Alternate Investing: Masters in Business with Kristin Olson

Summary

Masters in Business: Alternate Investing with Kristin Olson

Podcast: Masters in Business
Host: Barry Ritholtz (Bloomberg)
Guest: Kristin Olson, Global Head of Alternatives for Wealth, Goldman Sachs
Date: November 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Masters in Business features a deep dive into the world of alternative investments with Kristin Olson, a 27-year veteran and Global Head of Alternatives for Wealth at Goldman Sachs. Barry Ritholtz and Olson explore how the alternatives space — covering private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and real assets — has evolved, the growing role of alts for individual investors, practical challenges of allocation and manager selection, and the trends shaping the future. The conversation also delves into survey insights, the shifting behavior of wealthy investors, generational differences, and advice for newcomers to the field.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Kristin Olson’s Career Path and Background

• Straight from College to Goldman Sachs:
  Olson joined Goldman Sachs after graduating from Georgetown, initially in investment banking, before gradually moving to the world of alternatives.

  “I was fortunate enough through the interview process to land at Goldman Sachs... a fantastic place to start my career in investment banking in the Financial Institutions group.” (02:14)

• The Pivot to Alternatives:
  Her route was unconventional, briefly helping with goldman.com at the dawn of online investing. The dot-com bust nudged her toward the “special investments group,” Goldman's early alternatives business.

  “I didn’t know anything about alternatives... The seat I got put into at the time was called our special investments group. So that's what we called alternatives back then.” (04:44)

• Longevity at Goldman Sachs:
  Olson has spent 27 years at Goldman, crediting the people and the dynamism of alternatives for keeping her engaged.

  “It’s all about the quality of the people and the engagement. I think I got lucky falling into a really interesting part of Goldman Sachs.” (13:18)

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2. The Growth and Evolution of Alternative Investments

• Goldman’s Scale in Alternatives:
  Over 500 billion dollars managed in private assets, a business spanning 30+ years.

  “Over $500 billion… We are one of the largest managers of alternative assets. People don’t know.” (05:51)

• Expansion of Alternative Asset Classes:
  The “alts” universe now includes:

  • Hedge funds (less of a focus today)
  • Private equity: from buyout, growth, venture capital
  • Private credit: direct lending, hybrid capital, distressed strategies
  • Real assets: real estate, infrastructure

  “The asset class has become much more mature and much broader.” (06:30)

• Relative Size Compared to Public Markets:
  Despite the excitement, alternatives remain smaller than public markets but are outpacing in economic impact, especially as public company counts shrink.

  “It’s still a fraction of the size of the public markets... Yet a lot of the economy is driven by private companies.” (07:18-07:31)

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3. Alternatives and Wealth Management

• Why Alts Matter for Wealthy Clients:
  Historically, alternatives were for institutions; now, individuals are turning to them to access growth otherwise missed by sticking solely to public markets.

  “If you’re only investing in public markets… there’s an imperative to learn more and start to invest in private markets.” (07:31)

• The Rise of Private Credit & Structural Innovations:
  Innovations like evergreen and open-ended structures are making alts more accessible and reducing complexity (e.g., capital calls).

  “What you’ve seen over the last few years is this incredible innovation around different structures… catering to individual investors.” (20:51)

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4. Portfolio Allocation: The New Mix

• Re-examining Traditional Portfolios:
  The classic 60/40 model (stocks/bonds) is being challenged with notions of “60/20/20” or “50/30/20” — 20% allocated to alternatives.

  “I think the idea that people should have that 20% in there… we’re going to talk about a lot more across all levels of investors.” (11:51)

• Sources for The Alts Allocation:
  Where that 20% comes from depends on alts exposure (equity-like vs. credit-like strategies).

  “If you’re leaning more into equity-related strategies… more out of equities. If private credit, then out of fixed income.” (12:26)

• Allocation for UHNW Clients:
  For ultra-high-net-worth clients, the target can be 27% to alternatives — but the process to build there is complex, due to long-term capital commitments and staggered capital calls.

  “How do you get to 27% in alts? Right. It’s going to take you five, seven, ten years to get to that target…” (17:42)

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5. Mechanics and Practicalities of Investing in Alts

• Capital Calls and Laddering:
  Building a private market portfolio requires years of ongoing commitments, not just single lump sums, to manage illiquidity and capital deployment.

  “You need to be very close to that client... making commitments every single year so that when we get to five to six years in, you hopefully have a self funding portfolio…” (18:51)

• Move Toward Open-Ended/Evergreen Structures:
  Newer vehicles simplify liquidity and access, though sometimes at marginally lower returns.

  “You might be giving up some performance in exchange for a whole lot more simplicity.” (21:28-21:33)

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6. Manager Selection, Due Diligence, and Diversification

• Multi-Manager, Multi-Strategy Approach:
  Emphasis on diversification — across strategies (buyout, venture, private credit, real assets), managers, and “vintage year” (when commitments are made).

  “We want to be open architecture… different fund to funds… secondaries… co-investment vehicles… direct access to some of the best Alts managers.” (21:53-23:09)

• The Complexity of Due Diligence:
  Professional expertise is essential, with Goldman’s external investing group (250+ dedicated to manager diligence).

  “We have a group called our external investing group… 250 people doing manager selection and diligence… Each manager is going to take a couple months to do the diligence.” (25:36)

• Relative and Absolute Performance:
  Seeking the “illiquidity premium” — returns several hundred basis points above public benchmarks — is key to making alts worth it.

  “If I've gotten 300 basis points a year or something in that ballpark better… then maybe you would say it was worth it for that illiquidity.” (24:47)

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7. Trends from the Goldman Survey of Investors

• Alts Adoption Grows with Wealth, but Millennials Are Key Drivers:
  Surprisingly strong participation even among investors with $1–5M, not just ultra-high-net-worth.

  “Down the wealth spectrum, the fact that there's a fair amount of participation all the way down to the, you know, one to $5 million clients. And I think as it becomes easier…those numbers are going to continue to go up.” (33:29)

• Millennials Lead a Behavioral Shift:
  Millennials, shaped by the financial crisis, are at the vanguard of investing in innovation via alts.

  “Their interest in accessing innovation… a lot of that is in the private markets. Right.” (34:22)

• Low Percentages Seek Professional Advice, Especially Among Less Wealthy / Younger:
  59% of surveyed wealth is professionally managed—much lower than among ultra-wealthy, suggesting opportunity for advisor education.

  “Something less than 50% of advisors have even brought up alternatives with some of the [clients].” (36:44)

• Multiple Advisors at Higher Tiers, But the Need for a Lead “Quarterback”:
  Ultra-high-net-worth households often engage two advisors but eventually designate one as the lead.

