Howard Marks
Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management. On 6 shows, 8 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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.
6shows
8appearances
160statements
32resolved
24supported
5contradicted
75%fully supported
133said about them ↓ Everything Howard Marks said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
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…”
Marks: The ongoing U.S. recovery will become the longest in history
“So my guess is that this recovery will set a record for the longest recovery in history. Because of the slowness and the absence of excesses.”
Marks: Accommodating Fed policy and Greenspan put contributed to GFC
“I think that in, in, in some ways, the Fed contributed to the global financial crisis by being too accommodating. And, you know I think that Greenspan was so accommodating of the need of the economy to grow that And kind of a cheerleader that he permitted the …”
Marks: 'Fair share' in taxation is rhetoric for higher taxes
“There is no such thing as a fair share. And the only question is who determines the fair share? And my feeling is that the fair share is by definition, when people say we're trying to get the rich to pay their fair share, what they mean is we're trying to get …”
Marks: US Consumers, Not Chinese Exporters, Pay US Import Tariffs
“Chinese don't pay tariffs. Tariffs are paid by consumers of goods. We have collected billions in tariffs from US consumers of Chinese goods.”
Howard Marks: Free Enterprise Requires Losers; Socialism Yields Only Losers
“You have to have losers and winners in the free enterprise system. If you don't want winners and losers, switch to the socialist system or communist system in which they in which they were only losers.”
Marks: US lost 24M jobs to productivity gains versus 3M to China
“The point is that we have probably lost twenty-four million jobs to increasing productivity over the last 40 years compared to three million that went to China. And it shows you the scope of the problem and the location of the problem. The problem is not China…”
Marks: AI developers will thrive while displaced workers face dystopian hardship
“The people who can develop the personless bookstore or the robot will be in great demand, and the people who can create artificial intelligence will be in great demand and very valuable, and they'll all live in a small community just south of San Francisco. An…”
Marks: Risk Is Probability of Bad Outcomes, Not Volatility
“Now, I don't think volatility is risk. I think risk is the probability of bad outcomes.”
The video game industry invented the modern SaaS subscription model
“By the way, the entire game industry is now a SaaS model, as you probably know, software as a service, because people are now buying either a subscription or they're buying a pay-as-you-go Which is really where the game industry invented it, and the SaaS indus…”
Howard Marks: Ability to infer market behavior rises after extreme events
“The things that have happened, for example, in the economy and the markets are likely to induce certain behavior in the future, and you can know a little bit about that. And, but when the history and the past behavior has been extreme, the ability to infer fro…”
Marks: Annual S&P 500 returns are almost never between 8% and 12%
“The return on the S&P, which averages 10, is almost never between eight and 12.”
Marks: AI-driven markets without emotional bias should produce steadier returns
“It stands to reason that it would. If America, if we programmed AI to find the elements and expect the patterns that produced success in the past and left it alone. And since we're told AI does not have greed or fear or optimism or pessimism, you would think t…”
Marks: 99% of Oaktree's high-yield bonds paid full principal and interest
“I've been in high yield bonds for 48 years. And in our experience, 99% of the bonds have paid interest in principle as promised.”
Marks: Oaktree's 40-Year Default Rate Is Roughly One-Third Market Average
“Over the last 40 years, on average, something like 3.6 or 3.7% of all high yield bonds have gone into default every year. And our default rate has been Roughly a third.”
Marks: 80% Stock Drops Usually Stem From Incomplete Initial Analysis
“When you look at a portfolio and you see a stock that's down 80%, It's usually because something wasn't covered. And because the analysis was not disciplined enough to touch all the bases.”
The other half of the tape: Howard Marks's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 127 times in 59 episodes across the shows. 6 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 22Bill Gurley 18Ian Charles 9Morgan Housel 8Mike Maples 7Jon Harris 7Ted Seides 5Nathan Latka 5
Statements about Howard Marks, by other people (6)
Volatility is genuine risk because it induces investors to abandon their plans
“The smartest of the smart guys say that volatility is not risk. And I strongly, strongly disagree. Because if you're, what you're really trying to do is achieve your goals in life, and the more volatile an investment is, Makes it more likely that you're going …”
Venture investors should aim to quickly become consensus and right
“You want that to be true when you make the investment, but you don't want to be very non-consensus for long. You want to quickly be consensus and right. You just don't want anybody to see it until you make that bet. But like, you don't want to make that bet an…”
Friedman: Oaktree Outpaced Early Canyon by Targeting Institutional Asset Allocation Boxes
“I remember when our good friends, Bruce Karsh and Howard Marks left Trust Company in the West to start Oak Tree and almost instantly had more capital than we did, or at least as much, and we had started a few years earlier, and part of it was that they underst…”
Batnick: Keynes wrote the best chapter on investing in history
“And he wrote, in my opinion, the best chapter ever on investing. I don't know if it's 11 or 12 in general theory, but everything that you hear from Howard Marks and all these guys really started with Keynes in this chapter.”
