# Assessing Asset Volatility and Iran War Threats With BlackRock's Mike Pyle

An episode of [Masters in Business](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/730188152), 10 Apr 2026, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4e4cd910-40a1-4619-a5f3-ae2b0012ffff/c68f0fe5-f4c1-4559-b364-b42801695fa9/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5873a3cb-298f-40bc-b71f-ae2b0013000d

Barry speaks with Mike Pyle, Senior Managing Director, is the Deputy Head of BlackRock’s Portfolio Management Group (PMG). They discuss the durable economic shocks that could result from the war with Iran including energy security. They also discuss his time in the Biden administration as Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Masters in
[0:11] Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ritholts on Bloomberg Radio.
[0:17] Speaker 2: This week on the podcast Wow, this is another banger.
[0:19] Speaker 2: Strip yourself in Mike Pile, deputy head of black Rocks
[0:23] Speaker 2: Portfolio Management Group. They oversee about five trillion dollars in
[0:27] Speaker 2: client assets. Not only is its systematic and discretionary investment strategies,
[0:32] Speaker 2: but he also oversees the black Rock Investment Institute as
[0:36] Speaker 2: well as their hedge funds. You may not know Blackrock
[0:39] Speaker 2: globally is one of the top ten hedge fund over
[0:43] Speaker 2: portfolio managers about ninety four billion dollars. One little note,
[0:50] Speaker 2: we're recording this on Tuesday, April seventh. Supposedly something is
[0:55] Speaker 2: happening tonight eight o'clock. You'll know what happened by the
[0:58] Speaker 2: time you hear this.
[0:59] Speaker 3: We want.
[1:00] Speaker 2: We don't know if something terrible is happening or if
[1:02] Speaker 2: it's another Taco Tuesday, but we'll find out soon enough.
[1:05] Speaker 2: In the meantime, with no further ado, my conversation with
[1:09] Speaker 2: Mike Pyle, deputy head of black Rocks Portfolio Management Group.
[1:14] Speaker 2: Before we get into both your market and government experience,
[1:19] Speaker 2: let's let's take a look at your background. You graduate
[1:22] Speaker 2: summa cum laude and economics from Dartmouth, You get a
[1:25] Speaker 2: j d from Yale, and then a master's an LLM
[1:30] Speaker 2: from Cambridge.
[1:31] Speaker 3: What was the original career plan?
[1:34] Speaker 4: So I maybe go back before higher education. You know,
[1:40] Speaker 4: I'm from a little town in the Midwest and six
[1:43] Speaker 4: hundred people in the middle of Illinois, no stop whites
[1:47] Speaker 4: in the little town where I grew up. And you know,
[1:51] Speaker 4: I had a sense from a pretty early age that
[1:54] Speaker 4: I wanted to do something out beyond the horizon, help
[1:59] Speaker 4: pass the fields. And I was lucky enough when I
[2:02] Speaker 4: was in high school there was this competition sponsored by
[2:06] Speaker 4: the local community college called Running the US Economy, where
[2:09] Speaker 4: you could set monetary policy. You'd set government spending levels,
[2:14] Speaker 4: you'd set taxation rates, basically the big tools of monetary
[2:17] Speaker 4: and fiscal policy, and over a ten year period you'd
[2:20] Speaker 4: set those variables and you'd see what came out the
[2:22] Speaker 4: other side in terms of GDP growth, in terms of unemployment,
[2:25] Speaker 4: in terms of the stock market. And for me, I
[2:29] Speaker 4: had never really grappled with a more interesting set of
[2:33] Speaker 4: problems than that. When I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years
[2:36] Speaker 4: old and I didn't really have the words to express
[2:39] Speaker 4: what it is that would take me to but I
[2:41] Speaker 4: knew that problems at the heart of economic policy, what
[2:45] Speaker 4: that meant for ordinary people, what that meant for markets,
[2:48] Speaker 4: were the most fascinating things that ever encountered. And how
[2:50] Speaker 4: I wanted to spend my career.
[2:52] Speaker 2: Huh, And how you spent your career is moving back
[2:56] Speaker 2: and forth between government and the private sector. You have
[2:59] Speaker 2: two instants at Blackrock, including the current one. You were
[3:04] Speaker 2: in the Obama administration, you were in the Biden administration.
[3:08] Speaker 3: How do you.
[3:08] Speaker 2: Shift back and forth between these two worlds? And how
[3:12] Speaker 2: does working in government affect how you perceive investing risk
[3:18] Speaker 2: policy from the private side.
[3:20] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'd say I try to view my time
[3:25] Speaker 4: in government and my time as an investor in a
[3:29] Speaker 4: black Rock is really two sides of the same coin.
[3:34] Speaker 4: You know, the job in government, at least as I
[3:37] Speaker 4: understood it, was to whether through economic policy or national
[3:42] Speaker 4: security policy, had the pleasure to work on both of
[3:44] Speaker 4: those through the years, you know, provide a predictable, stable
[3:50] Speaker 4: foundation for prosperity for the US and hopefully the world beyond,
[3:56] Speaker 4: and recognize that the job in government is to provide
[3:59] Speaker 4: that stable foundations, So businesses, so families, so individuals can
[4:06] Speaker 4: you know, live their lives, make their choices economically, can
[4:10] Speaker 4: take risks in the economy to build businesses, expand businesses,
[4:14] Speaker 4: invest and grow knowing that there's some basic stability and
[4:17] Speaker 4: predictability that they get from government. And so for me,
[4:20] Speaker 4: like I said, you know that that time in government
[4:23] Speaker 4: was one side of that coin. That time as an
[4:25] Speaker 4: investor is the other side of that coin. How do
[4:26] Speaker 4: you try to take that output from policymakers and make
[4:30] Speaker 4: sense of the world, makes sense of the economy, makes
[4:32] Speaker 4: sense of markets, and then make sound choices for clients.
[4:36] Speaker 2: We're going to talk a little later about the state
[4:39] Speaker 2: of government policy. I want to just stick with your
[4:43] Speaker 2: background before we get into the nitty gritty. So you
[4:46] Speaker 2: are at the Treasury and the White House from two
[4:49] Speaker 2: thousand and nine to twenty thirteen, really the midst of
[4:54] Speaker 2: the Great Financial Crisis recovery. Tell us about that experience.
[4:59] Speaker 3: What was that like?
[5:02] Speaker 4: So it's a pretty extraordinary thing to be a part of,
[5:05] Speaker 4: had a chance to learn from, be seasoned by, you know,
[5:10] Speaker 4: a set of extraordinary and my judgment, policymakers, whether that
[5:14] Speaker 4: was Secuary Geitner, Liil Brainer, Peter Orzag, Jason Furman, others
[5:21] Speaker 4: folks that early in my career, you know, I just
[5:24] Speaker 4: learned a lot about what it meant to make sound
[5:27] Speaker 4: policy choices, consider policy choices in the midst of crisis.
[5:32] Speaker 2: You know.
[5:32] Speaker 4: I think one of the things I also took away
[5:34] Speaker 4: from that experience is this recognition that you know, there's
[5:40] Speaker 4: there's kind of there's no other room that you know,
[5:44] Speaker 4: these are very accomplished policy makers making choices with imperfect information,
[5:52] Speaker 4: with not enough time, with incredibly high stakes, and there's
[5:57] Speaker 4: no other room where the hyper confident people who know
[6:02] Speaker 4: everything and have the luxury of time are. There's just
[6:05] Speaker 4: the human being sitting in front of you, and you've
[6:08] Speaker 4: got to do your role to support them in the
[6:10] Speaker 4: way you can. And you know, for me, that was
[6:13] Speaker 4: a very you know, empowering experience or recognition that from
[6:17] Speaker 4: an early stage in my career I needed to take responsibility.
[6:21] Speaker 4: I needed to offer my best day in and day out, because,
[6:24] Speaker 4: like I said, there's no other room with the hyper
[6:26] Speaker 4: confident people. There's just the role you get to play
[6:28] Speaker 4: with people acting with not enough time and not enough
[6:31] Speaker 4: information to make high consequence judgments.
[6:34] Speaker 2: So let's talk about those judgments. What do you think
[6:37] Speaker 2: policymakers got right and what was the biggest mistake would
[6:41] Speaker 2: we get wrong as a nation?
[6:45] Speaker 4: So, I mean, I think that the I think one
[6:50] Speaker 4: of the principal lessons coming out of the Global Financial
[6:54] Speaker 4: Crisis is that in the face of a large economics
[7:00] Speaker 4: a shock that impacts the balance sheets of households and businesses,
[7:06] Speaker 4: the government needs to act speedily and with size to
[7:12] Speaker 4: prevent the labor market damage, the economic damage from being
[7:16] Speaker 4: an overhang that lasts for a long time. And I
[7:20] Speaker 4: think one of the things that a lot of policymakers
[7:23] Speaker 4: concluded coming out of the GFC is we just didn't
[7:28] Speaker 4: do enough quickly enough, and as a result, we had
[7:31] Speaker 4: a very slow recovery, you know, that didn't last just
[7:35] Speaker 4: a couple of years, but ten twelve years, and had
[7:39] Speaker 4: labor market damage that lasted for longer than it needed
[7:42] Speaker 4: to because we didn't ask with the force and speed
[7:44] Speaker 4: that we needed to.
