From Whitney Tilson’s email featuring the mooch
Anthony (“The Mooch”) Scaramucci and I started in the business around the same time two decades ago and our paths keep crossing in the hedge fund, media, conference, and political worlds. While we have some big differences politically, I’ve never had a negative interaction with him – I’ve always found him to be a straight shooter (a front stabber – LOL!) and very charming, so don’t believe every caricature that you see on TV.
At Kase Learning, we invite guest speakers most days to provide fresh perspectives and insights. Over the four five-day programs we’ve taught so far, guests have included Tom Russo, Sahm Adrangi, Bill Ackman, Joel Greenblatt, Enrique Abeyta – and, yesterday, The Mooch!
We didn’t invite him as a novelty act – he has broad, long-term, in-depth experience that is highly relevant to our students: his first job after graduation from Harvard Law School was at Goldman, then he started a hedge fund, Oscar Capital, for which he raised $200 million right out of the box and eventually sold to Neuberger Berman, then he bought/built SkyBridge Capital, a fund of funds that has $12.5 billion under management, and also, on the side, started the SALT investment conference, which dwarfed my Value Investing Congress.
He was kind enough to stop by yesterday afternoon – on his way to debate Michael Avenatti on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (going into that lion’s den took guts – and, to no-one’s surprise, it was brutal: see here and here).
The Mooch spoke to and fielded questions from our students for 43 minutes, sharing various honest (sometimes raw) stories and reflections about his family (his father was a sand shoveler who never made more than $32,000), education, business career, the two times he’s been fired (by Goldman Sachs and John Kelly), why he backed Trump, why Trump wants interest rates up, what happened during his 11 days in the White House (a period of time now known as “a Mooch” – LOL!), and why he really got fired (not the New Yorker article, which he said Trump loved).
In short, he was AWESOME!
He gave us permission to post the video on our Kase Learning YouTube channel, which you can watch here:
