No More Hustleporn: Coatue’s Pierre Laffont on interviewing at Apple five times and working for Julian Robertson

Yiren Lu -

We pulled out the highlights from Coatue founder Pierre Laffont's recent interview at Bloomberg Invest. Transcription and light editing by Anthropic's Claude, curation by Yiren Lu 😄

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Highlights

David Rubenstein: All right, maybe it's true, maybe not. But why is it that the major technologies that everybody here needs to get through the day are all based? They're more or less in America. So Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix, all these companies are American-based companies. What happened to Europe? Europe has 200 million more people than the United States. Why do we not have any technologies that Europeans develop that we need to use today to get through our life in the United States? What happened to Europe's inventiveness?
Philippe Laffont: Listen, I think there's two reasons. And from my personal experience, I moved to the US when I was 16 and I never came back. I recently also became an American citizen. One thing that I've noticed is some of the best European entrepreneurs, they leave to start their companies in the US. So there's some very famous companies like Snowflake, but they were started actually by three French people, but it's an American company. So I think problem number one is the US is such an amazing country that a lot of people decide to start their companies in the US. Problem number two is if I'm in the US and I start the company, I get money from people who are willing to lose it, understand the risk, and I can probably get a term sheet in a matter of weeks. Oh, if I try to raise money in Europe, good luck. And then after that, I'm in one country, and then I need to have a different set of regulations that I need to respect to be in the big six. And then there's, I don't know, 30 or 40 countries in the European Union, each with their own regulation. I'd rather start my company in the US. Then you move very quickly to Canada, UK and Australia. And then from the UK, you move to continental Europe. That's what we see.
Philippe Laffont: I have a strong view, but I've never been right with respect to macro events in my life. So whatever you want, I'll tell you what my strong view is, and it may be the opposite. My view is that the Fed is going to do what the data tells it it should do, irrelevant of the election. Because if you do it before, you're going to favor one candidate, maybe, but then if you do it after, then in fact, you're really favoring maybe another candidate, whether it's the incumbent or the insurgent, I suppose. And so I think that it's going to be whatever the data says. Now, I've always been wrong. I think I've predicted seven of the last three recessions, something like that.
David Rubenstein: You had an obsession, as I remember it, in those days with Apple, you wanted to go work for Apple, and Apple did not hire you. Correct. Had Apple hired you, do you think you'd be happier now or less happy?
Philippe Laffont: God, I hate these questions. David always gets to the essence of the problem. I had five job interviews at Apple, and I was zero for five. So they clearly didn't like what I had to offer.
I think that being an investor is better because you live vicariously and you meet all these interesting people. And I think at Apple, you work on a great problem. But hey, you get lucky, you work for the phone, you get unlucky, you work for the car. Who knows?
As an investor, God, we get to speak to so many people, and at the end of the day, why I invest so much is because you have a chance to meet the best minds and to learn.
David Rubenstein: So how did you get into investing? You went to work for Julian Robertson at Tiger. How did you get a job there out of MIT? Did you do something before Julian Robertson?
Philippe Laffont: Once Apple told me to take a hike, I actually did take a hike. I went to live in Chile for six months and I became a very good fisherman. I still have that skill and I learned how to speak Spanish.
I decided to drown my sorrows. I lived in Spain and worked for McKinsey in Spain, having that base in Spanish. When I was at McKinsey I saw all these famous CEOs and the McKinsey partners were so deferential to them. And me, I was always getting the coffee for everyone. So I was like, okay, that was like note to self.
Then it was very lucky because I was at McKinsey during the boom of the PC and it was Dell, Microsoft and Intel. If you had invested in each of these stocks, you would have been a genius. Of course it was pure luck, but I invested in those three stocks and I made more money investing in the stocks than at McKinsey. And then I was like, I'm done. I'm going to become an investor. That's how I did it.
David Rubenstein: How did you hear of Julian Robertson and how did he hear of you?
David Rubenstein: So what's the biggest investment mistake you've made?
Philippe Laffont: Oh, okay, I see. We have nine minutes left. We're going to need 39 minutes for that. But I would bucket the mistakes, right. A number of mistakes that I've made is too cute. Just Stan Druckenmiller once told me he made 120% of his money in obvious ideas, and he lost 20% everywhere else. And I feel that's very true.
But by far the biggest mistakes that I've made is selling stock early. And as an example, we made a big investment in Tencent in 2003, and having sold that position early, cost our fund $20 billion. As an example of the mistake. But I hear, David, that my mistake is small in comparison to your mistake in Amazon. If you would like to share it with. If you would like to share that.
David Rubenstein: Is it a good time to invest? Would you say now is not a great time? Wait till after the presidential election is over?
Philippe Laffont: I always answer the same - divide your money in thirds, invest the third immediately. Keep a third if the stock market goes down ten or 15%, and use the last third if the market goes down 30%.

