Sarah Samuels
Partner and CIO, NEPC · 5 appearances on the record.
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investorexecutiveauthorfoundernepc.com ↗
Samuels leads investment strategy, asset allocation, and manager research across public and private markets for NEPC, an institutional investment consulting firm advising nearly $2 trillion in assets. She is also known for advocating financial literacy, authoring the children's book Braving Our Savings, and founding the "30 Seconds of Bravery" initiative.
59statements → 14claims → 9claims resolved → 89%fully supported → 3.78/5average certainty → 1.81/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 11said about them ↓
8 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 3 not checkable as stated how the 14 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
14 assertions · 5 opinions · 31 insights · 9 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 14 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 9 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 3 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 Sarah 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
Samuels: VCs replace 75% of venture-backed founders by the time of IPO
“There's one study that found that about half of founders are replaced by VC firms who've invested in the company by the time they reach the third round of financing, and that's 75% of founders have been replaced by the time a company IPOs.”
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Sarah Samuels on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Sarah Samuels said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Samuels: NEPC resists paying 2-and-20 fees for PE returns driven by leverage
“We're happy to pay two in 20 for the first two, not so much for use of leverage, but it's interesting because some GPs think about the world that way, but many just say, well, it's all alpha.”
Samuels: Concentrated founder equity drives risky outside GP stake sales
“If there's a large lump sum, whether it's a boutique firm or a huge organization, it's probably going to be tricky for that next gen to buy them out, which leads to Increased risk of a GP state coming in or an outside minority or majority investor, which neces…”
Samuels: VCs replace 75% of venture-backed founders by the time of IPO
“There's one study that found that about half of founders are replaced by VC firms who've invested in the company by the time they reach the third round of financing, and that's 75% of founders have been replaced by the time a company IPOs.”
Samuels: First-time venture fund managers rarely understand portfolio construction
“I think portfolio construction is one thing, especially in the venture side, where newer funds, founders on the GP side, who haven't done this before, have very little idea of how to construct a portfolio, whether it's having reserves or position sizing, the p…”
Samuels: Sole fiduciary structures pose governance challenges for public pensions
“When you have an institution that has a sole fiduciary, that can be tricky from a governance perspective.”
Samuels: Granular private market exposure data is of limited use due to illiquidity
“Even if you knew your exposure to Chinese venture to the 10th point, you can't really trade on it because it's illiquid unless you do a secondary sale.”
Samuels: Early-stage private market return potential dwarfs manager fee impact
“And when you think about the return potential for some of those earlier stage private investments, it dwarfs the fee impact and it's well worth it.”
Samuels: Millennials Were Raised as 'Mini Consultants' Expecting Workplace Inclusion
“Millennials were raised as mini consultants to their parents. Parents would say, where do you want to go on vacation this year? What should we have for dinner tonight? And they want to be part of every decision. They want to be involved.”
Samuels: Chinese Healthcare Offers Tremendous Returns Despite Allocator Fears
“We think that healthcare is for sure a theme in healthcare in China. China's a little scary for a lot of people right now. It was a big part of a lot of portfolios, and I would say it's a little scary for investment committees to think about committing new cap…”
Samuels: Highfields Capital folded two weeks after NEPC flagged succession risk
“We identified a list of GPs that were of higher concern to us on this succession framework that we built, and two weeks later, one of the firms that was at the top of our list, Highfields, announced that they were folding and turning into a family office.”
Samuels: Ownership transfer requires at least five years of advance planning
“There's a lot of tension on price, and this is something that needs to be thought about at least five years in advance of a liquidity event or a transfer of ownership.”
Samuels: Promoting top dealmakers to managers without training causes organizational damage
“Oftentimes, it's the person who has a zone of genius In doing deals, and then they're asked to manage people, and they have no idea what to do. They throw spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, and a lot of damage can be done in the meantime.”
Samuels: Eponymously named firms indicate higher succession risk for LP allocators
“If it's somebody's last name, it's a bit of an indicator that perhaps there's maybe going to be some difficulty in imagining a firm without them.”
