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Julian Robertson

lines on the record: 68
first: 2025-09-26
most recent: 2025-09-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Fifth year. When you add leverage, which many hedge funds do, you rapidly increase risk. But what Jones got right was the incentive structure. He actually didn't believe in a management fee, which is very rare to find in any hedge fund today. He also structured the fund to retain 20% of the profits, which is a standard practice that remains in place today. And he specifically didn't incentivize gathering assets because he believed that doing so would incentivize fund managers to just grow AUM and distract managers from making money for their partners. Now the timing of Robertson's conversation with Jones was also very important. They occurred in the early 1970s when the market was experiencing a pretty rocky period in 1973 and 1974, losing seventeen and thirty percent respectively. So Robertson had a favorable view of shorts, which he put on at that time. By 1977, Robertson was done with Kidder and Peabody and the sales and marketing aspect of the hedge fund industry.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Investors at Kidd or Peabody, Julian was introduced to a gentleman named Alfred Jones, who was actually the forefather of the hedge fund industry. Jones taught the traditional hedge fund approach, which involved things like using both long and short positions. So the idea which I personally don't subscribe to is that having both long and short positions allows managers to profit in both good and bad times. So here are my primary holes in that reasoning. The first one is that bull markets tend to just last longer than bear markets. So I'd actually prefer to just align myself with what the market tends to do, which is to go up over time. Second, if you have shorts in a bull market, you're foregoing the opportunity to have larger long positions, which will go up in price. And third, if you have a long-term view on investing, you can find businesses that are resilient to short-term economic shocks and just hold them. Fourth, a crappy business with poor fundamentals can still continue to rise, meaning even if you short it, you could very easily be wrong. And lastly,”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He enjoyed most the hunt for those opportunities is what drove him to be successful. Now similar to Munger, Robertson spent much of his career trying to understand just how things worked and why ideas failed. One of the significant learnings that he had was just how the fund industry worked. For instance, while at Kid or Peabody, he got quite the education in marketing and sales inside of the money management business. And the longer he worked on it, the better he understood it, and actually the less he liked it. Now Robertson was a man who just wanted to do things. And to him, things like sales and marketing were doing things on behalf of others. And he didn't like that aspect of it. So speaking to his competitive streak, he also didn't find that the sales and marketing platform allowed him to really shine and differentiate himself from others doing the exact same thing. Julian just wanted to be a producer. He wanted respect from those around him and he wanted to be the best. The profession that could accomplish all three was running a hedge fund. Through one of his first”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Others in his network to manage their money as well. So he obliged them, managing just small amounts for his colleagues. For the next ten plus years, Robertson continued managing other people's money while working at Kidd or Peabody. The trust built during this time would prove to be integral to raising funds for Robertson's fund once he decided to go all in. So what exactly was Robertson's strategy that was drawing colleagues to him like Moth's to Aflame? It was a simple value approach. Julian just loved hunting for value. And much of what he learned came from his learnings from Ben Graham and David Dodd. One area of the book that I highlighted was how Robertson learned that the market didn't exist. So Strachman writes, there is no market as such, he decided, just a collection of companies that traded in one place or another. He came to believe that nobody really makes money playing the markets. The only way to make money is to buy stocks that are cheap and watch them go up. The hunt for value is one of the”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At kid or peabody, he made an extensive network of colleagues and friends to mine ideas from. This is a perfect way of finding new ideas. And this is another reason why being social about your ideas on things like SubStack or Twitter or X can be so beneficial for finding new ideas. While Robertson didn't have access to those mediums at that time, he was able to create this massive network of people that he could share ideas and information with. I have used this to my own advantage. You know, I'm constantly deluged with more ideas than I really know what to do with. Without openly discussing my ideas, I would never have gotten to that point. So if you want to really foster a similar network, just put your ideas and processes out to the public. You'll be very, very surprised how many interesting people you network with and how open they will be to sharing their ideas and insights into businesses that you might also find very, very interesting. So Robertson was investing his own money in his personal account at the time and he was drawing interest from”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About things such as leadership, discipline, and taking responsibility for your actions as well as maturity. The Navy Stint allowed Julian to see the outside world outside of America, which really opened up his perspective. Robertson entered the investing world with some help from his father, who thought that New York was the place to go to make money and get a formal education in both investing and the markets. So off he went. Robertson started working on Wall Street in 1957 at Kidder and Peabody& Co. and stayed there for 22 years working in a variety of sales related roles for the firm's money management arm. So he started on the sales side as a broker, getting commissions off of transactions. During his early years, he showed a preference for leaning both towards the sale side and the buy side. He wanted to know more about exactly what it was that he was selling to his clients, and he excelled at this not only through his own work, but also by relying on others he could lean on to gather more information.