Episode 41 | A Conversation with Greg Wong, from Code to Capital

In Episode 41 of “Market News with Rodney Lake,” Professor Lake, Director of the GW Investment Institute, welcomes Greg Wong, GW alum and advisory board member of the GW Investment Institute. They discuss Greg's unique career path—from studying computer science and serving in the Navy, to earning an MBA at GW, and transitioning into finance and investment banking. Greg shares pivotal experiences from his time at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey (FBR) and later as an in-house investment banker at Web.com, where he led numerous acquisitions and helped the business grow. The conversation offers valuable career and life advice, including the importance of networking, mentorship, adaptability, and trusting one’s instincts. 

Transcript

Rodney Lake
 Thank you for joining “Market News with Rodney Lake.” This is a regular program for the GW Investment Institute where we talk about timely market topics. I'm Rodney Lake, the director of the GW Investment Institute. Let's get started. Welcome back to “Market News with Rodney Lake.” I'm your host, Rodney Lake. Today we have a guest, a very special guest, a GW Investment Institute Advisory Board Member, Mr. Greg Wong.

Rodney Lake
 Mr. Wong, welcome to the show.

Greg Wong
 Professor Lake, great to be here.

Rodney Lake
 Well, I'm so delighted. One of my goals for this year is to get as many of our advisory board members on as possible. Our governing Board Chair, Mr. Russ Ramsey, which you have an interconnection with, was on the show. Mr. John Roberts has been on the show. Delighted that you're here today as well. And a shout out, which you got a shout out for.

Rodney Lake
 you and Russ for Mr. Dan Ives. Thank you for making the connection for the show, for us, and also our conference. It really worked out. And I would say a big shout out to Dan Ives, who was very generous with his time. So thank you, Greg, for making that happen for us. It was really a delight to have him on the podcast and to have him on campus and meeting with students.

Rodney Lake
 I think it really worked out super well. So thank you very much.

Greg Wong
 Now, it's wonderful to have him, you know, here at the Institute, his insights, and his dress is really something different.

Rodney Lake
 Oh, it's such a treat. And again, we really appreciate that. You, you know, put up your hand and said, hey, I can make this happen. And you did. And again, he he also gave you and Russ shout outs for GOATS. If people are listening to the episode, on the podcast. So, again, thanks very much.

Rodney Lake
 And one of the things that, you know, the connecting piece and we'll talk about this in your, in your background here is Russ. But we also want to say a big thank you for being on on our advisory board for the Investment Institute. Just so people know, people that are on our advisory board, you know, our people in finance, people who are alums.

Rodney Lake
 So that gives away part of your background, but it's also people who who think well of what we're doing, think that we're doing something consequential. Think that what we're doing is matters to students and can help them along their way. And so we are grateful that you're part of that. And, you know, people put in the three Ws: the wealth, the wisdom, and the work. You're doing all three which we appreciate.

Rodney Lake
 And it takes all three to really make something effective, at the University. And again, very grateful, for your impact at the Investment Institute. So now let's dive into your background. So we know there's a connecting piece in there, Russ, as I mentioned a couple times, and Dan mentioned as well. But maybe let's start a little bit before that educational background.

Rodney Lake
 You know, undergrad, grad, and we'll get into professional.

Greg Wong
 Sure. Grew up in California, went to school at Notre Dame. All the way in Indiana.

Rodney Lake
Nice. That’s a long haul

Greg Wong
 Different weather. Different weather. Was a Navy ROTC. And was focused on computer science when I was there. The Navy actually sent me here to Washington, and that's where I had a chance to work for four star admiral in the Navy's nuclear program.

Rodney Lake
 Very cool.

Greg Wong
 So called naval reactors. And that was a wonderful experience. 

Rodney Lake

And how long were you there? 

Greg Wong

Well, I was there for about five and a half, six years. But I had a chance to get my MBA here at GW. And, as I mentioned, I was computer science undergrad and coming into the business school.

Rodney Lake
 Well, let's stop right there. One second. So just to memorialize this. So you're coming from California, right? Basically working your way east a little bit. South Bend and then to Washington. The connecting piece there being ROTC, the Navy, and then into Washington. But how did you decide, you're five years into the Navy, what was the decision around you know, I think I want to go to business school?

Greg Wong
 Actually, I thought I was going to go to law school.

Rodney Lake
 Oh, wow.

