Podcasts about Addepar

Every wealth management firm is talking about AI - yet only a few are truly prepared to capitalize on it. Emigrant's Mark Bruno sits down with Addepar's Janeen France in this episode of RIA+ to discuss the foundational work required before AI can deliver meaningful value. Their conversation covers data strategy, operational readiness, leadership, and the cultural shifts that separate firms experimenting with AI from those building sustainable competitive advantages through smarter technology and better organizational execution.

Have you ever wondered whether the biggest competitive advantage in wealth management is no longer investment performance alone, but the ability to turn information into action faster than everyone else? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I welcome Bob Pisani, Chief Technology Officer at Addepar, a platform that helps investment professionals manage and analyze more than $9 trillion in assets globally. Our conversation explores why modern wealth management has become a technology challenge just as much as a financial one, and why firms that continue relying on fragmented legacy systems risk falling behind in an industry where speed, data quality, and client expectations are changing faster than ever. Bob explains how wealth advisors have historically spent far too much of their day moving between disconnected systems, stitching together spreadsheets, and trying to answer client questions using incomplete information. While that may once have been acceptable, today's investors expect near real-time visibility into their portfolios, along with personalized guidance that reflects rapidly changing market conditions. That changing expectation places an enormous premium on time, making technology one of an advisor's most valuable assets. Our discussion explores why successful AI initiatives begin long before deploying a model. Data quality, governance, and creating a trusted source of truth remain the foundations that determine whether AI produces reliable insights or simply accelerates poor decisions. Bob shares how Addepar approaches this challenge by bringing together fragmented financial data, standardizing it across hundreds of custodians, and creating the conditions where AI can produce meaningful, actionable intelligence rather than more noise. We also look at practical examples of AI already improving advisor productivity today. From summarizing portfolio performance and analyzing complex alternative investment documents to introducing intelligent agents that reduce operational workload, Bob explains how AI is freeing experienced professionals to spend less time gathering information and more time building trusted client relationships. One of my favorite moments in our conversation comes when we discuss predictive intelligence. Instead of waiting for advisors to search for answers, AI is beginning to surface opportunities, risks, and client conversations before anyone even knows which questions to ask. That represents a fundamental change in how financial advice can be delivered, moving from reactive reporting toward proactive guidance that is grounded in trusted data. We also address one of the biggest questions surrounding AI in financial services. Will technology replace human advisors? Bob offers a thoughtful perspective, arguing that while AI can automate repetitive work and accelerate decision-making, qualities such as judgment, precision, trust, and human relationships remain impossible to automate. Those are the characteristics clients ultimately value most when making important financial decisions. As our conversation draws to a close, Bob shares why he believes the gap between firms embracing AI and those delaying modernization will widen rapidly. The organizations investing today in clean data, modern platforms, and AI-ready operations will be better positioned to serve clients, attract talent, and compete in an increasingly fast-moving market. Can wealth management continue to rely on yesterday's technology in an AI-driven world? And if time has become the industry's most valuable asset, how is your business making the most of it? I'd love to hear your thoughts after listening.

