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Paul Zummo

lines on the record: 92
first: 2025-12-06
most recent: 2025-12-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah. And this is for hedge funds as well as us. And part of it relates to the managers themselves, part of it relates to strategies. And again, part of it is business model. But when I think about strategies that we used to invest in in 1995 where you can make a lot of money, let's think of merger arbitrage. Roger Rob Choice again, you can make double juice at returns. It was less competitive.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's been tremendous fractums in the last number of years. There's also issues when you're operating on a standalone basis, like there's business considerations, rightly or wrongly, right? So if someone's operating in a 10 vol and markets are going down and they're in a hole by 8%, now are they acting differently from a, you know, they should be buying a lot more because the markets are down and things look interesting. But are they? The playing scared. They're playing scared. I think it's, again, it's not everybody for sure. And there's some that do it well. I just think it is very challenging to do. You know, it's much easier to find good stock pickers that are adding alpha than it is for someone to”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, the alpha's coming from, if you look at, let's put it this, if you look at fundamental long short equities that live within the pods and you look at alpha generation with them on turn of leverage or whatever you want to say, and then you look at the standalone long short universe and the alpha that's generated.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Different skills. It's true of the skills and timing decisions, the vast majority of matches are subtract in value from that portfolio match. The really valuable.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I give credit to Chris Marshall on the team. I think he's the one that came up with that quote. But it really, again, is the observation that the vast majority of managers are good stock pickers, but bad portfolio managers”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, I think there's probably some, you know, of course, there's great examples of both, but again, risk management and discipline is definitely the key to successful short selling. So there has to be something about it.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Well, my wife would probably say it's because they don't have the egos of the man. Right, right. That's the poisoning. Absolutely.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, so Charlotte Hughes, Stephanie Ross, Dana Galante, like all these, you know, very successful short sellers. And in an industry that was more male dominated, it always struck me as just really interesting that in that segment that an overwhelming amount, at least on a percentage basis, maybe it wasn't greater than 50%, but.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this again, this is dated, but when you looked at, again, let's say pre 2008, where there were probably, I don't know, I don't know, there's certainly a few dozen dedicated short sells and short biased managers. I want to say like 40% of them were women.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So maybe there's two different aspects of it. So there are successful and good short sellers out there. I'd say there are less that are dedicated short sellers. So from 1995 to 2008, we used dedicated short sellers and short bias managers. And it was really interesting and actually a tremendous source of overall alpha. After 2008, we no longer used dedicated short sells and short bias managers. So I don't follow the space nearly as much. But there are certainly good ones within long shared equities. Maybe I'm sure there is someone on a standalone basis. It's a very difficult business model. Tough gig. One of the interesting things in Short Sound, which I think people don't, you know, I don't know, I've never heard it spoken about before, is”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, yeah, maybe a couple things. So, I mean, just on the quote itself, I have to, like, of all the lessons learned and all the mistakes we've seen people make, that one has probably right at the top, or certainly right toward the top. Like the opposite of a long is definitely not a short. And, you know, sometimes people will suggest it is. I mean, the math is different. Risk management is different. Like the timing is different. I would even say successful shorting is about risk management first and stock picking second. And you see that. I mean, you've seen that when 1999, when the internet is, you know, go nuts. You see that in the meme stocks. You see that today with quantum computing and some of the AI names. Again, it's risk management first, stock picking second. Timing is critical, timing and sizing is just critically, critically important.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But yeah, it's a risk for sure. And it's an area where many of successful hedge funds have kind of either become potentially mediocre or have had challenges because they've taken her off the ball in one way or another.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it's more than that, but yes, you have to watch the personal lifestyle at times as well and make sure people are focused. Now, you know, there were people that are billionaires and they're still in the office 70 hours a week, right? And it's just innate. They couldn't do anything but that. But yeah, you have to understand what am I buying? And maybe it changes, right? So maybe that star portfolio match is built out enough of a team and you're not buying anyone singularly. You're buying something broader.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe they don't. And that's probably not what you want them to spend their time. So I think if you think about the hedge fund graveyard and like what the issues have been over, there's a big area that kind of has that footprint, if you will. So yeah, people, you know, the star portfolio manager are no longer spending the appropriate time on a portfolio managing people, getting distracted. Or the second piece of it is just quite frankly making too much money, right? When I bought the third yacht, I was about to say it's time to leave. It's time to leave before the first yacht.