Greg Wong
 Because back in an undergrad, probably three of my four closest friends, they went to law school. And by the time it was my time to enter in, they had finished their law school. They were associates at law firms and they said, don't do it. Being a lawyer, well this sucks.

Rodney Lake
 In hindsight, this turned out to be great advice.

Greg Wong
 Yeah. And and and actually part of it is I was actually to get my MBA and then maybe think maybe I'll become a corporate attorney. So I'm getting an MBA and JD MBA. You're right. And you know, so I decided, well, I'll just do the MBA. And that's when I focused on finance.

Rodney Lake
 Excellent. And how did you make that determination?

Greg Wong
 Well, because actually when I was in the Navy, I had a very unique job. My job was to work with the Appropriations committees and the Armed Services committees on behalf of the program to get what we wanted accomplished. And that involved literally billions of dollars. And that was that's money. And I will tell you, the people have the most control and power here in this country is actually the Appropriations Committee.

Greg Wong
 Those those professional staffers there, because everything revolves around if you have a plan, if you don't have money, you're not going to get anything done.

Rodney Lake 

Doesn't work. Right.

Greg Wong

And so that's where a lot of things happened.

Rodney Lake
 A lot of great experience. Yeah.

Greg Wong
 It was phenomenal experience. And that kind of, you know, perked up my interest in. And then also just the markets and investment in general was something that I was interested in.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah. And when you talk about, you know, Steve Jobs talks about connecting the dots and looking back. And certainly when we look back and we'll do it a little bit, obviously that piece of your experience obviously was very consequential, in making you a successful investment banker.

Greg Wong
 Right. Well, you had to take, you know, what the program's accomplishments were and what their goals were. Pitch it, make sure that the people understood it, and then they gave you the money. And you can go execute.

Rodney Lake
 Right.

Greg Wong
 Just like an investment banker.

Rodney Lake
 Same deal.

Greg Wong
 You you say, here's the company, here's what they're planning on doing. Here's where they're going to be going. Give us your investment and we're going to give you a return. So a very, very similar path.

Rodney Lake
 And big numbers. And you know, really important, you know, inconsequential deals happening. And so great experience. So we jumped ahead a little bit. We'll come back to it. But now talk about your time at GW. Obviously you're here in Washington. So it makes sense to go to GW. We talked a lot about you chose finance. But talk about your time on campus and talk about, you know, the combination of your degree.

Greg Wong
 Well, I mean, first of all, it was great. It did open up to, you know, experiences or perspectives that I hadn't had. I would tell you one of my most interesting classes was microeconomics. And that's actually where I learned everything is about supply and demand Everything, whether it's not just the stock market, not just the food, it's, you know, trying to get a job, it's buying a car.

Greg Wong
 It's everything. And so that that was a class that really kind of it's like The Matrix. Where you kind of look at and you see all the code. Now I can actually look at the world and all I see is supply and demand.

Rodney Lake
 Right? It's foundational and it's and certainly when you're coming from a computer science undergrad, you know, and having that, it's probably a big, you know, foundational piece to set you up for finance. So you did your time here. Can you maybe talk about you know, how you made the connection? So, you know, I know you went to FBR after this.

Rodney Lake
 But talk about that. That seems like a, you know, a big jump. Obviously you're in you're in business school. I'm sure you had plenty of opportunities to do other things. Stay in government, you know. How did you find yourself, getting a job at FBR?

Greg Wong
 Well, actually, the the naval reactors wanted me to stay on full time and become a civilian. And, you know, I thought about that, but it was something I wanted to do, something more. I want to do some things different. I thought about going and opportunities to go to M&A and corporate. I had a chance to go into finance departments in another tech company, but it was here at the Beta Gamma Sigma reception where the keynote speaker was Russ Ramsey, you know, founder of our, you know,GW Investment Institute.

Rodney Lake
 Right.

Greg Wong
 And he was young at the time, and he was talking about his investment banking firm, and he was going to be starting up at Technology Investment Banking Group. And given my background in computer science, paired up with the finance, 

Rodney Lake

Makes a lot of sense.

Greg Wong

He gave me an opportunity that, you know, I jumped at. And it turned out to be one of the pivotal decisions in my life.

Rodney Lake
 Absolutely. And so what number one, that's a fantastic connection. And that's an early days, you know, part of the tech world at that time, in an early days, at FBR, could you maybe talk about, and I think you did about 11 years there, approximately, maybe a little bit more, at FBR. Could you talk about, you know, your time there and sort of the kind of work that you were doing, a big adjustment going from being, you know, working on naval reactors to, to being an investment banker in tech, which was booming at the time.

