Rusty Guinn
Co-Founder and CEO
Rusty Guinn is co-Founder and CEO of Second Foundation Partners, LLC, and has been a contributing author to Epsilon Theory since 2017.
Before Ben and Rusty established Second Foundation, Rusty served in a variety of investment roles in several organizations. He managed and operated a $10+ billion investment business, led investment strategy for the second largest wealth management franchise in Houston, and sat on the management committee of the 6th largest public pension fund in the United States.
Most recently, Rusty was Executive Vice President over the retail and institutional asset management businesses at Salient Partners in Houston, Texas. There he oversaw the 5-year restructuring and transition of Salient’s $10 billion money management business from legacy fund-of-funds products to a dedicated real assets franchise.
He previously served as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Opportunistic Investments at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a $12 billion portfolio spanning public and private investments. Rusty also served as a portfolio manager for TRS’s externally managed global macro hedge fund and long-only equity portfolios. He led diligence, process development and the allocation of billions of dollars across a wide range of indirect and principal investments.
Rusty’s career also includes roles with de Guardiola Advisors, an investment bank serving the asset management industry, and Asset Management Finance, a specialized private equity investor in asset management companies.
He is a graduate of the Wharton School, and lives on a farm in Fairfield, Connecticut with wife Pam and sons Winston and Harry. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Houston Youth Symphony, and with Pam has been a long-time supporter and founding Friend of the Houston Shakespeare Festival. He also serves as a member of the Easton Volunteer Fire Company in Easton, Connecticut. Rusty spends his free time smoking meat, working his apple orchard, enjoying whisky, badly butchering progressive rock drumming and jeopardizing long-term relationships through high-stakes board games.
Articles by Rusty:
It’s the Pack Gathering, a small conclave of like-minded people interested in talking ideas and enjoying good, genuine company.
The first event will take place in our headquarters town of Fairfield, Connecticut. New England and Mid-Atlantic, this is your event.
I was mad, and I was going to write an article about what had made me mad.
Except I was wrong. And the truth about what is happening in media should be much more concerning. It is seductive in ways that will make it difficult to resist for anyone who hasn’t decided to pay attention to those who would tell us what the crowd thinks the crowd thinks.
There’s a Narrative that exists in Fintech that isn’t really present in most other early stage technology businesses. It defines why they’re different, who succeeds and who fails at getting to a liquidity event and a long-term growth trajectory.
In which we call the Prime Minister of New Zealand, see emerging narratives about identity everywhere, leave issues and policies behind, and are told that the torch is being passed from old, heterosexual white men.
Missionary activity isn’t always intended to mislead. But when it is, it is almost always aided by another sociopathic tendency – the complete unwillingness to admit error. What’s worse – we are practically designed to empower it.
We discuss the narratives emerging in media from the first debate, from eye rolls to Spanish lessons, and from an economy that “doesn’t work for everyone” to language of equality and human rights.
It isn’t just that cannabis always seems to make the top of the Zeitgeist. It’s why – and sometimes the answer is, “Because people are paying for it to be at the top.”
In the midst of a complicated issue, an article from a small regional outlet manages to remind us of the power of AND in storytelling and connecting the understanding of those across the Widening Gyre.
This is our graph of the narrative structure of the last full week in financial markets news.
The Half-Happy Horror is the realization that pursuit of multiple objectives can end up with a baby split in two.
At best we give lip service to secondary or tertiary goals, all as part of some Cartoon we’ve constructed about our “process”.
Yes, optimization is a scourge, and it hits every aspect of modern life. It hits the professional investor hardest of all.