Glen's NetworkOrigin StoryFinance

Doug Hall

A garage in Kentucky. A copy of Excel with the SMF add-in. Rotisserie chicken. The friend who got Glen Bradford started with financial modeling — and accidentally launched an entire investing career.

The Origin Story~2006 — Kentucky

The Arc

Somewhere around 2006, in a garage in Kentucky, Doug Hall showed Glen Bradford something that would change the entire direction of his life. It wasn't a book. It wasn't a class. It was Excel — with the SMF (Stock Market Functions) add-in installed — and the idea that you could pull live market data into a spreadsheet and actually model the stock market yourself.

They spent the summer of 2006-2007 in that garage. Building financial models. Deseasonalizing economic data. Pulling apart stock fundamentals in a spreadsheet. Making rotisserie chicken. It sounds casual because it was casual — two friends, a computer, and an obsessive curiosity about whether you could use data to understand markets.

But here's the thing: that casual summer in a Kentucky garage is the reason Glen Bradford became an investor. It's the reason he started writing on Seeking Alpha. It's the reason he built Global Speculation LP. It's the reason Fanniegate happened. Every single chapter of Glen's investing story traces a direct line back to Doug Hall and that garage. Doug lit the match.

The Timeline

~2006

The Introduction

Kentucky

Glen meets Doug Hall. Two guys who like building things. Doug has a garage, a computer, Excel, and an idea: you can model the stock market in a spreadsheet. This is the moment everything starts, even though neither of them knows it yet.

2006 - 2007

The Garage Sessions

A Garage in Kentucky

Doug introduces Glen to the SMF (Stock Market Functions) Excel add-in. They start pulling live market data into spreadsheets, deseasonalizing economic data, building financial models from scratch. The garage smells like rotisserie chicken. The spreadsheets keep getting more complex. Glen is hooked.

~2007 - 2008

The Spark Catches

From Garage to Markets

What started as tinkering in a garage becomes a real thing. Glen starts trading. The Excel models Doug helped him build become the foundation for analyzing stocks, spotting patterns, and developing conviction. The idea that you could just build things — and that building things could make you money — becomes real.

2008 - 2010

The Trajectory Changes

Glen's Investing Career Begins

Glen launches into Seeking Alpha, starts writing about stocks, begins building what would become Global Speculation LP. The financial models born in Doug's garage are now the backbone of a real investment thesis. Every spreadsheet Glen builds from this point forward traces back to those Kentucky sessions.

2010 and Beyond

The Ripple Effect

Everything That Followed

Seeking Alpha. The hedge fund. Fanniegate. The GSE activist investing career. Salesforce. glenbradford.com. All of it — every single chapter — traces a direct line back to Doug Hall's garage and a copy of Excel with the SMF add-in. One friend, one summer, one garage. That's how origin stories work.

What Doug Brings

Financial Modeling

Doug didn't just know Excel — he knew how to make Excel think about markets. The SMF add-in, live data feeds, deseasonalizing economic indicators. He turned a spreadsheet into a financial laboratory and invited Glen to build alongside him.

Curiosity

The kind of person who looks at a stock ticker and thinks: 'I bet I could model that.' The kind of curiosity that doesn't wait for permission or a degree or a Bloomberg terminal. Just a garage, a computer, and the willingness to figure it out.

Hands-On Learning

No textbooks. No courses. No certifications. Doug's approach was: open Excel, install the add-in, pull the data, build the model, see what happens. Learn by building. The most powerful form of education there is.

Friendship

Doug didn't charge tuition. He didn't gatekeep knowledge. He saw a friend who was curious and said: 'Come over. Let me show you something.' That generosity of knowledge — sharing what you know because you want to, not because you have to — changed the entire trajectory of Glen's life.

How I Know Doug

The origin story — Kentucky, a garage, and a spreadsheet

I don't know how to say this without it sounding like I'm exaggerating, so I'll just say it plainly: Doug Hall is the reason I became an investor. Everything I've done in finance — the trading, the writing, the hedge fund, the activism, the 12-year GSE campaign — all of it started because Doug showed me that you could build financial models in Excel.

It was around 2006. I was in Kentucky. Doug had this setup in his garage — a computer, Excel, and the SMF add-in, which let you pull live stock market data right into a spreadsheet. He was already building models, deseasonalizing data, pulling apart company fundamentals. And he just... showed me how to do it. No big speech. No formal lesson. Just: “Here, look at this. You can do this too.”

We spent that whole summer building spreadsheets and making rotisserie chicken. That's the part I always come back to — the rotisserie chicken. Because the best origin stories don't happen in boardrooms or classrooms. They happen in garages, with friends, over food, when nobody's keeping score and nobody's trying to impress anyone.

Doug gave me the most important thing anyone has ever given me professionally: the idea that you could just build things. That you didn't need permission or a degree or a Bloomberg terminal. You just needed Excel, curiosity, and someone willing to show you the first step. Doug was that someone.

A garage in Kentucky. The origin story. Where the idea that you could just build things became real.

Why He Matters

Without Doug Hall, there is no hedge fund. There is no Seeking Alpha. There is no Fanniegate. There is no 12-year GSE activist investing career. There is no Global Speculation LP. There is no glenbradford.com. None of it.

Every person has an origin story — that one moment, that one person, that one summer where the trajectory shifted. For Glen Bradford, that person is Doug Hall, that moment is a garage in Kentucky, and that summer is 2006-2007. Doug didn't just teach Glen how to use Excel. He showed him that the world was buildable — that if you could model it, you could understand it, and if you could understand it, you could act on it.

Some people change your life by giving you a job. Some people change your life by giving you money. Doug changed Glen's life by giving him a spreadsheet and saying: “Here. Build something.”

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