Tim Sullivan – Yale’s Private Portfolio (EP.456)

Today’s show features one of the biggest industry legends you may never have heard before.

My guest is Tim Sullivan, who recently retired from overseeing Yale University’s private market portfolios for 39 years. He joined the Yale Investments Office upon graduation from Yale College in 1986, just one year after David Swensen took the helm. He worked alongside David to build and manage the most successful institutional private equity and venture capital programs in history.

Tim lived through the 1987 crash, the early years allocating to privates when no one else did, the dot.com boom and bust, the institutional adoption of alternatives after David published his book in 2000, the GFC, the ZIRP aftermath that created a bigger boom until the hiccup in 2021. We weave in and out of that history, as Tim shares lessons from how Yale managed its portfolios along the way.

Tim carries a quiet conviction and sharp analytical mind developed from the front line of the greatest success in institutional investing for decades, and he weighs in on the increasing challenges of repeating that past success going forward.

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