Jonathan Tepper is the founder of Variant Perception, an economic research group that works with institutional managers, hedge funds, and allocators to provide objective and comprehensive data to form actionable ideas from leading indicators and emerging trends. He is also the author of three books, the most recent of which, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition, received widespread acclaim earlier this year. Our conversation covers Jonathan's unusual upbringing, learning about currencies from Big Macs, building economic and liquidity forecasting models, and catering Variant Perception's research to investors. We then turn to The Myth of Capitalism, discussing the history, causes, and ramifications of the absence of competition in U.S. industries, natural and unnatural monopolies, examples in the tech giants, funeral home operators, airports, and hospitals, and what can be done to counter this negative trend. Learn More Read the Transcript Subscribe to the Capital Allocators Blog or Monthly Mailing List Don't Subscribe, but Let Us Know Who You Are Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides Review past episodes of the Podcast

Gary Klein is a noted cognitive psychologist with an innate ability to see what others don’t. Over his 40-year career in the field, he’s pioneered the field of naturalistic decision making, the Pre-Mortem method of risk assessment, and the ShadowBox training approach. Gary is the author of five books and editor of three more, and most recently, founded Shadow Box, LLC in 2005 to train decision makers on his technique. You can learn all about Gary at gary-klein.com. Paul and Paul, you may recall, were guests on the show discussing their book that I greatly enjoyed, Pitch the Perfect Investment. Both are former investors and professors of finance. Together Gary, Paul and Paul co-authored a paper entitled Rendering a Powerful Tool Flaccid: The Misuse of Premortems on Wall Street. The paper is a detailed look at how properly conduct Pre-Mortem analysis. Our conversation covers Gary’s background studying expertise with fighter pilots, tools to improve decision-making, including the Shadow Box technique, Cognitive After-Action Reviews, and Pre-Mortems. We then do a deep dive on Pre-Aortem analysis, including its history in the Air Force, what it is, how it works, when it falls short, and the benefits of reducing overconfidence, time efficiency, increasing candor, making groups smarter. We discuss views on other risk mitigation techniques as well, including devil’s advocates, red teams, risk assessment, and critiques. I found the conversation an incredible door opener to one of the most effective and time-efficient sources of value in improving investment decision-making processes. I’m privileged and excited to share this conversation with you. Learn More Read the Transcript Subscribe to the Capital Allocators Blog or Monthly Mailing List Don't Subscribe, but Let Us Know Who You Are Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides Review past episodes of the Podcast