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Lane MacDonald

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74
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2026-01-26
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2026-01-26
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  1. “Returns for the endowment. I love that that's true North. Now there are flaws in the endowment model, but I never thought I was going to leave and then it was just a unique and interesting opportunity.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I really thought once I got DHMC, I was staying there. I was given an extraordinary opportunity to then move from the private equity side, which included the oil and gas and energy stuff too in the private equity realm, but to move to public equities. Jean Mandela was the head of HMC, and she was a great mentor, gave me that opportunity. Then I had just gone back to run private equity. I love the platform. I love the access. I was learning every day. Also finding a way to be a great partner, sitting on the LP side, how do you be a great partner to the GPs? to figure out how to build relationships that are enduring and you can do many, many things with GPs. I thought I'd be there forever. And the phone rang. The first time the phone rang, I said, no, the second time I listened. Someone said, you should take this meeting with some real hesitation or reservation because I love the mission. I love the platform. I love the focus on trying to generate the best risk adjustment.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Truly gifted and differentiated what they do. They see things in a different way, or they just have skills, capabilities that others don't.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “We live in a world that's become from an investment standpoint very efficient. Our job as allocators is to find people who have a proven ability to capture inefficiencies in increasingly efficient markets. How do you disentangle that? How do you figure out what their ability is to find those inefficiencies, domain expertise to start? But what's their edge? Is it a sourcing edge, an operational edge, a strategic edge? What are those things that allow someone to capture those inefficiencies not only on a historical basis but on a prospective basis? People talk about mobs allocator world becomes who has that proven ability that something is unique and differentiated and can demonstrate that over and over again in our sector many people build track records that are not statistically significant, not meaningful. You have a few early wins. You think you're smart. How do you find those people who are”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I didn't realize when I got there how little I actually knew about private equity. You think your GP and you know so much, but you know so much about so little. You're so deep. When you get to Harvard Management Company and you have the benefit of the history of that whole private equity platform, then you have the ecosystem of LPs that you're spending time with. Then from a GP standpoint, I got to spend my six years at HMC meeting with the best managers in the world every single day multiple times a day. Through that, you learn so much about where the bar is really to be great. That was the piece when I got to HMC I was like, how little I really knew about the sector versus what I learned while I was at HMC.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Happenstance being lucky in terms of relationships. I was planning to stay in the GP side, but I worried about the firmware I was, great people, wonderful mentors, but was going to face these cyclical and secular declines. I didn't believe there's a future. Our largest LP was Harvard Management Company. I went to tell the folks at HMC who remained very good friends of mine that I was going to leave when I'm going to stay involved with portfolio companies and send a couple of boards. They said, hey, would you ever think about joining us? We're going to rebuild the Co-Invest platform at Harvard, the Charles Bank team had spun out already. We think you'd be a good addition to the team. That pivoted me from I'm a GP, I'm a GP to then thinking about being an LP. The other piece for me in that situation, Ted, I received financial aid when I went to Harvard. The mission-based aspect of that, you spoke to me of being able to give back in some way while doing something I really enjoyed.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “One of the keys is domain expertise. I also learned that sector matters. The last firmware I worked was focusing on media and telecom. Media had been a great sector for many years, buying TV and radio stations. Monopolies, stick value, great assets. But when an industry that is facing a cyclical and secular decline which was happening in the late two thousands, no matter how good an investor you are, it doesn't matter. I learned you got to be picking the right sectors, technology, healthcare, the importance of leaning into those sectors. I also learned that not every investor is a great investor. I certainly learned this more when I moved to the allocator side. There is a real bifurcation. It's very easy to be an investor. All you need is money. If the question is you want to be a great investor, now that's a very high bar.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I love to learn from other people. Number one, but number two, I thought it combined the best of banking because you can get a little bit of banker somewhere with consulting. You're a little bit of consultant with banking. Oh, by the way, you're also an investor because you're writing a check. And when you invest in smaller companies, you're also as close to being an entrepreneur as you could be. What business do you know where you can learn and combine all of those different aspects into a business that economically when it works is very rewarding?”