DIFFERENTIATION

HISTORY

Together Nadine Terman, J.C. Torres, and Sandra Southworth founded Solstein Capital, LLC in 2010.

Solstein is an independent investment firm located in the heart of Silicon Valley. We consider ourselves a boutique investment firm that offers direct, collaborative partnerships with clients.

Working together since 2005, the founders shared common values that are the foundation of the firm. They sought to build a firm with alignment of culture, investment philosophy, fund structure, incentives, and processes.

Solstein launched its global hedge fund in August of 2011, and the firm expanded to include long-only strategies in 2016, and family office investment services in 2017.

ETYMOLOGY

The firm's founders chose the name "Solstein" as the heart of its investment compass, to represent the team's ability to navigate successfully across geographies, securities, industries, and market capitalizations-- and through a range of market and economic cycles.

The Vikings, seafarers from Scandinavia who traveled widely from 750 to 1050 AD, were skilled navigators, able to cross thousands of kilometers of open sea.  Perpetual daylight during the summer sailing season in the far north prevented them from using the stars as a guide to their positions, and the magnetic compass had not yet been introduced in Europe.  A Viking legend tells of a glowing sunstone, or solarsteinn, that when held up to the sky revealed the position of the sun, even on a cloudy day.  

Today scientists measuring the properties of lights in the sky confirm that polarizing crystals could have helped ancient sailors to cross the northern Atlantic.  Light consists of electromagnetic waves that oscillate perpendicular to the direction of the light's travel.  When the oscillations all point in the same direction, the light is polarized.  A polarizing crystal such as calcite allows only light polarized in certain directions to pass through it, and it can appear bright or dark depending on how it is oriented with respect to the light.  Scattering by air molecules in the atmosphere causes sunlight to be polarized, with the line of polarization tangential to circles centered on the sun.  So scientists argue that by holding a crystal such as calcite up to the sky and rotating it to check the direction of polarization of light passing through it, the Vikings could have deduced the position of the sun, even when it was hidden behind clouds or fog, or when just beneath the horizon.