Shawspring Partners

I've spoken to Dennis personally. He is a very down to earth guy and a different personality than most in this industry (in a good way.) Or he is a very good actor... Actually focuses on research and walks the walk. Their quarterly letters are more about business analysis than the "stock" per se and super informative. Has very strong support from endowments and foundations (read: sticky money/stable capital base). For those here who think they are "too young/inexperienced" to join/apply, he is actually happy to train/mentor people. It's much more about attitude and mentality than doing a zillion excel sheets as an intern from day 1. Or so he preaches to LPs.

On the flip side, and as someone older on this board, I will echo what one of my (very senior and well known) IC members told me the other day when we discussed Shawspring. "He could be really sharp and gifted. Absolutely. But remember where we are in the market and that everyone who was concentrated, long and in tech looked like a genius in the 90s"

In short: apply. It can't hurt. His last analyst, I think he plucked right out of college and it wasn't a target, if I am not mistaken.

On Atreides: Gavin's returns have been fantastic (I have yet to compare them to other similar funds), but see above re: tech. He is a great marketer and preaches all kinds of gospel, and almost terms himself as a venture capitalist and loves to name drop who he has dinner with etc etc.... And then goes long like UBER/TSLA/INTC etc and runs like a 30-40 net long portfolio... Uhm... Once again, nothing wrong with any of that, but just an example of how much marketing there is... He is much more of a trader than Dennis is and so the work, the processes and thinking will be very different at those respective firms.

There is also the shadow of Gavin's dismissal/resignation from Fidelity. Whether or not he was guilty of what he was accused of, I don't know. What I can say looks sketchy is that he recently got married to someone who is at Fidelity, and they met while he was at Fidelity and she is much much younger than he is, and kind of the same age group (methinks) as the accuser...Most institutions have shied away (aside from 1 Ivy League - Brown is the rumor) since the reputational hit wouldn't be a good one if something else came out. I hope this helps.