YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeff Chang

lines on the record: 92
first: 2026-02-27
most recent: 2026-02-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Had a strategy that did not participate in the majority of the drawdowns in 2022. That means you had more to invest to take advantage of the gains in 2023, 2024, and 2025. This is the compounding effect of winning without losing, right? It's the compounding effect of playing offense and defense at the same time. Because at the end of the day is a lot of times, you know, these types of strategies are not the get rich game. If you're 20 years old, probably not the strategy for you, but you know, in our industry, a lot of the people that have wealth, they're in the stay rich game, right?”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly in 2020. And unless you were managing money 40 years ago, you had not Experienced inflation, right? And you couldn't hide anywhere. I mean, you were like Tom Brady choosing between alimony and child support while taking your kids' jiu-jitsu practice. The thing is, there was nowhere to hide, right? Whereas if you were hedging, and the great thing about hedging is if you buy S&P and you buy an S&P put, that put is perfectly negatively correlated to S&P. It's an inverse. It's the opposite. And so imagine if...”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. Right? That's right. So that's the trade off. Yeah, and here's the thing is that most people don't realize these strategies have the potential to outperform the market, even if you're talking about high double digit equity returns. Because think about this. In 2022, because of inflation, when interest rates went up, stocks and bonds both went down at the same time, right? You could have mixed your stocks and bonds any way you wanted in 2022. 60-40 would”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the largest buffer fund and the one at Vest is BUFR. It's built on the foundation that, you know, the kind of fundamentals of the strategy is the buffer strategy, which is, you know, let's say you get S&P exposure for one year, the first 10% is protected. So as an example strategy, if S&P is down 10, you're flat for the year. And then you get upside up to, let's say, a predetermined cap. So let's say S&P is up 15, you're up 15. But the most you can make is 15. So if S&P is up 16, you're up 15, right? So you're capped out at that 15. So years like 20.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“2019 in partnership with our partners at First Trust. And so that has been one of the fastest growing areas, not just for our firm, but as the ETF industry as a whole.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seems What it means to you. So in mutual funds, there's a challenge in some cases that if there's a redemption, you would sell your securities, which could have the potential to realize gains. In ETFs, not just unique to these ETFs or all ETFs, have the ability to, let's say, in-kind security. So when someone wants their money back, instead of giving the market maker selling securities and giving them cash, in some cases, you can give them securities, thereby not potentially realizing the gain for the shareholder. So it has the potential for tax efficiency by having in kind. Now, prior to 2019, October of 2019, that was not, we weren't able to do that with options. That was introduced in October of 2019, so we launched our first buffer ETFs in November of”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there are obviously challenges that may not be as, let's say, the same as like an ETF that in 2019 they introduced the in-kind. This is also another example of the partnership with SIBO.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, NYC, we were taking client assets. I think we launched our first mutual fund in 2016. It was the first buffer fund of its kind. And then, so wait, look.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe not wildly successful, but then that's how you pivot. So it's not necessarily failure per se, but not the success you're looking for, then pivot and try to find other ways to deliver and how to solve the problem better. But I still think that the idea of not being afraid of failure and that grit and the ability to pick yourself up, it's that attitude that this is not the end. Failure is just the mother of success and you just have to keep learning from those mistakes because everything is a learning process. I can't tell you one person that I know that's successful that has not failed.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean Definitely in Silicon Valley, failure is okay. They have a saying if you're going to fail, fail fast, right? Whereas I feel like on Wall Street is like, you don't want to fail fast. Like that's called a blow up, right? So there's some parts given the industry that we're in, we have to ignore some of the aspects of it. I think everything that we did, I wouldn't say was ultimate failure, maybe not the success that we wanted because we wanted to make sure everything we built.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, that's the math, right? Like on average, it's a 4%. I think right now it's like 5% to 6% unicorn rate. But how many classes can you go through that? Like you're like, hey, 4%, four to five percent of you guys are going to have extremely successful companies coming out of this class. And by the way, you look around, you're like, oh, man, is that really possible? And then you blink 13 years later. You're like, wow, it really did happen. Like there's incredibly successful firms and incredibly successful. When you look back and like even now, I look at my group partners. I look back. My group partners were incredible. I had Gary Tan who found an initialize and also is now the present COI combinator, Alexis O'Hanan, founder Reddit, Justin Khan founded Twitch, Cap Melanek, who was like an all-star in marketing in PR. I had an all-star group. Yeah, no, it's definitely.