YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Hunt

lines on the record: 128
first: 2026-01-09
most recent: 2026-01-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, thank you. And Trying to avoid tunnel vision, I think, is so important in our business or any business, but especially our business.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you start saying, Oh, I can fix it by taking this shortcut or doing this other thing. And once you do that, it never ends well”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is really interesting because this business of investing, it's a wonderful life. You were solving puzzles. We meet interesting people. We get to have these sort of conversations. It's a career for a lifetime. Two pieces of advice early never go all in. And also Reputation is absolutely the most important thing. And again, especially when you're young, you think, oh, well, that's not the most important thing. You know, being right is the most important thing. It ain't. Playing the long game here would you want to, it's never go all in. And I never go all in.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Constantly, when I first started to invest in, well, again, late. I got two pieces of good advice, right? One was never go all in.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ain't no such thing right now. There is magic, and there are patterns, but it's not in the structured data. It's not in the numbers. It's actually in the error. It's in the probability. It's in, we call in the stochastic element, right? The role of chance and understanding that there are patterns and there's real magic in understanding that. I didn't get that When I was either starting with data analysis or with investing, I was looking for the answer with a capital A as opposed to a process with a capital P.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In investing, I wish I had understood. The role of Step back a second. I think that whether you're talking about data or whether you're talking about investing. I'll speak for myself, but I think there are a lot of people like me. We think there's an answer with a capital A. Right there in the numbers. And if you just look hard enough and if you work hard enough, you'll find that answer, right? You'll find the secret, the secret formula.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Find a path where that's often in academia where you're building intellectual capital because once you leave that environment,”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For sure. And I tell you what, I think it's important. You have to, I think you can accomplish in academia, either grad school or whatever it is, is you build your intellectual capital. And so I think a lot of times when you Get out of college, you say, okay, I'm just ready to kind of live my life and start something. And you haven't built that intellectual capital yet. The issues was that once you enter particularly the investment world, where if you're responsible for managing other people's money, Brother, that's it, right? I mean, there's not, that's got to be your total focus. You are spending your intellectual capital. You're not gaining intellectual capital once you take on a role like that. So my first advice is,”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Current science fiction Rebecca goes by RF Kwang, and she wrote a book called Babel. And she's got a new one out. I like Tower of Babel, the B-A-B-E-L. And she's got a new one out, Catabasis, I think it is. But science fiction, dealing with language and linguistics, I love that stuff.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was excellent. Before that, and I named a company after him, was the foundation trilogy with Asimoff. Those books hold up less well, honestly. And I thought the series was, it had its moments. I didn't love the series. It was so pretty so-so to me.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Inference So, the science of inference, I learned that from Gary, you know, 30 years ago. And it's so interesting to see that come full circle because that's at the core of, you know, Jensen Wong's always talking about it and the whole notion of AI that inference spend they talk about. I was there at the beginning. How inference is and why it is so powerful, that was a huge influence on me.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mentioned that. The people both in undergrad and graduate school who turned me on to the science part of political science. And in particular, in graduate school, Gary King, who runs the whole social science research center up there at Harvard and asks for a long time now, he wrote the original, really the book on inference. You hear about inference all the time. So, the notion of inference taking large data sets and pulling out”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The rest of the This story, this worry, this concern absolutely has legs. And we're seeing no signs of it easing off in financial media and press.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ignore it. But this is a story that has legs. It is growing in a way that I rarely see. And once a story like this grows, it doesn't just go away. And it's not fixed by Bernanke saying, oh, subprime is contained.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Too much? Is it that? All I'm saying is I am observing. I'm not predicting. I am observing the level of volume for alternative asset managers, their exposure to private credit. This is problematic. Oh, I'm wondering what's going to happen when the music stops. Oh, I think that this blows back into the commercial banking system. Those stories, those narratives are higher by An order of magnitude than they've been at any point in the last 10 years. Any point, including during COVID, during when you had similar concerns over, oh my God, private credit's COVID was easy to realize.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With how that plays. I think probably tricolor as well, but my point is that every day you have a new bank CEO come out and say, no, no, everything's fine. So yesterday it was David Solomon at Goldman Sachs saying, no, no, it's fine. Today I was hearing the Brookfield guy saying, no, no, it's fine. For every story Every interview, the guy says it's fine, you're getting two articles in the FT or the journal saying ain't fine.