Episode 245: Randy Cohen, Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School - Dangerous Vision in Stock Markets and Venture Capital

The Fiftyfaces Podcast

Randy Cohen, is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business school. His main research focus is the interface between the actions of institutional investors and price levels in the stock market and has helped to start and grow a number of investment management firms. He is a partner at Exsight Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in early-stage impact investments in innovative ophthalmic diagnostic and treatment solutions. This has particular resonance for
Randy, who is blind from retinitis pigmentosa.
We start our discussion by tracing how Randy used a process of elimination to decide on finance as a focus for his career and how he found his calling in academia. We spend some time delving in to the valuation patterns in equity markets and he describes what he calls the “lot little lot world” that we live in. A robust discussion on market efficiency then brings us to another corner of finance – venture capital, in this case with a particular focus on a venture capital firm that specializes in funding cures for blindness.
Randy describes his own experience with retinitis pigmentosa and how being blind has affected his professional trajectory and the technologies that have been so crucial to enable participation and promote inclusion. Now, he has enough vision to be dangerous – and his website dangerousvision.com highlights the importance of looking at blindness through a different lens.
This podcast is kindly supported by Resolute Investment Managers, Inc. and Ninety One Asset Management.
Resolute Investment Managers, Inc. is a diversified, multi-affiliate asset management platform that partners with more than 30 best-in-class affiliated and independent investment managers. Its unique platform delivers strategic value through a full suite of distribution, operational and administrative services available to affiliates and partners. Ninety One Asset Management is a global asset manager with emerging markets roots that brings a different perspective to active and sustainable investing.