Cup of Zhou - Weekly Investor Musings to go with your Morning Coffee

July 20, 2026July 19, 2026

Why invest in a FoF

We’ve had a number of family offices (FOs) ask Sam and I for advice recently on investing in venture. And Sam shared a post recently on exactly that, which I highly recommend reading if you’re considering investing in a fund-of-funds. This post is more of an elaboration, a continuation on his.

Some of which have had experience investing in startups. Others in venture funds. And many still, absolutely no venture exposure in their portfolio. And a fraction of them want to.

Some have reached the conclusion that it makes sense to invest in funds-of-funds (FoF), which we’re a big proponent of. That said, not all fund-of-funds are created equal.

Yes, different FoFs will pitch different value-adds to GPs. And yes, different FoFs will pitch different strategies — anchor versus co-invest versus secondaries versus asset class diversification versus lower fees. And yes, different FoFs will tell you they have access to different pools of GP talent.

But your motivations for investing in venture as an asset class are often different as a family office.

Some FOs want to invest in venture passively and use FoF exposure to give them comprehensive exposure to VC. Kind of the set-it-and-forget-it mentality. As long as the asset appreciates 10-15% per year. Here, families look for institutional processes. Do the FoF GPs know how to run a fundraising process? Is reporting and communication clear and timely? Do all interactions have a feel of polish? How many managers do these GPs see per year? Are they in embedded networks?

Some FOs want to eventually directly invest in startups, but want to use FoFs to have co-invest exposure, as well as learn how to underwrite deals. In fact, I talked to two family offices last week. One of which invested in a FoF who invested in Sequoia because they wanted access to Anthropic. Another because they wanted to invest via an SPV into a hot AI infrastructure deal. Here, they’re looking for thoughtful and elaborate memos. AI-written memos only go so far. They want to ask questions. Here, FOs are unlikely to move fast. In fact, they’re looking to spend time to get conviction on a deal. Webinars, meets and greets with founders, regular internal content pieces about why a space/vertical or a company in the underlying portfolio is exciting is paramount before an SPV gets put in front of them. Assuming they’re not looking for the same ol’ pre-IPO, blue chip names, they not only need to trust the FoF’s taste, but also the underlying GP’s taste and why the space is exciting. Returns from the FoF matter less than their individual returns from investing in the SPVs or direct vehicles.

Other FOs want to invest in venture funds due to a portfolio approach rather than being a stock picker, but hesitate at the risk-reward profile of unproven managers, so will only invest in Fund III+ (maybe Fund IV and onwards), and need FoFs to do the diligence/relationship-building for them. Yes, this is also true for a lot of institutional capital in general. It’s for that reason, that they typically say, “It takes us 3-7 years to get to know a manager.” The number of years itself is arbitrary. Depending on where on the totem pole an individual sits (for institutions), they’re motivations for punting the conversation till later varies from “Is this deal going to get me promoted/fired?” to “I just don’t have the time in the immediate future to spend disproportionate time on one deal that’s asking for the smallest ever check size I can write in the smallest asset class I allocate to.”

Similar to the above archetype who likes co-invests, but with an added layer of dinners, happy hours, and invitations to events where they get to meet different portfolio GPs helps them build conviction. The frequency of these don’t have to be as often as with founders, just because knowledge and insight atrophy faster than relationships with people. Individual returns from best-performing GPs matter more than the overall FoF returns. Batting average matters less than magnitude of the home runs.

Others still want to build their own fund-of-funds program, but don’t know how to and want to see how the best operate before pursuing it themselves. They would like regular calls with the FoF GPs, frequent texts back and forth and the liberty to ask rookie questions. For many FOs, we usually tell them it’s hard to expect these unless you’re an early commit to a brand new FoF, or you are at least a 5% check of the overall FoF size. Our general recommendation is that as a family office, you also commit to investing in the next vintage as well, so the GPs of the fund-of-funds have a reason to continue to the conversation with you. Simply, because, well… oftentimes, GPs whether a FoF or venture fund could be short-sighted in their ways of thinking. That also means if you have $5M to invest in a fund-of-funds, it generally makes sense to split that check up to invest $1-2M in the first vintage of a $30-50M FoF and double down in the second vintage if you are able to get what you want out of the relationship.

Returns also don’t matter as much, but these FOs will want to have at least seen what quality GPs look like. Ideally through the portfolio of the FoF, but if not that, at least through events and interactions made by the FoF.

