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Venture Capital is DEAD! | El Pack w/ Chris Douvos | Superclusters

chris douvos

Ahoy Capital’s founder, Chris Douvos, joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.

Pachamama Ventures’ Karen Sheffield asked about how GPs should think about when and how to sell secondaries.

Mangusta Capital’s Kevin Jiang asked about how GPs should think about staying top of mind with LPs between fundraises.

Stellar Ventures’ David Anderman asked Chris about GPs who start to specialize in different stages of investment compared to their previous funds.

Chris Douvos founded Ahoy Capital in 2018 to build an intentionally right-sized firm that could pursue investment excellence while prizing a spirit of partnership with all of its constituencies. A pioneering investor in the micro-VC movement, Chris has been a fixture in venture capital for nearly two decades. Prior to Ahoy Capital, Chris spearheaded investment efforts at Venture Investment Associates, and The Investment Fund for Foundations. He learned the craft of illiquid investing at Princeton University’s endowment. Chris earned his B.A. with Distinction from Yale College in 1994 and an M.B.A. from Yale School of Management in 2001.

You can find Chris on his socials here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cdouvos
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdouvos/

And huge thank you for Karen, Kevin, and David for jumping on the show.

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

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[01:03] The facade of tough times
[05:03] The last time Chris hugged someone
[06:53] The art (and science?) of a good hug
[08:32] How does Chris start his quarterly letters?
[10:35] Quotes, writing, and AI
[15:13] Venture is dead. Why?
[17:33] But… why is venture still exciting?
[21:13] Enter Karen Sheffield
[21:48] The never-to-be-aired episode with Chris and Beezer
[22:55] Karen and Pachamama Ventures
[24:19] The third iteration of climate tech vocabulary
[26:55] How should GPs think about secondaries?
[33:53] Where can GPs go to learn more about when to sell?
[36:53] Are secondary transactions actually happening or is it bluff?
[38:44] “Entrepreneurship is like a gas, hottest when compressed”
[42:26] Enter Kevin Jiang and Mangusta Capital
[44:21] The significance of the mongoose
[46:36] How do LPs like to stay updated on a GP’s progress?
[59:35] How does a GP show an LP they’re in it for the long run?
[1:03:57] David’s Anderman part of the Superclusters story
[1:05:41] David Anderman’s gripe about the name Boom
[1:06:31] Enter David Anderman and Stellar Ventures
[1:10:21] What do LPs think of GPs expanding their thesis for later-stage rounds?
[1:21:43] Why not invest all of your private portfolio in buyout funds
[1:25:48] Good answers to why didn’t things work out
[1:28:13] Chris’ one last piece of advice
[1:35:18] My favorite clip from Chris’ first episode on Superclusters

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Every letter seems to say portfolios have ‘limited exposure to tariffs.’ The reality is we’re seeing potentially the breakdown of the entire post-war Bretton Woods system. And that’s going to have radical impacts on everything across the entire economy. So to say ‘we have limited exposure to tariffs’ is one thing, but what they really are saying is ‘we don’t understand the exposure we have to the broader economy as a whole.’” – Chris Douvos

“Everybody is always trying to put the best spin on quarterly results. I love how every single letter I get starts: ‘We are pleased to share our quarterly letter.’ I write my own quarterly letters. Sometimes I’m not pleased to share them. All of my funds – I love them like my children – equally but differently. There’s one that’s keeping me up a lot at night. Man, I’m not pleased to share anything about that fund, but I have to.” – Chris Douvos

“There’s ups and downs. We live in a business of failure. Ted Williams once said, ‘Baseball is the only human endeavor where being successful three times out of ten can get you to the Hall of Fame.’ If you think about venture, it’s such a power law business that if you were successful three times out of ten, you’d be a radical hero.” – Chris Douvos

“Tim Berners-Lee’s outset of the internet talked about the change from the static web to the social web to the semantic web. Each iteration of the web has three layers: the compute layer, an interaction layer, and a data layer.” – Chris Douvos

“Venture doesn’t know the train that’s headed down the tracks to hit it. Every investor I talk to—and I talk mostly to endowments and foundations—is thinking about how to shorten the duration of their portfolio. People have too many long-dated way-out-of-the-money options, and quite frankly, they haven’t, at least in recent memory, been appropriately compensated for taking those long-term bets.” – Chris Douvos

“Entrepreneurship is like a gas. It’s the hottest when it’s compressed.” – Chris Douvos

On communication with LPs, “come with curiosity, not sales.” – Chris Douvos

“Process drives repeatability.” – Andy Weissman

“The worst time to figure out who you’re going to marry is when you’re buying flowers and setting the menu. Most funds that are raising now, especially if it’s to institutional investors—we’re getting to know you for Fund n plus one.” – Chris Douvos

On frequent GP/LP checkins… “Too many calls I get on, it’s a re-hash of what the strategy is. Assume if I’m taking the call, I actually spent five minutes reminding myself of who you are and what you do.” – Chris Douvos

“One thing I hate is when I meet with someone, they tell me about A, B, and C. And then the next time I meet with them, it’s companies D, E, and F. ‘What happened to A, B, and C?’ So I’ve told people, ‘Hey, we’re having serious conversations. Help me understand the arc.’ As LPs, we get snapshots in time, but what I want is enough snapshots of the whole scene to create a movie of you, like one of those picturebooks that you can flip. I want to see the evolution. I want to know about the hypotheses that didn’t work.” – Chris Douvos

