Patrick O'Shaughnessy
Founder & CEO, Positive Sum. On 3 shows, 50 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
hostinvestorfounderexecutiveauthor@patrick_oshag ↗psum.vc ↗
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the founder and CEO of Positive Sum and host of the podcast Invest Like the Best, produced by Colossus. He previously served as CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management and authored the book Millennial Money: How Young Investors Can Build a Fortune.
3shows
50appearances
73statements
16resolved
12supported
3contradicted
75%fully supported
39said about them ↓ Everything Patrick O'Shaughnessy said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
O'Shaughnessy: High quality metrics do not generate excess returns; low quality destroys them
“In the quantitative sense, high ROEs or gross profitability or whatever your measure of quality is really isn't indicative of strong future excess returns. What's really useful about quality is that very bad quality, so really over levered balance sheets, comp…”
O'Shaughnessy: Publicly sharing quant findings produces stronger signals via feedback
“In quant research, this is really interesting, which is that you actually get a stronger signal. We found when you share your general findings, not necessarily the code or the particulars, but the general findings with a broad audience, then all of a sudden yo…”
O'Shaughnessy: Momentum forecasts fundamental growth better than valuation multiples
“What fascinates me about this is momentum does a better job of forecasting future fundamental growth than price does. So the highest momentum decile has better future fundamental growth than the most expensive, let's say PE decile or free cashflow yield decile…”
O'Shaughnessy: Momentum Alpha Exhausts Within One Year and Reverts to Negative Returns
“So you earn all of your momentum, all of your alpha, rather, in the first one year holding period, and then you actually need to get the hell out, because it reverts. And typically, depending on where you're looking at the data, within two years or so, it's ac…”
O'Shaughnessy: Almost No Funds Have Pure Machine Learning Models in Live Production
“To be clear, I don't think almost anybody has a lot of that in production today, but those tools are becoming more and more useful.”
O'Shaughnessy: OSAM has almost zero portfolio overlap with AQR and LSV
“Our overlaps with other quants are shockingly low. Like we have this little cool program that we can show people this on the fly and they won't believe us. Like they'll ask about AQR and LSV and these other great managers, you know, really, really, really stro…”
O'Shaughnessy: Machine learning algorithms always fail at predicting stock returns directly
“You can feed all the best data in the world to whatever ML algorithm you choose. Let's say it's like a decision tree or something. And if you're trying to predict returns, it always falls apart. It never works.”
O'Shaughnessy: Setting explicit goals blinds talented people to unexpected opportunities
“One of the reasons I don't like goals is I think very talented people, when they set a goal, they tend to do it. And that's why goals are interesting to lots of people is it's a great way to make progress. But I find it unexciting because the second you set so…”
O'Shaughnessy: Creators and entrepreneurs must ignore base rates to achieve outliers
“I think, like, screw base rates. I don't care what the, I never care what the base rate is. Like, the whole, the most interesting stuff is outliers by definition. So I don't care what happened to everybody else. I don't care if, you know, there's common pitfal…”
O'Shaughnessy: Online content is junk food and audiences crave crafted work
“The world is so sick of this crap just all day, every day. It's just crap. And it's, everyone makes the junk food comparison because it's a perfect comparison. Like junk food got to where it was because it's been optimized for us to want the most of it possibl…”
O'Shaughnessy: Reducing tracking error is much easier than finding new alpha
“It's actually far easier to shape down tracking error than it is to find new alpha. I could run a much lower tracking error process with not that much additional research. I can't just go find new alpha.”
O'Shaughnessy: Quants will inevitably replicate any repeatable investment strategy
“If there is a repeatable strategy where we can build a big enough sample size and do the right kind of research, a quant is going to figure it out. And the question is when, not if.”
O'Shaughnessy: Factor alpha comes from execution discipline, not awareness
“That says that the source of the excess return is not knowing about the thing. It's doing the thing.”
O'Shaughnessy: No asset manager is applying tech platform principles holistically
“Asking whether or not we can apply those principles to a very simple old school asset management business. And the answer, at least in my view, unequivocally so far as yes, and nobody else is doing it. Or at least they're not doing it holistically as part of h…”
O'Shaughnessy: A High-Quality Twitter Following Functions Like Having an AGI
“That having a big, smart, diverse group of people that follow you on Twitter is literally like having an AGI. I believe that that is true. It's the best search engine in the world. So if you're looking for something, ask a big group of people, you're going to …”
O'Shaughnessy: S&P 500 still beats hedge funds on a Sharpe ratio basis
“I think on Sharpe ratio, it still would have been the S&P.”
