Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Mitchell Green, Patrick O'Shaughnessy
[00:00:00] S1: Scott Booth, who ran Eastern – I asked him why he hired me – and this was early '08. He said to me, because when things get scary, you're gonna want to buy. And I didn't know what he meant. Because he's like, you go down a hill at 80 miles an hour. This isn't scary. This is like nothing. You can make a decision going down the hill at 80 miles an hour on what to do and what not to do and how not to fall. Then the fall of ‘08 happened, I was like, this isn't scary. Let's buy. It's eventually going to go up. Ski racing helped me really understand a very fine line in risk-adjusted and risk-return behavior. I just think being an athlete – whether you play basketball, whether you play hockey, whether you play golf – I think athletes just have a work ethic. If you're trying to find it in young people who have a drive, there are athletes that have incredible athleticism, but also have incredible work ethic like Michael Jordan. Those are the best of the best. Then you have people like Steve Kerr who are not very good athletically, but had a work ethic of Michael Jordan. They could be good, but then you have wasted talent. Which is like the Dennis Rodman's of the world where they were amazing athletes, but they didn't have a drive. And I think the same can apply to investing. [00:00:00] S0: Why did you choose to start the firm? Because you were quite young when you did it. How would you translate that experience into advice for someone listening that is thinking about starting a fund to decide whether or not they should do it?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Mitchell Green
[00:00:00] S0: Why did you choose to start the firm? Because you were quite young when you did it. How would you translate that experience into advice for someone listening that is thinking about starting a fund to decide whether or not they should do it? [00:00:00] S1: Just go do it. Do you want to be an entrepreneur? My partner Brian's like, the reason you started a firm is because nobody was going to like hire your ass. And because you know what, you couldn't work for anybody. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to make a lot of money and be like really, really successful. It's always driven me. I always wanted to be solely focused on it. And if you want to generate generational wealth or build something, you need to be an entrepreneur. Yes, if we build Blackstone, everybody who's here will make an insane amount of money because it was 90 people. One of my partners, Zach, is very young. I mean, he's 30 years old and he's a partner because he joined here and he took a bet when the firm was tiny. I just encourage people, if you want to do it your own way, there's no better time than now. What are you waiting for? I actually think it's easier to leave when you're 27, 25, than when you're 45 and have 3 kids. I had nothing to lose. If it failed, I was going to just go work, I guess just go and work for somebody. [00:00:00] S0: Once you made lots of money, do you still care? [00:00:00] S1: 100%. [00:00:00] S0: Why? [00:00:00] S1: Keep score every day. [00:00:00] S0: Because it's score?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Mitchell Green
[00:00:00] S0: Because it's score? [00:00:00] S1: Is it score? It's because I want to win. People like Ken Griffin and Steve Cohen are mentors to LPs of ours, it's incredible how hard those people work. Now again, maybe these are NF2 people, or if you look at some of these tech entrepreneurs, like an Elon Musk or Alex Karp from Palantir or Matt Prince from Cloudflare or like George Kurtz from CrowdStrike, like these people are incredibly driven, hardworking people that live and breathe what they do. And so yeah, I mean, people keep score. It's not work for me. This is fun. I travel constantly to meet companies, to meet LPs, to meet entrepreneurs, to meet bankers. And it's not work, it's fun. I tell people my schedule and they like cry. I'm like, no, it's not work, it's fun. [00:00:00] S0: It's pretty amazing what you've built. A very unique model, incredibly fun. How willing you are to just walk us through it all. I had so much fun doing this. When I do these interviews, I ask everyone the same closing question. What's the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Mitchell Green
[00:00:00] S0: It's pretty amazing what you've built. A very unique model, incredibly fun. How willing you are to just walk us through it all. I had so much fun doing this. When I do these interviews, I ask everyone the same closing question. What's the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? [00:00:00] S1: Pete Willmott, he's passed away, was the former CEO of FedEx and he was a Williams alum. I started a company in college and he was the first person that ever believed in me. I was like 19 years old, and he became an investor with us and the company completely failed. When I was trying to get my first job and when I got my job at Bessemer, he was my reference and he basically told the person they were insane if they didn't hire me because I was the most persistent person he'd ever met. So that's probably the kindest thing anybody’s ever done. [00:00:00] S0: I learned so much today about building something unique. Thanks so much for your time. [00:00:00] S1: Thanks so much for having me on.