Capital Allocators – EP.29: Ashby Monk – Asset Giant Futurist ([REPLAY])

Podcast Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Ted Seides
Guest: Dr. Ashby Monk, Executive and Research Director, Stanford Global Project Center

Episode Overview

This replayed episode features Dr. Ashby Monk, a leading thinker and advisor in institutional investing, who’s helped shape asset management models for sovereign wealth, pension funds, and innovative fintech platforms. Ted and Ashby explore how next-generation institutional investors can create better value, address big-picture challenges like misaligned incentives and high fees, and foster social impact, before diving into Ashby’s personal mission to “fix finance”—from macro-structural reform to gamified, accessible savings tools for individuals.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Ashby Monk’s Non-Traditional Path to Institutional Investing

• Background and Education ([04:25]–[10:10])
  • Ashby was born in Edmonton, Canada, raised in Silicon Valley, and attended Princeton, “majoring in rowing and minoring in economics.”
  • Initially worked in investment banking and VC (“Internet finance”, now fintech), then pursued academic research at Paris, Oxford, and Boston College focused on economic geography and retirement systems.
• Catalyst for Academic Pursuits: The disconnect between finance’s theoretical ideals and its real-world, self-serving incentives pushed him toward studying finance from the “bottom-up” ([10:10]).

“What I had kind of lost the love of was, we built these models and these theoretical constructs… The problem is the assumptions … were just as suspect [as bias in case studies].”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([10:10])

Retirement Systems Around the World: Comparing US, Canada, and Australia

• US Defined Contribution System’s Flaws ([11:41]–[13:22])
  • No political will to mandate savings or state-managed investment as in Australia/Canada.
  • The US model is like: “Here’s WebMD, go diagnose yourself … and oh by the way, WebMD is filled with a bunch of baloney” ([12:47]).
• Canada’s “Crown Corporation” Model
  • Arm’s-length entities with independent boards set their own comp, hire top talent, and actively internalize asset management ([13:29]–[14:59]).
  • Willingness to pay CIOs high salaries for internal management—“we’re okay paying football coaches $7 million… but not a chief investment officer. That’s a sacrilege.”
• Australia’s Superannuation System
  • Mandatory contribution system (~12% of income); consolidated, professionally-managed super funds.
  • “Top-notch orgs… setting the standard globally for the next generation of retirement organizations” ([15:00]–[15:59]).

Evolving Models of Asset Allocation and Active Management

• Where to Be Active vs. Passive ([16:13])
  • Focused internal teams for unique edges.
  • Question is: “Where do you have an edge? … What is it that’s unique about us that could facilitate privileged access to assets or managers?” ([16:13])
• University of California Example
  • UC leverages its ecosystem—hospitals, research, campuses—to attract and partner with managers and ventures on favorable terms ([16:16]–[19:16]).

“We can go out to external managers and say, ‘listen, we'll partner with you and we're going to add value in a way that you can't even understand today.’”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([16:13])

• Venture Investing Model
  • Ashby’s ideal: Seed funds at campuses pool deal rights into a “pseudo-index” of top deals, exercising UC’s pro rata rights whenever top VC firms invest ([19:31]–[20:41]).

Fees, Incentives, and the Agency Problem in Asset Management

• Fixating on Fees to Spark Change ([21:14]–[28:23])
  • Asset management's share of profits (40% of all after-tax U.S. corporate profits) is “egregious” and becoming a “tax on the real economy.”
  • The industry is “less efficient today than… 100 years ago.”
  • “If you could take the fees paid to external managers and present them back to the board…” the inevitable question is, “is there another way?” ([26:41])
  • Example: In New York, public employees paid too little for internal management roles, while external PE fees run into billions ([26:43]).
  • Canadian funds got there first by demanding fee transparency, then insourcing.

“The financial services industry is meant to be subservient… It’s time for us to realize… it’s dominating the real economy.”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([21:46])

The New Zealand Superfund and Rethinking Diversification

• Strategic Tilting and High-Conviction Bets ([29:00]–[30:30])
  • NZ Super’s outstanding returns come from “three, four, or five big, high-conviction bets.”
  • “Who says you need global diversification?” Passive indices don’t provide the real diversification everyone assumes ([30:30]–[31:59]).
• Concentration Over Dilution
  • At UC: Reduced 340 fund relationships to 120, aiming for higher conviction, direct ownership where possible ([30:30]).