There are those who want to put capital towards impact initiatives and fund-of-funds with an ESG/DEI mandate is one way they can bring impact with capital. FOs with these intentions are quite explicit, but to add on to what already is, regular reports and communication to know their dollars are being put to good use is really what they’re looking for. Returns matter a little less.

And yes, finally, there are those who care about fees. For most families that we work with, the fees don’t seem to be the primary concern. But having chatted with a number of families out there, it is a concern that exists for some, not all. That said, it is a low-hanging excuse to pass on a fund-of-funds. 🙂

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The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.

July 16, 2026July 15, 2026

Ranking the Stakeholders

Danny Meyer wrote in his book, Setting the Table, that as Union Square Hospitality Group, which has always stayed rent-free in my my mind, they prioritize the following in the order of:

The team
The customers
The community
The suppliers
The investors

And I’ve always thought that was an interesting stack ranking of the stakeholders in the business. Which oddly enough, until recently, I hadn’t thought about it for the fund business. A friend asked me a simple question the other day: “If a GP wants my time versus an LP wants my time, and I only have time for one phone call in the moment, who would I prioritize?”

Now before I answer that question, a few things:

The suppliers and the investors in a venture fund are effectively the same thing. Your LPs.
You can probably argue that service providers sit somewhere in this totem pole, but if we’re getting into the details of who a GP is collaborating or spending time with, we can also include parents, spouse/family, friends, and so on.
So, for the sake of this thought experiment, there are four primary stakeholders: team, customers, community, and investors.

Because I’m spending a lot of time with fund-of-funds these days, let’s also take this from the perspective of a FoF GP. (Although you can draw many analogies between a venture GP and a FoF GP). You have the team, your GPs, the community, and, your LPs.

Under the assumption that the FoF is designed as a financial vehicle than a strategic vehicle, I believe the ranking is:

team > GPs > LPs > community

GPs are a higher priority than LPs since without the GPs the LPs don’t make their money back. The GPs must outperform to deliver value to the LPs. How much help the best GPs need is debatable. But if your GPs ask for a service at the same time an LP does, then my belief the priority goes to the GPs.

Now, the more debatable point is that I believe the team should be prioritized over the GPs. Now this is also assuming that you have a team, and you’re not a solo enterprise (or a small, small partnership) yourself. Ideally, the team’s lifetime value (LTV) outlasts a GP’s LTV. I’d much rather be in business with the right team much longer than I imagine a FoF will be involved with a GP who usually graduates from the portfolio once they become obvious. Yes, there are edge cases, but I’m not here to debate the edge cases. The team’s value spans across fund vehicles. The GPs’ are only within the vehicle we invest in. As such, empowering your team members should be paramount. Set them up for success. Set them up to run their own initiatives and eventually lead the firm. But hire slowly, and fire quickly.

And lastly, your LPs are more important than the community. I am a believer in a rising tide raises all ships (after all, it’s why I’m writing blogposts like this), but I know not everyone believes in that. In fact, I’ve actually gotten in fervent debates with very successful investors who believe insight and information is proprietary. If you can’t serve your LPs well, no matter how great of a brand you have, no matter how much content you produce for the ecosystem, no matter how many speaking engagements, dinners, happy hours, and so on you host, you have a leaky bucket. Arguably a sinking enterprise. Your job as a business owner to create enduring and growing value for your shareholders. Your job as a charity or a foundation is to support the community first and foremost. That said, it doesn’t mean you throw the community out of the window.

In fact, the primary takeaway from all of this is that you always need to start from the lowest rung of the ladder. And that’s the community. To borrow Brian Chesky’s 11-Star Experience framework, at the base of this hierarchy, you need to already deliver a 6-out-of-5-star experience. You need to already go above and beyond for them. If everyone else is hosting happy hours already, you’re doing dinners where every diner gets a handwritten card from you about why they should be at the table. If everyone else has a Whatsapp community where they’re just adding people to a like-minded group, your community should have chapter leads that champion different topics and niche communities and be incentivized to host.

Only after that, do you deliver a 7-out-of-5-star experience for your LPs. 8-out-of-5-star experience for your investments (GPs or founders). and 9-out-of-5-stars for your team.

This is slightly different, though still similarly true, for fund-of-funds than with venture funds, but people often forget that venture is a financial services business. They get the finance part, but they forget the services part. Venture capital as a whole is an asset class, although arguable more than just one asset class. But emerging managers, via a fund-of-funds, is an access class. Implied in access, is providing access to people. Your LPs. Your GPs. Innovation. Insight.