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To change someone's mind on a topic simply because they just close their minds off to dissenting opinions. As a result, I personally rarely engage in arguments with others with the intention of changing their minds. To me, it's just a waste of time. I enjoy learning other people's viewpoints strictly so I can see where my viewpoints might be wrong. If I think they're wrong, I'll just nod my head and thank them for their opinion. But trying to argue with them just seems like a good way to never be invited back to a dinner party. Like many other great fund managers, competitiveness comes from many areas of life. I already mentioned that his father passed down this competitive streak, but he also developed internally from playing sports such as football and baseball. But when it came to academics, Julian wasn't always the most polished student, so he loved math, which was a subject that he was very good at. And as a result of his proficiency in math, he was also very fond of business courses. By the age of 23, Julian entered the Navy, which would have taught him a great deal.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A single investor with deep pockets can just prop up the prices of a commodity or even a stock. And it's not until they or somebody close to them realizes how large of a mistake the trade is that value can be completely unlocked. I would like to briefly touch on Robertson's early years here as there's some interesting facts to share. So first off, Robertson was a southerner. He was born during the Great Depression in North Carolina. His father was very well dressed on the outside and a ferocious competitor on the inside. And this level of competitiveness was passed down from father to son. When Julian Robertson Sr. passed away, Jr. said that he may not agree with you, but he agrees with the premise that you have a right to your opinion. This was another artifact passed down to Junior. So one of his former colleagues mentioned that Julian likes people to understand why they are wrong. He'll get into heated discussions on the topic. Now, I find this very amusing because I've come to realize the power of confirmation bias. It's just so rare.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And as a result of this nugget, they actually increased their short position. So other sleuth thing involved, you know, meeting with metal producers to learn more about the production forecast from both new and existing mines. They also met with copper users and observed how full their inventories of copper were. So if you invest in commodities, these are just excellent things to know because it gives you valuable, tangible evidence that the cycle is very likely to turn or will do so in a short period of time. So this trade was mentioned first in the book because on one day in May of 1996, the copper short produced an astounding $300 million in profits. Now, I like the story because I personally have zero interest in shorting. But I think it shows that investing is a game that can be won in just different ways. While I have no desire to short commodities, it's still a good lesson in understanding supply and demand. As well, as a reason the market can be kind of slow to come to a sensitive”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Up those copper prices. All I knew was that the copper price was just connected from reality. And at some point, the market would come to its senses and rerate copper where it belonged. The book mentions some next level scuttlebutt here that I thought was worth mentioning. So Tiger Fund was examining things such as, you know, the stores of copper at the London Metal Exchange. They were looking at the levels that”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Story of copper, and it just didn't make any sense when he looked at it, when he would look through the lens of supply and demand of that one commodity. So even after Robertson opened his short in 1994, the prices of copper continued to rise. So in early 1995, many investors closed their shorts fearing that they were wrong. But Robertson just stayed in. Copper prices had moved up from $1.10 per pound to $1.25 per pound. Then the hammer dropped. So one of the largest copper traders in the world who had been just propping up copper prices. The trader worked for a firm called Sumitomo in Japan. Once his firm learned of his nefarious trade, they realized that it was likely to result in quite a major loss, so they ended up dumping their position. And the increased selling pressure drove down copper prices significantly, bringing them down to about 87 cents per pound by late 1996. So the interesting part about this story is that Robertson reportedly knew nothing about the lone actor's role in products.