
E220: Why Family Offices Quietly 5x’d Their Alt Allocations
How I Invest with David Weisburd
Clients Are Bringing Alternatives to Advisors
David Sawyer shares that many alternatives originate with clients and stresses the need for open, consolidated reporting across diverse investments,
Highlights:
- Four kinds of complexity stopping alts adoption: access, legal/regulatory, reporting (K-1s, non-standard NAVs), and liquidity.
- Why operational complexity is the #1 reason many RIAs avoid alts (industry surveys ~40–50%).
- The public → private shift: volatility aversion + search for alpha and predictability.
- Information asymmetry has widened: trillion-dollar GPs vs. individuals and smaller RIAs—why tooling must level the field.
- AI’s role: extract, integrate, and chat with unstructured docs; unified LP workflow from access → diligence → reporting → exit.
- RIA reality: clients already bring outside deals/K-1s—consolidated balance-sheet reporting is now table stakes.
- Why due-diligence management is the sleeper pain point—and how comparative analytics change decisions
- Context for performance: the conversation references Kaplan–Schoar/PME research on PE vs. public markets (as discussed in-episode)
Guest Bio:
David Sawyer is CEO & Co-Founder of Unlimited.ai, an AI-native platform built to orchestrate LP workflows in private markets. Previously, he served as Managing Partner & COO at Legacy Knight, a multi-family office and alternatives platform, and as Managing Director at CAZ Investments. He holds a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center, studied at the University of Texas at Austin, and is a CAIA charter holder.
Our Podcast now receives more than 300,000 downloads a month. Are you interested in sponsoring an episode? Please email David Weisburd at david@weisburdcapital.com.
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LinkedIn: David Weisburd: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dweisburd/ David Sawyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-sawyer-a70ab912/
Links Unlimited.ai: https://www.unlimited.ai/