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Bruce Greenwald

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What is your favorite memory of Bruce?

The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Ethan Binder '06, partner at Slate Path Capital and Heilbrunn Center adjunct faculty member writes " My favorite memory of Bruce is really more multiple memories of him arguing a point and making up the facts. Not only is he one of the smartest people I know but I don't think he has ever lost an argument as he very smoothly will make up the facts in order to prove his points if necessary! I've know Bruce for my entire life as he has also been a close family friend. His books are what initially got me so interested in investing in college. And his advice on firms to work for while in business school is the reason why I work where I do today. Bruce has had a positive and profound impact on me personally and professionally that will always be remembered and appreciated."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Tano Santos, Heilbrunn Center academic co-director writes "The best Bruce moments happen in the least expected way; the quick comment that in a single line illuminates the issue at hand, or the sharp and witty retort. I also love those moments when he takes a controversial position and it is Bruce against the entire room (too many of these moments to single out any of them.) We all have witnessed this many times. But to pick a moment there is a recent one that left a strong impression on me and that showed a different but not unexpected side of Bruce. Recently we had a distinguished investor in our legends class; his analysts were at hand as well. The investor presented a case for a company that Bruce had also looked at and rejected. At the end of the presentation the two analysts in the class approached him, innocently, to meet him. Bruce immediately started going over the specifics of the investment idea. His command of the details of the financials, the economics of the firm, the knowledge of the industry, the ancillary evidence that he was bringing to bear in the discussion were stunning. Here you had these two young bright men and they could scarcely keep up with Bruce. Yes, he is brilliant but he also does his homework."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Khachig Tölölyan, professor and director, College of Letters at Wesleyan University writes "We have known each other for over 41 years, starting in January 1975, when we were instructors at Wesleyan University still working on our PhDs and living in modest faculty housing. Bruce would show up at 2 AM and say "I am hungry, can you make a tuna sandwich?" and then at 3 AM we would drive ten miles to the Olympia diner, the only all-night place in that stretch of central Connecticut, drink coffee, eat pie, and talk about money, love, politics and ideas. We were ravenous for ideas. For decades, he or I have gone on sudden road trips to see the other, to reconnect, to talk about ideas. One day, my wife Ellen and I were in Paris; I had not told him where we would be. With his uncanny ability to track me down, which he has demonstrated repeatedly, he showed up in the obscure location where we were and we got into a rental car and drove to Verdun, to stand at the ridge and look down on ground where 800,000 men were casualties in 1916.
We talked about war and history, not just the gore but the conceptions and misconceptions that led western Europe to try and commit suicide twice, once in 1914 and again in 1939. Standing between Ellen, the love of my life, and my best friend, looking out at a scene of almost unbearable sadness, I was as happy as I have ever been."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Louisa Schneider, former Heilbrunn Center director writes "Too many to count. The first time I realized he knew the names of everyone at the School-not the deans or his co faculty but the staff at the deli and in operations - he cares about people and takes time to acknowledge them. He always over tips. He makes people feel appreciated. His generosity is almost hard to fathom. Every speaking engagement or consulting fee, he donates.
His sense of humor is at the core of who he is as well. And he loves to laugh.
I remember once teaching a course with him where a student brought a real live chimpanzee into the classroom. His response, and the fact that he claimed the chimp was more polite than some of his students was priceless and made the entire room roar with laughter.
Finally, his mind. I remember walking across campus with Bruce. We looked at the library with the names of the fathers of various subjects. Aristotle, Herodotus...Bruce launched into a discussion of ancient languages-and what languages the bible was written in before it was translated-and how it was changed. He knows more about any subject matter than most any expert and spending time with him is a gift."
Diana Greenwald
I wrote this for Father's Day around age 5. My dad still stays up all night (although arguably as often for television as for work),still removes his glasses when he reads, and he is still named Bruce. While I have grown out of purchasing candy and being read to, I now like grabbing a coffee and talking about history, books and politics whenever we can. Just like when I created this excellent portrait and description, my dad remains a great dad.
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Ken Shubin Stein of Spencer Capital and Heilbrunn center adjunct faculty member writes "Bruce and I first met when I was recommended to teach the EDGE class. We argued for almost two hours over lunch, and I went back to my office assuming I wasn’t getting the job, and then the school called and told me he loved it and I was offered the job. He is an honest intellectual who loves to debate and work toward the truth."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Erin Bellissimo , former Heilbrunn Center director writes "Working with Bruce closely for almost 9 years and having known him for over 14 years, I have so many fond memories of him teaching, at speaking engagements, or just even learning from him in every conversation. But if I am being honest, as much as I enjoyed him pointing his cane 5 inches from the nose of a student challenging his competitive advantage theories, or equating the degree of emotional difficulty divesting overcapacity to killing your family pet, I think my favorite memories of Bruce are sitting with him on the last day of an Executive Education course. We go through all the feedback forms, calculate the teaching scores and then (and most importantly) calculate the profitability of the course for the school. He was not just interested in the scores for himself, but more importantly how well we did for the Business School in general. He truly gets a kick out of his ability to give back to his people and the school."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Leo Cruz '15 writes "I remember one night before class, I was stacking the handouts in preparation for class as a TA. Professor Greenwald told me not to let anyone grab them at the beginning of class since they should be distributed midway through the case. Overwhelmed by the rush of students coming to the front to grab the handouts (despite my ongoing attempts to thwart them), Greenwald came to the rescue and started attacking the students with his cane! That’s when I learned never to mess with the master…"
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
John J. Hughes writes "My favorite memory of Bruce Greenwald was in 2001 or 2002, when he explained to me that, if one was reasonably intelligent and they followed these value investing concepts that they could expect to outperform the markets by 300 to 400 basis points per annum. The concepts of incumbent competitive advantage; profitable growth, Net Asset as distinguished from Franchise Value, and the qualitative indicators of durability, made perfect sense to me, so I never really thought to question him. Of course, with the benefit of fifteen years of hindsight, he was right.
Bruce Greenwald's contribution to value investing was the unification of the thought processes of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffet along with the economics of strategy based on the work of Michael Porter and others. He then distilled and disseminated the essential elements in a coherent and accessible format. A towering intellectual exercise, and we past students and practitioners, were given a gift that comes along only once in a generation."
The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Peter Bowley '14 writes "My favorite memory was Professor Greenwald’s jokes in class. My second favorite memory was a breakfast he held for a small group of CBS students, where he gave a general overview on the economy, then answered shared advice on any topic we wanted to ask him."