Ev: What makes somebody talented in your mind?
Pedigree takes many forms. Where did you study, where did you work, who did you work for, which might be one of the most important things. Who are your mentors? In fact there is a great line, look at the four people you spend the most time with, that’s who you will become. And those influences in our life have a dramatic influence on you and what you turn out to be.
People who have a strong a pedigree–it doesn’t necessarily mean going to an ivy league school–if you’re going into geology, hopefully you went to the Colorado School of Mines not Harvard, not that Harvard’s bad at geology, it’s just if you’re going to be a geologist you probably want to come out of the Colorado school of mines.
Process and philosophy. Lump those two together. Philosophy is not just an investment philosophy, but life philosophy is important; then the process of how you implement that philosophy is important.
Personality. There are characteristics of personality, I think are really important. One I talk about all the time is competitiveness. We like people to be competitive at something, I don’t really care what…debate, chess, bridge, poker, it could be a individual sport like tennis or a team sport like soccer. I look for conviction. People who don’t have a strong conviction about something are prone to inaction and prone to less good outcomes. Unless you have the courage of your conviction you’re going to get shaken out at the first sign of trouble.
Ambition is important, not all consuming, but ambitious people want to do good things in the world, whether in business, or in philanthropy, or in their family. They have ambitious goals and work hard.
Connections and some of that goes to pedigree, did you study with people who went onto to become important people, did you work for somebody who is now in a big position. Richard Rubin is a great example of that. He trained many guys on the street today. Now they have a mentor they can that has run the treasury and is a senior advisor to Citigroup. If that is your mentor you have access to things other people don’t.
One of my mentors is Julian Robertson and I tell the story that when I was talking to him one time a couple years ago and his phone rings and his secretary says you better answer it, you go next door and tell Putin that if he let’s Yusko go down the tubes there’s gone to be hell to pay. I don’t get that call. He was talking to the Kremlin. But I had the information now because I had the right mentor and relationship.
Something else that I think is critically important is what I call intellectual independence. Most people are very good at having a conclusion and then finding data to support their conclusion. Talented people search for source information and draw conclusions before they act. It also gives you great conviction if you came up with the idea as opposed to taking someone else’s idea and just accepting it at face value.
Raw intellectual horse power, intelligence is important, but not everybody I’ve met who’s in that top one percent is the most intelligent person in the room. Many of them are, but in some cases people are too smart by half. They don’t have any street smarts or savvy. So intelligence is not 1600 SATS. There is the raw intellectual horsepower intelligence, but street smarts and common sense is important.
Along with that is an openness to new ideas and a willingness to be collegial and trade ideas with other people. A lot of people are very secretive, and think that they have the only intellectual property that’s of value and I find I have very few original ideas.
Integrity, personal integrity is incredibly important to success. People who cheat at golf will cheat on you. If you’re playing golf with somebody and they use a little foot wedge to kick the ball out onto a good spot and tell you they got a four and don’t think anything of it, well, how about when you get to the end of the month and the numbers didn’t come in the way you wanted? Maybe you mark up that bond a little higher than the bid you actually you got. Cutting corners and not having personal integrity is recipe for disaster.
The most talented have a humility and humbleness that as smart as you are, they know maybe it’s not all them. They understand other people have a big impact. They understand the role of luck.
Respect for other people. Knowing the tinniest person in your organization may have the biggest idea.
Then the last one is if you are nice, people will be nice to you. I have had so many experiences in my life and career where I was nice to somebody just because and those people have been amazing to me. There is karma in the world.
Copyright 2007 Ev Nucci
ev nucci
1 Comment
February 18, 2010 at 4:53 am
I have already read about Mark Yusko. He’s a really talented person. If you have any other information about him, I would like to get acquainted with it as well.