Mike Novogratz Wants to Punch Disgraced Crypto Titans in the Face; The Mooch: Another Winter and Another Rebirth; Off tonight on my riskiest adventure yet

1) Two of the smartest, most interesting, controversial, and charismatic guys I've ever met are Mike Novogratz, the founder of crypto boutique investment firm Galaxy Digital Holdings, and Anthony ("the Mooch") Scaramucci...

The three of us started in the investing business around the same time more than two decades ago and our paths keep crossing in the hedge fund, media, conference, and political worlds.

While we've had our differences, I have never had a negative interaction with either of them and very much respect them for being willing to own their mistakes (a rarity!) and being straight shooters (or as the Mooch says, a "front stabber" – LOL!), so don't believe every caricature you read about in the paper or see on TV.

I was thinking about Mike recently when I read this Bloomberg article: Mike Novogratz Wants to Punch Disgraced Crypto Titans in the Face. Excerpt:

Go big or go home – that's just how Mike Novogratz rolls.

Game On

Wall Street is full of second, third and even fourth acts. Losing client money doesn't necessarily mean it's game over.

Bitcoin's going to $500,000 in five years? Novogratz insists he believed everything he said while he was saying it (he's extended the timeframe on that one).

This, of course, is how Wall Street has always played the game. Buy on the cheap and talk it up, then go quiet while cashing out. Galaxy disclosed what it was up to, but through regulatory filings rather than Novogratz tweets.

"Did people fall for a mania? Yes," Novogratz says. "We bought at great levels, we sold them the whole way up."

He goes on: "It's an awkward place when you made money and everyone else loses money."

But, he recalls: "I've told people from the very start of this business, you better be diversified and better manage risk and take profits along the way."

Meantime, opportunity beckons. Novogratz is on the hunt for assets to buy on the cheap during fire sales as his industry is ablaze in bankruptcies.

I have no interest in investing in the crypto sector and continue to tell my readers to avoid it... But if I were to throw a little bit of "mad money" into it, I would do it with Mike.

2) Another guy I would consider is the Mooch...

Author and investor Ted Seides interviewed him recently on an episode of his Capital Allocators podcast, which I really enjoyed: "Another Winter and Another Rebirth" (on Apple podcasts and Spotify here and here, respectively). Summary:

Our conversation this time around covers Anthony's deals in the asset management space, his thematic investment in crypto, and unfortunate relationship with SBF. Along the way, we discuss entrepreneurship, risk taking, maintaining conviction in a downturn, changing your mind, and resilience – an attribute he demonstrates time and time again.

Here were some of my favorite quotes:

• "Everybody is a long-term investor until they have short-term losses. The minute they have short-term losses, they set their hair on fire to redo their investment thesis." 

• "Don't let losses dissuade you from taking risks. It's certainly not gonna dissuade me."
• "Leave money on the table for your partners. If you do that, you'll always have people knocking on the door asking you to do things with them."
• "If John Meriwether, the founder of Long-Term Capital Management, had a baby with Bernie Madoff, they would have created the crypto bro."
• "I thought Sam was the Mark Zuckerberg of crypto. He turned out to be the Bernie Madoff of crypto. I got that wrong."

And here's an earlier podcast episode Seides did with the Mooch: "It's Called a Mooch" (on Apple podcasts and Spotify here and here, respectively). Summary:

Our conversation starts off with a bang and turns to the ups and downs in Anthony's career, including getting fired and rehired at Goldman Sachs, starting and selling his first hedge fund, creating Skybridge and watching it almost fail, and thriving after the financial crisis. We discuss Anthony's thoughts on hedge funds, lessons from his stint in Washington, and books he has written about his experiences. Along the way, he shares life lessons about managing people, building relationships, resiliency, laughing at yourself, greed, ego, and fame.

Anyone who has only known Anthony from his recent public profile might be surprised to hear the depth of his insight, self-effacing honesty and caring of others, alongside his irrepressible salesmanship. Those who have known him longer will recognize the same Mooch as always in all his splendor.

3) The Mooch is currently on Fox's new reality show, Special Forces: World's Toughest Test, competing against top athletes like Hall of Fame MLB catcher Mike Piazza, Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion Carli Lloyd, NFL veteran and Super Bowl champion Danny Amendola, Olympic medalist Nastia Liukin, and NBA champion and All-Star Dwight Howard. He recently posted some of the lessons he learned: If you're scared of getting thrown off a cliff, try investing in bear markets. Excerpt:

I wanted to share five lessons with you that I've had to learn – often by trial and error – that have carried me through years of investing and, more recently, days of televised military bootcamp.

1. Most of life is just showing up.
2. Compete with only yourself.
3. Get along with people.
4. Be accountable.
5. It's over when you say it's over.

Here's a picture of us in 2019, when I visited him in the offices of his fund of funds, Skybridge Capital:

4) My parents are teachers who met and married in the Peace Corps in 1962 – the third couple to do so – and have spent most of their careers living in developing countries (I spent more than half of my childhood in Tanzania and Nicaragua).

So it won't surprise you to hear that they are very mission-driven. They try to make a difference in the world – and told me from a young age that they expected the same of me.

I still remember my mom's words in high school: "You are one of the luckiest people ever to walk the face of the earth. If you take all the good fortune and just enrich yourself, I will consider not only you, but myself, a failure."

I've tried to live up to those expectations.

Coming out of Harvard, I turned down a job on Wall Street to help Wendy Kopp start Teach for America. Then, after two years at the Boston Consulting Group ("BCG") and two years at Harvard Business School, I teamed up with Professor Michael Porter to launch the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, which I ran for five years rather than return to BCG (which would have paid off all of my student loans). Since then, I have launched a few more nonprofits and served on the boards of more than a dozen...

And I seem to regularly get involved with new charitable ventures. Longtime readers may recall my volunteer work at the field hospital in Central Park run by Samaritan's Purse when New York City's emergency rooms were overflowing with COVID patients in early 2020.

Tonight, I'm flying a long distance to do something similar – going to a place where there is immense human suffering, in a dangerous part of the world (so much so that one of my daughters burst into tears and begged me not to go).

For safety reasons, I can't reveal any more details until I return, but obviously one possibility is the Turkey/Syria border...

I'm going because I can make a big impact. In light of this, in fact, channeling Charlie Munger's maxim, "invert, always invert," I think it would be selfish not to go.

Plus, truth be told, I have a high tolerance for risk and thrive on epic adventures. That said, I am taking many steps to mitigate the risks, so it appears far more dangerous than it is...

Wish me luck!

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. I welcome your feedback at WTDfeedback@empirefinancialresearch.com.