Invest Like The Best
Episode 116 Future of Finance
Invest Like The Best

Episode 116: Future of Finance

Invest Like The Best

Episode 116

Future of Finance

Abby Johnson, Tom Jessop, and Vipin Mayar all work at Fidelity Investments as chairman and CEO, President of Digital Assets, and CTO respectively. We cover trends in asset management, AI and blockchain, and leadership.

[00:01:16] - (First Question) - [Abby] A look at the early part of Abby’s career

[00:02:45] - Analyzing the skill of capital allocators

[00:03:27] - A look at the asset management world of today and what to focus on today

[00:37:23] - A set of decision-making principles that guide Abby

[00:12:55] - Their strategy around the digitization of the world

[00:16:07] - Balance between robo-advisors and humans and the markers of a good relationship

[00:18:24] - What is the future of the role of the human in these relationships

[00:20:15] - Their interest in emerging technologies like Blockchain

[00:24:50] - Will crypto be its own asset class in the future

[00:25:58] - [Tom] State of the business and the most interesting points of change

[00:28:14] - Who is winning the battle for the next generation of investors

[00:29:24] - How much of the change in financial business is cyclical

[00:30:17] - What are businesses doing right to bridge that generational gap

[00:31:01] - What does the future of the asset management industry look like

[00:32:13] - What technologies could impact the asset management business the most

[00:33:44] - The difference between machine learning and AI in this format

[00:35:26] - In what way will AI impact these processes and replace humans

[00:36:41] - What has him most excited about the future

[00:37:54] - Advice for people thinking about pursuing a career in financial services

[00:39:20] - Markers of a business that would be attractive for the next generation to consider working for

[00:40:33] - The importance of brand when thinking about their business and those they work with

[00:41:57] - Ways of engendering trust from a branding perspective1

[00:43:20] - Kindest thing anyone has done for Tom

[00:44:28] - [Vipin] Building a team around AI

[00:45:21] - Markers for a good data strategy

[00:47:25] - Kindest thing anyone has done for Vipin

[00:48:58] - [Abby] - How Fidelity thinks about data as an investing initiative

[00:50:24] - Differentiating attributes of good analysts and if they’ve changed

[00:51:34] - Investor she has always enjoyed learning from

[00:52:37] - Favorite Peter Lynch story

[00:53:17] - Business lessons that people could take away from Abby

[00:54:59] - The role of women in financial services and what can be done to improve the situation there

[00:57:35] - Trends that Abby is most excited to explore

[01:00:22] - Positives and negatives of being part of a family business

[01:01:46] - Kindest thing anyone has done for Abby

Future of Finance

Introduction

Patrick
Over the summer, I spent time with Abby Johnson, who is the chairman and CEO of Fidelity Investments and several other businesses lead at Fidelity to understand how a very large firm like theirs is navigating change in our industry. What follows is a condensed version of my various conversations with Abby and her team. We discussed the big buzzwords like blockchain and machine learning, but also thoughts on leadership, client centricity, and measures of success. I hope you enjoy this exploration. So I thought a really fun place to start would be early on in your career, specifically with your first experiences in the investing world, maybe even industries that you covered and describe those early experiences because I always like that as a framing for the bigger picture things that we'll talk about.

Abby
So when I first joined Fidelity after I got out of business school, I joined in 1988 as an equity analyst, and I was assigned industrial equipment as the industry to follow. And as you can imagine, the brand new analysts didn't get all the plum assignments. So my assignment was no exception, and I spent a lot of time traveling to the Midwest where most of the companies were located. And so my early experience in investing was really learning how to analyze and try to figure out how to make money in maturity declining industries. So as you can imagine, that industry today is quite a bit smaller than it was back in the late '80s. It was actually a really great way to learn how to invest because you had to really look a lot at valuations and whether the company had a long-term future because so much consolidation was going on because it wasn't a growing industry that you had to think about that as well.

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