The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 27 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Papic: Q1 2025 Asset Performance Trends Will Continue for Five Years
“If you just look at asset performance in January, February, and March, that is the truth. If you're a long-term capital allocator, go back, look at the performance January, February, March. That's the truth. You see who the winners and losers are, and that I t…”
Sernovitz: Private equity buyout business model is largely standardized
“I have so much sympathy for capital allocator to try to choose between them, because ultimately, the business model is pretty standardized now.”
Seides: Sponsored podcast episodes outperformed non-sponsored episodes in average downloads
“Average downloads for sponsored episodes exceeded average downloads of non-sponsored episodes, confirming our belief that a good conversation would not suffer audience dilution solely because of sponsorship.”
Black: Allocators Chase Past Returns Instead of Rebalancing Into Lagging Strategies
“Most individuals still chase money. They still chase performance. We tell them all the time, look, if we've done particularly well, we completely understand you taking money away from us and why don't you put it into a, you know, a strategy, like maybe a value…”
Seides: Allocators lack feedback loops on their interviewing technique
“I never had a feedback loop. I never came out of a meeting with a manager and said, how did I do? It was always, oh, what do we think of them? Are we going to have another meeting? Or thank God they're in our portfolio, or we got to get out of that manager. Th…”
Seides: Key business disciplines are rarely taught in the investing industry
“There are all these disciplines that people learn in almost any field that In the business world, except for investing, but they're incredibly important for success in investing. So think of things like decision-making and leadership and management and intervi…”
Sernovitz: Allocators Balance Generating Returns With Career Preservation
“The job of a capital allocator is to generate returns, but the job of a capital allocator is also to have a job. One sees the safety in slipstreaming, the safety in numbers, and the fact that they're not just there to maximize returns.”
Sernovitz: Tech and VC drove allocator performance dispersion in the 2010s
“That era of the twenty-tens, both the S&P tech winners driving it and VC is a big difference in performance between the winners and losers of capital allocators over the decade.”
Seides: Podcast creates more value than incremental investment returns
“It struck me that the podcast creates far more value than what I could deliver in incremental investment returns.”
Seides: Warren Buffett is refusing all podcast invitations
“Warren is not going to come on the show. I, I've asked him twice. And the second time it was, he really walked me through the why, which was very, very interesting. So he's getting a little on in his years. He's very focused on this time. And what he said was …”
Seides: Podcasting sharpened manager due diligence interviewing skills
“Now that I've shifted back to also being involved in investing, I was shocked at how much better I am now at interviewing investment managers because of the podcast experience as opposed to the other way around.”
Hamed: Target small frontier funds for 5x returns, mega-funds for 2x
“And if all I need is a two X on the portfolio, you should go to an established firm that's been around for a long time and has billions of dollars under management because they have the highest certainty of getting you there. If you're sitting there and thinki…”
Seides: Institutional allocators increasingly use podcast interviews to accelerate manager diligence
“Capital allocators is very tied to the institutional investing community, mostly allocators and managers, and I hear a lot that allocators don't go into a meeting with a manager without having checked Has there been an interview? Because it just speeds up the …”
Seides: Dynamic ad insertion across podcast back-catalog delivers 5x listener reach
“Using dynamic ad insertion, we now put new ads in the entire historical library, allowing five times the number of listeners to hear our sponsor's message.”
Ted Seides: 6% of Capital Allocators listeners become premium members
“Our data shows that six percent of listeners become premium members, so we're experimenting with ways to expand the top of the funnel.”
Seides: Capital Allocators failed to launch asset management business in 2022
“We experienced the lows of a failure to launch an asset management business alongside the highs of growth in the podcast and new initiatives with storytelling and summits.”
Seides: New podcast episodes account for only 15% of weekly downloads
“In fact, new shows receive only 15% of total weekly downloads.”
Seides: AI analysis shows allocators focus on risk, managers on upside
“We started actually doing some AI work on assessing the conversations of the podcast to try to see different themes. And one of the things we found is that the allocator community, so the CIOs talk a lot more about risk and the managers talk a lot more about u…”
Seides: Managing capital purely for returns was never fully fulfilling
“Just generating returns, just making money never felt fully fulfilling to me. But at the same time, I love the markets, and I really love investing in managers, and so, so much of what was happening, I felt that really suited me, but there was always something…”
Seides: Podcasting broadened public perception beyond the Warren Buffett bet
“I assumed that no matter what, the bet and having lost the bet to Warren would be sort of part of my public legacy, and I wasn't gonna be able to do anything about that. I was not expecting that doing a podcast would Broaden, you know, people's at least knowle…”
Seides: Capital Allocators reached 13.5 million total downloads by year-end 2022
“Capital allocators reached 13 and a half million downloads at year end, of which five and a half million came in 2022.”
Seides: Spotify Ranks Capital Allocators in Top 1% Globally for Shares
“According to Spotify, Capital Allocators spans 98 countries and is in the top one percent of podcasts followed and those shared globally.”
Ted Seides: Capital Allocators individual premium membership was flat in 2022
“Individual membership was roughly flat in 2022 from the prior year.”
Up to 85% of Capital Allocators listeners stay tuned during ads
“Engagement with advertisements on the show has been strong, with approximately 75 to 85% of the audience staying tuned in for ad spots.”
Capital Allocators reached five million total downloads by end of 2020
“We're closing in on five million total downloads, half of which came this year. Our current run rate is 45,000 downloads a week, an increase of 53% over a year ago.”