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which predates that by the time GitLab was our, I think they IPO'd on the Nasdaq, I think over $5 billion or something like that. They're doing really well. There was an equipment share was also our batch of big winners in our. And by the way. You've probably been to college where you go into a lecture hall, right? And you have your first day class. The first day at YC, you know what they tell you? They're like, you know, 4% of you guys in this room will be billionaires. No intimidation.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, and this is why I say sometimes if a former trader on Wall Street ends up in Silicon Valley, they may end up in a dish because you have to go four years, no pay, sleep on the floor. It's not fun. Where you're used to wearing, you know, suits and loafers on Park Avenue, it's a big shock to the system. But that's the thing is, you know, at the same time, it's okay sleeping on the floor. It's better than sleeping on the ground when you're in the military. But that's the grit that you kind of go through, right?”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So great, and to the point where, like, when we got to YC, we rented a hacker house. By the way, the house that we rented was called Hacker House. And it was a one-story building with three bedrooms, not enough bedrooms for all of us that were working there. I think Quran had to sleep on the floor on a mattress for three months. And by the way, this is coming from being over a decade on Wall Street. Like, we're now sleeping on the floor. Hey, this is.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that worked out, yeah. They got a lot of big wins there. And after that, you know, we had kind of a party round of a lot of different angels and other smaller VCs. But after that, that's when SIBO came in and wanted a bigger stake of the firm. But the whole YC experience was very much like the show Silicon Valley, right?”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, exactly. Second is that we also realize you can't do this alone. It's not like we're starting an Airbnb where we can just kind of do X, Y, and Z. We needed partnerships. We needed, like coming back to the point of influence, like we needed people that really could help us with innovation. Hence, we actually only have two investors. One is Siebel Global Markets, Chicago Board Option Exchange, the largest option exchange in the world. And first trust, one of the largest ETF providers here in the United States, that has been intricate in the ability to shape and mold the industry, just like even with the exchange.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's where kind of the ethos of our Silicon Valley meets Wall Street is that we live in both worlds. Like our background, me and Quran's are Wall Street backgrounds that there is no move fast and break things mentality on our Wall Street ethos, right? It is measure four times cut once. This is people's livelihoods, their wealth. So that part we did not adopt. Not like break things Mentality. That is not”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the problem needs to be painful enough. And so anybody out there that's ever thinking about starting a startup, always start with the problem first and make sure the problem is painful enough for your customer that that becomes how you solve it can change a little bit, but the problem always existed, and we thought that that was a noble problem and a painful enough problem to seek.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, exactly. But that was the foundational, if you even look at our application, our pitch, it was exactly talking about the need for downside protection, the need to fix liquidity and credit risk and other types of instruments. Those were kind of the foundational problems because YC always says that like make something that people want and then don't just come up with the ideas start with the problem”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were certain, we went in with the idea of buffers and downside protection. There were certain pivots as far as like, hey, what's the best delivery vehicle to start with?”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Well, 10 years ago, a lot of changed over the last decade. And they have done a great job. I think they have maintained the stat was since 2012, 20% of the super unicorns were funded by Y Combinator.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which talks about YC, the companies that are there. I mean, the first class of YC included Sam Altman, Justin Khan, who founded Twitch, and Alexis O'Hanan, who founded Reddit. And I think there was like correct me, maybe nine companies. I mean, that's an all-star cast, if you ask me. Yeah, absolutely, for a class. And so it was definitely someplace that we wanted to be around. There weren't a lot of finance firms. In fact, Ves is the largest asset manager to merge out of YC. So it was definitely something to try something different. And really get into the Silicon Valley and really push the innovation within finance.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“2015. Yeah, Sam was president of Y Combinator for the folks out there that don't know. So YC, you know, similar to like a college application, you fill out an online college application. You actually don't need a company. They help you form the firm. And the companies that have come out of that program, you know, Airbnb, Reddit, Coinbase, StoreDash, OpenAI was funded by YC Research. So all of that firms came out of YC. So in fact, I think I read a book called The Launchpad.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Paul Graham at that was the first year Paul Graham stepped down and Sam Altman when I showed up was president of Y Commodor.