Collaborative Fund Conversations: Jacob Hodes
Inside the private markets: Jacob Hodes on ten-year lockups, the retail push, and what Baltimore teaches you about finding value.
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Jacob Hodes is a partner and Chief Investment Officer of Private Investing at Brown Advisory, the Baltimore firm descended from Alex. Brown & Sons — the first investment bank in the United States. He got there by way of Goldman Sachs, law school, and Skadden, a path he describes as meandering.
In this conversation, he explains why he’s both the loudest advocate for private markets at his firm and increasingly nervous about where they’re headed, what a post-industrial city does to an investor’s judgment, and why the junior people who rise fastest are rarely the ones with the best pedigree.
“You think you do, but committing yourself for 10 years is really tough. … If half of all marriages end in divorce, that’s usually within 10 years. You probably feel much more strongly about getting married than you do about making an investment.”
Key Takeaways:
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Private markets were built on information asymmetry: A century ago the Rockefellers and Carnegies could make private bets because their operating businesses gave them a data set nobody else had. That edge migrated to institutions with the balance sheets to go long — and the fund structures followed.
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Illiquidity is underestimated by everyone who hasn’t lived it: A ten-year commitment outlasts half of all marriages. As private vehicles push downmarket, Hodes expects investors to fall out of love with positions they can’t exit.
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The asset-liability mismatch is the risk to watch: Semi-liquid vehicles wrap multi-year illiquid assets in structures promising something closer to daily liquidity. Smart people will eventually solve it; the road there will be bumpy.
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Underdog geography sharpens judgment: Working from Baltimore rather than a coastal financial center means finding value where others don’t look — and holding onto discipline when you’re across the table from a high-flying founder.
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Read newspapers from places you don’t live: Local papers from cities and countries outside your own break the echo chamber and show you how other people are actually seeing the same events.
Timestamps / Table of contents
00:00 - Introduction to the Guest and Firm
01:13 - A Meandering Path: Princeton, the Nasdaq, and Goldman Sachs
03:29 - Back to Basics: What Long-Term Investing Requires
05:22 - Why the Dot-Com Bust Was the Formative Crash
08:50 - Politics, Government, and the Limits of Prediction
12:13 - Baltimore as an Investing Lens
17:33 - What a Law Degree Teaches (and What It Doesn’t)
20:32 - The Junior People Who Rise Fastest
24:49 - The Armchair Psychologist Side of Client Work
27:10 - The Contrarian Take: Private Markets and the Retail Push
31:01 - How to Read: Local Papers from Places You Don’t Live
33:01 - Conclusion and Final Thoughts