Full Transcript

David Rubenstein: Is AI overhyped? Everybody wants to talk about AI. Do you think this is going to be like a .com bust at some point, or is AI really here to stay and the values are not too out of whack?

Philippe Laffont: Short run, it's true that the mentions of AI in every TV and written form is very high. One could say, wow, if everybody talks about it, it must be priced in.

The only reason why I'm more positive is I remember when I invested in Apple in 2009 when the iPhone first came out. For years people told me, "Why are you invested in Apple? Everybody talks about Apple," and obviously it had an incredible run. I actually think that sometimes because someone speaks a lot about something, it might be actually a good sign versus an overhyped sign.

David Rubenstein: Some people on Wall Street say the best way to invest in AI is to invest in the big companies that are already doing AI - Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and so forth. Others say, go find the smaller companies that might grow into the next Nvidia. What is your own view?

Philippe Laffont: I'm conflicted. On one hand, the history of technology seems to be that the big get bigger. But also, sometimes, out of nowhere, a new company gets created, like Facebook or TikTok.

At the beginning of these new waves, the new winners, ten or 20 years out, some of them are existing companies and some of them are new. But the new ones that get big, there's maybe one a year, no more.

David Rubenstein: Let's suppose I say I missed the AI wave. I wasn't smart enough to get there. But there's another technology wave always coming along. What's the next technology thing I should invest in if it's not AI? What's coming behind AI that is going to excite tech investors?

Philippe Laffont: Two things. One is if you peel the onion of AI and you think about all the building blocks necessary for AI, you might stumble on real estate with data centers or utilities with power. I find the power is really interesting.

Before I answer the new new, there is a sort of an onion effect, and you can peel it. There's a lot going on with AI. On the new new thing, AI is sort of going to be this amazing artificial brain. What I wonder is what happens when you put that brain inside of a robot and we humans need to then live side by side with humanoids. I don't know exactly when it happens. Maybe it's 10-15 years. Musk says it's five. Other people say it's 25. Take the average 15 years. That's going to be pretty exciting.

David Rubenstein: What about quantum computing? People talk about that. Is that something that I should be looking at investing in?

Philippe Laffont: I've made a lot of mistakes betting on these new technologies. AR, VR turns out to be not so big. 3D printing turns out to be not so big.

My estimate is $100 trillion was invested in today's dollar in the PC CPU-based infrastructure. All this is going to get ripped out to put $100 trillion or more in a GPU-based infrastructure. In that sort of quantum of numbers, I feel that the quantum computing is going to be very small.

David Rubenstein: Hedge fund investors who invest around the globe, and you invest around the globe, but more in the US probably than around the globe, are always worried about geopolitical events, I presume. Are there some geopolitical events you're worried about right now?

Philippe Laffont: Yes. I don't know why, but for some reason, I love thinking about black swans. At the office, everybody thinks I'm weird because I'm always thinking about what can go wrong.

Underpinning the AI is the chips, and the chips, despite the chip act, which I think was a good idea for the US, I still think, like, 80% or so of the capex of TSMC is in Taiwan. At the leading edge, a lot of capacity is in one very small area. Forget that it's just in China. It's in a very small area. I think that's very risky.

David Rubenstein: Nvidia, which now has the highest market cap, is it dependent on production in Taiwan? So if China were to invade Taiwan, would that really adversely affect Nvidia?

Philippe Laffont: I think it would adversely affect Nvidia. It would adversely affect the stock markets around the world. It would adversely affect everybody in this room if this happened. We think this could obviously be a very significant event.

David Rubenstein: Now, let's talk about technology in this sense. France really invented the precursor to the Internet. Yet France, more or less.

Philippe Laffont: That's what French people like me like to say. I'm not sure it's true, but yes.