A Special Industry Update, With Jason Diamond and Mindy Diamond Jason and Mindy Diamond revisit how advisor due diligence is evolving—from AI and enterprise value to firm stability, ownership, and optionality—and why those questions matter more than ever. In Summary Due diligence has always been about finding the right fit. But what advisors are evaluating has expanded considerably. In this replay of an Industry Update, Jason Diamond and Mindy Diamond revisit The Advisor Transition Playbook to explore how advisor priorities continue to evolve. Beyond the traditional reasons advisors consider change, they discuss newer factors shaping decisions today—from artificial intelligence and enterprise value to ownership structure, firm stability, and long-term optionality. The conversation reinforces that while every advisor's motivations are personal, the evaluation process has become far more strategic. Today's advisors aren't simply comparing recruiting deals or platforms. They're considering how today's decisions may influence the value, flexibility, and future of the businesses they're building. The Storyline For years, advisor movement was largely driven by familiar themes: bureaucracy, management changes, technology frustrations, and the desire for greater independence. Those factors remain important. But the conversations Diamond Consultants has with advisors today increasingly include questions that rarely surfaced just a few years ago. How should AI factor into firm selection? What is the long-term value of building enterprise value instead of simply maximizing a recruiting package? How important is a firm's ownership structure? And how should advisors think about stability in a marketplace where acquisitions, recapitalizations, and private equity investment have become commonplace? Jason and Mindy revisit the transition framework introduced in Part 1, focusing less on the mechanics of making a move and more on the evolving criteria advisors are using to evaluate their options. The result is a broader discussion about due diligence—not simply as a transition exercise, but as an ongoing strategic process for advisors seeking to build their best business life. Topics Covered Advisor due diligence Traditional vs. emerging drivers of advisor movement Artificial intelligence in wealth management Enterprise value and advisor ownership Recruiting deals versus long-term economics Reverse due diligence Firm ownership and stability Private equity in wealth management Advisor optionality Building a long-term advisory business Blubrry Player > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why are the traditional drivers of advisor movement still relevant? (4:00) Jason and Mindy revisit the longstanding push-and-pull factors that continue to influence advisor decisions, from bureaucracy and management frustrations to the desire for greater ownership and control. How has AI become part of the due diligence process? (13:50) The discussion explores why advisors increasingly expect firms to demonstrate a clear AI strategy—and why investment, integration, and vision may become meaningful competitive advantages. Why should advisors care about enterprise value, even if they don't technically own their business? (24:30) Jason and Mindy explain why more advisors are evaluating decisions through the lens of long-term business value rather than solely short-term economics. What does reverse due diligence really involve? (37:15) The conversation highlights why advisors should evaluate prospective firms with the same rigor firms use when evaluating advisors. How does firm ownership affect advisor optionality? (38:00) Private equity, acquisitions, and changing ownership structures have made it increasingly important to understand what happens if a firm's strategy changes after an advisor joins. Why has due diligence become more strategic than ever? (45:30) The episode concludes with a broader discussion about defining one's “best business life” and making decisions that align with long-term goals rather than reacting to short-term frustrations. Key Takeaways The reasons advisors evaluate change have expanded well beyond traditional frustrations such as bureaucracy and compensation. AI has become an increasingly important component of firm evaluation, not because it replaces advisors, but because it can enhance productivity and client service. Enterprise value is becoming a consideration even for advisors who currently work within employee models. Reverse due diligence is just as important as a firm's evaluation of an advisor, particularly when assessing ownership structure, capitalization, and long-term stability. The most effective transition decisions balance immediate economics with long-term flexibility, ownership, and optionality. Every advisor's definition of success is different, making clarity around personal goals the foundation of any due diligence process. https://youtu.be/WZbUZJZK1yc Quotable Moments “Every advisor deserves to live their best business life.” “Just because you're frustrated doesn't mean you should move. You need something worth moving toward.” “The question isn't simply what you're paid today. It's what you're building over time.” “Knowledge is power. Understanding what your business is worth should be part of every advisor's decision-making process.” FAQs Why are more advisors expanding their due diligence beyond compensation? While transition economics remain important, advisors are increasingly evaluating technology, AI capabilities, enterprise value, ownership opportunities, and long-term flexibility as part of the decision-making process. How should advisors evaluate a firm's AI strategy? Rather than looking for finished products, advisors should assess whether a firm has a clear vision, meaningful investment, and an integrated approach to using AI to improve advisor productivity and client experience. What is reverse due diligence? Reverse due diligence is the process of evaluating a prospective firm as thoroughly as the firm evaluates the advisor. It includes understanding ownership structure, financial stability, culture, technology, leadership, and long-term strategy. Why does enterprise value matter for employee advisors? Even advisors who do not currently own their businesses may benefit from understanding how different business models create opportunities for ownership, long-term value creation, and future monetization. How has private equity changed advisor due diligence? Private equity has introduced new opportunities for growth and capital, but it has also made it more important for advisors to understand ownership structures, investment horizons, and what future transactions could mean for their business. What does Diamond Consultants mean by an advisor's “best business life”? It refers to aligning an advisor's business model, goals, client experience, compensation, flexibility, and long-term vision in a way that best supports both the advisor and the clients they serve. While transition economics remain important, advisors are increasingly evaluating technology, AI capabilities, enterprise value, ownership opportunities, and long-term flexibility as part of the decision-making process. Rather than looking for finished products, advisors should assess whether a firm has a clear vision, meaningful investment, and an integrated approach to using AI to improve advisor productivity and client experience. Reverse due diligence is the process of evaluating a prospective firm as thoroughly as the firm evaluates the advisor. It includes understanding ownership structure, financial stability, culture, technology, leadership, and long-term strategy. Even advisors who do not currently own their businesses may benefit from understanding how different business models create opportunities for ownership, long-term value creation, and future monetization. Private equity has introduced new opportunities for growth and capital, but it has also made it more important for advisors to understand ownership structures, investment horizons, and what future transactions could mean for their business. It refers to aligning an advisor's business model, goals, client experience, compensation, flexibility, and long-term vision in a way that best supports both the advisor and the clients they serve. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. Related Resources The Advisor Transition Playbook: The Latest on Due Diligence, the Move, and Everything In Between – Part 1 Annual Advisor Transition Report Top 10 Tips for a Strategic Due Diligence Process Should I Stay or Should I Go? View the transcript of this episode… The Advisor Transition Playbook: The Latest on Due Diligence, the Move, and Everything In Between – Part 2 A Special Industry Update with Jason Diamond and Mindy Diamond. Jason Diamond: Welcome to a replay of one of the most popular episodes from our podcast series for financial advisors, The Advisor Transition Playbook: The Latest on Due Diligence, the Move, and Everything In Between. It's Part 2 of a 2-Part Industry Update with Mindy Diamond. I’m Jason Diamond and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner, well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our Annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Jason Diamond: There’s been a noticeable shift in how advisors are approaching decisions about their business, not necessarily in whether they’re exploring change, but in what they’re focused on when they do. Mindy is back with me for a continuation of our earlier conversation on the Advisor Transition Playbook. Last time, we spent time on the mechanics, how due diligence works, what a move actually entails, and how to think through the process. What’s become more apparent since then is that the inputs into that process are evolving. The traditional drivers are still there, but layered on top are a set of considerations that didn’t carry the same weight before. AI is one of them, and not just as a tool, but as a differentiator that advisors are starting to diligence more seriously. Enterprise value is another. Showing up in conversations, even for advisors who don’t technically own their business, but are thinking more critically about what they’re building over time. And then there are questions around stability, ownership, and flexibility. What happens to the firm itself and whether advisors retain the ability to adapt again if circumstances change. None of this is theoretical. It’s showing up in real time conversations. What we want to do here is unpack those new triggers of advisor movement and what they suggest about how decisions are being made today. So let’s get to it. Mindy, the legend, thank you for joining me. So glad to have you on. Mindy Diamond: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here. Jason Diamond: Great. Let’s dive right in. I’ll set the stage really quickly one more time. When we spoke about this topic last, we talked about the drivers of movement, what we’ll call in this conversation as the old or the legacy drivers of movement, and we spoke about the mechanics of the move. Before we get into the new drivers of movement, which I want to be the meat of the conversation, remind us, when we talk about the legacy drivers of movement …. And by the way, by saying legacy, I by no means want to suggest that they’re not valid today, because they’re equally valid, if not more so today than they were then. But when you think of the classic drivers of movement in our industry, what are they? Mindy Diamond: Yeah. So I would say, first of all, let’s start by saying that for every advisor, they’ve got a unique set of needs. So the first thing to say is that while you and I can talk about the categories of frustrations or things that might bother an advisor, they show up differently in each advisor’s life. So it’s important to note that everyone is unique. But generally speaking, if I had to package them, I’d say it’s number one that shows up most of the time is too much bureaucracy. A feeling that a firm or a model is just too hypervigilant in terms of compliance and it’s too bureaucratic and too hard to get things done. Number two would be some sort of change in or frustration with management. Something is going on that the person or persons that are responsible for managing the business are just not … They’re not the wind at their back. They’re obstreperous. They’re causing difficulty and frustration. And probably the third one would be less about a pain point and more about the desire to be something that they couldn’t where they were. The notion that they want to be more independent, they want to be a business owner and they just can’t do that. That doesn’t exist within the model where they work. Those probably have been the three ones top of mind, but I bet you’ll have some … You’ll add to that. Jason Diamond: I’ll add a couple. But before I do, I’ve heard you talk about this topic, maybe said another way as pushes and pulls. Can you explain what you mean by that? Mindy Diamond: Yeah. So I think that we think about the pushes, the frustrations, the things pushing somebody out the door, the factors that make it less easy or less fluid to do business. And there’s almost always pushes that exist when somebody comes to us, where they’re frustrated to some degree or another about certain things. But we tell people all the time that just to be frustrated should never be enough, because if all you’re doing is running from one set of problems, you’re very likely to run into maybe a different set, but still problems elsewhere. So a move needs to be driven in equal part, if not more, by pulls. Being pulled toward an opportunity that can be needle moving enough or better enough than where you are now. Pushes and pull. Jason Diamond: I love it. So let me ask you a little bit of a pointed question. Is a recruiting deal a valid pull factor? Mindy Diamond: So look, it’s different for every person. We’ve had advisors come and say, “I just went through a divorce and the most important thing to me is to recapitalize. And so a recruiting deal is really important.” And while I would never be one to say that’s not valid, it can be … And by the way, any advisor should want to and expect to better their financial situation. There should be economic gain. But it shouldn’t be the only or the primary reason for the move. So you want to monetize. The notion of wanting to monetize in the short term should be a factor in what model you pick, but it shouldn’t be the primary driver for a move. Jason Diamond: I agree with that wholeheartedly. I was going to say something I think maybe would’ve surprised you a little, which is like, yeah, I think recruiting deal is a very valid pull factor because what we’re saying is, it shouldn’t be the only pull factor. And sometimes it is and it makes us a little bit sad, I think, when that’s the case. But all of these factors you mentioned, and the ones I would add, I think that maybe technology would be another kind of factor that drives movement, all of these factors are not one specific reason. If you did the exit interview, either actually conducted the exit interview with advisors or thought exercise exit interview, I think they would point to a confluence of all of these factors. Compliance was a headache. I wanted to launch a podcast. I wanted to be able to send a timely communication to my clients. We used to hear that one during COVID a lot, right? By the time compliance approved something to send to clients, it was already stale. So do you agree with that, that it’s generally a confluence or a combination of these? Or in your experience, is it advisors are like, “No, compliance or the tech is so bad, I’m out”? Mindy Diamond: Yeah. So most often there’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back incident or thing where they’re willing to put up with a series of minor paper cuts, if you will. And then almost always there’s something that happens. You and I got a call the other day from a team that said that they had split from their partner and the management of the firm was favoring the ex-partner, making it harder for them to stay or making it less fun or feel good for them to stay. So while they gave me a laundry list of things that were imperfect, I don’t know that any one of the things that were imperfect up until then would’ve been enough to drive them out. But when that one thing, that feeling that they were a second class citizen came up, that was the straw that breaks the camel’s back and went from a minorly frustrated to, “I’m out of here.” Jason Diamond: Yeah. And there’s probably a hundred examples you could walk us through. And I wanted to just highlight too, this concept is not limited to the wirehouse or employee or captive firm world, this is equally relevant for independent advisors. Granted, some of the pushes and pull factors, some of the triggers are not necessarily the same, but the idea that advisors outgrow a broker dealer or an RIA or either need or want or desire in some way, shape or form, greater autonomy, flexibility, freedom, control is certainly not limited to the employee space. I just wanted to make that point. Mindy Diamond: And I think that’s absolutely right. I think the notion of that frustrations or limitations or bureaucracy only existed if you were a W2 employee at a bulge bracket firm. That went out the window. As the industry landscape has expanded and there’s more and more valid ways to be a financial advisor, there’s more and more ways for a firm or a model or an infrastructure to frustrate an advisor. And that’s not being overly negative. It’s just to say there is no perfection anywhere. Jason Diamond: Yeah, 100%. And by the way, to play a little bit of devil’s advocate on that, and then we’ll move on, I would just say there are pain points that might come from a firm being small and subscale as well. My firm doesn’t have efficient technology. They don’t invest enough in the business. They don’t provide a lead mechanism. They don’t have a robust banking and lending or investment solutions platform. So this stuff cuts both ways. An advisor can be frustrated or limited and an advisor can be excited. Pushes and pulls I think touch on, we’ve heard from advisors in every single pocket of the market, this is a relevant concept. Mindy Diamond: The theme of this is that every advisor deserves to live their best business life. That’s what people are in search of when they reach out to us or when they engage with us. What they’re looking for more than anything, and this is irrespective of where they work or how long they’ve worked or how much they manage, every advisor is in search of their best business life. And what defines their best business life is having the best quality of work life, but also the best ability to do what they want to do with their business, to serve their clients without limitations, to grow the way they want, to be paid a fair wage, and ultimately set up to maximize the value of the business they’ve built. Those are the definitions of one’s best business life. Jason Diamond: I used an even simpler definition of best business life and I stole it from you, which is the true north concept, which is if your true north is maximizing enterprise value and chasing the dollar and trying to build something that’s scalable and saleable, then great. If your true north is to build a lifestyle practice, there’s plenty of advisors who are successful and happy and content in that regard as well. And I think that’s what we’re talking about, is finding your true north and then it’s possible. I mean, that’s the beauty of the landscape. We’re talking about this, a lot of this is pain points or things that advisors experience. The exciting part of this is there’s never been a better time to be an advisor because of the breadth of choice they have and the ecosystem that’s been born to support advisors, to your point, across the spectrum. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. And it’s also, I think, worth saying that it starts with really good crystal clear clarity around not only what’s frustrating you, but what you want ideal to look like. Because I can’t tell you, or I can tell you because … I can’t tell our listeners, I can’t stress enough how often we get calls from advisors that tell us where they think they want to be or tell us they want to move. They have clarity about what’s frustrating them or what they want to change, but they don’t really have clarity about what they want it to look like. And the less clarity you have, the less likely you are to be successful in finding the exact right solution. So our work, the thing we probably do best is really work with advisors to help them. It doesn’t take long. In an hour conversation, we can help them to really get crystal clear on what they’re looking to solve for. Jason Diamond: Absolutely. All right. Great appetizer. We set the table. Let’s dive into the main course now. I want to talk now about what I’m calling the 2.0 triggers or the new triggers of movement. And to be clear, it’s not that these are more important or better or more significant drivers of movement. In fact, you could argue they’re probably at present less significant than the ones we just listed. But I think what we’re saying is these are triggers that are starting to come up more and more in conversations and we expect them to only proliferate further. And in that regard, they’re noteworthy and important for advisors because advisors should be reconciling not just what are the things I need to be worrying about today, but also what are the things I need to be potentially worrying about five years from now. So with that in mind, let’s dive in. I think the first one we have to start with is AI. And I always chuckle a tiny bit when we mention AI, we used to have to specify what are we talking about. Are we talking about artificial intelligence or alternative investments? And now it’s very clear. Everybody knows we’re talking about artificial intelligence. So the direction of the industry, no over-dramatization to say is at stake here. It’s that important of a topic. Let me ask you just very simply first, is this coming up in conversations with advisors? Mindy Diamond: Oh, all the time, but it’s almost table stakes. So I think the way it comes up is that people assume, advisors assume, and by the way, have the right to assume that AI is part of the tech stack. The notion that if I’m evaluating a firm and part of what frustrates me or part of what’s really important to me is cutting edge, really robust technology, part of what I am expecting is that a new firm is going to have really robust technology. And part of that is really robust access to AI. And has honed the AI in a way that’s user-friendly, that really answers or delivers on making me a better … Not replacing me as an advisor, but making me a better, more efficient advisor. Jason Diamond: 100%. And I would also add, so as I think about this AI topic, I don’t want this to become a conversation around, is AI going to replace advisors, because I think we both agree that’s not going to be the case. Especially at the top end of the market for quality advisors, I think they’re not going anywhere. But in my view, when we think about the trigger of movement, AI has the potential to be transformative because a couple kind of use cases or trigger cases come to mind, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. One is, do you think advisors will potentially consider a move because they’re worried about this? So in other words, play this logic out with me. I’m 55 years old and I’m like, “Oh man, AI might be coming from my job.” And there’s firms offering 400% of revenue to move my book. Maybe I should take that check and kind of de-risk and monetize while I can. What are your thoughts on that? Mindy Diamond: I absolutely think we’re already working with that fall into that category, but to say that is the only reason for the move would be wrong. I’m grateful that people trust us enough to be transparent with us. So they let us know that underneath the notion that they want to better serve clients, they ultimately want better access to A, B, and C, they want to be able to do D, E and F with less restriction, is really the main reason for the move. But underneath it, the notion that my book, I want to protect myself. My book may well be the biggest it’s ever going to be. It is going to be worth more today than it could be in the future if things don’t go my way. And if I know I’m going to move and one of my goals is to monetize, I might want to do that now. Jason Diamond: I agree. And that’s where the top deal story comes in also. Firms paying a top deal is a part of that story. It’s what you just said, plus advisors know firms are willing to pay incredible multiples. I mean, as we speak, UBS is in market with one of the largest deals in history. So those two narratives side by side, I agree. I think this becomes more of a kind of catalyst or driver movement. It’s come up in my conversations on both sides of the spectrum. It’s the tech savvy, AI savvy advisors who are excited about this, who are like, “I want to be the most AI enabled version of myself I can be. It’s going to make me a rockstar and it’s going to widen the gap with my peers,” but it’s also come up with the people who are, I think, rightly scared and fearful about what this might mean for their job. Mindy Diamond: Let me ask you, what are examples of the way you’ve seen some of the best firms who have embraced AI? What is their narrative? What is it that they’re saying to advisors that if you come here from a tech or AI perspective, you’ll be better because we’re able to do … Fill in the blank. Jason Diamond: Yeah. So a couple that come up. First of all, I want to make the important point. Advisors do not expect that firms, either their current firm or firms that they are diligencing prospectively, have this figured out or solved. Everybody understands this is a fairly new area that firms are still very much kind of developing their strategies in. What advisors want to see is a few things. They want to see though leadership, they want to see investment, and they want to see a strategy, right? Effectively, they want to see a step in the right direction, really. So I’ll give you a couple examples. There are a number of tech savvy RIAs, very tech-enabled, AI-focused RIAs, because I think this is easier to be nimble. I think where you’ll see this quicker probably is in the independent space. That what they’re doing is things like this. An advisor logs on to their workstation in the morning and their system queues them proactively, Mr. and Mrs. Smith may be good candidates for a Roth IRA conversion. And then if the advisor decides to contact the client in some way about it, the system will of course help them draft the communication, but then it’ll take it a step further and actually help them to process and transact that conversion. So soup to nuts, ultimately driving efficiency. That’s the name of the game. That’s why firms, I think, are excited about AI, at least the good firms. Because what I think they realize it will do is, the stuff that’s a waste of time that could be automated that advisors, and probably even more so their associates, client associates are spending time on, that should be a massive time saver for advisors. And I think if you play that story out, what does that mean? It should mean bigger books of business and therefore more productive advisors because they have more time to prospect and focus on their clients. Thoughts? Mindy Diamond: Yeah. So I think you said it perfectly, but it raises the question then. You say that the RIAs can be more nimble. You’re right. I mean, the big story around the biggest firms was like moving a battleship, it takes a long time to turn it. It’s not as nimble. So what and how are the bigger firms competing against the RIAs with respect to AI? And second question, we still always get questions, and rightly so, about Morgan Stanley has more money to invest… Jason Diamond: That was going to be part of my answer. Mindy Diamond: … than fill in the blank RIA. So how does that all work? Jason Diamond: That is absolutely going to be part of my answer, is that I have heard this question posed almost presumptively both ways. “Oh, it’s got to be that the RIAs are going to be the clear winners in this.” And I’ve also heard, “Oh, it’s got to be that the wirehouses are going to be the clear winners in this.” I don’t think it’s going to be channel specific like that. I think it is going to be firm specific. I think there’s going to be firms that are going to do this well and firms that are going to not do this well. But there’s going to be winners in the wirehouse space. There’s going to be winners in the regional firm space, with firms like Raymond James who are clearly trying to be on the cutting edge of this. There’s certainly going to be winners in the broker-dealer space. LPL is investing heavily in this, as are many of their broker-dealer competitors. And then of course the RIA space, where sometimes they may not have the budgets, but they have a couple things. They have private equity backing, sometimes. They have the custodians that they’re built on, right, or the tech vendors that they’re built on. So Schwab and Fidelity or Orion and Addepar. They have other ways to access these innovations. One of the things that comes up with this that your question I think gets at is, a similar question that was raised around technology stacks, which is strength of offering versus integration. And that’s where I think a firm like Morgan Stanley really will shine, is they should … Because they don’t put anything out that’s not well integrated. The big firms have generally done a pretty good job of that. Versus the RIAs. Sometimes we’ve heard feedback where, yes, you have access to you name it, right? You dream it up, you can go and buy it. But the left hand may not speak to the right hand quite as well. Mindy Diamond: Yeah, that’s actually a really good point. And integration is probably one of the biggest … If you ask an advisor when they talk about technology as either being one of their pushes or pulls, probably what they’re referring to more than anything is not only having the capability, but having the integrated capability. So that’s a great point. And I think your point is right, that the final chapter on this has not been written. Nobody thinks that it has. And so whatever answers you and I can talk about today about who’s winning this race, or this tech race or this AI race, will be totally different tomorrow. We all know that. But I think for purposes of this conversation, to say that an advisor having an expectation that their technology be outstanding and that AI be on the table, that a firm is embracing it and heading in the right direction, if you will, has the right thought leadership and the right willingness to invest in it is what advisors are really looking for right now. Jason Diamond: Absolutely. And this is a question too from the firm’s perspective, if you are a firm of any size, you must be able to answer that. This has become question 1A. And again, I don’t mean to suggest that I think AI is the number one most important factor driving advisor movement today. It very well might be at some point down the road. I don’t think we’re there yet. But I do think it’s the topic du jour or the hot topic, where every advisor is asking about this. So that means if you’re a firm, you need to be prepared to tell the story or at least have the vision. And I think what we’re hearing from both advisors and from firms is this, AI is going to … What is right now a gap between the good and the bad, the quality and the non, is going to become an absolute chasm, right? An absolutely mountainous gap between the best firms and the firms who are able to adapt this technology or this AI. And the same thing at the advisor level, between the AI-enabled superpowered advisor versus those who are in the dinosaur ages, for lack of a better term. