Kai Wu is the founder and chief investment officer of Sparkline Capital, an investment management firm applying state-of-the-art machine learning to uncover alpha in large, unstructured data sets. Before Sparkline, Mr. Wu co-founded and co-managed Kaleidoscope Capital, a quantitative hedge fund in Boston. Previously, he worked at GMO, where he was a member of Jeremy Grantham’s asset allocation team. Kai graduated from Harvard College Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
The economy is increasingly intangible, with corporate value driven by intangible assets like intellectual property, brand equity, human capital, and network effects. However, these assets rarely appear on balance sheets, creating a challenge for value investors. This session demonstrates how traditional value-investing principles can be adapted to address the challenges of today's asset-light economy.