David Rubenstein: All right, maybe it's true, maybe not. But why is it that the major technologies that everybody here needs to get through the day are all based? They're more or less in America. So Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix, all these companies are American-based companies. What happened to Europe? Europe has 200 million more people than the United States. Why do we not have any technologies that Europeans develop that we need to use today to get through our life in the United States? What happened to Europe's inventiveness?
Philippe Laffont: Listen, I think there's two reasons. And from my personal experience, I moved to the US when I was 16 and I never came back. I recently also became an American citizen. One thing that I've noticed is some of the best European entrepreneurs, they leave to start their companies in the US. So there's some very famous companies like Snowflake, but they were started actually by three French people, but it's an American company. So I think problem number one is the US is such an amazing country that a lot of people decide to start their companies in the US. Problem number two is if I'm in the US and I start the company, I get money from people who are willing to lose it, understand the risk, and I can probably get a term sheet in a matter of weeks. Oh, if I try to raise money in Europe, good luck. And then after that, I'm in one country, and then I need to have a different set of regulations that I need to respect to be in the big six. And then there's, I don't know, 30 or 40 countries in the European Union, each with their own regulation. I'd rather start my company in the US. Then you move very quickly to Canada, UK and Australia. And then from the UK, you move to continental Europe. That's what we see.

David Rubenstein: So everyone in the US seems obsessed with whether the Fed is going to lower interest rates before the election. After the election. Do you have a view on whether the Fed is going to do either of those things?

Philippe Laffont: I have a strong view, but I've never been right with respect to macro events in my life. So whatever you want, I'll tell you what my strong view is, and it may be the opposite. My view is that the Fed is going to do what the data tells it it should do, irrelevant of the election. Because if you do it before, you're going to favor one candidate, maybe, but then if you do it after, then in fact, you're really favoring maybe another candidate, whether it's the incumbent or the insurgent, I suppose. And so I think that it's going to be whatever the data says. Now, I've always been wrong. I think I've predicted seven of the last three recessions, something like that.

David Rubenstein: Investors also seem obsessed with who the next president of the United States is going to be. So are you worried that whoever is the president will make. You have to make a different investment decision. Or do you think whoever's president is not going to make that much difference for the kind of investing you do?

Philippe Laffont: I think the next president for our kind of investment doesn't make much of a difference because at the end of the day, we have such a strong country, very strong institutions system that is constantly looking to give money to the new companies. And I just don't see how that changes.

David Rubenstein: Let's talk about your background for a moment. So I can tell from your accent and what you've said, you're from France. Unless it's a fake accent. That's a real accent, right?

Philippe Laffont: When I was young, there was a time where the accent helped. By now, I'm married with six kids. The accent doesn't help anymore.

David Rubenstein: Okay. All right. So now, why did you grow up in France? Were your parents technology investors?

Philippe Laffont: No, my father worked for an American company in France. And in 1981, the socialist government won and they nationalized a bunch of countries. And my father said, we're moving to the US. And that was just the simple reason. And today I'm so thankful he took that decision.

David Rubenstein: At what age did you come here?

Philippe Laffont: I was 16.

David Rubenstein: And you go to high school, where?

Philippe Laffont: I went to high school in New York at the French Lysay. So my accent obviously never got better. And then I went to college at MIT, and I was hopeful to be a great computer science major. And I turned out to be a very mediocre computer science major, hence why we're here in finance today.

David Rubenstein: You had an obsession, as I remember it, in those days with Apple, you wanted to go work for Apple, and Apple did not hire you. Correct. Had Apple hired you, do you think you'd be happier now or less happy?
Philippe Laffont: God, I hate these questions. David always gets to the essence of the problem. I had five job interviews at Apple, and I was zero for five. So they clearly didn't like what I had to offer.
I think that being an investor is better because you live vicariously and you meet all these interesting people. And I think at Apple, you work on a great problem. But hey, you get lucky, you work for the phone, you get unlucky, you work for the car. Who knows?
As an investor, God, we get to speak to so many people, and at the end of the day, why I invest so much is because you have a chance to meet the best minds and to learn.
David Rubenstein: So how did you get into investing? You went to work for Julian Robertson at Tiger. How did you get a job there out of MIT? Did you do something before Julian Robertson?
Philippe Laffont: Once Apple told me to take a hike, I actually did take a hike. I went to live in Chile for six months and I became a very good fisherman. I still have that skill and I learned how to speak Spanish.
I decided to drown my sorrows. I lived in Spain and worked for McKinsey in Spain, having that base in Spanish. When I was at McKinsey I saw all these famous CEOs and the McKinsey partners were so deferential to them. And me, I was always getting the coffee for everyone. So I was like, okay, that was like note to self.
Then it was very lucky because I was at McKinsey during the boom of the PC and it was Dell, Microsoft and Intel. If you had invested in each of these stocks, you would have been a genius. Of course it was pure luck, but I invested in those three stocks and I made more money investing in the stocks than at McKinsey. And then I was like, I'm done. I'm going to become an investor. That's how I did it.
David Rubenstein: How did you hear of Julian Robertson and how did he hear of you?

