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Philippe Laffont: from ‘repressed computer scientist’ to top tech investor
As a teenager, Philippe Laffont dreamt of working for Apple but, after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was turned down five times by the company in which he would later become a prominent investor.
“I’m a repressed mediocre computer scientist,” the now 55-year-old hedge fund manager told me and my colleague Ortenca Aliaj in a wide-ranging interview from his New York headquarters overlooking Central Park. The offices are adorned with various Apple products dating back to 1976 and other once pioneering but now obsolete gadgets.
Laffont, a soft-spoken and publicity-shy Frenchman, cut his teeth as a telecommunications research analyst in the late 1990s at renowned investor Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management. Since striking out on his own in 1999, he has built one of the world’s best-known technology-focused hedge funds, and has a growing business investing in private companies.
As of May filings, Laffont’s Coatue Management has grown to more than $70bn in assets since it launched with $50mn in December 1999. Its flagship hedge…