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. And we’ll move on, but it is worth saying that the day of the standalone independent, the one man or one woman band who hangs out a shingle, and to use your term, running a lifestyle practice, nothing wrong with that, but it would be near impossible to imagine a world where a standalone independent can compete with a private-equity-backed RIA or an RIA that has a big pool of capital behind them or to compete with the major firms. And our point is the ability to compete is probably more important with respect to this topic than just about any other. Jason Diamond: Totally agree. Thank you for tying a bow on that because I think that’s a good place to leave the AI topic, at least for now. I’m certain we’ll have more to say on this one. By the time we release this episode, we’ll probably have more to say on it. So we’ll have to do a follow-up again. But I want to talk now about enterprise value. And this is one where if you’re an RIA or if you’re an advisor at an independent firm, this might sound like a duh, but hear me out on this one. The idea is as follows, if I’m a wirehouse advisor or any sort of captive advisor, I don’t technically own anything. Agree? Mindy Diamond: Agreed. Jason Diamond: Okay. So if that’s true, that I don’t technically own anything, I technically don’t have any sort of enterprise value or ability to monetize. But my premise here and why I would argue that enterprise value has become a driver of movement is even wirehouse advisors know … They see teams like OpenArc, a massive RIA that launched last year. They see their corner office peers breaking away, starting independent firms. They see them selling to asset managers, private-equity-backed RIAs, private equity firms in their own right for these massive multiples. And what I guess I’m getting at, and I’m curious if you agree is, if a wirehouse advisor, let’s say, sees their colleagues sell to a private equity firm for 20X, doesn’t that have to become a little bit of a catalyst for movement in its own right? Mindy Diamond: Without a doubt. Historically … Actually, let me date myself. When I started this business now 32 years ago, there was zero way for an advisor who was a captive employee of a firm, of any firm, to monetize their business. It’s why there was so much movement, because the only way they could monetize was to get paid a big fat transition deal to move from one firm to the other. Jason Diamond: Yep. Mindy Diamond: Obviously, we all know that first it started with the big firms, and then just about every brokerage firm on the street began to offer a retire-in-place program. And that is the big firms or a traditional brokerage firm’s way of allowing advisor to monetize in place from their perspective to stave off attrition. And for an advisor that believes that the status quo serves them well, that finishing their career, that leaving their legacy, that leaving their team at their firm is the best thing to do, then those retire-in-place programs, like Merrill’s CTP or Morgan’s FAP or UBS’s Alpha or a name at every firm has them, is the best gift to advisors there is. But the problem is that the next generation at those firms are buying an asset they don’t own. And so when we talk about enterprise value or the desire to build enterprise value as a real driver of movement, what we’re talking about is not only that advisors want ownership of an asset, because ownership translates into more control and autonomy and agency over building it the way you want to, but it also translates into maximizing the value of the business that you’ve built. So that’s a long-winded way of saying that the OpenArc deal you are referencing, for anybody not familiar, is a Merrill Lynch team, a legacy Merrill Lynch team in Atlanta that was managing more than 120 billion in assets, part retail, ultra high net worth client assets, and part institutional consulting assets. And believe me, I don’t want to make it sound like it was a snap that one day they’re happy and the next day they’re going independent. Over a 10-year period became more and more aware, driven by the pushes and more aware of the pulse. But ultimately, while there was a long list of things they wanted to be able to do that they couldn’t to best serve clients and grow the business, the real driver at the end of the day, or I shouldn’t say the real driver, but a major driver was the notion of building and owning enterprise value. Yes, they could have all gotten very attractive deals and retired with your Merrill CTP, but they wanted to own the business, they wanted cap gains treatment. And so they went through the sweat equity big time of building what they’re calling OpenArc for the ability for probably five, 10, 20 years, because there’s partners with all different ages, so at all different times, to be able to really maximize the value of the business they’ve built. Jason Diamond: Can I push back on that for … It’s a super helpful example, but my one thought is, okay, yeah, of course, 130 billion in assets, they should be concerned with enterprise value at that size. And the delta between caring about enterprise value and not is too great because those guys have, by all accounts, a phenomenal business that is rivaled by very few in the industry. Most of our audience does not fit into that stratosphere. So what about advisors in, let’s call it the million to $10 million space? Should they still care about this concept? Mindy Diamond: Again, it’s an inside job. It’s a personal thing. Some don’t. But the answer is yes. And if I were them, I would. Why? Because whether I am generating a million a year in revenue or $10 million a year in revenue, at the end of the day, I’ve got an asset. I’ve built a valuable asset. And I have the choice at the end of the day or the middle of the day to decide a million things about that asset. How do I want to live my business life? How do I want to serve my clients? Where do I want to work? But one of the biggest factors to determining where and how they want to work is, ultimately, do I want to be able to maximize the value of the business that I’ve built? And while there are few things that are really definitive in this industry, the one thing that is absolutely indisputably definitive is that if you build an independent practice like the ex-Merrill Lynch churned RIA OpenArc team did, you will ultimately build enterprise value exponential multiples greater than any way you could monetize the business as a traditional employee. Jason Diamond: And that math absolutely still holds up even at numbers smaller than we’ve mentioned. I totally agree with that. I’ll give you one other reason why I think you should care. And I’d love your thoughts on this one. I’ll ask it two ways maybe. I’ll tell you my take and then I’ll ask you yours. Morgan Stanley, let’s use as an example. Who are Morgan Stanley’s competitors? In my opinion, the legacy answer to that is, well, of course the wirehouses are Morgan Stanley’s competitors. Merrill, UBS, Wells Fargo, what maybe used to be a longer list, but today those four. I don’t think that’s the answer anymore. I think those are the direct competitors. But because of this enterprise value conversation, I think Morgan Stanley’s competitors are anyone and everyone who recruits financial advisors with books of business. Because if you think about it, an advisor who has a $3 million business at a wirehouse, even if they’re not actually going to do this, they don’t have any entrepreneurial spirit, no desire to go independent, they still know that they could. This is an option and a viable option. And firms are even figuring out ways to cut out the middle step, right? Because this was historically a two-step process. You’re a wirehouse advisor or a W2 advisor. You break away, launch an independent business to establish your enterprise value, begin building it, and then you monetize it. If you could cut out the middle step, or even if you couldn’t, I still think it’s pretty clear that if you’re an advisor, this is important because the firms know … Like when Morgan Stanley’s writing a recruiting deal, they’re kept honest by RIAs and acquirers just the same as their direct peer set. Do you agree with that or do you think I’m reading too far into this? Mindy Diamond: Oh no, I agree a thousand percent. I think that it is naive for anyone recruiting for or on behalf of a traditional firm to think that the only competition is another traditional firm. The days of pomposity for a senior leader at a traditional firm to say, “We’ve got the best technology, the best everything fill in the blank. We have no competitors.” That’s just naive. Because even if it’s true, you’ve got the best platform infrastructure fill in the blank, there is a multitude of advisors that value things different than what you can provide. Beauty is in the eye of beholder is probably a good way to say that. But at the end of the day, what we’re really talking about is when I started the business, because there was no way, no really good way for an advisor to really monetize their life’s work, the only thing they could or were focused on from a personal financial gain perspective was the short-term deal. What are they paying? What’s the transition deal? Now, of course they’re concerned about that. But almost to a person, they’re equally concerned about what I can build and what will this allow me to build in terms of the value of the business I’m building in the long term. So let me ask you, if we’re talking about an advisor that has the ability to monetize in the short term for what could be 4X and in some cases more than that these days, and we’re talking about the ability to maximize enterprise value, and we talk about the concept of moving once and monetizing twice, what kind of numbers are we talking about? Fill in the blanks there. Jason Diamond: It’s such a hard question to answer because I do genuinely believe recruiting deals, when you talk about 300 to 400% revenue deals in the recruiting space, they vary a little bit, but I feel pretty comfortable quoting those types of numbers that most firms are somewhere in the 300 to 400% of T12 realm. There are some outliers, we mentioned UBS. But the multiple or EBITDA based or enterprise value M&A market where we’re doing these legitimate buyout transactions, the valuations do vary quite a bit. But here’s how I think about it. First of all, most firms are not purchased or sold at top line revenue. Most are sold at some sort of adjusted EBITDA number, which factors in local expenses, platform expenses, but also advisor compensation. And then that adjusted number is typically multipled. The multiples are anywhere from 8X for small kind of, let’s say, million dollar revenue businesses up to, we’ve seen deals struck at north of 20X for some of these mega cap RIAs. Typically, just back of the envelope, if I had to quote, I typically estimate around 5X top line at capital gains is a good kind of ballpark valuation. But there is quite a bit of nuance to it, more so than the traditional recruiting space. And I do think, shameless plug, part of the value in working with somebody who’s an expert on the entirety of the industry landscape is just that. It’s the idea that you need to run the horse race across multiple verticals. The good advisors who work with us typically are looking at a wire like a Morgan Stanley or a Merrill. They’re looking at a boutique firm like a Rockefeller, or they’re looking at a regional like an RBC or a Ray J. They’re looking at an independent firm like an LPL or a Sanctuary. They’re looking all across the spectrum. Mindy Diamond: I think that’s exactly right. But the topic of enterprise value, you can see how powerful it is and how wise it is. For an advisor today, when considering their personal economics to consider not just the short term, but to weigh in or add in or factor in, what could I be building and what ultimately will that business be worth at the end of the day? Jason Diamond: Yeah, 100%. Short of going out and selling your business, what can advisors do then? So I’m an advisor, okay, I’m curious about this. Or is it just as simple as, “Yeah, you should know what your business is worth if you’re an advisor”? Mindy Diamond: Definitively yes, because I mean, we always believe that knowledge is power. And just like it’s important for you to understand what your options are within your own firm, how can I ultimately retire out and monetize my business where I am, I think it’s really hard to make a decision in a vacuum without having other perspective. And getting other perspective doesn’t have to be that you have to go out and take 20 meetings. It’s not that hard for you to figure out what your business is worth to make it a data point for whether or not you’re ultimately best to retire in place or go elsewhere. Jason Diamond: Yeah, that I think is the main takeaway. And the education point is so important. I think because these are relatively new concepts for a lot of advisors that haven’t formally shopped a business before, there’s a lot of resources available. And we’ll certainly link some as well on the page for the episode. Let’s shift gears now, our kind of final trigger 2.0, which is stability and ownership structure of the firm. And this has been a little bit of a hot topic. It’s honestly been a hot topic every year because it seems like things pop up every year. And a lot of times advisors don’t reconcile the question of who owns the firm or how stable is the firm until something happens. The firm gets bought, the firm goes bankrupt, like the First Republic scenario. What should a good advisor do proactively about the idea that if you’re a W2 employee or even an employee who’s affiliated with a broker dealer, you saw this with Commonwealth, you just don’t really have control over what the firm decides to do. Give me your thoughts on this. I know it’s a big topic. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. First of all, using Commonwealth an example, it’s a good one. Because for those unfamiliar, Commonwealth is a boutique broker dealer that was privately owned and whose tagline was, “We love our privately owned status and we are never going to sell,” until one day they did. And not only did they sell, but they sold to the biggest independent broker dealer in the country, ala LPL. That’s not good nor bad, it’s just a fact. So if Commonwealth, who had definitively said we’re never up for sale, suddenly sells, any time you’re an employee of a firm, you never know what tomorrow brings in. You’re not in control over whether it’s sold. So that’s one example. But as you’re talking about this, I’m thinking about, I’m probably going back 20 years, so I’m 10 years into my career and I talked to someone who had been a very successful Merrill advisor. So I’m going to say he was probably generating around $5 million in revenue at the time. Going back 20 years, that’s a pretty significant book of business. He was courted for years by what he thought was a top RIA. And in those days, remember 20 years ago, the RIA space wasn’t nearly as mainstream as it is now. But the story the RIA told him was that ultimately, one, he was going to be a partner in the firm, that was very appealing to him. So he was going to have equity in the firm and much more freedom and control. And locally, by the way, the RIA was a really high quality brand. He worked on a lot of the economics, the short term and the long term with them. They did a ton of due diligence on his book of business. But he failed to ask … And I didn’t represent him. I just know this story. He failed to ask or do enough due diligence about the stability of the firm. What we think is really important, we talk about this expanded landscape. If you’re looking at Morgan Stanley, I don’t think you necessarily need to see Morgan Stanley’s balance sheet. If you are talking to a firm that is anything but a bulge bracket or anything but a large firm, it’s really important to do what we call reverse due diligence and to really understand if a firm expects you to open your kimono and show everything about your business to prove your worth, it is equally important that you do the same for them. In this new world order where private equity has come in and there are so many different ways for a firm to be owned and to be capitalized, it’s very important that an advisor understand what’s going on behind the scenes. And one of the questions around stability, if a firm is private equity backed, is it permanent capital? Is it patient capital? Is the private equity firm going to look to sell and monetize in five years? And then who would the likely buyer be and what does that mean for you? So the question is a big question and it’s really important. Jason Diamond: I love everything you just said, except I do think even the wirehouses, wirehouse advisors, honestly, as much as anybody should be asking these questions. And I’ll give you an example right now, UBS. And UBS, it’s not a story of balance sheet stability. I don’t think anybody has concerns that UBS is going to fail. But UBS management has been very publicly, “Oh, we’re cutting costs.” There’s been some rumors, I think for years, probably dating back 30 years to when you started the business about UBS’s commitment to the US wealth management business. I think those questions about stability and ownership structure are still valid. And to me, the implication of it is twofold. One, what you said, reverse due diligence, ask the questions, plan B. But also the concept of the exits or the off-ramps or how many bites of the apple do you get. So if you’re an advisor and you sell your business to somebody and you sign garden leave and non-competes and non-solicits, the question of ownership structure of that firm becomes less relevant because you have no off-ramps and no ability to exit that business anyway. A lot of times that’s how advisors get comfortable with this concept. And that’s what firms will tell them too, frankly, and we’re living through the middle of this, by the way, with Commonwealth and LPL, is vote with your feet, right? To the extent advisors can, the offer … And this is like, you used the example of private-equity-backed firms. This is how Rockefeller addresses the question of their private equity ownership. If we sell to UBS, all of our advisors will leave. They have that built-in put option. So knowing where the off-ramps are or how many bites of the apple an advisor gets, I think is a big concept that ties into that. But we’re absolutely seeing this pop up, probably largely because of those two examples, Commonwealth and UBS this year, more so Commonwealth, to your point. Janney’s another example last year or two years ago now where KKR comes in and buys Janney. So when these examples happen, it seems like it triggers advisors to say, “Is this something that could happen to me and should I be thinking about this?” Mindy Diamond: Yeah. So let me ask you a question. You’re talking, you’ve mentioned UBS offering this outsized deal. So how does the notion of stability and ownership factor in? If an advisor is considering an unprecedented deal from UBS, what are the caveats or concerns with respect to stability and ownership? Jason Diamond: It’s the same list of considerations you should and would ask of any other firm you’re diligencing, except I think amplified even more in the case … If I was counseling an advisor who was looking at UBS, that would be what I would say, is exactly that. You’re seeing all of these departures and defections, and I would want to have conversations with those advisors and understand exactly why and have guarantees or assurances that I’m not going to suffer from those same pain points that force them to leave. Or, and I say this a little bit flippantly, but it’s a little bit true, I understand the devil that I’m getting into bed with, but for 550%, or whatever the deal might be, I can suck it up. And that’s something that some advisors might well say as well. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. Jason Diamond: I don’t want to end on the negative note of overly large transition, not there’s anything wrong with large transition deals, but as you look out, is there anything that’s coming up in your conversation with advisors that you view as the next wave of this? I’ll give you one that maybe you could touch on, and if you have another one, feel free to offer it in conclusion, but do you think age or advisors starting to succeed out of the business will become more of a driver of movement, even though to your point, advisors can access sunset deals? Mindy Diamond: I do actually, because I think the more the average advisor age increases, the more likely that those advisors are going to want to move on to do something else to monetize the business. And so much of the wave of movement we see is driven not so much by the senior advisor, because many seed advisors are happy enough with the ability to monetize their business in place. Even though it may not maximize the value of the business, it’s a close enough approximation and it means I don’t have to disrupt the apple cart. So we support that 100%. But where we get the calls is from the next generation that says, “Yeah, but hold on a minute. It’s a good way for me to take on a book of assets that I not otherwise have access to. And it’s great for my senior partner, my father, my mother, my whatever to monetize the business. But I’m buying an asset again that I don’t own and I ultimately don’t have control over all these things we’re talking about, the AI investment, the ability to create enterprise value, the stability, the cost cutting, all of it.” So I think it’s all of the above. You say, “What else is there?” I think that’s it. It’s all of the above. It’s anything and everything that drives movement. One, it’s personal, it’s highly unique, it’s different for every advisor. There are certainly themes, and we’re talking about them, but there’s a million different things. It’s personal. And while there are an awful lot of pushes, things that can frustrate an advisor, it is the most exciting time in our view to be an advisor, particularly a high quality one, because the options abound, the ecosystem is big, because the ability to monetize both in the short term and the long term is big, mammoth, exponentially bigger than it ever was before. And the true ability to really build an enterprise has never been greater. And I think all of those things, the desire for an advisor to be the best that they can be and live their best business life is probably the biggest driver of all. Jason Diamond: It’s really true these days, if you can dream it, you can probably build it. And we’ve said in the past, if you build it, they will buy it. It’s a great place to end. This was a really fun topic. I think that’s a spot on kind of fourth trigger, by the way, too. This sort of next gen is almost like the force multiplier or the amplifier of like they see all this other stuff and they’re asking these questions even more so. Because if I’m 60 years old, none of this matters all that much. It matters, but I’m out of the business in five to 10 years. Versus the next gen advisors are the ones who often bear the brunt of this. So I think a lot of really smart stuff. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and expertise. In the episode page, we’ll be sure we have our Industry Transition Report. And we’ve also created a tool, the top 10 tips for a strategic due diligence process, which is a great kind of practical hand-in-hand companion for this topic for advisors looking for more pointed tips on the due diligence process. So Mindy, thank you again. This has been a blast. Mindy Diamond: My pleasure. Thank you. Jason Diamond: Thank you for joining us. We'll be back with a new episode next week, so be sure to listen in. Mindy Diamond: As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty, and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibility seriously and are dedicated to your clients. But are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay or Should I Go? is a book written with you in mind. It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively, whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook. The Advisor Transition Playbook: The Latest on Due Diligence, the Move, and Everything In Between – Part 2 A Special Industry Update with Jason Diamond and Mindy Diamond. Jason Diamond: Welcome to a replay of one of the most popular episodes from our podcast series for financial advisors, The Advisor Transition Playbook: The Latest on Due Diligence, the Move, and Everything In Between. It's Part 2 of a 2-Part Industry Update with Mindy Diamond. I’m Jason Diamond and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner, well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our Annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Jason Diamond: There’s been a noticeable shift in how advisors are approaching decisions about their business, not necessarily in whether they’re exploring change, but in what they’re focused on when they do. Mindy is back with me for a continuation of our earlier conversation on the Advisor Transition Playbook. Last time, we spent time on the mechanics, how due diligence works, what a move actually entails, and how to think through the process. What’s become more apparent since then is that the inputs into that process are evolving. The traditional drivers are still there, but layered on top are a set of considerations that didn’t carry the same weight before. AI is one of them, and not just as a tool, but as a differentiator that advisors are starting to diligence more seriously. Enterprise value is another. Showing up in conversations, even for advisors who don’t technically own their business, but are thinking more critically about what they’re building over time. And then there are questions around stability, ownership, and flexibility. What happens to the firm itself and whether advisors retain the ability to adapt again if circumstances change. None of this is theoretical. It’s showing up in real time conversations. What we want to do here is unpack those new triggers of advisor movement and what they suggest about how decisions are being made today. So let’s get to it. Mindy, the legend, thank you for joining me. So glad to have you on. Mindy Diamond: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here. Jason Diamond: Great. Let’s dive right in. I’ll set the stage really quickly one more time. When we spoke about this topic last, we talked about the drivers of movement, what we’ll call in this conversation as the old or the legacy drivers of movement, and we spoke about the mechanics of the move. Before we get into the new drivers of movement, which I want to be the meat of the conversation, remind us, when we talk about the legacy drivers of movement …. And by the way, by saying legacy, I by no means want to suggest that they’re not valid today, because they’re equally valid, if not more so today than they were then. But when you think of the classic drivers of movement in our industry, what are they? Mindy Diamond: Yeah. So I would say, first of all, let’s start by saying that for every advisor, they’ve got a unique set of needs. So the first thing to say is that while you and I can talk about the categories of frustrations or things that might bother an advisor, they show up differently in each advisor’s life. So it’s important to note that everyone is unique. But generally speaking, if I had to package them, I’d say it’s number one that shows up most of the time is too much bureaucracy. A feeling that a firm or a model is just too hypervigilant in terms of compliance and it’s too bureaucratic and too hard to get things done.