[7:44] Speaker 2: So when you say we didn't do enough, the FED
[7:48] Speaker 2: was at zero, every type of credit, alphabet, soup of
[7:53] Speaker 2: organizational government entities came into effect. Are you referring to
[7:59] Speaker 2: the fiscal side, Because it felt like the fiscal stimulus
[8:03] Speaker 2: was very, very modest. About a third was temporary tax cuts,
[8:08] Speaker 2: a third was temporary extension of unemployment shovel ready stuff
[8:13] Speaker 2: was one hundred, one hundred and eighty billion dollars. It
[8:16] Speaker 2: almost seems like we overcompensated in the start of the
[8:19] Speaker 2: pandemic and went huge to make up for that. But
[8:23] Speaker 2: I'm assuming you're talking about a very underfunded fiscal stimulus.
[8:28] Speaker 4: I think that's principle A. Yes, you know what I mean.
[8:30] Speaker 4: I mean, I think one thing I would you know
[8:33] Speaker 4: highlight here is in some ways the United States only
[8:41] Speaker 4: got out of the dol drums post the GFC during
[8:45] Speaker 4: the first Trump administration. And you know President Trump and
[8:49] Speaker 4: that that Republican Congress passed that the twenty seventeen tax bills. Now,
[8:56] Speaker 4: coming from where I come from, I wouldn't necessarily have
[8:58] Speaker 4: signed off on every particular of that bill. But I
[9:02] Speaker 4: think what you saw was fiscal stimulus at size going
[9:06] Speaker 4: through the economy as a result of those uh as,
[9:08] Speaker 4: there's all that tax bill, and as a result, an
[9:11] Speaker 4: economy that long last began to see full employment, began
[9:14] Speaker 4: to see that higher velocity, began to see really the
[9:18] Speaker 4: US get out of those post GFC doldrums. Again, not
[9:21] Speaker 4: how I would have necessarily designed the fiscal stimulus myself,
[9:24] Speaker 4: but I think the fact that that's really perhaps the
[9:27] Speaker 4: moment when we came out of the Droit doldrums highlights
[9:30] Speaker 4: that that fiscal lever was one that perhaps we should
[9:33] Speaker 4: have pulled sooner and at greater size earlier post the crisis.
[9:39] Speaker 2: Really interesting. So let's talk about some of your other
[9:42] Speaker 2: roles within government.
[9:45] Speaker 3: You were a law clerk from Merrick Garland. That's fascinating.
[9:49] Speaker 3: Tell us about that experience.
[9:51] Speaker 4: Yes, so Judge Garland was my very first boss in Washington,
[9:57] Speaker 4: you know, in some ways the perfect way to begin
[10:01] Speaker 4: a career, somebody that I continue to regard as the
[10:05] Speaker 4: model of public servant. I say, listen, I learned three
[10:08] Speaker 4: things from the judge. I learned what it meant to
[10:11] Speaker 4: love the law. I learned that I didn't love the
[10:15] Speaker 4: law the way the judge did. And that three, I
[10:17] Speaker 4: needed to find something that I loved as much as
[10:20] Speaker 4: Judge Garland loved being a lawyer being a judge. And
[10:25] Speaker 4: so that brought me back to what I'd done talking
[10:28] Speaker 4: about a moment ago in high school when you know,
[10:32] Speaker 4: I really fell in love with economics, economic policy, the
[10:36] Speaker 4: impact on people and markets, what I'd studied as an
[10:41] Speaker 4: undergrad and a graduate school, and so what I really
[10:43] Speaker 4: took away from that experience is I wanted there to
[10:45] Speaker 4: be a strong public service component to what I did,
[10:48] Speaker 4: and also that I needed to put myself to work
[10:51] Speaker 4: in a space that I really loved and felt passion for,
[10:53] Speaker 4: and that was the space of economics, domestic economic policy,
[10:57] Speaker 4: international economic policy, and working to make the US and
[11:00] Speaker 4: the world more prosperous place.
[11:02] Speaker 2: So you were the President's personal envoy to groups like
[11:05] Speaker 2: the G seven, the G twenty, Apex summits. When you
[11:09] Speaker 2: look around the world and see US channel relations, the
[11:14] Speaker 2: Russia's war in the Ukraine, Israel and America's war with
[11:19] Speaker 2: Imran Ai and just energy security, trade and investment in tariffs,
[11:25] Speaker 2: all these things, it seems like it's just an overwhelming
[11:29] Speaker 2: amount of things taking place. How effective are these global organizations,
[11:36] Speaker 2: what do they actually accomplish? It just seems like the
[11:40] Speaker 2: fire hose is so overwhelming it's impossible to know where
[11:45] Speaker 2: to even begin.
[11:47] Speaker 4: Yeah, So you know, I work for two years as
[11:50] Speaker 4: President Biden's deputy National Security Advisor. I think President Biden
[11:55] Speaker 4: started from the place of believing that, you know, the
[11:59] Speaker 4: I in the United States acts with greatest impact in
[12:03] Speaker 4: the world when it acts alongside our close to stallies
[12:07] Speaker 4: and partners. And I think that's part of the reason
[12:09] Speaker 4: why the G seven during the years I was serving,
[12:14] Speaker 4: was perhaps at the height of its impact and influence
[12:18] Speaker 4: across time. I mean, I think of two things that
[12:20] Speaker 4: really highlight this. You know, one was after a Russia's
[12:25] Speaker 4: invasion of Ukraine, really acting with force with one voice,
[12:30] Speaker 4: not just as the United States, but as a set
[12:32] Speaker 4: of allies, to put a historic set of sanctions on Russia,
[12:38] Speaker 4: to put historic economic pressure on Russia, and to do
[12:42] Speaker 4: that in a way that made sure that it wasn't
[12:45] Speaker 4: just the United States acting, but all of our allies
[12:48] Speaker 4: and partners together around the world, acting in concert, delivering
[12:52] Speaker 4: a stronger force a policy than the United States, for
[12:56] Speaker 4: all of its power and might, could have delivered by itself. Similarly,
[13:00] Speaker 4: I think with respect to you know, a kind of
[13:03] Speaker 4: different type of problem, you know, thinking about our the
[13:08] Speaker 4: United States competition with China, like in domains such as
[13:12] Speaker 4: technology and artificial intelligence, the type of thing that's very
[13:15] Speaker 4: front of mine today. You know, a lot of our
[13:18] Speaker 4: European allies came to that with with more skepticism. They
[13:23] Speaker 4: have a different perspective on their relations with China than
[13:27] Speaker 4: you know, we had in the United States, had both
[13:29] Speaker 4: across frankly, the Trump administration and the Bide administration. And
[13:32] Speaker 4: it was you know, the hard diplomatic work day in,
[13:36] Speaker 4: day out, week in week out, you know, persuading skeptical
[13:40] Speaker 4: allies to join us in some of the policy steps
[13:44] Speaker 4: that we thought were important to protect our technologies, to
[13:48] Speaker 4: protect the national security applications that they offered, to protect
[13:52] Speaker 4: our economic well being against that competitive threat, and bringing
[13:58] Speaker 4: those allies along through. Like I said, the hard work
[14:01] Speaker 4: of diplomacy, through the hard work of persuasion day and
[14:04] Speaker 4: day out, week and week out, I think was ultimately
[14:06] Speaker 4: quite fruitful. And you know something that was an important
[14:09] Speaker 4: part of how I spent those years.
[14:10] Speaker 2: So, given all that policy experience and being in the
[14:14] Speaker 2: room where it happens, how does that affect how you
[14:18] Speaker 2: look at markets and investing? Did your government experience affect
[14:23] Speaker 2: how you think about risk, uncertainty and various opportunities?
[14:30] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[14:31] Speaker 4: So, I mean I would say a couple of things there,
[14:35] Speaker 4: you know. One, you know, I do think that investing
[14:40] Speaker 4: and policy making are different exercises and need to be
[14:44] Speaker 4: kept separate. Policy Making is an exercise of attempting to
[14:50] Speaker 4: make a world as you want it to be, or
[14:53] Speaker 4: at least as the people's elected representatives want it to be.
[14:59] Speaker 4: Investing as exercise of taking the world as it is,
[15:02] Speaker 4: uh and making sound judgments about how to invest client
[15:08] Speaker 4: capital that is their capital, that is their savings on
[15:11] Speaker 4: their behalf. UH. So it's to help them achieve what
[15:14] Speaker 4: they've set out to achieve. And so to me, the
[15:18] Speaker 4: framework I've used to think about investing is, you know,
[15:23] Speaker 4: kind of comes back to some of the blocking and
[15:26] Speaker 4: tackling of of of active management. I think about, you know,
[15:29] Speaker 4: my my mentor at black Rock, Ron con uh one
[15:32] Speaker 4: of the authors of the literally the Bible of quantitative
[15:36] Speaker 4: investing in the fundamental of law of active management, and
[15:38] Speaker 4: you know, it's really all about making forecasts that are
[15:42] Speaker 4: right about the world, having a wide set of those
[15:46] Speaker 4: forecasts so you can build a diversified portfolio, and then
[15:49] Speaker 4: translating those insights efficiently into portfolios through the assets you own.
[15:53] Speaker 4: So again, for me, these these these these these exercises
[15:57] Speaker 4: overlapped to some degree, but I really try to keep
[15:59] Speaker 4: the distinct because one's about the world as you might
[16:02] Speaker 4: hope it to be, and the other is about the
[16:04] Speaker 4: world as it is. And being sure that you don't
[16:06] Speaker 4: confuse those two things is really part and parcel of
[16:09] Speaker 4: what it means. I think to do you know the job,
[16:12] Speaker 4: you're meant to do.