Greg Wong
 Well, and like you said, it was, you know, we think about in the late 90s are really only two key places in the United States where technology was really happening. It was out in Silicon Valley. And I happened to be here in Washington, DC because you had U-Net, you had AOL. You had these, these companies. And then it blossomed into many, many, many software and internet companies.

Greg Wong
 And so when I think about the opportunities I had early stage, you're dealing with companies that, you know, had just a handful of million of revenue, right. And doing things that people have never done before and be able to communicate that story in the one hand, very exciting.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 But it's also, you know, you really are breaking new ground.

Rodney Lake
 Which I'm sure was great fun.

Greg Wong
 Was, it was wonderful able chance to to be working with CEOs and CFOs of these, you know, up and coming companies, you know, talking to boards, advising them, going public, buying companies, selling their company. And so it was just a wonderful experience, especially at such a young age.

Rodney Lake
 Absolutely. And and to pause here a little bit or maybe, let's explore this a little bit more, especially for people who are watching this, who might be students or people who are thinking about transitioning in their careers. What advice would you give to people who are interested in being in financial services or specifically investment banking? You know, what are some of the takeaways that you learned during this period that you could tell other people?

Rodney Lake
 You know, you have to be good at a few of these things if you're going to succeed, as an investment banker or succeed in financial services.

Greg Wong
 Yeah. Well, I think number one is to be able to, to really listen. So when you, as you're young, when you're in meetings, watch what other people are doing, watch with the senior people who don't see what you'll be. You know, you like that they're doing right and what you don't like. And it's kind of form your own methodology.

Greg Wong
 But when it comes to really making a difference, just do a great job. Do it. You know what your boss really wants and be reliable. You do those few things, gather that experience. They're going to want to move you up.

Rodney Lake
 Right. You're going to be successful? I mean, those are but you talk about foundational. Those are foundational. But I think some of those are kind of a lost art, nowadays and I think, you know, mentioning those things is super important, especially young people being reliable, you know, showing up on time, doing the work.

Greg Wong
 It's actually not rocket science. Right, right. And but if you can do that and can do it consistently, then that's the people that they're going to give more and more work, the better and interesting opportunities, and they're going to count on you to make a difference. And having those opportunities will lead you in places that you want to go.

Rodney Lake
 Now, are there any specific stories, where it maybe it could be something. General, from your time at FBR before we move on from FBR, to your next role. Could you maybe talk about, you know, something in particular or something in general that really stood out to you from your time at, at Friedman, Billings, and Ramsey?

Greg Wong
 Well, again, it's it's if you get into investment banking, you really get to do things that a lot of people, you know, don't. You get get exposure to, to you know, senior management at these great companies. You see some that are wonderful and maybe there's some who go, well, maybe they should be of a.

Rodney Lake
 You have a big comparable set.

Greg Wong
 Do do things a little differently. But look, it's never as good as you think it is, right? When things are going wonderful.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 You know it's not going to stay that way. And it's actually never as bad as you think it will be when you're having a hard time. The markets just collapse. I was there during the dot-com bubble. Yeah. You know that time that was that was a wreck. And people can get very, very distressed. But just understand that things move in cycles.

Rodney Lake
 Right.

Greg Wong
 And and by doing it long enough and seeing enough exposure just keep those that in mind. Again, it's never as good as you think it is when it's going good and it's never as bad is when things aren't working out. It. Things will work out over time.

Rodney Lake
 Excellent. And now, though, let's, And we may come back to some of this, but again, great connecting thread here. For FBR again, even back to Dan Ives's episode that we just had. So next up here to you’re at FBR for about 11 years, you decided to do something else. You move on to Web.com.

Rodney Lake
 Could you talk about how that came about? And in that transition.

Greg Wong
 Actually, it was I was enjoying what I was doing. I was again, I was a, managing director. I ran, you know, a big group, within the technology area. I was allowed to basically manage my clients. Right. And once you're in investment banking, you don't get out. When you get out, you don't. It's hard to get back in.

Greg Wong
 Right. And so. But I had a a a, client of mine the time the company was called Website Pros, and it was down in Florida, and the CEO and founder was a guy by the name of David Brown. And he was actually one of the partners at Carlyle, the private equity firm. He had retired relatively young, moved down to Florida and started up a company to help small businesses use the internet to grow their business.

Greg Wong
 And at the time and even today, still navigating the internet and putting on a web page and social media and being found in a local search and all those things are, you know.

