The Death of a System’s Thinker Who Prepared Me for Life, Work, and the Future of AI

My father passed away this week. It was both unexpected and tragic, but I’ve come to realize that the death of a family member often feels this way, no matter the circumstances. This week has been deeply emotional. Throughout my life, I’ve faced the loss of a loved one with a mindset focused on gratitude and reflection—thinking about how the person impacted my life rather than dwelling on the sadness of their absence. This perspective has helped me move forward without feeling trapped in grief. But a son losing a father is different. You only have one, and as I’ve learned, when a son loses his father, it brings a level of emotion that is far more powerful and profound than any loss I’ve experienced before. I have always incorporated my personal life into my writings over the years because they help me understand markets and the future better for some reason. This is the first one, though, in-depth with my father.

All father-son relationships are complex. As Freud once said, "No one could be a man unless his father has died." I spent countless hours reading Freud when I was younger, trying to understand this concept and how it might apply to my own growth. It helped me process whatever Freudian rivalry I might have felt and shift my focus to the gratitude for what my father did for me. My father was unique—unapologetically his own person. He didn’t believe in a “normal” approach to life and did not care what people thought. A brilliant, self-taught engineer, he could build anything from machinery scraps, despite not finishing high school. But when you’re a shy child in school, trying desperately to fit in by not standing out, all you want is normal. Having a father who embraced everything but normal and did not care what others thought added complexity to our relationship from the start.

Not being normal was also the way my father taught me to think, and it’s a mindset that has served me well in my career. I am often asked by people what books I read or what can help them understand markets more. This will help explain why I seldom have an answer. When I arrived at Morgan Stanley at the bottom of the firm after graduating from Manhattan College—my fourth college—I was anything but normal for someone coming in the door. I didn’t even know what an investment bank was or who Morgan Stanley was until the interview. I just needed a job to pay for my student loans. As I’ve said in many podcasts, writings, and public speeches: I hated school. I didn’t read a full book in high school. My father, a high school dropout and atheist, instilled in me a worldview that shaped my approach to life and work. He would often say, “1+1 is 2,” he would say, “but everything you hear from people and books are opinions. Never believe there’s just one answer; there’s only an approach to solving a problem that will evolve.” It’s no surprise that the “sage on the stage” teaching style of the Catholic Church and Glen Rock High School worked against this philosophy.

Another reason I didn’t like school was the way he programmed my brain to think. I don’t ever remember him sitting down with me and reading The Giving Tree. What he did teach me was game theory, which was entertaining and brought out the competitive side of me. From as early as I can remember, he introduced me to chess. But it wasn’t just about playing; he would frustratingly question every move I made. At the time, I found it exasperating and frustrating, but in hindsight, I realize he was teaching me the art of pattern recognition and how every move has consequences and impacts the next. This game also helped build anticipatory skills. He also taught me billiards later in life. Like with chess, you can’t fully appreciate the impact of this skill when you’re young, but billiards is remarkably similar in terms of pattern recognition, understanding how one move sets up the next, and having a plan as far ahead as four or five shots. We spent countless hours discussing the physics of the game, including practicing trick shots—not to impress, but to understand the basics better. He believed that if you could master trick shots, it would open your mind to endless possibilities when analyzing the entire table.

Beyond chess and billiards, the time we spent at Monticello Raceway as a young child had the greatest influence on my career on Wall Street. My father began teaching me how to handicap horse races at an age when most kids were simply watching cartoons for fun. I was young, and the racing program was the beginning of my love of data analytics. He would explain that the goal of handicapping wasn’t to pick the winner but to use the information at hand to determine your fair odds for each horse and compare those to the odds at the racetrack and look for value. My father was teaching me pari-mutuel betting without knowing the impact it would have on my career. As Charlie Munger said in his famous speech, “The Art of Stock Picking,” pari-mutuel systems are a great mental model to think about the nature of the stock market. It is studying the patterns of flows on the tote board, looking for data points most would miss, and looking at the macro environment of the race that my approach to markets was shaped. The title of our Weiss podcast, In Search of Green Marbles, was a reference to this part of my life. This time with my father was training me for the critical skills in probability and decision-making that shaped my career as a derivative trader, portfolio manager, and macro thinker.