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July 10, 2026July 10, 2026

The Religion of Venture Capital

At the risk of being an iconoclast and at the risk of offending people with the below, these are the tenets of venture capital today. You have been warned.

My investments will work out. They have to. Please.

Everyone else is dumber than I am.

My peers have died at the cross for me already. Their portfolios have died at the cross for me. The mega funds have died at the cross for me. I am absolved of my sins fueled by belief, hope, and my need to diligence the worthy.

VC is a power law business. I have yet to see the returns, not because they don’t exist, but because we are still in J-curve, at the very beginning of the hockey stick growth. I need only to believe in this truth as much as to leverage other people’s money to back true risk-on businesses.

The mega funds investing is all the signal I need from the powers above to tell me I’m on the right track. Yet, what I am doing is venture, not what they are doing.

Venture as an asset class is now too big to fail.

The gap between TVPI and DPI does not exist. It cannot. At the end of the day, moolah will be in the coolah. All paper marks will realize, collapsing the illusion of paper wealth into hard, undeniable absolute returns. Today, we are still pre-DPI. But believe that it will come. It’s a matter of when, not if.

Secondaries is the only answer I need. I guarantee someone else will want and buy what I have. For the price I have it at.

I was destined to do this the moment I wrote my first check. Whether it be in a friend or stranger, success or not, I knew I was meant for this. There is no other thing I’d rather do. Or not do.

Everyone who does not believe in me is foolish. Why can’t they see what I see? Are they blinded by only what’s in front of them? Are they blinded by the today that they can’t see my tomorrow?

Forgive me not, Father, for I have never sinned.

AI will replace every job. But never my job. Never me. I am above the collective consciousness.

Bible study sessions exist on Twitter/X. And I’m a regular attendee.

I repeat these prayers to myself thrice before sunrise. And thrice before the moon who shall be my witness.

There’s a Warren Buffett saying that relates to the world we live in now. “When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.” We are in a world where the reputation of venture capital has not changed for the past 15 years. Brilliant people have died, are dying, and will continue to die at the cross.

An LP once told me something I’m inclined to agree with. “A lot of LPs should be VCs. A lot of VCs should be founders. A lot of founders should be employees.” The world doesn’t need more VCs. The world needs more builders.

All that to say, I’m still bullish and actively investing in venture, but it’s undeniable that there is a lot of fluff going on here.

Appreciate those for reading the above drafts and helping me make it more trigger-worthy. 🙂

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July 3, 2026July 2, 2026

GP EQ

A conversation with an LP reminded me of this recently. Can we trust a GP’s word that they’re a good picker if they can’t assess how likely an LP is to commit?

I’ve had multiple conversations with GPs where they tell me XXX and YYY are excited to come in the fund, and they just need more time to close their fundraise or for their process. Then the same XXX and YYY LPs ghost these GPs for months on end. For me, that’s enough for me to question their level of commitment, but not having been in those conversations firsthand, I can’t speak to the actual incentives. Sometimes, I actually know XXX and YYY LPs well enough to pick up the phone and dial them right away and ask them what’s up. Which I do. Only to hear from them and they say they had passed already.

Now I don’t know what actually goes on between those two parties. What’s said and what’s not said. There are many LPs out there who give very soft “no’s.” In hopes to not offend, they imply it’s a “no.” There are also LPs who explicitly say it’s a “yes” ONLY IF ZZZ happens. Given the current market, most of the time, ZZZ doesn’t happen, which becomes an easy out for the LP. The LP’s felt like they’ve delivered the “no.” The GP is still hanging onto the hope the LP likes them enough to break the rule. And then, there are many GPs who have selective hearing loss.

Nevertheless, there are multiple instances of this. And it’s not my job to point fingers to any party other than elucidate that this exists in our world.

That said, even if an LP doesn’t explicitly say “no”, there should be enough breadcrumbs to point to whether someone is a pass. Probably harder to know if they’re a “yes.” But there’s definitely writing on the walls if it’s a pass. And it’s almost always better to assume an LP is an out than an in if there’s hesitation.

The outstanding question for someone like me or any of my friends who I’ve had this conversation with is… is this indicative of a GP’s EQ when talking to founders? Is this GP more prone to rewriting history and facts? Is there a massive perception bias here and is the GP living through rose-tinted lens?