O'Shaughnessy: The best story wins, defined by originality, hardship, and transformation
“The best story always wins. And I actually spent the last couple of months, like, really trying to figure out what do I think best story means? And the best principles for a great story that I could come up with were originality, hardship, and transformation.”
O'Shaughnessy: Success typically pulls creators into branching into multiple businesses
“Most people that have achieved a level of success in their field or in their job that you have begin to The world, when that happens, pulls you into this branching exercise where you end up doing lots of different stuff. And that, you know, you end up monetizi…”
O'Shaughnessy: Inventing on principle means correcting violations to serve others
“The principle should be something that when you see it violated, it is your obligation to go correct it, and that that correction is an act of service for other people, not for yourself. It's not about you. And that's what makes the idea so powerful.”
O'Shaughnessy: Dirty fuel generates success but consumes people from within
“Dirty fuel works really well, but it consumes the person in a way that I would far rather die, you know, nobody knowing who I am with no worldly, you know, success, but having people that Could count on me, rely on me. I was faithful to, that I was loyal to.”
O'Shaughnessy: Jesse Beyroutey will be one of history's greatest investors
“A gentleman I spend a ton of time with now named Jesse Beirutti, who I am with basically every day, who also I think has no interest in fame or accolades or recognition, but I think is one of the great, will go down, I would predict as one of the great investo…”
O'Shaughnessy: The best business ideas sound dumb but aren't
“Like, if people say something's a good idea, I always get a little nervous, because if it's, if it sounds like a good idea, it just feels you're in a more competitive space, it's gonna be harder. I think the key is stuff that sounds dumb, but isn't.”
O'Shaughnessy: Colossus' written profiles will soon dwarf its podcast network
“I suspect it won't be long until that's much bigger than even the podcast, which itself is, you know, very, very big.”
The other half of the tape: Patrick O'Shaughnessy's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 35 times in 25 episodes across the shows. 4 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Ted Seides 12David Senra 10Morgan Housel 2Josh Brown 2Jason Fried 2Tom Lydon 1Strauss Zelnick 1Khe Hy 1
Statements about Patrick O'Shaughnessy, by other people (4)
Housel: Outlier Founders Like Musk and Bezos Are Tortured, Not Ambitious
“Patrick said the phrase that he would use to describe their personality is not driven by It's not ambitious. It's tortured. They wake up every morning tortured that they are not more successful, bigger, richer than they are. And I think that's true for virtual…”
Baker: A high-IQ social following sharpens investment ideas and drives venture deal flow
“Our friend Patrick O'Shaughnessy has said having a big
High IQ following is actually a superpower, and it really is. So I think for sharpening your ideas, it's incredible. Then there's a whole nother dynamic. It really matters for deal flow.”
Senra: Read late-life autobiographies because elderly subjects have no incentive to lie
“And this is why I like autobiographies and biographies so much, because in many cases, the person's, like, long past dead, or they're older, and they're just like, I'm writing this book when I'm 80, like, I have no, I'm not incentivized to lie, and, like, here…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Capital Allocators 22
David Senra 13
2026 8 mentions in 6 episodes 1 per episode
- The Man Behind Grand Theft Auto 6: Strauss Zelnick
- Jason Fried: Your Only Competition Is Your Costs
- Building One of AI’s Fastest-Growing Companies | Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs
- The Company Apple Couldn't Kill | Spotify Co-CEO Gustav Söderström
- Gavin Baker – Truth-Seeking and Crossover Investing at Atreides (EP.489)
- John Mackey: The Dropout Who Changed How America Eats
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 8 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
2024 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 5 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
- Jennifer Heller – Beginner's Mind with Professional Wisdom at Brandywine (Capital Allocators, EP.211)
- Crypto for Institutions 4: Ari Paul – Exploiting Inefficiencies in Crypto Trading (Capital Allocators, EP.183)
- Crypto for Institutions 3: Seth Ginns – Investing Beyond Bitcoin (Capital Allocators, EP.182)
- Crypto for Institutions 2 – Michael Sonnenshein – A Path to Entry (Capital Allocators, EP.181)
- Crypto for Institutions 1: Eric Peters – The Macro Case for Bitcoin (Capital Allocators, EP.180)
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2018 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Patrick's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Positive Sum | 4 | 45 | 79% 11/14 | full record on Capital Allocators → |
| DAVID SENRALEDGER | Founder & CEO, Positive Sum | 1 | 25 | 0% 0/1 | full record on David Senra → |
 INVEST LIKE THE BESTLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Positive Sumhost | 45 | 3 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Invest Like the Best → |