“We invest in funds as LPs that last twice as long as the average American marriage.” – Chris Douvos

“The typical vest in Silicon Valley is four years. He says, ‘Think about how long you want to work. Think about how old you are now and divide that period by four. That’s the number of shots on goal you’re going to have to create intergenerational wealth.’ When you actually do that, it’s actually not very many shots. ‘So I want to know, is this the opportunity that you want to spend the next four years on building that option value?’” – Chris Douvos, quoting Stewart Alsop

When underwriting passion… “So you start with the null hypothesis that this person is a dilettante or tourist. What you try to do when you try to understand their behavioral footprint is you try to understand their passion. Some people are builders for the sake of building and get their psychic income from the communities they build while building.” – Chris Douvos

“There’s pre-spreadsheet and post-spreadsheet investing. For me, it’s a very different risk-adjusted return footprint because once you are post-spreadsheet—you talk about B and C rounds, companies have product-market fit, they’re moving to traction—that’s very different and analyzable. In my personal opinion, that’s ‘super beta venture.’ Like it’s just public market super beta. Whereas pre-spreadsheet is Adam and God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with their fingers almost touching. You can feel the electricity. […] That’s pure alpha. I think the purest alpha left in the investing markets. But alpha can have a negative sign in front of it. That’s the game we play.” – Chris Douvos

“Strategy is an integrated set of choices that inform timely action.” – Michael Porter

“I’m not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus. He either lives in your heart or he doesn’t.” – Don Draper in Mad Men

“If there are 4000 people investing and people are generally on a 2-year cycle, that means in any given year, there are 2000 funds. And the top quartile fund is 500th. I don’t want to invest in the 50th best fund, much less the 500th. But that’s tyranny of the relativists. Why do we care if our portfolio is top quartile if we’re not keeping up with the opportunity cost of equity capital of the public markets?” – Chris Douvos

“In venture, the top three funds matter. Probably the top three funds will be Sequoia, Kleiner, and whoever gets lucky or whoever is in the right industry when that industry gets hot.” – Michael Moritz in 2002

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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!

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.

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My Worry with AI

I was grabbing lunch with my buddy Rahul the other day. And we were talking about how frickin’ tough it was for us to become proficient at our respective sport. Tennis for him. Swimming for me. On one hand, both of us wish it were easier. That he could pick up the racket for the first time, and win matches without breaking a sweat. That I could execute a perfect dive and a sub-20-second 50-sprint with just six months of practice. But the truth is neither of us could. We had select teammates who could though.

I remember one teammate who was two years older than I was. 14 to be exact. He swam with us for two months with no formal training prior, then went to his first competition. Broke 30 seconds for 50-yard freestyle in that very first race. A few months later, broke 25-seconds. In his first year, he never lost a sprint. It got to a point that while the rest of us were swimming six days a week. 2-4 hours a day. He swam with us twice, at best thrice a week. And he still won.

Was I envious? Hell ya. No doubt about it.

It wasn’t till later that year, where he was competing in meets a step above Junior Olympics — Far Western to be specific — that he lost his first race. Then at the next one again. Then again. And the guy broke. He took his anger out on the rest of us. Beat some folks up as well. Just, give or take, 18 months after he had started, he quit. I never saw him again.

Had he stuck with the sport, I’m confident he would have been one of the best. Some people do have the genetic disposition to do well in a certain craft. They won the genetic lottery. And I’m really happy for them. If you do have it, you should definitely lean into it. Why waste the free bingo tile you’ve been given?

Circling back from earlier… on the other hand, Rahul and I are both glad it took a shitload of effort to actually win for the first time. And even more the second time. Then the third. Which by the way, really fucking sucked. I once beat the shit out of a wall in my parents’ home with my bare knuckles ’cause I was so frustrated at plateauing. Much to my parents’ horror.

But it made us better people. We are the sum of all our mistakes. The sum of all our blood, sweat and tears.

The last few months I’ve been lucky to be a part of conversations about the intersection of AI and investing. So many funds we see have built out AI screening tools, automated email management, and memo creation. Some LPs too. The latter is few and far in between. And there were multiple discussions from senior LPs and GPs that they became the investor they were today because they did the work of putting together the memos and hunting down references and details. That they made mistakes, but learned quickly why certain mistakes were worse than others. Some miscalculations were more egregious than others. That they were scolded. Some fired. The younger generation may not have the same scrutiny. And with AI, they might not fully understand why they need to do certain things other than tell AI to put together a memo.

Similarly, so many companies are building things incredibly quickly. Vibe coded overnight. They’re getting to distribution faster than any other era of innovation. It’s not uncommon we’re seeing solid 7-figure revenues in year one of the company. Annual curiosity revenue from corporates is real. Likely temporary, but real. And it’s created a generation of puffed chests. Founders and investors, not prepared for the soon-to-come rude awakening.

As first-check investors, we bet on the human being. We bet on not only the individual’s vision, but all the baggage and wherewithal that comes with it. We bet on the individual’s ability to endure. Because unless we see a mass market of overnight acqui-hires for companies younger than three years, our returns are generated in years 9-15. The long term. And shit will hit the fan.

AI is amazing in so many ways. But it has made it harder to underwrite willpower.

I’m not a religious person. But a line I really like from my friends who are Christian in faith is, “Don’t pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength and courage to overcome a hard life.”

