Pitch The PM is the professional investor’s podcast where host Doug Garber dives deep into high-conviction stock ideas using his Variant View Investment Checklist.
It’s a real-time look at the research process, blending lessons from Buffett, Munger, and Lynch with modern AI tools. Join Doug, ex-Citadel top analyst and Millennium Sr PM, as he works through his Buffett-inspired 20-slot punch card. Learn, laugh, and sharpen your edge.
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“If you want to generate alpha, you can’t be sharing all this information.”
“That interviewer needs to think and feel and act like you do. It needs to have all the context that you do.”
“We’re just making primary research faster, cheaper, and embedded. If I had to summarize the whole thing, that’s what Qualitate is doing.”
Sagar Kadakia has spent nearly 20 years in primary research. He joined Tom DelVecchio at ETR in 2011, ran buy-side survey work for six years, and later built research and data products at 7Park Data and CB Insights.
In 2023, as ChatGPT and voice capture crossed human parity, he founded Qualitate: an AI interviewer that runs 45–65 minute expert conversations autonomously and is grounded in what he describes as the fastest-growing AI-moderated interview library in the world.
Crew Capital wrote the first $1M check when few others wanted to fund a company building its own expert panel. This week, Qualitate announced a $25M Series A led by Insight Partners, with net revenue retention above 300% and run-rate revenue up 10x in nine months.
Sagar walks through Qualitate’s two products: a proactive library built using Qualitate’s own capital and questions, and a private channel-check product where clients bring their own questions, interviewer, library, and internal inputs — without that proprietary information being mixed back into the broader system.
We also get into why the architecture matters: grounding instead of retraining for every new model, persistent memory so call five knows calls one through four, and transcripts structured so investors can query them for time series instead of simply searching.
“You can search through transcript files, but you can’t actually query that data. On Qualitate, you can actually query transcripts.”
“We don’t train or fine-tune anything. Because if you do that and the next version comes out, all of that work you just did goes to zero. We ground it.”
💡 This episode is presented by:Fiscal.AI — Delivering Modern Financial Data Infrastructure. 15% discount with code PITCH: https://fiscal.ai/?via=pitch
Highlights:
(00:33) Twenty years in primary research: ETR, 7Park Data, CB Insights
(01:40) ChatGPT, voice capture and “continuous expert intelligence”
(03:20) $25M Insight Partners Series A, NRR above 300%
(04:34) Qualitate’s proactive AI-moderated research library
(09:06) Private channel checks: your questions, interviewer and library
(12:57) Uploading transcripts and memos into the interviewer
(15:15) Human bias vs. AI-moderated interviews
(21:08) The $2,000 expert call problem
(21:30) One-third to one-quarter of the price; 20–40 calls in days
(23:18) Building an expert panel with agents
(26:35) Do the first two calls yourself, then hand off 50
(29:07) Structured, queryable transcripts and longitudinal analysis
(31:45) Hedge funds moving channel checks to Qualitate
(47:12) Continuous intelligence: AI, humans, simulations and synthetics
(51:12) Faster, cheaper, embedded primary research
EP. 55: Token Price Indexes Are Falling on Model Shifts Not Price Cuts with Carmen Li, CEO of Silicon Data & Compute Exchange
Episode 55
Friday, October 16, 2026 • Duration 56:54
Carmen Li, CEO of Silicon Data and Compute Exchange, joins the show to explain how compute is becoming a brand-new asset class. A former energy options market maker at DRW who later ran global data integrations at Bloomberg, Carmen was pre-seeded by DRW founder Don Wilson to build the GPU industry benchmarks. Silicon Data is the referee — "the Bloomberg for compute" — while Compute Exchange is the liquidity layer where GPUs, tokens and servers change hands.
We get into why token price indexes are falling, recent token & model consumption trends, why GPU residual values are above accounting depreciation schedules, and how neoclouds, their lenders, and compute users can hedge GPU exposure to reduce business volatility.
• "The A100 has been around for six years at this point, and we still see three-year contracts signed on A100s." Residual values are still hovering above five-year straight-line depreciation.
• “we'd definitely be looking at 30 trillion of [GPU] derivatives every year."
