The “Lebron James of investing”

Dan Sundheim, founder of D1 capital, is an absolute legend that (almost) no one knows about

Here’s his story, along with some mind blowing quotes

Dan did his undergrad at Wharton, where people described him as being humble, smart and loyal

College friends said “Dan was particularly down to earth and fun to hang out with casually: absolutely no cockiness or pretentiousness”

A rarity among HF types

He always liked investing, particularly in tech companies. He traded names like F5 (still operating) during the dot-com bubble and eschewed names like http://pets.com  which went belly up

“He’s a little bit aloof in the sense that he’s always thinking about something”

After Wharton, he worked at Bear Stearns in the merchant banking division

Everybody who worked with him knew he was going to be uniquely successful

In his spare time, he used to read and post on VIC winning the then-popular stock picking completion four times

He subsequently said that “reading the write ups taught me how to invest as much as any textbook, class or mentor”

He anonymously wrote an expose of Orthodontics Centers of America claiming they were a fraud

The stock eventually went to zero, but no one knew he wrote it

Eventually he landed himself a gig at Andreas Halvorsens famous HF, Viking Global

He initially covered FIG in 2002, but rose the ranks to become the CIO in 2010

A former Viking PM said “I wonder if his resting heart rate is 40” as a testament to his patience and calmness

The remarkable thing is he never had sector expertise. He had big winners in all kinds of different industries

One former colleague said “I think of Dan like Lebron James. Whatever team he is going to be on is going to be a contender because he makes everyone around him better”

Another former Viking colleague said “He asked just enough to know whether the idea you were pitching was good or not”

Meanwhile, Fred Pollock the CIO of Grosvenor described Sundheim as a “generational talent”

High praise for someone with little recognition

D1 - founded in 2018 - stands for “Day One” which is an ode to Jeff Bezos’ philosophy of avoiding complacency and continually adapting

His goal was to combine the best parts of a big manager and a family office

D1 is a crossover fund investing in public and private markets

John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, in which D1 is investing said:

“They’re not the first people to have the idea to cross over, but they seem to have done it better than anyone else...I’ll get random macro thoughts from Dan at 3 in the morning - I don’t know when he sleeps”

Something great investors always talk about is intuition and having to make judgement calls without perfect info

Another Viking PM said “We can all be looking at the same 10 stocks, but he’ll have an intuitive knack for which one the multiple will go from 15x to 25x”

While we all hear about the managers on CNBC, Sundheim gets some of the highest praise

“Certain people are born to do certain things, and Dan was born to deploy capital”

“Dan is a legend to everyone in the know and he will be a legend to everyone else soon enough”

I think there’s two key takeaways from this profile

1) Being a jack of all trades and having the ability to be competent across industries, geographies and public/private is immensely valuable

2) You can’t teach or learn the intangibles

There’s a lot more interesting tidbits about Dan and his life (and what he’s done with his wealth), but wanted to keep this manageable

Here’s the main source if you’re interested in reading more: https://www.businessinsider.com/dan-sundheim-profile-d1-viking-billionaire-net-worth-bio-performance-2020-10