How I Invest with David Weisburd

Are private markets still positioned to outperform public markets?

Warren Gibbon is a Multi-Family Office Chief Investment Officer with deep experience across asset allocation, equity research, and portfolio management. We discuss why investors may need to re-underwrite their assumptions about private markets, how higher rates and growing competition have changed private equity, and why public-market earnings growth may be underappreciated. Warren also explains why he is more constructive on venture, what he looks for in emerging managers, the risks created by passive investing, and how he would deploy $100 million of fresh capital today.

What happens to financial analysts when AI can do the work they used to spend all night doing?

Chris Ackerson is SVP of Product at AlphaSense, where he focuses on applying information retrieval, natural language processing, deep learning, and recommendation systems to search and discovery. We discuss how AI is changing the analyst role, why vertical AI can outperform general-purpose models in financial research, and why proprietary data may become one of the most important competitive advantages in AI. Chris also explains why LLMs hallucinate, how AlphaSense is using AI to conduct expert interviews, where humans still create investment alpha, and why the future of financial research may look less like software and more like an AI teammate that never sleeps.

Is private credit really in a bubble, or are investors looking for risk in the wrong place?

Theodore “Ted” Koenig is Chairman and CEO of Monroe Capital, a $24 billion private credit firm. We break down how private credit grew from a niche alternative to a $2 trillion asset class, why financing shifted from banks to private credit after the financial crisis, and the two ways Ted believes lenders can generate alpha. We also discuss the flood of retail capital into private credit, why Monroe focuses on the lower middle market, the dangers of prioritizing AUM growth over investor returns, and the personal drive and tradeoffs behind building Monroe.

What if the best reason to start a company isn’t to change the world, but simply because you love the game?

In this episode, I sit down with Marty Kausas, CEO of Pylon, to unpack how he thinks about building an ambitious company from first principles. Marty explains why Pylon started with a goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue, why market size can matter more than the quality of the founding team, and why the rise of AI has pushed his definition of a generational company even higher.

What if AI makes talent, not technology, the biggest competitive advantage in private equity?

Michael Bruun is Partner and Global Co-Head of Private Equity within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. We break down how Goldman Sachs competes for the best middle-market assets, why Michael believes talent can move the needle more than almost anything else, and how higher rates have forced private equity back to the fundamentals of EBITDA and cash-flow growth. We also discuss how Goldman is implementing AI across portfolio companies, why transformation must start with the CEO, and why the war for exceptional talent may become even more important as every employee becomes AI-enabled.