Rodney Lake
 Challenging for small companies.

Greg Wong
 Well, it's not their focus, right? If you are a roofer, you know how to put on a roof, right? Right. If you're a plumber, you're wonderful at putting in piping. And but how to do this. So our company or you know, the company started focused in on that. And so I had an opportunity to raise private capital for them.

Greg Wong
 LED their IPO, bought a couple companies for them. We actually bought a company called Web.com.

Rodney Lake
 Nice.

Greg Wong
 Took their name. It was a it was a better name.

Rodney Lake
 It's a pretty clean there. Yeah.

Greg Wong
 And and one day, when I was down visiting, trying to talk to him about. Well, here's our next set of acquisitions. He said, why don't you come on board and be essentially the in-house investment banker.

Rodney Lake
 Nice.

Greg Wong
 And I originally told him no.

Rodney Lake
 Okay.

Greg Wong
 Because loved Washington DC. You know was in a good spot within the firm. And. But I had young kids. And, you know, when you're working in investment banking, it is long, long hours. And it's it really is six, seven days a week. And so, I thought, you know, what better place to if I was going to take a jump, right, than my favorite, you know, CEO.

Greg Wong
 I love the company I love. I felt like it actually did have purpose.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah, absolutely. Helping these companies.

Greg Wong
 And, it was Florida, so, I gave it a shot and turned it about to one of the, you know, big and and really fulfilling decisions I made.

Rodney Lake
 Nice. Well, and maybe just a second on, you know, maybe more than a second rather. Let's talk about that your time there. And so, you know, help people distinguish the difference between, you know, you're an investment banker at a firm, investment banking firm, FBR, and basically you're the in-house investment banker, at a company Web.com. What what are the similarities and differences there?

Greg Wong
 Oh, great. Great question. So, a lot of the activities are the same, but how it goes about. So when you're an investment banker, you have five, six, seven deals all going on at once at different stages. Some are wrapping up, some are getting started, and they could be, a buy side mergers and acquisitions. One could be a secondary equity offering.

Greg Wong
 They could be a variety of different things. And but you're jumping between client to client and some deals are going really well and some deals are not. You know, they're there's something you know, you know, the markets, you know, taken a little bit of a swoon for that moment. Maybe they're trying to buy another company and the other company, someone else is trying to buy them.

Greg Wong
 So you got a bidding war going. So there's a lot of things moving on, a lot of different parts. But when you go in-house, you still get to do a variety of deals. We did over the entire course of my time working with them, probably 17, 18 buy side deals. We did many, many, many financings, between equity and debt and vertical offerings and term loan a and term loan, these are all different nuances of debt.

Greg Wong
 And but the difference is when you're doing a deal for clients, you get one done and then you kind of have to move on to the next one. When you go in house and you buy a company, you own it right here, right there. There is no more pivoting to to, you know, and another client, you know, everything you're doing.

Greg Wong
 And oftentimes, you know, at Web.com every employee was a shareholder. So that's very that was a wonderful thing that David and the board did is that every person you know had options. And so when you're trying to be, you know, make a difference, you're always trying to keep in mind is the deal I'm doing actually going to be helpful not just to the customers but also to the shareholders and all all my colleagues.

Greg Wong
 Right? Right. And so that's not something you can hide from over time, because I always said I can do a lot more damage by doing a bad deal. Absolutely. Benefits I would do for a good deal. So you have you you take it even more personally and making sure that you know, what you're planning on doing is going to be moving the company in the right direction.

Rodney Lake
 Right. And I think there's some lessons learned to share here too. So thanks for sharing that. I think that's very enlightening to talk about the differences between those two positions. While they're very similar they're also quite different. And the structure that company also different. So talking about that like internal to the company. How did you decide on these deals?

Rodney Lake
 Obviously when you're an investment banker maybe you're pitching deals. Deals maybe coming to you. But you know, you're the in-house, investment banker. How do you decide? You know, okay, we have these 3 or 4 ideas or how do you come up with new ideas? How do you decide, how to prioritize those deals? And is it you and the board?

Rodney Lake
 Is it you, the CEO and the board? How does it work at that level?

Greg Wong
 Right, so we at, you know, probably had 2400, you know, colleagues, and I ran the corporate development department of one person intentionally. Intentionally. So every deal that that happened, I knew inside and out. Right. So when I'm sitting in front of the board saying, we should do this, here's how should we go about it? I can answer every question there was, whether it was about sales and marketing or other words about technology.

