Ted Seides on Interviewing Investors, His Bet with Buffett and How His Podcast Made Him a Better Listener – MS007

Meeting Strategist - Conversations on Leadership & Communication

For the final episode of my pilot season, I return to the fascinating world of investing. My guest is Ted Seides. During his more than 25 years in finance, Ted has built unique expertise in the area of manager selection - picking investment funds that he believes can beat the market.

He’s the author of “So You Want to Start a Hedge Fund”, and host of the Capital Allocators podcast, on which he interviews investors and others about the investment challenge and how to approach it.

This episode provides inspiration for professionals who regularly find themselves assessing people and teams. You’ll learn why meetings are crucial in manager selection, how Ted prepares for these interviews and how his experience as a podcast host helps him as an investor. We also discuss Ted’s famous bet with Warren Buffett and what the Oracle of Omaha can teach us about communication.

Here are some of the episode’s highlights with timestamps:

• 9:35 – How Ted got in touch with Warren Buffet
• 17:00 – Communication lessons from the Oracle of Omaha

• 26:33 – What you can’t get from a piece of paper: the crucial importance of face-to-face meetings

• 30:34 – What to look and listen for when assessing an investment team’s culture

• 34:20 – Why ‘we gotcha’ doesn’t work when you find out unfavorable information about someone

• 47:18 – How Ted prepares for a podcast interview

As said, this is the last episode of my pilot season. Please subscribe to my newsletter on www.meetingstrategist.org to get notified as soon as this series continues. You can find the full show notes with relevant links at www.meetingstrategist.org/ted-seides

About this podcast

Welcome to Meeting Strategist. On this podcast, Marcel van de Hoef interviews professionals and thinkers from the worlds of investment, business and arts about their approach to business conversations. You'll hear inspiring stories about impactful meetings, while also learning about the strategies, tactics and mindsets these guests rely on to make meetings more constructive.

Marcel is an Amsterdam-based communication advisor and trainer and the curator of the Meeting Strategist blog. His mission is to help senior professionals think more strategically about meetings, ask better questions, improve their listening skills and have more meaningful conversations in business and life. Learn more and stay up to date at meetingstrategist.org