Pequot Capital

Long before today’s multi-strategy giants took over the hedge-fund world, Art Samberg was quietly building Pequot Capital—a research-obsessed shop with sector specialists, a venture arm, distressed investing, and a shared data system that made the whole place run like a machine.

Pequot beat the S&P 500 by almost double for over 20 years, survived multiple market swings, and produced a generation of top-tier investors. Its rise, reinventions, internal drama, and eventual collapse all trace back to one engineer-turned-stock-picker trying to build the perfect hedge fund.

Before the Street Was Called Pequot

Arthur J. Samberg was born in 1941 in the Bronx, New York. He was the son of an electrician and a mother who worked clerical jobs. At six-foot-four, he adored basketball. He tried out for his high-school team three straight years and was cut each time, until he finally made it as a senior. It was an early and formative lesson in persistence that would echo throughout his career.

Samberg went on to MIT, earning a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1962, followed by a master’s in the same field from Stanford.

His first job was at Lockheed Missile and Space Company in Palo Alto, California, where he worked as a satellite control systems engineer. He had not originally planned on graduate school, but Lockheed offered to pay for it, so he took the opportunity and completed his MS at Stanford. That period also brought an unexpected realization: he was not meant to be an engineer.

During this time, he became increasingly captivated by the stock market. His wife wanted to teach, and he believed New York would offer her far better opportunities. Therefore, he applied to Columbia Business School, where two of his classmates became two of the most successful value investors of all time.