It’s why I have a bias to folks who have scar tissue. Or what Aram Verdiyan calls “distance travelled.” What others call “people who have seen shit.”

Years ago, a friend of mine told me that famous people live one of two lives. A life to envy. Or a life to respect. A life to envy is one where that individual gets things handed to them on a silver platter. They got everything in life they asked for. Rich kids with rich parents oftentimes. A lot of people would love to have lived that person’s life. A life to respect is one where the individual goes through trials by fire and eventually came out on top. They’re riddled with scars. And while many people would want to be in that person’s shoes today, they wouldn’t want to have lived the life that individual lived.

As investors, we bias towards people who have gone through the latter or is capable of going through the latter.

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

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!

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.

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22 Years in Venture Secondaries | Abe Finkelstein | Superclusters | S5E9

abe finkelstein

“Buying junk at a discount is still junk.” – Abe Finkelstein

Abe Finkelstein, Managing Partner at Vintage, has been leading fund, secondary, and growth stage investments focused on fintech, gaming, and SMB software, among others, leading growth stage and secondary investments for Vintage in companies like Monday.com, Minute Media, Payoneer, MoonActive and Honeybook.

Prior to joining Vintage in 2003, Abe was an equity analyst with Goldman Sachs, covering Israel-based technology companies in a wide variety of sectors, including software, telecom equipment, networking, semiconductors, and satellite communications. While at Goldman Sachs, Abe, and the Israel team were highly ranked by both Thomson Extel and Institutional Investor. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Abe was Vice-President at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, where he helped launch and led the firm’s Israel technology shares institutional sales effort. Before joining Piper, he was an Associate at Brown Brothers Harriman, covering the enterprise software and internet sectors. Abe began his career at Josephthal, Lyon, and Ross, joining one of the first research teams focused exclusively on Israel-based companies.

Abe graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Economics and a concentration in Finance.

Vintage Investment Partners is a global venture platform managing ~$4 billion across venture Fund of Funds, Secondary Funds, and Growth-Stage Funds focused on venture in the U.S., Europe, Israel, and Canada. Vintage is invested in many of the world’s leading venture funds and growth-stage tech startups striving to make a lasting impact on the world and has exposure directly and indirectly to over 6,000 technology companies.

You can find Abe on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abe-finkelstein/

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

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[03:18] Abe’s first investment
[06:19] The definition of quality secondaries in 2003
[09:37] How did Abe know there would be capital to follow?
[15:45] Valuation methodology in the 2000s
[22:28] Minimum meaningful ownership for secondaries
[26:17] Why did founders take Vintage’s call in Fund I?
[30:41] The old-school way of tracking deal memos
[32:06] Our job is to play the optimist
[32:31] The headwinds of raising Vintage Fund I
[36:32] Moving Vintage’s physical books to the cloud
[39:06] How does Abe assign discounts to secondaries?
[42:23] Proactive outreach vs reactive deal flow
[46:18] What does Vintage do to stay top of mind?
[49:49] What’s changed in the secondaries market since 2000?
[55:32] Founder paranoia
[57:56] What does Abe want his legacy look like?

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Buying junk at a discount is still junk.” – Abe Finkelstein

“Everything that’s going on in the market today, I actually feel people are overreacting to it because there are these ups and downs. Hopefully this current situation doesn’t get people too freaked out because these are the times you want to be investing in. People just don’t think that way. They see the blood on the streets and they run from it first, instead of going in.” – Abe Finkelstein

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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!

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.

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Individuals as LPs and as GPs

alone, individual

Two friends independently pinged me for my reaction to two recent social posts while I was on vacation, and I felt so strongly about the below that I had to:

  1. Respond to both of my friends while I was out, and
  2. Write this blogpost after.

Caveat: I don’t tend to write time-and-place ephemeral blogposts, usually evergreen ones, but I feel this topic has been the soup du jour for the last few months, and I need to get it off my chest. I still think a lot of what I write below will stand the test of time, but some parts may not age as well five years from now.

One friend of mine who runs her family office texted me last week and asked what I thought about Harry Stebbings’ recent tweet and Jason Lemkin’s recent comment:

To which, I responded:

I agree with most of what’s said. 99% of people don’t truly understand venture. They see one of two polar extremes. Either it’s the thing that will make them rich and it’s all amazing or it’s overhyped and way too risky. They’re both right and wrong at the same time. In the context of those investing in VC funds, most individuals and new LPs see venture through rose-tinted lens.

That said, what the world needs isn’t ‘do this’ or ‘don’t do this,’ but why and how. That requires education. Not an oversimplification of ‘VC good’ or ‘VC bad.’ There’s a lack of unbiased education right now, but public discussions of such is step one. We need to put illiquidity into perspective. Yes, it’s 17+ years. That’s 4, going on 5, Summer Olympics. Or one and a half zodiacs. That’s another 2-4 American presidents. And that’s over 50 Marvel movies and 34+ Marvel TV series, assuming they stay on pace with what they’ve been putting out in the last 2 years. That’s a long frickin’ time. Time enough for you to have a baby AND send them off to college before you get all the money gained back.

Illiquidity is also at an all-time high. Lots of funds are long in the tooth. LP expectations used to be 10+2. Fancy lingo for 10-year funds with 2-year extensions, opportunistically. Now that companies are staying private for 10-12 years, instead of the old 7-8 years, funds are now 10+2+2. In other words, 10-year funds, with a 2-year extension by GP decision, and another 2 years by LP advisory committee majority vote. But really, it’s starting to become 10+2+2+1+… You can guess where the rest of the numbers come from.