A couple of years ago, I was sitting at my hedge fund with someone who has since become a friend. After something I had said, he called me a systems thinker in the way I look at the world. I had heard the term but never had I thought about it. After he left, I looked it up and understood why he said it, and more importantly, I understood that this is how my father thought and how much influence his approach had on my eventual thinking, learning, and insatiable curiosity.

My father was a systems thinker and entrepreneur in every sense of the word. Over 40 years ago, he invented his own equipment as a core driller, working on the construction of high-rises. His ingenuity allowed him to create an edge in a tough, competitive business. With the equipment he designed and built himself, he was able to work independently for over four decades, winning whatever jobs he wanted, continuing well into his 80s. He thrived on solving problems in unconventional ways, refusing to rely on standard tools or methods. Instead, he believed in designing solutions that worked uniquely for him, a mindset that not only sustained his career but also embodied his systems-thinking approach. By understanding the entire system of core drilling—from the machinery to the worksite dynamics—he positioned himself to succeed on his own terms, without the need for a team or external support. If there was no power source for a job, he turned his Ford 350 diesel truck into a generator over a weekend.

My father’s systems thinking didn’t just teach me how to solve problems—it shaped the way I approach the world, helping me navigate complexity and uncertainty with clarity and confidence. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that this mindset isn’t just a personal asset; it’s also uniquely suited for the era we’re entering. We’re on the cusp of a world defined by artificial intelligence, where understanding interconnected systems, feedback loops, and probabilistic outcomes will be more essential than ever. My father’s lessons—whether through chess, billiards, or handicapping horse races—were, in many ways, an early education in the principles that now underpin our understanding of AI.

AI, like systems thinking, thrives on patterns and probabilities. It processes vast amounts of information to make predictions and decisions, not unlike how my father taught me to approach a race or a game of chess. The rise of AI has reinforced how valuable his teachings were, particularly his insistence on keeping an eye on the bigger picture while questioning assumptions. But what excites me most is how AI will empower creative entrepreneurs—those who, like my father, have no rigid belief system and instead thrive on adapting to change. Unlike those who rely on prepackaged software or rigid methodologies, these individuals are uniquely equipped to leverage AI’s potential. They can quickly pivot and adapt to the rapid pace of change, constantly reshaping their vision of the future to align with emerging possibilities. In this world, the speed of technological evolution favors those who are comfortable with uncertainty and who see every shift as an opportunity rather than a challenge. At a time when large mega-cap technology companies are dominating in the early stages of AI, I see an era without moats because of AI which is not only the democratization of intelligence but also the democratization of competition for entreprenuers. This will lead to a rise of entrepreneurs like my father who solve big problems with AI without employees. The work I have seen with agents for investing over the last month has blown my mind and given me insight into the disruption coming to the industry I know best.

My father’s philosophy of questioning the “right way” to do things feels like a blueprint for success in the age of AI. He taught me to think beyond traditional frameworks, to experiment, continuing learning and to adapt—all skills that will be critical as AI transforms industries and redefines what it means to innovate. I use the python classes I took in May every day. His lessons have not only prepared me for this future but have also instilled a belief that the ability to embrace rapid change will separate those who thrive from those who are left behind.

In the way he chose to live his life, he had no identity in the traditional sense. In a world of abundance, the biggest fear for people I hear from the world I describe is a fear of identity. My last name, Visser, which means "fisherman." Our names have been attached to our jobs for a long time, so it is natural to worry about an identity if robots are doing the work. He had a GED, so he could not say what school he’d graduated from, which is another part of people’s identity that will be unnecessary in a world where the best teacher is free and a robot. His education did not define him. His brain defined him and how he used it all the way until he died. We never hugged; it just wasn’t what we did. Somewhere, Freud was right—there was always a hidden competition between us that motivated both of us. I am grateful for that competition, as it has allowed me to be fearless in life, not care how people judge me, have an insatiable desire to learn, and most importantly, live life to its fullest! Bye, Dad, I love you and will miss you, but I am grateful for the gifts you gave me. Fred Visser was a renaissance man who could do anything he wanted to do and had no fear of failure. Peace and hug your kids!