Q&A: Founder/Tech Exec, Former Hedge Fund Research Director, SEAL Team Intelligence Officer, Consultant
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost
Title summarizes the road I’ve traveled… consultant → intelligence community/SEAL Teams/Special Operations → director of research at a well known hedge fund → tech executive at successful growth company → entrepreneur. I love challenges. I love the non-obvious. I still haven’t figured it all out and keep looking for answers. I don’t think you find them by standing in the same place.
I’m not going to mention specific names or companies here (and ask you to do the same), but I’m also not trying to hide. Feel free to reference my linkedin profile (in/mrb44). If you stop by, you are more than welcome to connect with me.
When I started my transition from the military many years ago, Wall Street Oasis was an amazing resource for me. Part informative. Part therapy. Part entertainment. I really valued the perspectives of both the people who had answers and those who were looking for answers. I found the community a good source of motivation. I wanted to do this Q&A to pay it forward.
Getting to it… I worked as a consultant for a couple of years out of undergrad before joining the Navy, where I served as an intelligence officer in SEAL Teams and was selected for other elite special operations units. I graduated from training the week after 9/11 and over the next decade I completed 10 combat deployments and operated in 17 countries. I finished my career running intelligence operations outside the combat theaters. It was an amazing experience. The incredibly motivating and talented people I had an opportunity to work with, the things I got to do, and the history I had a chance to be a part of was way beyond my wildest expectations.
I transitioned out of the military and ended up at one of the top hedge funds via business school. At the hedge fund, I became the Director of Fundamental Research and was responsible for conducting primary research on behalf of the 40+ long/short investment teams at the firm. In this role, I leveraged a lot of lessons I learned in the military collecting, analyzing, and reporting intelligence in complex and dynamic information environments. The parallels between hunting terrorists and picking stocks were pretty remarkable.
I was eventually recruited away by another firm, but during my non-compete, I decided to pursue other interests. Namely, I became very interested in technology and building software products. So I made another unlikely transition and was hired as a senior executive at B2B software company that was acquired for nearly $4 billion, and ultimately, became responsible for how more than 700 engineers, product managers, designers, and program managers come together to build product.
More recently, I’ve pursued a handful of entrepreneurial ventures and am getting ready to launch a product that I think will be of great interest to this community. It’s based on my experience as an outsider on Wall Street. Someone who has had success despite having limited proficiency with traditional investing skills.
We will be delivering actionable trading insights based on the same data and information that billion dollar investment managers use to generate alpha via a mobile app for less than $100/year. We take these datasets, which have previously been unavailable to individual investors, and create highly accurate trading signals that can be used by anyone. No expertise in finance or accounting required. And for those that are data curious and enjoy developing their own insights, we provide the ability to explore the underlying metrics. We will also provide real time alerting so that users can take action when there are notable changes to trends.
I didn’t grow up on Wall Street so I didn’t realize there was a game inside the game. I was shocked at how much access to information hedge funds have. I was shocked at how much money was spent on gaining access to that information. I was shocked at how the entire system caters to institutional investors. I expected there to be a huge disparity between the information the pros were working with and what the average Joe on main street had access to, but I had no idea. It never sat right with me that the playing field was so uneven.
I’m not an Occupy Wall Street guy by any stretch of the imagination. I believe in capitalism. I believe if you work hard and are really talented you deserve more than someone who is lazy and talentless. But what I saw was total bullshit. It’s impossible to judge talent when the person on one side of the trade has so much more information than the other. There are a lot of really capable and talented people out there who are trading blind.
So my mission is simple… jailbreak everything. We are starting with a few core datasets but the goal is to eventually put everything available to professional investors and more into the hands of the retail investor and give them frameworks and tools to make it all work. This is the tool I wish I had when I was just another guy interested in the markets. It’s also the tool I wish I had when I was in charge of research at a large fund.
A 2 minute demo is available and we are beginning to sign up people for early access. If you are interested, I’d love to have you check out the links and sign up to be one of the first users. We are also offering pretty serious discounts for referrals.
I’d obviously be thrilled to talk more about the product and business, but I’m here to share insights and experiences that may be helpful to you so if there’s anything in my background that might help you move your career or life forward or you are just simply curious about, send it.
Mike
@AndyLouis @WallStreetOasis.com
Awesome background and story, not sure why noone has jumped on this yet. Thanks for taking the time to share Mike.
