Honeycomb Asset Management, the New York firm he founded in 2016, would sell most of its public stock holdings and return the bulk of its clients’ money. In the letter Bloomberg reviewed, he wrote, “Often, the hardest decision is to do less and remain patient.”
The remark concerned markets, but it also offers a way to understand Mr. Fiszel sent his investors a letter to show them the approach to a less visible part of his life: his charitable giving and his work with educational and medical institutions.
A Narrow Mandate
Mr. Fiszel established the Fiszel Family Foundation in 2018, according to a profile of his firm published by Insider Monkey. The private family foundation supports two areas: education and healthcare.
Focusing on two causes reflects a discipline familiar to managers of concentrated portfolios. A fund manager who owns a few dozen positions can know each of them well. With several hundred holdings, a portfolio may begin to resemble the broader market. The same tradeoff applies to philanthropy. Supporting fewer causes gives a foundation more opportunity to understand the organizations it funds and assess their work.
His outside commitments reflect those priorities. In education, he is an Executive Member of the New York for McCombs Council, a group of alumni of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his undergraduate degree in finance. In healthcare, he sits on the Musculoskeletal Advisory Board of NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital in Manhattan.
Institutions With Long Histories
Both organizations are built to outlast any single supporter. The orthopedic hospital traces its origins to 1905, when two brothers, Drs. Henry and Herman Frauenthal, opened what was then called the Jewish Hospital for Deformities and Joint Diseases in a Harlem brownstone, according to NYU Langone’s own history. It later became the Hospital for Joint Diseases and is now part of NYU Langone Health. Its advisory board, chaired by Gary D. Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs, includes business leaders and physicians.
The New York for McCombs Council is younger. It was launched in 2013 to raise the profile of the McCombs School and UT Austin in the New York area, according to the school. Its members host networking events, raise money for students and programs, and help Texas students find internships and jobs at their firms.
Supporting these institutions requires the kind of long-term commitment investors in private companies are familiar with. Honeycomb was built on what Mr. Fiszel’s biography calls a hybrid strategy, investing in both public stocks and private growth companies. Private stakes can take years to pay off, and investors must be prepared to hold them through several rounds of financing before they have an opportunity to sell. Over the years, the firm backed companies such as Palantir and Ramp.
The results of support for a hospital or university can take just as long to emerge. A university student who lands an internship through an alumni network may not reach the peak of their career for two decades. A hospital that invests in a new surgical program will assess its results by tracking patient outcomes over many years.
Research Before Commitment
Mr. Fiszel spent the first part of his career at some of the era’s best-known investment firms. He was a financial analyst and later a partner at Omega Advisors, the firm Leon Cooperman founded after leaving Goldman Sachs. He then worked as a senior portfolio manager at Point72 Asset Management, the firm run by Steven A. Cohen. In 2015, Bloomberg reported that Point72 chose him to lead a venture unit called Honeycomb Ventures. Later that year, he left to start his own firm and took the team with him.
His investment approach emphasizes understanding an investment before committing capital. In the 2025 letter, he also emphasized the importance of deciding where that capital belongs. “I fully recognize the opportunity cost of capital and believe it should be deployed only at its highest and best use,” he wrote, according to Bloomberg’s account.
The principle applies as well to a grant as to a stock purchase. Money given to one cause is money not given to another, making where to give, and whether to continue that support, a central part of a donor’s work.
Patience and Focus
The decision to return outside capital in 2025 carried professional and financial risks. Honeycomb had produced two consecutive years of 18 percent gains before 2025, according to Bloomberg. Reducing its exposure to a rising market meant giving up fees and risking the appearance of having called the top too early.
Mr. Fiszel did not frame it as a retreat. “This is not an exit from investing,” he wrote. “It is a reaffirmation of principle.” Honeycomb kept its longer-term private investments, and Mr. Fiszel remained invested in them alongside his clients.
His philanthropy is similarly focused. The foundation supports education and healthcare, and he serves both fields through his roles at McCombs and NYU Langone.
The Same Habits, Applied Elsewhere
Today, according to his biography, Mr. Fiszel continues to manage Honeycomb’s private portfolio and is focused on his own investments. His other commitments include the foundation, the hospital advisory board, and the McCombs council.
Those commitments suggest habits consistent with his finance career: focusing on a small number of areas, mastering them, and thinking in years rather than quarters. The parallel is one of focus and patience: choosing where to commit resources and allowing time for results.
