RWH064: A SOULFUL PATH TO STELLAR RETURNS

W/ NIMA SHAYEGH

RRWH064: A SOULFUL PATH TO STELLAR RETURNS W/ NIMA SHAYEGH

20 December 2025

William Green chats with Nima Shayegh, a remarkably thoughtful hedge fund manager who runs a firm called Rumi Partners. Here, Nima speaks in depth about his legendary mentor, Lou Simpson, who was hailed by Warren Buffett as “one of the investment greats.” Nima shares what he learned from Lou & from his own investment experience about how to achieve superb returns by detaching ourselves from market noise & focusing on more essential truths.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • How Nima Shayegh came to see investing as the ultimate intellectual adventure.
  • Why investors must go beyond numbers to grasp deep truths about businesses. 
  • What riding in a Tesla taught him about the awesome experience of quality.
  • Why investors should harness intuition & emotions but avoid ego.
  • How to succeed by owning resilient businesses & ignoring macro forecasts.
  • What qualities made Nima’s mentor, Lou Simpson, an investing legend.
  • How Lou taught Nima to avoid noise, distractions & the lure of a flashy office. 
  • Why Nima’s portfolio is dominated by stocks like AppFolio & Brookfield.
  • What he learned from having dinner with Charlie Munger.
  • Why we should surrender to uncertainty & should welcome volatility.
  • What investors can learn from surfers about the value of self-reliance.
  • Why he named his investment firm after a 13th-century Sufi mystic.

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

[00:00:03] William Green: Hi folks. It’s a great pleasure to be back with you on the Richer, Wiser, Happier podcast. The conversation you’re about to hear was a total joy for me. My guest is a high-flying young hedge fund manager named Nima Shayegh, who’s one of the most talented and thoughtful investors I’ve met in recent years.

[00:00:21] William Green: In some ways, this episode is an unusual one. For one thing, Nima is still in his thirties, which makes him possibly the youngest fund manager. I featured on the podcast. Also, as I’ve tended to interview a lot of investors who are already very well known people like Howard Marks, Ray Dalio, Bill Miller, Terry Smith, Rick Reeder, Chris Davis, and the like.

[00:00:43] William Green: By contrast, Nima has flown almost entirely under the radar as far as I’m aware. This is the first extensive, wide ranging interview that he’s ever given. Nima runs a relatively small hedge fund called Rumi Partners, which is named after the 13th century Persian poet and mystic, Rumi. He works on his own in California, managing money for a fairly small group of wealthy limited partners.

[00:01:10] William Green: He’s not really focused on marketing or gathering a huge amount of assets. Rather, I would say he follows in the tradition of investors like Nick Sleep and Qais Zakaria, who really would devote it entirely to the essential challenge of generating superb long-term returns. Nima, much like them does it by investing in a very concentrated portfolio, in his case, fewer than 10 stocks.

[00:01:36] William Green: His approach to investing also has a great deal to his mentor. The late great Lou Simpson, who was one of the most successful stock pickers of all time, Nima, spent several years working for Lou, who was hailed by Warren Buffett as one of the investment greats. In today’s episode, you’ll hear a lot about what Nima learned from Lou about the art of long-term investing.

[00:01:59] William Green: I think you’ll soon see why I am so impressed with Nima and why I regard him as one of the rising stars of the investment world. He’s not just an excellent stock picker, but also a really interesting thinker, and I regard him as unusually wise and prematurely wise, both about markets and life. In any case, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Thanks so much for joining us.

[00:02:26] Intro: You’re listening to the Richer, Wiser, Happier podcast, where your host, William Green, interviews the world’s greatest investors and explores how to win in markets and life.

[00:02:45] William Green: Hi folks, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome today’s guest, Nima Shayegh. Nima is a very talented hedge fund manager who runs an investment firm in California called Rumi Capital Partners, which is named somewhat idiosyncratically after the great 13th century Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi. Nima is definitely one of the most thoughtful people I know in the investment world, and he and I have had several fascinating conversations privately over the last few years, but he typically flies under the radar, so it’s really a rare gift to have him on the podcast.

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