Topics: Compute as an asset class, GPU indices, CME compute futures, GPU depreciation and useful life, neoclouds, token pricing, AI chip supply chain,
💡 This episode is presented by:Oxford Data Plan–The Home of Alternative Data
Not Investment Advice.
Highlights:
(0:00) Doug introduces Carmen Li, CEO of Silicon Data and Compute Exchange
(0:20) From energy options market maker at DRW to Bloomberg Data, and why AI startups' swinging GPU costs made compute an industry-wide hedging problem
EP. 54: Is The AI Boom Causing Machinery Scarcity?
Episode 54
Thursday, October 8, 2026 • Duration 45:06
My long time confidant, Jarrett Harris, Director of Research at IronAdvisor Insights joins the show to share his latest insights. He is quintessentially mid-western and was my go to source for learning about the on the ground pulse of the industrial economy when I was at Citadel and Millennium. As part of IronConnect, a heavy equipment industry service provider, Jarrett has unparalleled access to equipment dealers, rental companies, and industry executives.
My key takeaways from our conversation:
The industrial economy’s growth is being driven by Data Center related activity from power gen, to heavy equipment, to trucking and even landscaping and coal.
“A second-tier AWP manufacturer's entire inventory being bought out by a national rental house”
“I don't think we've ever had a time in my [Jarrett’s] 22 years where all three of those industries [for CAT] were firing at the same time.”
“We're having conversations with executives in that component supply chain, I think all of them are looking for an uptick in 2027 volumes. And that was not necessarily the case three or six months ago.
“We're hearing about a coal demand resurgence.”
“There is a risk that there are projects [Data Center] that developers are proposing in multiple states because they don't know which is going to move forward.”
Stocks: CAT, DE, PCAR, CMI, OSK, TEX, SITE, POOL, BTU, SNDK
*Not Investment Advice.
💡 This episode is presented by:Fiscal.AI–Delivering Modern Financial Data Infrastructure. 15% discount with code PITCH
(0:00) Introduction/highlights
(0:40) Doug introduces Jarrett Harris who is the axe in equipment-industry channel checks.
(1:59) How joining Iron Connect expanded Jarrett’s industry access and dealer network by 10x
EP. 53: Why is DKNG not Benefiting from the Prediction Markets Surge? Is it the VC Sydney Sweeney Effect on Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)?
Episode 53
Thursday, October 1, 2026 • Duration 50:34
Prediction markets are surging, but DraftKings is moving in the opposite direction. Is the issue market share? Rising customer acquisition costs? Or simply a reset from last year’s growth expectations?
In this episode, Bernie McTernan, CFA, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Needham & Company, breaks down the rapidly changing prediction-market landscape. We discuss Kalshi’s first-mover advantage, DraftKings’ strategy to replicate its regulated sportsbook playbook in currently unregulated states, Novig’s aggressive customer-acquisition push, and whether prediction markets meaningfully expand the long-term TAM for companies like DKNG.
With negative estimate revisions weighing on the stock, elevated short interest, and DraftKings trading at roughly 11x forward EV/EBITDA, the debate becomes increasingly interesting: how much of the bad news is already priced in—and could today’s investments create a much larger earnings opportunity over time?
“The stock's probably fifty percent lower than it was and the TAM's doubled.”
“Prediction markets aren't just sports. Soon you'll be able to bet the whisper number.”
“This is gonna be Robinhood on steroids.”
“The numbers are going down, short interest is going up. Why do you think that the investments and lower revisions this year are actually gonna have a benefit next year?”
[00:00:00] Introduction to Bernie McTernan, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Needham & Company. [00:01:40] Kalshi's rumored $40 billion private valuation. [00:02:45] What DraftKings' first NFL week of prediction-market share actually looked like.[00:04:30] The retention data that killed the original bear case on sportsbooks.[00:05:00] Mid-teens to 30–40% share — the playbook DraftKings wants to run again.[00:08:00] Why the prediction-market regulatory battle could end up at the Supreme Court.[00:11:40] The data showing almost no customer overlap between Kalshi and DraftKings.[00:18:00] Hedge fund hit rates and betting the number instead of the stock.[00:20:15] Fast futures, crypto, and the iCasino land grab.[00:21:50] The potential path from $1 billion to $5–6 billion of EBITDA.[00:27:45] Why states legalize gambling — budget deficits, not morality.[00:31:25] A trough multiple on estimates burdened by TAM expansion investments.[00:43:45] Novig's $50 million ad and the Caesars cautionary tale.