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, like lived off our Wall Street bonuses. Me and my co-founder, Kron Sue. Like, we didn't get paid for four plus years to found this company. Like, that's how much you have to, the grit and the belief in something. And that culture really, really, I think, comes out of kind of startup kind of the Silicon Valley area. Y Combinator at the time. Run fun.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so that's the thing in finances there's not too much innovation, right? Because it's a lot of regulation and so on and so forth. And so even at our company, we always, even our identity today is still, you know, Silicon Valley meets Wall Street, right? I always think that in my mind, someone in Silicon Valley were to come into our business, they could end up in jail, right? Or if Wall Street ends up in Silicon Valley. You might be just end up in a ditch because you're running over for sure. Yeah, exactly. Because at the end of the day, we went four years with no income.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I had a very short stint at ProShares where I met my co founder Quran Sud. He worked on the structuring desk at Barclays and we talked about, hey, let's start our own firm. And then our first idea was going to be buffers, like downside protection that we saw in the structure note market. And by the way, this actually segued into the mortgage crisis because In 2008, the largest issuer structure notes was Lehman Brothers. Right, like you have a hundred percent protected note, and then now you're standing in bankruptcy court. So that was a big change in the industry. I think the structure note industry went from $120 billion to $30 billion in that timeframe from after the 2008 crisis.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And it's something that you live and breathe. And what I actually, you know, a lot of our investment products is to try to get our clients to understand that and utilize kind of a lot of the tools that we build are basically pants. Like, you know, when the water goes out, make sure that you have something there because of uncertainty.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly Yeah, exactly. And, you know, and disasters are always clear in hindsight, right? And you look back and you're looking at 20-30% default rates, you're like, that would have been so clear in your mind when you started to look at some of the data. And so that was really formative. And the other component is kind of like what Warren Buffett says. You always know who's not wearing pants when the water goes out. Yeah, when the tide goes in. Yeah, exactly. And so I always, I'd say think about, hey, if the tide goes out, make sure the money we manage for our clients that we got pants on.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, trading mortgages, Freddie and then FPR, I got to trade during 2008. I got to have a front row seat to seeing the Bear Stearns, Lehman. I remember trading repo during the 08 September 2008. It's the month I lost all my chest hair in one month. But it was fascinating. I mean, that's what I thought finance was like. So then, you know, later on, I cut over to convertible bonds and options. Then the flash crash hit in 2010, which was, by the way, I'd never seen an entire trading desk stand up within one minute of everybody's like, what's going on? So yeah, I got to see a lot of Wall Street in my 20s and 30s. It was definitely a formative time of understanding, you know, kind of what made capital markets tick and understanding. And also. Understanding the pitfalls, the hubris of finance that”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More people to go. Totally. Totally. Reading that book really made me want to be, you know, what he said in the book, big swinging, right? Like everybody, it was just such a fun story. It almost painted Wall Street in a specific way, but it was just the interesting part. And by the way, it also got me into reading Fabozi about fixed income, about the mortgage market. And then I wanted to be a trader. So, you know, I studied for the CFA exam. I got my CFA charter. I didn't know that would lead me to over a decade of teaching CFA. But that was really fun to do that and kind of give back.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tackling the day early on, making your bed, those small things in life, I think had been really, I'd say, important and kind of keystone in that process. The second is actually when I first started my first job at the World Bank after trying to start my company, I had to translate energy companies in China. And I had two problems. Number one was I didn't my Chinese wasn't good enough. And secondly, my accounting wasn't good enough, hence the CPA came in. I was like, at least I got to learn one. And then I cut over to Freddie Mac. And if you remember during the 2002-2003 timeframe is when Freddie Mac went into restatement. So as a certified public accountant, I was extremely sought after at that time. So I worked at Freddie Mac and I realized that I really wanted to, I read Liar's Poker.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So I could tell you one of the best things about what the military teaches you is not just teamwork and looking after the people next to you and really making a commitment. But there's also another thing is work ethic. I could tell you that I'm a morning person. I didn't grow up a morning person, but it's like 5 a.m. I'm up. And the funny thing is my girlfriend's a night person. She's like, how are you like spritely at 530? And I was like, that is actually learned behavior, right? So that was like kind of the first thing of learning grit and, you know.