“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!
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For podcast show notes: https://cupofzhou.com/superclusters
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