Backtest · Oct 9, 2026 · 56m · 37m saved
With Britt Harris, Founder and CEO of On Eagle's Wings Investment Advisors, previously CEO of Bridgewater and CIO of UTIMCO · George W. Smith Jr., retired Lieutenant General and former Commanding General of I Marine Expeditionary Force · David Satterfield, Director of the Baker Institute at Rice University · Kenneth Medlock, Senior Director of the Center for Energy Studies at the Baker Institute
China's growing use of fossil fuels cancels out every emissions cut the rest of the world has made, Britt Harris said, and no country has found a way out of poverty without hydrocarbons.
Most climate debate, in his telling, treats an existential risk as the likely outcome. Harris said the phrase describes the far tail of the distribution, and that what investors face instead is seven large problems at once, from China's rise to rising government debt, all acting on one another.
"What I found is that people don't expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to be present." — Britt Harris
Britt Harris, who ran Bridgewater as CEO, was CIO of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and then ran UTIMCO, the investment company for the University of Texas and Texas A&M endowments, through the pandemic, spoke on Backtest. One of the show's two hosts is his son, and both hosts work with him at On Eagle's Wings, his new firm. The episode stitches together four one-on-one interviews recorded on September 17 at More Than Capital's annual meeting at Rice University's Baker Institute. The other three guests are a retired Marine general, the institute's director, and its senior energy economist.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 56 minutes of audio, 19 minutes of reading.
Here are the 16 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
Lincoln worried more about 100 captured horses than a captured general, because generals were easy to replace
Harris said the 1980–2020 era is over and seven storms will hit markets whichever scenario comes next
China cancels out every emissions cut elsewhere, Harris said, and poverty can't be escaped without hydrocarbons
Satterfield sees two likely endings to the Iran war: a long, low-level standoff, or a US declaration of victory and walkaway
Iran only has to hit one or two tankers to paralyze maritime insurance
The US is using multimillion-dollar weapons against drones that cost as much as a midsize car, and the defense industry needs years to catch up
Russian output fell about 5 million barrels a day in the 1990s and oil stayed at $20 to $25, Medlock said, because supply reorganized
A 1970s power law shows how data centers that build their own plants could ease grid strain
A good leader goes straight to the wheel in a storm, then tells the truth and gives people hope
1. Lincoln's Hundred Horses
The episode opened with Smith telling a Civil War story. Lincoln read at a telegraph office that Confederate cavalry had overrun a Union camp in western Virginia and captured a general and 100 horses. He muttered about the horses. When a young operator asked about the general, Lincoln answered him.
Lincoln knew which loss was hard to replace
"And Lincoln looked at him and said, son, I can make a general in five minutes, but a hundred horses." — George W. Smith Jr.
Smith said he told the story often on active duty, mostly to remind himself what mattered. For him the horses were the troops.
"It was those horses in the form of those young men and women, young United States Marines that were out there deployed around the globe." — George W. Smith Jr.
The hosts tied the story to their railroad series: Cornelius Vanderbilt, like Lincoln, worked out what was scarce in the system and focused on it.