Samuels: Next-gen leaders lack capital for direct founder buyouts 80% of time
“And then the other way that we've seen is that next gen buys the ownership directly from the founder with capital that they've accumulated in their personal wealth. Eight times out of 10, I would say they don't have enough money to do that.”
Samuels: GP stake backers pressure firms to scale, diluting focus
“But they're going to want to grow that base, and oftentimes there's pressure to scale and diversify the revenue streams, which can be a big distraction for folks if they have to manage a smaller fund, lower middle market buyout pool when they've only been doin…”
Samuels: Hiring a 24-year-old founder's son as CIO caused talent collapse
“This founder's son came to work for the company, 24 years old, becomes the CIO. So he's directing all sorts of stuff and managing people who are 20 to 30 years his senior. Of course we saw turnover, we saw cultural issues, we saw redemptions, and turns out the…”
Samuels: Analyst spidey sense accounts for one-third of NEPC's evaluation framework
“A third of our investment framework is what we call analyst opinion, which is our instinct and our gut based on spidey sense.”
Samuels: Private market GP succession data lacks transparency and public disclosure
“I don't think that there's any real way to get this information if they don't share it with you, especially with the private market GPs. It's not going to be necessarily laid out in a Form ADV or anything like that, so I don't think there's a lot of transparen…”
Samuels: Arrowstreet Capital manages thoughtful succession despite proprietary opacity
“And so this firm is Arrow Street. They are a quantitative strategy that has a very, very definite edge in terms of how they manage their quant process, but they view it as IP and don't share every single bit of the model. I would say that they're similarly not…”
Samuels: Nine in ten next-gen investment leaders don't know succession plans
“And I would say nine times out of 10, that next gen has no idea what the firm's plans are for them.”
Samuels: Presenting to Public Pension Boards Is Harder Due to Non-Industry Trustees
“The other thing that I learned is that boards, in many cases, at least for a public pension, tend to be composed more of maybe retired state policemen or people who are not in the industry. And so learning to present at a different level is actually much harde…”
Samuels: Investment Committees Fixate on Line-Item Risk Over Portfolio Hedges
“But it's very difficult for humans to think in terms of pair trades. The temptation to look at line item risk is huge. Even if you know that a long treasury position is in there to offset the meaningful equity risk in the rest of the portfolio, you still might…”
Samuels: Allocate active capital only where median managers beat fees and dispersion is wide
“We developed an active management versus index framework where we would put more active dollars to work and asset classes on the traded side that had a wider dispersion of results from the best and the worst managers, and where the median manager outperformed …”
The other half of the tape: Sarah Samuels's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 7 episodes on Capital Allocators. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Ted Seides 6Kip McDaniel 4
Statements about Sarah Samuels, by other people (1)
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2024 6 mentions in 6 episodes 1 per episode
- Michael Mervosh - Invest in Yourself (EP.402)
- CIO Transition – Roz Hewsenian and Joshua Fenton, Helmsley Trust (EP.401)
- Todd Simkin - Game of Trading at Susquehanna (EP.399)
- Rob Small and Anil Seetharam - Public Equity Adjacent to Private Equity at Stockbridge (EP.397)
- Charles Duhigg- Secrets of Communication (EP.394)
- Yann Robard - Liquidity Solutions for Private Capital at Dawson (EP.392)
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2017 4 mentions in 1 episode
Appearances (5)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Succession - Sarah Samuels on Generational Transitions (EP.400) | Aug 12, 2024 | 30m |
| Blythe Masters - Fintech Innovation at Motive Partners (EP.376) | Mar 25, 2024 | 4m |
| Jonathan Tepper - Buying Monopolies at Prevatt Capital (EP.375) | Mar 18, 2024 | 4m |
| Ted Seides – Unlocking Investment Wisdom (EP.352) | Nov 23, 2023 | 3m |
| Sarah Samuels – Framework and Rigor at NEPC (Capital Allocators, EP.264) | Aug 1, 2022 | 36m |