EP.52 Why Point72 Wins–20 Years Next to Steve Cohen with Chandler Bocklage, Head of Business Development
Episode 39
Thursday, September 24, 2026 • Duration 37:03
Chandler Bocklage spent nearly two decades working alongside Steve Cohen, managing a portfolio before leading Business Development at Point72. In this episode, we discuss what separates good investors from great ones, how Point72 develops portfolio managers, why intellectual curiosity matters more than almost anything else, and how AI is reshaping the future of fundamental investing.
If you've ever wondered what it really takes to become a successful PM, this is one of the most candid conversations from inside the walls of legendary investment firm Point72.
“Alpha decay has been compressing and compressing. There are more and more people chasing the same alphas.”
“You have to have different duration, you have to have different catalyst paths, you have to have different thought processes because”
“Honestly, I think that's what it really comes down to. The sacrifices…”
"We don't think AI replaces analysts or PMs."
Highlights:
(01:31) The intellectual curiosity that defines Steve Cohen
(04:24) The unspoken sacrifices behind being great at this job
(04:56) The Kobe, Jordan, and Brady comparison to elite investing
(07:48) The origins of LaunchPoint and building a real development path
(10:24) Why AI won't replace analysts or portfolio managers
(14:41) What actually makes an investment process repeatable
(29:47) The talent war, mega-guarantees, and buy versus build
(33:12) The biggest mistake of his career — and what it taught him
(35:18) Why Steve Cohen stepped back from trading to build the firm
DoorDash’s ($DASH) Growth Upside–A High-Conviction Investment with TimeSquare’s Consumer PM Ed Salib
Season 1 · Episode 36
Friday, September 18, 2026 • Duration 50:45
In 2001, Ed Salib walked into TimesSquare Capital Management as the firm's first intern. Twenty-five years later, he's co-PM of the TimesSquare Quality Mid Cap Growth ETF ($TSCM). So what does a 25-year fundamental investor do when one of the market's most debated stocks goes on sale?
Ed passed on DoorDash's 2021 IPO, kept it in his research “bullpen,” and bought the 20% sell-off on conservative early-2025 guidance. He got a second bite when the stock fell from the mid-200s to ~$140 this spring on fears it could be "vibe-coded away."
In the episode, we dig into why scale and density are the moat Grubhub never built, how DashPass and grocery are lifting order values, why Ed forecasts mid-20s growth through decade-end vs. the Street's high teens, and why the end of an internal investment cycle could surprise investors to the upside on margins.
"They gave initial guidance in early 2025 for EBITDA that disappointed and the stock sold off twenty percent. That was our entry point."
“We think they can go low to mid twenties versus the Street more like high teens over the next several years till the end of the decade.”
“I'm looking at the real-time Oxford data. It has August growing 31%...the Street’s at 21% for the quarter.”
We cover: ● TimesSquare's consumer filter: durable, needs-based demand, and why "fashion was a four-letter word" ● The three-sided marketplace, two-thirds US restaurant share, and why Grubhub lost the suburbs ● DashPass, grocery and DoubleDash: how grocery lifts order value and driver economics ● Why Ed passed on the IPO, what changed in 2024, and how he sized the 2025 entry ● The variant view: low-to-mid-20s growth vs. the Street's high teens ● The bear case: cost to grow, Instacart, Uber, PE-backed competition, and Deliveroo/ERP ● How Ed sets base, bull and bear price targets ● How TimesSquare uses Claude, MCPs and AlphaSense in research
EP.50: Why Stanley Drunkenmiller seeded Rich to build the next Bloomberg!l–with Rich Falk-Wallace, CEO & Co-Founder or Arcana
Episode 50
Thursday, September 10, 2026 • Duration 54:15
In 2019, Ken Griffin, Founder & CEO of Citadel, was looking for some of the best risk-takers on Wall Street. He landed on Rich Falk-Wallace, then a top analyst at Viking, who went on to become a Portfolio Manager at Citadel’s Surveyor Capital.
