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Bruce Greenwald

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What have you learned watching Bruce?

The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Eric Almeraz '02, partner at Apis Capital and Heilbrunn Center adjunct faculty member writes "The most valuable thing I learned from Bruce was a firsthand lesson in competition. One year, after starting our first class as adjunct professors teaching AVI, my teaching partner and I realized about half our class was missing. I poked my head out the door just as Bruce was walking into the adjacent room to teach a class. A number of our students followed. We realized our students were playing hooky in order to catch a glimpse of Bruce’s class. We’re a lot more careful about scheduling now!"
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Khachig Tölölyan, professor and director, College of Letters at Wesleyan University writes "I have learned a lot, much of which I can't emulate because my brain is not powerful enough. Above all, he is a humbling example of how indispensable it is to master data and detail and to be able link that to an analysis of larger trends and issues. When he is discussing those larger patterns, he can comment on American society in a globalized world with a combination of shrewdness and intellectual daring that often dazzles me. I am not always fully convinced by some of his larger interpretive leaps, but I learn so much while trying to resist them that I am reminded over and over again how trying to disagree with him can make me smarter, can educate me."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Jon Salinas of Plymouth Lane Capital and Heilbrunn Center adjunct faculty member writes "The ability of a business to defend against competition is the most important component of all analysis. Also, surround oneself with not only great investors but great people."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Ken Shubin Stein of Spencer Capital and Heilbrunn Center adjunct faculty member writes "Bruce has taught me a tremendous amount about teaching and helping students. He is incredibly supportive and I feel lucky to teach in his program."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington writes "I learned to look at things shrewdly, practically, and in great depth. I learned not to overcomplicate and that when it seems overly complicate and illegitimate, it probably is and isn’t just so smart that it’s over my head. I learned that the world is understandable and businesses are understandable."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Leo Cruz '14 writes "What I learned most from watching Professor Greenwald over the years is that you have to have the courage of your convictions. In light of any opposition, if he thought he was right (and he usually was), he said so and stuck to his guns. But he always backed it up with facts and supreme reasoning. He has a deserved confidence that I always admired."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Rick Carew ’12 writes "He has taught the nuts and bolts of how to build a core philosophy that will beat the stock market in the long-term. His academic ability to differentiate between the value and the momentum camps through case studies is unique among his peers."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Tom Russo, partner at Gardner Russo Gardner and Heilbrunn Center advisory board member writes "The irrelevance of the word “MAYBE” …. Bruce has strong convictions and watching him succeed against the crush of investment theorists who decry value investing as a discipline forces responses that are firm and resolute, leaving little room for 'maybe this' or 'maybe that' …."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Kevin Oro-Hahn '10, vice president at Ingalls & Snyder and Heilbrunn Center adjunct faculty member writes " It's not a stretch to say almost everything of lasting value that I've learned about investing was mediated in some way by Bruce Greenwald. Bruce has been a direct influence through his teaching and personal interactions. Indirectly his influence is perhaps even greater through the value investing program he built, with its broad and deep content, engaging faculty and smart and curious students. He has not only preserved, but has modernized and expanded, the tremendous intellectual legacy of Ben Graham.

Watching Bruce's mind at work is a fascinating and pleasurable experience. He combines a first rate intellect with far reaching curiosity, resulting in an often astonishing ability to reach piercing clarity at the other end of complexity. Perhaps Vaclav Havel's observation applies to investing as well: that when a person decides to devote themselves to literature alone, it is often literature that suffers for it. In Bruce's case, many have benefitted from his extraordinary intellectual range. Had he focused on competitive strategy or macroeconomics alone, his insights would not carry their poignant richness. Instead, he incorporates deep insights into psychology, technology, sociology, culture, pedagogy and almost any other conceivable area of human knowledge, and translates those insights with elegance and simplicity.

A personal interaction is particularly memorable for me. At one dinner event, Bruce's full attention turned to my 8 year old son and 11 year old daughter. Bruce effortlessly struck up a conversation about literature and mathematics that was carefully calibrated to their interests and knowledge level. Just like with countless students over the years, Bruce's insights, curiosity and humor completely enraptured both children and inspired them to learn and to wonder. I and many others are better for knowing him."