  “You know, we talked about how hard it is to build these alternatives portfolios, doing that in two places… I think you start to see this shift to one advisor really being the lead advisor… the other maybe a secondary.” (38:47)

• Generational Media Divergence in Advice:
  Millennials cite social media for financial learning, while boomers favor traditional outlets—a potentially risky trend.

  “IRS put out a list of 40 tax statements… wrong… Do not do any of these things. So that’s why I say I get a little nervous when I see millennials citing social media.” (39:52)

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8. Current Themes and Opportunities in Alts

• Tech, AI, and Growth:
  The AI boom is reviving risk appetite for venture and growth equity, impacting every sector from traditional tech to healthcare and life sciences.

  “Incredible advances in AI is bringing back a lot of risk appetite to invest in venture and in growth…” (41:44)

• Secondaries, Real Assets, Infrastructure:
  Growth in secondaries (both LP- and GP-led) and real assets, especially new infrastructure like digital/data centers and energy transition.

  “Infrastructure is one we're spending a lot of time with… has inflation protection benefits… it's not your grandfather's infrastructure. Digital infrastructure, data centers, energy transition…” (43:28)

• Private Credit — The Hot Spot for Yield:
  Investor demand is strongest for private credit, combining yield, capital structure protection, and cash flow.

  “What we're hearing from clients for the last few years has been a search for yield… private credit… yields that are high single digits with quarterly cash flow.” (46:18)

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9. Looking Forward: Cautions and Evolution

• Open-Ended/Perpetual ALTs Vehicles:
  Olson worries about whether managers of very large vehicles can “originate” enough high-quality opportunities as these funds grow, and how underperformance or redemptions will play out.

  “If you have more capital coming in than you can actually invest, you're going to start diluting returns… I'll be curious to see how investors react to performance divergence or negative performance on some of these.” (47:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Being a Goldman ‘Lifer’:

  “It’s all about the quality of the people and the engagement… I get to watch the evolution of alternative investments… That dynamism has also kept me engaged.” (13:18)

• On The Evolving Alts Landscape:

  “The asset class has become much more mature and much broader… we've seen tremendous inflows over the last two, three decades.” (06:30)

• On the Importance of Due Diligence:

  “Most investors need to seek the help of a professional organization… It’s a pretty intense process, each manager is going to take a couple months to do the diligence.” (25:36)

• On Millennials and Information:

  “If you go, even on your LinkedIn feed, you see videos… from major alternative investing firms… you can see why millennials are… being more inclined to alternatives.” (39:29)

• On AI and Private Markets:

  “The incredible advances in AI is bringing back a lot of risk appetite… Not just in venture, tech, and growth, but how AI is going to transform other traditional businesses.” (41:44)

• Advice to Young Professionals:

  “Be prepared, and then don’t be scared to network… Use your relationships, meet people, reach out.” (52:23)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |------------|------------------------------------------------------| | 01:01 | Guest introduction, Olson’s background | | 05:09 | Early days of alternatives at Goldman | | 06:10 | How the alternatives space has broadened | | 10:01 | Appeal of alternatives for individual investors | | 11:08 | Alts allocation: Then vs. now (20% → 27%) | | 17:36 | The challenge of building to alts allocation targets | | 21:53 | Manager selection and diversification process | | 25:36 | Due diligence and risk assessment process | | 32:45 | Goldman survey: adoption trends, millennials | | 39:09 | Generation shift: Social vs. traditional media | | 41:40 | Themes: AI innovation, real assets, infrastructure | | 46:11 | Surge in private credit demand | | 47:06 | Cautions on fund size, origination, performance | | 48:39 | Mentors and career influences | | 50:44 | Book and podcast recommendations | | 52:02 | Advice to college grads | | 52:37 | “One thing you wish you knew” in alternatives |

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Closing Resources

• Books Recommended:
  • Walter Isaacson biographies: Elon Musk, The Code Breaker (Jennifer Doudna and CRISPR)
  • How Not to Invest by Barry Ritholtz (host plug)
• Podcasts:
  • Smartless (for comedy)
  • Bloomberg podcasts (recommended by guest)

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Summary Takeaway

Kristin Olson offered a highly educational look into the evolving world of alternatives — from portfolio construction realities, due diligence requirements, and how investor demographics and innovations are changing the game. With alternative assets now increasingly central to diversifying wealthy individuals’ portfolios and a focus on future trends like AI-driven innovation, private credit, and infrastructure, the conversation is a must-listen for industry professionals, wealth advisors, and investors looking beyond the traditional 60/40 allocation model.

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Transcript

[A]

I'm Hannah Fry and as we rely more and more on artificial intelligence in every facet of our lives and businesses, I'm on a mission to find out how we can build the Internet that AI needs. Learn more later in the podcast. Hello and welcome. This is the Michel Hussain Show. I'm Michelle Hussain. I speak with people like Elon Musk.

[B]

I think I've done enough.

[A]

And Shonda Rhimes. That's so cute. This will be a place where every weekend you can count on one essential convers to help make sense of the world. So please join me, listen and subscribe to the Michael Hussain show from Bloomberg Weekend. Wherever you get your podcasts, you certainly ask interesting questions. Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio.

[B]

This week on the podcast I have an extra special guest. Kristin Olson is Goldman Sachs Global head of Alternatives for Wealth. She's a self described Goldman Sachs lifer. She went to the firm straight out of Georgetown 27 years ago. She's been running the ALTS group for the past 24 years. There aren't many people in the world of either wealth management or alternatives that are as knowledgeable and experienced as Kristen is. I thought this conversation about everything from private equity to private credit to real assets, including real estate and infrastructure investing was absolutely fascinating. And I think you will also, with no further ado, my conversation with Kristen Olson. Kristen Olson, welcome to Bloomberg.

[A]

Thanks for having me, Barry.

[B]

Well, I've been looking forward to having this conversation. Alts are obviously a super hot topic these days. But before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about your background. You arrived at Goldman Sachs directly from undergraduate at Georgetown. What led you to finance and what led you to Goldman?

[A]

So I would say, you know, graduating from Georgetown, I actually wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I was interested in corporate finance, but I was particularly drawn to the idea of joining a big analyst class with great training at one of the big investment banks. And then I'd say I was fortunate enough through the interview process to land at Goldman Sachs. And that turned out to be a fantastic place to start my career in investment banking in the Financial Institutions group.

[B]

And you started as an analyst in investment banking. Did you go the whole CFA Route 1, 2 and 3?

[A]

Nope, just two years. I got my CFA as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. That was my training two years in fig.

[B]

And then how did you end up pivoting to alts? It seems so different to go from transactional banking, especially when you started heading right into 2000. What was the appeal of Alt?

