From Zero to Sixty on Hedge Funds and Private Equity 3.0

The Goal of this Book: 

The goal of this book is to give you two things regarding hedge funds, private equity, and other asset management firms. Two things that anybody can learn and then use to talk about with their friends and coworkers. 

The first is the knowledge - a foundation tool set of key words, industry phrases and financial concepts made clear in plain english. This book puts meanings and understanding to terms you may have already heard in finance but did not quite understand. There is no math and there are no equations. This is not an academic paper nor does it want to be. The goal is to help you grasp that concepts. Just interesting stories and detailed explanations to get you familiar with a variety of topics: 

• How hedge and private equity funds are structured

• Who their investors are

• Pension funds and endowments. The model practiced by the $20 billion Yale Endowment and the $650 billion Norway Pension Fund

• Fund investing strategies. Event-driven (including IPOs, splits and spinoffs), merger arbitrage, private equity type sidepockets, and more

• Junk bonds, options, swaps, and other derivatives

• Leveraged buyouts and other types of private equity investing

• Venture capital funds and big changes affecting the venture capital industry

The second thing you get makes this more than just a compilation of Wikipedia articles. Imagine yourself sitting next to a fund or an investor in a fund and observing them do something or make a move. Sure you want to know “what” they did but the stuff that would be truly interesting is the “why”. What is going through their head in doing this? This book walks you through it all so that you get to take in the mindsets, perspectives and incentives of the fund’s managers, investors and more. There is a whole lot more strategy going on than what you might at first think. 

It does not matter who you are: A student in school thinking about joining the alternative asset management industry, a retiree who wants to know more about these weird fund things, or a person who works with or near a hedge fund but has no idea what they really do. Does not matter. The only thing you need to have is a desire to start learning. If you are familiar with some of it, you can build on it here. If you are beginning from scratch (just as I myself was), you are in good hands.


About 3.0: 

The third version of From Zero to Sixty is an update on many of the growing trends in hedge funds and private equity from the rise and fall of global macro investing to the emergence of sovereign wealth funds as the most powerful investing entities on Earth. Performance figures and statistics are updated. New concepts like short squeezes are brought to light. It is more of what you want to know.  

Despite the 3.0 moniker and the new cover, this book’s goal remains the same: Bring people up to speed on a fast-moving and complicated industry full of difficult lingo. This book is an education, a learning course set up with you in mind. That has not changed. The world changes every day. This book wants you to help you keep up with it.