The Hedge Fund Interview That Made Me Forget About the Pandemic
The Hedge Fund Interview That Made Me Forget About the Pandemic
(Bloomberg) -- Not many interviews end with a toast. Far fewer with a glass of 1981 Chateau d’Yquem. But after five months in various stages of lockdown and isolation, Ben Melkman, a hedge fund manager, and I had just sat down across from one another in the same room and talked for 75 minutes -- without masks on.
That’s what a pandemic can do, make the ordinary worth celebrating.
Interviews, on camera and usually in person, are what I mostly do at Bloomberg. But since March 16, every one I’d conducted was by video conference. While Zoom and Skype had become essential to staying connected, they presented challenges. With so many of my subjects working from vacation homes with lousy bandwidth, there was often a lag in the audio and sometimes the screen froze entirely.
I longed for the little things that make an interview in person different and better: the eye contact, the non-verbal cues, the spontaneity and sense of jousting with a worthy opponent. So when Melkman, a convivial Australian, offered to host the shoot last Monday at his summer rental on Long Island, I jumped at the chance.
Melkman met me at the door and we bumped elbows. Although both of us trusted one another to be virus-free, this was no time to be cavalier.
Once inside, he introduced me to his wife, Alexa. Neither of them was wearing a mask. I asked gingerly if I could take off mine. We sat down at the granite-topped island in the kitchen and traded pandemic stories. I relayed how I’d probably had the virus in March and tested positive for antibodies in May. They and their kids had been healthy.
Melkman and I walked into the sun room overlooking Moriches Bay and sat 6 feet apart. It was almost 5:30 p.m.
The interview went as well as I could have hoped. Melkman founded Light Sky Macro after leaving Brevan Howard Asset Management in 2016 and now managed $1 billion. One of his strengths, I’d been told by a client, was thinking big and forming ambitious theses. He didn’t disappoint.
At roughly 6:45 p.m., we finished. Melkman offered us a glass of wine and opened a 2016 Vosne-Romanée red Burgundy. We talked, sipping, about the big decision on everyone’s mind: whether to stay in New York. He and Alexa were exploring alternatives, thinking it might take a year before life in Manhattan returned to normal.
After a while, Melkman said he wanted to try something else and went hunting unsuccessfully for two bottles he thought he had stashed away. Then, with bright eyes and a devilish grin he said, “I’ve got an idea.” Minutes later he returned with the Chateau d’Yquem, widely considered the world’s greatest sweet wine and Alexa’s favorite. (The 1981, I later found out, sells for more than $400 a bottle and was rated 94-96 by critic Robert Parker.)
This, I thought, was a moment to savor. Here we were, doing what people do, enjoying each other’s company and sharing the things that make us happy.
Six months ago, that would have been routine. Now it was both a beautiful reminder of what life was like before the pandemic and a cautious step into the future.
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