There were a few things that I'd love to hear your thoughts on:
Cheers. New product looks incredibly valuable, good luck with the launch!
Yea... things were starting to feel a little quiet in here. I figured 1) I’m boring as hell 2) People are reluctant to engage or 3) It’s been a long week after a big New Year’s celebration. A few folks have connected with me on Linkedin and some have signed up for the Vizabull product launch, so maybe it's 2 or 3.
1. I actually started coding out of college. When I was a consultant, they were offering huge bonuses to people to do SAP work so I actually switched over to a technical track. I just love creating building stuff. Taking something from an idea in your head and turning into something that can actually be touched and used. I built a jeep from the wheels up. I've done some significant construction and landscaping. I do some finished woodworking. I write a lot. There's something very satisfying about that kind of work, and software is just another expression of that. Truth be told, however, my coding skills suck today. I obviously, didn't do any in the military. At the hedge fund, I had a small development team that helped me build some of our proprietary systems . In the past couple of years, I learned enough to get the initial prototype of the Vizabull product going, but I'm a total hack. My role is more product vision, setting goals, articulating requirements, sourcing data, designing the fundamental based algorithms, strategy, finance, marketing, etc... I leave the development work to the pros.
2. This is one I could write a book on. I'll give the Cliff Notes here, and then can dive deeper into anything that is interesting.
3. The simple answer is that I enjoy it and find it personally satisfying. I also like being around amazingly talented people. They inspire me and make me better. The more psychologically nuanced answer is probably it's how I address the chip on my shoulder. The world is constantly telling us we can't do something... be something... have something. I take it pretty personal, and it becomes a challenge. And then when people stop telling you that you can't do something you just start making challenges up. To be totally fair, I was up at Mt Shasta a couple of months ago and chickened out on a 40' waterfall jump into 40 degree mountain water so it's not like I'm all that hard. As I get older I'm picking my challenges a bit differently.
In the quiet stretches, I'm just going to start jamming on some random topics, and hopefully they are helpful to someone.
I’ll start with the most important lesson I learned at the hedge fund. This probably won’t be mind blowing for pros out there, but it is really the crux of the market and the basis for everything. It’s the one thing I wish someone had explained to me when I started and it’s the one thing I constantly remind myself of now. It's what separates pros from beginners.
The market is all about expectations. It’s not about good companies or bad companies. Their success or failure. It’s about what people believe about a company, what is actually true about a company, and the delta between the two.
When I started following the market, I'd say things like... “they are killing it. I’m going to invest.” Or... “That company is doing terrible, I’m going stay away from it.” Instead of making obvious statements like these, I should have been asking… Do I believe this company is performing better or worse than other people and why? Do I believe the opportunity ahead for this company is bigger or smaller than other people and why?
The tricky part isn’t actually articulating your own view. It’s describing where you believe reality is relative to the market’s expectations.
If you go to Seeking Alpha ( I’m going to pick on the analysis there a bit… if you are a regular contributor, I’m sorry… maybe you are responsible for the two reasonably constructed assessments anyone will find there), you’ll never see someone talking about their view vs. expectations. Everyone on there is talking about sales are doing this, margins are doing that, multiples are this, supply constraints are screwing everything up, blah blah blah.
You know what this all has in common? Everyone knows it already. It’s already baked into the stock. These aren’t investment thesis. They are just opinions followed by a repetition of facts. You might as well be saying… Buy Tesla. The grass is green. The sky is blue. The capital of the United States is Washington, DC. Earth is the third planet from the sun. There's no argument there. You are literally guessing.
If you want to know why a lot of people don't beat the market when they start actively trading stocks, this is a good starting point.
So how do you actually do this?
Maybe in another post…
Reading this, like one of the first comments illustrates above, the title of this thread makes it seem like you want to lead the non-mil folks to think that you are a SEAL while tacitly omitting that you were a navy officer in the intel career field that worked with SEALs (and presumably other SOF and conventional elements).
Yale undergrad, Wharton, and Point 72 are prestigious enough (if prestige and pride by association are what you are after), no need to inflate your background by omission and word smithing.
How did you manage to go to Wharton while on AD and not incur a service obligation? EMBA?
If so how in the world did you go from active duty as an intel officer, EMBA, to "director of research" at point 72? That's a huge leap. Prior professional or family connection to the firm? Is Steve Cohen your biological father?
And why leave Point 72 after only a few years? That IS the exit.