Rusty Guinn

Rusty Guinn

Co-Founder and CEO

 @WRGuinn

Rusty Guinn is co-Founder and CEO of Second Foundation Partners, LLC, and has been a contributing author to Epsilon Theory since 2017.

Before Ben and Rusty established Second Foundation, Rusty served in a variety of investment roles in several organizations. He managed and operated a $10+ billion investment business, led investment strategy for the second largest wealth management franchise in Houston, and sat on the management committee of the 6th largest public pension fund in the United States.

Most recently, Rusty was Executive Vice President over the retail and institutional asset management businesses at Salient Partners in Houston, Texas. There he oversaw the 5-year restructuring and transition of Salient’s $10 billion money management business from legacy fund-of-funds products to a dedicated real assets franchise.

He previously served as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Opportunistic Investments at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $12 billion portfolio spanning public and private investments. Rusty also served as a portfolio manager for TRS’s externally managed global macro hedge fund and long-only equity portfolios. He led diligence, process development and the allocation of billions of dollars across a wide range of indirect and principal investments.

Rusty’s career also includes roles with de Guardiola Advisors, an investment bank serving the asset management industry, and Asset Management Finance, a specialized private equity investor in asset management companies.

He is a graduate of the Wharton School, and lives on a farm in Fairfield, Connecticut with wife Pam and sons Winston and Harry. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Houston Youth Symphony, and with Pam has been a long-time supporter and founding Friend of the Houston Shakespeare Festival. He plays guitar and drums on the worship team at his church in Connecticut, and dabbles in cooking, whisky, progressive rock and beating Ben at trivia.

Articles by Rusty:

Non-Verbal Narrative

By Rusty Guinn | June 23, 2021 | 1 Comment

We make it no secret that our research program here is all about using natural language processing to identify and measure narratives in the world.…

Headline Risk

By Rusty Guinn | June 22, 2021 | 5 Comments

The average American news consumer is exposed to far more headline text on news websites, social media apps and content aggregation sites than they are…

A Working Narrative

By Rusty Guinn | June 7, 2021 | 12 Comments

The future of remote work after the pandemic ends has been a part of the zeitgeist for more than a year.

Now it IS the zeitgeist. It is also a narrative battlefield being actively conflated with a half dozen other major social and policy topics.

Radiant: A Sneak Peek

By Rusty Guinn | June 1, 2021 | Comments Off on Radiant: A Sneak Peek

We have been working on developing a platform for expanding our narrative monitors for almost a year now.

We are really excited to show it to you – and to work with you to develop something that will be USEFUL and ACTIONABLE.

Image of Wormwood, the father and slick car salesman from Matilda

Manheim Steamroller

By Rusty Guinn | April 26, 2021 | 16 Comments

When we talk about and plan for inflation in our businesses and portfolios, we are usually focused on direction and magnitude. We also usually abstract away from price volatility.

We shouldn’t.

What Do We Need To Be True?

By Rusty Guinn | April 6, 2021 | 44 Comments

Modeling Common Knowledge by analyzing Missionary statements and their reverberations works. Except when it doesn’t.

Hot and Cold

By Rusty Guinn | March 23, 2021 | 26 Comments

Most of us are under the impression that a protracted conflict within China will increase national unity. Not this time.

A Freaky Circle

By Rusty Guinn | March 9, 2021 | 3 Comments

Excessive complexity in a deal or structure isn’t necessarily nefarious, but it also isn’t a good sign. The distraction and confusion you and I feel reading about these deals is usually not the problem.

It is the point.

The Third Rail Switch

By Rusty Guinn | February 23, 2021 | 21 Comments

In the same way that narrative shaped a conversation about the role of police going forward in 2020, narrative can shape a conversation about the role of teacher unions and public sector unions more broadly. My money is still on the status quo, but I’ve been wrong before.

Hammers and Nails

By Rusty Guinn | February 8, 2021 | 16 Comments

When we talk about bias, we usually think about a political bias. But the world of 2021 now supports persistent idiosyncratic biases and frames through which information is passed. How do we ensure that our information consumption habits account for this?