The Technologized Investor: Innovation through Reorientation...

Silver Medal in the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards in the Business Technology category

An essential guide for finance managers to leverage advanced technology in long-term investing.

Institutional Investors underpin our capitalist world, and could play a major role in addressing some of the greatest challenges to society such as climate change, the ballooning wealth gap, declining infrastructure, aging populations, and the need for stable funding for the sciences and arts. Advanced technology can help institutional Investors deliver the funds needed to tackle these grave challenges. The Technologized Investor is a practical guide showing how institutional Investors can gain the capabilities for deep innovation by reorienting their strategies and organizations around advanced technology. It dissects why technology has historically failed institutional Investors and recommends realistic changes that they can make to unlock technological superpowers. Grounded in the actual experiences of institutional Investors from around the globe, it's a unique reference manual for practitioners on how to reboot their organizations for long-term performance. The book walks readers through many detailed frameworks for analyzing how well new technologies fit with their organization's goals and resources, as well as how to make the organization itself more robust to technological change. It also envisions the ways that the durable empowerment of institutional Investors enables them to achieve their long-term objectives. Based on first-hand empirical analysis, the book will help institutional Investors to rethink their perspectives on the role of technology in their organizations, and the future possibilities it can unlock.

About the authors

Ashby H.B. Monk is Executive Director and Research Director of the Global Projects Center at Stanford University. He is the co-author of Reframing Finance: New Models of Long-Term Investment Management (Stanford, 2017). His writing has appeared in the Economist, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Institutional Investor, Reuters, and Forbes.

Dane Rook is Research Engineer at Stanford University.

"In The Technologized Investor, Ashby Monk and Dane Rook make a compelling case that longterm investors could be making a much larger contribution to shared prosperity, 21st-century infrastructure, and a carbon-neutral economy. Their book provides a detailed, cogent road map for organizations such as pension funds to harness technology and truly invest for the long-term."

—Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google

"The authors present a rare combination of academic leadership and technology entrepreneurship–their knowledge of institutional asset management gives a fascinating insider's view of this sector. They demonstrate how the biggest asset managers drive global markets and confront our most important global challenges. As advisors to many of the leading investment institutions, the authors share a fascinating glimpse into what innovation can achieve in this critical sector."

—Joe Lonsdale, Partner, 8VC, Founder, Palantir and Addepar

"The value of The Technologized Investor goes far beyond its use as a deeply researched guidebook for how to integrate today's technology into every investment decision. It's a rallying cry for why doing so in the service of long-term vision isn't just crucial for good business, but for our world. The argument is presents is compelling, essential reading."

—Eric Ries, CEO, The Long-Term Stock Exchange, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way

"It's hero time! Saving the world by solving our era's seemingly intractable problems requires unlocking the full-power of innovative investment. Who would believe behind the superhero mask one would find an investor, let alone—even more difficult to fathom—an institutional investor. The authors offer a compelling, instructive resource and example-laden road map for developing and deploying the innovative technologized investment superpower hidden within even the most cautious investor or organization."

—Ertharin Cousin, CEO and Founder, Food Systems for the Future, Stanford University Visiting Scholar, Distinguished Fellow, Chicago Council on Global Affairs

"This book fantastically articulates the enormous potential of the application of technology to investment and asset management. I hope it convinces more tech founders to take the plunge and work to solve some of these monumentally important challenges faced by—and created by—this industry. After reading it, I feel better equipped for the job ahead of me and even more excited to make a positive impact by bringing tech to our small part of this massive industry."

—Lindsay Holden, CEO and Co-founder, Long Game

Contents

Introduction