Joe Lonsdale is a technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist known for his work at the intersection of innovation and public policy. He is a co-founder of Palantir Technologies, a data analytics platform used by governments, defense agencies, and large enterprises. His work there focused on applying data systems to complex institutional challenges. After Palantir, Lonsdale founded Addepar, a financial technology platform designed to improve transparency and analysis in wealth management. He has also been active in defense and national security startups. Of the nine U.S. defense unicorns that have emerged in recent years, he founded three and was an early investor in three others. Lonsdale is a co-founder of Cicero, an organization focused on education policy and expanding opportunity. He also leads 8VC, a venture capital firm that invests in technology companies and engages in policy discussions related to innovation and economic growth. Through this work, he has advised political leaders and worked to connect the technology sector with policymakers. His career spans company building, investment, and policy involvement, with a focus on how technology can be applied to large-scale institutional problems. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Get 10% off Ridge's Power Bank at https://www.Ridge.com/SRS with code SRS. Sheath. The underwear of legends. Go to https://www.sheath.com/SRS and use code SRS for 20% off. Go to https://shopbeam.com/SRS and use code SRS to get up to 50% off Beam Dream, the sleep formula designed to help you recover and wake up refreshed. Get 30% off your first subscription order at https://armra.com/srs or enter code SRS at checkout. Joe Lonsdale Links: X - https://x.com/JTLonsdale Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shaun chats with family office CEO, Lee Mayberry on how he manages a complex "multi family office" that has grown in sophistication over 15 years. He speaks on the challenges of software selection, adviser management, using AI as a personal assitant and how he had the conversation with family and staff when deciding to open the office to outside clients.  Hall Road Investments Pty Ltd ACN 621 299 269 is a Corporate Authorised Representative (CAR No. 001279456) of Non Correlated Capital Pty Ltd (AFSL No. 499882). Shaun Parkin is an Authorised Representative (AR No 001279458) of Hall Road Investments Pty Ltd (CAR No. 001279456) and is authorised to provide general advice to wholesale investors. Nothing in this podcast (Communication) constitutes an investment offering of any kind. This Communication is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment or financial advice.