So what comes next after becoming a PM at Citadel at 29?
For the past five years, Rich has been building Arcana, a financial technology platform designed to help the world’s top hedge funds and asset managers make smarter decisions, faster. His philosophy is heavily influenced by Steve Jobs: obsess over the details and build products that genuinely delight customers.
In this episode, Rich breaks down the secular growth of beta-zero products, the rapid expansion of separately managed accounts (SMAs), the rise of alpha capture, and how human investment signals can complement quantitative systems. We also discuss portfolio construction, product-market fit, and how Arcana is integrating AI across its platform while staying focused on the customer.
“How did you convince Stanley Druckenmiller to be your seed investor?”
“The problem of portfolio construction is way closer to solved than that last mile of, ‘What’s a good idea?’”
“The allocation of dollars in public markets is headed towards beta one or beta zero products.”
“SMA-type products are growing massively in every direction. And that comes from allocators of every kind — sovereign wealth funds, endowments…”
[00:00:27] Rich’s journey from distressed credit and public equities into financial technology.
EP.49: Why the AI Boom Is Still Early with Daniel Pilling from Sands Capital
Episode 49
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 • Duration 01:04:17
Daniel Pilling, Co-PM of the Sands Capital Global Growth Fund, has spent nearly 20 years investing across long-only and long-short strategies, including time at Fidelity, Millennium, and Balyasny. Today at Sands Capital, he takes a very different approach: concentrated, deep-dive investing in high-quality growth companies with the potential to compound for years.
In this episode, Daniel breaks down why he believes the AI investment cycle is still incredibly early. We discuss $NVDIA, $TSMC, $ASML, memory, AI agents, the return on GPU infrastructure, and why compute could remain supply constrained for a long time. Daniel also explains why Anthropic's growth has been unlike anything he's seen before and how Sands thinks about finding the long-term winners as AI diffuses across the economy.
If you're wondering whether the AI trade has gone too far—or whether we're still at the beginning of a much larger cycle—this conversation offers a long-term investor's framework for thinking about what comes next.
"I've never seen anything like this."
"We're going to be supply constrained in terms of compute for a very long time."
“The reason for that is, again, the low penetration and the high ROI of what’s happening.”
"Anthropic and agentic AI is incredible. And it's just going viral and the pace of adoption is unheard of."
Topics: Sands Capital, Artificial Intelligence, NVIDIA, TSMC, ASML, Memory, AI Agents, Anthropic, Compute, Semiconductors, GPU Economics, Long-Term Investing, AI Infrastructure, AI Innovator Fund
*Not Investment Advice
[00:00:00] Introduction to Daniel Pilling, Co-PM of the Sands Capital Global Growth Fund.
EP.48: Tipper X The Hedge Fund Analyst Who Became an FBI Informant
Episode 48
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 • Duration 56:36
Tom Hardin, formerly known as “Tipper X,” helped the FBI unravel one of the largest insider trading investigations in hedge fund history. The FBI flipped him, convinced him to wear a wire that built more than 20 cases. The hero of the story was Tom’s wife, who stood by him the entire time, allowing him to survive the intense emotional weight.
In this episode, Tom walks through how he crossed the line, how easy it was to rationalize small trades as harmless, and how a handful of decisions ultimately destroyed his career. He explains what happened when the FBI approached him on the street, what it was like wearing a wire for two years, and why the $46,000 he made from four trades ended up being the price of his career.
We also discuss the practical lessons investors should take from his story: why who you surround yourself with is the most important decision of your career, why compliance should be treated as a career protector, and how being in a pressured performance situation can change how good people act.
Tom is now the author of Wired on Wall Street
"I blew up my career for $46,000."
"Cheating is a choice."
“You have to think about who you're surrounding yourself with.”
“If you're even that close to the line, you have to have a conversation with compliance.”
[00:00:30] Tom Hardin’s history as Tipper X and role in the FBI insider trading investigation
The FBI confronts Tom about four trades
EP.47: Activist Investor Pushing for an Epic Turnaround at Eagle Bancorp ($EGBN)
Thursday, August 20, 2026 • Duration 43:36
My former colleague and banking guru, James Abbott, is living his passion with the launch of Diligence Capital Management (DCM).