[A]

Well it's funny, I didn't go directly into Alt, so it took a little segue. So in 2000 as a third year analyst I wanted to do something different. It's hard to think way back then that was the dawn of the Internet and everyone was going to work on different dot coms, different startups and I took a little bit of a safer route and decided to work on the goldman.com project.

[B]

Which is what? Which was really their own build out of their own website.

[A]

Exactly. That's how long ago it was if you think about it. We didn't have an online ability for our clients to access their accounts, to trade stocks, to access information as late.

[B]

As 2000, hey, maybe we should get a website.

[A]

That was the start of it. And also thinking about what kind of business we could evolve around self directed investors going to goldman.com versus at that time E Trades Schwab. Right. All the online access that was happening. And so I decided to spend my third year focused on that business endeavor. And then that led right to the dot com bubble bursting which was, you know, pretty much, I was pretty much done with my third year analyst program. I had a few more months that was kind of February, March of 1. And so when that happened they went to the, you know, us poor third year analysts and said, you've got a few more months on your program. Why don't you move into this investment management division at Goldman Sachs, which I knew nothing about at the time and you're gonna interview with a bunch of people. And it was sort of a group interview. And this is funny, but meaning you.

[B]

With a bunch of people or one person with a bunch of people?

[A]

A bunch of people and a bunch of analysts.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And this is a funny story. My mentor and longtime boss, I heard this after the fact, will say I won Kristen in the Analys analyst lottery or the analyst draft he drafted me. And I didn't know anything about alternatives, I didn't know anything about investment management, I didn't know anything about wealth management. And the seat I got put into at the time was called our special investments group. So that's what we called alternatives back then. Special investments, huh?

[B]

Really interesting. And to be clear, Goldman has long had a reputation as very savvy traders and very savvy participants in public markets and very, very savvy in terms of seeding. Hey, we have this great trader, but he wants to leave and start his own hedge fund. Let's be his prime Broker and let's see them and participate in the upside. So I typically think of Goldman as a big public player. This has been developing for, you know, much longer than you've been there. What's the total assets that Goldman runs in terms of privates?

[A]

Over $500 billion.

[B]

That's real money.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of the things that people don't realize, which is you talk about going back 27 years ago. We've had a private investing business going back well over three decades.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And five, over 500 billion assets today. We are one of the largest managers of alternative assets. People don't know.

[B]

So how has this space changed over the 23, 24 years you've been working in?

[A]

Walt's incredibly. Right. I mean, I think if you thought about the expansion of the different asset classes that sit under alternatives. Right. So that's a broad word that describes lots of different types of strategies.

[B]

Break it down for us. What are the key sectors you were starting with?

[A]

Hedge funds. So that's one sector. But if you actually think about where we focus more, it's much more on the private side than the public alts. So if you think about under that umbrella, it's private equity. But again, under private equity, let's think about the different strategies there. Everything from buyout through growth equity through venture capital, then the advent of a big private credit asset class within alternatives. Right. And even within that, everything from direct lending to hybrid capital solutions to distressed. Right. All of that falls under this private credit bucket. And then you have real assets, real estate infrastructure. And so the asset class has become much more mature and much broader. And then obviously we've seen tremendous inflows over the last two, three decades, and.

[B]

It'S still a fraction of the size of the public markets. I think that kind of gets lost in all the enthusiasm. Alts relatively small compared to stocks, bonds, or any other private debt.

[A]

Exactly. Yet a lot of the economy is driven by private companies. Right. And so I think that's part of the impetus right now, as we see kind of the aperture opening for alternatives to individual investors. Right. Is how do you tap into other sources of growth in the economy if you're only investing in public markets? Right. So I think there's an imperative for a lot of investors to learn more and start to invest in private markets.

[B]

So some of the drivers of the growth in the space are obviously privates are the majority of economic activity in the country. At the same time, we've seen the number of public companies shrinking between Buybacks and mergers and the limited number of IPOs, the total number of public companies are going, becoming smaller as privates get bigger. I'm going to ask you to speculate what might reverse that shrinkage in the number of US public companies.

[A]

Well, look, I think high quality, high growth companies are, many of them are still going to revert back to the public markets, right? And hopefully we're starting to see a pickup in IPO activity. I think you'll see some of the marquee growth companies, tech companies, AI companies that need massive amounts of capital to fund themselves.

[B]

There's no alternative to go back to.

[A]

The IPO markets, Right? But you've seen a lot of innovation in the private markets to allow companies to stay private for a lot longer. Right? And so I think Average time to IPO now is 10 years. But what you're seeing in the interim are secondary funds doing things like continuation vehicles, right, to allow to change the investor base but stay private for a longer period of time. There's just a lot more liquidity in private markets to allow these companies to maybe not have to ever go public if they don't want to.

[B]

You know, it felt like in the 90s there was this mad rush to go public very often with flimsy business models, clicks and eyeballs, stuff like that. And now it seems like we've swung the pendulum completely in the other direction where there is no rush to go. But at a certain point, some of these companies get so large, really there's no alternative, is there? So, so at that point, size matters and you have to go public once you're looking for, well, we just sort of take private for 55 billion. So maybe that IPO line is higher than I imagine. Maybe it's 75 billion. Let's bring this back to alternatives. What was it about the alternative investment world that you found so compelling versus your early experience with public stocks and bonds?

[A]

Well, I think one of the fortunate things that I had with that pivot into alternatives was it was the intersection of not just alternatives, but alternatives and wealth management. Right. Thinking about how we deliver alternative investments to our Goldman Sachs wealth management clients, right? And you think about the industry, it really started alternatives focused on big institutions, pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds. But actually at Goldman Sachs, we've been investing in alternatives for our wealth clients for over 30 years. So that intersection has been really interesting. And obviously, you know, fast forward to today. You know, the intersection of wealth and alts is a topic that you hear about pretty much every day, right.

[B]

When I Think about the original institutions. You think of the Yale model and David Swensen and what was that, the early 1980s? Something like that. So that's 40 something years ago. You guys have been doing this for 30 years. Not only has that market changed, but there's been strategy and culture changes over the same period. Explain what you've observed and how you've helped shape this.

[A]

Yeah, so look, I think the process of allocating to alternatives for individual investors we've sort of honed and shaped over the last 25 years. Part of that starts with what do we advocate in terms of how much our clients should have in alternatives? Right. So go back to, you know, when I started doing this in 2001 for a moderate risk client, we already had at that point a 20% or so allocation alternatives. Fast forward to today. We would tell a moderate risk client they should have closer to 27% of their.

[B]

I've heard some people say 60, 2020 is the new 60 40. Is that just a cute line or is there anything to those?

