Swensen likes to talk about how he looks for money managers who have “a screw loose.” In terms of self-interest, the rational thing to do if you run a hedge fund or private equity firm is concentrate on raising as much money as possible and grow rich off the fees. The managers Swensen wants are driven by a different ambition. They want to beat their competitors’ returns, whether or not that translates into maximum personal enrichment. The ideal Swensen manager looks a lot like Swensen, who passed up Wall Street lucre to ensure that the university he loves is rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Bloomberg’s How David Swensen Made Yale Fabulously Rich

– Andrew Leaf, Analyst