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “13 years as a GP, three different private equity firms, worked with great people. I learned so many lessons. I learned about domain expertise and how important it is to really understand sectors both operationally and from an investment standpoint, to really understand the risks that you're taking when you're investing. I also learned about deal sourcing. I learned about the discipline that goes with sourcing deals, the relationship building that goes with that. I learned about sectors, so many sectors. I spent time in a manufacturing, service distribution focused firm. I then shifted to a firm that focused on consumers, especially retail, education, and healthcare. And last firm was Media and Telecom primarily. An area like retail, what are the real economics the driver retail business, the four-wall economics in terms of that really drive it in understanding that? Telecom, understanding data centers, understanding wireless. The exposure to all those different sectors, it was a circuitous route, but provided such a great foundation”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Because I had started a business, I had a little bit of an entrepreneur experience, it lent itself to biotes. That led me in my second year to pursue that path. I thought about consulting, and I thought about private equity. I ended up having the opportunity to go to private equity and I started joining a firm called Bank Boston Capital. I'm dating myself because every firm where I work no longer exists.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “It started as a summer hockey camp with a good buddy of mine right after college. We built that camp and that was going on the side while I was working at Robertson. That business was running and we had camps in Quincy, Natick, the Vineyard, and it was a great little business. We ended up selling that to U.S. sports camps, which is Nike sports camps. That was going on the side. But after Robbie Stevens, I ended up going to Stanford for Business School, spent two years there, which was a great transition. During the summer, I was running our hockey camps trying to get that to a point where we could hand it off to other people to run it for us. Then I want to get into private equity, whether it was adventure, whether it was bio, didn't know.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Colleagues who taught me modeling, you go in with humility, you hopefully are appreciative. It's amazing how much people will give and share with you. I had some great teachers Robert Stevens.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I had no idea. You and me, liberal arts, education. My parents had done very different things. So there's no exposure going up. Finance ended up being something that I saw a lot of people in, particularly going to college, your friends, their parents. That was an eye-opening. So I started thinking about finance. I had no idea what that meant, but I had some nice mentors. People were like, if you want to get into business, investment banking is a good path. I remember getting a job at Robertson Stevens and company right after I stopped playing hockey in San Francisco. I didn't even know what an income statement, a balance sheet, or cash flow statement was. I'm flying out to California. I was going to work in San Francisco office. And I'm reading an accounting book trying to figure out how all this stuff works. You jump in the deep end of the pool and you figure it out. What I tell a lot of young professionals these days, none of this is rocket science. If you're smart, you're thoughtful, you're a good person, you work hard, there's a path. I was so intimidated and had some great.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Teamwork. There's nothing more important. You learn so much about leadership. It's a we, it's not an I in how you lead. The teamwork piece to me is something that I've personified forever. It means so much more to have success as a team than individually. We all want to do well. We all want to contribute. Being part of a team and being willing to sacrifice as part of a team, so much of that has stayed with me in terms of what I've done in every part of life. That's the lesson that I'm so grateful for. Resilience for sure. You get knocked down. You need to get back up. You get hurt. You got to be tough. Rejection. But the teamwork piece is the most important.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Dangerous game between doctors, coaches Bill Clary at Harvard, my parents, I understood that it wasn't worth it. That was where I changed focus. It took me a couple of years and a couple of twists and turns to figure it out because I did play for one year in Switzerland thinking it's a less physical style of play. I could play in one more Olympics. But that was the recognition that I shouldn't be playing hockey anymore.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I was drafted, playing the Olympics when I graduated. I had a number of head injuries, concussions. I almost had stopped during the Olympic year and leave the team because of concussions. I almost had to stop playing hockey at Harvard my senior year. Very few people knew about what was happening and what was going on. My parents and my brother were great about you don't need to play. But I love the game. I love my teenmates. During my senior year when I was playing, it wasn't in the back of my mind. This is near the end. This could be it. When I graduated from college, I was fortunate to have the Hartford Whalers, which no longer exist, had my rights. They offered me a great contract. It was a four-year contract signing bonus guaranteed money $700,000. It's very hard to say no to 700 grand. Even if you get hurt, you still have that money. But back to the lessons about life and there's more to life than playing hockey. It's really about your future. In particular with concussions, you're playing a very”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Stack up. There's always those doubts in your head. The second we get practice, the coach puts me in a line with a guy named Scottie Fusco, who are returning Olympian an all American. It's a little like playing with Rain Betsky. If you're playing a Scotty Scotty Fusco, you've got a real edge. I ended up being someone who fit well on his line. I could skate with him. Hopefully I could think with him. We ended up playing together for two years. So as a freshman, I got an extraordinary opportunity to play with one of the best players in the country. And that really then elevated me. Maybe there's a real potential here.