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 61 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
Carnegie holds 4% positions in legacy managers, hesitating to scale newcomers
“These big guys that we've been with a while have four percent positions. Are we ready to give these guys four percent positions? No. So either we have to decide That we're gonna have twice as big a portfolio resource problem, or we're gonna decide that we're g…”
Lew: Scaling venture funds alters their role in an institutional portfolio
“In order to feed the beast, they've got to get bigger, and bigger. To the point where what you invested in originally is very different than what they are now, which doesn't mean they won't be highly successful, but the role in portfolio is different.”
Liu: Ford Foundation began venture investing in 1974, capping it at 10%
“Despite the fact that the Ford Foundation had a tremendous venture portfolio, because it had started investing in venture in 74, it was only 10% of the portfolio.”
Lew on navigating mixed-race identity across different racial communities
“Being half black and half Chinese brings with it two very different stereotypes, and sort of navigating through that meant different things to different people, and so I could find myself in an uncomfortable position everywhere. It could be uncomfortable in th…”
Harvard Business School historically increased Black enrollment by adding a new section
“The way that they were able to increase the number of black students at HBS is by adding a new section. So no one felt threatened. We just have a brand new section. It's not like all the African-American people are in that one section. We sprinkle them through…”
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.”
Lew: Ford Foundation managed one-third of its portfolio internally in 1990s
“At the time, Ford managed a huge, a third of their book was managed internally, people picking stocks, and that's what they were hiring for.”
Carnegie Co-CIO model paired primary sponsor with asset allocation devil's advocate
“The way we structured it is, though, if you were the primary, your job was to really help the directors source and think about their strategy and support them in their work. And if you were the secondary, you were the devil's advocate. Not the devil's advocate…”
Carnegie Corporation's $3.5B endowment operates with zero capital inflows
“We have zero inflows of capital. We are three and a half billion dollars, which means our check size are tiny.”
Carnegie maintains roughly 120 external manager relationships across eight asset classes
“We have too many relationships, but we have about a 120. Roughly the way we look at it, eight asset classes. It's roughly 10 or so in each asset.”
Carnegie initially commits $5M to $10M to new venture capital managers
“The first time we invest in the venture manager, we make a five million dollar investment, we make a ten million dollar investment. It takes a while to feel comfortable giving somebody a 15 or twenty million dollar investment, but they invest over time, and so…”
Lew: All Black Parents in Urban Areas Have 'The Talk'
“I don't think that there's any Black parent, especially a Black parent living in the neighborhoods I lived in, who don't have the talk with their kids about what it means. To be an African American, especially in a place like New York City, where they don't ta…”