[16:12] Speaker 2: It each that I like that framework between the two.
[16:16] Speaker 2: Coming up, we continue our conversation with Mike Pile, deputy
[16:19] Speaker 2: head at black Rocks PMG, discussing the Portfolio Management Group.
[16:26] Speaker 3: I'm Barry Ritholts.
[16:27] Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
[16:42] Speaker 3: I'm Barry D Halts.
[16:43] Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My
[16:47] Speaker 2: extra special guest today is Mike Pile. He is the
[16:50] Speaker 2: deputy head of black Rocks Portfolio Management Group. The group
[16:55] Speaker 2: overseas ninety four billion dollars in hedge fund assets and
[16:59] Speaker 2: another three hundred and ninety four billion in systematic investments.
[17:05] Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about the Portfolio management Group.
[17:11] Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about the Portfolio Management Group.
[17:16] Speaker 3: Tell us about the various strategies you oversee. What does
[17:19] Speaker 3: the deputy head of PMG actually do Yeah.
[17:23] Speaker 4: So the Portfolio Management Group, as you talked about, is
[17:26] Speaker 4: really the organization within Blackrock that oversees our active investing
[17:31] Speaker 4: strategies in public markets. You know, been entrusted with over
[17:37] Speaker 4: just about five trillion dollars and client assets to manage
[17:40] Speaker 4: through those strategies, but really spans asset classes, fixed income, equities,
[17:45] Speaker 4: multi assets, span styles as you say, both discretionary and systematic,
[17:50] Speaker 4: spans both long only as well as long short, hedge
[17:53] Speaker 4: fund and liquid alternative strategies. So really it's it's it's
[17:57] Speaker 4: that full umbrella of active strategies in public markets. You know,
[18:02] Speaker 4: in terms of what do I do well, I directly
[18:06] Speaker 4: oversee what we do on the hedge funds and look
[18:08] Speaker 4: at alternative side, directly oversee our efforts and fundamental equities,
[18:13] Speaker 4: and directly oversee our internal think tank, the black Rock
[18:16] Speaker 4: Investment Institute. But what does that mean, you know day
[18:19] Speaker 4: to day? You know, I'd say it's a mix, you know,
[18:22] Speaker 4: with some share my time, I am working with our
[18:25] Speaker 4: portfolio managers, working with our lead researchers to try to
[18:28] Speaker 4: offer what I can to help them frame what's happening
[18:32] Speaker 4: in the world to help them. As we talked about
[18:34] Speaker 4: understand the world as it is and what that might
[18:36] Speaker 4: meet from markets and help them think about the choices
[18:40] Speaker 4: they're making in portfolios on behalf of clients. But you know,
[18:43] Speaker 4: really the lion share of my time is about making sure,
[18:47] Speaker 4: you know, we've got the right portfolio managers and teams,
[18:51] Speaker 4: the right strategies, the right investment process and research process
[18:55] Speaker 4: sitting beneath those teams so that we can deliver for
[18:59] Speaker 4: clients and a lot of respects. It's, you know, about
[19:01] Speaker 4: a lot more about being the GM or the coach
[19:05] Speaker 4: than being the player.
[19:07] Speaker 2: Uh.
[19:07] Speaker 4: And I think that's a it's a it's a pretty
[19:09] Speaker 4: exciting mix of things that I get to do as
[19:11] Speaker 4: a result.
[19:12] Speaker 2: So I think everybody understands what hedge funds are, what
[19:15] Speaker 2: are liquid alternatives?
[19:17] Speaker 3: Explain that a little bit.
[19:18] Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, So maybe to take a take a step back,
[19:22] Speaker 4: you know, if I think about the challenge that investors
[19:26] Speaker 4: face today, and this is true whether we're talking about
[19:30] Speaker 4: the most sophisticated large asset owners on the planet or
[19:34] Speaker 4: you know, mom and pop investors saving for their retirement,
[19:38] Speaker 4: it's where can they find a versification?
[19:41] Speaker 2: You know?
[19:41] Speaker 4: A Obviously one of the core precepts of investing is
[19:46] Speaker 4: the free lunch of diversification, the value of diversification, and
[19:50] Speaker 4: yet uh, it is increasingly hard to find out there.
[19:53] Speaker 4: And I think that's true in a couple of ways.
[19:55] Speaker 4: You know. One, you know, traditionally we think about government
[20:00] Speaker 4: bonds being an important hedge against stocks in a portfolio.
[20:04] Speaker 4: When stocks go down, bonds go up in value. You know,
[20:08] Speaker 4: that's not what we saw in twenty twenty two, that's
[20:10] Speaker 4: not what we saw in March of this year. And
[20:13] Speaker 4: so finding tools that can help diversify portfolios in a
[20:16] Speaker 4: world where bonds aren't perhaps serving that role as well
[20:20] Speaker 4: as they have at different points in history. And secondly,
[20:22] Speaker 4: on the equity side, you know, feacing markets that are
[20:26] Speaker 4: increasingly concentrated. You know, we see what a large share
[20:30] Speaker 4: of indices, you know, those big megacap tech names are today.
[20:35] Speaker 4: That means that when you own the index, you're owning
[20:38] Speaker 4: a less diversified equity portfolio than has historically been the case.
[20:43] Speaker 4: So what does that mean about where liquid alternatives step in?
[20:47] Speaker 4: You know, I think one of the ways in which
[20:49] Speaker 4: investors can find diversification is by having exposures that are
[20:55] Speaker 4: neutral to broad markets, neutral to those beta in stocks
[21:01] Speaker 4: and bonds that drive the line and share of portfolios,
[21:04] Speaker 4: and being neutral to the markets means having strategies that
[21:09] Speaker 4: can be long and short in an asset class that
[21:14] Speaker 4: can be long, individual stocks can be short individual stocks
[21:19] Speaker 4: the same on the bond side, in order to generate alpha,
[21:22] Speaker 4: an investment return that is independent of the movements in
[21:26] Speaker 4: the broad markets. Liquid alternatives are our vehicles that have
[21:33] Speaker 4: exactly those types of strategies. They're very similar in this
[21:36] Speaker 4: respect to the types of strategies that we deploy in
[21:39] Speaker 4: our direct hedge funds and offer similar types of uncorrelated return.
[21:45] Speaker 4: Now an important difference between something like a direct hedge
[21:48] Speaker 4: fund and a liquid alternative. These are different types of
[21:51] Speaker 4: vehicles meant for different types of investors. They offer daily
[21:55] Speaker 4: liquidity as opposed to hedge funds, which have different liquidity terms.
[22:00] Speaker 4: That means, you know, running strategies that at their core
[22:03] Speaker 4: are the same across liquid alts and hedge funds, but
[22:07] Speaker 4: are designed to be in daily liquid vehicles that are
[22:12] Speaker 4: designed to be run with much less leverage to recognize
[22:16] Speaker 4: the types of clients and the types of needs that
[22:18] Speaker 4: those clients have, which are for greater diversification but also
[22:22] Speaker 4: liquidity transparency availability that is different from an institutional hedge
[22:27] Speaker 4: fund clients help.
[22:29] Speaker 2: So from your seat, what sort of trends are you observing,
[22:33] Speaker 2: either in hedge funds or liquid alts. What kind of
[22:36] Speaker 2: strategies are resonating with investors?
[22:40] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think that exactly as we were talking about,
[22:43] Speaker 4: what's resonating is the availability of diversification, of diversifying the diversifiers.
[22:52] Speaker 2: Meaning beyond just sixty forty, just beyond just stocks and
[22:55] Speaker 2: bonds exactly.
[22:57] Speaker 4: And I think you know, some war that my colleagues,
[23:01] Speaker 4: the Blackrock Investment Institute, did you know, highlighted the type
[23:04] Speaker 4: of world that we're investing in now, and they basically
[23:07] Speaker 4: made the point which goes to why we don't see
[23:09] Speaker 4: the diversification across stocks and bonds we have historically that
[23:12] Speaker 4: you know, some of the macroeconomic and the macro underpinnings
[23:16] Speaker 4: of markets have become unmoored in recent years. It is
[23:19] Speaker 4: a less predictable framework, whether it's around trends on growth
[23:24] Speaker 4: of inflation, trends around monetary and fiscal policy frameworks, the
[23:28] Speaker 4: geopolitical environment and the like. And as a result, hedge
[23:33] Speaker 4: funds and liquid alternative strategies provide tools that allow managers
[23:38] Speaker 4: to navigate that environment either you know, like with my
[23:41] Speaker 4: colleagues on the systematic side, you know, running strategies that
[23:45] Speaker 4: are not just market neutral, but neutral to broad market
[23:49] Speaker 4: factors like momentum, like low volatility, like some of these
[23:53] Speaker 4: other kind of well known factor exposures, and really focusing
[23:56] Speaker 4: on you know, true uncorrelated alpha and also macroeconomic strategies,
[24:02] Speaker 4: macro strategies where skilled managers are navigating a much more
[24:06] Speaker 4: complicated macrotomic environment to deliver alpha through that skillful navigation.
[24:12] Speaker 4: Those from our research are the two types of strategies
[24:15] Speaker 4: that are perhaps best poised to offer that different type
[24:18] Speaker 4: of return, that different type of diversification. And that's what
[24:22] Speaker 4: we're seeing not just in the firmat across the industry.
