“When investing in funds, you are investing in a blind pool of human potential.” – Adam Marchick

Over the past twenty years, Adam Marchick has had unique experiences as a founder, general partner (GP), and limited partner (LP). Most recently, Adam managed the venture capital portfolio at Emory’s endowment, a $2 billion portfolio within the $10 billion endowment. Prior to Emory, Adam spent ten years building two companies, the most recent being Alpine.AI, which was acquired by Headspace. Simultaneously, Adam was a Sequoia Scout and built an angel portfolio of over 25 companies. Adam was a direct investor at Menlo Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures, sourcing and supporting companies including Carbonite (IPO), Rent The Runway (IPO), Rapid7 (IPO), Archer (M&A), and AeroScout (M&A). He started his career in engineering and product roles at Facebook, Oracle, and startups.

You can find Adam on his socials here: X / Twitter: https://x.com/adammStanford LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammarchick/

And huge thanks to this episode's sponsor, Alchemist Accelerator: https://alchemistaccelerator.com/superclusters

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro

[03:14] Who is Kathy Ku?

[06:20] Lesson from Sheryl Sandberg

[06:39] Lesson from Justin Osofsky

[07:46] How Facebook became the proving grounds for Adam

[09:26] The cultural pillars of great organizations

[10:40] When to push forward and when to slow down

[12:39] Adam's first investment: Dell

[14:20] What did Adam do on Day 1 when he first became an LP

[17:00] Emory's co-investment criteria

[20:02] Private equity co-invests vs venture co-invests

[21:15] Teaser into Akkadian's strategy

[23:03] Underwriting blind pools of human potential

[29:03] Why does Adam look at 10 antiportfolio companies when doing diligence?

[32:11] What excites and scares Adam about VC

[35:36] Engineering serendipity

[37:52] Where is voice technology going?

[39:45] How does Adam think about maintaining relationships?

[43:20] Thank you to Alchemist Accelerator for sponsoring!

[44:20] If you enjoyed this season finale, it would mean a lot if you could share it with 1 other person who you think would love it!

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 X: https://x.com/SuperclustersLP