Sam Hinky

87 Capital

Finance & Investing2000s-present

4 principles 0 frameworks 4 stories 8 quotes

Ask what Sam would do about your problem

Core Principles

focus

Seek opportunities where you can be fully immersed in your field, even if it requires significant sacrifice. Physical proximity and full-time focus accelerates learning exponentially.

Sam Hinky flew back and forth from Stanford to Houston multiple times a week during his MBA to intern at the Texans. This sacrifice allowed him to be in the building, ask questions strategically, and build tools that addressed real team needs. Danny Meyer worked during the day in restaurants and took classes at night. Bob Dylan committed everything to relocating to New York.

“I was just trying to get a foot in the door.”

leadership

Earn the right to influence others through competence and respect, not position or authority. Building credibility with stakeholders requires demonstrating value before expecting them to change their ways.

Sam Hinky created a software tool for draft evaluation at Houston Texans but initially faced resistance from coaches set in their ways. He realized succeeding would require earning the right to get them to listen, make good arguments, and show that facts were on his side and in their best interest. This approach of building credibility through work eventually led to being hired as VP.

“Earning the right to get them to listen, to make good arguments, to realize the facts are on the side, and that it is in your best interest to do this for this particular goal.”

mindset

Listen more than you speak. Use your two ears and one mouth in that proportion. Excessive talking signals you're not serious about learning.

Sam Hinky would sit in meetings mostly saying nothing, asking questions only when absolutely necessary without burdening anyone. Bob Dylan sat in folk music venues for hours studying. Danny Meyer would watch chefs, source trips, and decor intently. This listening posture accelerates learning and shows respect for those you're studying.

“You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion.”

resilience

Build your second dream if your first one doesn't work out as planned. A resilient approach to long-term fulfillment means having the flexibility to redirect passion toward better-fitting opportunities.

Sam Hinky achieved his first dream of becoming an NBA general manager with the Philadelphia 76ers, but his tenure became complicated and he eventually left. Rather than giving up, he identified that venture capital was more aligned with his personality and values. He launched 87 Capital and discovered this was actually his true dream job, surrounded by people he genuinely liked and wanted to help.

“I'm investing money on behalf of other people I like them a lot and that is meaningful in ways that I wouldn't have guessed. If one of them calls me I'm excited to talk. I know our conversations will be fun and generative and I didn't always have that with the people I worked for before.”

Stories

Sam Hinky was born in the Netherlands but grew up in a town of 5,000 in Oklahoma. He was a gifted student, his high school's valedictorian, loved math and exponential growth, studied finance at the University of Oklahoma, and was hired by Bain Capital. One day at lunch with mentors, when asked what job in the world he wanted, he said sports GM, though almost no one was bringing data analytics to sports at the time.

Lesson: Passion forms quietly in the background before you verbalize it. When you finally name your dream, be prepared for others to dismiss it. The fact that it hasn't been done before doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue it.

The name 87 Capital comes from a specific moment in Robert Caro's Means of Ascent, which chronicles Lyndon Johnson's 1948 Senate election victory won by a margin of only 87 votes. As Bill Gurley explains, one candidate wins by 87 votes and gets the presidency, while the other loses by 87 votes but effectively wins back his life's work and his family. Sam chose this name because it captures how small margins matter enormously.

Lesson: Naming your company can be an opportunity to embed a deep, personal philosophy. The name 87 represents that marginal excellence and small differences in execution create outsized results, reflecting Sam's data-driven analytical worldview.

After reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis in two days, Sam Hinky decided to quit his lucrative Bain Capital job and pursue his dream of becoming a sports GM. When he told his parents, they thought he was crazy. Despite skepticism, he attended Stanford, met with legendary figures in sports like Billy Beane and Parag Marathe, and spent his spring break road-tripping on Southwest Airlines to visit NFL teams instead of going to the beach.

Lesson: Conviction about your dream requires acting on it immediately and consistently, even when it appears irrational to others. Small, bold actions compound: visiting teams, asking for unpaid internships, and refusing to abandon your goal despite eye-rolling dismissal.

Sam Hinky was promoted to vice president of the Houston Rockets at a young age and built an analytics department that became the best in the country. However, when interviewing for the Philadelphia 76ers general manager position, the conversation didn't go well. He and the ownership couldn't get on the same page, and Sam was aggressive about it in ways that surprised them. He didn't take the job but made predictions about what would happen that year in Philadelphia, most of which came true, impressing the owners into hiring him two years later.

Lesson: Being right is not enough when you don't have the stakeholder relationships or organizational trust. You must earn the right to influence others, build credibility through demonstrated results, and sometimes wait for the right moment to move into a position.

Notable Quotes

“I remember they laughed at me. It made me so mad.”

When he told two mentors and other young analysts at Bain Capital that he wanted to be a sports GM, at a time when almost nobody was using data analytics in professional sports

“We went and ate burritos across the street from Stanford, and I didn't ask him 20 questions. I asked him 200.”

Describing his meeting with Parag Marathe, a Bain analyst working with the 49ers, when Sam cold-emailed him asking to learn about his path into sports

“You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion.”

Advice Sam teaches to Stanford MBA students, emphasizing the importance of listening over speaking

“In all these meetings, you could just see their eyes roll.”

Describing the reaction he got when pitching his idea to disrupt professional sports using data analytics, before it became mainstream

“I was just trying to get a foot in the door.”

Explaining his road show on Southwest Airlines visiting five or six NFL teams during his Stanford spring break instead of going to the beach

Explaining why 87 Capital is his true dream job, contrasted with his experience as an NBA general manager

“I can help you. You have a limited pile of chips and you need to turn it into as many wins as you can. I can help you reduce risk and boost return or both.”

His pitch to NFL franchises as he was trying to get internship positions, framing analytics as a way to optimize the salary cap

“Earning the right to get them to listen, to make good arguments, to realize the facts are on the side, and that it is in your best interest to do this for this particular goal.”

Explaining what he learned from meeting resistance from coaches at the Houston Texans, realizing that credibility must be earned before influence can be exercised