Richard Feynman has this great line. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

And I’ve also had this conversation with another GPs a few weeks back, and I said, “You’re either lying to me or you’re lying to yourself. One is worse than the other. But neither gives me a reason to back you.”

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June 26, 2026June 25, 2026

Whac-A-Mole

One of the questions that seem to come up every so often, whether it’s when I’m on a podcast or a fireside chat or just in conversation, is: Between sourcing, picking, and winning, which one do you think is the most important that emerging managers have?

The cop-out answer is always: They need all three. Or, they’re all important. Which is theoretically true. One in isolation is really hard to pull off ’cause then you need to account for sheer dumb luck (hope is never a strategy). And while everyone is subject to their own answer, I’m a big believer that the lead domino between the trifecta is sourcing. If you never see it, how do you even pick or win it?

We can talk about how you’d theoretically and systematically pick the best founders or how your value-add is something that is something truly valuable to your investments, but if you never have the opportunity to interact with a generational founder, I don’t care how smart you are. Or how well-connected you are. Or how experienced you are. I don’t care if you’re the world’s greatest X if no one’s heard of you or thinks of you when they or someone close to them starts a company.

Venture is a game of outliers. (I feel like a broken record at this point writing and saying this.) And I would much rather a GP see and miss generational founders again and again (and well, learn each time they do) than to have only seen one their entire life. Obviously, both are better than not having met any ever. You don’t know what quality looks like if you’ve never seen quality before they became obvious. No amount of books you’ve read or podcasts you’ve listened to will help you with that. I would rather you have a large anti-portfolio than build one for the first time as you’re starting your first fund. And in that anti-portfolio, it’s a lot of “I didn’t pick it” or “I didn’t win it” or “I didn’t even know I wanted to be an investor yet.” Yet despite all of that, I’ve chosen to stay in touch with these generational talents and they still value my presence in their orbit.

If you’ve only met one generational founder in your life before, I need to figure out if your network and sourcing channels would allow you to see another in the next 3-4 years (or whatever your deployment period is). And that when you see it, you’ll know that that is the one. But every generational founder looks different from the rest. So if you’ve only seen one in the past, how will I know if you have both the pattern recognition and the exception recognition to pick the next?

For those who have seen one or less generational founders in their lives, I have to bet that you somehow can “use the Force.”

That on the off-chance you do find one, can I trust your intuition to recognize it AND win it?

On the flip side, there’s this game that many of us grew up with. Whac-A-Mole. It’s an arcade game that has a series of moles hiding in holes. The goal is to whack as many moles as you can as they pop their heads up. Venture investing is similar. Each mole is a generational founder. That you may miss “whacking” many a generational founder, but as long as you keep seeing them, and as long as you keep trying to pick them, you’ll eventually hit one. And if you’re lucky, more than one. But in order to see multiple generational founders, you need the cards to be stacked in your favor. The ideal venture manager should be playing a constant game of Whac-A-Mole, as opposed to using the force. Although, damn, being a Luke Skywalker sounds a hell of a lot cooler than playing an arcade game.

To pull a line from Scale’s Rory O’Driscoll that I wrote about in a previous post, “Having to deal with the psychological burden of having an anti-portfolio is a privilege. If you never have the psychological tax of passing on multiple generational deals, you shouldn’t be in venture. Passing on 20 great companies out of 40 great companies you see is always more preferable than investing in 2 great companies after seeing 40 average companies.”

Then there’s the question of whether our definition of generational founders even match up. Does your definition lead you to find founders who will exit at $1B+ outcomes? $100B+ outcomes? Or $100M outcomes? But a topic for another day.

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June 17, 2026June 16, 2026

Casting Shadows

“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means the sun is about to set.” — Lin Yutang

It’s been 10 years since I first stepped into venture. Yet still, while I know more, have met more people, and have experienced more, and when I look back, I pity the knowledge and experience I had a decade prior… yet despite all that, I know I have still so much work to do.

This essay was born from many conversations over the years, but especially so, in the past few months, where I’ve witnessed conversation after conversation that follows the theme of:

“Have you met X?”

“I have.”

“What do you think of X?”

“X feels far smarter online than X is in reality. After meeting X, where I anticipated so much, I was only let down.”

Never meet your heroes, they say.

