JP Conte Took Up Surfing After Decades in Private Equity. Here’s What It Taught Him About Risk

According to the Outdoor Industry Association’s 2026 participation report, a record total of 183.2 million participants took part in outdoor activities — or 59% of Americans ages 6 and older.

JP Conte is one of them.

Learning to Surf After a Career in Private Equity

Conte, founder and managing partner of his family office, Lupine Crest Capital, is credited with “more than three decades of experience building and transforming companies.” Water sports were not part of that record.

“After decades in private equity, I started sailing my boat around the world and learning to surf and kite surf,” he wrote in a column for Forbes Business Council.

“That unfamiliarity was precisely the point,” he wrote.

The Ski Slope and Risk

In Conte’s column, he breaks risk into three categories. “Smart risk requires understanding what you’re getting into while accepting incomplete information,” he wrote.

Reckless risk is taken when available facts are ignored. Playing it safe, in his telling, means you may never learn anything at all. His rule for staying out of both traps is simple: “Respect the uncertainty, but don’t let incomplete information paralyze you.”

He compared it to approaching a ski run. “You assess conditions, check equipment and commit once you start,” he wrote.

“Hesitation mid-slope is more dangerous than committed execution,” JP Conte wrote.

Real danger sits in the middle, he argued, where a person is neither prepared nor committed. Leaders can get stuck in the same spot.

Building Risk Tolerance One Wave at a Time

Boldness is not something people are simply born with, in JP Conte’s view. “Risk tolerance isn’t a fixed trait; it’s a developed skill,” he wrote.

His method is to practice on small choices and ones that provide rapid feedback. Water works well for that. A surfer who picks the wrong wave finds out within seconds, paddles back out and tries the next one.

“Physical activities like cycling, mountain biking, kiting or surfing involve constant micro-decisions with immediate feedback,” Conte wrote.

Carrying the Habits Back to Business

Executives were the column’s intended readers, and the advice is aimed at people who have spent years getting good at one thing. Conte argued that the core work of running a company, from analyzing data to building teams, carries over to nearly any industry.

He gave an example from two very different fields. A healthcare technology company adopting new ways to run clinical trials and a financial services firm rolling out digital platforms face similar problems, he wrote, even though the products have little in common.

“Many executives stay within their comfort zones because they fear looking inexperienced or making mistakes in new domains,” he wrote.

Before a big move, he urged readers to learn the territory. “Knowledge doesn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it converts wild uncertainty into calculated probability.”

Keep more than one effort going, he advised. “It ensures a setback in one area doesn’t eliminate your ability to take appropriate risks in others.”

And treat a bad outcome, whether it’s a wipeout on the slopes or a project that misses, as information for the next attempt.

“Failure becomes input for better future choices rather than evidence of inadequacy,” JP Conte wrote.