March 20, 2008
The one percent - Mark Yusko
Mark Yusko is one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever had the good fortune of knowing. Mark owns Morgan Creek Capital, a fund of funds (hedge funds). His charm, grace and style is simply refreshing.
I asked Mark what he looks for when he interviews hedge fund managers, what is important in talented people. He said, “respect for other people, knowing the tiniest person in your organization may have the biggest idea. I believe in Karma. Personal integrity is incredibly important to success, people who cheat at golf will cheat on you. You need to have balance in your life, you cannot be a workaholic.
Creative intelligence is borrowing an idea and creative brilliance is stealing an idea and taking someone else’s kernel of an idea and making it your own through research and synthesis.”
Mark inspired this book. At a breakfast in December, 2007 with Julian H. Robertson, Mark said, “there are ten thousand hedge fund managers, and only one hundred are any good.”
I asked Mark to describe a failure for me because it’s through failure or our perception of our failures that we learn the most about ourselves. It’s how we respond to failure that we learn how to succeed.
“My boss said to me ‘your trouble is your clock runs faster than other people’ and I thought that was kind of a compliment at the time. But what he was saying was that hey you have to understand that not everybody wants to run as fast as you do, not everybody wants to be challenged all the time, that you can rub people the wrong way. “
ev nucci