[A]

No, no, no. I think there's. I think we're heading in that direction. Right. I think for the clients that can withstand the liquidity, which we should talk about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And understand kind of the risk return of alternatives. The idea of having a 20% or so allocation to alternatives is something I think we're going to talk about a lot more across all levels of investors.

[B]

And it sounds like given that even where current rates are, it's still historically relatively low, which means we're not seeing a lot of yield on the fixed income side of the ledger. If we're talking 60, 20, 20, it sounds like all or most of the shift into alts are coming from low yielding bonds.

[A]

So look, I think the 20% is the part that I think I'm convicted on the alt piece, the question of where you fund it from. I think there's debate around. Right. You've heard people say 50, 30, 20, right? 60, 20, 20. I think that depends a little bit on where, where are you going within alternatives. Right. Are you leaning into private credit and looking for a high single digit yield in private credit, then yes. Then maybe you're funding it out of the fixed income bucket. Or if you're leaning more into equity related strategies. Right. Then maybe the funding source comes a little more out of equities. Right. So I think the part that I'm focused on is the idea that people should have that 20% in there. Right. And then I think it's this bespoke conversation about is it 50 or 60 equities, you know, where does it find from?

[B]

And last, last question about your career. You describe yourself as a Goldman lifer. What's kept you there for almost three decades?

[A]

So the number one thing is definitely the people, right? I mean, going somewhere for 27 years, which I never thought I would be doing, you know, at the same firm. It's all about the quality of the people and the engagement. I think it's high quality. People I enjoy working with every day. I think the second part is I think I got lucky falling into a really interesting part of Goldman Sachs where I get to watch the evolution of the alternative investments, asset class and the growth of our wealth business. And I think that dynamism of that has also kept me engaged for that.

[B]

Interesting, super fast growing and constantly evolving. I would imagine that no week is the same over the past 23, 24 years running alts.

[A]

Exactly. And I think the other interesting part about it is when you have a dislocation in the markets in the world, alternatives is actually a part of the portfolio where you usually go to capitalize on that. Right. So I think that's also really interesting. Right. So you have a dislocation. Well, let's look at, you know, special situations or distress managers. Right. Or wow, you have incredible innovation happening in technology. You're going to do private growth, equity investing. Right. And so I think that that's the dynamism I'm talking about in terms of tapping into dislocations, tapping into innovation. A lot of that happens in the private markets.

[B]

Really super interesting. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Kristen Olsen, Goldman Sachs global head of alternatives for wealth clients, describing the Goldman Sachs alternative wealth experience. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

[A]

As our use of AI expands, how do we make sure it doesn't end up breaking the Internet? I'm Hannah Fry, host of the Exponential Era, a series that explores the real world impact of future network technology. And I sat down with two experts to discover how we can support the massive connectivity needs of AI. Find out what I [e-mail] Nokia.

[C]

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[A]

Well, today's your lucky day.

[C]

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[A]

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[C]

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[A]

We have fun, we get weird and we want you to join us.

[C]

You can listen to many Stuff the Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest this week is Kristin Olson. She is Goldman's global head of alternatives for Wealth. She's been with the firm for 27 years and she's been running the Alt Capital markets group for 24 of those 27 years. So we were talking earlier about 60, 20, 20 or 50, 30, 20. How do you think about those allocation ranges? How do you determine what's the best recommendation for an ultra high net worth portfolio? Client portfolio, who Maybe they're not all that familiar with alternatives, but they want to diversify and have a little bit more of non correlated returns.

[A]

So I think we are blessed at Goldman Sachs to have the benefit of our CIO and our investment strategy group. So that's sort of where we start, right? In a conversation with a client, which is how much of the portfolio should we have in alternatives? And we need to look a lot of factors in terms of risk tolerance, tolerance for illiquidity, what are they looking to derive from that portion of the portfolio? But sort of as a starting point, we talked a little about this earlier. We would talk to a client who has a moderate risk Appetite about having 27% alternatives. And so we'd have that conversation around, does that feel right? Is that the number that we want to get to? And then once we're there, then it becomes how do we get there? Because that's actually the really hard part in alternatives.

[B]

When you say how do we get there? How do we over time allocate for. From some other bucket into the alts bucket.

[A]

Exactly. And the complication is traditional private alternatives are capital commitments that generally call down capital and make investments over five to 10 years. And so there's a lot of art and science of how do you get to 27% in alts, right. It's going to take you five, seven, ten years to get to that target as you sort of ladder into these different commitments that you make. So we spend a lot of time with clients talking about that process.

[B]

So I'm very familiar with capital calls, typically from venture capital funds, occasionally for some oversubscribed funds that you do all the docs and then you wait for a window to open up where they'll take your money. I don't usually think of private equity or private credit in those terms, but you have a whole lot more experience in this space than I do. Is that what typically takes place? Someone says, hey, I want to commit up to $10 million to this fund. How long does it take for those capital calls to come in? How long is the client waiting? And then what are they sitting in while they're waiting? Are they just sitting in Treasuries?

[A]

Yeah. And this is where alternatives are complicated. Right. So if you thought we'll talk a little bit about where alternatives are going. Right. When we talk about evergreens and open ended which kind of get rid of that capital call dynamic. But if you thought about ultra high net worth clients who historically and continue to really invest in traditional closed end alternatives, you need to be very close to that client and how you build that portfolio year in, year out, making commitments. They are going to call capital in private equity, in private, traditional private credit funds, in real asset funds, generally it's a 10 year fund and they're making investments over the first five years and trying to harvest those over the second five years. And so our job as advisors to our clients is how do we build that laddered portfolio? How do we commit every single year so that when we get to five to six years in, you hopefully have a self funding portfolio and hopefully you have money, your invested capital is getting you to that 27% of your portfolio in the ground. But it's hard to get there. And so we spend a lot of time advising clients on how to, how to build those portfolios.

[B]

So typically, all right, I have $50 million, I'm going to put 10 million, I'm going to commit 10 to this. How long will it take before. About five years before that's fully generally. And then am I sitting in Treasuries or money markets? What am I doing in the meantime?

[A]

No, then you're, then you're diluting your return. Right. And this is the other part. You need to be really fully invested other than what you think the short term capital call needs are. So again, this is where the complexity comes in, which is how do I not have drag and make sure I'm fully invested.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But still have liquidity to fund a capital that might come up the next month. And so that's where our advisors spend a lot of time with clients on making sure that we're not sitting in cash while we're waiting for capital calls.

[B]

So 10 million over five years sounds like two per year. So in other words, it's not like I'm gonna allocate that money to this. Correct. I just am anticipating a call for each of the next five years for about 2 million and the money is already invested Rather than sitting around waiting for this.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

That's a lot of moving parts.

