Wei Zhou '11

About Wei

Hometown:
Strongsville, OH

University Partner:
Dartmouth College

Degree:
Economics

Grant Partner:
Lone Pine Capital

Senior Mentor:
Steve Mandel, Founder

"I have been incredibly empowered by the Steamboat experience and have been blessed by the resources that have been literally bestowed upon me this summer. I absolutely cannot wait to leverage these resources and the lessons in leadership I've learned this summer to set out on my own independent life and bring stability to my family."

Scholar Background

Wei was born in China and moved to Ohio in 1995, where he would spend the next 13 years of his life in suburbia. Wei loved music as a child, and played piano and saxophone from 4th grade onwards. He even carried on his passion for saxophone into a marching band career in high school. The piano was tragically unable to march and thus left behind. In high school, Wei was the president of the National Honors Society as well as the Asian-American Cultural Club. He graduated high school summa cum laude and as Strongsville High School’s Phi Beta Kappa scholar. He was also a National AP Scholar, a National Merit Finalist, as well as a Semi-Finalist in the National Economics Challenge. Upon reaching Dartmouth College, Wei continued to be active in his community by joining and later on co-chairing the College’s largest youth mentoring program, DREAM. He is also an active member of his fraternity, Kappa Kappa Kappa, where he served a year as the Philanthropy Chair.

Internship Description

Lone Pine Capital is a $20 billion hedge based in Greenwich, CT and possibly one of the greatest finance firms to work for as an undergraduate intern. From day one, Wei was plunged into the world of fundamental equity analysis, looking at companies ranging from electric vehicles to mattress producers. Sometimes working on his own and other times collaboratively, Wei’s goal was to gain a differentiated and/or actionable perspective on a stock. Though he benefitted from the knowledge and help of all the people at Lone Pine, his collaboration with Marco Tablada, Dave Craver, Scott Coulter, Paul Eisenstein, and Brian Eizenstat especially furthered his understanding of his stocks and the research process. He was also sent on two off-site visits to meet with management in Palo Alto and in Las Vegas to gain field experience and further solidify his analysis. The culmination of Wei’s work researching, interacting with sell-side analysts, and calling expert consultants was typically a memo with a summary of the equity as well as an investment thesis. These would typically be presented to a portfolio manager for review.

The head of the fund, Steve Mandel, has played an integral role in Wei’s internship experience, setting the pace of his work and giving him investment ideas to pursue. Steve enabled Wei to achieve the internship of his dreams through his generous support for Dartmouth and the Steamboat Foundation. Wei is ever grateful for the chance to work for a legendary firm and is extremely excited for future Lone Pine scholars to share this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.