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:

It’s Twue, it’s Twue!

By Rusty Guinn | October 30, 2018 | 7 Comments

Using facts in your analysis doesn’t make your analysis a fact. Punchy language that leans on these ‘facts’ doesn’t often stand up to scrutiny.

An Ocean of Indifference

By Rusty Guinn | October 29, 2018 | 2 Comments

Sometimes the absence of a clear central Narrative can tell us something about a stock, too.

Innocent Monsters

By Rusty Guinn | October 28, 2018 | 14 Comments

The paradox of the Widening Gyre is that even when you’re right, you may be wrong.

Figaro

By Rusty Guinn | October 23, 2018 | 5 Comments

In Part 4 of the Three-Body Alpha series, we explore how narrative may shape the tendencies of certain trend-following strategies – and how investors should respond. We also talk Tesla, if you’re into that sort of thing.

They ALL Came in Through the Bathroom Window

By Rusty Guinn | October 23, 2018 | 5 Comments

When reading news, especially financial news, be vigilant for strings of causality. Most financial events are extremely overdetermined.

O God, Make Me Humble

By Rusty Guinn | October 22, 2018 | 9 Comments

We have built industry standards around minimizing the appearance of risk. As a result, we now have an epidemic of ability-signaling, when what we really need is humility.

The Tells of Fiat News

By Rusty Guinn | October 20, 2018 | 1 Comment

The mechanics of effective storytelling and the tells of Fiat News are very similar. Add knowledge of them to your news-reading arsenal.

The Grammar of Risk

By Rusty Guinn | October 19, 2018 | 4 Comments

Take it from a list of terrible pop songs (and one OK, if overrated song from the Doors): lessons that provide an answer instead of a process are usually lessons badly taught and badly learned.

Investment Diligence and the Cornelius Effect

By Rusty Guinn | October 18, 2018 | 8 Comments

Nobody likes to admit it, but the investment industry hires and invests with the smartest-seeming people that seem sufficiently likable. And it doesn’t work.

Locusts’ Lament

By Rusty Guinn | October 15, 2018 | 4 Comments

There is a huge gap in the narrative and language used to describe private equity and hedge funds. Even when it is correct, it calls for caution in our discussions and decision-making.