Gaonkar's core thesis is that every company is becoming a technology company. SurgoCap seeks value by analyzing how technology is disrupting and enabling established businesses in sectors like healthcare, finance, and industrials.
A quality business is defined by a high incremental Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) and the ability to reinvest significant capital at those high rates. This focus on the marginal return, rather than the average, is a key screener for long-term compounders.
The discussion moves beyond the hype of AI model training to focus on where sustainable economic value will be created. Gaonkar points to the inference layer (the application of models) and companies with proprietary, real-time data sets as key areas of opportunity.
Gaonkar advocates for smaller, more focused investment organizations. She argues that human collaboration and idea generation are most effective in small teams, allowing for better synthesis of information across industry boundaries and a more systematic, de-biased process.
Keep pulling the thread on Mala Gaonkar.