Secondaries are only really popular among the marquee names. For instance, SpaceX, Anduril, Stripe, and so on as of now. Everything else is sold at a discount. Which, 30-50% seem normal. But if a company has raised their last round pre-2021, I’ve seen 60-80% discounts.

GPs are also now expected to actively understand and manage exits. Most GPs don’t know how to. And neither are exits in venture a classically-trained subject. Before it was primarily, IPOs and M&As. Now, this includes secondaries. Ask GPs about their exit strategies. It doesn’t have to be foolproof, but they better have thought of it. And compare what they say to what their best-in-class private equity counterparts say. If there’s a lack of intentionality in the former, things may get really tough in the future.

Venture, sure as hell, is opaque. 75% of VC managers will tell you their top quartile. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Samir Kaji recently wrote something that rings increasingly true today: “People forget that quartile rankings in VC never account or adjust for valuation methodologies used by the Gps in the sample set.”

Some GPs are liberal with their marks. Marks that put them in the best light. Some even accounting SAFEs as markups, which is bad practice. Pretty sure illegal too, but many new first-time GPs aren’t even aware of it. All that to say, in the first first 5-6 years of a fund, when nothing is noticeably obvious yet, it’s easy to game numbers.

And even if a GP is in the top quartile, top quartile in VC sucks. Ok, it’s not THAT bad. Median definitely sucks in venture though. It’s really not worth putting money in an average VC. But you can put your money in the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ for the same vintage. Dollar-cost average in, once a year in the first four years. And hold it till Year 10. And in many vintages, your public indices will be between a 3X and 4X. Which is as good as most top quartile vintages. If not, it’ll only lag slightly, ever so slightly, behind. Which is a small price to pay for being a liquid asset. If you’re an LP in VC funds, out of thousands of funds, you need to be in the top 20 funds per vintage. Hands down. Not top quartile. And arguably top decile may not even cut it.

And the truth is, just by the numbers, most individuals and new LPs won’t have good access. When your mom, your cousin, that one drunk uncle from Thanksgiving, are all starting their own VC funds, we now and will continue to live in a world where knowing a VC will be as common as knowing someone who wants to start their own company. Whatever that may be. And to have a chance to be good at VC, the average VC must have both a non-redundant AND an economically important network AND knowledge advantage, to borrow a framework that Albert Azout recently said on my podcast. Most do not. Most will fail to compete with the super-scale firms. If you haven’t checked out Gib Dilner’s recent recording on kinds of firms in the ecosystem today, I highly recommend it.

What kinds of networks GPs need to be competitive in today’s market?

The truth is most large funds who will cannibalize smaller emerging managers don’t send their good deals to emerging managers. Although emerging managers do send their best deals to the large funds. Looks good for markups. Looks good at the annual meeting when they present to you. But clearly, this dynamic is unrequited. As such, it’s why I believe as an LP, you need to be in managers who go really, really early, where the large firms still cannot access or priced out of accessing. Managers who extend their thesis so that the net new checks coming out of their funds include seed and Series A (unless they can actively lead this and the next round):

  1. Lose out on access above a $250K check. These days, even above a $100K check. Because large funds want the whole round. It’s how they can make their economics work.
  2. Don’t have the war chest to provide the capital to founders so that they can weather the market. That said, a good friend of mine, Henry, created the Lean AI Leaderboard. It’s a great dashboard for companies who get to profitability with a lean team and often very little in external capital. And if they do, these companies are seed-strapped, meaning they raise a seed round with the goal of never raising another round again. For investors in these companies, the good news is that they retain most of their equity from entry. The bad news is that unless these companies have a clear exit path, your money as an LP doesn’t go anywhere. More so, most of the VCs investing invest on SAFE notes, with no maturity dates. On paper, revenue is up, but no markups and no exit path. After the $100M range, there are very few companies who would acquire any of these small players, especially after the AI craze. That said, it’s too early to tell. And I’m not sure I have the fortune cookie to tell you what happens next.

But also, as an FYI, if you’re investing in a large platform, don’t expect double-digit or even high single-digit returns, you’re likely going to get a solid 2.5-3X (optimistically), but it’s a stable machine. Still think if that’s the case though, you should be investing in buyout funds or private credit. If you don’t have access to those, just public equities.

Also, not every person needs to start a venture firm. Not every good investor needs to be a fund manager. Being a fund manager is tough. You need to worry about K-1s and reporting (yes, that’s chasing founders down for metrics even when you have information rights), fund admin, running a business, filing taxes, and knowing when and how to sell. It’s actually easier to be a great investor at another larger shop. It’s the same as not every smart person needs to start their own company.

All that said… I’m still bullish on venture. I think it truly is, one of the most promising asset classes we have available to us. And I mean venture in the raw, unfiltered first check, pre-seed play. Not the Series A+ play. At least for emerging managers. After the Series A, I can’t think of a sustainable way you won’t get outcompeted by the large ones. For true early stage exposure as first check, the large platforms often have no incentive to play. Given their large fund sizes, they’ve priced themselves out of that true first-check bucket.

Something that harkens back to a Chris Paik line. “Any company that is pure execution risk without any market risk is not a suitable venture investment.”

