Campbell Wilson

When I joined the endowment world 17 years ago, I quickly realized many fund managers we interviewed were active participants on Value Investors Club (VIC). A quick thread on VIC, including 10 of my favorite historical ideas 👇

@bencasnocha @ATabarrok Good find! There are several with early SpaceX directs/co-invests - there will be some standout #’s this fiscal year as a result

Per docs released in the OAI/Musk case, the University of Michigan endowment invested $20 million in the first round of OpenAI. Best direct investment from an endowment of all time?

@InvestLikeBest More on VIC: x.com/Campbell__W/st…

In 2002, Dan Sundheim was a young analyst at Bear Stearns when he discovered a website called Value Investors Club. VIC was a community where professional investors posted investment ideas anonymously. But you have to submit a worthy idea just to get access. His early writeups were on some of the most obscure stocks – a Canadian textbook publisher, an Indian state-owned bank, a cafeteria chain emerging from Chapter 11, a mortgage originator. After six to twelve months of writing up ideas on VIC, Dan decided to go work at a hedge fund. One of the funds he went to interview at was a healthcare-focused spinoff of SAC Capital. They gave him a case study to prepare before the follow-up interview. The company was called Orthodontic Centers of America. Dan spent hours going through the financial filings, building a model, trying to make the numbers work. Nothing reconciled. He realized the company was capitalizing expenses that should have been expensed, in a significant way. He could prove it was accounting fraud. Before heading back for his follow-up interview, he decided to post the short thesis anonymously on VIC. Within hours, the stock started to move. By the next day it was down 30%. He had told a few friends at hedge funds to look at the stock because he thought it was a fraud, and they should short it. Then mutual funds (Fidelity, T. Rowe Price) that owned the stock started calling him. The stock went down 50%. He walked into the interview and they just stared at him, “What did you do?” He didn't end up taking that particular job and decided to join Viking Global instead. At Viking, he started as a banks analyst and deliberately pushed himself into every sector over the years – healthcare, industrials, TMT. If you love investing, he later said, it was an amazing place to be, because you got exposure to almost every industry. By 2016, he was managing more than 55% of Viking's capital, an unusual concentration for a firm that is typically more diversified. But he recognized, almost regardless of how well he performed, the firm would naturally diversify over time. He had pretty much achieved what he could achieve there. He was 40, which he acknowledged was relatively late to be starting a fund. But he still had the energy for it, so he left and started D1 Capital Partners. D1 now manages over $30 billion. The public portfolio is full of esoteric international names most people wouldn't recognize while the private portfolio is composed of some of the most important and valuable companies like Ramp, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

@patrick_oshag @dsundheim Great one!!

My conversation with Dan Sundheim (@dsundheim). He is the founder and CIO of D1 Capital Partners, which manages over $30B across public and private markets. There's no one as passionate about investing as Dan. We had a really wide-ranging conversation and discuss: - Public vs. private markets in 2026 - Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX - How Dario reminds him of Jeff Bezos - The future of hyperscalers - The software selloff and what comes next - GameStop and the LP dinner that followed - China vs. US: the risk of Taiwan Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 1:05 Public vs. Private Markets 9:10 LLMs as a Business Model 23:23 The Future of Hyperscalers 27:45 AI's Impact on Traditional Software 36:31 Surviving the GameStop Short Squeeze 49:54 Big Private Bets: Rivian and SpaceX 54:26 The Art of Short Selling 1:04:28 Early Career 1:17:11 Geopolitics and the Semiconductor Collision Course 1:22:05 Traits of Great Leadership 1:23:20 The Kindest Thing

@zaidrmn @FlexSuperApp @portageinvest Congrats Zaid!!

Silicon Valley forgot to build for the middle market, the 350K HNW business owners employing 40% of America’s payroll. Today, we’re fixing that. @FlexSuperApp's $60M Series B equity round led by @portageinvest, building the "AI-Native Private Bank" for HNW owners.

@ycombinator @tornyolsystems This is awesome

Tornyol (@tornyolsystems) is building micro-drones that kill mosquitoes. They use smartphone microphones, car park assist sensors, and some clever DSP and control to transform 40-gram toy drones into mosquito killers.

