Dr. John Rutledge is a private equity guy and a real estate guy and has have been investing in private equity (PE) and real estate (RE), both as a general partner and, in select cases, a limited partner, for more than 40 years. Alternative Assets are not a thing. It is a term someone made up to describe the “other” things you can own besides stocks, bonds, and money market funds. A better description would be either “private markets” or "illiquid investments”. When you invest in private markets, you are on your own. You leave behind the luxury of publicly available information and the stamp of approval from the SEC or a trustworthy auditor. In this talk, he will review the strategies that the great PE and RE investors have used to find, acquire, build, and grow world-class companies. And he will talk about how you can use these ideas yourself to do the same work with the small and mid-sized companies in your own local market.