Dr. Ashby Monk is the Executive & Research Director of the Stanford Research Initiative on Long-Term Investing. Ashby has studied and advised the largest asset owners in the world for more than twenty years with a particular interest in how to improve outcomes for their beneficiaries and the world. Ash also serves as the Head of Research at Addepar, a fintech company that helps investors make smarter decisions. He has twice appeared on the show – as the 29th guest back in 2017 and again two years ago – and those conversations are replayed in the feed.   Our conversation starts with a recent paper Ashby published called Investor Identity: The Ultimate Driver of Returns. We discuss the descriptors of identity and enabling factors that determine each investor's fingerprint. From there, we dive into technology as an enabler and how technological innovation can improve returns. We then turn to ESG investing and another of Ashby's recent papers, Submergence = Drawdown + Recovery, that discusses the importance of considering the combined drawdown and recovery period in making investment decisions.   For full show notes, visit the episode webpage here.    Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership    Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠)

Peter O'Brien, Head of Global Growth+Partnerships, AddeparSome 87% of UK wealth managers believe that AI is crucial to the future of the wealth management industry yet over half believe their current technology systems still need to be upgraded. Alternative investments, from art and wine to vintage cars, are booming, but UK firms are struggling to access and track them. Peter O'Brien, Head of Global Growth+Partnerships, at Addepar speaks to Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence about how wealth managers can attract both new clients and young talent, by investing in smarter technology tools.

Want to scale your side hustle with AI? Get 700 prompts here: https://clickhubspot.com/wbc Episode 725: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) talks to the founder of Airtable, Howie Liu ( https://x.com/howietl ), about 7 AI business ideas he would start if he was in his 20s. — Show Notes: (0:00) IDEA: Live Shopping w/ AI avatars (5:34) IDEA: AI personalized news (10:36) IDEA: AI Personal Finance Advisor (18:27) IDEA: AI PE model of buy an existing business (24:20) IDEA: Cursor for email (36:53) IDEA: AI-native social apps (38:42) IDEA: Uncensored AI search — Links: • Sesame - https://www.sesame.com/ • Whatnot - https://www.whatnot.com/ • HeyGen - https://www.heygen.com/ • Superhuman - https://superhuman.com/ • Kubera - https://www.kubera.com/ • Addepar - https://addepar.com/ • Airtable - https://www.airtable.com/ • Chief.so - http://chief.so/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam's List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Message us!Explore how AI is transforming family office space today. In this next episode of our Family Office series, join host John Yeager as he discusses with Greg Silverman from Clarity Edge about strategic foundations, the importance of data control and ownership, and practical steps for managing data effectively. Learn about clean data, vendor accountability, and proactive management.Greg shares a case study on metrics and how platforms like Addepar, Sage, and Knowledger can work together. Discover that tightening your data doesn't have to be costly and that Excel remains a valuable tool.Fill out this form to have new episodes sent right to your inbox! Follow Whitley Penn on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X for more industry insights and thought leadership!

Jon Hartley and Joe Lonsdale discuss Joe's career, co-founding Palantir, Addepar, and OpenGov, venture capital investing, defense tech, DOGE, Elon Musk, regulation, and the prospects for generative artificial intelligence. Recorded on December 12, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Joe Lonsdale is the founder and managing Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing over $6 billion in capital. In 2003, he founded Palantir Technologies (NYSE:PLTR), a global software company known for its work supporting US and its allies' defense and intelligence. Since then, he has founded more than a dozen prominent companies, including Addepar, a wealth management platform with about $5 trillion, and OpenGov, the leading cloud software provider for local governments. He continues to create and scale companies through the 8VC Build program.  As an investor, Joe was an early backer of companies like Anduril Industries, Oculus (acq.FB), Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH), Oscar (NYSE:OSCR), Illumio, Wish (NASDAQ:WISH), JoyTunes, Blend (NYSE:BLND), Flexport, Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY), Orca Bio, Qualia, Synthego, RelateIQ (acq. CRM), Yugabyte, and others.  Joe and his wife Tayler are active in a variety of philanthropic and institutional pursuits. In 2018, they founded the non-partisan Cicero Institute, which crafts and advances policies to promote effective and accountable governance, and is now successfully battling special interests with teams in over a dozen states. In 2021, Joe became the founding chairman of the board of the University of Austin(UATX), a new university dedicated to restoring the pursuit of truth in higher education. He also sits on the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute. ​  Joe, Tayler, and their four daughters live in Austin, TX. Jon Hartley is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast at the Hoover Institution and an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, where he specializes in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is also currently an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jon is also a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and serves as chair of the Economic Club of Miami. Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as well as in various policy roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, US Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.  Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC, and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. ABOUT THE SERIES: Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics. For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/

Message us!Join host John Yeager in this engaging 43-minute episode as we dive into the evolution of family office technology with returning guests Susan McDermott from Addepar, Ryan Kerry from Knowledger LLC, Kristen Keith from Sage Intacct, and Alejandro Nazario from TOS. The discussion focuses on the importance of consistent reporting standards and data health, exploring the pros and cons of all-in-one suites versus best-in-class approaches through real-world case studies.They discuss the vital role of data management policies and procedures and share insights into the latest tech advancements at Addepar, Knowledger, Sage Intacct, and TOS. Discover how AI can enhance usability and make the industry more user-friendly.Finally, learn how to turn data into actionable insights and make smarter decisions. Tune in for valuable tips on using technology to drive success in the family office sector. 