[A]

It's a lot of moving parts by the way. But that's what leads to. When you think about opening up the aperture and trying to make alternatives more accessible. What you've seen over the last few years is this incredible innovation around different structures that are catering to individual investors. So if you think about evergreen and open ended alternatives, you take away the complexity of capital calls and distributions and managing the liquidity because that all gets done then within the vehicle and there's trade offs to that. Right, but that's where you're seeing over the last five years a tremendous amount of growth in alternatives targeted at individual investors.

[B]

So you might be giving up some performance in exchange for a whole lot more simplicity.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

So let's shift from the process of allocating and getting calls to the actual ALT managers. I'm assuming you have dozens and dozens if not hundreds on your platform, some in house, some outside of the firm. How do you start the process of figuring out what do we want this spread of managers to look like?

[A]

Yeah, so that's what I think we spent a lot of time focused on. I think our North Star is how do we have the best platform of opportunities for our clients. And so one, I think that starts with diversification right across a number of different vectors. So one is we talked about the different strategies under the ALTS banner. We need to have different opportunities in each of those lanes. Buyout, growth venture, private credit, real assets. Right. And then we want to be open architecture for our clients. Right.

[B]

So meaning not just Goldman, not just Goldman product.

[A]

We have as we talked about, a phenomenal alternative capability. Over $500 billion in assets under management. We have a 30 plus year track record and we have strategies that span all those various alternative asset classes. So that's one way we implement for clients. The other is open architecture. So we have vehicles where clients can invest in different fund to funds, different strategies like our secondaries funds, our co investment vehicles and then lastly curating direct access to some of the best ALTS managers out there on a single name basis. And so there's different ways that clients can actually implement their portfolio right across those three different implementation methods.

[B]

So it's interesting we're talking about diversification and lack of correlation and I'm really hearing two distinct types of diversification. One is, hey, these aren't public stocks, they don't follow that cycle so you should get some sort of non correlated returns. But within each of the major subgroups of Alternatives and then across those groups this should be somewhat non correlated. Is that, is that a fair, somewhat uncorrelated.

[A]

Yeah, look, I think what clients are looking for in alternatives is diversification. So, you know, different return drivers than what they're getting from public markets. Hopefully a lack of correlation to those markets and alpha to those markets, meaning outperformance relative to what they otherwise would have gotten had they gone in the public markets. Right. So when we think about returns and alternatives, some of it is absolute. Right. So what, what type of returns are those managers underwriting to in the portfolio? And that's an absolute target. But then there's also a relative target, which is how do we think about the premium you're getting for that illiquidity? Right. So if I'm going to tie my money up for in a 10 year private equity fund, I want to be paid for that illiquidity. And so then we think about am I getting several hundred basis points a year better return than had I put that money in at the same time and taken the money out at the same time from the relevant public market benchmark? Right. Then I think I've been rewarded. If I've gotten 300 basis points a year or something in that ballpark better than the public alternative, then maybe you would say it was worth it for that illiquidity.

[B]

Well, that's the whole idea of the illiquidity premium. Right. That not only are you getting paid for illiquidity, but it becomes a somewhat less efficient market, which means there's greater opportunity for upside.

[A]

Exactly. I mean, look, the private markets, they have a lot more information than the public markets. Many strategies they have control. Right. So they can actually change the outcome at their portfolio companies, they can change management, they can change strategy. A lot of different ways to drive return that are not available in the public markets. Right.

[B]

So given the fact that information is so important and so different than publicly traded stocks and or bonds, how do you start out doing the due diligence? That has to be like a giant lift, especially if you have a few hundred managers on the platform.

[A]

Yeah, look, I think most investors need to seek the help of a professional organization that can help them do that diligence. So I think for us we have a group called our external investing group. It's over 400 people globally. It's 250 people doing manager selection and diligence. And so we like to deploy that team to do the fiduciary diligence on all of the outside managers that we're partnered with. And that's a pretty intense process. Right. Each manager is going to take a couple months to do the diligence. It's going to go through an investment committee process. Right. And as we know, like you look at a track record from a manager, you really need to dig in and understand kind of what's behind that track record. Right. Lots of caveats sometimes. And so that's the work that they're, that they're doing, going to their investment investment committees and getting approval. So we work with that team to diligence the managers that we think make sense for our clients.

[B]

So I'm going to guess there's some analysts, some lawyers, some compliance people, some regulatory specialists. Like, this isn't the sort of thing that the average investor can undertake on their own. You really need a team of professionals to dive in.

[A]

I think you want to have the advice of professionals. The other part that we've found is we talk about diversification being so important. So when we think about an individual investor, I always think there's a couple vectors of diversification for them. One is diversification of strategy, which we talked about under the ALTS umbrella. Number two, diversification by manager. Right. You want to work with different managers and then diversification by vintage year. So we think it's very important for clients to be pretty programmatic about making allocations every single year. Because again, you don't want to market time, you don't know when the best opportunities are going to be. And actually it's usually when times feel the worst is probably the best time to be allocating. Right, right, right. And so you know when you, and then when you dial that back, you might be needing to make 10 commitments a year, 15 commitments a year. How can you diligence enough managers to decide that you've picked the best one? Right. And so it gets very challenging and very complicated. And that's why you see a lot of individual investors partnering with an advisor or an advisor that has diligence capabilities to help navigate them through who are the best managers in each of their each of those lanes.

[B]

So diligence is the first step and that is all the legal and other paperwork that has to be done. So let's talk about risk assessment. How do you figure out when you're looking at a variety of different investment strategies and managers, hey, how much bang am I getting relative to the risk the client is assuming in this investment? It would seem that's really challenging also.

[A]

Yeah, look, I mean, there's things you need to look at Obviously you're going to look at the track record over time and you're going to look at the stability of the team and do they have all the fundamental things that lead to a repeatable investment process? Right. Which should argue that you can rely on that tracker as being hopefully something that you could look at that could be repeatable in the future. Right. I think the other important part is what's the concentration of that strategy? Right. How many investments are they making? Is it highly concentrated? Is it more diversified? So for example, one thing that our clients have been long time investors in is secondary private equity. And one of the interesting things about secondaries is underneath one single fund you may have thousands of companies. So you have a tremendous amount of diversification. And because secondaries, if you thought it's going to be private equity, it's already partially invested. So most traditional private equity funds, it's a blind pool. Right. You're committing capital that's going to invest over the next five years. Secondaries allows you to take a look at some of the money that's already in the ground and actually buy that theoretically at a discount to a fair value is Right.