[24:24] Speaker 4: The places that are attracting client interest are systematic strategies,
[24:30] Speaker 4: are macro strategies, and we think precisely because they best
[24:34] Speaker 4: correspond to the opportunity set that markets are offering us.
[24:37] Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about that systematic approach.
[24:42] Speaker 2: That team began in nineteen eighty five with a grand
[24:45] Speaker 2: total of three investment signals, used more than a thousand
[24:49] Speaker 2: investment signals I'm kind of fascinated. This came along with
[24:53] Speaker 2: the BGI acquisition in nine which everybody room members for
[24:57] Speaker 2: I shares, but this is still almost foe hundred billion OS.
[25:02] Speaker 2: This is a substantial chunk of capital. Tell us a
[25:05] Speaker 2: little bit about how the systematic team thinks about adding
[25:10] Speaker 2: a signal, how they integrate all these various signals, And
[25:15] Speaker 2: I'm legally obligated to ask, how is AI contributing to
[25:19] Speaker 2: these signals?
[25:20] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean so, I'd take a couple of things.
[25:23] Speaker 4: I mean one, you know, this is a team that
[25:27] Speaker 4: really is at the forefront of pulling in a bunch,
[25:33] Speaker 4: you know, taking advantage of the fact that the availability
[25:37] Speaker 4: of data in the world, structured data, unstructured data, you know,
[25:41] Speaker 4: is step wise different than it has been ever before
[25:45] Speaker 4: in history. And the techniques available to analyze, process, identify consistent,
[25:53] Speaker 4: valuable investment signals from that data is also given expanded
[25:58] Speaker 4: compute given the changes in techniques, including around generative and
[26:03] Speaker 4: agentic AI, you know, to make sense of that data
[26:05] Speaker 4: and bring order to it. You know, this is you know,
[26:08] Speaker 4: really at the heart of what our systematic researchers do
[26:13] Speaker 4: in building signals and portfolios. I sort of add a
[26:17] Speaker 4: couple of additional points. I mean one, building on what
[26:20] Speaker 4: you said, they've been at this for now forty one years,
[26:24] Speaker 4: so you know they are not new to using data
[26:32] Speaker 4: using tools of AI machine learning to generate you know,
[26:35] Speaker 4: alpha for clients. This is something they've been at really
[26:39] Speaker 4: defining the frontier for four decades. You know, they were
[26:41] Speaker 4: doing natural language processing more than ten years ago. They
[26:44] Speaker 4: were doing portfolio optimization with machine learning more than ten
[26:48] Speaker 4: years ago. This is not a Johnny Come Lately story
[26:51] Speaker 4: of the moment. This is a story of a crude
[26:54] Speaker 4: excellence and expertise built over decades. The everything I'd say,
[26:57] Speaker 4: and maybe it's funny to talk about it with respect
[26:59] Speaker 4: to a quant team, to a you know, a kind
[27:02] Speaker 4: of hardcore systematic team, but I think one of the
[27:04] Speaker 4: things that really sets it apart, you know, within Blackrock
[27:07] Speaker 4: within the industry is, you know, the culture that they've built.
[27:12] Speaker 4: This is you know, a core set of investors and
[27:14] Speaker 4: researchers that, as you say, have been together for decades,
[27:18] Speaker 4: that have been together in many cases since before BGI
[27:22] Speaker 4: became a part of Blackrock became Blackrock Systematic, and so
[27:26] Speaker 4: there's that kind of continuity, that legacy across time, and
[27:29] Speaker 4: at the same time, they're also every year adding young professionals,
[27:35] Speaker 4: young researchers fresh off their PhD, with new perspectives, new
[27:39] Speaker 4: innovative techniques, new ways of looking at the data, new
[27:42] Speaker 4: ways of looking at AI. And I think that really
[27:44] Speaker 4: special balance between experience, continuity, depth of knowledge built over
[27:51] Speaker 4: decades with new voices, new perspectives, new ways of solving
[27:55] Speaker 4: hard computational and hard data problems. That's what's pretty special
[28:00] Speaker 4: about the culture they built as well.
[28:02] Speaker 2: So you guys sit very much at an intersection between
[28:06] Speaker 2: quantitative and fundamental data. Become quantitative and fundamental investors. When
[28:12] Speaker 2: you're thinking about systematic signals, how do you manage when
[28:20] Speaker 2: what comes out of out of the data conflicts with
[28:26] Speaker 2: the fundamental narrative that seems to be driving most of
[28:29] Speaker 2: the conversations.
[28:31] Speaker 3: How do you contextualize that? Who wins that debate?
[28:36] Speaker 4: I think it's a great question. I'd say a few observations.
[28:38] Speaker 4: I mean, one, you know, Blackrock, we believe in individual
[28:44] Speaker 4: pms and teams that are empowered to make you know
[28:48] Speaker 4: judgments that they are accountable for, and so it may
[28:50] Speaker 4: be that our systematic investors are coming to a different
[28:54] Speaker 4: view on markets on a range of stocks than our
[28:57] Speaker 4: fundamental teams are. That's okay. You know, we believe in
[29:01] Speaker 4: empowered like I said, portfolio managers who are making the
[29:04] Speaker 4: best decisions they can for our clients, but are armed
[29:08] Speaker 4: with a common set of tools to come to judgments.
[29:11] Speaker 4: But I think, to abstract away from that further, i'd say,
[29:15] Speaker 4: you know, I really do think that in some pretty
[29:18] Speaker 4: important ways, what systematic investors do is just a different
[29:23] Speaker 4: kind of thing altogether from what fundamental investors do. If
[29:26] Speaker 4: I think about the work that our fundamental investors do, it's,
[29:30] Speaker 4: you know, really harnessing all potential sources of insight to
[29:35] Speaker 4: go as deep as humanly possible, as technologically possible with
[29:41] Speaker 4: respect to understanding an individual company, an individual asset, and
[29:45] Speaker 4: its likelihood of outperforming or underperforming the market in the
[29:48] Speaker 4: years ahead. That's different than the type of I think
[29:53] Speaker 4: insight that our systematic investors tend to kind of think about.
[29:58] Speaker 4: They think about sort of what they call high breadth insights,
[30:02] Speaker 4: so insights that you know, basically apply to a wide
[30:07] Speaker 4: range of stocks three hundred, four hundred and five hundred stocks.
[30:09] Speaker 4: You know, we found an insight that we think on
[30:12] Speaker 4: balance over time across the universe of many hundreds of
[30:15] Speaker 4: stocks is going to outperform. That's not about deep research
[30:20] Speaker 4: in one company and coming to a highly convicted view
[30:22] Speaker 4: on one company. That's coming to a view about what
[30:26] Speaker 4: is statistically likely to be the case across the full
[30:28] Speaker 4: universe of stocks on balance across time. Now, where do
[30:32] Speaker 4: I think these things can be complementary to one another?
[30:35] Speaker 4: You know? One I would say is, you know, these
[30:37] Speaker 4: are just kind of pretty different sources of insight. And
[30:40] Speaker 4: again we've talked about diversification. You know, putting yourself in
[30:43] Speaker 4: a place to put different types of insights into a
[30:46] Speaker 4: single portfolio can be additive, can be diversifying, can mean
[30:50] Speaker 4: that the alpha that you're generating is more diversified and resilient.
[30:54] Speaker 4: I'd say another thing, and this is something we're spending
[30:56] Speaker 4: a lot of time on with our fundamental teams by
[31:00] Speaker 4: virtue of what systematic investors do insights that apply across
[31:05] Speaker 4: many hundreds of stocks, packaging as you talked about many hundreds,
[31:09] Speaker 4: if not a thousand, types of signals into one portfolio.
[31:13] Speaker 4: They think a lot about portfolio construction. They think a
[31:15] Speaker 4: lot about how do I take those different insights and
[31:19] Speaker 4: size them versus one another to come up with a
[31:22] Speaker 4: portfolio that is optimized to achieve client results. I think
[31:26] Speaker 4: that taking some of those lessons of portfolio construction into
[31:29] Speaker 4: the fundamental realm with a set of investors that, at
[31:31] Speaker 4: the end of the day, I think unbalanced view themselves
[31:33] Speaker 4: of having conviction about companies more than portfolios and having
[31:38] Speaker 4: them kind of take some of those portfolio optimization frames
[31:41] Speaker 4: of mind and apply it to how they build portfolios
[31:43] Speaker 4: on the fundamental side. There, I think is also a
[31:45] Speaker 4: real source of complementarity and something we're spending a lot
[31:47] Speaker 4: of time on in PMG.
[31:50] Speaker 2: And the black Rock Investment Institute also sits under your umbrella.
[31:56] Speaker 2: Tell us about what sort of research they produce, Who
[32:00] Speaker 2: consumes the output of this? Is it internal? Is it external?
[32:03] Speaker 3: Is it both? Give us a little color on the
[32:05] Speaker 3: Blackrock Investment Institute.
[32:08] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's a really powerful tool at Blackrock.
[32:12] Speaker 4: I mean I think maybe to take a step back,
[32:15] Speaker 4: as I've been doing a couple times in this conversation,
[32:18] Speaker 4: you know, I think one of our observations about the
[32:21] Speaker 4: asset management industry, the hedge fund industry over the last
[32:24] Speaker 4: ten or fifteen years is that ten or fifteen years ago,
[32:29] Speaker 4: people viewed hedge fund alpha alpha more broadly, perhaps as
[32:34] Speaker 4: the province of small, niche players who understood some corner
[32:39] Speaker 4: of the market deeper and better than anybody else. I
[32:42] Speaker 4: think ten or fifteen years on, I think we've come
[32:45] Speaker 4: to see that alpha is more the province of scale.