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Where you start to really lean into it. My brother and I love hockey. We love playing. We're fortunate to have great parents and supporters, but also a great teacher and coach and my dad about hockey and what really matters. My parents' philosophy was you're going to use hockey to get the best education you can, not the other way around. To be able to accomplish why father never could, coming from a small town in Canada where he had to go play juniors, I think it was my sophomore year in high school. The coach of Brown came to see my brother me play. I went to state tournament. Milwaukee hockey wasn't very good. Not many kids are going to go play college. It was a big deal. It was the state championship. My brother played great. I had a good game. Afterwards, a coach told my dad, I really don't think they're going to be able to play division of hockey. Your bubble gets burst. But you have to keep working. You have failures, you have setbacks, and you just keep working. Ultimately, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to Harvard and play hockey there. I was recruited. I assumed I was going to make the team, but you don't know how you really...”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Oh gosh, I've been hit by the lucky stick many times, Ted, including playing with you for the business school bleeds at HBS when I played and I went tournament with you When I was playing in Pittsburgh as a kid, everyone expects you'd be great. I remember hearing so often, does McDonald's kids, they're not that good? So everyone expected men in high school, we went to the school in Milwaukee, University School where my dad was a coach.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Like every young kid you hope that you're going to end up playing in the national hockey league. In my case, I grew up around it, but wasn't so aspirational. What was really wonderful about it was that it was also demystified. That was certainly the goal, but I also saw all of the negatives that come with a career like that. My father had six major operations on one knee. He said both knees replaced. Even then, my mother could pack everything we owned in two trunks that if he got traded tomorrow we were moving from Pittsburgh to wherever. There's some wonderful things about that. And for kids dream about doing it because it's what they see, there's also another side of that, which is it's not the end all be all in terms of what your life is about who you are. There's so much more that happens after hockey that it was wonderful to demystify that”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Made a joke which was law, don't worry about it. This will probably be the best competition I face all day. So you grew up in that environment and knowing those people, you don't know any different. Once my dad retired, he went to school for 14 summers to get his undergraduate degree while he was playing the NHL because he didn't have the benefit of playing college hockey. My parents moved into education. That was the transition to now being in a different environment. My father was athletic director, coach, teacher. My mother was a school nurse as a registered nurse and we then moved to Milwaukee where my parents were at a school called University School of Milwaukee, private school. Their next step in their career became one about how to get my brother and me the best education we could. We spent the next, for me six years, seventh grade through high school in Milwaukee, my parents were there for 20 plus years.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Definitely different because it was still a big deal. People treated my dad differently when he'd go somewhere. Everyone wanted to meet him, and particularly in his hometown of Nova Scotia, he was a celebrity. And even in Pittsburgh to some degree. It was at the point in time where they started to make enough money that he didn't need to do anything else. He did okay. These days it would be upper middle class, but with a little bit of celebrity around it. The experience was what I remember. One day my brother and I were pregame skates Saturday morning when we were allowed to go to the rink and we skated before the penguins had their pregame skate before the other team came out and this happened to be the Boston Bruins. We hop by my brother and I are ripping around and having fun and all of a sudden one player on the other team comes out from the Boston Bruins. My dad comes out and is like boys get off the ice. The player and the other team comes over to where we're getting off the ice. It was Bobby Or my dad says, hey Bobby, I'm so sorry. And Bobby is gracious and humble as he is.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “The ice My father was a professional hockey player, played for the Red Wings with Gordy Howe back when they were only 16. He played with a Kings, and most of his career were the Pittsburgh penguins. I grew up as a rink rat, skating before my dad's practices, skating after his practices with my brother. I didn't know it was any different than anyone else. He was my dad. Going to the rink was going to work with him”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Job as allocators is to find people who have a proven ability to capture inefficiencies in increasingly efficient markets. How do you disentangle that? How do you figure out what their ability is to find those inefficiencies? Domain expertise to start. But what's their edge? Is it a sourcing edge, an operational edge, a strategic edge? What are those things that allow someone to capture those inefficiencies in our sector? Many people build track records that are not statistically significant, not meaningful. You have a few early wins. You think you're smart. How do you find those people who are truly gifted and differentiated what they do? They see things in a different way or they just have skills capabilities that others don't.”

    2026-01-26 · Capital Allocators · Lane MacDonald – Teamwork, Alignment, and Investing at the Highest Levels at SCS (EP.483) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source