When people start blaming short sellers for the downfall of a company – or the world's woes – it's often the time to wonder why... It's a lazy and frequently wrong argument, but more often... it's a diversionary tactic. I learned that firsthand when I was a journalist, spending much of my time talking to short sellers... and getting my fair share of blame when stocks I wrote about went down. Almost always, those who screamed the loudest had the most to hide. I eventually co-founded two short-biased research firms. And for a very brief moment, I fancied myself becoming an activist short seller... before pulling the plug on that idea. What I learned was that, in general, successful shorts often did deeper, longer research... and picking an argument with them was foolhardy. They had a knack for sometimes finding things that were hiding in plain sight, but somehow were being ignored... Such as the financial risk at Silicon Valley Bank ("SVB"). That doesn't mean the shorts always get it
Thursday, March 23, 2023

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About Whitney Tilson
Prior to creating Empire Financial Research, Whitney Tilson founded and ran Kase Capital Management, which managed three value-oriented hedge funds and two mutual funds. Starting out of his bedroom with only $1 million, Tilson grew assets under management to more than $200 million.
Tilson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in government in 1989. After college, he helped Wendy Kopp launch Teach for America and then spent two years as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1994, where he graduated in the top 5% of his class and was named a Baker Scholar.
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Whitney is one of the most connected investors I’ve met. He’s been able to tap into an infinitely deep and unique network of people to come up with great insights into ideas and develop them that other people just can’t do because they don’t have the kind of network he does.
—John Petry