[32:50] Speaker 4: This is the story of the rise of the multi
[32:53] Speaker 4: strategy hedge funds of the Citadel's millenniums. But we think
[32:56] Speaker 4: it's also true of the asset management industry at large
[32:58] Speaker 4: that there are a lot of benefits of scale that
[33:01] Speaker 4: come from you know, insight that come from risk management,
[33:05] Speaker 4: that come from trading, and liquidity that come from operational backbone.
[33:08] Speaker 4: And you know, a big piece of that is something
[33:10] Speaker 4: like the Blackrock Investment Institute that's able to you know,
[33:14] Speaker 4: really dedicate itself to the question of how do we
[33:18] Speaker 4: research and source valuable insight across a full platform and
[33:22] Speaker 4: deliver that to our portfolio managers. And so the purpose
[33:25] Speaker 4: of the Blackrock Investment Ensuit is one to inform those
[33:29] Speaker 4: helpha research discussions, to really inform and drive the investment
[33:34] Speaker 4: debate within the firm, but then also to you know,
[33:37] Speaker 4: open up the curtain and let our clients see and
[33:40] Speaker 4: consume a lot of the research that our portfolio managers
[33:43] Speaker 4: are using day in and day out to inform their
[33:46] Speaker 4: own thinking, their own investment decision making. So to answer
[33:50] Speaker 4: your question, it's a little both, and it's about driving
[33:53] Speaker 4: the investment debate, driving the alpha discussion within the firm,
[33:57] Speaker 4: but then saying we've benefited from this, we want our
[34:00] Speaker 4: clients to benefit from it too, and let's produce work
[34:04] Speaker 4: that based on what we use internally allows our clients
[34:07] Speaker 4: to enjoy the fruits of that research as well.
[34:10] Speaker 3: Really interesting.
[34:11] Speaker 2: Coming up, we continue our conversation with Mike Pile, Deputy
[34:15] Speaker 2: head of black Rocks Portfolio Management Group, discussing the state
[34:20] Speaker 2: of the world economy and markets in an era of
[34:24] Speaker 2: geopolitical uncertainty.
[34:26] Speaker 3: I'm Bury Redults.
[34:27] Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.
[34:44] Speaker 3: I'm Barry Dults.
[34:45] Speaker 2: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My
[34:48] Speaker 2: extra special guest today is Mike Pile, deputy head of
[34:52] Speaker 2: black Rocks Portfolio Management Group, responsible for I don't know
[34:57] Speaker 2: about five trillion dollars in inves assets. So we are
[35:02] Speaker 2: living through an era, especially under this administration of seemingly
[35:10] Speaker 2: challenging geopolitical turmoil and unexpected policy shifts. I want to
[35:16] Speaker 2: start with something positive, which was a quote from you.
[35:20] Speaker 2: US resilience is underestimated. So tell us what that means.
[35:25] Speaker 2: What does the market miss price about the US economy
[35:30] Speaker 2: or the US markets? And we're recording this in the
[35:33] Speaker 2: first week in April. You know, despite everything that's happened
[35:37] Speaker 2: tariffs and war in Iran, markets are barely five percent
[35:41] Speaker 2: off their recent highs. Tell us a little bit about
[35:46] Speaker 2: US resilience.
[35:48] Speaker 4: Sure, well, you know, first i'd say, we're taping this
[35:52] Speaker 4: on Tuesday midday.
[35:54] Speaker 3: Eight o'clock tonight.
[35:55] Speaker 2: Who knows what will happen, And for all we know
[35:57] Speaker 2: that's a misdirection and it's going to start as soon
[35:59] Speaker 2: as it gets stark.
[36:00] Speaker 4: Who knows we will We will all find out together.
[36:05] Speaker 4: But I do think that this point about US resilience
[36:09] Speaker 4: is an important one. You know, we've seen it on
[36:13] Speaker 4: display in many moments over the past number of years,
[36:17] Speaker 4: including the last twelve months. You know, the you know, diversity,
[36:22] Speaker 4: the breadth, the innovative potential of the US economy, the
[36:26] Speaker 4: quality of our corporate sector. You know, these are all
[36:30] Speaker 4: things that are are pretty extraordinary. I think one of
[36:33] Speaker 4: the things that I would highlight in the here now
[36:36] Speaker 4: with respect to you know, what I think is fairly
[36:39] Speaker 4: described as a historic energy set shock, a energy shock,
[36:44] Speaker 4: the dimensions of which I think are going to only
[36:47] Speaker 4: become even more clear in the weeks and months ahead.
[36:50] Speaker 4: And we're seeing physical supply disruptions in a way that
[36:53] Speaker 4: for example, we didn't you know, see in twenty twenty
[36:56] Speaker 4: two post Russia's invasion. And this is a global shock,
[37:00] Speaker 4: this is a global supply chain shock. It is going
[37:02] Speaker 4: to have impacts on the United States. But I do
[37:05] Speaker 4: think it's fair to say that in a real economic sense,
[37:09] Speaker 4: the US is relatively more insulated from this shock than
[37:14] Speaker 4: other economies around the world, whether that's in Europe, whether
[37:17] Speaker 4: that's in East and Southeast Asia, whether that's in the
[37:20] Speaker 4: emerging markets broadly. You know, and and you know, you
[37:24] Speaker 4: can look at you know, one number which which you
[37:26] Speaker 4: know I spend a fair amount of time looking at
[37:29] Speaker 4: and marveling at in some respects, which is, you know,
[37:31] Speaker 4: the price of natural gas in the US. And if
[37:33] Speaker 4: you look at a chart of the last three four
[37:36] Speaker 4: months of the natural gas contract in the US, basically
[37:38] Speaker 4: hasn't Budge, you would be hard pressed to identify where
[37:41] Speaker 4: on that chart the military intervention in Iran began. And
[37:46] Speaker 4: I think that highlights, you know, the extent to which
[37:48] Speaker 4: this critical input to electricity production the United States, this
[37:52] Speaker 4: critical input to industrial production in the United States, this
[37:54] Speaker 4: critical input to the way houses kind of heat themselves
[37:58] Speaker 4: and cook. You know, all of this is you know,
[38:01] Speaker 4: basically untouched by what we've seen in the war over
[38:05] Speaker 4: the last five weeks. Again, I think that's in some
[38:07] Speaker 4: ways the most dramatic data point, but it highlights the
[38:11] Speaker 4: extent to which, even in the face of this global shock,
[38:14] Speaker 4: there are very important dimensions of the US that look
[38:17] Speaker 4: different than other economies around the world and makes us, unbalance,
[38:21] Speaker 4: more resilient than than those other commies.
[38:24] Speaker 2: That guest tends to be moved around by pipeline, and
[38:29] Speaker 2: it's more local.
[38:31] Speaker 4: Unlike oil, it is not a globally integrated.
[38:32] Speaker 2: Right and right before we stepped in here, I checked
[38:35] Speaker 2: the price of crude was one hundred and thirteen. So
[38:38] Speaker 2: by the time this comes out, it's either much higher
[38:40] Speaker 2: and much lower or.
[38:42] Speaker 3: Maybe the same. But you mentioned supply, let's delve into that.
[38:47] Speaker 2: You know, we saw a giant supply chain shock during
[38:50] Speaker 2: the pandemic, the war with Iran, and the straight offmuz
[38:54] Speaker 2: is creating a new energy supply shock. This seems to
[38:57] Speaker 2: be an ongoing issue. You would have thought by now
[39:01] Speaker 2: we would have solved this problem, but it continues to
[39:04] Speaker 2: be significant to the global economy.
[39:07] Speaker 3: To tell us your views on this.
[39:10] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you asked about the role that the
[39:12] Speaker 4: Blackrock investment ins to two plays. I mean, I think
[39:15] Speaker 4: one of the things that they have done and built
[39:19] Speaker 4: on over the last four years, you know, is a
[39:22] Speaker 4: piece of work they did back in twenty twenty two
[39:24] Speaker 4: called a World Shape by Supply, which basically talked about
[39:28] Speaker 4: the ways in which you know, the twenty tens in particular,
[39:32] Speaker 4: you know, is a world defined by agrit demand. I mean,
[39:35] Speaker 4: this goes back to the very start of our conversation
[39:37] Speaker 4: when we talked about the struggles that the US and
[39:40] Speaker 4: global economy had after the GFC because perhaps of the
[39:44] Speaker 4: lack of a forceful fiscal policy lever being pulled. That's
[39:48] Speaker 4: a story about agrit demand. That's a story about there
[39:50] Speaker 4: being insufficient demand in the macroeconomy to achieve full employment
[39:55] Speaker 4: and inflation at target. The story post COVID is not
[40:00] Speaker 4: that it's a world as they've said, you know, shape
[40:03] Speaker 4: by supply, and you know, I think that wasn't true.
