The ideaSpace Podcast with Katie Lewis and Matthew Stafford
20th February 2026
In this episode of the ideaSpace Podcast, Ben Hartley is joined by Ewan Kirk. Ewan is a mathematician, programmer, hedge fund founder, and philanthropist - and proof that the most interesting careers rarely go to plan. He set out to be a research scientist. Instead he ended up at Goldman Sachs, founded one of the world's leading quantitative hedge funds, and then decided to walk away to do something more interesting.
In this episode, Ewan talks about his first entrepreneurial venture, a CAD software company built in his bedroom in the mid-eighties and what it taught him about selling. He shares what it was really like to arrive at Goldman Sachs knowing nothing about finance, how he built Cantab Capital Partners from a blank sheet of paper into a multi-billion dollar fund, and what happened when it all nearly fell apart in 2013.
We also get into leadership, luck, and why he thinks most successful people dramatically overestimate how much credit they deserve. Plus his philosophy on philanthropy, and why he thinks giving money to safe projects is a waste of everyone's time.
If you're a founder, an entrepreneur, or just someone trying to build something that matters, this one's for you.