[B]

So, so there are two types of secondaries that I'm familiar with and I want you to comment on this. One of them is, hey, a co investor in a fund suddenly has a change in their liquidity needs and hey, we're willing to sell this for, you know, 15% discount from what the last closing date was. So you get to buy in an earlier vintage at a discount. That's one secondary. Is that something you were talking about, you discussed?

[A]

Yes. So that's an LP secondary.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It could be a big institution that for whatever reason wants to rent.

[B]

You saw that earlier this year, rebalance their portfolio.

[A]

Big university that has liquidity. Right. Will look to go and get liquidity in the secondary market, be individuals. So that's sort of a traditional LP secondary.

[B]

So. So the other thing I occasionally see is, hey, one of our portfolio companies suddenly is adding this or pivoting in this direction and we're comfortable with how much us as a fund are putting into this company and we're going to continue maintaining this investment, but they need additional capital. Do you want to do a one off side pocket or people call it all sorts of different things. How often you see that sort of thing come.

[A]

Yeah, so the other. So when you look at the secondary market, you have the LP secondaries which you just talked about. The other would be GP LED secondaries. So that's not initiated by the LP in the fund. It's actually the manager of the fund, to your point, saying, hey, we have a company that we don't want to sell right now, we want to continue to own, but we need to find new capital to fund it. Right. So you might want to take out some of the old investors. The GP might want to roll their capital, roll their incentive fee. So that's a GP led secondary, also called a continuation vehicle. Many times you're hearing a lot about this. And so that's another part of what we do within our secondary franchise that our clients have exposure to.

[B]

Really, really interesting. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Kristen Olson, Goldman's global head of alternatives for wealth, discussing the state of alternative investing today. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

[C]

Are you looking for a new podcast about stuff related to money?

[A]

Well, today's your lucky day.

[C]

I'm Matt Levine.

[A]

And I'm Katie Greifeld.

[C]

And we are the hosts of Money Stuff, the podcast. Every Friday, we dive into the top stories about Wall street finance and other stuff.

[A]

We have fun, we get weird. And we want you to join us.

[C]

You can listen to many stuff the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

I'm Barry Ritholtz. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest is Kristen Olson. Kristen is the global head of alternative alternatives for wealth management clients at Goldman Sachs, a position she's held for 24 of her 27 years at Goldman. So before we get into the state of alternative investing today, I'm fascinated by this big survey you guys do each year. Over a thousand clients and other people participate in it. And some of the answers that come along are kind of expected. Some are really kind of surprising. Let's go over a few of these because they're really fascinating. So first, your survey reveals wealthy individuals adopt alternative investments as their net worth grows. That wasn't a surprise.

[A]

Not surprising.

[B]

But some of the specifics, some of the percentages were really, really like, wow, look at that. Tell us a little bit about the. The response you get to that survey question.

[A]

Yeah. So. Well, first, I would say this is our inaugural survey. This is the first time that we're actually surveying a broad universe.

[B]

Put me on that list. I want to see that data every year. I'm a junkie for that sort of stuff.

[A]

And I think part of the impetus for that, too, was just what we've talked about, sort of the incredible interest by individual investors in figuring out should they invest in alternatives, how do they invest in alternatives? And so that was sort of the impetus to this opening the door to alternatives survey that we just did. I think the data that you mentioned is not surprising, obviously from my seat, starting with ultra high net worth clients.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Had been investing in alternatives for, you know, 25 plus years. I was surprised by down the wealth spectrum, the fact that there's a fair amount of participation all the way down to the, you know, one to $5 million clients. Right. And I think as it becomes easier for these individuals to invest in alternatives and as there's more education around it, those numbers are going to continue to go up.

[B]

So I'll tell you what surprised me at first blush and then as I thought about it, made a lot of sense. Millennials are at the forefront of a significant shift in investment behavior towards alts. And as I began to think about it, hey, these are the kids who more or less came of age right into the great financial crisis. They're like, wait, stocks can go down also. So I'm not terribly surprised by that once I thought about it. But still, how significant of a shift is this?

[A]

Look, I think it's one to watch. Obviously, we're just starting to see it and digesting the survey results. But one part I think about as millennials is their interest in accessing innovation. Right. Like this is a digital first generation, no doubt. And so when you think again to our earlier comments, how do you access innovation in healthcare, in tech? A lot of that is in the private markets. Right. And so I think part of that also might be the reason why you see millennials, you know, being more inclined to alternatives and being sort of kind of this shift in behavior.

[B]

So let's talk about the percentage of people whose wealth is professionally managed. And obviously the data set that this question goes to is pretty significant. But 59% of wealth amongst a thousand individuals surveyed were professionally managed. And I kind of scratched my head about that because my assumption has been, amongst the ultra wealthy, it's even higher. Just as a matter of, hey, I don't have time or interest in this. Amongst most people, they're running their business, they're continuing to accumulate more wealth. But I'm curious about who was the data set this went to and what do you think of that 59% number, high, low, somewhere in between?

[A]

Well, so it went to 1,000 investors, million dollars of investable assets plus and 25 years old or older.

[B]

So not necessarily Goldman Sachs, not necessarily.

[A]

The ultra high net Worth and frankly part of the intention was to try to get a better sense for the broader individual market, not just the ultra high net worth market. I think you know we have a long history in our wealth business. We know the ultra high net worth space very, very well. And I think in that space if we were to run the survey, I mean very high percentage.

[B]

80, 90%.

[A]

Exactly right. So my guess is that not professionally managed piece are more self directed. At the lower end of the wealth spectrum would be my guess. And maybe younger.

[B]

Right. When you see BlackRock at 12 trillion and Vanguard at 11 trillion, hey someone's running their own portfolio. So it would make sense. 41% or so of people if not more are doing it. It's really interesting to think about what is the mass affluent doing? What is the high net worth doing? What is the ultra high net worth and multifamily office doing? I think as you go up that scale, is it safe to say most of them are working with professional advisors? Is that the.

[A]

That would be. That would be my guess for sure. The other part is if they're self directed and there's some of the other survey data that also shows that I think something less than 50% of advisors have even brought up alternatives with some of the.

[B]

That's really interesting.

[A]

Right. And so you have the self directed that probably are not accessing alternatives because very hard to do that without an advisor you and then you only have something less than 50% of advisors. Bringing up alternatives like this is where the opportunity is. Right on educating the advisors to feel more comfortable talking to investors about alternatives and obviously then educating the investor the end investors.