[40:05] Speaker 4: That was true, not just in twenty twenty one, twenty
[40:09] Speaker 4: twenty two, after COVID, after Russia's invasion, you know, it's
[40:13] Speaker 4: true today as well. And I would sort of draw
[40:15] Speaker 4: attention to, you know, really two episodes that we've seen
[40:19] Speaker 4: already in twenty twenty six that highlight this point. One
[40:22] Speaker 4: and most obviously, you know, is what we've seen in
[40:24] Speaker 4: markets since the beginning of the military intervention in Iran
[40:29] Speaker 4: and the world pricing to a greater or lesser extent,
[40:32] Speaker 4: you know, a pretty traditional negative energy supply shock, higher
[40:37] Speaker 4: inflation expectations, lower growth expectations, a pullback and risk really
[40:41] Speaker 4: across different types of asset classes. But if you roll
[40:45] Speaker 4: the clock back just a couple of weeks before the
[40:48] Speaker 4: beginning of hostilities in Iran, you know, you saw market
[40:53] Speaker 4: priced for a different type of supply shock, a positive
[40:56] Speaker 4: technology supply shock from AI. We saw that disinflationary even
[41:01] Speaker 4: deflationary trend in the way government bonds were getting priced.
[41:06] Speaker 4: We saw big cross sectional moves and the equity market
[41:09] Speaker 4: reflecting the potential disruption from AI around a range of
[41:13] Speaker 4: business models, and so really twenty twenty six I think
[41:16] Speaker 4: highlights both on the positive side and on the negative side,
[41:20] Speaker 4: from the in terms of supply shocks, what it means
[41:23] Speaker 4: to be living in a world shape I supply.
[41:25] Speaker 2: So abundance on the one hand, scarcity on the other,
[41:29] Speaker 2: and logistical interruptions determining which way we.
[41:33] Speaker 4: Go, yeah, and the thing I need to put on
[41:37] Speaker 4: my sort of policy observer had at a minimum. These, however,
[41:44] Speaker 4: hard financial problems are to solve, and they are hard
[41:48] Speaker 4: to solve, as the GFC is the year Zone crisis
[41:52] Speaker 4: made clear. They are fundamentally not engineering problems. They are
[41:57] Speaker 4: problems of political and policy. Well, supply chain problems, those
[42:02] Speaker 4: are a different beast. Entirely, this is about rewiring the
[42:06] Speaker 4: way physical things atoms get produced, get transported, get consumed,
[42:13] Speaker 4: and that is a much harder, much slower, much more
[42:16] Speaker 4: difficult economic and market problem, much different and harder policy problem.
[42:21] Speaker 4: I think again, I would highlight this is one of
[42:23] Speaker 4: the ways in which I think the US has proven
[42:25] Speaker 4: itself more resilience. Again, the kind of quality, the innovative capacity,
[42:30] Speaker 4: the flexibility of the US corporate sector to solve through
[42:34] Speaker 4: the supply chain problems that we've seen since the advent
[42:36] Speaker 4: of COVID. That's a genuine source of resilience for economy.
[42:42] Speaker 4: But also I think highlights that these are hard problems
[42:45] Speaker 4: and a different set of problems in kind than what
[42:48] Speaker 4: we saw post the GFC.
[42:49] Speaker 2: So let me have you put on your policy wonk
[42:52] Speaker 2: cap and look out three years, five years.
[42:57] Speaker 3: What is the result of this war.
[42:59] Speaker 2: Going to mean? Or things like alternative energy supplies. It
[43:03] Speaker 2: turns out China is fairly insulated for different reasons than
[43:07] Speaker 2: the United States. We have fracking in that gas. They
[43:11] Speaker 2: seem to have a ton of solar and wind and geothermal,
[43:16] Speaker 2: which we've sort of neglected the past couple of years.
[43:21] Speaker 2: What's the end result of this war gonna be?
[43:25] Speaker 3: I don't mean in terms of.
[43:26] Speaker 2: Military or political alignment. I mean in terms of global econology,
[43:31] Speaker 2: in terms of global economy, energy consumption, things like that.
[43:36] Speaker 4: You know, well, i'd say, you know, you talk about
[43:40] Speaker 4: three or five years out, you know, to to quote
[43:45] Speaker 4: the potentially apocryphal story about Joe and Lae, I think
[43:49] Speaker 4: it's too soon to tell. We're gonna find out again
[43:52] Speaker 4: together in the in the years maybe even the hours
[43:55] Speaker 4: and days ahead. But I will say I think we're
[43:57] Speaker 4: spending a fair amount of time trying to think about
[44:00] Speaker 4: some of these questions in Blackrock. What are the more
[44:05] Speaker 4: durable economic themes going to be coming out of the shock?
[44:08] Speaker 4: I mean, I guess I might you know, highlight three,
[44:13] Speaker 4: you know one. You know, I think energy security, which
[44:16] Speaker 4: I think post COVID, post Russia's invasion was already front
[44:21] Speaker 4: of mind for countries, companies, economies around the world is
[44:25] Speaker 4: only going to become more so.
[44:28] Speaker 1: Uh.
[44:28] Speaker 4: This is I think one of the important trends of
[44:33] Speaker 4: our moment. Secondly, you know, I think what we're going
[44:36] Speaker 4: to see both from countries and from companies is increased
[44:41] Speaker 4: focus on strategic stockpiling. You know, obviously we're seeing economies
[44:46] Speaker 4: make use of things like strategic petroleum reserves. I suspect
[44:52] Speaker 4: that in spaces like energy, but much more broadly, across
[44:56] Speaker 4: a much wider set of critical inputs of raw materials,
[45:00] Speaker 4: You're going to see companies and countries really turned to
[45:03] Speaker 4: using resources to build stock biles of those of those
[45:07] Speaker 4: critical inputs. And that is again we've talked for a
[45:11] Speaker 4: long time about the ways in which there's been a
[45:13] Speaker 4: turn in the world from just in time supply chains
[45:16] Speaker 4: to resilient supply chains. That type of stockpiling behavior is
[45:21] Speaker 4: what it means in important ways to be spending more
[45:25] Speaker 4: resources than you otherwise would to day for an efficient
[45:28] Speaker 4: outcome today in service of greater resilience over the long term.
[45:32] Speaker 4: And then I think the third is, you know, I
[45:35] Speaker 4: do think that countries and companies around the world are
[45:38] Speaker 4: going to be looking at their energy mix, and I think,
[45:42] Speaker 4: you know, to one of the points we've made about investing,
[45:44] Speaker 4: diversification is a really important precept in investing. It is
[45:50] Speaker 4: perhaps the only free lunch that's out there, and I
[45:52] Speaker 4: would expect a lot of different players to be thinking
[45:56] Speaker 4: as they think about their energy securities, they think about
[45:58] Speaker 4: how to build strategic stockpililes, what's the right diversification to
[46:02] Speaker 4: ensure that I'm not subject to show points to supply shortages,
[46:07] Speaker 4: to disruptions looking ahead.
[46:09] Speaker 2: I like the concept of the framework of this shift
[46:13] Speaker 2: that's taking place in the twenty twenties in a lot
[46:16] Speaker 2: of ways, where the regime today is so much different
[46:20] Speaker 2: than the twenty tens, more fiscal stimulus, higher rates that
[46:25] Speaker 2: seem to be structural and built in higher inflation rates,
[46:29] Speaker 2: more geopolitical actions, more volatility. Does this decade require us
[46:37] Speaker 2: to fundamentally, fundamentally rethink how we build portfolios, how we
[46:42] Speaker 2: manage risk? How different are the twenty twenties from the
[46:47] Speaker 2: twenty tens.
[46:48] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think this gets to some of
[46:50] Speaker 4: the themes we were talking about earlier. That you diversification
[46:56] Speaker 4: is an extraordinarily important tool as an investor, and diversification
[47:01] Speaker 4: is harder to come by today than it was in
[47:05] Speaker 4: the twenty tens and than has been historically. You know,
[47:08] Speaker 4: again that's true around the role that government bonds can
[47:11] Speaker 4: be relied upon to play in portfolios, like in months
[47:16] Speaker 4: such as March twenty twenty six, like in twenty twenty two.
[47:20] Speaker 4: It's also true as we were talking about in terms
[47:22] Speaker 4: of equity markets and how concentrated equity markets, especially in
[47:26] Speaker 4: the United States, have become. And so, you know, building
[47:30] Speaker 4: portfolios means building portfolios that achieve diversification in a world
[47:36] Speaker 4: where diversification is less available than it has been in
[47:40] Speaker 4: the past through straightforward means like balance sixty forty fourtfolios.
[47:44] Speaker 4: What does that mean? You know, my boss Thery Fink
[47:46] Speaker 4: has talked about the role that private assets can play
[47:50] Speaker 4: in building more resilient, more diversified portfolios. And I think
[47:54] Speaker 4: as part of that, talking about the role that hedge
[47:57] Speaker 4: funds and look at alternative strategies can play in public markets,
[48:00] Speaker 4: as we've done here, that role that uncorrelated alpha alpha
[48:05] Speaker 4: that's not exposed to broad market directionality can play in portfolios.
[48:10] Speaker 4: These are the types of solutions that I think investors
[48:14] Speaker 4: of all types are going to need to reach for
[48:16] Speaker 4: to build those portfolios that are designed for a world
[48:20] Speaker 4: shape I supply designed for a world of geopolitical shocks,
[48:23] Speaker 4: designed for a world where diversification is harder to come by.
[48:27] Speaker 4: And the answer isn't as straightforward as the traditional sixty forty.
[48:32] Speaker 4: The world is going to have to be thought of
[48:34] Speaker 4: in terms of that broader set of tools.