Philippe Laffont: I interviewed for Julian and I sent my resume and I got a note from the IT department of Tiger saying, we don't need any more IT support staff. We noticed you have a background from MIT, but we don't need you. So I was like, damn, what can I do?

So I worked for free for a little mutual fund, but I learned just enough of the lingo that then after about six months a French friend got me just to meet Julian for a few minutes. But that free job was the best thing I ever did because I learned just the basics - a P/E multiple, revenue, costs, profits - just enough to squeeze through the door. And that's how I ended up.

David Rubenstein: So you presumably did reasonably well there. When Julian Robertson closed his organization, he gave money to a number of his acolytes and they called them Tiger Cubs, I guess. Were you a Tiger Cub?

Philippe Laffont: I'm still a proud Tiger Cub. Unfortunately, when I left, he wasn't still giving money to people and so I had to go and raise my own money. I asked my friends and family first for some money. Most of my friends and family either had no money or didn't trust that I was going to be a good steward of their capital. So I didn't raise any money from them.

But America is a special place and I met a lot of people and some of them, they meet you for 15 minutes, and they're like, hey, I'm done. Meeting's over. And then the next day, you get a check from them to invest in. I started with $50 million on January 1, 2000. That was brilliant timing, in retrospect.

David Rubenstein: So the people that gave you initial money, were they professional investors or people that you happen to meet at social occasions? Who are these people?

Philippe Laffont: They were professional investors, and I had a prime broker who introduced me to these people. Some of them said no, but in this country, people like the underdog, people like someone who tries something new and entrepreneurial. And surprisingly, I was able to round up a few million bucks.

David Rubenstein: Did you ever tell the people that did not invest with you what a mistake they made?

Philippe Laffont: I feel that vengeance is best served at times by not saying anything.

David Rubenstein: Okay, all right, so you started with $50 million. What year was that?

Philippe Laffont: That was basically January 1, 2000.

David Rubenstein: January 1, 2000. And now you're managing roughly 50 billion.

Philippe Laffont: Yes.

David Rubenstein: So that's a pretty good increase.

Philippe Laffont: We've added three zeros, but I think the fourth is going to be difficult.

David Rubenstein: Okay, so today, are you picking the stocks, and you do stocks and credit, and you also do private equity, but not control, but private positions, right?

Philippe Laffont: Yes. We have a good team, and obviously different people for different products. They run the day to day. And what I try to work with them on is the big ideas and the risk and let them sort of think about the individual names.

David Rubenstein: But your title is founder and portfolio manager. Portfolio manager is not a title that implies CEO or anything. Why do you give yourself a title portfolio manager?

Philippe Laffont: You know, I gave that title to myself when I started, and then I never changed it because we're not super title based firm. Maybe as we institutionalize, we should pay more attention. Maybe you can give me some suggestions after the interview.

David Rubenstein: Now, your firm is named Coatue. Where did you get that name?

Philippe Laffont: So that name, as you know, is the beach opposite your house in Nantucket. And even before I came to the US, I would summer in Nantucket, and I started summering there from France in 1977.

Philippe Laffont: But imagine I was ten years old and I arrived to the US, and I go to one of these movie theaters with popcorns and whatever, Doctor Pepper and stuff. And the first two movies I saw were Star Wars and Jaws. And to this day, I'm like, this is why I love this country so much. When you see Star Wars as a ten year old in a foreign country, that's it.

David Rubenstein: So today, you're managing roughly $50 billion. And is your goal to keep growing this and to keep doing what you're doing? The US government might come to you and say, we need you to become the US government as secretary of treasury, you're now an American citizen. Or is this what you want to do for the next 10-15 years of your life?