Greg Wong
 I didn't turn to someone on the team.

Rodney Lake
 It's hard to turn to someone like.

Greg Wong
 Hey, here's where something now again had a wonderful set of colleagues. So when we needed finance, the general counsel and his team are on on legal. He took care of that. Our CFO, another wonderful guy, and his team, they would do accounting due diligence and and all the other departments. We're all part of a team.

Greg Wong
 But I made sure that when it came to figuring out the deals, working on the deals, I would basically go across the hall to to the CEO's office and say, you know, here's, here's another set of companies that we should be looking at. And basically, you track a whole variety of opportunities because it's not just about us. You need two parties to get a deal done.

Rodney Lake

It takes 2 to tango.

Greg Wong
 And so timing has to be right for us. And it actually has to be right for them. They may be planning, some operational things or strategic things. It's just not the right time for them. Yeah. And so the idea is it was kind of like dating you would you would get to know them over time. And when the timing was right, I always told them it's a it's a Venn diagram.

Greg Wong
 You know, we have our, you know, goals and what we can afford to do. And they have their expectations. And if we're apart we're not going to get a deal done right. But when the time comes that it does overlap, that's when you got to move.

Rodney Lake
 That's when things come together.

Greg Wong
 And that's, you know, where we, really waited for those times and be able to execute.

Rodney Lake
 Now for for people who maybe don't know, how do you prospect for those deals, you know, how do you find them?

Greg Wong
 Well, the good thing is, is because we were focused on small businesses. That was my number one criteria, you know, tell me about your customers and say, oh, we do this great work. We're working with its health care group or we we're, you know, focusing on, manufacturing. I'm like, okay, that's great, but that's not what we do.

Greg Wong
 Yeah, we're here to help literally, the small businesses. And so by using that filter, first and foremost, that was a big difference. The other thing was we were really big in recurring revenue okay. Big, big, big fans. Right. And because frankly, small business customers, they don't have big checks, right?

Rodney Lake
 Yeah. They don't have recurring.

Greg Wong
 But if you deliver value and more importantly, you actually use your service to get them more business, they're they're going to not only be with you, but they're going to stay with you. And that was if by just doing those two things, it really narrowed down the list.

Rodney Lake
 And so the whole time you're doing this, is Web.com a public company the entire time?

Greg Wong
 Well, it originally wasn't. And then but when I moved in-house, it had been a public company probably for about three years.

Rodney Lake
 At that point. Right. Thanks for bringing that up. And the reason I'm asking is then when you're doing these deals, many times you're buying private companies? And taking them be part of a public company? Could you talk about the differences there? And we talked about recurring revenue. Obviously the market likes that. So you're getting a higher multiple.

Rodney Lake
 Is that part of the arbitrage that sometimes you could get? Or you know, where some of the companies that you bought public, you know, maybe talk about the differences between buying a private company or another public company.

Greg Wong
 Well, there's really kind of two or maybe three lenses that I used when we were looking at companies. One is does it add us more customers. So to market to small business customers on a per customer basis is actually pretty expensive. And so if someone had already had a set of customers, hundreds of thousands, millions, you know, we we bought a company called Network Solutions, which was one of the, at the time, one of the largest domain name companies out there.

Greg Wong
 And that added us a lot of small business customers. But we were really big into upselling and cross-selling. What does that mean? That means small businesses. You can build them a website. But then how about add some marketing? Yeah, or let's add some email marketing or you know, a variety of different products. And then what you can do is when I looked at a second set of merger and acquisition targets, is did they have a solution that when we had our5, 6 million customers, could we sell into them

Greg Wong
 That solution. And then international, we bought companies in Argentina, in the UK, we ended up in Canada. So we had a variety of international operations and was planning on expanding even further.

Rodney Lake
 Nice. Well, and maybe to wrap up this part, to talk about this is, you're no longer there. So maybe talk about, you know, your time wrapping up there and what was your exit? Look. What what did that look like?

Greg Wong
 So, yeah, it's been about five years, and it was unexpected. So I as an investment banker, I've always known that most companies will get by. It's just a matter of time. It's when and who and how. And we were continuing to execute our plan servicing the market. But I also knew I told clients that the day you go public is the day your for sale.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 All a buyer has to do is basically offer the board of directors a deal they can't refuse.

Rodney Lake
 Correct. And they have a fiduciary responsibility to consider that.

Greg Wong
 And the follow through. And so, one of the things that Web.com we believed in was actually making money, making a profit.