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a story that people are talking about since tricolor and first brands went out So it's the story on credit. Story of credit”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Haven't looked at that. We've been looking at the US story, but my personal sense is that we've essentially ceded the field. CED with a C, not without a C, not an S, particularly in South Asia and Africa.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It gone forever. No, no. These things are never gone. These stories have, they never die, right? They're waiting for a new force to give them life.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's. Not just that that has the repercussions that you're describing. What I'm saying is that the story that would Support that It's gone”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Global standard of living that America has been this powerful force in capitalism in America have been this powerful force to raise people out of poverty. That's a story that in other periods of time has Been out has been prominently talked about.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm saying I'm observing I'm observing. And I think that a lot of times if we are like me very online and on Twitter too much. You don't see the broader Is happening on blog posts and local newspapers and everything else. So I think having the ability to read everything. And track. These stories that You know, they don't, like I say, they wax and wane, but they don't ever go away. It's something we're very excited about to track the stories of America. I'll give you another one, and this one actually... I don't know what to do with this. One of the stories of America is that America has Raised the world's wealth, right?”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Government shutdown, right? So both and also in this, it's that. Because the question, oh, well, the Democrats will get blamed. Well, that's not really true. That's not what's happening. Now, how that all plays.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm saying is that many of the policies that are being presented by this administration are unpopular, not just with the Democrats, but with Republicans and increasingly so. Immigration being one of them. I think economy being another one.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's pretty. Now, there are other aspects, though, The stories. This is people talking about immigration as a thing. Now, whether that gets translated into a political party position, because I got to tell you, the Democratic Party is enormously narratives that are being put forward by the Democrats that are Or popular. So I don't.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because that's how this stuff gets on the political front, narratives and opinions, they get cashed out in elections, right? Markets are different. You cash stuff out every day. The market's open every day.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is the benefit of what I'm talking about. So when we're doing these semantics, we call it the semantic signatures, it has nothing to do with how you're phrasing the question. We're not doing polling. We're seeing what people are actually the meaning of what they're talking about in media.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can't. You can't. So it's a melting iceberg, but we can clearly see that. The dog that's not barking yet maybe never will is capital flight. What we see politically domestically is that actually, and this was validated by a Gallup poll, they've been doing 20 years, which also showed what we had saw, started seeing a lot earlier, where Immigration as a thing is actually pretty darn popular in the United States.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Melting iceberg Because there are limits to if you're a Bermuda reinsurer, I mean. You're kind of stuck with treasuries. I mean, that you're.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quickly reversed. That was it. So there's no capital flight. There are no US investors leaving the country. There were fears. And we can track it. If that starts to happen, we'll see it immediately. That's not happening. Repatriation continues to happen.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it is built up to such an extent, right? The way I think of it, this is an iceberg that is melting, but it is melting. What we do not see, we do not see capital flight.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Well, this gets back to the economic picture and from other. So what you've had is a clear, and again, we see this in our data from other countries. There's a clear effort to repatriate assets and funds away from the US. There's been a clear effort. Outside the US, you see this was central banks, but also with court. Gold, correct. Treasuries used to be a safe haven asset No more.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Stupid. This is silly and stupid. And it's been a steady increase, you know, and you wouldn't believe that if you were immersed in Twitter, but”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we see very clearly in our media data. And this is not mainstream media. This is everything that we're pulling up. We've seen a really significant decline in the volume and density of, oh my God, immigration is a problem. We need mass deportations. On the contrary, we've seen an enormous increase, again, regardless of political affiliation, including Republicans. No, immigration is a good thing for this country. The stories of America”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, exactly. And what you saw in really going back, because we take this stuff back for a decade or more. And what you absolutely saw Up to last October, there was an event from last October, not the election, but an event from last October. You see a steady increase, regardless of your political affiliation, you know what? Immigration isn't working for us as Americans. Saw a steady increase. Starting with the They're eating the cats”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I guess what I wanted to talk about domestic so We started tracking the different narratives around immigration policy early last year. And what you saw in some of the kind of”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reserve currency to finance our deficit, all of this is enormously to our advantage. And yes, there are free riders on that system. Yes, there are costs to that, particularly on defense and some other areas. tariffs are another area where there's absolutely free riders on that. So there's improvement that can be made in that system for sure. But this is not... This is a different system, this is a different set of rules of the road, and it leads to a different strategic interaction between countries. So that's what the note was about. And I'm not trying to predict. I'm just trying to observe, which is a great line actually by George Soros, which is I'm not predicting I'm observing, which I love that is a line. I'm not, and our technology is not there to try to predict the future. It's trying to tell you what is true in the present today.