Graham Duncan — Talent Is the Best Asset Class (#362)
Photo by Heidi Gutman/CNBC
“Everyone’s genius is right next to their dysfunction.” — Graham Duncan
Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is the co-founder of East Rock Capital, a multi-family office investment firm that manages $2 billion for a small number of families and their charitable foundations.
Before starting East Rock 14 years ago, Graham worked at two other investment firms and started his career by co-founding an independent Wall Street research firm. Graham graduated from Yale with a B.A. in ethics, politics, and economics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as co-chair of the SOHN Conference Foundation, which funds pediatric cancer research.
Josh Waitzkin, the chess prodigy who served as the basis for the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, calls Graham “the tip of the spear in the realms of talent tracking and judgment of human potential in high stakes mental arenas.”
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, or on your favorite podcast platform.
You can find the transcript of this episode here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
[image error] [image error] [image error] #362: Graham Duncan — Talent Is The Best Asset Class
https://rss.art19.com/episodes/05f4cbf7-d2ef-4250-9eeb-513086c93e9f.mp3Download
Listen to it on Apple Podcasts.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
Would you like to hear another episode with an investor who understands the value of quality time? — Check out my conversation with Peter Mallouk, in which we discuss illiquidity as a feature rather than a bug, when the risk of being out of the market is greater than the risk of being in, and much more. (Stream below or right-click here to download.):
#356: Peter Mallouk — Exploring the Worlds of Investing, Assets, and Quality of Lifehttps://rss.art19.com/episodes/5a534877-430d-43dd-88ae-b701cc068127.mp3Download
This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, the go-to tool for B2B marketers and advertisers who want to drive brand awareness, generate leads, or build long-term relationships that result in real business impact.
With a community of more than 575 million professionals, LinkedIn is gigantic, but it can be hyper-specific. You have access to a diverse group of people all searching for things they need to grow professionally so you can build relationships that really matter and drive your business objectives forward. LinkedIn has the marketing tools to help you target your customers with precision, right down to job title, company name, industry, etc. Why spray and pray with your marketing dollars when you can be surgical? To redeem your free $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to LinkedIn.com/TFS!
This podcast is also brought to you by 99designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for designers and clients to work together to create designs they love. Its creative process has become the go-to solution for businesses, agencies, and individuals, and I have used it for years to help with display advertising and illustrations and to rapid prototype the cover for The Tao of Seneca. Whether your business needs a logo, website design, business card, or anything you can imagine, check out 99designs.
You can work with multiple designers at once to get a bunch of different ideas, or hire the perfect designer for your project based based on their style and industry specialization. It’s simple to review concepts and leave feedback so you’ll end up with a design that you’re happy with. Now 99designs also offers custom video and will match you with the right video professional to help you explain your product, spotlight a service, and bring your brand to life. Click this link and get a free $99 upgrade.
QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Scroll below for links and show notes…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
Connect with Graham Duncan:
Website | Twitter | East Rock Capital
Yale University
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome by Gill Corkindale, Harvard Business Review
Mental Model: Feedback Loops, My Investing Life
Goldman Sachs
6 Reasons Why Your Baby Might Be Admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), UnityPoint Health
Memento
The Science of Success by David Dobbs, The Atlantic
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron
Looking Back: Creative Genius in Classical Music by Dean Keith Simonton, The British Psychological Society
Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss
The Further Reaches of Adult Development by Robert Kegan, The RSA
The Work of Byron Katie
A Mind at Home with Itself: How Asking Four Questions Can Free Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Turn Your World Around by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell
Sweetgreen
Tesla
Portfolio Manager (PM), Investopedia
Chief Investment Officer (CIO), Investopedia
Citadel
Why Investors Should Have Known Tesla’s SolarCity Acquisition Was a Bad Business Decision by Travis Hoium, The Motley Fool
The Aspirational Investor: Taming the Markets to Achieve Your Life’s Goals by Ashvin Chhabra
Renaissance Technologies
The Quants Run Wall Street Now by Gregory Zuckerman and Bradley Hope, The Wall Street Journal
Jim Simons, the Numbers King by D.T. Max, The New Yorker
Institute for Advanced Study
Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright
Chicago Bulls
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
Pixar
Navy SEALs
The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower — and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels
Hollywood Shadows by Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker
The Wim Hof Method
Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by James Carse
Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience by James Carse
The Play’s the Thing: A Nashville Theologian Considers the Genius of James P. Carse by David Dark, Chapter 16
Jocko Podcast
Y Combinator
The Playing Field by Graham Duncan, Medium
This is Water by David Foster Wallace
Greg McKeown — How to Master Essentialism, The Tim Ferriss Show
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
River of Well-Being by Bill Bray
Who Really Said “Learn the Rules Like a Pro so You Can Break Them Like an Artist?” Y Combinator
The Big Short
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs by Robin L. Carhart-Harris, Robert Leech, Peter J. Hellyer, and Murray Shanahan, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Marginal Revolution
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist by Tyler Cowen
Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness — Tim Urban, The Tim Ferriss Show
The Tail End by Tim Urban, Wait But Why
The 90-Year Life Calendar
10% Happier by Dan Harris
Waking Up by Sam Harris
The Roots of Mindfulness: How a Group of Jews Turned a Buddhist Spiritual Practice into a Distinctly American Phenomenon — and a Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry by Michelle Goldberg, Tablet
The Waking Up Course: A Lesson on Gratitude by Sam Harris, Waking Up
Welcome to the Party by Jeff Warren, 10% Happier (For free access to a dozen of Jeff Warren’s guided meditations, including “Welcome to the Party,” visit the special link 10percenthappier.com/welcome to download the 10% Happier app and unlock the content.))