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Required to have success because, like I said, nothing in the world is done alone. This third, which comes back to my point, is creativity. The ability to spot things that other people don't see, right? To basically be, to see opportunity, to see things, to combine things together and have that opportunity. Then the last, if you combine it, is intelligence. If you do all four, and I can give you examples of people are immensely And by the way, it's in that order. Grit influence creativity and lasses intelligence.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then the second is I realize that nothing in this world can be done alone. That success requires you to have partnerships, friendships, and know people that can help build great things, great things don't come by yourself. And that's what I think second is influence. Your ability to let people see your dream and believe in your dream. Think about this. Like if you're starting a company, not just selling your product requires influence convincing your first investors, your first employees to quit their jobs, their high paying jobs, to make almost nothing and take equity. Let's talk about like selling a dream. That's influence. Like think about, you know, some of the greatest entrepreneurs out there. You probably heard like Steve Jobs as a reality distortion field. You know what that is? That's influence, right? That is one of the key things I think when you're looking at business. Influence is such a key thing of something that”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, so it was, and then as kind of over the years, I realized that the optimization, like if, you know, when I have kids, because, you know, I don't have kids, at least none that I know of, but if I did, I would optimize for actually number one is grit. Like that, and that grit is the not giving up. Like, like, you know, your company fails. What's the next thing? Like, you know, you pick up yourself from your bootstraps and you get up and go. It's almost like the thing is like, as an example, my parents didn't let me play video games, right? But I realized video games actually, if you introduce grit, like, you know, if you play Call of Duty, like I was the guy that when I play Call of Duty in my 20s, I would buy the headphones that would let me hear whether or not someone's behind me because whatever it takes to win, like that type of, you ever see that kid that does not want to lose that like fails but then gets up and figures out.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and that really informed me is that you have to have an edge. I think over the 13 years of founding this company, I noticed that there were actually key features that I noticed, even going through Y Combinator, my classmates and people that built very successful companies, they had very common characteristics for their success, right? In fact, I had Asian parents. They optimized for intelligence, which was very, you know, you get straight A's, you play the violin or the piano and you kind of go through that.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that was the reason why I took the CPA exam, like, hey, I know I would never starve. Because, you know, after the failure of my first firm, I was like, hey, you always have to have at least a safety net. And that also informed me that when I started a new company, accounting is actually extremely important when you're starting a firm or even a startup for that matter. And it actually came to pass that that has been a very, very important part of my career path as well.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so in my head was I didn't want to be an undertaker, but I could take the CPA exam and assure that participate in taxes exactly, exactly. A growth industry.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is, for the better word, there's FU money and FU skills. Right. You don't have that money. So make sure you build skills in which you're not always beholden to other people. And if you thought about it that, you know, the two guaranteed things in life is death and taxes. Right.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Jeff Chang TVs that were there. No kidding. I think another client was six flags. Like when you The weight, how long the wait was? Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But then, you know, as TVs became further and further down, I was like, hey, that's not the business I want to be. All commoditized. Why do you want to be there? Yeah. All commoditized. So it taught me a lot about starting a business on that and about life is that I realized that I needed actual hard skills that created a value add. And also the other component was I also realized that doing like accounting books, I didn't pay too much attention in accounting. So I actually for six months went and studied for the CPA exam and took the CPA exam to be accounting, which was actually a twofold kind of reason. I think one of my mentors once told me is that like, hey, there.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I grew up in Annapolis. The original career plan was to be part of the Navy. And unfortunately, I got medically discharged for asthma. And then decided to pursue more of a business path. And that's what kind of led me to Georgetown. And then after Georgetown, actually right after, I actually always wanted to start my own company. In fact, this is kind of a funny thing. Most people don't know this. I've never actually said this. When I first started, I actually started a flat screen TV company in 2012, OEMing them from China. And you remember back in the day, like flat screen TVs used to be like 25. Oh, yeah, when they first came out, they were crazy. Yeah. So I was in DC selling those. In fact, I remember selling TVs to Reagan National Airport. So when you like look at what terminal you are back in the early 2000s, those were.”
2026-02-27 · Masters in Business · Financial Products for Hedging with Vest Co-Founder Jeff Chang · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source