Questionnaire for Journalists: Jacob Wolinsky, ValueWalk

ERPR’s series, “Questionnaire for Journalists,” features members of the media and asks about their lives and careers.

Jacob Wolinsky, founder and editor of ValueWalk

I connected with Jacob Wolinsky, founder and editor of ValueWalk, a site that provides coverage on hedge funds, large asset managers, and value investing.

How did you first get into journalism? What was your first job in journalism?

I definitely did not have a typical path. I started my site (ValueWalk) as a hobby — I really got into investing about 12 years ago. I was still in college, and just married. I started writing and one day I got an email from Alice Schroeder, who wrote probably the most famous biography of Warren Buffet, and she really liked my article that had cited her. That was the third article I had ever written, so I thought ‘this is cool,’ people are reading my stuff. I wasn’t writing for Bloomberg at the time, I was writing for a small investing site. So I decided if i could get attention from influential people i could try it out on my own thinking I could replicate that success- I started my site and I never expected it to be a full time hobby. To be honest, I was a much better math student than I was an English student — thankfully I went to good schools my whole life — but my mother wrote all my papers so I didn’t really have great writing skills in the beginning. I think I’ve improved a lot over the past 12 years or so. But it was not a path I was aiming for — I was an accounting major, and I ended up doing business development because accounting was too math oriented in terms of being boring (was very good math student but found accounting boring although the basic skills are crucial for anyone). I went full time on the site in late 2011, and now we’re here. Now I don’t get to write as much, but I really enjoy it.

How do you decide what you write or publish?

I would like to write more about fraud — I have a lot of friends that do great work on that topic, and I get a lot of leads on that. But unfortunately, there’s a lot of pressure when you cover fraud and you get a lot of lawsuits threats at least, sometimes worse than that. So I don’t do as much of that, I pick my battles and file maybe one or two stories like that a year.

Another thing I’d like to write about, which I think is important and other investing sites should focus on, is personal finance. There’s so much on there but people still don’t do it — it’s something that needs to be hammered into your head. Just focusing on the basics — this is so much more important than investments (buy this or that stock).

In terms of what we write, we get a lot of stuff that’s hedge fund related — not fraud. We usually write about what we find interesting. I like short positions, personnel changes — some of these aren’t disclosed publicly, and that’s how I decide what to publish. I give my staff a lot of leeway.

What is the most interesting news story you’re following right now that you’re not covering?

SoftBank is very interesting. I don’t think there’s fraud, like I mentioned earlier, but there are a lot of very strange things going on. They’re extremely leveraged and it just seems like there’s a lot that could go wrong that would have massive repercussions for the entire VC industry and for so many different countries. I think more people should focus on this. I don’t think it’s a Ponzi scheme but I think they’re doing a lot of leverage and it’s questionable.

If you weren’t in journalism, what would you be doing?

If I could be doing anything, I’d like to do something with more of an impact on the world. If income was not an issue I’d like to study or teach history of central/eastern Europe between WWI and WWII. Most specifically, Austria during 1919–39 and most so Austria under Chancellor Dollfuss 1932–1934. I think he was a great man unfairly maligned by historians

But, if I wasn’t going to do that, I’d find working with small, interesting hedge funds with really good returns to hook them up with endowments. Basically capital intros between small funds and endowments and funds of funds and that kind of stuff.

What do you read or watch every morning?

I don’t have a ton of time in the morning, I have four kids. So the mornings tends to be pretty busy. But I usually just go to Twitter and see what’s there. I usually end up getting all of my news from Twitter. I almost never go to homepages anymore, but in terms of coverage, I think Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are my favorite sites (although the paywall is annoying).

Which words or phrases do you think are most overuse?

“Bubble.” People use “bubble” to describe everything that they think is overvalued. If everyone thinks it’s a “bubble” — it’s not. It could be, but it’s an overused cliche in the financial media.

What is your greatest extravagance?

With four kids — I’d have to say my kids. I try not to spoil them, but they’re pretty expensive.

In terms of work — my biggest extravagance is staff. If you want to make a lot of money, don’t work at ValueWalk, but almost all our money goes into our staff. I’d rather reward staff than in expensive software, and to invest in people and treat them well, and pay them as well as I can.