“There Isn’t Time — so Brief Is Life — for Bickerings, Apologies, Heartburnings, Callings to Account. There Is Only Time for Loving — and but an Instant, so to Speak, for That.” by Mark Twain, Letter to Clara Spaulding, 20 August 1886
The Sohn Conference Foundation
SHOW NOTES
I think of Graham as far more than an investor. How does he describe what he does? [05:35]
Absent the systems and frameworks he’s honed over time, what made Graham a good talent hunter at the tender age of 24? [10:12]
What constitutes taste when Graham is scouting for talent these days? [13:05]
Upon meeting someone, how does Graham stress-test whether or not someone is “commercial” in the way they balance aggression and integrity? [15:57]
One high-signal question Graham has found particularly useful when trying to determine the quality of anyone from a trader to an OB/GYN. [19:12]
When interviewing a potential candidate, how does Graham vet their given references? [22:00]
On approaching the reference process with curiosity rather than an attempt to catch anyone with a “gotcha.” [25:32]
Why does mutual friend Josh Waitzkin call Graham The Wild Gardener? [29:41]
How does Graham deal with contradictory perspectives — when the data is telling him one thing and his gut is telling him another? [31:30]
What does Graham do to familiarize himself with the way people underwrite their mental models (besides nearly beheading them)? [33:52]
Graham talks about his role as an investment coach, of sorts, and how he picks the best “players” for the game at hand. [35:17]
What other patterns has Graham noticed in the successful talent he’s ended up selecting? [36:47]
In what way have others helped Graham surface his hidden assumptions, and how might a coach do the same for others? [41:34]
An example of when Graham’s “grip” has been a bit too tight around his own beliefs. [44:38]
What Byron Katie has taught us about articulating the opposite of such beliefs — and having a mindful lunch. [46:14]
When evaluating a team, how does Graham think about each person developing the ability to look at the opposite versus hiring to end up at that optimal mixture? [50:45]
How might someone train to more clearly see disconfirming evidence — and roll with the punches when their instincts lead them toward regrettable decisions? [54:04]
What books does Graham gift to others most often? [58:56]
An aside about Wim Hof and Josh Waitzkin embracing “the other side of pain” to get the most out of life. [1:02:31]
How does James Carse’s distinction of finite and infinite games apply to finance, and how would Graham test a potential teammate for compatible sensibility? [1:06:12]
How likely would it be for Graham to invest in a Jocko Willink project? [1:10:45]
Different people have different ways of sniffing around direct questions. Here are a few examples. [1:11:43]
Graham explains what this Kwame Appiah quote means to him: “In life the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.” [1:13:42]
Going by David Foster Wallace’s famous commencement speech, what’s your water? Podcasting helps me see mine. [1:16:17]
Graham’s take on Greg McKeown’s Essentialism. [1:17:50]
How Graham sees careers as a river (with a nod of thanks to neuroscientists Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson’s model of well-being). [1:18:57]
Toward which bank do the top one percent in any given field swim? What if that field is financial markets? What if that field is writing fiction novels? [1:21:54]
The differences between millionaires, billionaires, cultural billionaires, and time billionaires. [1:26:25]
An idea for how Tim Urban might allow for personalization of his 90-year-life calendar. [1:28:55]
Are you more concerned about the length of your life or its width? [1:30:10]
Life changes Graham and I have both made as a direct result of reading Tim Urban’s “The Long Tail” piece at Wait But Why. [1:31:05]
How does Graham try to appreciate the width of his life? [1:32:43]
Aside from the aforementioned Kwame Appiah quote, what might Graham put on his billboard? [1:36:12]
The power to be found in treating negative feelings like welcome party guests. [1:37:07]
Parting thoughts from Mark Twain and Graham. [1:39:09]
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Josh Waitzkin
David Tepper
Chris Fussell
Stan McChrystal
Tobias L¸tke
Kyle Maynard
Susan Cain
Elaine Aron
Dean Simonton
Johann Sebastian Bach
Warren Buffett
William Shakespeare
Wayne Gretzky
John Arnold
Richard Feynman
Carolyn Coughlin
Bob Kegan
Byron Katie
Charlie Munger
Elon Musk
Ashvin Chhabra
Jim Simons
Dave Logan
Phil Jackson
Daniel Coyle
Phil Stutz
Barry Michels
Dana Goodyear
Wim Hof
Laird Hamilton
James Carse
Jocko Willink
Paul Graham
Sam Altman
Ray Dalio
Kwame Appiah
David Foster Wallace
Greg McKeown
Dan Siegel
Steve Jobs
Pablo Picasso
Mike Burry
Christian Bale
Robert M. Pirsig
Rachel Cusk
Karl Ove KnausgÂrd
Robin Carhart-Harris
Tyler Cowen
Rupert Murdoch
Tim Urban
Matt Mullenweg
Dan Harris
Sam Harris
Jack Kornfield
Joseph Goldstein
Sharon Salzberg
Gretchen Rubin
Muneeb Ali
Pierre Chardin
Mark Twain
