On August 17, 2026, the Irreplaceable Spark 2 conference was held at the top-notch Westin at the Domain hotel in Austin Texas. But for me, the conference really began a day earlier on the campus of Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) situated in the gorgeous western hills of Austin. There, my brother Eric and I were greeted by Barbara, Reece and Marcos and given a tour of the headquarters.
For background, Dimensional is a uniquely principled asset management firm. It was founded in 1981 in a Brooklyn apartment - and was led by a remarkable group of academics and students who were connected through the business school at the University of Chicago. After visiting their world-class video production and podcast studios I was reintroduced to Paul, who had been my Dimensional representative ten years earlier when I worked at a regional bank wealth management and trust office.
Not only did Paul remember, but he presented me with a signed copy of Dimensional founder David Booth’s 2026 book titled Stay Calm - Learn to Embrace Uncertainty in Investing and Life. On that note, please look for my review of this book in the near future.
Remarkable but not surprising, Paul was also well informed in the subjects of the conference I was attending: reason, individualism, independence and free markets. Furthermore, I let his team know that Dimensional would be used as an example of those virtues applied to investing in my talk on Sunday morning. When we got to the hotel later that Friday afternoon, I was told that Booth had been a long-time devotee of our work.
And continuing that theme on Saturday morning was the speaker best suited to open the conference: hedge fund manager, registered advisor and FOX Business regular Jonathan Hoenig. The title of his talk was Principles of Popularity - the False Choice That’s Undermining Your Success.
Hoenig’s bottom line is that principles are not optional and popularity is the secondary benefit of rational ideas that are consistently applied. That is how we earn trust. And as Hoenig explained, not only are principles and popularity not opposed, but morality vs. reality is also a false dichotomy. As Hoenig stated,
“principles are the technology of achievement.”
Next, Hoenig said something worth repeating because it is good and true,
“markets do not care about popularity.”
Naturally, markets are uncertain and reward talent - and Booth also offers a good corollary in his book’s jacket:
“uncertainty isn’t something to fear - it’s where possibility lives.”
But how do we cut through the uncertainty and leverage the possibilities? That is what the Irreplaceable Spark conference is designed for.
In the world of personal finance, Hoenig recommended the behavioral management and risk control best practices that yielded success for him as a former futures trader and current investment advisor. And in the realm of psychology, Dr. Ellen Kenner recounted examples of self-knowledge and communication skills that produce emotional resilience, or as Hoenig had put it, “immunity to panic.“ Furthermore, by building on our experiences and partnerships with others, Kenner believes
“you will change what becomes possible.”
What followed was a panel discussion titled The Future of Money featuring three of the speakers: Hoenig, retired Air Force pilot and fixed income analyst Jim Brown, and me. Looking back, I would characterize the group as one panelist focused on the predictive power of technical analysis, one on the destructive power of central banking, and one on the decentralized power of price discovery.
That may be a simplistic description, but the variety produced some interesting discussion. And for you, I ask which of those three priorities is most consistent with reason, individualism and capitalism?
Yet, there was no conversation about the future of money, little about the present state of money, and nothing about the cause, nature and purpose of money. There was, however, disagreement about the cause, nature and purpose of the US Treasury bond market. To me, the important point is the previous 45 years of Treasury bond price action, what that says about the futurem - and gets scant attention.
Bringing coherence back to the speakers platform was the physical, artistic and emotional journey of fine artist Jon Wos. Born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, aka brittle bone disease, it is impossible for the rest of us to comprehend the lifelong challenges of his debilitation, but Jon did something no one else could do. He illustrated the progression of the disease and its effects on his physical and emotional life through a series of original paintings. In turn, that brought amazing clarity to the Spark 2 audience.
So much so that I cannot do justice with these words, but it was a story of triumph that may have been impossible without the proper philosophical foundation that Jon discovered through the fiction and genius of Ayn Rand and his strength of character. And in tribute to both, Jon induced a standing ovation. Accordingly, I will continue my brief review of Irreplaceable Spark 2 conference in a subsequent article covering the next three speakers.
