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a critical part of their business and determines the leverage used, percentage risked per position, degree of diversification, and number of positions in the portfolio. They also understand the importance of managing information flow to their advantage.

They have developed a business and they are attempting to institutionalize it. They are developing an infrastructure and culture. They are empowering key employees with decision-making ability. Most often, the organizations are built around specialist teams.

Many of these managers receive considerable allocations from institutions, which provide a relatively stable long-term asset base.

The common threads highlighted in this chapter are often general themes while execution, strategy, and details may be quite different for each of the managers. The degree of importance of these issues varies by manager. Thus where it seemed important and was highlighted by him, I conveyed these details. In trying to illustrate the range and variation, I present the views on a continuum.

BEST AND BRIGHTEST

After each interview, I was truly amazed at each person and his qualities. Take Ken Griffin—he started his first hedge fund while he was a sophomore at college. At 32 years old, his assets under management now total approximately $5.0 billion and he has about 350 people working for him. Another example is Leon Cooperman, who was nonstop in his search for information. He could carry on an interview with me while also talking to chief executive officers and other senior managers. Bruce Kovner analyzes information flowing in from all sources—including oil tankers he purchased as a source of intelligence. Or Raj Rajaratnam, who as quarterback of the Galleon Group was tireless and omnipresent as he managed the Galleon Technology and New Media funds, often accompanied analysts to their company meetings, met officers of about two to three companies a day, visited about 25 companies in California one week out of every month, and also made it a point to meet with investors rather than delegate it to someone else. S. Donald Sussman of Paloma was impressive and seems ahead of his time. Focusing on market neutral strategies since the early 1980s, he created an internal money management team with the risk management controlled by the investor, not the manager.