Distribution-Centric Over Product-Centric and Capital Concentration Within Funds With Sumeet Gajri, Chief Strategy Officer @ Carta
- 20VC: Upfront's Mark Suster on COVID Redefining What A Great Company Looks Like and What Valuations Look Like, Why Pay-To-Play Is Back On The Table & Why We Will See The Death of Party Rounds
- 20VC: How To Assess Risk and Value Creation, Why It Would Be Better If VCs Had Smaller Portfolios & How To Optimise Internal Decision-Making with Misha Esipov, Founder & CEO @ Nova Credit
- 20VC: Raising $105m in Just 13 Months Over 3 Separate Rounds, The 5 Core Ways VCs Can Add Value & How Founders Can and Should Fully Leverage Their Cap Table with Kurt Rathmann, Founder & CEO @ ScaleFactor
- 20VC: Why Now Is The Hardest Time To Raise an Institutional Pre-Seed in the Last Decade, What To Do When The Founder and VC Interests Do Not Align & The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds with Gaurav Jain, Founder & Managing Partner @ Afore Capital
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 13 mentions in 2 episodes 7 per episode
- 20VC: Ash Fontana on The 5 Core Characteristics That Make Data Valuable, What VCs Can Learn From Italian Craftsmen and Howard Marks & The Importance of Vertical Integration In Scaling Today
- 20VC: Benchmark's Bill Gurley on 5 Traits Benchmark Look For When Adding To The Partnership, Why The Abundance of Capital Is Today's Biggest Challenge in VC & The Right Way To Think About Market Size When Assessing Opportunities
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
Appearances (3)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 20VC: Bill Gurley and Howard Marks: What Happened In 2020? What Can We Expect Looking Forw | Jan 4, 2021 | 14m |
| 20VC: Howard Marks on How COVID-19 Impacts Our Economy, Liquidity and National Debt, Why T | Mar 30, 2020 | 15m |
| 20VC: Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks on The Most Important Skill An Investor Can Have, The | Jan 20, 2020 | 19m |