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 14 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
Karp: 95% of hedge fund managers generate returns primarily from beta
“95% of managers, the bulk of their returns are some form of beta.”
Karp: Even 80th percentile hedge fund managers are doomed
“I think the averages are doomed. I think even 80th percentile is doomed. I think you have to be in the 99th percentile at this point, whereas 20 years ago you could have been in the sixtieth percentile and you were pretty good.”
Karp: 3G Capital's Kraft Heinz model has been horrific for human health
“And, you know, Kraft Heinz is the perfect example of this, is that there's been almost this three G mentality towards things that we put on and into humans. And that has been potentially for some period of time, good for shareholder value. It has been horrific…”
Karp: Discoverable market anomalies get arbitraged away, but disciplined human judgment does not
“And I had a mentor a long time ago who told me that he believed that almost everything that was discoverable in finance would be arbitraged away, but human judgment would not, and that human judgment, good judgment, was rare, and that balancing it with emotion…”
Karp: Over half of short-term investing variability is pure randomness
“Being stuck to a screen where more than half of the variability is random, and you could do everything right from a process perspective, but actually still get it wrong, that was incredibly frustrating for me”
Karp: Scientific Understanding of Health and Wellness Is in Inning Two
“Our understanding as human beings of health and wellness is like in inning two, and there's not enough science on it.”
Karp: Most commercial vapes use unsafe petroleum-derived carrier oils
“Most of the vapes right now use propylene glycol. They have other petroleum derived oils that they suspend the cannabinoids in that humans are effectively combusting and inhaling, which is definitely not safe.”
Karp: Pure quantitative trading has become a technological arms race for speed
“Primarily because I sort of felt like it was an arms race, which it certainly has become, but where it was just sort of a race for people who had faster machines and faster connections to the New York Stock Exchange.”
Karp: High intelligence does not replace the need for checklists
“What you realize when you read all the science is that it doesn't matter how smart you are, you still need the process, and you still need the checklist, because there's all sorts of ways that you can self-sabotage and not realize it.”
Karp: Poker teaches core investment principles faster than investing
“Poker has all the same principles that I think make a good investor, except what's amazing about poker is you learn them much faster. The concepts of pot odds, And money management, and basically process over outcome.”
Karp: Process in investing mimics positional chess to handle uncertainty
“Having a good process basically sets up your chess board To deal with more crap. And it sets it up in a way that you can take advantage of luck when it comes your way, and that you can buffer or defend against the crap when it comes your way.”
Karp: Low-beta strategies traditionally rely on leverage to boost small alpha
“The market neutral or very low beta strategies have always employed a fair amount of leverage to make small alpha streams look better.”
Karp: Consumable goods share software attributes like high replenishment and recession resistance
“The reason I like consumables, just to take a step back, is it has a lot of attributes similar to software, where it's generally recession resistant, it's not cyclical, and it has a very high replenishment rate.”
Karp: HumanCo is structured as a Berkshire Hathaway-style wellness holding company
“So we created a holding company called Human Co. It's not a fund. It is a holding company. And the easiest way to think about it is think of a Berkshire Hathaway type of business focused on cleaner living, healthier outcomes, and sustainability. And that's its…”