May 1, 2025· 47 min

Blackstone's King of Hedge Funds on Alt Investing Right Now

Joe Dowling

Orality

Model

69%

Oral-dominant (speeches, podcasts, storytelling)

Speaker Breakdown

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,619 words)

M:28%

HostTracy Alloway(1,657 words)

M:94%

GuestJoe Dowling(4,178 words)

M:28%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic45%

literally, completely, huge

Engagement77%

you, our, your

Memory Aids100%

listen, now, so

Repetition100%

know (67x), like (67x), it's (67x)

Parallelism84%

And I'm Jo Weisenthal...., So, Jo, you know what I realiz..., And we've done quite a few epi...

Sound Patterns96%

80 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"

Formulaic Phrases5%

you know what, i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging6%

quite, might, maybe

Passive Voice7%

been confirmed, was pioneered, been called

Abstract Nouns19%

investment, recommendation, equity

Subordination6%

while, because, since

Sentence Length34%

Avg: 13.5 words/sentence

Word Complexity48%

investment, analyze, anticipate

Academic Markers0%

Impersonal Style23%

637 personal pronouns found

Descriptive Style84%

literally, completely, really

Description

Everyone knows by now that college endowment funds have gone big on alternative investing, pouring billions of dollars into private equity and hedge funds. But that investing model now seems to be under pressure and there are reports that Ivy League institutions like Yale and Harvard are looking to unload some of their more illiquid investments. So why did colleges get into alts in the first place? And how do they select which funds to invest in? In this episode, we speak with Joe Dowling, the former head of Brown University's endowment. Joe is now global head of multi-asset investing at Blackstone, one of the biggest institutional investors around. He talks about the rise of alts, how college funds got so invested, the pressures they're facing right now, and the boom in multi-strats. Read more: Harvard in Talks to Sell $1 Billion of Private Equity Stakes Blackstone’s King of Hedge Funds Shakes Up Its Lagging Business Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox — now delivered every weekday — plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

← Some of America's Most Important Economi...What The 'Lentil King of Saskatchewan' K... →