DCM runs a concentrated, net-long financials strategy alongside a tighter-net long/short financials portfolio. James and his team bring more than 50 years of combined experience in financial services—and a deep understanding of how banks operate, where they underperform, and what it takes to improve them.
In this episode, James explains why DCM became actively involved with Eagle Bancorp ($EGBN), how he identified an underperforming bank in need of change, and why he believes the market is still underestimating its earnings power.
We also discuss lessons from the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, as well as why spending time inside a business can create an investing edge that is difficult to replicate from the outside.
"My goal was to be a portfolio manager just like Peter Lynch."
"The market just doesn't really appreciate what's going on here."
"The deep homework concept... go deeper than anybody else does."
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(4:08) The Industrial economy is being driven by the data center buildout.
(5:23) Data center demand expands from construction equipment and power generation into new equipment categories.
(6:11) Landscaping, coal, transportation, and flatbed trailers emerge as derivative beneficiaries of the Data Center boom.
(9:38) Coal demand begins strengthening as power providers require higher base loads.
(12:01) Jarrett says he has never seen all three major Caterpillar end markets firing this strongly at the same time.
(12:34) Previously bearish industry contacts become more constructive on the 2027 outlook.
(13:36) The risk that data center project backlogs include projects proposed across multiple locations.
(15:58) Longer lead times, lighter used inventory, and highly utilized rental fleets keep equipment scarce.
(17:34) Jarrett describes an unprecedented buyout of a second-tier aerial equipment manufacturer’s inventory.
(21:03) Haul trucks and articulated trucks approach new-equipment pricing as lead times stretch toward a year.
(23:59) Trucking combines pent-up replacement demand with stronger data center and energy-related freight activity.
(25:53) Component suppliers become increasingly constructive on 2027 truck volumes.
(32:59) Trucking demand looks unusually industrial and project-driven rather than consumer-driven.
(33:47) Signs of improvement in agriculture collide with cautious dealers still recovering from used-equipment losses.
(36:40) A major trailer dealer estimates data centers drive
______________________________________________________________________Research Sponsors:Oxford Data Plan–The Home of Alternative DataAlphaSense–Decision Grade AICarbon Arc–The Infrastructure for the AI Economy
📩 Subscribe to our Substack for early episode drops, research updates, episode feedback, and the Pitch The PM Job Board: https://pitchthepm.substack.com/
AlphaSense–Decision Grade AI. Free trial at https://www.alpha-sense.com/pitch/Fiscal.AI–Delivering Modern Financial Data Infrastructure. Use code PITCH for 15% off______________________________________________________________________
Highlights: (0:48) Ed's 25 years at TimesSquare, from first intern to co-PM (3:16) What TimesSquare looks for in a consumer stock (8:08) Why DoorDash is compelling: scale, founder-led, and capital allocation (11:06) Why the business exists and where Grubhub went wrong (13:20) DashPass, 45M members, and grocery (16:09) Carbon Arc data: grocery order values rising from ~$51 to ~$63 (18:11) Robotaxis and drones: bull-case upside (20:44) Passing on the 2021 IPO and what changed in 2024 (23:50) The 2025 guidance sell-off: "That was our entry point" (25:36) The 2026 AI sell-off and "vibe-coded away" bear case (28:55) Low-to-mid-20s growth vs. the Street's high teens (30:52) Incremental margins, ERP, and EBITDA revisions (32:23) Deliveroo integration and the 2026 investment year (35:25) ODP shows August accelerating to +31% YoY (37:20) DoorDash beyond restaurants (40:01) Valuation at ~22x NTM EV/EBITDA and the bear case (45:29) Economics with merchants and drivers (49:27) Base, bull and bear price targets (52:05) "We're a Claude shop": AI in research (54:47) Security and ring-fencing research
Research Sponsors: AlphaSense–Decision Grade AI. Complimentary trial at https://www.alpha-sense.com/pitch/ Carbon Arc–The Infrastructure for the AI Economy. 30 Days free with code PTPM30 Fiscal.AI–Delivering Modern Financial Data Infrastructure. Use code PITCH for 15% discount