Rodney Lake
 Which is an excellent plan.

Greg Wong
 Which is actually, sometimes in the technology world at the time wasn't always the focus.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 Right. But but that was a very important part of our DNA. And so what is that that did attract people who were interested in acquiring the company. And so, it was one spring day that we got an offer that was substantially higher than what our stock price was trading at. And from then on, through a series events, we actually had a bidding war break out.

Greg Wong
 Okay.

Rodney Lake
 Excellent. Good for you.

Greg Wong
 Well. And good for the shareholders. But the so the company wasn't for sale, but we, we did get bought and it probably happened a few years earlier than I anticipated.

Rodney Lake
 Okay.

Greg Wong
 But it was, it was, you know, a good exit for, for those involved.

Rodney Lake
 Absolutely. And again, sounds like great. For shareholders, you mentioned a bidding war breaks out. That's great for the valuation. Fantastic. Well, and congratulations on that. Now, you said that's about five years ago, so how have you, other than the Investment Advisory Board at GW? What what has been the, you know, the time what is it been focused on since then?

Greg Wong
 Well, you know, for, for 28 years, it was, many, many, you know, long days, long nights. And it was an opportunity to actually take a break. So do a lot of traveling nowadays. International travel.

Rodney Lake
 Any favorite places?

Greg Wong
 Oh, I love Japan. Japan is wonderful. If you if you like. You know, landscapes. Yeah. There's parts of Switzerland, that are just majestic and and probably one of the prettiest places I ever seen, was diving in the Great Barrier Reef.

Rodney Lake
 Oh, wow.

Greg Wong
 It it does look like if you seen the movie Nemo.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 It really looks like that. I mean, it's it's shocking. 

Rodney Lake
Excellent. And, and and so traveling a lot, taking a little bit of a break. Are you doing any investing on your own now?

Greg Wong
 Well, one of the big things that, Because I'm not working, and haven't been for a few years, you do think about where you can deploy capital, right? And, a big fan of private equity and finding if you can find the right people that you can work with and invest in, that's, where I think you have the right risk return characteristics.

Greg Wong
 I'm a big fan of capital preservation at this stage in my life.

Rodney Lake
 Absolutely.

Greg Wong
 So do you focus in on things that are more real assets? And that's probably a big part of the portfolio. Some of them multifamily, some of them are industrial. Yeah. Some are built from the ground up. Some of them are remodels. So, I don't do the direct investing myself, like to be part of a a group that actually are experts in what they're doing.

Greg Wong
 Evaluate them, work with them over time. You know, build trust and confidence in them and, and let them do their thing.

Rodney Lake
 So now I've moved on to being a capital allocator.

Greg Wong
 That's right.

Rodney Lake
 Excellent. Well, we wish you all the success with that. I'm sure it's already working out. Well, so now transitioning into, maybe some business lessons learned. We already. We touched on a couple already. One of the things that you've said before, to our students, is that in business, everything is negotiable. Could you maybe help listeners and viewers understand what you mean by that?

Greg Wong
 Well, oftentimes people are, this is the way it is, and this is the way you need to call it. When I think about it in many ways, well, one is, you know, just because there's rules doesn't mean that you can't adjust them. You need to find out on the other party, what is it that they really want?

Greg Wong
 And if you have something that you really want to have a discussion, for the, you know, upcoming graduates, here's an offer. You're going to work here, you're going to do this job in this now you're going to get paid. And that might be a wonderful offer, but you might say, you know what? I want to take the summer off and travel Europe.

Greg Wong
 Okay. Remember, they they want you.

Rodney Lake
 Right.

Greg Wong
 So just go back. You know, I'd love to join your firm. I love to work in this job, but I need, you know, eight weeks before I can start. Or if you need, you're going to be moving. You're moving to Chicago, New York City. You know, it really would be helpful if I can have a little extra just to set up my apartment.

Greg Wong
 You know, and all you got to do is ask. But if you understand that they want something and you have something to give them, it's worth the discussion.

Rodney Lake
 Right. That's great advice. Next piece of advice here is on networking. You talk about networking creates opportunities. Could you maybe expand on that a little bit. And what advice would you give to current students or really anybody in the professional world?

Greg Wong
But that's where it really is. I mean, we talked a little about how you can advance your career, how you, you know, what are some of the lessons you can learn. But it's the people that you meet that will create those opportunities to do things differently. I meant we talked about Russ Ramsey earlier. We talked about David Brown, but it really is.