[B]

So one of the questions you ask led to an answer that I adore because I'm constantly saying to not only the people I work with, but other people. Your clients aren't telling you the truth. They have money away from you. Your wallet share is much lower than you realize until you're with the same advisor for five or ten years and the client is comfortable in shares. But I love this data point. Households with $10 million and up in investable assets typically engage two different advisors compared with one advisor at the mass affluent and high net worth groups. Tell us a little bit about that dual advisor approach. These are. We're not saying two people at the same firm. These could be two completely different firms.

[A]

I think as people go up the wealth spectrum they want to have different options, different viewpoints, have some capital at.

[B]

Different organis, different firms, a little diversification internally.

[A]

Exactly. I do think though from my experience on the wealth side, ultra high net side at Goldman, it does tend to be that over time, though, there is a lead relationship. And I think as you get higher up the wealth spectrum and you have more complexity in your portfolio, a lot of that, namely coming from alternatives, it becomes more and more imperative to have somebody that's the quarterback or the driver, you know, in the pole position as opposed to, you know, as opposed to two people both managing parts of the portfolio.

[B]

You don't want overlap, you don't want.

[A]

You don't want overlap. And you also want, you know, we talked about how hard it is to build these alternatives portfolios, you know, doing that in two places, and how are you managing the liquidity and how are you knowing how you're actually allocated? Overall, I think you start to see this shift to one advisor really being the lead advisor and the other advisor maybe being a secondary advisor.

[B]

So as much as I thought that was a fascinating data point, this one kind of terrifies me. Millennials cite social media more often while boomers rely on traditional media outlets for their investing and financial planning information. Social media, really?

[A]

Well, you know, one of the things that I say, I'm not, definitely not a millennial, but, you know, if you go, Even on your LinkedIn feed, you see videos or, you know, on Instagram from major alternative investing firms, right? And so you can see why millennials are. I don't know what percentage of their time they're spending on social media, but naturally these ads and these videos are getting served up to them there. So it seems logical to me then that that's where they're gonna.

[B]

Well, LinkedIn is probably the most credible of all the social media outlets. But I think of TikTok and Instagram and Twitter. A couple of Years ago, the IRS put out a list of 40 tax statements that they had culled from various social media that were wrong, some of which would lead to penalties, interest, or jail time if you followed them. And they literally. Here are 41 things that we got from social media. Do not do any of these things. So that's why I say I get a little nervous when I see millennials are citing social media. LinkedIn, of all the places, seem to be the most credible because it's business oriented, not some wacky guy telling you that if you're on a boat offshore on April 15, you don't owe any taxes. That was the one that really stayed out with me. Right? So that's all I to do, is just be out on the water April 15th. Could have saved myself A lot of money.

[A]

I mean, look, I think it all goes back to the number one thing that I think we're focused on with respect to alternatives and individual. Individual investors, which is education.

[B]

Right, Absolutely.

[A]

And so hopefully they're not getting their education off of TikTok, but all of us need to think about how do we better educate around the role of alternatives, the risks of alternatives, how you invest in alternatives. And so I think we're spending a lot of time thinking about advisor education and client education and by the way, education that we roll out on social media. Right. Because if that's where they are.

[B]

Right, you gotta meet them where they are.

[A]

That's where we're gonna have to put the education.

[B]

So, so let's bring this back around to alts today. Let's talk about themes. What are you most excited about in private markets? What's new, interesting and you know, thrilling in. Can I use the word thrilling to talk about alts?

[A]

Well, look, I think when I, when you say thrilling, I think about all.

[B]

What are you enthusiastic?

[A]

Innovation. That's happening right now in technology, obviously. How can we have a podcast and not mention AI on any topic I'm not familiar with?

[B]

Tell me a little bit. I haven't heard enough about that.

[A]

But look, I think that what we're seeing in terms of the incredible advances in AI is bringing back a lot of risk appetite to invest in venture and in growth and to participate in what they think is going to be transformational technology advancements around AI. And that permeates not just the venture, tech and growth space, but how AI is going to transform other traditional businesses. Right. So I think that segment is. Is quite interesting. And then a lot of the other things that we think are interesting are a little more not thrilling, which was the word you used.

[B]

Maybe that's the wrong word, but. But what's really interesting with great growth potential. Well, look, that's thrilling to me.

[A]

Yeah. So look, I would say we talked a little about secondaries. We really like secondaries because again, if you think about the primary alternate markets growing, right. More money's going to alternatives, that naturally means the secondary market's going to grow. Right. It's a spillover. It's correlated to the growth of the primary markets and alternatives. So there's me more opportunity there and we really like the risk return for clients there in that segment. So I think that's one space that we very much like. What else would I say?

[B]

You mentioned real assets and very often when you talk about real assets, I think that has Morphed over the past decade and evolved. I used to think of real assets as timber or coal or whatever, but now it's things like infrastructure and data centers, laboratories and healthcare. Tell us a little bit about what the real assets look like.

[A]

Yeah, that's where I was gonna go, I would say for our clients. I think for a long time real assets was real estate.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I think today if you wanted to talk about some of the more interesting parts, it's the things you alluded to, which is what's happening in infrastructure. Infrastructure is one we're spending a lot of time with our clients on because institutions have invested for a long time in infrastructure assets, individuals less so and so trying to understand the role of infrastructure in a portfolio which has a lot of unique benefits. Right. A lot of times it's not correlated to GDP growth. Right. This is a lot of times critical infrastructure things that we need to do. It has inflation protection benefits. Right. Something we didn't need to talk about inflation 10 years ago, but now how do we think about things that are inflation protected with long term contracts with built in escalators? And then the other part is educating around. It's not your grandfather's infrastructure. Right. People tend to think right about bridges and toll roads today. It's the things you talked about. It's digital infrastructure, it's data centers to support AI, you know. Right. It's energy transition. Right. It's a lot of the very, I guess maybe the more thrilling parts of investing are actually in the infrastructure asset class. And so that is part of the real assets that's grown a lot and where there's a lot of interest.

[B]

I wish I could remember where I read this somewhat technically technical piece because we always talk about AI, but you alluded to AI plus another sector. Of all the different parts of the economy that AI is going to have a big impact. This author had made the claim. I read it like two weeks ago. So it's gone. That AI and genomics, oncology and healthcare are going to be amazing because what you can do with AI in terms of testing new molecules and new treatment regimes is just a whole nother level. Are you looking at AI plus another sector or is it just all AI all the time?

[A]

No, definitely plus other sectors. And you're completely on point that life sciences, how's that going to be impacted by AI healthcare? Right. And by the way, every sector in the economy is likely going to be impacted. So how do. When you look at. This goes back to your diligence question. You look at Private equity firms that you're diligencing today, what kind of value creation playbook do they have for their portfolio companies and how are they thinking about the AI opportunity or threat for their portfolio companies? It's going to infuse really all the different sectors of investing within alternatives.

