Charlie was born in Omaha, Nebraska on January 1, 1924, graduated from Omaha Central High School in 1941, attended the University of Michigan and Cal Tech (under Air Force auspices), served as 2nd Lieutenant (Meteorologist) in the Air Force in World War II, and received a J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from the Harvard Law School in 1948. He practiced law in Los Angeles from 1948 to 1965, during which time he helped found the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson (in 1962). Since 1965, he has been engaged in a variety of businesses, after 1975 primarily as an officer and director of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and various subsidiaries but also at Daily Journal Corporation (publisher of California’s leading newspaper for lawyers). He is Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (under Warren E. Buffett) and Chairman of Daily Journal Corporation. The public companies of which he is a director are: Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Daily Journal Corporation, and Costco Wholesale Corporation.

Became a Trustee of Good Samaritan Hospital from 1979 and has served as Chairman from November 1987 to December 2020. Trustee (and former Chairman) of Harvard-Westlake School 1969 to date. Trustee and Chief Financial Officer of Planned Parenthood, Los Angeles, 1967-1993 (approximately). Founder and President of The Alfred C. Munger Foundation.

William Ackman is the CEO and Portfolio Manager of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an SEC registered investment adviser founded in 2003. Pershing Square is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets. 

Prior to forming Pershing Square, Mr. Ackman co-founded Gotham Partners Management Co., LLC, an investment adviser that managed public and private equity hedge fund portfolios. Prior to Gotham Partners, Mr. Ackman began his career in real estate investment banking at Ackman Brothers & Singer, Inc. Mr. Ackman received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Mr. Ackman is the Chairman of the board of The Howard Hughes Corporation (NYSE: HHC). He is also a member of the Investors Advisory Committee on Financial Markets for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a member of the Board of Trustees at The Rockefeller University and a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Harvard Business School.

In 2006, Mr. Ackman co-founded the Pershing Square Foundation to support exceptional leaders and innovative organizations that tackle important social issues and deliver scalable and sustainable impact across the globe.

Ray Dalio is the Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates. Ray started Bridgewater out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York in 1975 and under his leadership, the firm has grown into the largest and most successful hedge fund in the world and fifth most important private company in the U.S., according to Fortune Magazine.

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As a result of Ray’s innovative approach to global macroeconomic investing and policymaking, Ray has been called the “Steve Jobs of Investing” by aiCIO and Wired magazines and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People by TIME Magazine.

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Ray holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from C.W. Post College and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

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He has been married to his wife, Barbara, for over 40 years and has four grown sons. He is an active philanthropist with a special interest in ocean exploration, microfinance and equal educational opportunities for underprivileged youth.

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Ramez Naam is a former Microsoft executive, entrepreneur, inventor, and the Co-Chair of Energy and Environment at Singularity University. He’s also the award-winning author of five books, including the Nexus series of science fiction novels. Ramez’s books have won the Prometheus Award, the Endeavour Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and been listed as an NPR Best Book of the Year.

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Ramez spent 13 years at Microsoft, where he led teams working on artificial intelligence, big data, and internet search. His software has touched the lives of more than a billion people. He holds more than 20 patents, including several as a co-inventor with Bill Gates.

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Ramez speaks around the world on clean energy, innovation, exponential technology, and how organizations can adapt. He’s briefed Fortune 100 CEOs, the Presidents and Prime Ministers of multiple nations, and the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs. His work has appeared in or been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic, Slate, Business Week, Discover, Wired, and Scientific American.

Peter Attia, MD, is the founder of Early Medical, a medical practice that applies the principles of Medicine 3.0 to patients with the goal of lengthening their lifespan and simultaneously improving their healthspan.

He is the host of The Drive, one of the most popular podcasts covering the topics of health and medicine.

He is also the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.

Since the formation of Oaktree in 1995, Mr. Marks has been responsible for ensuring the firm’s adherence to its core investment philosophy; communicating closely with clients concerning products and strategies; and contributing his experience to big-picture decisions relating to investments and corporate direction. From 1985 until 1995, Mr. Marks led the groups at The TCW Group, Inc. that were responsible for investments in distressed debt, high yield bonds, and convertible securities. He was also Chief Investment Officer for Domestic Fixed Income at TCW.

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Previously, Mr. Marks was with Citicorp Investment Management for 16 years, where from 1978 to 1985 he was Vice President and senior portfolio manager in charge of convertible and high yield securities. Between 1969 and 1978, he was an equity research analyst and, subsequently, Citicorp’s Director of Research.