Message us!In this 28-minute episode, John Yeager of Whitley Penn is joined by Susan McDermott of Addepar, Ryan Kerry of Knowledger LLC, Kristen Keith of Sage Intacct, and Alejandro Nazario of TOS. The group explores the evolving trends in insourcing and outsourcing within family offices.The team analyzes how their family office clients have adapted their hybrid insourcing and outsourcing strategies as they scale and examine the current job market's impact on access to quality talent. Discover the best practices for deciding when and where to outsource based on different family office structures and how to do so responsibly.Tune in for great conversations and recommendations!

Send us a textWe bring you a compilation of some of the best and most popular episodes of 2024. The guests of this episode have either founded or held key leadership roles in companies with a $200 Billion combined market cap, including Capital One, Kaspi, Mercado Libre, and Xero.It was an amazing year for Fintech Leaders with 42 new guests from 13 countries. Our interviews were viewed almost 3 million times across all platforms and we reached people in 184 countries. Thank you for tuning for what was an amazing year and I'm excited to bring you a 2025 full of rockstar business leaders.In this episode, you'll hear from:Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO of Kaspi.kz (Nasdaq:KSPI)Diya Jolly, Chief Product and Technology Officer at XeroPedro Arnt, CEO of dLocal (NASDAQ:DLO)Eric Poirier, CEO of AddeparNigel Morris, Co-Founder of QED & Capital OneRujul Zaparde, CEO & Co-Founder of ZipJack Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of AirwallexWant more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~70,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Joe Lonsdale, a prominent entrepreneur and venture capitalist, about co-founding Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and OpenGov; why he thinks Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be successful with their plans for the DOGE; why government spending has gotten so wasteful; how Alex Karp became the CEO of Palantir; his insights into the evolution of the tech industry; why silicon valley got so woke; the rise of "tech bros”; the increasing political engagement among tech leaders; the role of technology in solving complex problems, particularly in government and defense; the challenges and opportunities in education; how institutions like the University of Austin that foster critical thinking and innovation are the future; the future of AI; the need for regulatory reform; the potential for significant growth and productivity improvements in the coming years; and much more. ---------- Today's Sponsors: PrivacyHawk - Stop spam emails, nonstop robocalls, and close calls with identity theft. Remove your personal data from places it doesn't belong. Download PrivacyHawk now! Go to:https://go.privacyhawk.com/rubinreport and use code RUBIN20 for exclusive discounts! Caloric Bypass - Lose weight, get tons more energy, and return to the good health of your youth by addressing the one key to better health. Watch the video that has been watched by over 20 million people to date. Find out how to improve your gut health at https://TheHealthyFat.com/Rubin 1775 Coffee - Peaberry coffee isn't your average bean—it's coffee's best-kept secret. It's denser, more flavorful, and packed with bold energy to kickstart your mornings. Rubin Report viewers get 15% off their order. Go to: https://1775coffee.com/RUBIN and use code RUBIN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zachary Bookman is Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, the GovTech cloud software leader that was acquired for a staggering $1.8BN earlier this year. Prior to acquisition, Zac raised over $180M from some of the best of the best including Marc Andreesen, Josh Kushner, Joe Lonsdale and Founder Collective to name a few.  Zac is also a successful angel investor with investments in Flexport, Flock Safety and Addepar.  In Today's Show with Zac Bookman We Discuss: 04:27 Navigating Enterprise Sales and Pricing Strategies 07:49 The Importance of High Gross Retention in SaaS 11:03 Investor Relations and the Power Law in Venture Capital 14:32 WTF is Product Market Fit 18:14 What No One Knows About M&A 20:05 Fundraising Challenges and Lessons Learned 32:51 What Marc Andreesen Taught Me About Boards 34:18 Why Founders and Investors are Misaligned 35:29 The OpenGov Acquisition: Selling for $1.8BN 37:22 What Does It Feel Like to Sell for $1.8BN 43:58 Why Venture Capital is a S*** Asset Class 45:13 Investment Mistakes and Lessons 01:02:05 The Importance of In-Person Collaboration    

In this 22-minute episode, hear from John Yeager of Whitley Penn, Susan McDermott of Addepar, Ryan Kerry of Knowledger LLC, Kristen Keith of Sage Intacct, and Alejandro Nazario of TOS. They discuss the history of family offices, their establishment, current state, and the 2018 boom that brought them into the spotlight. Discover why 80% of family offices are created and why families often choose to remain private through these entities.We'll explore the challenges family offices face as they grow more complex, including the importance of finding the right tools to manage legal entity structures and asset class management. Learn about the innovative tools being developed to streamline operations and reduce noise in the single-family office space, and the critical role of technology investment in managing a small but efficient team.Whether you're already part of a family office, considering creating one, or working within the industry, this episode is packed with valuable insights tailored just for you. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of family offices and how they operate. 

In this 23-minute episode, hear from John Yeager of Whitley Penn, Susan McDermott of Addepar, Ryan Kerry of Knowledger LLC, Kristen Keith of Sage Intacct, and Alejandro Nazario of TOS. This episode marks the beginning of an exciting new series dedicated to unraveling the complexities of family offices.Our hosts will break down the basics, explaining what a family office is and introducing you to the key players and companies that make up this unique sector. They discuss the many reasons why families might choose to establish a family office, highlighting the diverse structures and services available. You'll quickly see that when it comes to family offices, there's no one-size-fits-all solution.Expect a lively and insightful discussion, with professional debates and differing viewpoints on what truly defines a family office. Whether you're already part of a family office, considering creating one, or working within the industry, this episode is packed with valuable insights tailored just for you.

Andrew Rising, CEO of Encore Ventures Labs.As someone who believes deeply in the opportunity for Cleveland's future, I find Andrew's journey to be an inspiring and optimisitc one… …Deeply rooted in the heart of Cleveland's west side where he grew up before embarking on a decade-long adventure in the Bay Area—a place where innovation and venture capital converged to create world changing technologies. Andrew has spent his career at the intersection of talent and venture capital — from Google to Addepar to Redpoint Ventures — ultimately carving out a unique path that led him to co-found and successfully exit a startup to Human Capital in one of the most competitive ecosystems in the world. But despite his success on the West Coast, Cleveland was always home.In a full-circle moment, Andrew returned to his hometown in 2022, bringing with him a wealth of experience and a vision to bridge the gap between Cleveland's rich industrial heritage and its promising industrial future. Today, he's leading the charge as the founder of Encore Venture Labs, a venture studio dedicated to revitalizing the region's legacy by harnessing current macro trends with the region's unique attributes.Andrew's story is one of return, reinvestment, and a deep commitment to driving the next wave of growth in Northeast Ohio. As soon as I met Andrew, I knew one day he'd come on the podcast when the time was right, and it's exciting that time has come. I'm proud to consider Andrew a friend and am excited to share some of his reflections and experience-----LINKS:https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewrising/https://www.encoreventurelabs.com/-----SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & NinetyJohn Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we've heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University —  success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business!With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture.The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University's Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.eduThe Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have.Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — used by over 7,000 companies and 100,000 users!This episode is brought to you by Impact Architects. As we share the stories of entrepreneurs building incredible organizations throughout NEO, Impact Architects helps those leaders — many of whom we've heard from as guests on Lay of The Land — realize their visions and build great organizations. I believe in Impact Architects and the people behind it so much, that I have actually joined them personally in their mission to help leaders gain focus, align together, and thrive by doing what they love! As a listener, you can sit down for a free consultation with Impact Architects by visiting ia.layoftheland.fm!-----Stay up to date by signing up for Lay of The Land's weekly newsletter — sign up here.Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and many more.Connect with Jeffrey Stern on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypstern/Follow Jeffrey Stern on X @sternJefe — https://twitter.com/sternjefeFollow Lay of The Land on X @podlayofthelandhttps://www.jeffreys.page/

My First Million Key Takeaways  You must have “one reason” to found a start-up; if you have five or six reasons to start it, then you have not yet found the single, very strong reason Hire for raw IQ and hard work, then constantly iterate on solving the single problem at hand Using your mind to its fullest capacity is the ultimate pleasure The most successful people in the world are extremely focused and allow their focused efforts to compound over time It is easy to identify conceptual gaps; developing the path toward closing that gap is the challenging part You must figure out 1) what you are passionate about and 2) what you are good at How you invest your time is more important than how you invest your capital, if wealth creation is your goal Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgEpisode 578: Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) sits down with Joe Lonsdale ( https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale ) to talk about how he leveraged one internship at PayPal into one billion dollar success after another.  Want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5 — Show Notes: (0:00) The One Reason strategy (3:18) Learning Global Macro Finance from Peter Thiel (5:35) Taking multi-million dollar bets at 4:30am (8:43) Hire for raw IQ over expertise (10:33) Nurturing employees into unicorn founders (12:24) Solving hard problems with Addepar (13:53) Always “Being on” (15:32) How to spot opportunities for new businesses (21:10) How Epirus landed a military defense contract (27:09) Getting hits in hard domains (28:24) Business Idea: AI-powered Estate Planning (29:19) Business Idea: Business Process Outsourcing for local government (30:58) Big swings vs. base hits (31:49) Idea vs. execution (32:38) Focus vs. diversity of thought/attention (33:33) Insights from Elon's inner circle (35:36) Joe Lonsdale's unfair advantages (38:48) How to invest your time to make your first $1M (40:40) Working on an A+ problem as an intern at PayPal (43:15) Be within 2 standard deviations of top talent (44:14) Early days at Palantir (46:56) Building a top engineering culture (48:31) Borrowing trust as 21-year old defense contractor (52:22) Peter Thiel's biggest contrarian bet — Links: • Joe's Twitter - https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale • Joe's blog - https://blog.joelonsdale.com/ • Addepar - https://addepar.com/  • Palantir - https://www.palantir.com/ • Epirus- https://www.epirusinc.com/ • OpenGov - https://opengov.com/ • Prologis - https://www.prologis.com/ • Lessons from Peter Thiel - https://joelonsdale.com/lessons-peter-thiel/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it's called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

My First Million Key Takeaways  You must have “one reason” to found a start-up; if you have five or six reasons to start it, then you have not yet found the single, very strong reason Hire for raw IQ and hard work, then constantly iterate on solving the single problem at hand Using your mind to its fullest capacity is the ultimate pleasure The most successful people in the world are extremely focused and allow their focused efforts to compound over time It is easy to identify conceptual gaps; developing the path toward closing that gap is the challenging part You must figure out 1) what you are passionate about and 2) what you are good at How you invest your time is more important than how you invest your capital, if wealth creation is your goal Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgEpisode 578: Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) sits down with Joe Lonsdale ( https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale ) to talk about how he leveraged one internship at PayPal into one billion dollar success after another.  Want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5 — Show Notes: (0:00) The One Reason strategy (3:18) Learning Global Macro Finance from Peter Thiel (5:35) Taking multi-million dollar bets at 4:30am (8:43) Hire for raw IQ over expertise (10:33) Nurturing employees into unicorn founders (12:24) Solving hard problems with Addepar (13:53) Always “Being on” (15:32) How to spot opportunities for new businesses (21:10) How Epirus landed a military defense contract (27:09) Getting hits in hard domains (28:24) Business Idea: AI-powered Estate Planning (29:19) Business Idea: Business Process Outsourcing for local government (30:58) Big swings vs. base hits (31:49) Idea vs. execution (32:38) Focus vs. diversity of thought/attention (33:33) Insights from Elon's inner circle (35:36) Joe Lonsdale's unfair advantages (38:48) How to invest your time to make your first $1M (40:40) Working on an A+ problem as an intern at PayPal (43:15) Be within 2 standard deviations of top talent (44:14) Early days at Palantir (46:56) Building a top engineering culture (48:31) Borrowing trust as 21-year old defense contractor (52:22) Peter Thiel's biggest contrarian bet — Links: • Joe's Twitter - https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale • Joe's blog - https://blog.joelonsdale.com/ • Addepar - https://addepar.com/  • Palantir - https://www.palantir.com/ • Epirus- https://www.epirusinc.com/ • OpenGov - https://opengov.com/ • Prologis - https://www.prologis.com/ • Lessons from Peter Thiel - https://joelonsdale.com/lessons-peter-thiel/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it's called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