A few days later, another friend asked me if I saw this, and if I had any immediate thoughts. On LinkedIn, Pavel Prata had posted a reaction to Jared Friedman’s request for full-stack AI companies, saying that “80% of VC funds will be automated within 3 years.” To be fair, Pavel’s not wrong. Directionally, that is where the industry is heading. Having been to a few annual summits that VCs host so far this year already, every single — oh yes, I mean, EVERY SINGLE — one that I went to (I went to seven at the time of writing this post) talked about using AI to either or both source deals and/or qualify deals. Some also talked about supporting their portfolio using their digitally-twinned brain. Simply, AI is in.

That said, there were some things that Pavel suggested I disagreed with, or at least thought he was oversimplifying:

  1. “Process 100X more deals.” While there are firms that make investment decisions algorithmically, and while I do see this working past-Series A (where we enter growth), in true early-stage investing fashion, the best investors invest prior to data. Prior to traction. Prior to anything obvious enough to track. And while you, as a firm, can probably see and filter 100X more deals. As a human GP with only 24 hours in a day, and building a portfolio of 30 investments across 3-4 years, I still go back to a piece of advice I received early on in my career. “You don’t have to invest in every great company, but every company you invest in must be great.”
  2. “Maintain relationships with 1000+ founders.” I have my doubts here. Until I start seeing people build long-term friendships and happiness with AI, I’m still a strong believer that people trust people. And this rapid scaling of AI only further proves that. It’s hard to scale trust. To scale intimacy. There might be a world where this does happen one day. But I don’t think this is three years away. That said, I do think that you as a solo GP or a small team can support your portfolio as if you were a fully-staffed 20+ person team within three years though.
  3. “Deploy capital 5X faster.” There are some things in life where faster isn’t necessarily better. Like performing a surgery. Or simply, music. No one needs to listen to My Heart will Go On on 5X speed. Venture is one of them. While it’s unclear whether Pavel means shorter deployment periods or faster decision-making, to address both, shorter deployment periods may indirectly lead to more companies getting funded. Or more capital going to the same companies. We don’t need either. An LP shouldn’t index venture, nor should more capital go into companies where the preference stack exceeds the valuation of the companies or making companies financially impossible to 3-5X any of the companies’ investors. Faster decision-making may make sense if it’s a competitive round, but true venture is betting on the non-obvious. Most non-obvious bets don’t need capital 5X faster.

To be fair, I do agree with the vast majority of where Pavel thinks the venture industry will go.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

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!

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.

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Inside the 100-Year Family Office | Josh Kanter | Superclusters | S5E8

josh kanter

“The more you can create that context in the family owner’s manual, the more important it is and the more it is NOT the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ file. Because the in-case-of-emergency file is going to say I’m an LP in Fund VII from so-and-so and my withdrawal rights are such and such. Or here’s the document. You go figure out what my withdrawal rights are, if I have any.” The owner’s manual teaches future generations what to prioritize and why. – Josh Kanter

Josh Kanter is the family office principal at Josh Kanter Wealth Advisory Services. He is also the founder & CEO at leafplanner, a comprehensive solution on planning for the 100-year time horizon for a family office, birthed out of his own need with his own family of creating an everlasting institution.

After decades as a lawyer, he went on to focus on his family business where he also currently serves as President of Chicago Financial, Inc., a single family office overseeing a complex organization of trusts, investment and philanthropic entities for a multi-branch and multi-generational family.

You can find Josh on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-kanter/

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

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[04:01] Art, sculptures and Jun Kaneko
[12:30] The inception of Walnut Capital Corp
[15:36] How Josh defines creativity
[17:03] Creating the “freedom trust”
[17:56] Where did the name leafplanner come from?
[20:03] How did Josh get involved in the family venture business?
[23:22] Top lessons from being startups’ legal advisor
[25:48] Lessons as an investor and LP
[27:57] Investing in America’s biggest fraud
[30:01] The origin of leafplanner
[38:15] How do you start a family owner’s manual
[40:03] The importance of prioritization and context in the manual
[45:35] How do you make a owner’s manual searchable?
[49:50] The five kinds of capital (intellectual, human, social, financial, spiritual)
[53:15] What is the role of luck in Josh’s life?
[54:31] Josh’s primary vice when saying no
[56:51] Post-credit scene

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“You’ve got great founders. That doesn’t make them great CEOs.” – Josh Kanter

“I may not be the CEO of this company at some point. If I am not the person to take this forward, then let’s bring in the person who is. Success is more important than my ego.” – Josh Kanter

“The more you can create that context, the more important it is and the more it is not the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ file. Because the in-case-of-emergency file is going to say I’m an LP in Fund VII from so-and-so and my withdrawal rights are such and such. Or here’s the document. You go figure out what my withdrawal rights are, if I have any.” – Josh Kanter

On cloud storage providers like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and so on: “Every one of those systems relies on the brain that built the architecture of how you organize them. So I use Box. I have 225,000 documents in Box. Those 225,000 documents are organized on how Josh’s brain works, so the folder structure [etc.].” – Josh Kanter

“Financial capital should be looked at merely as a tool to grow the other capitals: [Intellectual, human, and social].” – Josh Kanter

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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!

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.

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THE Most Entrepreneurial LP Out There | Narayan Chowdhury | Superclusters | S5E7

ritujoy narayan chowdhury

“This is one of the big issues of a bunch of data work on venture is insights from some periods don’t mean anything or are not translatable to present time. It’s really frustrating. So we go back to people, reputations, and experience.” – Narayan Chowdhury

Ritujoy Narayan Chowdhury is the co-founder and Managing Director at Franklin Park, where he focuses on private equity investment opportunities, monitoring clients’ portfolios and conducting industry research. He also plays a key role in the development and implementation of Franklin Park’s technology platform, and regularly interacts with clients on investment and portfolio matters.