[48:36] Speaker 2: So we've spent a lot of time talking about the
[48:38] Speaker 2: Middle East. Let's look around the rest of the world,
[48:42] Speaker 2: starting with this attempt to sort of decouple from China.
[48:47] Speaker 2: Is that achievable or are these just political aspirations that
[48:52] Speaker 2: don't reflect economic reality.
[48:57] Speaker 4: So I think that's a very good question. I will say,
[49:01] Speaker 4: you know, it is clear that President Trump and the
[49:07] Speaker 4: administration have been working to achieve a stable economic footing
[49:15] Speaker 4: between the US and China. I think that that if
[49:19] Speaker 4: it were to be achieved, would be positive. Again from
[49:22] Speaker 4: the perspective of the type of stability, the type of
[49:24] Speaker 4: predictability that allows businesses, households, individuals to plan and make choices.
[49:32] Speaker 4: I think that plays into you know, you know, one
[49:36] Speaker 4: of the things that we've been talking about, what I've
[49:38] Speaker 4: been talking about last week, even with some of your colleagues, is,
[49:42] Speaker 4: you know, the summit between President Trump, President Trump and
[49:46] Speaker 4: President she is scheduled for May fourteenth and May fifteenth.
[49:49] Speaker 4: You know, I think that as we look about events
[49:51] Speaker 4: in the Middle East, that's a date that I have
[49:54] Speaker 4: in my own I as I think about when hostilities
[49:59] Speaker 4: in the Middle least would likely need to be winding down.
[50:03] Speaker 4: I think hard press to see how a summit happens.
[50:05] Speaker 4: They've already rescheduled once. How does hard Press see how
[50:07] Speaker 4: some it happens in the event of ongoing active hostilities
[50:11] Speaker 4: in the Middle East. And I do wonder hard whether
[50:14] Speaker 4: that's a backstop around the Middle East, because I do
[50:17] Speaker 4: think that there's a strong priority from this president, I
[50:20] Speaker 4: think from the Chinese side as well, to find that
[50:22] Speaker 4: stability between the US and China, And I think the
[50:25] Speaker 4: summit is meant to be the culmination of a lot
[50:28] Speaker 4: of that work.
[50:29] Speaker 2: So I have to talk about AI a little bit.
[50:33] Speaker 2: What's the potential there for a possible supply shock and
[50:37] Speaker 2: impact on the labor markets, the ability to accelerate productivity
[50:42] Speaker 2: and corporate earnings growth? How does Blackrock think about what
[50:48] Speaker 2: AI is really doing across everything?
[50:52] Speaker 4: Sure? I mean, I would say the uncertainty bands here
[50:58] Speaker 4: are extraordinarily high, and so I think in some ways
[51:03] Speaker 4: it's hard to venture a forecast around what this means
[51:07] Speaker 4: for productivity, what this means for the labor market, what
[51:12] Speaker 4: this means for geopolitics one year from now, much less five, eight,
[51:17] Speaker 4: ten years from now. You know, I think what I
[51:19] Speaker 4: might healthily do is zero in a little bit within
[51:23] Speaker 4: a within a domain that I know better, namely namely
[51:26] Speaker 4: black Rock, And I think about kind of what are
[51:29] Speaker 4: we doing? And I make maybe a couple of observations. One,
[51:32] Speaker 4: we've already talked about the work ongoing in the systematic platform,
[51:37] Speaker 4: and really, you know, they continue day in and day
[51:39] Speaker 4: out to define that frontier of what technology, what AI
[51:43] Speaker 4: means in terms of how to manage portfolios and generate
[51:47] Speaker 4: investment insight. You know, I look across our active investment platform.
[51:50] Speaker 4: More broadly, we are very busily deploying tools that empower
[51:55] Speaker 4: individual researchers to access more of the collective intelligent of Blackrock,
[52:01] Speaker 4: to go deeper, to go broader, more rapidly around researching
[52:06] Speaker 4: individual securities, researching individual companies, researching macroeconomic trends, and come
[52:12] Speaker 4: to more judgments, better judgments, more rapidly in ways that
[52:16] Speaker 4: we think can help them drive in best performance. Third,
[52:19] Speaker 4: I think one of the ways in which Blackrock continues
[52:22] Speaker 4: to seek to provide solutions that make sense for our
[52:27] Speaker 4: clients is to do what we call customization at scale,
[52:31] Speaker 4: to be able to look at an individual investor, listen
[52:35] Speaker 4: to their concerns, listen to their needs, and design a
[52:37] Speaker 4: solution that's customized for their particular circumstances. Again, whether that's
[52:42] Speaker 4: an institution or an individual, technology AI is opening up
[52:48] Speaker 4: the prospect of being able to do that with more granularity,
[52:51] Speaker 4: at greater speed, and allow us to get in front
[52:54] Speaker 4: of our clients with solutions that are really oriented to
[52:57] Speaker 4: their goals, their dreams, their ambitions, their concerns in a
[53:00] Speaker 4: way that's different than before Last one to make is
[53:04] Speaker 4: one of the cool things about being a black Rock is,
[53:07] Speaker 4: you know, it's a big place filled with a lot
[53:09] Speaker 4: of smart people, and a lot of the excitement is
[53:12] Speaker 4: just giving tools to our researchers, to our professionals and
[53:18] Speaker 4: seeing organically, you know, what they come up with. And
[53:21] Speaker 4: I think a lot of the excitement of the moment
[53:23] Speaker 4: is seeing so much innovation, seeing so much experimentation, seeing
[53:28] Speaker 4: so many cool applications of this technology and our data
[53:31] Speaker 4: to solve problems for clients. You know, now we're at
[53:34] Speaker 4: the stage where we're kind of saying, as a farm, okay,
[53:37] Speaker 4: what are the handful of things that have bubbled up
[53:40] Speaker 4: organically that we think can really move the needle for
[53:43] Speaker 4: our clients, really move the needle for the farm, and
[53:46] Speaker 4: think about what it means to put our shoulder behind
[53:48] Speaker 4: those as an organization.
[53:50] Speaker 2: So last question before I get to my favorites, I asked, well,
[53:53] Speaker 2: our guests, given all this geopolitical turmoil and market volatility
[53:58] Speaker 2: and uncertainty, what do you think investors are not thinking
[54:03] Speaker 2: about or talking about but perhaps should be. What topics, assets, geography, policy,
[54:09] Speaker 2: data point, what's getting overlooked but shouldn't.
[54:13] Speaker 4: So there I mean, I'll offer an answer that kind
[54:16] Speaker 4: of puts on, you know, both of my hats and say,
[54:19] Speaker 4: we've obviously been talking about AI or just talking about
[54:22] Speaker 4: it as applied to Blackrock. You know, I think that
[54:25] Speaker 4: the investment implications of AI, as I said, have huge
[54:29] Speaker 4: kind of uncertainty bands around them. Where value is going
[54:34] Speaker 4: to accrue at what pace, What transformations to the macroeconomy,
[54:38] Speaker 4: to the labor market, of geopolitics. These are all extraordinarily
[54:42] Speaker 4: first order questions for investors, you know. I'd say one
[54:45] Speaker 4: piece that I think is being underappreciated is the degree
[54:49] Speaker 4: to which, you know, I think AI is going to
[54:51] Speaker 4: become a first order political and policy issue in the
[54:55] Speaker 4: quarters couple of years ahead. We're seeing the beginnings of that.
[55:00] Speaker 4: You know, talk about you know, data center moratoriums, talk
[55:04] Speaker 4: about you know, things like you know, chip access for China,
[55:10] Speaker 4: something I worked on. But I think if you talk
[55:13] Speaker 4: to you know, polsters, they would say AI is rocketing
[55:17] Speaker 4: up the list of issues that voters are focused on
[55:20] Speaker 4: in the United States and more broadly, And I think
[55:22] Speaker 4: an important dimension of what it's going to mean to
[55:25] Speaker 4: invest in AI is understanding that this is going to
[55:28] Speaker 4: become a risingly important political and policy issue and an
[55:32] Speaker 4: additional dimension of uncertainty that investors are going to have
[55:36] Speaker 4: to confront as we make choices around where impact is
[55:39] Speaker 4: going to be felt and value is going to accrue.
[55:42] Speaker 2: Really really interesting answer. All right, let's jump to my
[55:44] Speaker 2: favorite questions I ask all of my guests, starting with
[55:48] Speaker 2: and I really have to split this question into two.
[55:51] Speaker 2: Who are the mentors who helped shape your career, both
[55:54] Speaker 2: from an investing standpoint as well as a government and
[55:57] Speaker 2: policy perspective.
[56:00] Speaker 4: Yeah, so had off a couple of thoughts here, you know, Uh,
[56:06] Speaker 4: parapeters in my life again, I'm Peter Fisher, who who's
[56:11] Speaker 4: responsible for bringing me into Blackrock? Uh? As an investor,
[56:15] Speaker 4: you know, to me he had been a senior official
[56:18] Speaker 4: in George W. Bush's Treasure departmental legendary Federal Reserve official,
[56:22] Speaker 4: had led the fixed income platform at Blackrock. Had really
[56:26] Speaker 4: that type of career bringing together public and private.
[56:29] Speaker 2: Uh.
[56:29] Speaker 4: And as the person kind of most responsible for bringing
[56:32] Speaker 4: me into Blackrock. And somebody who's been an important counselor
[56:34] Speaker 4: to me through the years, you know, spent some time
[56:36] Speaker 4: yesterday with my very first economic policy Boston, Washington. Peter Orzag.