Philippe Laffont: I can say with full certainty that I'm neither qualified nor hoping to work in the treasury. Mostly, I would be completely unqualified. I'm impatient. I change my mind all the time. So those are a couple things that might be good for investing.

Philippe Laffont: And I love what I do, and I think with the capital base that we have, just if we could grow that capital base, we don't need that much new money now. We have a big responsibility. And the thing that makes me happiest is I've had some investors that have been with me for 25 years. In some cases, they've made almost 20x return over the very long run.

Philippe Laffont: And obviously, the future could be very different than the past. But I'm proud of what I've done for them. I feel investing is a bit of a craft, and I'm proud of that craft. It's risky, and you got to work really hard for it. And I just get this fire in my belly. I can't explain it why, but I wake up every morning and I feel this. Both fiduciary duty and this curiosity and meeting new investors, and it's just really exciting to try to see.

Philippe Laffont: You mentioned when we were out there that Buffett made 99.5% of his money after 50. I'm 56, so hopefully I stay healthy and I can do this for a while.

David Rubenstein: So you have six children?

Philippe Laffont: Six, yes.

David Rubenstein: And their ages are.

Philippe Laffont: My oldest is 26, and my youngest is eleven.

David Rubenstein: And this is all with one wife, right?

Philippe Laffont: All with one wife, yes.

David Rubenstein: Very unusual.

Philippe Laffont: I have a friend, he has seven, but he has three wives.

David Rubenstein: I'm like, okay, so one wife and eleven to 26. Are any of them interested in investing your older children?

Philippe Laffont: My older child has not the slightest interest. I've got two or three that have investing, but I feel they have to maybe try to learn a little bit on their own and go somewhere else, and that investing and Wall Street, when the markets go against you and stuff, you have to be resilient, and I think you have to learn a bit of the resilience outside of the home business first.

David Rubenstein: So what's the biggest investment mistake you've made?
Philippe Laffont: Oh, okay, I see. We have nine minutes left. We're going to need 39 minutes for that. But I would bucket the mistakes, right. A number of mistakes that I've made is too cute. Just Stan Druckenmiller once told me he made 120% of his money in obvious ideas, and he lost 20% everywhere else. And I feel that's very true.
But by far the biggest mistakes that I've made is selling stock early. And as an example, we made a big investment in Tencent in 2003, and having sold that position early, cost our fund $20 billion. As an example of the mistake. But I hear, David, that my mistake is small in comparison to your mistake in Amazon. If you would like to share it with. If you would like to share that.

David Rubenstein: With the audience, well, it's too painful, but let's say I sold it all several years too early.

Philippe Laffont: David had the chance to own one and 20% of Amazon. So I would call that more than a big mistake.

David Rubenstein: So what is the best, the deal you're most proud of doing, or the kind of things you're most proud of doing, is finding some new company early on. What are you most proud of, what you've done so far? In terms of your investing prowess?

Philippe Laffont: I think it's twofold. One is provide longevity and good returns for your investors and have investors that bet for you for the long run and to really do well. And I know exactly inception to date, how much money I've made from my investors and how much money I hope to make. And I think about that a lot.

And then the second part now is I can't find all these young guys, despite how I dress. They know I'm 56. They don't want to hang out with me. Now it's finding great young people at the firm who have the chance to make an investment that in tech, what's so exciting is you're always thinking that you might find the next TikTok or the next Facebook, and it's finding these kids.

David Rubenstein: Generally, when you're successful in the hedge fund world, you make a fair amount of money, as you have done, I presume. What do you do with your money? Are you a collector of art? Are you a collector of wine? I assume you're French and care about wine, or are you a philanthropist? What do you do with your money? Or are you just saving it all?

Philippe Laffont: I can tell you that I'm obviously a collector of children, right. That's my best investment outside of the office.

David Rubenstein: But unlike some hedge fund people, you're not a collector of wives, right?

Philippe Laffont: No, I'm not. There's clearly something going on between the private equity world and the hedge fund world right now.

Listen, I think someday, and I should probably do it sooner rather than later, you have a responsibility to take that capital and help others. So far, I've been a little bit. To be honest, it's been a lot for me, just working and having the family life and stuff and not being too much in the limelight. And that's been my main focus. I know I need to do something grander and bigger and more altruistic, and I haven't quite done it yet, but it's something I need to do now.