My First Million Key Takeaways  You must have “one reason” to found a start-up; if you have five or six reasons to start it, then you have not yet found the single, very strong reason Hire for raw IQ and hard work, then constantly iterate on solving the single problem at hand Using your mind to its fullest capacity is the ultimate pleasure The most successful people in the world are extremely focused and allow their focused efforts to compound over time It is easy to identify conceptual gaps; developing the path toward closing that gap is the challenging part You must figure out 1) what you are passionate about and 2) what you are good at How you invest your time is more important than how you invest your capital, if wealth creation is your goal Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgEpisode 578: Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) sits down with Joe Lonsdale ( https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale ) to talk about how he leveraged one internship at PayPal into one billion dollar success after another.  Want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5 — Show Notes: (0:00) The One Reason strategy (3:18) Learning Global Macro Finance from Peter Thiel (5:35) Taking multi-million dollar bets at 4:30am (8:43) Hire for raw IQ over expertise (10:33) Nurturing employees into unicorn founders (12:24) Solving hard problems with Addepar (13:53) Always “Being on” (15:32) How to spot opportunities for new businesses (21:10) How Epirus landed a military defense contract (27:09) Getting hits in hard domains (28:24) Business Idea: AI-powered Estate Planning (29:19) Business Idea: Business Process Outsourcing for local government (30:58) Big swings vs. base hits (31:49) Idea vs. execution (32:38) Focus vs. diversity of thought/attention (33:33) Insights from Elon's inner circle (35:36) Joe Lonsdale's unfair advantages (38:48) How to invest your time to make your first $1M (40:40) Working on an A+ problem as an intern at PayPal (43:15) Be within 2 standard deviations of top talent (44:14) Early days at Palantir (46:56) Building a top engineering culture (48:31) Borrowing trust as 21-year old defense contractor (52:22) Peter Thiel's biggest contrarian bet — Links: • Joe's Twitter - https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale • Joe's blog - https://blog.joelonsdale.com/ • Addepar - https://addepar.com/  • Palantir - https://www.palantir.com/ • Epirus- https://www.epirusinc.com/ • OpenGov - https://opengov.com/ • Prologis - https://www.prologis.com/ • Lessons from Peter Thiel - https://joelonsdale.com/lessons-peter-thiel/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it's called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Episode 578: Shaan Puri ( https://twitter.com/ShaanVP ) sits down with Joe Lonsdale ( https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale ) to talk about how he leveraged one internship at PayPal into one billion dollar success after another. Today Joe is Managing Partner of 8VC and an early investor in Anduril. Want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Head to the MFM YouTube Channel and subscribe - http://tinyurl.com/5n7ftsy5 — Show Notes: (0:00) The One Reason strategy (3:18) Learning Global Macro Finance from Peter Thiel (5:35) Taking multi-million dollar bets at 4:30am (8:43) Hire for raw IQ over expertise (10:33) Nurturing employees into unicorn founders (12:24) Solving hard problems with Addepar (13:53) Always “Being on” (15:32) How to spot opportunities for new businesses (21:10) How Epirus landed a military defense contract (27:09) Getting hits in hard domains (28:24) Business Idea: AI-powered Estate Planning (29:19) Business Idea: Business Process Outsourcing for local government (30:58) Big swings vs. base hits (31:49) Idea vs. execution (32:38) Focus vs. diversity of thought/attention (33:33) Insights from Elon's inner circle (35:36) Joe Lonsdale's unfair advantages (38:48) How to invest your time to make your first $1M (40:40) Working on an A+ problem as an intern at PayPal (43:15) Be within 2 standard deviations of top talent (44:14) Early days at Palantir (46:56) Building a top engineering culture (48:31) Borrowing trust as 21-year old defense contractor (52:22) Peter Thiel's biggest contrarian bet — Links: • Joe's Twitter - https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale • Joe's blog - https://blog.joelonsdale.com/ • Joe's podcast - https://www.americanoptimist.com/ • 8VC - https://www.8vc.com/ • Addepar - https://addepar.com/  • Palantir - https://www.palantir.com/ • Epirus- https://www.epirusinc.com/ • OpenGov - https://opengov.com/ • Prologis - https://www.prologis.com/ • Lessons from Peter Thiel - https://joelonsdale.com/lessons-peter-thiel/ — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it's called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Miguel Armaza sits down with I sit down with Eric Poirier, CEO of Addepar, a global tech and data company with over $5 trillion in client assets managed on the platform and clients in more than 45 countries. Founded in 2009 by Joe Lonsdale and Jason Mirra, Addepar has raised half a billion dollars from a long list of great investors.Eric has been CEO of Addepar since 2013 and prior to that, he was amongst the first 20 employees at Palantir.We discuss:Lessons for entrepreneurs on the importance of making bold technology bets early on, despite its risksHow AI and machine learning are helping solve problems in the investment management worldTransitioning from software engineer to company CEO, and overcoming a big mindset shiftAddepar's go-to-market strategyLessons learned from working with Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale… and a lot more!Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Joe Lonsdale is the Founder and Managing Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing over $6 billion in capital. In 2003, he founded Palantir Technologies. Since then, he has founded over a dozen companies, including Addepar, a wealth management platform helping investors manage over $5 trillion, and OpenGov, recently sold for $1.8BN. In Today's Episode with Joe Lonsdale We Discuss: The Making of a Multi-Unicorn Founder: What was Joe like as a child? How would his parents and teachers have described him? What does Joe know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career? How does Joe view the importance of luck and skill in success? America's New Dawn: Navigating Frontiers and Accountability What did Joe mean by describing America as a “frontier nation”? How does Joe contrast America's frontiers with Europe's social safety nets? How does Joe propose restoring America using the “scalpel over the sledgehammer” approach? How can America introduce accountability to non-profit institutions? What role do for-profit prisons play? Woke Mind Virus Why does Joe consider the Woke Mind Virus a “Bad Postmodern Religion”? Why does Joe see Elon Musk as a key figure in challenging “woke minds”? Why does Joe believe the education system is a core problem? What needs to change? Is it too late to reverse the current state of “woke mind virus”? TikTok, China, Israel: What does Joe believe is the right solution for TikTok's ownership? To what extent is TikTok a danger to American national security? What does Joe predict will happen to China from here? What needs to change? How does Joe predict the next 24 months for the conflict in Israel and Gaza? Investing Lessons: Wish, Palantir and more What are Joe's biggest takeaways from the failing of Wish? What did Joe learn from the failed project with Lady Gaga? How does Joe reflect on when is the right time to sell? How does Joe reflect on his own relationship to money?

“The room where it happens …No one really knows how the game is playedThe art of the tradeHow the sausage gets madeWe just assume that it happens But no one else is in the room where it happens …When you got skin in the game, you stay in the gameBut you don't get a win unless you play in the game.”Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. These excerpts were in a song by Leslie Odom Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda from Hamilton. But they could also be applied to the conversation Laurence Tosi of WestCap and I had today.Today's show is with someone who has been in the room where it happens. Stories and perspectives shared today were from someone who has helped turn bills into laws in private markets.Laurence Tosi has been part of building foundational technology businesses and companies in capital markets and private markets – from investing in and building Ipreo, iLevel, TMC Bonds, and Tradeweb as an executive at Merrill Lynch where he served as COO of Global Investment Banking and Trading, building Blackstone from 2008-2015 as the CFO, Management & Risk Committee Member, Head of the Tech Innovations Fund, and Blackstone Treasury Solutions Fund, and building and scaling Airbnb as CFO and Head of Payments, Customer Experience, and Corporate Development.At Merrill Lynch and Blackstone, L.T. deployed $500M of capital, returning over $1.6B without taking a loss.He's now building WestCap, a $7.6B growth investing firm that L.T. characterizes as an “operating equity firm” that helps founders and companies scale their businesses at the inflection point in between traditional venture capital and private equity. L.T. and WestCap have leveraged their collective operating knowledge to invest in a number of industry leaders, including two industry defining companies in private markets, iCapital and Addepar. They've also invested in the likes of SIMON, which was acquired by iCapital, GoodLeap, Sharegain, Klarna, Paxos, AccessFintech, Treasury4, Hopper, Avenue One, StubHub, and more.L.T. and I had a fascinating conversation that took us to a number of places. We discussed:Stories from building Blackstone.The deeper meaning behind Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman's comment “scale is our niche” and how “scale begets skill.”Insights L.T. and the Blackstone team had around working with the wealth channel that enabled them to transform how Blackstone and the industry worked with private wealth.Why the realization that at Blackstone, they weren't selling to the end investor but that they were selling to the financial advisor was such a critical insight as they worked with the wealth channel.What it means to transform Blackstone from a firm into a business.Parallels and patterns L.T. took from building and investing in foundation market infrastructure businesses at Merrill Lynch and Blackstone to how they are investing in private markets at WestCap.L.T.'s learnings from a focus on customer experience and simplifying the product at Airbnb.What's the unlock for alternatives that harmonizes the industry?Why consortium is a “bad word” but why standardization will be so critical to the next phase of private markets.Why private equity firms have the best business models in finance.The difference between being in the business of building their business between being in the business of building your business and what L.T. is trying to accomplish at WestCap.Why L.T. believes in the partnership model for alternative asset managers and why he believes that's an enduring model.L.T., thanks so much for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom, experience, and deep industry knowledge from being a pioneer in private markets.