Greg Wong
 Had I not had that networking opportunity. I wouldn't have had the chance to get to know them and them get to know me, which then would have led to those professional opportunities.

Rodney Lake
 Absolutely.

Greg Wong
 And so networking it's about people. At the end of the day people hire people. That's what you can look at a resume but they all kind of look the same.

Rodney Lake
 At a certain point they look similar. Right.

Greg Wong
 But it's when you get to know the person and you build a connection, that's where you go. That's somebody I'd love to have on my team or that's somebody I would like to work with. And so, get in front of people, get to know them. And that really will make a difference.

Rodney Lake
 Excellent advice. Now, extending on the advice here, one of the other parts that you offer, and this is not, just your advice, but you talk about, know thyself when we're talking to current students. And I think, again, this is applicable to anyone, but maybe you could extend, you know, you know, advice here, like how should people think about know thyself.

Greg Wong
 Well, again, when you're younger, there's a lot that you actually don't know. Yeah. And I didn't know about myself how much I enjoyed being doing deals. Doing finance deals in particular. And but it was something that I got too exposed to and said, ah this is something. The light bulb went off. Look, life's too short. And you got to find out the things that that make you happy in life and go do those.

Greg Wong
 Right. It's, it's no fun to go five, ten, 20 years being miserable.

Rodney Lake
 Right. Something you don’t like

Greg Wong
 It's not. Find out what you like. And, and part of it is also find out what you don't like. Yes. Especially your younger you know,

Rodney Lake

You don’t always know.

Greg Wong
 I thought I thought I was going to be an aerospace engineer until I figured out what they actually did. And I'm like, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. And there's people who.

Rodney Lake
 Who love doing that

Greg Wong
 Love doing that. Yeah, good for them. And I think that's really important is to find out what makes you happy and go do that. And if you do that, success will follow you. You'll you'll have the, you know, the right, you know, opportunities. You have the right job, you have the right salary, it'll come to you, but you gotta figure out what's going to make you happy and go do that.

Greg Wong
 And it can change right the course of your life. I expect probably you're going to be in places you never thought you'd be doing, things you never thought you would. That's cool. That's all part of this journey.

Rodney Lake
 And some of the other things you've mentioned, in the past and you're, again, you're nice enough to come back and talk to our students and guest lecture. Thank you. But you talk about the importance of having some mentors, you know, can you give, again, particularly, you know, people maybe coming out of school right now advice.

Rodney Lake
 But I think it's applicable to anyone the importance of mentors.

Greg Wong
 Well, it oftentimes it could be your boss, you know, because they hired you. They're they're working with you every day. But it could be somebody else. It could be a relative. It could be a professor. It could be even a colleague. Right. A more, more senior, person who's been around the block a couple times. It could be a variety of people, but they are going to be there because they have an interest in your success.

Greg Wong
 And you know, a good mentor is going to not only help you with the things that you're doing. Well. Yeah. And encourage you to do that. But also saying hey you know here's some areas you need to work on or you should really step out and take a risk to do something that you weren't comfortable with.

Greg Wong
 Right. And help you grow. And so I would look for those mentors, as you go through your path.

Rodney Lake
 Next here is, you talked also in class about, you know, we have a plan. And you mentioned having a plan about being an aerospace engineer. But and you say expect it to change which which you mentioned, could you maybe meet double down on this? You know, it's not that you don't plan at all, but you have to be nimble.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 I never thought I'd be in Washington, DC and the Navy. I was lucky enough to get selected for a very special program. And that was, you know, a unique opportunity. And something I had not planned on. I never thought I'd be in Florida right again had I not met my client down there. He, you know, gave me an opportunity to come down there and never thought I'd be there.

Greg Wong
 Life is going to take you in in many, many different places. It's it's not just jobs. It's the the people that you meet. And what I would say is really don't get too hung up on here's exactly what I'm going to do for the next 30 years, because I can guarantee you it won't turn out that way.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah. And opportunities will be whizzing by there.

Greg Wong
 There are things that you opportunities you never expected to come. And they're going to be challenges, right? Some of them could be professional. Something can be personal. Some they can be relationships, some of them could be health. And a lot of different things will change along that path. But the good thing is do have a plan in terms of where you are going, at least for the the near to medium term, and maybe even have some long term goals in life.

Greg Wong
 But just know that it's going to change. And that's actually part of the part of the fun.

