贝勒大学投资办公室首席投资官大卫·穆尔黑德（David Moorhead）在20VC节目中与哈里·斯特宾斯（Harry Stebbings）共同探讨了贝勒大学独特的投资策略和理念。穆尔黑德强调了捐赠基金在当前高等教育格局中的关键作用，当前高等教育面临美国高中生数量下降、国际学生困境以及国内招生竞争激烈等挑战。他强调，对于像贝勒大学这样捐赠基金规模约为26亿美元的学校来说，捐赠基金的分配将“越来越重要”。 贝勒大学的投资方法优先考虑下行保护，历史上在市场低迷时期表现优异。然而，过去五年他们一直在进行重组以提高上行表现，目标是建立一个以价值为中心、高质量且融入凸性的投资组合。穆尔黑德解释说，贝勒大学通常寻求与普通合伙人（GPs）建立直接委托关系，而非传统的混合基金。这使他们能够根据整体投资组合的需求，调整风险收益状况，例如，通过调整对英伟达（NVIDIA）等特定公司的投资敞口。 目前，投资组合中私人市场资产占45%，公开市场资产占55%，其中私人市场资产的战略范围是35%至55%。穆尔黑德强调，由于私人市场资产对流动性的影响，首先确定其配置比例至关重要，旨在避免在市场困难时期出现“被迫出售”。对于私人市场资产，贝勒大学只专注于风险投资（VC）、扩张和成长型股权以及收购，并逐步退出那些不能带来“超额收益”的房地产等实物资产。他指出，他们的女性团队在扩张和成长型股权类别中取得了“卓越的回报”。 穆尔黑德对风险投资基金期限的不断延长（15-18年）表示困惑，他认为普通合伙人的激励机制并不总是与捐赠基金对“资本周转速度”的需求相一致，而不仅仅是回报。他用一个复利示例来说明这一点：六年内实现3倍回报，然后两次再投资，18年内可实现27倍回报，这远高于同一时期单一、期限更长的基金所带来的15倍回报。尽管风险投资可以作为分散化投资的一种方式，并提供接触潜在潜力股（例如贝勒大学捐赠基金对Anthropic的2.5%股权）的机会，但资本周转速度问题仍然显著。 贝勒大学的投资决策过程高度分析化且逆向而行。穆尔黑德将他的方法比作查理·芒格（Charlie Munger）的方法，尤其是在理解人类行为方面。他回忆起深入研究2026年初“软件已死”的论调。通过咨询企业主，他意识到现有软件的不可或缺性以及大规模定制编码的不可能性，这促使他们在软件估值大幅下降时“大举投入”。他区分了公开市场和私人市场的估值，认为公开市场是“大联盟”，由“数千万人”决定价格，而私人市场则是“三个人凑在一起说，嘿，我觉得价值是X”。他还确保贝勒大学的私募资产估值保守，退出时通常显示60-90%的平均收益，这表明管理者对资产的估值低于市场平均水平。 贝勒大学的目标是从其捐赠基金中每年分配5%。现金水平根据预期的机会而波动；如果找不到能带来20-30%收益的诱人机会，现金余额就会增加。穆尔黑德从过去的投资受挫经历中吸取教训，主张从不“全仓投入”，并采用“有条不紊且机械化”的方法在困难市场中进行配置，在市场每下跌10%时部署一部分资金，以管理风险和情绪。他与管理者密切合作，在下行情景方面向他们提出挑战，并推动集中投资，由于贝勒大学已有的广泛分散化，他不惧怕集中投资。 穆尔黑德谈到了他非传统的招聘策略，由于贝勒大学位于韦科（Waco），他们只从本科生中招聘，这培养了一个稳定的团队，尽管需要大量的前期培训投入。他将捐赠基金工作的动机定义为“使命感”，其驱动力是支持学生而非单纯的经济收益。尽管人工智能对教育有益，但他对其对人类思维和逻辑的潜在影响表示担忧。 谈到其他捐赠基金，穆尔黑德对布朗大学（Brown University）的团队及其在投资中的勇气表示“最高的敬意”。他遗憾未能投资于Benchmark，这是一个他深感敬重的基金。展望未来，他对生物技术尤其感到兴奋，指出它在解决疾病方面具有更大的潜在影响，并且与传统市场的相关性较低。在个人层面，他专注于将贝勒大学投资办公室的规模从10亿美元扩大到50亿美元，在这个“重大拐点”期间，应对团队成长、系统建设以及保持创造力的复杂性。 最后，穆尔黑德强调了在数据中心层面，由于当地许可问题、能源消耗和用水量（特别是在干旱地区以及日益增长的欧洲），对人工智能存在显著的“抵制”。这转化为成功获得许可和电力的数据中心显著的价值增长。

David Moorhead, the Chief Investment Officer for Baylor University's Office of Investments, joins Harry Stebbings on 20VC to discuss Baylor's unique investment strategy and philosophy. Moorhead highlights the critical role of endowments in the current higher education landscape, facing challenges such as declining high school student numbers in the US, difficulties for international students, and intense competition for domestic enrollees. He emphasizes that endowment distributions will be "increasingly important" for schools like Baylor, whose endowment stands around $2.6 billion. Baylor's investment approach prioritizes downside protection, historically outperforming in market downturns. However, they've spent the last five years reorganizing to improve upside performance, aiming for a value-centric, high-quality portfolio that also incorporates convexity. Moorhead explains that Baylor often seeks direct mandates with General Partners (GPs) instead of traditional commingled funds. This allows them to tailor risk-return profiles, for example, by adjusting exposure to specific companies like NVIDIA based on the overall portfolio's needs. The portfolio is currently split 45% private and 55% public, with a strategic range of 35% to 55% for privates. Moorhead stresses the importance of first defining the private allocation due to its impact on liquidity, aiming to avoid "forced selling" during market difficulties. For privates, Baylor exclusively targets venture capital (VC), expansion and growth equity, and buyouts, moving away from real assets that don't promise "excess returns." He notes that their ladies' team has achieved "exceptional returns" from