Prior to Franklin Park, Narayan worked with Hamilton Lane and Public Financial Management. He is a CFA Charterholder and a member of the CFA Institute. Narayan received a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Bucknell University.

You can find Narayan on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/narayan-chowdhury/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/RNC76

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

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[02:27] Why my parents moved to the US
[03:43] Narayan’s dad
[08:54] The friction that Narayan has with his team
[11:59] Why current analyst training creates bad habits
[15:00] What Narayan does when his family goes to bed
[16:37] When did Narayan first start playing with code?
[17:34] Narayan’s entrepreneurial origins and how much he got paid
[19:54] “Never sit alone at lunch”
[22:54] The Mike Maples story
[25:48] When Narayan realized VC is very different from PE
[30:05] The difference between underwriting VC and buyout
[34:28] What do you do when you’ve pigeonholed yourself in one industry?
[37:02] How do you know if a GP is a core part of an alumni network?
[38:32] A 2025 micro trend of misleading operating metrics
[43:40] How has VC changed in the past few decades?
[53:58] What do most people underappreciate about hockey?

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Every moment that [my daughter] is here and I’m not with her is a moment we’ll never get back.” – Narayan Chowdhury

“Every action should not be a wasted action, should not be duplicative, should be the best use of a person’s time. So any tool that we build that is contrary to that should be reevaluated constantly.” – Narayan Chowdhury

“What do you do when you don’t know anything, you haven’t met anybody, you have no context, the human brain starts inventing rationale.” – Narayan Chowdhury

“Never sit alone at lunch.” – Alan Patricof

“Looking backwards on track records in venture can be very scary decisions. It could be that the prior funds were completely passive throw-ins on a cap table where they were following some social cues in a ZIRP environment and perhaps they got lucky. Whether they were part of a giant outcome [or not], it sort of meaningless for the future because neither the syndicate nor the founder really know who that person ever was. And so, the go-forward benefit of that investment decision is zero versus ‘We were the trusted investor for that founder.’ Not all prior track records are the same. We have to go back to why, going forward, are founders going to seek out or accept those dollars.” – Narayan Chowdhury
*ZIRP: zero interest-rate policy

“I’d rather go bankrupt than lose this AI race.” – Larry Page

“The problem is that the barriers to entry on that strategy [to deploy a lot of capital] are pretty low. And you get killed – death by a thousand cuts – when you’re not the only one trying to flood the market with capital and outcompeting on price.” – Narayan Chowdhury

“This is one of the big issues of a bunch of data work on venture is insights from some periods don’t mean anything or are not translatable to present time. It’s really frustrating. So we go back to people, reputations, and experience.” – Narayan Chowdhury

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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!

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.

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The Danger of Pivots

sunset, pivot

Mike Maples Jr. once said that 90% of Floodgate’s exit profits come from pivots. Hell, 50% of my angel investments have pivoted from the idea I first invested in. Pivoting is a constant norm of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Many investors know it’ll happen. Great founders instinctually prepare for that possibility. Being married to the problem, not the solution is the direct reflection of what it means to prepare for pivots. By definition, Meriam Webster defines the word as:

pivot (n) – a usually marked change, especially an adjustment or modification made (as to a product, service, or strategy) in order to adapt or improve

As such, small feature improvements, changes and additions, even omissions rarely count as one. But a large product shift, where the core product is no longer the product you once sold, is one. In general, the common advice on the street is that you should embrace pivots, until you find product-market fit. But also knowing that you can always lose product-market fit, even after you obtain it. A pivot should either help you catch lightning in a bottle, or help you keep lightning in the bottle.

But that’s not the purpose of me writing this piece. It’s about the opposite. The quiet thing no one explicitly talks about when it comes to pivot. The TL;DR version is each time you pivot, you lose trust. You lose trust because you didn’t have conviction in your product. You lose trust because you didn’t have conviction on where the market will go. Hell, you lose trust because you didn’t do what you said you were going to do. You were not a person of your word. You lose trust because you made someone else lose trust. Because of you, they looked stupid. To their peers. To their bosses. Sometimes to their friends.

Once you lose trust, it’s really, really hard to get it back, if at all. In the age of information excess and product surplus, you won’t have the time or the attention from your customers to rebuild that trust. They’ll just move on to the next solution.

Slow Ventures’ Yoni also recently tweeted:

“Pivots almost never work:

  • You need an actually good idea. These are rare and hard to come up with in real time.
  • You need resources sufficient to test it. You’ve already spent much of the money you raised.
  • You need the energy and excitement to keep going RIGHT NOW. Struggling is exhausting and you’ve been struggling for a long time.”

All of which are true. But many truly great companies, as we know them today, have gone through their pivots. The idea that put them on the billboard was not the idea that was first funded. Instagram. Google (not their initial business model). Slack. Twitch. Lyft. Shopify. The list goes on.

That said, if you want investors who haven’t funded you to fund you after the pivot, you need a damn good reason as to why you’re doing so. And why it makes sense.