In venture, we live in a world where the average VC brags more about “being a part of the journey” or “excited to support” a founder they backed than actually doing the work. It’s no wonder that 70% of VCs add no value (though 15% more add “negative value”). But it is far easier to say the part, look the part, than do the part. With SpaceX and OpenAI’s IPO today, Anthropic’s tomorrow, and Databricks, Anduril, who knows what, the day after, we will find many more VCs congratulating themselves, raising larger vehicles, and casting larger shadows.

In an unreleased interview with a GP I really admire, she told me an anecdote of a founder she knows well. “All of my early stage investors made out like bandits with my huge exit, and I never got a thank you. All I saw was them talk about how they discovered me and how they had such a big role to play in my success. But no one said, thank you for returning my fund 10 times over. And here’s a token of appreciation, whatever the appreciation is.” Which echoes the growing sentiment in the ecosystem.

And here’s my own self-reflection.

I hope that I cast no greater of a shadow than my beliefs, thoughts, and remarks would allow. And I hope still that I have the humility to cast a smaller shadow than I would ever be allowed to.

People measure shadows by the potential and impact someone may have. I have a friend who turned 30 recently. And when we sat down to chat, he told me that people were no longer telling him that he has potential. And one of his greatest fears is that people only see the person he is today for who he is today, and no longer the person he will be tomorrow. That pressure, more than anything, meant he was no longer “young.” I don’t think anyone ever loses their potential as a function of age. I have friends double my age, still learning every day, faster and more studious than people half of theirs. To me, that is still potential.

And here I hope that the shadow I’m capable of casting is underestimated than overestimated. But at least to myself, I hope I never underestimate myself.

“After I’m dead, I would much rather have men ask why I have no monument than why I have one.” — Cato

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June 15, 2026June 15, 2026

What is the Density of your Founder NPS? | El Pack w/ Charlotte Zhang | Superclusters

“We’re going into a world where there will be an increase in inequality in terms of the have’s versus have-not’s. And so if you are invested in some of the have’s, I would actually bet on their acceleration of value aggregation in the later stages of scaling which is why I, personally, think a winning strategy is to hold onto them for as long as possible.” — Charlotte Zhang

Charlotte Zhang from Inatai Foundation is back! And if you’ve tuned into her first episode on Superclusters, you’ll know exactly why. Charlotte has been one of my favorite guests on the podcast, marrying both her profound ability for deep analysis with strong framework-oriented assessments. You might remember her 4 P’s to underwriting every manager from our prior episode.

Naturally I had to have her back for an El Pack episode to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on 3 GPs at VC funds to ask 3 different questions.

99VC’s Lisa Yu asks about what LPs look for in Fund I’s beyond track record.

Escape Velocity’s Mahesh Ramakrishnan asks about recycling and what happens when you have 30% of your fund size as distributions in the first few years of the fund.

Founder Embassy’s Helena Gagern asks about investing in AI frontier labs where the first round of financing already puts the company at $400M+ in valuation. And also, how do you communicate to LPs that you have an “exceptionalism” bucket to invest out of?

As the director of investments at Inatai Foundation, Charlotte Zhang oversees the selection of external investment managers, conducts portfolio research, and helps to institutionalize processes, tools, and resources. She previously served as a senior associate at ICONIQ Capital and, before that, Medley Partners. When not working, you can find her globetrotting (18 countries and counting), writing a Yelp review about the best bite in town, or cuddling up with a book and her two adorable cats.

You can find Charlotte on her LinkedIn here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotterzhang/

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

(00:00) Intro
(01:04) What’s new in Charlotte’s life?
(04:06) LPs Charlotte would love to meet
(05:41) Who is Lisa and 99VC?
(09:31) What qualities does Charlotte look for beyond track record?
(14:55) How does a GP know if they have a differentiated strategy?
(15:49) Charlotte’s pet peeve
(17:29) The bottoms up exercise of building a fund strategy
(18:00) Consistency of execution
(20:05) The highest level of signal you can get from a founder reference
(22:18) The ask
(22:51) Who is better at bowling: Mahesh or David?
(24:44) Who is Mahesh and Escape Velocity?
(25:20) Why is Escape Velocity spelled as EV^3?
(27:10) What happens when you have 30% DPI in the first 2 years of your fund?
(30:19) Does early DPI matter more in Fund I than Fund III?
(33:26) Should you sell secondaries at the Series B as a pre-seed/seed GP?
(37:34) Venture is under siege for no DPI
(38:18) Would Charlotte rather have 4X in 10 years or 7X in 15 years?
(39:42) Have’s and have-not’s
(40:35) Who is Helena and Founder Embassy?
(44:45) What is Charlotte’s reaction when a pre-seed GP invests in a $400M post valuation?
(49:23) How do the best GPs communicate betting off-thesis?
(50:44) How many GPs have an “exceptionalism” bucket to invest out of?
(55:56) How much underwriting goes into a GP breaking the rules?
(58:10) “A-players are obvious” but what isn’t?
(1:00:38) Charlotte’s last piece of advice for LPs
(1:03:43) Charlotte’s last piece of advice for GPs
(1:07:18) Why you should talk about the anti-portfolio
(1:09:33) David’s favorite moment from Charlotte’s previous episode

