$80M vs $800M vs $8B Endowment | Trish Spurlin | Superclusters | S6E5

“Once you hit a billion dollars, you should probably consider some sort of internal team. Just to mitigate risk. There’s audit risk involved when you have such a small number of people managing a huge pool of capital. It’s going to differ for everyone. That’s probably a good benchmark.” — Trish Spurlin

Trish Spurlin is the Investment Director at Babson’s $800M endowment, covering private markets investing with a large focus on venture. In fact 70% of their private equity portfolio is venture capital. Quite a unique strategy for an endowment to take. Why? An endowment is required to provide, in this case, the university money every single year, anywhere from 5% to 60% of a university’s annual budget. And to invest in an illiquid asset class aka venture capital that doesn’t return capital till a decade later, if not longer, takes courage.

You can find Trish on her socials here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trishspurlin/

X / Twitter: https://x.com/trishdigi

OUTLINE:

[00:00] Intro

[01:45] Sports in Trish's life

[05:10] How does success fuel inhibit ambition? How does it inhibit ambition?

[07:35] How do you underwrite long term motivation?

[13:21] How fast you order something might matter

[16:04] Can Trish angel invest outside of Babson?

[17:08] Endowment with a $80M budget

[19:54] Should you hire an outsourced CIO?

[24:18] Endowment with a $8B budget

[27:47] Babson's liquidity requirements

[30:33] How to ask about a senior partner leaving

[34:05] How does Trish build trust with her GPs?

[37:48] Trish's interests vs Babson's interests

[45:24] Hank sauce

[47:26] Why is Ocean City Boardwalk special?

[48:51] What serves as a reminder to Trish we're still in the good ol' days?

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