@EricNewcomer This was filed in March:

is Benchmark just 3 guys? Chetan Puttagunta, Eric Vishria & Peter Fenton Miles Grimshaw left for Thrive, then Sarah Tavel became a venture partner, and now Victor Lazarte is leaving to start his own fund

@DanielSLoeb1 Congrats!!

Shortly, our accounting department will send out our 360th monthly result completing the first 30 years of fund operations. Some have asked me if I feel proud of what I’ve built. While I have a measure of pride and wonder, the overriding emotion is gratitude to my team, our counterparties, our investors and my family. I’m also grateful to the public support we’ve gotten in our initiatives and the opportunity to do some good and have some fun with the fruits of these efforts.

Sohn 2025 videos are available at the link below @SohnConf @sohnfoundation/videos" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@sohnfoundatio…

@patrick_oshag Excited to have another for the table! The profiles so far have been great.

For almost 20 years the only products I was involved in were digital It’s so fun (and shockingly hard) to create something physical that pairs with the digital A fun progression of our prototyping Issue two (print version) being built now!

Chris Hohn doesn't talk often. One of the best ever 👇

@jameselbaor @puppyeh1 Happy to show you more - I'll shoot you a DM

@Campbell__W @puppyeh1 Great data visualization. Now I’m interested to learn more about Old Well Labs.

I tried to launch in 2019, with a highly credentialled partner. 10+ yr track of alpha at analyst level (but no portfolio manager formal track). Both coming out of high pedigree London based asset manager. We had modest day 1 capital expectations ($50-75mm) but thought a decent shot at it. We took 150+ meetings over 6mos. EWe signed ML and GS as prime brokers. We went on marketing efforts to Zurich, NYC, Chicago. We did two separate cap intro/new launch conference circuits. Each meeting was basically an alpha extraction exercise - “what are you best three ideas?” - and consumed 2+ hours each. Or were a total gladhand/waste of time from the get go. I think we got maybe 10 real replies (to follow up emails etc) from those meetings. Maybe 2-3 real interests. And no tickets.

@jameselbaor @puppyeh1 Thanks for sharing! Here is the data from public filings to back it up:

@puppyeh1 North Peak (Jermey and Michael Kahn) started with $2m. We were $250k of that launch. Down 20% in their first 3 months. 5 years later - $1b in aum and counting. It takes a network of people who believe in you, good ideas, and good trailing 12 month results

@patrick_oshag The sheer scale of the position (and profit) still amazes me

Buffett selling Apple right before the world decided its corporate soul is cooked is really something

@zaidrmn @FlexSuperApp Congrats Zaid!!

Excited to share that @FlexSuperApp has raised $225M: $25M in equity from Titanium + existing investors, along with $200M in debt from Victory Park. In <18 months, Flex has surpassed $1B in annualized TPV, redefining how business and personal finances work together.

@taobanker @SpaceWalk0 The current Ashtead position is a big one! Meanwhile the other Abrams has a massive $LOAR position

@Campbell__W @SpaceWalk0 Not bad. I mixed this guy up with David Abrams, in the article. Shows what I know.

Just saw a portfolio of a hedge fund manager with $1bb+ whose AUM has been trickling away for years, founded in 2000. Runs a "concentrated strategy with less than 15 stocks". Over half his assets are in $AHT.L . Seems to have one analyst and looking to hire another. This industry is such a fracking grift it's not even funny. He already made his career yet still greedy to scam investors out of fees.

@SpaceWalk0 @taobanker This is the return of publicly disclosed positions, so isn't actual returns (doesn't include fees, cash, etc.) - but still impressive:

@SpaceWalk0 @taobanker Disclosed holdings have outperformed significantly, AUM actually pretty stable. We estimate (using public disclosures) that the fund's $ gains since inception > current AUM, likely due to returning capital or redemptions

@ChrisPavese Enjoy Chapel Hill!

Sorry coach . . .

One endowment CIO recently shared that @SpaceX has grown into a 5% position for the school. Lots of other stories like this in the E&F space given the early involvement of firms like Founders Fund, Vy, Valor, Gigafund, and more recently Sequoia, A16Z, and others

@shaig We have 170 mapped with over $100 billion in total AUM. The #'s are higher if you include firms with VC and other types of funds.