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I guess you could come at that one from a couple of different ways. But one of I've seen that movie so many times. Maybe they”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A little bit, but he, you know, like he always again, having watched things play out over 30 years, I always thought he did, you know, he's done a really good job. And again, like this is something I think we've done a better job at overtime as well. When I think about the crises, you know, 1998, 2008, 2020, as I say, many of these things rhyme and you've seen it before. Like, you know, you know what it feels like kind of coming out of it and going in. And if you're playing the appropriate defense, like you should afford yourself the opportunity to really lean into where you think there is dislocation, especially more technical oriented dislocation. So yeah, it's critically important. I mean, that's where you make outsized returns. During those inflection points.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, inappropriately from an investment standpoint, and that we're, you know, wired to avoid pain, which is why many people make the wrong decisions during periods of crisis or periods of heightened volatility. I think some managers do a great job. I wrote it about, you know, I said the manager I had in mind was David Tepper.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So this, you know, is obviously really important. Like, I love behavioral issues and behavioral finance and the challenges I come to that. And of course, we're all wired”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I think about things that I've done better over the years, that is definitely one of them that comes to mind where I've given myself more freedom to make mistakes and to maybe size and lean into themes or high conviction managers to a greater degree as well, where I think maybe there's a perfectionist and many of them. And sometimes the flip side of that or the problem with that is you become too conservative, right? Now, yeah, if you make a mistake, you need to figure it out quickly and change course, but allowing yourself to maybe make mistakes is definitely helpful.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it's something, not the admitting mistake so much, but the courage to make mistakes when I think about it. Take a real.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, it's definitely one of my favorites as well. I mean, it applies to all different types of hedge funds, but I'd say especially discretionary macro, right? So you're interviewing a discretionary macro manager, the vast majority of them are very smart. They tell a very good story. They have great views, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're a money maker, right? And again, I think sometimes people make the mistake of agreeing with the view, agreeing with the manager, getting seduced by someone having insight. And obviously it's really important. But again, it doesn't necessarily speak to the process. And especially in something like discretionary macro, where it's not a high sharp strategy. It tends to be more volatile strategy. And if you don't develop that conviction, and again, first and foremost in the process, you can get shaken from.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be able to dig in deep on so many different asset classes, so many different geographies, you're constantly learning. So those three things for sure.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then lastly, the job itself allows you, obviously, to meet with some of the best investment minds in the world, right? Which is just such a privilege.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's a couple things. I mean, culture and the team, you know, it's like a family for sure. And we make each other better. We challenge each other respectfully. We really enjoy each other's company and appreciate our differences. So, yeah, that's been great. Leadership of Jamie is unparalleled. Jamie. Jamie Diamond. Oh,”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, experience. I mean, I don't know. I mean, hedge funds fail for and succeed for different reasons, but culture is definitely at the heart of many of it. And I'd say more importantly, like sometimes people ask, what are, you know, what's like, what do you think about most as your takeaway haven't been doing over 30 years? For us, for me, it's culture, like the culture that we've built as an organization has been spectacular and clearly a differentiated.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going, yeah. I mean, you know, alternatives are definitely the fastest growing or one of the fastest growing areas within and not just hedge funds, but more broadly. And there's a tremendous amount of support for it. So, yeah, I think for us and for other alternatives, we're going to continue the bill, continue to launch new product, continue to get a larger reach into other client types and geographies. So, yeah, the future is extremely exciting.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Funds and tender offer funds, which is, I think, really interesting. So it's giving those investors access to alternatives, which are really valuable in the overall portfolio context. So it's about building, yeah, I mean, yeah, just to respond, like sure, equity markets are going up today, but they didn't in 2022. And I think the takeaway is that you need to build a more resilient portfolio rather than just look at these things in isolation.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's been great. So, yeah, two things. I mean, I'd say even let's go back early days, like part of the vision, this is really, you know, Joel's vision first and foremost, that was that alternatives were going to become mainstream, which sitting back and hedge funds were going to become mainstream eventually. And back in 1994, that was a novel concept. It was just this little thing off to the side. And look, we've more or less kind of arrived at that, right? So I think the vision is true. And then the second part is, well, why not retail investors, right? And if you think about 2022 and you think about rising stock bond correlations, there's so many investors, many of them more retail oriented or high net worth oriented that just don't have alternatives or enough alternatives in a portfolio. So yeah, that's led to the democratization and launch of Interval.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But early days building technology as well, like there was no per track, which is something people use. And I kind of built it all, you know, so built a research database, built a system to analyze returns. And yeah, that was great. It was a lot of fun.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And partially, like what had often been written in the press was the negative side of hedge funds going after this currency or that currency. And I think the perception was one of, you know, either it was negative or just a lack of understanding. So a lot of what we did early days was just educationally. Like we would write newsletters internally and educate people on alternatives. But eventually you put it together and performance kind of speaks for itself and you build it over time. But it was great from an entrepreneurial standpoint. This kind of goes back to my tech side as well. I mean, one building infrastructure broadly in process.