Fostering Innovation and Impact in Institutional Capital

• Aligned Intermediary: Scaling Climate Investment ([33:02]–[36:14])
  • Ashby co-founded a platform (“aligned intermediary”) enabling long-term investors to collaborate and co-invest directly in climate-related assets—“source deals on a no-fee basis,” supported by philanthropic capital.
  • “We could unlock so much capital for things that are societally beneficial if we simply change the way we intermediary between the capital and the project.” ([33:13])
  • Platform requires internal capabilities, so only funds with strong teams can participate.

The Future of Hedge Funds and Technology in Investing

• Hedge Funds: Love-Hate Relationship ([36:56]–[42:16])
  • Disappointed “best and brightest” are “dragged away from… value-adding activities and into the pursuit of basis points through a black box.”
  • Hedge funds’ main institutional role: uncorrelated returns, not alpha.
  • Dream: Platforms that better transfer hedge fund knowledge to asset owners, but “probably won’t happen” ([38:24]).
  • Growth of invest-tech: Hopes for business models where technologists (not just funds) can sell signals, risk products, and insights.

“All these remarkable people... are not generating value. [Hedge funds] appal me... but there is a future… for uncorrelated return streams.”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([37:10])

Private Equity, Innovation, and Data

• Wall of Money and Innovation ([42:16]–[44:35])
  • Institutional “bogeys” (return targets) lead to “giant wall of money” chasing private equity.
  • Hope: More experimentation, new fund models (like SoftBank’s Vision Fund), and technology-driven transparency in PE manager value-add.

“If all you’re relying on is a fund of funds or a traditional consultant… I don’t think you’re going to get the outcomes you want.”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([44:33])

Long Game: Gamifying Personal Saving for Americans

• Prize-Linked Savings App ([44:37]–[51:04])
  • Ashby co-founded Long Game, which converts lottery-style habits into personal savings through prize-linked accounts.
  • “63% of Americans don’t have $500 to their name… The average American debt is $17,000. So what are we going to do?”
  • Prize-linked accounts allow savers to win cash prizes without risking principal, leveraging people’s desire for lottery-style luck.

“If you just overlay [prize-linked savings] with a little creativity, you could see how a huge amount of capital could be shifted from state lotteries… into personal savings accounts.”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([44:55])

• Product Dynamics
  • Partnered with a real bank, offers small guaranteed interest and weekly big-prize draws (“never, ever touching the principal”); app includes gamified savings features.

Personal Mission and Philosophy

• Staying Focused & Making Impact ([52:36]–[54:11])
  • Ashby connects all his ventures through a single mission: “fixing finance for individuals, for pension funds.”
  • “Imagine the 40% of corporate profit captured by finance was 15%. And that other 25% was… invested in communities to create actual value…”
  • Advises asset owners to take their power seriously and not to be captured by the intermediary class.

“If you really do want to transform capital markets, don’t forget. Don’t ever forget who sit at the base of capital markets. And it’s the asset owners.”
—Dr. Ashby Monk ([61:24])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On American Retirement Security:
  “It is a funding problem… In the US, we don’t have the political will… our pension plans are like, ‘here’s WebMD, go diagnose yourself…’” ([12:39])

• On Financial Services Bloat:
  “We have an asset management industry… capturing about 40% of all after-tax corporate profit in America. It’s egregious.” ([21:16])

• On Hedge Funds:
  “It appalls me that we are dragging some of the best and brightest… away from… value-adding activities and into the pursuit of basis points…” ([36:56])

• On Gamifying Savings:
  “When you talk to these focus groups… 90% say, ‘I won the lottery’ [when imagining themselves as millionaires]. Nobody says, ‘I saved my money and invested it wisely.’” ([48:47])

Timestamps for Highlights

• Ashby Monk’s upbringing and academic journey ([04:25]–[10:10])
• US vs. Canada & Australia pension models ([13:22]–[16:13])
• University of California as innovative asset owner ([16:13]–[20:41])
• Fees and the future of the asset management industry ([21:14]–[28:23])
• New Zealand Super Fund’s concentrated bets ([29:00]–[31:59])
• Institutional innovation—'aligned intermediary’ for climate infra ([33:02]–[36:14])
• The future of hedge funds, invest-tech, and data ([36:56]–[42:16])
• Private equity and return pressure ([42:16]–[44:35])
• Long Game: Prize-linked savings innovation ([44:37]–[51:04])
• Ashby’s mission and closing philosophy ([52:36]–[54:11])
• Personal/fun questions ([54:11]–[62:55])

Tone & Takeaways

Full of thoughtful, candid, often humorous takes, Ashby Monk bridges high-level institutional theory and practice with an urgent, personal call to use finance for broader societal impact. This episode is essential for anyone seeking to understand (and question) the machinery behind giant pools of capital, their incentives, and what the future might look like if we dared to break the industry mold.