the expansion growth equity category. Moorhead expresses perplexity with the increasing length of VC funds (15-18 years), arguing that GP incentives aren't always aligned with endowments' need for "velocity of capital," not just returns. He illustrates this with a compounding example: 3x returns over six years, redeployed twice, yields 27x over 18 years, significantly more than a 15x return over the same period from a single, longer fund. While VC serves as a diversification play and offers exposure to potential outliers (like Baylor's 2.5% endowment stake in Anthropic), the capital velocity concern is significant. Baylor's investment decision-making process is highly analytical and contrarian. Moorhead likens his approach to Charlie Munger's, particularly in understanding human behavior. He recounts delving into the "software is dead" narrative of early 2026. By consulting business owners, he realized the indispensability of current software and the unlikelihood of mass custom coding, leading them to "pile in" when software valuations were down significantly. He distinguishes between public and private market valuations, viewing public markets as "the big leagues" where "tens of millions of people" determine prices, versus private markets where "three guys get in the room and say, hey, I think the value is X." He also ensures Baylor's private asset marks are conservative, often showing a 60-90% average gain upon exit, suggesting managers mark assets lower than market average. Baylor aims for an annual 5% distribution from its endowment. Cash levels fluctuate based on perceived opportunities; if attractive opportunities yielding 20-30% aren't found, cash balances grow. Learning from past trading scars, Moorhead advocates for never going "all in" and uses a "methodical and mechanistic" approach to allocating into difficult markets, deploying capital in 10% increments of market decline to manage risk and emotion. He works closely with managers, challenging them on downside scenarios and pushing for concentration, not fearing it due to Baylor's already broad diversification. Moorhead discusses his unconventional hiring strategy, recruiting exclusively from undergraduate ranks due to Baylor's Waco location, which fosters a stable team, albeit with a significant upfront investment in training. He frames the motivation for endowment work as "missional," driven by supporting students rather than solely financial gain. He expresses concern over AI's potential impact on human thinking and logic, despite its benefits for education. Regarding other endowment funds, Moorhead expresses "utmost respect" for Brown University's team and their courage in investing. He laments not being in Benchmark, a fund he deeply respects. Looking ahead, he is particularly excited about biotech, noting its potential for even greater impact in solving diseases and its less correlated nature with traditional markets. On a personal level, he is focused on scaling Baylor's office from $1 billion to $5 billion, navigating the complexities of team growth, systems, and retaining creativity during this "major inflection point." Finally, Moorhead highlights a significant "pushback on AI" at the data center level, driven by local permitting issues, power consumption, and water usage, particularly in arid regions and increasingly in Europe. This translates into tangible value increases for data centers that successfully secure permits and power.