[56:41] Speaker 4: I was part of President Obama's cabinet as the director
[56:44] Speaker 4: of the White House Budget Office, now the CEO of Bizard. Similarly,
[56:48] Speaker 4: somebody to me who's brought together public service with UH
[56:52] Speaker 4: financial and UH commercial UH service UH as well, and
[56:58] Speaker 4: somebody who's again been an important source of council advice.
[57:01] Speaker 4: But I would say beyond that, I mean, you know,
[57:05] Speaker 4: my mentors both in governments and Black Rock, you know,
[57:08] Speaker 4: I'd really look into those organizations at large. You know,
[57:11] Speaker 4: when I was in government, the career civil servants at
[57:14] Speaker 4: the Office Management Budget, the career civil servants at the
[57:17] Speaker 4: Treasure Department, they knew more about their corner of the
[57:20] Speaker 4: federal governments, their corner of the world than anybody else
[57:23] Speaker 4: in the world, and if you just sat down and listen,
[57:26] Speaker 4: they had so much to share and offer. Similarly, a Blackrock,
[57:29] Speaker 4: my attitude when I walked in it's a kind of
[57:31] Speaker 4: new investor in my mid thirties, having never been in
[57:33] Speaker 4: financial markets before, was I've got as much to learn
[57:36] Speaker 4: from the analysts associates as I do from those peters,
[57:40] Speaker 4: as I do from the senior leadership of the farm
[57:43] Speaker 4: and being open to this idea that there is knowledge
[57:46] Speaker 4: to be gleaned all in all places, in these organizations,
[57:50] Speaker 4: as I think how I think about how I've been
[57:53] Speaker 4: mentored by these places as much as individual people.
[57:56] Speaker 2: Let's talk about books. What are some of your favorites?
[57:59] Speaker 2: What are you reading currently?
[58:00] Speaker 4: So I've been revisiting a favorite of mine called Wise
[58:07] Speaker 4: Men by Walter Isaacson. I was listening to a podcast
[58:10] Speaker 4: that Tyler Cowen did a couple of weeks ago where
[58:13] Speaker 4: he talked about, you know, AI, the geopolitical changes that
[58:18] Speaker 4: we're seeing means that you know, the world is going
[58:21] Speaker 4: to have to be reinvented a new, not unlike perhaps
[58:25] Speaker 4: was the case after the Second World War. That's a
[58:27] Speaker 4: book about, you know, the group of Americans that really
[58:30] Speaker 4: constructed the post war world, constructed the security architecture, constructed
[58:36] Speaker 4: a world built on American leadership and integrated global markets,
[58:40] Speaker 4: and helped to build that, you know, eighty years of
[58:43] Speaker 4: a peace of prosperity that we as Americans and have
[58:47] Speaker 4: have enjoyed. And I think that revisiting that is a
[58:51] Speaker 4: reminder of what it takes to rebuild a world, what
[58:55] Speaker 4: it takes to invent a world, a new And I
[58:56] Speaker 4: do think that Tyler's right, that this is a moment that,
[58:59] Speaker 4: because of tech logical transformation, because of changes in the
[59:02] Speaker 4: world at large, is going to require that type of
[59:05] Speaker 4: thinking again. And so revisiting that book and revisiting some
[59:09] Speaker 4: of its lessons is something that's been important to me
[59:11] Speaker 4: in the past couple of weeks.
[59:13] Speaker 2: You mentioned Tyler Cowens podcast. What else is youre streaming
[59:17] Speaker 2: these days? Other podcasts or Netflix or Amazon type stuff?
[59:22] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I would put in a pitch for my
[59:26] Speaker 4: friends Jake Sullivan and John Fine are their new podcast
[59:30] Speaker 4: called The Long Game about US national security and foreign policy.
[59:35] Speaker 4: I'd say I'd like it for three reasons. I mean, one,
[59:40] Speaker 4: you know, I think they really try to offer a
[59:42] Speaker 4: pretty just the facts perspective on the choices confronting policymakers
[59:48] Speaker 4: here in the United States and more broadly too, It's
[59:51] Speaker 4: a real window into the craft of foreign policy. I mean,
[59:54] Speaker 4: I think there's a lot to be learned from the
[59:56] Speaker 4: craft of how professionals, whether they're policymakers or investor or
[1:00:00] Speaker 4: business leaders, kind of think about doing what they do,
[1:00:03] Speaker 4: and this is a window in that. And third is
[1:00:04] Speaker 4: a personal one. You know, I spent two years of
[1:00:06] Speaker 4: my life, spent many years on top of that, being
[1:00:09] Speaker 4: in dialogue with both of those guys, and for me
[1:00:11] Speaker 4: once a week to kind of tune in for an
[1:00:13] Speaker 4: hour and hear two familiar voices talking about stuff that
[1:00:16] Speaker 4: I care about is a pretty comforting thing to get
[1:00:18] Speaker 4: to do as well.
[1:00:19] Speaker 2: So our final two questions, what sort of advice would
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: you give to a recent college graduate interested in a
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: career in either investing or government policy.
[1:00:32] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'd say, you know, a mix of the
[1:00:37] Speaker 4: timeless and the timely. You know, I think on the
[1:00:39] Speaker 4: timely side, you know, it is clearly the case that
[1:00:44] Speaker 4: working to be at the frontier of how the tools
[1:00:49] Speaker 4: of technology, the tools of AI are getting used to
[1:00:52] Speaker 4: expand and augment the productivity of workers in finance and
[1:00:57] Speaker 4: government is kind of table stakes. But I'd also emphasize
[1:01:01] Speaker 4: the time less. You know, in investing, it is still
[1:01:06] Speaker 4: going to be the case that the net amount of
[1:01:08] Speaker 4: alpha in the market, NETA fees is you know, zero,
[1:01:14] Speaker 4: or gross e fees is zero. It is still going
[1:01:16] Speaker 4: to be the case that the fundamental law of active management,
[1:01:18] Speaker 4: that that mix of forecasting skill, breadth and the abasiability
[1:01:23] Speaker 4: to translate in the portfolio is what's going to define
[1:01:25] Speaker 4: active management, you know, being steeped in those timeless truths
[1:01:29] Speaker 4: I think is valuable. Last point to make is, you know,
[1:01:32] Speaker 4: you can never emphasize enough what is always going to
[1:01:36] Speaker 4: be human. You know. Trust is hard to build. It
[1:01:39] Speaker 4: is built on the back of relationships and relationships across time,
[1:01:44] Speaker 4: you know, spending time building your relationships, building trust, being
[1:01:48] Speaker 4: seen as somebody who acts with trust and integrity. You know,
[1:01:51] Speaker 4: it's not just a way to live a good life.
[1:01:54] Speaker 4: It is also a pretty good piece of I think
[1:01:57] Speaker 4: career advice as well.
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: I like that advice and our final question, what do
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: you know about the world of investing today?
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: Might have been useful to know thirty years or so ago.
[1:02:08] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, I would say, you know,
[1:02:12] Speaker 4: we've talked a lot about diversification and portfolio construction across
[1:02:17] Speaker 4: this conversation, and that, to me, I think is the
[1:02:19] Speaker 4: piece that I've most climbed up a curve around that
[1:02:25] Speaker 4: I've been kind of most struck by learning about during
[1:02:28] Speaker 4: my time at Black Rock. Across the stints in the
[1:02:30] Speaker 4: part one, what I expected to learn when I left
[1:02:32] Speaker 4: government the first time was Okay, how do I do
[1:02:35] Speaker 4: deep macroeconomic research? What I expected when I left government
[1:02:39] Speaker 4: the first time around, is how do I take deep
[1:02:41] Speaker 4: macroeconomic research and turn that into an insight that I
[1:02:45] Speaker 4: can put on as an individual position or individual trade.
[1:02:49] Speaker 4: What I hadn't appreciated and came to really love learning
[1:02:53] Speaker 4: about was, Okay, how do you actually take five or
[1:02:57] Speaker 4: six or seven of those insights, put them into portfolio,
[1:03:01] Speaker 4: Understand how much return each conngenerate, Understand how they're correlated,
[1:03:05] Speaker 4: how they move with one another, and then you know,
[1:03:08] Speaker 4: build a portfolio of those insights that is going to
[1:03:11] Speaker 4: deliver the right risk, the right return for clients. And
[1:03:14] Speaker 4: that's the art and science of portfolio construction, which to
[1:03:17] Speaker 4: me is at the end of the day, the art
[1:03:19] Speaker 4: and science of what it means to be a good
[1:03:21] Speaker 4: investor into server clients.
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: Well, well, this has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you, Mike
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: for being so generous with your time. We have been
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: speaking with Mike Pile, deputy head of black Rocks Portfolio
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: Management Group, helping to oversee about five trillion dollars in
[1:03:38] Speaker 2: client assets. If you enjoy this conversation, well be sure
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: and check out any of the six hundred we've done
[1:03:44] Speaker 2: over the past twelve years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify,
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: Bloomberg YouTube, wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I would
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: be remiss if I didn't thank the crack team that
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: helps put these conversations together each week. Alexis Noriega is
[1:04:01] Speaker 2: my video producer. Sean Russo is my researcher. Anna Luke
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: is my producer. I'm Barry Rutolts. You've been listening to
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio

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