Patrick O'Shaughnessy

your art collecting journey, where it started, why you got interested in it, and how you began to learn about how the art world actually works.

What made a collection like Ovitz's unattainable?

Why could you not replicate it?

What is shared in common from your perspective of the collections that you respect the most?

When we talk about abstract, I'm going to ask about the time that you spent studying power law outcomes in companies.

One of the lessons I've learned from doing this show for so many years is that that power law concept applies literally everywhere.

And it sounds like not only does it apply in art, but actually within a given artist's collection of work.

So the idea of masterpiece or high quality is really interesting to me.

What can you say about those two concepts and what you've learned about them?

It's so strange because there's no earnings against which to measure success.

There's nothing really quantitative.

It's an eye of the collective beholder.

Try to define what's shared in common amongst high quality or masterpiece works.

What are the keys to being known or building a reputation as a great collector?

If you think about the artists, the galleries, both kinds of galleries, the collector who buys and then maybe sells in the future, other players, auction houses, et cetera, who makes the most money?

I would say the galleries.

Good business.

Where are venture and art the most divergent in how the two worlds work?

I want to talk about the way that you've learned the entire early-stage venture world works now.

And Abstract has very quickly become one of the firms whose name you hear a lot.