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Morfit: The three fundamental ways to win in equity investing

Mason Morfit · Mason Morfit and Rob Hale – Quiet Activism at ValueAct (EP.462) · Sep 29, 2025 · at 19:03

Mason Morfit, co-CEO of ValueAct Capital, outlines his core mental model for public equity investing and explains how ValueAct relies on deep research and active board governance.

0:00 / 0:36exact quote · 36.7s
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“There's only three ways to win equity investing. One is you have better information or faster information and computer programs and fiber optic cables that you tunnel through railway Lines and stuff, and we don't do that. The second way is you understand the world better. No one is smart enough to figure it out on their own. You need a team internally, and then if you can augment it externally, And by now, 25 years in, over a hundred investments, over 50 board seats, we have this army of people that are really good friends of the firm, advisors, LPs with us. And then the third way to create returns is to influence the future, and that is also a significant part of what we do.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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