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“In venture capital, although the top quartile of emerging managers outperforms the established funds. On average, you would actually be better off investing in established funds than in an emerging manager because the dispersion of returns is so much wider in emerging managers.” — Charlotte Zhang

“Because incumbent brands create access flywheels, the most important thing for an emerging manager is having a clearly differentiated strategy. Otherwise, it’s fighting an unwinnable war.” — Charlotte Zhang

“Investment strategies are simply financial products serving the market of what founders and management teams in businesses need.” — Charlotte Zhang

“The best founders will know who the best VCs are.” — Charlotte Zhang

“It’s all about the density of the NPS you have amongst the best talent. Of course, if they have a good experience with you, they’re more likely to refer others they think highly of to you. And that’s the reason why it becomes a leading indicator and therefore, a self-fulfilling prophecy as to who rises to the top.” — Charlotte Zhang

“It’s actually a higher signal to me if it’s someone referring you that didn’t take money from you.” — Charlotte Zhang

“When we’re conducting diligence as an LP, you should be looking under the rocks where you are more likely to find disproving evidence.” — Charlotte Zhang

“If [venture] does not produce any realized returns, how will it be self-funding? And how can you continue pacing sustainably into this asset class?” — Charlotte Zhang

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
For Superclusters After Hours: ⁠https://superclusterslp.substack.com/⁠
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP

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June 11, 2026June 11, 2026

Intro Policy Pt 2

I wrote this piece last year on how I’ve evolved my thinking on intros. And while not my most popular post by a long margin, it is something I do forward to others who ask for intros.

Now, despite that, people still ask for intros. And so at the risk of sounding like an a-hole, I’m going to say something that may offend a lot of people who know me.

Just because you make an intro between someone and me doesn’t mean I will automatically make an intro for you.

Few things to clarify:

1/ First off, I’m genuinely grateful for all intros. Whether it’s to someone you’ve known for a long time, or someone you just met yesterday, or someone you deeply respect, I’m honored that someone else is thinking of me when the intros are made. I will never take that for granted.

2/ I get the “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” mentality. But:

Not all intros are created equal. Not all relationships are created equal. Introing me to someone you met yesterday does not give you the equivalent political capital for me to intro you to someone who, whether I know them well or not, is someone most people seek to meet. Just because a friend made an intro between a stranger they met at the bar last night doesn’t mean they’re allowed to ask an intro to your sister to date her. Obviously, I’m exaggerating a bit, but I wanted to drive the point home.
People are not commodities. I don’t trade people like I trade my stocks. I will naturally make an intro if I know both parties are looking for each other, or at least topics, skillsets, or experiences that the other party has.
If you make a great intro, I will of course:
(a) Report back to you and thank you for the intro.
(b) Find other ways to thank you beyond words.

The whole reason I’m writing this post in the first place is that a few bad eggs recently spoiled the entire carton. I had a few exchanges recently where certain individuals felt justified to ask for, and hell, take it a step further and demand, intros to certain reputable individuals I know because they made “that intro for you last year.” Which I admittedly felt it wasn’t worth continuing the conversation with the person they made an intro to within 15 minutes of our chat.

Most of you are not the above character. I get it. But I also felt the need to get the above off my chest and use it as a future artifact when the situation arises again.

Thanks for reading my ramble. Truly.

Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!

June 8, 2026June 7, 2026

“You don’t have enough dopamine in your pitch!” | El Pack w/ Asher Siddiqui | Superclusters

“How you modulate a good story is by inserting dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins at the right times to be able to deliver that story so that the person listening to that story can form an opinion.” — Asher Siddiqui

Asher Siddiqui from the Song Family Office joins me on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on 3 GPs at VC funds to ask 3 different questions.

