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&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. The rise to the top doesn&#39;t go through Goldman Sachs.&lt;/strong&gt; The 39-year-old Todd Combs has never worked for a bulge bracket investment bank. In fact, he&#39;s never worked for any investment bank. Instead, his career trajectory went through a state financial regulator and an auto insurer before he found his way to the hedge fund world.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Seminoles are just as tough as Tigers, Bulldogs and Quakers.&lt;/strong&gt; For undergrad, Combs didn&#39;t attend an Ivy-League school but an ACC one (and he&#39;s still, reportedly, a huge supporter of the Florida State football team).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. You can&#39;t just want to make money; you must really really really want to make money.&lt;/strong&gt; According to one of Combs&#39; grad school professors quoted in  (Combs did go Ivy for his MBA, having attended and graduated from Columbia), &quot;When you teach, you see some people that just go through the motions. And some people who genuinely want to make money. That&#39;s where Todd&#39;s head was.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Leave the smalltalk at home.&lt;/strong&gt; Also according to the&lt;em&gt; Journal&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;When Mr. Combs meets clients outside the office, there is little chitchat. He lights up when the subject of the market is broached and launches into a discussion of his biggest investment positions.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Work also means hours and hours of research. &lt;/strong&gt;&quot;People who have worked with Mr. Combs say he is curious about the workings about the financial world, with a deep understanding of finance, business and regulation. He does his own research and spends a significant amount of time reading newspapers and arcane financial documents, such as insurers&#39; statutory filings and prospectuses for securities backed by pools of assets.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

Derek Loosvelt

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