The Power of Teams
Why investment is an industry obsessed with individuals — and why the evidence suggests that the best outcomes come from genuine collaboration, not star culture.
An industry of individuals
The investment industry is built around individuals. Star fund managers have their names on the door, their faces on the marketing, and their track records treated as the product. When performance is good, the narrative is about one person’s genius. When performance is bad, the narrative is about one person’s failure. Teams, when they exist at all, are often treated as support structures for the star — not as the unit that produces the output.
This is at odds with what we know about complex decision-making in other high-stakes domains. In medicine, aviation, military operations, and software engineering, the evidence consistently shows that well-functioning teams outperform talented individuals. Not because teams are smarter, but because they are better at catching errors, integrating diverse information, and sustaining performance under pressure.
The investment industry’s obsession with the individual is a structural weakness. A team that genuinely collaborates — that challenges, supports, and learns together — is one of the most undervalued competitive advantages available.
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