Inuka Capital’s Gautam Shewakramani asks about what GPs typically overshare and under-share when they’re pitching an LP. As well as how an LP identifies if a GP has great sourcing if they’re a generalist fund.

Unshackled Venture’s Manan Mehta asks if VC is still only one asset class. Is early stage now a combination of discovery and validation capital?

Keymaker VC’s Tim Wang asks what do most LPs overvalue in GPs.

Asher Siddiqui is a global tech investor, M&A dealmaker, and venture fund builder with over 25 years of hands-on experience across venture capital, entrepreneurship, and more than $15B in executed M&A transactions.

He began his career as a software engineer and entrepreneur in the US and UK before spending a decade leading M&A and corporate venture at Etisalat Group (now e& Group), one of the world’s largest listed TMT investment groups. There, he led acquisitions, exits, and strategic transactions across multiple continents.

In 2016, Asher joined the global leadership team at 500 Startups in San Francisco, helping scale the platform to $2B+ AUM, with a portfolio that includes 35+ unicorns and 160+ centaurs.

Since then, he has helped launch and scale several institutional VC firms—including Race Capital, Lumikai, Sukna Ventures, Zayn VC, and Humanrace Capital—and serves on the advisory boards of funds such as FootPrint Coalition Ventures, Merus Capital, and The Treasury.

To date, Asher has made 100+ venture investments (both direct and LP), raised hundreds of millions in LP commitments, mentored hundreds of emerging VC managers globally, and advised countless founders.

You can find Asher on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashersiddiqui/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/ashercdkey

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.

OUTLINE:

(00:00) Intro
(02:09) The DOSE framework for underwriting pitches
(04:19) Asher’s new role
(05:38) Who is Gautam and Inuka Capital?
(09:19) What do most GPs overshare and undershare on?
(15:19) How does Asher differentiate sourcing ability in generalist funds?
(20:01) The first date analogy
(22:38) What emotions do each of DOSE represent?
(27:23) Too much dopamine, not enough endorphins
(30:02) Who is Manan and Unshackled Ventures?
(31:33) Unshackled’s most recent big win
(32:46) Discovery capital vs validation capital
(33:31) Is venture still only one asset class?
(43:29) The Song Family Office portfolio construction
(51:41) Asher’s stance on reserves
(55:00) Why it makes sense to go to zero AGMs
(56:23) The ask
(57:27) Who is Tim and Keymaker VC?
(58:45) What do most LPs overvalue in GPs?
(1:04:40) A new way to share the team’s personality on the deck?
(1:08:09) Asher’s last piece of advice
(1:14:57) David’s favorite moment of Asher in S5

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

““Happiness is amazing. It’s so amazing it doesn’t matter if it’s yours or not. A society grows great when old men plant trees the shade of which they know they will never sit in.” — from Ricky Gervais’ After Life

“How you modulate [a good story] is by inserting dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins at the right times to be able to deliver that story so that the person listening to that story can form an opinion.” — Asher Siddiqui

“There’s no point of perfect information, especially in venture, where you say ‘I have enough information’, this is the thesis, the timing is now—… No, there’s a lot of belief involved.” — Asher Siddiqui

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June 5, 2026June 5, 2026

12 Types of LPs

I just shared this verbally on a podcast and a talk recently, and realized while I’ve shared this friends, I’ve never shared it publicly explicitly or made a graphic for it.

What is it? And this was helpful when I was in IR, but also hopefully helpful as a GP pitching LPs, what are the types of LPs that exist?

I never really liked the line, “If you know one family office, you only know one.” Or if you know 1 LP, you only know one.” Probably true in a lot of circumstances, but feels odd that there are 100,000+ types of family offices or LPs.

Short blogpost, but I’ll probably elaborate on each in a future one, but sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words.

This is not all-inclusive, just like Myers-Briggs or OCEAN/Big 5 or the enneagram isn’t. But hopefully a good orienting framework in the first few meetings with LPs.

I borrowed a little bit of the nomenclature my buddy Matt Curtolo used as my original segmentation of LP archetypes was not as well-worded.

X-axis is if they own / create the wealth or not. Y-axis is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

P.S. This is not a framework you brag about to your LPs. You don’t tell any LPs how they’re bucketed. Just like you as the GP don’t like to get bucketed, no LP wants to. But in this case, when fundraising, you need to eat your ego.

P.P.S. Honestly, you should probably eat your ego while investing, but no one usually listens to this latter comment.

Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!

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