If you’ve known these investors for a while, great! You already have the pre-requisite of trust. You need it. The age of AI wrappers getting thrown left and right and startups going through their 28th pivot destroys trust. How do I know this is the one? How can I believe you when you say this is the one? Why should I have faith when you say this is the last time? There’s a great recent Hiten Shah tweet on this I really like, albeit from the customer perspective, but the analogy holds.

“Once belief slips, no amount of capability wins it back.

“What makes this worse is how often teams move on. A new demo. A new integration. A new pitch. But the scar tissue remains. Users carry it forward. They stop expecting the product to help them. And eventually, they stop expecting anything at all. This is the hidden cost of broken AI. Beyond failing to deliver, it inevitably also subtracts confidence. And that subtraction compounds.

“You’re shaping expectation, whether you know it or not. Every moment it works, belief grows. Every moment it doesn’t, belief drains out.

“That’s the real game.”

Just as with customers, it is with investors. Although investors can be more forgiving, knowing that this is part of the game. But no amount of faith is infinite, so choose how you voice your actions intentionally. Choose your interactions carefully. And if you do choose to interact, communicate proactively and deliberately. Notice how many withdrawals you’re taking from the bank of social capital, from your karmic bank account. And don’t forget to regularly deposit.

Photo by Bambi Corro on Unsplash

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!

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.

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How to Bet on the Underdog | Matt Curtolo | Superclusters | S5E6

matt curtolo

“The bigger you get, the more established you get, the more underwriting emphasis goes into how this team operates as a structure rather than is there a star?” – Matt Curtolo

Matt Curtolo, CAIA is a seasoned private markets investor and allocator with over two decades of experience at leading financial institutions. Throughout his career, he has been directly responsible for allocating more than $6 billion in commitments to private market investments and maintains relationships with hundreds of general partner relationships across the full spectrum of private capital strategies.

Most recently, as Head of Investments at Allocate, a venture-backed fintech startup. Matt built the investment capability from the ground up, broadening access to top-tier venture capital opportunities for the private wealth market. Prior to this, he served as a senior leader at MetLife, serving on the investment committee, co-managing their global alternatives portfolio and leading the firm’s US Buyout portfolio. Earlier in his career, Matt led all private equity activities as Head of Private Equity at Hirtle Callaghan, a large independent outsourced Chief Investment Officer (oCIO). Matt’s foundational experience was gained at Hamilton Lane during its early growth phase, before it became the world’s preeminent private markets allocator, in research, investment and client-facing roles. Matt currently holds several advisory positions that span start-ups, asset management firms and fund of funds. He also manages his own advice practice, providing GPs with strategic guidance on strategy, fundraising and investor relations.

You can find Matt on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-curtolo-caia/

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

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[04:24] What town did Matt grow up in?
[04:37] Why is that town significant from a sociological perspective?
[08:43] Why is Matt fascinated with the Detroit Lions?
[11:08] What is it like cheering for the underdog?
[13:02] How does Matt break down deal attribution in partnerships?
[18:04] GPs’ karmic bank account
[21:29] What is the kindest thing anyone’s done for Matt?
[23:24] How did tennis enter Matt’s life?
[26:35] Historical examples of VC management/leadership structures
[29:33] Underwriting track record between senior and junior investors
[32:23] How Matt approaches diligence after reading the data room
[39:30] How do you know when you’ve asked enough questions?
[42:37] The three classes of questions for GPs that influence investment decisions
[45:34] Remote culture
[50:16] Cadence of in-person gatherings in remote teams
[52:48] The two (and a half) types of conversations to always host in-person
[58:37] The last great idea Matt had on a walk
[1:02:05] The legacy Matt wants to leave behind
[1:04:37] Post-credit scene

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“Partnerships are incredibly hard to evaluate because not only are you evaluating each of the individual’s capabilities independently, but is it a one plus one equals three situation?” – Matt Curtolo

“The bigger you get, the more established you get, the more underwriting emphasis goes into how this team operates as a structure rather than is there a star?” – Matt Curtolo

“Data gives me questions, not answers.” – Matt Curtolo

“The dopamine you get from planning something versus the actual experience itself are wildly different.” – Matt Curtolo

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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!

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.

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On Writing

writing, journal

I’m not a good writer.

As a kid, I wrote poetry because it was easier to express myself in short form than long form. I also used to start writing fictional books, but stop after chapter one because I didn’t know how the story would develop. I was also the kid who would find five different ways to say the same thing in grade school, just so that my essay would hit the page limit. Yet still, my lowest grades among any subject was still English, particularly writing.

David Ogilvy, the namesake for the legendary advertising firm, Ogilvy & Mather, now just Ogilvy, once said: “Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.” The truth is I was, probably still am, a “wooly minded person.” But I try to be better.

That was the genesis of this blog. I didn’t have grand hopes of becoming famous. Or that I was going to make a career out of this. Still so, as it is still the reason why I haven’t said yes to any sponsors to this blog.

I write to think. I write whatever comes to mind. Simply, I write what I want. In fact, when the fact I have this blog comes up in conversation, I still actively tell me to unsubscribe. This isn’t an LP blog. Nor a VC blog. Nor a startup blog. It’s just my train of consciousness. Something I commit to every week. So, I’m extraordinarily honored to have a few thousand of you read this on a regular basis.

Thank you.

I don’t say that enough on this blog. But to all of you reading, I am deeply grateful you’re on this journey with me.

