Where am I coming from?

In 2017, I came across the phrase Sapere Aude, a Latin phrase meaning dare to know or dare to be wise.  In his 1784 essay What is Enlightenment?, Immanuel Kant wrote, “Sapere aude! ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’ – that is the motto of enlightenment.” That sentiment set me on a course through nature, Wall Street, the Transcendentalist movement, the institutional investment industry, and back to nature again. A core principle emerged - daring to think for oneself and trusting one's internal compass.

From the beginning of recorded history (and presumably before then), trade has been used as a means of survival – bartering for goods and services, the creation of credit, and most recently, the fiat monetary system. Like the humans that built it, the system has evolved over generations, creating the complex adaptive system we know today as Capitalism. Even with its flaws and often misguided bastardization – Capitalism has created the most dynamic and fruitful civilizations the world has ever seen.

Following the advice of my late grandfather – “follow the money” – I studied Economics and Finance and ended up landing an internship at one of the largest financial institutions in the world – JPMorgan Chase. It was here where my love of the craft of investing was born.

During my studies, Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments and later, with The Wealth of Nations, the metaphor of the “invisible hand” created a burning question in me:

How is it that a collection of disparate humans can come together in a marketplace, chasing their own self-interests, yet seemingly still create a flourishing society?

Markets are complex ecosystems – millions of people all vying for scarce capital, seeking to bring their intuitions and ideas to life. The "invisible hand" was meant to be the answer, guiding capital to its highest and best use.

However, I entered the investment industry in 2019, wide-eyed and eager, only to face a baptism-by-fire as history unfolded around me:

• A global pandemic (COVID - 2019)
• Zero interest rate policy (ZIRP - 2020)
• Fiscal stimulus not seen since WWII (2020-2022)
• A Federal Reserve hiking cycle at a pace and magnitude seen only a few times in history (2022-2023)
• A banking crisis... as a bank analyst no less (Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic – 2023)
• A technological platform shift, with AI
• And of course, the meme coins, zombie companies, and SPAC speculation

Through it all, one lesson stands above the rest: the necessity of a deliberate and well-anchored philosophy - both in life and investing. In his Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn from what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

In my relatively short investment career, I have watched many “smart” people get completely wiped out by short-termism, herd mentality, borrowed conviction, greed, and outright fraud.

Walden Capital Management Company (WCMC) is a rejection of these forces. It is a deliberate rejection of speculation for the sake of speculation, narratives divorced from reality and rigorous analysis, and the pervasive short-termism and complacency that erodes market integrity. At WCMC, our process is rooted in first principles, deep fundamental research, and a respect for history and the philosophical building blocks of our economic system. Just as Thoreau sought to strip life down to its essence, WCMC seeks to distill the world of economics and investing to its fundamental truths. In an era dominated by noise, hype, and fleeting trends, WCMC is committed to clarity, patience, and the pursuit of enduring value.