How I Invest with David Weisburd

Samir Kaji, founder and CEO of Allocate, discusses what VCs get wrong in portfolio construction and the main mistakes GPs make when communicating with LPs. He also shares insights on the fees VCs are charging today and his predictions for the venture ecosystem by 2025.

Steve Chasan, Head of Investments at the Rothschild Foundation, joins David Weisburd on the podcast. They discuss LP mindset, best practices for GPs and emerging managers, pricing discipline in VC, over-diversification, and the challenges of co-investments. They also touch on biases in venture capital and give advice to emerging managers and LPs on navigating the industry.

Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner of Tribe Capital, discusses growth patterns and product market fit (PMF) in venture capital. They explore the importance of data in VC and the success factors of early Facebook. The episode also delves into the future of VC and the changing nature of returns.

David Weisburd and Erik Torenberg sit down with Dr. Abe Othman, the Head of Data Science at AngelList and the Head of the Investment Committee at the AngelList Quant Fund. Dr. Abe has one of the largest and most granular private market data sets in the world of nearly 15,000 startups. In this discussion we dive deep into the data: power laws, what Dr. Abe’s research tells us about which companies to avoid at all costs, and whether alpha truly exists in venture capital. If you’re ready to level-up your startup or fund with AngelList, visit www.angellist.com/tlp to get started. (0:00) Episode preview (1:37) Unintuitive impact of power laws in venture capital (12:02) Explaining Power Laws to the layperson or finance professional in other asset classes (14:17) Sponsor: AngelList (18:50) Does the research reveal what percentage of early stage companies are identifiable as top 1% opportunities? (20:21) The value of signals (i.e. founders alma maters) (23:23) Pricing efficiency of startups (29:00) Markup rates and loss ratios (32:45) How does the quant fund fit into the model? (37:31) Solo Gp's tend to hustle harder than traditional incumbent funds (39:36) Dr. Abe’s view on how the LP community and broader ecosystem has evolved on these topics (46:28) AUM drift in venture capital

David Weisburd sits down with Ramzi Samara, Co-Head of Private Funds (VC) at MASIC, one of the few family owned investment firms in Saudi Arabia that has a dedicated venture capital program. Ramzi is also an active angel investor in early-stage startups in the US and MENA. In this conversation they discuss the vibrant dynamics of the region, Ramzi’s investing thesis and multi-year power-law driven strategy, and looking at passive vs active early-stage fund managers. If you’re ready to level-up your startup or fund with AngelList, visit www.angellist.com/tlp to get started. (0:00) Episode preview (1:45) How does VC view the market dynamics in Saudi Arabia? (7:16) How should Venture Capitalists think about navigating MENA? How does Saudia Arabia differ from the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, etc. (10:27) Ramzi’s investing thesis at MASIC (14:15) Ramzi’s portfolio strategy (15:56) Sponsor: AngelList (19:12) Criteria for evaluating a fund (21:41) Looking at passive vs. active fund managers (27:41) Risks and downsides of investing in micro VCs (29:12) How Ramzi thinks about concentration risk (30:05) What VCs should know about MASIC as one of the earliest adopters of the venture capital asset system in Saudi Arabia

