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 12 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
Lew: I only give negative feedback to high-potential people and let others fail
“And when I don't like somebody, I don't say anything. Hey, just go and fail. I don't care. It does come down to that. And because it's painful, right? It's not comfortable to give people negative feedback. So I really only do it to the people who I care about …”
Lew: Dead donors give foundations a structural advantage over university endowments
“An advantage a foundation has over an educational institution is the fact that no one feels like they own the capital that we have. Andrew's been dead a 108 years, and so he didn't leave anything to his heirs, and so there's no one who feels an ownership of th…”
Lew: Fund terms always favor GPs, making character alignment essential
“The terms are always gonna, in some way, favor the GP, so you just have to align yourself with a GP who you think in the crisis is going to do the right thing.”
Carnegie deliberately hired an Asian man to diversify a female-heavy team
“And honestly, we started with trying to add a man. Because our team was so heavily women, and I said that in a conference one day, because Ken Lee was the hire, and he's a, obviously a man, and he's an Asian man, and at a conference, I said he was our diversit…”
Carnegie's investment committee rejected only one investment during Lew's tenure
“In the whole time that I've been here, and as far as I know, ever, there's only been one investment that did not get through committee”
Lew: Carnegie conducts triennial whole-team research trips without predefined theses
“So the Carnegie team does team trips every three years. Whole team goes, and the idea is we don't necessarily have a fully developed thesis before we go. That's why everybody goes, and everybody can ask questions, and the assumption is that it perhaps isn't so…”
Jenkins: Co-CIO models carry inherent instability as leaders prove themselves
“There's, in contrast to the strengths that can be in that model, there's also, there can be a natural instability in that model. And, you know, each person's trying to maybe trying to prove themselves and whatever the case may be.”
Jenkins: Back managers who sacrifice their own economics for LPs
“And the other circumstances, you know, that, that tended to work out back to sort of the alignment is the, when we could point to examples of when a manager did something that was either personally or economically painful to them in their firm to do right by t…”
Schumann: Carnegie's portfolio was flat in 2001 while benchmarks fell 16%
“In 2001, Ackley was down 16% and our portfolio was flat.”
Lew: Carnegie required the investment team to list their cognitive biases
“I think it was two years ago I asked everybody on my team to give me a list of their biases. Tell me what you think gets in the way of you objectively looking at investments and that may either create an environment where you're taking risks that you should no…”
Lew: Foundations prioritize liquidity analytics because they have no capital inflows
“And for us as a foundation, we figured out that liquidity is the thing that we've got To spend the most time. We have no inflows of capital.”
Jenkins: Carnegie's co-CIO structure built in a senior devil's advocate
“Then the other person between Kim and I would be the secondary. And so the secondary's role was a built-in devil's advocate. And so the secondary, you know, anytime anything new or re-up or we were just sort of re-examining a manager for some reason, the secon…”