How Athletes Get Into the Top VC Funds | Ryan Nece, Next Legacy
The Peel with Turner Novak
Pick the Overlooked Person First
Ryan Nece shares his mother’s lesson about seeing overlooked people and explains how encouragement can unlock confidence and alter someone’s trajectory.
Ryan Nece runs Next Legacy, a $4 billion fund of funds that connects athletes and philanthropists with the top venture capital firms in the world.
Ryan is the only player in NFL history to win a Super Bowl as a rookie and go 0-16 in his final season. His dad, Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, started one of the first athlete-backed venture funds with Joe Montana in the late '90s.
Ryan rebuilt that playbook a generation later, so almost nobody is better positioned to explain the similarities between pro athletes and the top founders / investors, how athletes actually break into Silicon Valley, the biggest mistakes they usually make, .
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Timestamps:
(0:00) How a football family broke into Silicon Valley
(4:33) A Super Bowl rookie year with four Hall of Famers
(8:09) What separates the top 0.1% of athletes?
(12:18) The mistake of having "a guy"
(18:41) Vetting who to trust
(20:18) The dumbest investments athletes make
(22:45) How athletes can help founders
(29:44) VC Power Law is just like sports
(34:24) How to break in without connections
(38:05) Building Next Legacy to $4B AUM
(40:44) Why they give away all the profits
(43:20) Early firm building mistakes
(48:19) Learning to pitch institutional LP's
(53:03) The emerging-manager barbell
(55:45) “Your starting five tells me who you are”
(57:47) The other AI: Authentic Interaction
(59:55) Getting LP attention with the rule of three
(1:03:40) Working the whisper network
(1:06:03) Pick the kid who gets picked last
(1:12:26) The Lions 0-16 season
(1:14:43) The “Next Play” mindset
(1:19:28) Mental toughness
(1:21:32) What it’s like commentating an NFL game
(1:27:14) Getting cussed out by Warren Sapp
(1:31:13) His favorite athlete: Jerry Rice
(1:35:15) Abe Lincoln and his grandfather's restaurants
Referenced
Next Legacy: https://www.nextlegacy.com/
Give and Take: https://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success/dp/0143124986
Three Feet From from Gold: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Feet-Gold-Obstacles-Opportunities/dp/1402784791
Team of Rivals: https://www.amazon.com/Team-Rivals-Political-Abraham-Lincoln/dp/0743270754
Follow Ryan
Twitter: https://x.com/ryannece
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-nece-abb07b8
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
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