About this episode

Alan Waxman discusses the evolution of the financial system and the implications of private credit in modern markets.

My guest today is Alan Waxman, co-founder and CEO of Sixth Street, a $130B global investment firm. Private credit is one of the most discussed topics in markets right now, and there is a lot to make sense of. The current discourse is almost entirely focused on symptoms. Alan Waxman has spent the time diagnosing the root cause. Alan thinks about the financial system the way a historian would, studying the incentives, guardrails, and market structure that determine how things play out. In this conversation, he traces the evolution of American finance from the 1929 crash through Glass-Steagall, the GFC, and Basel III to explain how we arrived at what he calls the factory model, the industrialization of liability-gathering and asset deployment that he believes is the root cause of everything happening in private markets today. This is my second conversation with Alan, our first one is one of my favorites from last year. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ----- This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way…

People in this episode

Host: Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Guest: Alan Waxman

Topics covered

• private credit
• financial system
• American finance
• market structure
• investment strategies

Keywords

• private credit
• financial system
• investment firm
• market structure
• historical finance

Sponsors

Ramp, Vanta

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sixth Street

More episodes of Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

• Paul Tudor Jones - Lessons From 50 Years in Markets - [Invest Like the Best, EP.470] · April 28, 2026 · 1h 7m
• Dylan Patel - The Infinite Demand for Tokens, Claude Mythos, and Supply Constraints - [Invest Like the Best, EP.469] · April 23, 2026 · 45 min
• Alex Karnal - The Trillion-Dollar Health Revolution - [Invest Like the Best, EP.468] · April 21, 2026 · 1h 32m
• Scott Nolan - SpaceX, Founders Fund, and Rebuilding American Uranium Enrichment - [Invest Like the Best, EP.467] · April 14, 2026 · 1h 16m
• Sergey Levine - Building LLMs for the Physical World - [Invest Like the Best, EP.465] · March 31, 2026 · 1h 7m
• Mitchell Green - Lessons from Cold Calling 10,000 Companies - [Invest Like the Best, EP.464] · March 24, 2026 · 54 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy podcast page.