Co-Founder, Partner
TGS Management LLC
THE NUMBERS: Estimates of Taylor’s wealth range vary from $1.2 billion to multiple billions. Along with founding members David Gelbaum and Andrew Shechtel, the trio first gained national attention about six years ago when a Bloomberg news report said the hedge fund managers had “secretly directed one of the largest pools of philanthropic capital for years,” one it estimated at more than $13 billion, making it the fourth-largest charity in the U.S. that year.
THE SECRET: There’s been next to no mention of the firm or its founders since the Bloomberg article, with the exception of Business Journal reports on Taylor’s real estate investments and other deals in Irvine. Sources familiar with the founders tell the Business Journal that our prior estimates for Taylor are on the low side; we’ve increased our estimate this year to $2 billion, which is still likely a conservative figure.
THE MENTOR: The partners are disciples of South County resident and “Man for All Markets” by Edward O. Thorp, founder of one of the world’s first quantitative hedge funds, Princeton Newport Partners, in 1969. Thorp told Businessweek that the men opened a hedge fund in 1989, and practiced a form of statistical arbitrage, seeking to profit from the tendency of recently fallen stocks to rise, and the recently risen to fall.
KEY METRIC: S&P 500, up 35% year-over-year.
REAL ESTATE MOVES: The Business Journal has reported on several real estate moves related to TGS since 2018, none confirmed by the firm. Taylor this year paid about $50 million for a pair of Irvine Spectrum-area offices; their use post-sale is unknown. There’s no indication they plan to lease out the space. A data center for TGS is under construction next to the 405 freeway, and the firm has leased an entire building at the new Spectrum Terrace office complex on the other side of the freeway, brokers report. Uses for the just-bought offices, and the Spectrum Terrace lease are unknown: both are much larger than TGS’ current headquarters, and wouldn’t appear to be needed by the company for its workforce, as the company is reported to be extremely methodical and picky about who it hires. “A few engineers here are downright geniuses,” said one online posting on Glassdoor.
PHILANTHROPY: According to Inside Philanthropy, perhaps as much as $850 million of Taylor’s giving gets funneled through the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program. He’s been reported to be a major supporter of the Landmine Survivors Network and other human rights causes. Taylor is a major benefactor and board member of Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School in Irvine, a Jewish day school founded by late businessman and Holocaust survivor Irving “Papa” Gelman on land donated by the Samueli Foundation.
• NET WORTH: $2 billion
• LAST YEAR: $1.4 billion
• RESIDENCE: homes in Shady Canyon, Laguna Beach
• SOURCE OF WEALTH: hedge fund
