Matt Ober of Social Leverage on Embracing Data, Information, and Technology to Make Smarter Decisions

Today’s guest, Matt Ober, is a really good friend of mine. We laugh about everything – but now we’re laughing on the same team, which is the best. Matt joined Social Leverage as a GP a few months ago – and he’s the upgrade we’ve needed to think about the future as the surface of tech continues to expand. Matt was most recently the Chief Data Scientist at Third Point. Prior to that he was head of Data Strategy at WorldQuant and part of the WorldQuant Ventures founding team focused on private investments.

Matt is based out of New York City, which gives us boots on the ground there as the web evolves into the next web. He’s also started his own company, which we talk a little bit about; I’m always excited to have people on our team who have companies – it keeps the entrepreneurial juices flowing. Matt is wicked smart and knows the business. We overachieved by bringing him on board. He’s got all the gifts – he knows how to be social, and how to ask the right questions.

You can listen to the podcast here on Spotify or Apple podcast and now all the episodes are on my Youtube channel as well. You can click subscribe on any of these channels and get the podcast alert each week.

You can also listen right here on the blog:

More details on the podcast are below…

Guest: Matt Ober

Profile: General Partner at Social Leverage

Where to Find Him: LinkedIn, Twitter

What’s Matt Panicked About?: The things I hear about Howard Lindzon are actually true.

Show Notes:

• Introduction. (00:39)
• Welcome Matt. (05:19)
• Working with Social Leverage (06:41)
• Starting out at Bloomberg (07:18)
• Responding to a Craigslist ad (08:07)
• No information overload, only filter failure (09:33)
• Learning the startup business (11:07)
• Good rabbit holes and bad rabbit holes (12:40)
• Working with Dan Loeb at Third Point (13:51)
• Getting into crypto (15:12)
• Why crypto is enticing to smart people (17:02)
• Matt’s startup (18:01)
• Consistent returns on the quant side (21:19)
• More freedom with a smaller firm (23:00)
• Concentration v. 1,000s of positions (24:17)
• Geography matters less now (25:02)
• Leveraging web3 to build the future (25:20)
• Talent migration (27:02)
• The next generation of digital natives (27:15)
• Staying connected by disconnecting (28:04)
• What Matt reads to stay ahead (30:27)
• It’s data, content, filters, and your network (33:29)
• Wrapping up (35:06)
• Closing thoughts. (39:44)

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