David Swensen's guide to sleeping soundly Financial wisdom for troubled times—plus strong opinions on the current crisis—from Yale's in-house Warren Buffett. Marc Gunther ’73, a contributing writer to Fortune magazine, blogs at marcgunther.com. Mark Ostow Swensen's recipe for investing David Swensen has built Yale's exceptional endowment returns largely through categories of investments that aren't available to or aren't smart for an individual investor. (They include private equity, such as venture capital and buyout firms, and illiquid markets like timber. For more on Swensen's strategy, see "Yale's $8 Billion Man," July/August 2005.) He also relies on highly trained staff and a phalanx of independent asset managers to evaluate potential investments.