George Michelakis is the Chief Investment Officer of Gladstone Management, a $2 billion long/short equity hedge fund based in London. George founded Gladstone in 2006 with seed capital from, well, me at Protégé Partners, and six years later, bought back the stake when still managing less than $100 million. In the dozen years since, Gladstone has won awards for European Hedge Fund of the Year and the top performing five-year fund for three years in a row.

Long before that, George became an International Chess Master and took third in the 1992 World Under-20 Chess Championships.

We discuss George’s path from chess to investing alongside his college friend Roelof Botha of Sequoia, the challenges of the fundamental long-short equity model, the culture required to make it work, and how he does at Gladstone.