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Goes down. So Robertson's observation was that since demand seemed to be dwindling, it didn't make much sense that copper prices were continuing to climb. So Robertson sent out his analysts to go find out more information. They were boots on the ground looking at inventory levels of copper and really to understand this trade, we must first understand Robertson's key investing strategy. So it was based somewhat on narrative. So the book's author Daniel Strachen writes, The key behind all of the firm's investments was the story. If the story made sense, then the investment made sense. And if there was no story, or it was not easily understood, then it had no place in the portfolio. When the story changed, the investment had to change as well. It was and is all about the story. Now, I will say that I would not classify Robertson as a story stock investor. So back to the story. So here was the”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fund or worked for someone who did. So is investing strategy has very far reaching tentacles? So let's start this episode by following the same order as one of the books here, which is to not focus on his early years first, but to examine just one trade that was highly successful for him. So this was his short on copper during the mid-1990s. So what had gotten Robertson interested in the short in the first place? And that was the supply and demand dynamics of copper. Robertson observed that copper prices were continuing to climb, even though demand was not increasing and actually might have started to decrease. Now, as with all commodities, they move in cycles, and those cycles are controlled by the interplay of supply and demand. So when demand increases, supply generally increases as well, and the price goes up. Once demand is met, supply continues to climb as there is always a bit of a time lag between the two. Once supply exceeds demand, the price”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“High regard. They also found him to be mean and vicious at times. Like Warren Buffett, Robertson was a mathematical prodigy. The book refers to his mathematical memorization as Dustin Hoffman-esque from the movie Rainman. So he focused so much on his work that it cost him abilities in other non-personal areas such as remembering people's names. Now, as for his competitive streak, some of his friends and former colleagues said that playing golf with him just wasn't very enjoyable. And the reason being was that Robertson was just so competitive that he hated to lose even one hole, let alone an entire round. Now, the success of Julian Robertson and the Tiger Fund is often found in the lineage of investors that it spawned. The book states that there's about 30 to 40 hedge funds managed by investors who started at Tiger Fund. But keep in mind the book was published in 2004. An article I found states that there's now 200 hedge funds managed by people who either worked directly for Tiger.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is a truly a sounding track record, but it didn't end nearly as well as you might think. By early 2000 after the dot com bubble had burst, Tigers AUM had fallen from 22 billion to about 6 billion, and he decided to close up shop. But today we're going to go over Julian Robertson's meteoric rise and fall through two key resources. So the first one is his biography. Julian Robertson, a tiger in the land of bulls and bears by Daniel Strachman. And a second is Money Masters of Our Time by John Train. So I highlighted a few things in the intro of the book that I found very interesting. So first was just the talent that Robertson, I think, demonstrated in exploiting market inefficiencies. And second was how good he was at just finding and fostering talent from the people that he saw on Wall Street. And third was just his voracious appetite to win. So like many great investors, Robertson was just not your average person, while his contemporaries and colleagues all held him in a very”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome to the Investors Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Greave, and today we're going to discuss an investing legend, Julian Robertson. So throughout the last few years of investing, I've continuously come across these so-called tiger cubs. One fund, such as Tiger Global Management, is headed by a gentleman named Chase Coleman, manages $70 billion. Another one, Low and Pine Capital, managed by Steve Mandel, manages $20 billion. CO2 management, managed by Philip Lafont, has $58 billion in assets. So what do these three funds have in common? They're all part of the lineage left over from Julian Robertson's tiger management. So why is Robertson left such a long list of successful progeny? Because the man simply just knew how to invest. From 1980 to 1998, his fund had a 32% kegger versus the S&P 500's 13%. And in those 18 years, the firm only lost money in four of them.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And how it was kind of a precursor to the CNN fear ingredient index that we see today. Then we'll look at why Robertson just loved monopolies and oligopoly so much and how he saw bubbles in Japan and the dot-com era forming before the masses. But most importantly, we'll examine his seven core investing themes that helped guide his success and look at some of the timeless lessons that investors can clone from him in their own investing processes today. So whether you're working on improving your ability to think independently, building information networks or trying to just understand risk and leverage better, Robertson's story provides a very robust framework and cautionary tale for any investor trying to understand the market better. Now, let's get into this week's episode on Julian Robertson.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did you know that from 1980 to 1998, Julian Robertson's Tiger Fund delivered an outstanding 32% annual return, more than doubling the performance of the S&P 500 over the same time period? That kind of track record helped cement Robertson as one of Wall Street's most legendary investors. And yet, despite his incredible success, his fund actually had to return funds to its partners in very short order during the tech bubble. In today's episode, we'll explore just how Robertson became so effective at finding mispricings in the market and how he utilized a vast network of very talented people and contacts to help improve his access to information. We'll break down one of his most famous commodity trades that netted him $300 million in one day. We'll examine the mindset that Robertson carried with him from his days working in the Navy, and why Robertson didn't believe the market really existed. You'll also learn how the Tiger Fund utilized a crude version of early sentiment indicators.”
2025-09-26 · We Study Billionaires · TIP756: The Rise and Fall of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Fund w/ Kyle Grieve · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT