Bloomberg once ran a story about the difficulty of finding a photograph of Chase Coleman. In an industry of peacocks, Tiger Global's Chase Coleman is a ghost. He avoids press. He avoids panels. He stays low key. Yet Chase spoke on a panel at the 2025 Robin Hood Investor Conference. Some commented that was the first time he has spoken publicly at an event. This is quite uncommon in the age of Ray Dalio's daily LinkedIn postings or Bill Ackman's tweets the size of books.
Carrie Sun's portrayal of "Boone Prescott" in her book Private Equity: A Memoir (Penguin Press, February 2024) aligns with this reality. Chase is not the screaming wolf of Wall Street. He is polite. He is a family man. But he also has rules. Chase demands silence in the office. Footsteps on the carpet are a violation. He is busy and focused, Afterall, he receives seven thousand emails a day. This does not leave much time for fun and games.
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Readers expecting a villain will be disappointed. Boone appears as a genuinely decent man albeit someone who is a highly demanding boss. He grinds. He expects his staff to grind. This is the bargain of working at a top paying firm. Anyone who worked as an analyst in investment banking would tell you that Chase is very reasonable by comparison. Sun’s boss simply demanded perfection but was kind-hearted. He even gave her a glowing review when she left the firm.
The book reveals a fascinating limit to Chase's success. During her interview Sun mentions building a portfolio optimizer like "Barra." Boone asks "What's Barra?".
This moment is key and aligns with much of the impression I have received over the years regarding Tiger Global. Chase Coleman is not a quantitative technician. He is not even a great stock analyst despite being trained by Julian Robertson (appearing here as "Martin"). His genius is not in the code nor in fundamental analysis. It is in the business and his acumen. He built a machine called Carbon (Tiger) that combined hedge fund agility with venture capital access.
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