A former Goldman exec has the same philosophy for investing and for building a career
- While many people talk about diversification when it comes to investing, the same rule could apply to career success, according to Marc Spilker, a former Goldman Sachs exec who's now chairman of Chiron Investment Management.
- Diversifying the things you do from a career standpoint and then selecting the best ones and selecting out of the worst ones will give you the best chance of choosing that one thing that makes you wildly successful, he said.
When it comes to investing, many of the smartest investors in the world favor diversification as a way to spread risk and ensure against the damage from a single loss on a concentrated position.
What fewer people may realize is that the same principles can apply to how one manages their career.
That's according to Marc Spilker, a former Goldman Sachs partner who's now chairman of a small but fast-growing asset manager. In the course of one's career, the chances of making bad choices or poor decisions is so high that the question becomes how do you manage those mistakes, he said.
"You have to try to minimize the number of times you make a mistake and then you have to minimize the consequences of those mistakes," he said in an interview with Business Insider. "Therefore, I've always believed in diversification. I happen to think there's a lot of value in doing multiple things, because you then can learn different things, you get expertise in different things, and you definitely have more chances to win."
Spilker spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs, rising to co-head of its asset-management arm and a position on the firm's powerful management committee. In 2010, he left for Apollo Management, where as president he helped the private-equity firm sells share to public. Spilker later founded GPS Investment Partners with two ex-Goldman colleagues and together they built Chiron Investment Management, a manager of $2.7 billion where he's chairman.
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Spilker also runs a family office, GPS Investment Partners, which is invested in a host of other projects. He's given money to documentary films, and serves on a handful of boards such as the undergraduate executive board at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as cultural and medical causes.
Spilker added that in addition to diversifying your career, it's also important to do the best you can in selecting the projects you accept and those you turn down.
"It's just as important to self-select into the good stuff and self-select out of the bad stuff," he said. "That's true of investments, but it's the same with businesses and people."