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
20VC 58
Capital Allocators 50
the Knowledge Project 9
Top Founders 5
Acquired 5
2026 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley
- 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 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2024 18 mentions in 7 episodes 3 per episode
- Morgan Housel – Same as Ever (EP.359)
- 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
- David Salem - Investment Wisdom from the Owner's Box (EP.409)
- Best of 2024: The Blueprint for a Transformative New Year
- Mike Maples Jr. - Identifying Startup Pattern Breakers (EP.406)
- Michael Eisenberg: How China Could Overtake the US in the AI Race | E1167 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Morgan Housel: Get Rich, Stay Rich
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 7 mentions in 5 episodes 1 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
- Charlie Munger (Audio) · Acquired
- Mike Maples: Lessons from SVB; Crisis Management Tips; USD's Status as the Reserve Currency | E993 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- John-Austin Saviano – Emerging Managers and IC Governance (Capital Allocators, EP.294)
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 17 mentions in 12 episodes 1 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
- Benchmark Part I · Acquired
- Enron · Acquired
- Colin Smith and Farouk Miah - Empty Rooms: Investing in Africa (Capital Allocators, EP. 279)
- Julio Vasconcellos: Scaling to $100M and 1,200 Employees and then Cratering | 20VC #928 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sarah Samuels – Framework and Rigor at NEPC (Capital Allocators, EP.264)
- Josh Friedman – Master Class in Credit Investing at Canyon (Capital Allocators, EP.263)
- 4 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 26 mentions in 10 episodes 3 per episode
- Ian Charles & Doc O'Connor – Investing in Sports Teams at Arctos Sports Partners (Capital Allocators, EP.225)
- 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
- How this SaaS Raised $2.4m Crowdfunding at $10m Valuation
- Friends Reunion – Five Allocators Riff on Investing (Capital Allocators, EP.215)
- Ted with Patrick O'Shaughnessy – Lessons from the World's Elite Money Managers (Capital Allocators, EP.184)
- Not Boring (with Packy McCormick) - Extended Cut · Acquired
- Eli Casdin – Casdin Capital (Manager Meetings, EP.02)
- 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
- 2 more episodes that year, every mention in 2021 →
2020 10 mentions in 6 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
- Greg Fleming – Building and Running Rockefeller Capital Management (Capital Allocators, EP.125)
- 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 27 mentions in 8 episodes 3 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
- #67 Jim Collins: Keeping the Flywheel in Motion
- Tim Recker - Concentration at the James Irvine Foundation (Capital Allocators, EP.100)
- Jon Harris – Investing in People at AIM (Capital Allocators, EP.105)
- 1431 CRM for Speakers Passes $30k in MRR
- Ash Williams – Florida SBA's Reigning Chief (Capital Allocator, EP.104)
- Ron Biscardi – Putting Hedge Funds in Context (Capital Allocators, EP.83)
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- James Williams – Curating The Getty's Assets (Capital Allocators, EP.50)
- Mark Baumgartner – Luck, Risk and Uncertainty at the Institute for Advanced Study (Capital Allocators, EP.77)
- Brian Portnoy – From Complex to Simple (Capital Allocators, EP.57)
- Tom Bushey – Launching a Hedge Fund (Capital Allocators EP.78)
- Michael Batnick - The Best Investors and Their Biggest Mistakes (Capital Allocators, EP.71)
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Howard's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 3 | 50 | 86% 12/14 | full record on 20VC → |
 WTFLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 1 | 31 | 50% 2/4 | full record on WTF is with Nikhil Kamath → |
| KNOWLEDGE PROJECTLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 1 | 26 | 100% 4/4 | full record on the Knowledge Project → |
| CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 1 | 24 | 80% 4/5 | full record on Capital Allocators → |
| ACQUIREDLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 1 | 18 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Acquired → |
| TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 1 | 11 | 50% 2/4 | full record on Top Founders → |