AI Summary
5 min readThe Talent Hunter's Framework: How Graham Duncan Finds and Places A+ Performers
Graham Duncan, co-founder of East Rock Capital, describes his professional mission in disarmingly simple terms: "I try to find people who are better at doing a thing than I am at doing that thing." This began at age 24, when he co-founded an independent research firm and hired a salesperson who, two years in, asked him point-blank what he actually did. Duncan's answer became his career blueprint: he had spotted that the candidate's real talent was sales, not analysis, and put him in the right role. "I put you into this positive feedback loop that we're calling a business here," he told him. "And that's what I do." Today, as co-founder of East Rock Capital, Duncan manages roughly $2 billion for a small number of families by acting as a general contractor for their wealth — meeting over a thousand investment teams a year to find the best craftsmen for each strategy, then helping them operate in contexts where their talent can fully express itself.
The Taste for Talent and the Reference Web
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:24) **Introduction and Graham's Core Mission** - Tim introduces Graham Duncan, co-founder of East Rock Capital, and Graham explains his role: finding people better than him at specific tasks and putting them into positive feedback loops.
- 2 (07:08) **Taste in People vs. Judgment** - Graham describes his talent-hunting approach as having "taste" rather than "judgment," and explains how his taste has evolved.
- 3 (11:17) **How to Stress-Test Integrity and Character** - Graham explains his reference-heavy process for evaluating character, especially under stress.
- 4 (16:49) **High-Signal Interview Questions** - Graham shares specific questions that reveal deep insights about candidates.
- 5 (23:08) **Reference-Calling Stance and Techniques** - Graham explains his approach to references: curious, not gotcha; helping the candidate find the best context.
- 6 (25:36) **The "Wild Gardener" Metaphor and Orchid vs. Dandelion** - Graham describes his approach to talent as "wild gardening" — creating the right context for people to thrive.
- 7 (27:11) **Handling Ambiguity and Contradictory Feedback** - How Graham processes mixed signals from references and resolves uncertainty.
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Show Notes
Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is the co-founder of East Rock Capital, a multibillion-dollar multi-family investment office he launched in 2006. He is also Chairman of the Sohn Conference Foundation, which funds pediatric cancer research.
This episode was originally published in February 2019. Show notes: https://tim.blog/2019/02/28/graham-duncan/
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