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Mr. Marks holds a B.S.Ec. degree cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a major in finance and an M.B.A. in accounting and marketing from the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago, where he received the George Hay Brown Prize. He is a CFA charterholder.

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Mr. Marks is a member of the Investment Committees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Edmond J. Safra Foundation; a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum; Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Drawing School; and an Emeritus Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania (where from 2000 to 2010 he chaired the Investment Board).

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Scott teaches brand strategy and digital marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business.

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He was named “One of the World’s 50 Best Business School Professors” by Poets & Quants in 2012.

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A serial entrepreneur, he founded 9 companies, including Red Envelope, Prophet, and L2 Inc., acquired by Gartner (NYSE: IT) in 2017. Scott’s book The Four (Portfolio Penguin, 2017) debuted on the New York Times hardcover non-fiction list. His second book, The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning was published in 2019.

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Scott was elected to the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow and has served on the boards of directors of Eddie Bauer (Nasdaq: EBHI), The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN), and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

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He writes a weekly newsletter, No Mercy / No Malice, and hosts the podcasts The Prof G Show and Pivot (with Kara Swisher).

Leah Joy Zell (PhD, CFA) is a nationally recognized expert in international investing, and a pioneer in the international small-cap category. From 1992 to 2005, she was a co-founding partner and portfolio manager at Wanger Asset Management, a global small-mid cap equity specialist.

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Ms. Zell is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Global Advisory Council of Harvard University, and the Wilson Centre Global Advisory Council in Washington, D.C. Ms. Zell also serves as a Director of the Horton Trust Company LLC, and a member of the Investment Committee of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Previously, she was on the Harvard University Board of Overseers and the Board of Trustees of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company that helps teams organise, discuss and complete shared work. More than 89,000 large and small organisations around the world use Atlassian’s tracking, collaboration, communication, service management and development products to work smarter and faster every day.

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Mike has received international recognition for his work, including Ernst & Young’s Australian Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2006 and Australian Business Person of the Year by the Australian Financial Review in 2017. He’s also been honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2009 and was named on the 2017 Forbes Global Game Changers list for reshaping the business world.

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Outside Atlassian, Mike is an active angel investor and a non-executive director of Tyro, a technology-focused Australian bank. He serves as an adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales’ School of ComputerScience and Engineering, as well as chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Industry Advisory Board.

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Mike holds a Bachelor of Commerce in information systems from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Cathie registered ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”) as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2014. With over 40 years of experience identifying and investing in innovation, Cathie founded ARK to focus solely on disruptive innovation while adding new dimensions to research. Through an open approach that cuts across sectors, market capitalizations, and geographies, Cathie believes that ARK can identify large-scale investment opportunities in the public markets resulting from technological innovations centered around DNA sequencing, robotics, artificial intelligence, energy storage, and blockchain technology. As Chief Investment Officer (“CIO”) and Portfolio Manager, Cathie led the development of ARK’s philosophy and investment approach and has ultimate responsibility for investment decisions.

Prior to ARK, Cathie spent twelve years at AllianceBernstein as CIO of Global Thematic Strategies where she managed over $5 billion. Cathie joined Alliance Capital from Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund she co-founded, which in 2000, managed approximately $800 million in global thematic strategies. Prior to her tenure at Tupelo Capital, she worked for 18 years with Jennison Associates LLC as Chief Economist, Equity Research Analyst, Portfolio Manager and Director. She started her career in Los Angeles, California at The Capital Group as an Assistant Economist. Cathie received her Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude, in Finance and Economics from the University of Southern California in 1981.

Cathie has been recognized as an influential fund manager across various outlets. In 2018, editors at Bloomberg acknowledged Cathie by selecting her to its second annual Bloomberg 50 list of people across business, entertainment, finance, politics, technology, and science who have defined global business. Additionally, Fortune named Cathie to its exclusive roundtable of experts in the annual Fortune Investors Guide: The Best Investing Advice for 2019 From Fortune’s Experts. In 2016, Cathie received the “Women in Finance – Outstanding Contribution Award” from Market Media. Cathie also has been a featured speaker at the World Economic Forum (China) in 2016 & 2017, the World Strategic Forum (Miami) in 2017, The Sohn Hearts and Minds Investment Leaders Conference (Australia) in 2018 and 2019, and Singularity University’s Exponential Finance in 2017 and Global Summit in 2019.

In 2018, Cathie launched the Duddy Innovation Institute at her alma mater, Notre Dame Academy in Los Angeles. The institute offers a challenging educational experience for young women eager to stretch their learning beyond the boundaries of traditional acquisition of knowledge, while influencing a new way of thinking and learning throughout campus.