[B]

What other alternative strategies are you seeing the most demand for clients? Like I'm, I'm enthusiastic about AI and life sciences. Are people asking for real assets or for infrastructure or for say, like what are you hearing from the bottom up?

[A]

Well, that would be private credit.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But in response to a relatively low rate environment.

[A]

Correct. What I would say what we're hearing from clients for the last few years has been a search for yield, a desire for yield, and that's led to a lot of interest from the bottom up in private credit. Right. A place where you can be top of the capital structure, so a lot of protection below you and get yields that are high single digits with quarterly cash flow. That's been an area of pretty broad interest across the wealth spectrum in alternatives.

[B]

Really, really interesting. So last question before I get to my favorite questions that I ask all my guests. When it comes to alternatives, what. What are investors not talking about or thinking about, but perhaps should be, what sort of. It could be asset data point policy, what's important that they might be overlooking?

[A]

I guess the thing that comes to mind for me right now and we think about the advent of all these evergreen open ended perpetual funds. Perpetual funds. And there's been a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of growth in some of the sectors. Are investors spending a lot enough time thinking about how big some of these vehicles are getting and then what does that actually mean in terms of how much origination that they need to have to be able to deploy the capital? Right. Because in these evergreens, if you don't actually have, if you have more capital coming in than you can actually invest, you're going to start diluting your returns. Right. You're going to have cash drag. And so, you know, are investors spending time in thinking about who they're investing with and do they have enough origination capabilities to, to be fully invested in high quality investments? So I think that'd be one thing that I would think about. The other thing that I'm interested to see how it evolves is, you know, we're, we're new in this perpetual evergreen ALTS space, you know, last five years, you know, how do we start to see performance divergence over the next five years? Right. I don't think we've Seen a lot yet because we're still in the early innings. And so I'll be curious to see how investors react to performance divergence or negative performance on some of these. And what happens? Do we see redemptions or are investors long term minded and do they stay the course?

[B]

Huh. Really, really interesting. Let me jump to my favorite questions that I ask all of my guests, starting with something that you hinted at but didn't expand on. Tell us about your mentors who helped shape your career.

[A]

So I have to mention Eric Lane. So he was the one who won me in the analyst draft. I then worked with him for decades and I owe a lot of my success to Eric. And part of it is we sat in a trading desk type of format when I started. And the benefit of that was just getting to hear him on the phone every day with clients and see how he managed difficult situations, how he explained things. There was an ability to sort of really apprenticeship right next to him. And the other thing that I just really loved about working with Eric, maybe I hated at the time, was he would throw you into situations that you felt ill prepared for, but he knew you could handle deep end of the pool. Exactly. And sort of just forced you to go into those situations that you may have not thought you were ready for. And that really allowed you to sort of step function, I think, improve in your job and really learn. And then he was always there to support you if it was, it didn't go as well as you.

[B]

Really, really super interesting. Let's talk about books. What are some of your favorites? What are you reading right now?

[A]

So I've really been enjoying the Walter Isaacson biographies and we talked a little about life sciences and one that I.

[B]

I was gonna say, which one of you. So I have Leonardo sitting on a night table out east waiting for me to attend.

[A]

I haven't gotten to that one yet, but it's like.

[B]

It's giant.

[A]

Yeah. So I actually just finished the one on Elon Musk, but the one that I really liked was Code Breaker, about Jennifer Doudna who discovered crispr.

[C]

Are you looking for a new podcast about stuff related to money?

[A]

Well, today's your lucky day.

[C]

I'm Matt Levine.

[A]

And I'm Katie Greifeld and we are.

[C]

The hosts of Money Stuff, the podcast. Every Friday we dive into the top stories about Wall street, finance and other stuff.

[A]

We have fun, we get weird and we want you to join us.

[C]

You can listen to Money Stuff, the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

All Right, Next question. What are you streaming these days? Give us your favorite podcast. Netflix, Amazon Prime. What's keeping you entertained?

[A]

I just started watching an old series I'm only two episodes in, which is Scandal. So that's what I'm watching right now. A little bit Washington D.C. intrigue in terms of podcasts, of course, all the Bloomberg podcasts and yours, you don't have to do that. But actually, if I were to say one that I listen to from time to time just for some comedy, Smartless.

[B]

I love that. I'm a big fan of Jason Bateman, not his sister Justine.

[A]

They always have great guests and they're so funny.

[B]

So I've interviewed Michael Lewis a million times and. And after his daughter was killed in a car accident, they had him on and it was a few months later and he describes the grief process. He's just such an extraordinary human being. To listen to someone share that it was both amazing and terrible at the same time. But they're always fun and they all seem to torment each other. They're very amusing. Final two questions. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad interested in a career in either alternatives or wealth management?

[A]

Well, I think that the benefit that a recent college grad has is there's so much information at their fingertips to get smart and to get be interested and to learn about the industry before they come into it and to be really well educated. You know, it was a lot harder 27 years ago. Right now, everything's at their fingertips. So I think be prepared and then don't be scared to network.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Use your relationships, meet people, reach out. I think that would be the best advice.

[B]

Really, really good. Final question. What do you know about the world of alternative investing today? Would have been helpful back in 2000 when you were moving into this space?

[A]

Well, I think about it a little bit personally, which is, you know, we have evolved a lot in how we advise clients to invest in alter we talked about the process. How do you think about sizing and building it out year in, year out? And if I look back to when I started, I definitely didn't have that rigor in my own personal investing in alts and definitely undersized was not diversified enough. And so I think I wish all of the rigor we've put into it I had known back then in terms of how we were building portfolios personally and for our clients.

[B]

Really super interesting. Kristen, thank you for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking with Kristin Olson. She's Goldman Sachs global head of Alternatives for Wealth. If you enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and check out any of the 568 we've done before over the past 11 years. You can find those at Bloomberg, itunes, Spotify, or here on YouTube or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And be sure and check out my new book, how not to Invest. The ideas, numbers and behaviors that destroy wealth and how to avoid them how not to Invest at your favorite bookseller. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack team that helps with these conversations together each week. Alexis Noriega is my video producer. Anna Luke is my audio producer. Sean Russo is my head of research. Sage Bauman is the head of podcasts here at Bloomberg. I'm Barry Ritholtz. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

[C]

Are you looking for a new podcast about stuff related to money?

[A]

Well, today's your lucky day.

[C]

Hi, I'm Matt Levine.

[A]

And I'm Katie Greifeld and we are.

[C]

The hosts of Money Stuff, the podcast. Every Friday we dive into the top stories about Wall street, finance and other stuff.

[A]

We have fun, we get weird and we want you to join us.

[C]

You can listen to Money Stuff, the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.