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so two things. I mean, maybe we'll get to those points later about different cycles. But again, from an investment standpoint, people were making money. There's no question about it. I think the public's view.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'd say, yeah, maybe a couple. So, like, from an investment standpoint, it was the perfect time to start. You had Orange County issues, you had rates going up, you had, well, David Askin, as I mentioned before, you had dislocation and that created opportunities. The problem was. Not many people knew about hedge funds, and I'd say three quarters of the people that did had a negative view.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, it was great. You know, I mean, bear in mind it was a different world back then in many ways, not only from an investment standpoint, but like what it takes to launch a new business. So yeah, we launch with a whopping 7.4 million dollars, which is unusual.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so any case, I was interviewing at a hedge fund solutions, a fund of funds out of Long Island. And really like the guys, a couple of great guys that were there. But at the end of the day, I decided I didn't want to go. I didn't want to reversed commute because I was living in a sit in. I didn't want to go out to Long Island. So I wound up not pursuing it. But the relevance of that is that what would become my boss, Joel Katzman, was distributing that fund of funds. And he was a chase. So, when it came time to do a reference check on me, they asked Joel to do a reference check on me because he was a chase. I used to work at Chase. And reference check, I assume, was good. But it turned out I didn't pursue it any further. And Joel, who was distributing the fund of funds at the time, got the idea of, you know what?”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, I could have stayed, but then you're just, you know, you're just overseeing the investments as opposed to more actively. It's a little less interesting.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so this is probably another burn your bridges, which I'll come to. As I mentioned, I'd worked at Chase once before. And at the time, I was looking to leave because once you restructure the plan, there's only so much to do, especially when you're young. So I was ready to do something.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know money. Don't put money there and just have the courage to say no, there's a lot of choices out there and you need to be disciplined and walk away. But we did invest in an equity market mutual fund. And again, that was 1993.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, then, yeah, I mean, then it was that's true, but it was so unknown, you know? So I met with a number of kind of market neutral equity managers, a couple long short managers. And then importantly, David Askin. So, you know, David Askin, for those that don't know. Was one of the really the first hedge fund, for lack of a better word, blowups, where it was a mortgage-backed derivative manager. And, you know, obviously a quirky-ish market and wound up having significant problems. So it was, you know, we did not invest with him, but it was really a very valuable early kind of lesson from a due diligence standpoint that, you know, obviously we didn't pay for, so all the better. But it really tells you two things. I mean, one, if you don't completely understand something and admittedly at age 24, I didn't at the time, then.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that was, yeah. I mean, that was before. I mean, I was kind of a decision at already been made, you know, and they were changing, you know, again, changing arouse allocation and looking at the whole management holistically. And interestingly, that's when I first got involved in hedge funds, or at least first met hedge funds. So this is, again, early days, right? 1990. Everybody was producing alphabet.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so after, so I spent about two years at Chase and then went to the Anti Public Group. So, this is a planned sponsor and maybe a somewhat unusual move at that stage in my career. And what attracted me to it was they were at a point where they were, so again, this is an advertising agency, but I worked in the pension fund group. And they were looking to revise their asset allocation materially. So change the whole asset allocation, change the manager lineup. And importantly, they didn't have a consultant. So they were doing an in-house. So they were affording me, I mean, not solely, but affording me a lot of responsibility to help restructure the whole plan. terminate managers, onboard managers.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so at a school, I was in a pension fund consulting group. And so really what you're doing is a couple things. I mean, one performance measurement across client accounts. And, you know, also you're doing some research rather manager selection on a traditional side. But I think what was helpful about it is it kind of gave you a really good purview of all different asset classes and all different styles of management. And I remember at an early days really appreciating the importance of stylistic differences in equities as an example. This was, again, early days, but like recognizing, you know, small cap growth versus small cap value and a drastic differences. But it really just set the stage to understand the industry and styles and types and approaches at a much deeper level.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. So, yeah, when I was young, I was always into investments, or at least intrigued by investments, but also into technology as well, like arguably to the extent we have a gift in life, it was probably technology, but the technology was so early stage. I didn't exactly know what it was. So I wound up pursuing obviously the investment side, but kind of used that technology from time to time, especially as we were building a group. But originally, I really wanted to get into equity research. And not that I knew exactly what it was, but it was the most tangible and aligned with who I am in terms of problem solving and analytics and things like that and wound up instead falling into the hedge fund world and doing what I do today as hedge fund solutions, which actually has a lot of elements in a sense of what equity research is. Again, you're problem solving at its core and doing analytical.”
2025-12-06 · Masters in Business · How to Think About Alternatives with JPMorgan's Alternative Asset Management CIO Paul Zummo · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source