The Counting House

The Chief Investment Officer of a prestigious university sits at the center of modern finance: hundreds of hedge funds, venture capitalists, stock pickers, bond traders, and private equity managers visit him every year, asking for money.

He helms the engine room of the modern academy: the six-billion-dollar endowment he presides over allows the school to compete for students, faculty, prestige, moral purpose—and solvency. The CIO is a winner in bourgeois America's highest dream: "doing well ...