David Weisburd sits down with Jordan Stein, Director of Venture Capital at Cresset Partners. a large multifamily office with over $45 billion in assets under management and a prolific limited partner and storied venture franchises, including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and Founders Fund. This podcast is proudly sponsored by Angellist. Visit www.angellist.com/tlp if you’re ready to level up your startup or fund. RECOMMENDED PODCAST: Founding a business is just the tip of the iceberg; the real complexity comes with scaling it. On 1 to 1000, hosts Jack Altman and Erik Torenberg dig deep into the inevitable twists and turns operators encounter along the journey of turning an idea into a business. Hear all about the tactical challenges of scaling from the people that built up the world’s leading companies like Stripe, Ramp, and Lattice. Our first episode with Eric Glyman of Ramp is out now: https://link.chtbl.com/1to1000 RECOMMENDED PODCAST: Every week investor and writer of the popular newsletter The Diff, Byrne Hobart, and co-host Erik Torenberg discuss today’s major inflection points in technology, business, and markets – and help listeners build a diversified portfolio of trends and ideas for the future. Subscribe to “The Riff” with Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg: https://link.chtbl.com/theriff The Limited Partner Podcast is part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: Turpentine.co X: @dweisburd (David) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @cresset_capital (Cresset) LINKS: https://cressetcapital.com/ SPONSOR: The Limited Partner Podcast is proudly sponsored by AngelList. -If you’re in private markets, you’ll love AngelList’s new suite of software products. -for private companies, thousands of startups from $4M to $4B in valuation have switched to AngelList for cap table management. It’s a modern, intelligent, equity management platform that offers equity issuance, employee stock plan management, 409A valuations, and more. -If you’re a founder or investor, you’ll know AngelList builds software that powers the startup economy. If you’re ready to level-up your startup or fund with AngelList, visit www.angellist.com/tlp to get started. (0:00) Episode Preview (1:28) Allocating the venture capital space (5:29) Building his portfolio (8:56) Evaluating emerging managers (13:05) Main mistakes for first-time LPs (15:20) Sponsor: AngelList (16:27) Concerns of VC in 2023 (18:40) Range of allocators (23:30) Practices and mistakes in co-investing (27:04) Co-invest programs (31:03) Cresset Partners

David Weisburd and Erik Torenberg sit down with LP Chris Douvos, founder of Ahoy Capital and formerly Princeton Endowment. If you’re ready to level-up your startup or fund with AngelList, visit https://www.angellist.com/tlp to get started. RECOMMENDED PODCAST Founding a business is just the tip of the iceberg; the real complexity comes with scaling it. On 1 to 1000, hosts Jack Altman and Erik Torenberg dig deep into the inevitable twists and turns operators encounter along the journey of turning an idea into a business. Hear all about the tactical challenges of scaling from the people that built up the world’s leading companies like Stripe, Ramp, and Lattice. Our first episode with Eric Glyman of Ramp is out now: https://link.chtbl.com/1to1000 RECOMMENDED PODCAST Every week investor and writer of the popular newsletter The Diff, Byrne Hobart, and co-host Erik Torenberg discuss today’s major inflection points in technology, business, and markets – and help listeners build a diversified portfolio of trends and ideas for the future. Subscribe to “The Riff” with Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg: https://link.chtbl.com/theriff The Limited Partner Podcast is part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: Turpentine.co SPONSOR The Limited Partner Podcast is proudly sponsored by AngelList. -If you’re in private markets, you’ll love AngelList’s new suite of software products.  -for private companies, thousands of startups from $4M to $4B in valuation have switched to AngelList for cap table management. It’s a modern, intelligent, equity management platform that offers equity issuance, employee stock plan management, 409A valuations, and more. If you’re a founder or investor, you’ll know AngelList builds software that powers the startup economy. If you’re ready to level-up your startup or fund with AngelList, visit www.angellist.com/tlp to get started. (0:00) Episode Preview (0:56) Introducing The Limited Partner podcast (1:55) Why does Chris love venture? (3:12) What differentiates venture from other asset classes? (5:03) Risk premiums (7:40) Why is venture capital still a good asset class today? (8:50) Why does a fund of funds make sense? (10:50) Chris' fund manager thesis? (13:45) The ecosystems Chris finds potential managers to back in (16:47) Sponsor: AngelList (18:00) Will venture be needed as companies become easier to build? (23:05) Data scientists as the best investors in the next decade (25:10) Is AI a revenue-generator or a cost-cutter? (26:03) Solo GPs over the next few years (27:58) The lifecycle of a venture fund (33:45) Large fund sizes and their returns (35:15) Chris' reflections on crypto (37:14) Unintuitive venture capital hacks (40:41) Questions to ask fund managers before investing (43:01) Will we see another YC? (46:11) Advice for family offices or institutions direct investing alongside funds (47:35) #OpenLP and transparency in the LP ecosystem