He's Made Money On 95% Of His Deals (Here's How) | Christopher Zook

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Christopher Zook (1:00)

For our firm, we're 25 years old. We literally on 95% of all of our realized and unrealized investments in the private markets, we've made money, 95%. I'll put that batting average up against anybody. But what it comes down to is that we completely remove emotion from the equation.

Anthony Pompliano (1:14)

What's going on guys? Today we've got a great conversation with Christopher Zook. He's the founder, chairman and CIO at CAZ Investments. He is business partners and co-author with Tony Robbins. And they wrote a book called The Holy Grail of Investing, an excellent book, I highly suggest you go check it out. But today's conversation, we talk a little bit about the book. But the majority of the conversation is focused on how do you invest in a dynamic environment where technology is rapidly changing. Bitcoin, crypto, space and defense, artificial intelligence, sports teams, GP stakes and much more. These guys manage $13 billion in assets. He has navigated lots of different markets, many different industries, and they have done a fantastic job for investors. I think you're going to enjoy listening to one of the smart money guys talk about how he's investing in new technologies and new markets. All of this conversation is with Christopher Zook. Hope you enjoy it. All right, Kaz, I think it's very interesting. You run a $13 billion asset management firm. You invest across everything from GP stakes to sports teams, to crypto infrastructure, to space and defense. I mean, literally everything. You've got a very unique view, I think, of you want to be concentrated in winners, but you also want diversification. Can you maybe help us understand for the investors that are watching this?

How should they be thinking about investing in a dynamic world where it seems like there's lots of opportunity, but human nature is still the same, markets are still structured very similarly? How are you guys navigating this given the large bull capital you have to deploy?

Christopher Zook (2:35)

No, the first thing is that the only free lunch is diversification. It is critically important to have conviction and to believe in what it is that you're investing in, but at the same time, you have to be diversified enough to where, if you happen to be wrong or early, which can be the same as wrong, but could work out okay in the end, but you need to be able to have a position that you can live with and that you can endure potentially some time.

So many people, they get so concentrated, and one thing that they're very excited about, and so they go quote unquote all in in that particular area, and ultimately what happens is the first sign of trouble, particularly in the public markets, they basically get taken out because they just don't have the staying power.

We have those saying in the industry, they just don't have the gut to be able to handle the volatility of the public markets. In the private markets, we don't have to worry about that, but at the same time, there's other risks that you have to be mindful of, and so over concentration with a lot of leverage is a very fast way to get taken out on the structure. So what we try to do is try to look at everything from the standpoint of what's the theme that we can believe in, what's the best risk reward way to take advantage of that theme, and then we're gonna find whoever's the very best in the world and partner with them in various large size and scale to be able to make it a fantastic win-win for everybody that's involved. But it's something to where most people, they literally just, you know, that sounds great, let me do that, and they have no thesis behind it. They have no theme as to why they're doing it. And ultimately that can end up with a very just kind of haphazard, you know, as we refer to it in some sectors, you know, spray and pray, you know, we don't wanna do that either. You gotta have conviction, you gotta pick names, you have to size them right, and then ultimately have things that are zigging and zagging at different times. That's the best way to build a portfolio.