Rodney Lake
 Exactly. And you just mentioned, you know, health and and many times you've described this is health over wealth. Could you maybe explain your feelings about that.

Greg Wong
 Those are some of it's some deep personal feelings because, because I'm really not supposed to be here. You know, I, it was a few years ago, was in phenomenal shape and, was just getting a check out with my cardiologist, so I had a plan. So when I got old, I could compare it. Right. 

Rodney Lake

Right, a baseline.

A baseline, it turned out that my lad, which is the Widowmaker, was 99% blocked.

Rodney Lake
 Not good.

Greg Wong
 Not good at all. And and shockingly, was was still walking around. But we caught it at had, you know, the bypass surgery, which I will tell you is, is not fun at all.

Rodney Lake
 I doubt that.

Greg Wong
 But, it's part of the reason why I'm still here. And it didn't change my perspective on life, but it did reinforce the idea of, again, do the things you want to do, right? You know, be with the people you want to be and and enjoy the journey you have because you don't know how long it's going to it's going to be.

Greg Wong
 But try to make a difference along the way. Absolutely right beyond just yourself. And so whether that's at work, that's what society is with your neighbor, issues with your family trying to make a difference.

Rodney Lake
 No. Look, I we're all lucky that you had this insight to get this baseline right. Obviously, number one, including yourself. Yeah. And your family, but certainly lucky we feel, very, you know, lucky at the Investment Institute because we connected, you know, afterwards. And so, thank you very much for that. I think, look, this is all been fantastic advice.

Rodney Lake
 I think for certainly young people, for students, for anybody that's watching on YouTube or listening to the podcast, I think this is all relevant. And I think it's also really important what you said about that, this, you know, this experience you had, which was a very, you know, intense health scare, and again, got lucky to catch it and get over it.

Rodney Lake
 But rather than reinforce the things that sort of increase the conviction, the things that you already had. So I think that's super important. I think people you don't need this life changing, hopefully everybody doesn't need that. Right. You know, so learn from others, as Ben Franklin would say, you know, and, and in this case, learn from Mr. Wong and you, you know, you know, sort of the things you might like and don't like.

Rodney Lake
 Okay. Now, double down on those things. Like you said, you don't you don't have to have a, you know, the life changing experience in the health category, to, to make sense of these things. So take advantage, have a sense of urgency around those. I think that has been fantastic advice. Is there any other worldly wisdom that you would like to leave us with today?

Greg Wong
 Well, what I like to tell, especially the students, is, is go with your gut.

Rodney Lake
 Yeah.

Greg Wong
 And and what does that mean? It means listen to your family, listen to your friends, listen to your mentors. At the end of the day, it's your journey. And figure out what if you're trying to make, you know, particularly bigger decisions in life. What is your gut tell? And if you go with that, you're not going to have regrets.

Greg Wong
 It may turn out to be wonderful, may not turn them out to be the best way you anticipated. At the end of the day, you know, you went with what your gut tell you and you're not pointing or thinking about the what ifs or I should have done that. It will really reinforce the decisions and the confidence you have and and look, enjoy the ride.

Greg Wong
 That's that's the best thing I can say.

Rodney Lake
 Well I think that's great advice. This Regret Minimization matrix that Amazon talks about and Jeff Bezos and your gut usually knows Steve Job mentioned that as well. And in you know prior years and be somehow it knows so that intuition listen to it. I think that's fantastic advice. I think that's a great place.

Rodney Lake
 Just to end on the show that I want to say. Thank you, Mr. Wong, again, thank you for being part of the GW Investment Institute. We're sincerely grateful for all the work that you do for us and the, you know, wisdom that you share and the work and the wealth that you share with us all the very important categories.

Rodney Lake
 Thanks for making making the connection with Dan Ives, recent episode. That was a ton of fun in the conference as well. But really, thank you for sitting down today and going over, your background, your work experience. I think this is super helpful for, for anybody, but especially for our current students and maybe, our alumni.

Rodney Lake
 So very much appreciate it. There. So that'll be a wrap for today. So I want to say thank you for everybody for watching today's show. We look forward to seeing you back on the next episode of Market News with Rodney Lake.

Disclaimer the content shared investments new podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the GW Investment Institute or the George Washington University. Listeners should not act upon the information provided without seeking professional advice from a qualified financial advisor.

Investing involves risks including the loss of principal. The GW Investment Institute, the George Washington University, and the podcast host do not assume any responsibility for any investment decisions made based on the content of this podcast. Always conduct your own research and consult with a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.