David Rubenstein: You are a golfer or a tennis player. What do you do for exercise? How do you stay in shape?

Philippe Laffont: I love the outdoors. I play a lot of sports. I played tennis in college. So I would say I'm, you know, B plus, A minus tennis player. And then I love golf, and I never get better. And the more I play, the worse that I seem to play.

David Rubenstein: So is MIT famous for its tennis team? Were you the star of the MIT tennis team?

Philippe Laffont: Not only is the team not famous, but I wasn't even the star. I was like a middle of the pack.

David Rubenstein: Okay, so as we talk about, we're getting ready for July 4th soon. Why did you decide to become an American citizen? Were you doing okay without being an American citizen? What propelled you to want to become an American citizen at this point in your life?

Philippe Laffont: Yeah, well, my kids are American and stuff. I just felt that this country had done a lot for us. And I don't mind paying my taxes here. I've only paid my taxes here. The US has a worldwide income tax anyway, so it wasn't going to change.

And I've spent 40 of my 56 years here. I've kept. I didn't mention, but I do have a lot of wine. It's not necessarily the best wine, but I do enjoy an occasional glass of wine. So I've kept a few things from France, but I became American because at the end of the day, I love this country. I love what it stands for. I love that it's not just about working hard and. And if you work hard, you have a chance. Everybody knows that about the US.

To me, what I like about the US is also what we stand and how we try to help the rest of the world. And some people don't like what we do. But I think, by and large, thank God that there's a country like us. I even like the Tom Brady roast that so many people were offended by. And I just think the concept of a roast and that when you become a really famous and incredible celebrity in the US, you still have to subject yourself to sort of rules and jokes and that you're just a normal person. I really love everything about this country.

David Rubenstein: So when you walk down the street, people come up to you, they recognize you, or you're that famous now?

Philippe Laffont: People don't recognize me, and I'm not sad about it. Our job is not a celebrity job. There's nothing fancy about it. But taking care of other people's money, for some reason, is something that I really enjoy doing.

David Rubenstein: Somebody's watching this. He's a young person who says, I want to be like Philippe. I want to be a professional investor in the hedge fund world. What is the best advice? Is it get a good college degree, go to Spain for a while, go to Chile? What is your advice?

Philippe Laffont: I think that my career involved a road that had a little bit too many left and rights along the way. In fact, a couple times I had difficulties early on in my career. I remember once I told someone, if you give me 5% of your business, I'll shut down mine and just come work for you. And he said, I'm really sorry, but I can only afford to give you three. And I was like, oh, three just doesn't sound enough. All right, let me give it one more year. Thank God. The guy, he quit one year after that.

My advice is, obviously, when you go to a good school, the advantage is you meet interesting people. But there are a lot of good schools. They're not just five good schools. Number two, as you learn the basics of finance, the mathematical basics of finance, keep an open mind, network, and have some fun hobbies. That's my advice.

David Rubenstein: So, I assume MIT has heard of you, and they ever come to you and say, well, MIT isn't building named after you, or something like that?

Philippe Laffont: They did come, and unfortunately, we had a slight change of opinion on a subject that's not interested in. We are no longer in great terms with each other.

David Rubenstein: Okay, so you're interested in other universities you might be willing to give money to, that I know of.

Philippe Laffont: Well, there's one in Baltimore. I don't know if it's near you, but it's near your sports team. Listen, I think that some people, they love giving money to universities. For me, it just doesn't quite resonate. But yet again, I haven't found something else that resonates more.

David Rubenstein: So, did your parents, are your parents alive?

Philippe Laffont: My mom is still alive. She's 86. If she's 87, she's gonna kill me. I think she's 86 or something.

David Rubenstein: Did she give you advice still and she tell you how proud she is of what you achieved?

Philippe Laffont: She says this and stuff, and there was a time where they gave me more than just advice. They gave me advice, lessons and orders.

I think now I try to also help them a little bit. It's that time where it's for us to help them because they've helped us a lot before.

David Rubenstein: Is it a good time to invest? Would you say now is not a great time? Wait till after the presidential election is over?
Philippe Laffont: I always answer the same - divide your money in thirds, invest the third immediately. Keep a third if the stock market goes down ten or 15%, and use the last third if the market goes down 30%.