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enormously our advantage enormously to our advantage goes by the name of a soft power and the dollar system, the Bretton Wood system, all of this”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll start with the international dimension. I want to come back to the domestic dimension because I think we've got some really interesting data recently to share. Goes back to this again. I cringe when I talk about it, but it is a game theory, right? And all game theory is strategic interaction. It's that the United States, yes, is the most powerful player on the world stage, but every country has some degrees of freedom and some autonomy in the policies that they implement. There is not a dominant strategy, meaning an outcome, an equilibrium outcome. Again, I hate using these words, but I'll use them anyway. All an equilibrium means is it's a balancing point where both parties, let's call them the United States and a European country, where do they end up where they all say, okay, I can live with this, where I can live with this. And the America first set of policies, and it was all these set of policies.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that's kind of what I'm getting at, you can see an enormous change in the meaning of markets. And it connects with Yes, I'll call it the speculation layer, but it also connects with financial nihilism, YOLO, it leads to a very, I think, Less attractive future For how we think about money and the role of markets and the role of capitalism”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like that? Sadly, yes. Exactly like that. Exactly like that. So there's that element. And so that's a sad one or a very troubling one in trying to say, well, how do we navigate that? But even when in Marcus, and I alluded to this earlier, how capital markets have become a political utility. And the role of markets in our society, you can really see how that changes in the stories we tell ourselves about the role of markets, what it's there for.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even from the first presidency. And so what we're able to measure, really measure, is how does that, I'll say, play, but also what Narratives never happen in a vacuum. There's always a counter story for every bull story. There's a bear story. And you can almost kind of see the battlefield of ideas, the battlefield of stories and how it emerges. Strong sense, Gary, is that we are going towards politically in this country towards Trench warfare greater and greater, I'll call it narrative violence. And it, if you look historically how that plays out in countries, it doesn't play out well”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Remember, germ theory. It took a century and it takes seeing it, right? It takes the instrument to actually measure it before you actually believe in it. So, I feel like that's kind of where we are right now. It's these early days, but to actually see and measure the storytelling at this level of resolution, this magnification is pretty freaking cool.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a lot of things, let's say you're polling for a political candidate You can't ask them to put money down on something, but you really want to know these policies that my candidate is thinking about. Taking on, is that popular? Does it resonate? Is it a compelling story? We can absolutely see if that is true by looking at local media, local social media, all of that. So it's... Pretty wild bear. I mean, once you start looking at how important stories are, and once you've got a tool where you can actually measure them and visualize them, it's like... I feel like it was like when they invented whoever was Lovenhook or whoever invented the microscope. When you're actually to see something that we all know is there”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That helps a ton. So in places where you can have them make a bet, I think that improves the kind of information you can get. It still lends itself to a lot of manipulation and a lot of...”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, we have today we have polls Which are terrible, which are terrible, which are mostly terrible. Now, you know, and I love the polymarket stuff and other things where you try to get as many people as possible to put money on something. Right.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is happening. It's going to be a full scale invasion because that was the messaging in domestic Russian media to the Russian people. So brands, right? So we're working with some sounds great, but pro sports teams. Want to tell a story to”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Executives thinkers. So we did before The run up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We published this on epsilon theory. And this is my old academic work, the book Getting to War. Before a country starts a war, they mobilize public opinion. And so we were looking at domestic Russian media, looking at us, saying, friends, this isn't going to be a limited thing. This is happening.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We can tell you exactly for the portfolio you've got for that client. Here's what they're going to be asking about, worried about. And here are the answers you can give them to show this is when has happened before, when this story has come up. Stay the course. It's going to be fine. This is the sort of stuff we can do for financial advisors.”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can I say one more thing? Sure. It is not just about using this for investment. So we have a product for financial advisors. Which Your clients coming in, you've got a portfolio, you need to be able to say what is my client? What are they worried about? What are they nervous about? What are they hopeful for? What are the stories they're reading?”
2026-01-09 · Masters in Business · Using AI to Find Investing Stories with Perscient Co-Founder Ben Hunt · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source