But… over the years, people have said I’m not as bad as I say I am at writing. Which might be true. We are all, after all, our own harshest critics. While I’m nowhere near the level of David Ogilvy or Brandon Sanderson or Maria Popova or Neil Gaiman or Susan Cain, in case it might be helpful, here are the gentle reminders I give myself when it comes to writing:

  1. Write as I talk. Incomplete sentences. One word sentences. Short, easy words occasionally sprinkled in with a $10 word I like. Tenacious. Idiosyncratic. Judicious. And yes, I’m conscious that I use ‘bandwidth’ instead of ‘time.’
  2. Write only when I’m inspired to. I don’t have a strict regimen of writing. I’ve met authors who have four-hour morning writing routines. I don’t. This is not my full-time job. But I enjoy writing. And I’m not publishing daily. I’ve committed to weekly. That affords me an immense amount of latitude for ‘productive time to be bored.’ I’m more often inspired by ‘touching grass’ as the kids call it than I am staring at my monitor or journal.
  3. In case I’m on a deadline and I’ve been uninspired up till the deadline, I have a very specific doc I reference. The metaphorical ‘break glass in case of emergency.’ It’s called the Emotion Catalogue. In it, I’ve tracked every single time I’ve consumed a piece of information that led to a specific emotional reaction. Happiness/joy. Sadness. Regret. Guilt. Jealousy. Anger. Inspiration. Fear. Creativity. Not sure if the last one is an emotion, but to me, it is. And if I’m supposed to write about a certain emotion, I need to feel that emotion. So I go to that catalogue, pick one or two of the inspirations within a section. And I consume it. Read it. Watch it. Listen to it.
  4. Use productive time to edit. Use inspired time to write. For me, that’s usually (not always) writing in the evening. And editing in the morning.
  5. I ‘idea-journal’ every day. If I can’t think of a new idea to write on, the journaling prompt I have to answer, “What is the most important question I should be asking myself today?” or “What did I really not want to do today? Why?”
  6. Write for one person. You. Or for me, the person I was yesterday. I am always guaranteed one happy reader. But also, if it’s helpful for me, there’s a good chance I’m not alone. And it’s helpful for someone else out there as well.
  7. Rewrite things often. The first idea is usually not the best, nor is it the most refined. Even if it’s five years from now.
  8. Be comfortable with dropping ideas. Sometimes I’m motivated to write something, but I lose motivation halfway through. Instead of making it homework for myself, it’s easier to mentally drop it. This is different from ideas I’m still motivated to write about, but can’t find the right concepts or words to put it into play. Those I mull over for a while. Sometimes, years.

Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash

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!

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.

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You’re Looking at Networks Wrong | Albert Azout | Superclusters | S5E5

albert azout

“Networks are more persistent than performance.” – Albert Azout

Albert Azout is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Level Ventures, a technology investment firm built on software and data science and invests in both entrepreneurs and venture capital managers, including the likes of Air Street Capital, Emergent Ventures and Work-Bench, just to name a few. Prior to Level, Albert has been a serial founder, starting analytics businesses and even a social media company before Facebook.

You can find Albert on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertazout/
Substack: http://albertazout.substack.com/

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

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro
[02:36] The origin of Albert’s blog
[04:45] How did Albert first start coding?
[07:43] Albert’s interest in networks
[13:10] Entrepreneurship around Albert
[16:27] What is collaborative filtering?
[22:18] How complexity economics affect the networks of VCs?
[27:14] Fear and greed regimes
[28:51] Telltale signs that inform the kind of regime you’re in
[30:31] Why it’s the wrong time to be investing in defense tech
[34:53] What are most LPs missing about GP networks?
[37:31] How is Level Ventures looking at networks differently?
[44:42] Archetypes of GPs that Albert likes
[46:43] The 3 advantages GPs need to have
[55:02] How does Albert balance over- vs under-diligencing?
[57:15] Albert’s view on luck
[57:47] Albert the “consciousness expert”

SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:

SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

“You have to have an understanding of the regime you’re in for you to make good decisions as an investor.” – Albert Azout

“Price reflects the inefficiencies of the market.” – Albert Azout

“What really matters is what you’re hearing around you. When you hear overly coherent narratives, that’s a big thing for me. And it happens in subcycles as well. […] But when people are behaving and making decisions based on narratives that are overly coherent, that’s a big sign. That’s a very social problem.” – Albert Azout

“What you want to see in a venture company which you’re looking for huge outliers, is you want to see increasing returns to scale. You want to see demand-side feedback loops, where you have very low marginal costs of distribution. And that requires mostly winner-take-all, or winner-take-most kinds of markets.” – Albert Azout

“You want to be pre-narrative. You want to position your capital in an area where the supply of capital increases over time and where those assets will be traded at a premium.” – Albert Azout

“Networks are more persistent than performance.” – Albert Azout

“Venture is simple but hard.” – Albert Azout

“We look for GPs who have one, a network advantage and two, a knowledge advantage – both of which have to be not redundant and economically important. And the third thing is the fund strategy itself. There’s a lot of nuances but there are two things that are important. One is that it has to be an outlier. […] It has to have the right construction for us. […] My second point is more important. It involves game theory, which is the competitive dynamics in the market. ” – Albert Azout

Follow David Zhou for more Superclusters content:
For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
Follow David Zhou’s blog: https://cupofzhou.com
Follow Superclusters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuperclustersLP
Follow Superclusters on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@super.clusters
Follow Superclusters on Instagram: https://instagram.com/super.clusters

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!

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.

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