Malcolm Gladwell Attacks Yale for $480 Million Payment to Hedge Fund Managers

Malcolm Gladwell is lashing out at Yale University for what he says is exorbitant spending on hedge fund management fees.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, he cited a New York Times op-ed to attack the Ivy League school for supposedly paying excessive fees to hedge funds that manage Yale's endowment, while spending a fraction of the amount on students.

—Gladwell (@Gladwell) August 19, 2015

Gladwell's tweets about Yale's spending are sourced from the Times op-ed by University of San Diego Law professor Victor Fleischer, who researched endowment spending and came up with the $480 million number.

Fleischer says that's the amount that Yale paid to private-equity fund managers as compensation last year.

This isn't Gladwell's first attack the Ivy League for its massive endowment spending. In June, he mocked the $400 million donation to Harvard University by hedge fund manager John Paulson.

That was Harvard's largest gift of all time and added to its already mammoth $36.4 billion endowment. Gladwell ridiculed the gift as a pseudo-charitable gift that would be better spent, in his opinion, on a worthier cause.

We have reached out to Yale University for comment.

Malcolm Gladwell unloads on Yale for reportedly paying $480 million to hedge fund managers last year

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