“There’s this thing called alpha, which is returns driven by skill not market return. And when you start to think about what does that mean, skill means you’re doing something that other people aren’t. You have to be different from the average. What can drive that? How are you going to have that be positive expected value? You need to have unique information, unique insight, unique access, or get uniquely lucky." — Jacob Miller

Jacob Miller is the Co-Founder and Opto’s Chief Solutions Officer, a key figure in its leadership team and central to its growth strategy. He spearheads initiatives for Opto's fiduciary partnerships and the systemization of institutional-quality private markets investment techniques and programs.

Before co-founding Opto, Miller spent nearly five years as an investor at Bridgewater Associates. Miller has a passion for sensible long-term investing, systematizing investment processes, and distilling complex market dynamics into clear, logical linkages that help people better understand their investments. Having managed money for family and friends since he was 16, Miller is a certified market junkie. While he has a background in macroeconomics and high-yield debt, he finds the challenges and opportunities in the private markets space far more interesting and important, both for investors and society.

You can find Jacob on his socials here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-m-08b32967/

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro

[01:49] Why did Jacob start investing at 8 years old?

[07:20] The fallacies of storytelling

[08:49] Inputs, framework, and outputs

[09:21] Jake's mental framework for alpha

[12:31] Pete Soderling's unique access

[13:49] Jacob on defense tech VCs

[14:57] How does Jacob underwrite relationships in defense?

[16:30] How do you know if someone's been preaching a story before it became a story?

[20:16] The difference b/w an opinion and an insight

[23:07] Why does Jacob write?

[25:42] Running with Joe Lonsdale at 8:30AM

[29:12] 2 wildly different billionaires

[31:48] What does Jacob want for the world?

[36:23] What keeps Jacob humble?

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