Today’s teacher is Mitch Rales, one of the most iconic business builders and philanthropists of our time. Consider that Danaher has annualized at over 21% for four decades, resulting in an 1800-times multiple on invested capital! You’ll learn from Mitch about the key inputs to his outlier success: why greatness is a journey that takes an unusual time horizon, the role benchmarking plays in standing up any winning organization, why it is essential to cultivate learning agility and embrace transformational pivots over time, and also the qualities Mitch looks for both in the leaders and businesse ..read more

Our teacher today is Chris Hansen, founder of Long Short Equity investor, Valiant Capital. Chris spun off from his early career at Blue Ridge to start Valiant and pursue his own unique investment thesis. We cover Chris's foray into investing in India, the training, temperament, and overall constitution of a great short seller, and building something that increases your odds of long-term flourishing. He shares his empathetic outlook and the candid behind-the-scenes of short selling. His wisdom and risk tolerance have worked in harmony to help create his recipe for success. Please enjoy this cla ..read more

Our teacher today is John Crowley. It is difficult to appropriately describe John and the Crowley family's story without drawing comparisons to superheroes. Harrison Ford gave it a shot, and the result is Extraordinary Measures, a blockbuster movie he starred in, alongside Brendan Fraser and Kerry Russell. The movie is based on Gita Anand's book The Cure, which tells the story of John and his wife's journey to save two of their children from a then-untreatable disease called Pompe. Thanks to John, that's no longer the case, and now more than 20 years later, both of his children and many o ..read more

Our teachers today are Daniel Eisen and Paul Yancich, co-founders of Arcadea Group. Arcadea is a private market, long-duration investor building a permanent home for high-quality, vertical market software companies.  Today, we sit down with an example of next-generation talent in Daniel and Paul, who began Arcadea after having the rare opportunity to learn and sit at the feet of Mark Leonard and the remarkable core team of Constellation Software. In this session, we learn about the attractive opportunity in vertical market software and the structural advantages of pursuing this particular ..read more

Our teacher today is Katie Koch. Katie is the President and CEO of the TCW Group, a storied firm with over $200 billion in assets under management and a fascinating 50-year legacy as a pioneer in the investment industry. Katie just took the TCW reins in 2023 after more than 20 years at Goldman Sachs. She joined Goldman right after college as the self-proclaimed least capable person in the firm and rose to become chief investment officer of their 300-billion-dollar public equity business.  Katie has been a champion for expanding opportunities for students, and one initiative in particular ..read more

Today’s teacher is Oliver Thomas, founder and managing partner of Expedition Growth Capital. Expedition is a leading growth equity firm based in London, built to serve the next generation of capital-efficient, founder-led European software companies. Oli shares what it takes to win as an investor in this fascinating and attractive small corner of the market. This class is jam-packed with colorful stories, insightful career advice and a history on the bootstrap growth investing landscape that goes all the way back to the late '70s. Oli describes the archetype of bootstrap software companies and ..read more

Our teachers today are Iris Rubin and Greg Maged, co-founders of SEEN, the fast-growing good-for-your-skin hair care company creating a new category at the intersection of science, health, and beauty. This was an illuminating conversation with two people who had already accomplished so much in their lives and careers before embarking on an entirely new entrepreneurial path. This class has a number of fascinating dimensions to it, including lessons on how to successfully execute an unexpected second act mid-career, a case study on how to operate with a very different playbook to most early-stag ..read more

Our teacher today is Harvard Business School legend, Andre Perold. Born and raised in South Africa, Andre taught at HBS for over 30 years, earning numerous awards for both his research and teaching excellence. If you were an aspiring investor attending HBS, Andre's class felt like the only class that mattered. He co-founded HighVista Strategies, a now leading investment firm that has $10 billion of AUM and focuses on investing in structurally inefficient opportunities across both public and private markets. In this session, Andre deconstructs the concept of compounding with an appreciation for ..read more

Today we celebrate the extraordinary life of John Glynn, Founder of Glynn Capital, who passed away earlier this year with a more than 50 year career as a technology investor. As an early investor in a who's who of technology companies, from Intel to Facebook, John developed a reputation as both an astute arbiter of mega-trends, as well as a capital partner of choice to talented founders. In addition to investing, John was revered as a gifted teacher. For over 30 years, he taught courses on venture capital and entrepreneurship at his alma mater's Virginia and Stanford GSB. Even more than h ..read more