The Network State Podcast ✓ Claim Key Takeaways  The United States of America is the greatest startup in world history As an entrepreneur, your social role is to make profits, but you also need to ensure that socialists do not take over your country “Every founder starts as lead engineer and ends up as Chief Psychologist.” – Balaji There is light in the world and there is darkness; accelerationism want light and the decels want darkness A world of degrowth is a world that is full of war; when the pie is forced to be shrunk, the people are forced to fight because there are less resources availableAcademics do not understand that what matters is how systems and incentives work We must take the frameworks that work in the entrepreneurial world and apply them to other things Make America States Again The darkest of times reveal who is on the side of darkness and who is on the side of the lightRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgJoe Lonsdale is one of the most prominent investors in technology. He's the co-founder of Palantir, 8VC, Addepar, and the Cicero Institute — and one of Balaji's longtime friends. We have fun talking about education, longevity, space, and the little matter of completely reforming all governments with the internet. OUTLINE: 00:00 - How Silicon Valley got expensive 09:18 - Tech founders as philosophers 17:39 - 100% Democracy and .01% Democracy 28:51 - Internet Values vs Western Values 36:05 - How Academics Become Capitalists 46:40 - Red States, Purple States, Foreign States for AI 58:11 - Thoughts on Space, Robotics, Longevity VIDEO YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ny93ZjlR93g SOCIAL https://ciceroinstitute.org https://www.8vc.com https://thenetworkstate.com/podcast https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale https://twitter.com/balajis

The Network State Podcast ✓ Claim Key Takeaways  The United States of America is the greatest startup in world history As an entrepreneur, your social role is to make profits, but you also need to ensure that socialists do not take over your country “Every founder starts as lead engineer and ends up as Chief Psychologist.” – Balaji There is light in the world and there is darkness; accelerationism want light and the decels want darkness A world of degrowth is a world that is full of war; when the pie is forced to be shrunk, the people are forced to fight because there are less resources availableAcademics do not understand that what matters is how systems and incentives work We must take the frameworks that work in the entrepreneurial world and apply them to other things Make America States Again The darkest of times reveal who is on the side of darkness and who is on the side of the lightRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgJoe Lonsdale is one of the most prominent investors in technology. He's the co-founder of Palantir, 8VC, Addepar, and the Cicero Institute — and one of Balaji's longtime friends. We have fun talking about education, longevity, space, and the little matter of completely reforming all governments with the internet. OUTLINE: 00:00 - How Silicon Valley got expensive 09:18 - Tech founders as philosophers 17:39 - 100% Democracy and .01% Democracy 28:51 - Internet Values vs Western Values 36:05 - How Academics Become Capitalists 46:40 - Red States, Purple States, Foreign States for AI 58:11 - Thoughts on Space, Robotics, Longevity VIDEO YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ny93ZjlR93g SOCIAL https://ciceroinstitute.org https://www.8vc.com https://thenetworkstate.com/podcast https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale https://twitter.com/balajis

The Network State Podcast ✓ Claim Key Takeaways  The United States of America is the greatest startup in world history As an entrepreneur, your social role is to make profits, but you also need to ensure that socialists do not take over your country “Every founder starts as lead engineer and ends up as Chief Psychologist.” – Balaji There is light in the world and there is darkness; accelerationism want light and the decels want darkness A world of degrowth is a world that is full of war; when the pie is forced to be shrunk, the people are forced to fight because there are less resources availableAcademics do not understand that what matters is how systems and incentives work We must take the frameworks that work in the entrepreneurial world and apply them to other things Make America States Again The darkest of times reveal who is on the side of darkness and who is on the side of the lightRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.orgJoe Lonsdale is one of the most prominent investors in technology. He's the co-founder of Palantir, 8VC, Addepar, and the Cicero Institute — and one of Balaji's longtime friends. We have fun talking about education, longevity, space, and the little matter of completely reforming all governments with the internet. OUTLINE: 00:00 - How Silicon Valley got expensive 09:18 - Tech founders as philosophers 17:39 - 100% Democracy and .01% Democracy 28:51 - Internet Values vs Western Values 36:05 - How Academics Become Capitalists 46:40 - Red States, Purple States, Foreign States for AI 58:11 - Thoughts on Space, Robotics, Longevity VIDEO YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ny93ZjlR93g SOCIAL https://ciceroinstitute.org https://www.8vc.com https://thenetworkstate.com/podcast https://twitter.com/JTLonsdale https://twitter.com/balajis

The fastest-growing, most resilient RIAs are relying on modern technology to deliver a differentiated experience and keep up with client expectations. Given the significant amount of market turmoil over the past year, having the right technology, data, tools and perspective are more important than ever to navigate volatility and a dynamic risk landscape. Fortunately, Addepar … Read More Read More

Joe Lonsdale is a co-founder of a number of amazing companies, including Palantir, Addepar and OpenGov, and he's a cofounder of the University of Austin. He's also the founder and managing partner of the venture firm 8VC, and he's invested in some incredible companies, including Oculus, Anduril, Wish and Flexport.In this episode of World of DaaS, Auren and Joe engage in a thought-provoking discussion on optimism and pessimism, technological progress, and reforming society at the most basic levels. Joe shares his vision for revolutionizing American healthcare, emphasizing the need to fix a broken system without sacrificing innovation. Auren and Joe also explore the challenges within higher education, unpacking surprising statistics about administrator-to-student ratios and contemplating the evolving nature of meritocracy.As a cofounder of Palantir, Joe has unique insight into the defense industrial complex, and he and Auren delve into the intersection of defense, geopolitics, and technology. Joe makes predictions about the future of defense innovation, and speculates on the emergence of new unicorns in the sector. The episode concludes with a challenging, contrarian take on entrepreneurship, where Lonsdale redefines the qualities required to be a founder and questions some of the conventional wisdom about starting companies. World of DaaS is brought to you by SafeGraph & Flex Capital. For more episodes, visit safegraph.com/podcasts.You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Joe Lonsdale on X at @JTLonsdale. 

The future of tech is 25-person companies powered by AI agents that help us accomplish our larger goals. Imbue is working on building AI agents that reason, code and generally make our lives easier. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with co-founders Kanjun Qiu (CEO) and Josh Albrecht (CTO) to discuss how they define reasoning, the spectrum of specialized and generalized agents, and the path to improved agent performance. Plus, what's behind their $200M Series B fundraise.  Kanjun Qiu is the CEO and co-founder of Imbue. Kanjun is also a partner at angel fund Outset Capital, where she invests in promising pre-seed companies. Previously, Kanjun was the co-founder and CEO of Sourceress, a machine learning recruiting startup backed by YC and DFJ. She was previously Chief of Staff to Drew Houston at Dropbox, where she helped scale the company from 300 employees to 1200. Josh Albrecht is the CTO and co-founder of Imbue. He also invests in other founders via his fund, Outset Capital. He has published machine learning papers as an academic researcher; founded an AI recruiting company that went through YC and a 3D injection molding software company that was acquired; helped build Addepar as an early engineer; and served as a Thiel Fellow mentor. He started programming as a kid and began working professionally as a software engineer in high school.  Show Links:  Kanjun's LinkedIn | Website | Google Scholar Josh's LinkedIn | Website | Google Scholar Imbue raises $200M to build AI systems that can reason and code Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Kanjun | @JoshAlbrecht Show Notes:  (00:00) - Introduction to Imbue (04:55) - The Spectrum of Agent Tasks (08:43) - Specialization and Generalization With Agents (13:03) - Code and Language in AI Agents

Dr. Ashby Monk is the Executive & Research Director of the Stanford Research Initiative on Long-Term Investing. Ashby has studied and advised the largest asset owners in the world for more than twenty years with a particular interest in how to improve outcomes for their beneficiaries and the world. Ash also serves as the Head of Research at Addepar, a fintech company that helps investors make smarter decisions. He has twice appeared on the show – as the 29th guest back in 2017 and again two years ago – and those conversations are replayed in the feed.   Our conversation starts with a recent paper Ashby published called Investor Identity: The Ultimate Driver of Returns. We discuss the descriptors of identity and enabling factors that determine each investor's fingerprint. From there, we dive into technology as an enabler and how technological innovation can improve returns. We then turn to ESG investing and another of Ashby's recent papers, Submergence = Drawdown + Recovery, that discusses the importance of considering the combined drawdown and recovery period in making investment decisions.   Show Notes:   04:37 - Ashby's recent research 07:42 - Institutional investor identity 10:07 - Best practices 11:35 - People, process and information 14:44 - Future of governance 17:03 - Role of technology in the investment office 21:11 - GPS for portfolios and markets 26:25 - Impact of culture on technology 31:03 - Fueling innovation in investment offices 39:43 - Collaboration 43:26 - ESG 50:53 - Additional research insights 59:00 - Closing questions   Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list  Access Transcript with Premium Membership 

In this episode, Bill talks with Ashby Monk, whom he describes as a “rock-star” in the industry. Their intriguing discussion breaks down Ashby's recently co-authored paper the Investor Identity: The Ultimate Driver of Returns. This one is a real “behind the curtain” peek at the argument being made about institutional investors' “identity” being the leading driver of returns within a portfolio. Listen in!

Jake Medwell and Joe Lynch discuss the 8VC story. Jake is a Founding Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Austin, TX with offices in San Francisco, New York City, and Boston. About Jake Medwell Jake is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has spent his life building and scaling companies. He is a co-founder and partner at 8VC, a 6B AUM venture capital fund based in Austin, TX. 8VC is the leading logistics tech investing firm and has led deals in Project 44, Deliverr, Platform Science, FlexPort, FreightWaves, Motive, Trackonomy, The Boring Company, Outrider, and others. Prior to 8VC, he founded Humin (Acq. Tinder/IAC), a consumer mobile software company where he built the engineering team and led growth. Jake also co-founded The Kairos Society, where he sits on the Board of Directors. While in college, he founded Solé Bicycle Co. (Acq.) and grew it into an industry leader. Most recently he co-founded Operation Masks with partner Drew Oetting to help bring PPE to medical workers on the front line of the fight against COVID-19. Jake serves as an advisor and board member to a wide range of companies and nonprofits. Jake graduated from the University of Southern California in 2011, where he has been lecturing on entrepreneurship and technology for the last decade. About 8VC 8VC is an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Austin, TX with offices in San Francisco, New York City, and Boston. 8VC partner with entrepreneurs to build technology platforms that create long-term economic and societal value. 8VC was built by a team of entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, and philosophers who value operating experience and action, as well as new ideas and creative theories. The partners have a proven track-record as founders of successful companies including Palantir, Addepar, Affinity and OpenGov, among others. The firm invest primarily in smart enterprise platforms across industries including financial services, healthcare, logistics and others, and Bio-IT.  For more information, please visit https://8vc.com Key Takeaways: The 8VC Story Jake Medwell is a Founding Partner at 8VC, a technology and life sciences investment firm that builds and invests in the world's most ambitious companies. In the podcast interview, Joe and Jake discussed the state of the logistics industry and the founding of 8VC. 8VC is an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Austin, TX with offices in San Francisco, New York City, and Boston. Jake and 8VC team are knowledgeable and very active in the logistics space. 8VC has invested in platforms that help logistics companies become modern data enterprises. Key applications include streamlining resources, fleet operations, and finance; leveraging telematics for better performance, and, in special cases, building ambitious, next-generation forms of transportation. 8VC portfolio companies in the logistics space include: Deliverr, Flexport, Project44, Baton, HDVI, FreightWaves, Loop, Vector, The Boring Company, Platform Science and many more. Learn More Abou The 8VC Story Jake on LinkedIn 8VC on LinkedIn 8VC Interviews conductedwith 8VC: The HDVI Story with Chuck Wallace Ocean Freight Survival Guide with Nathan Strang Avoiding Port Congestion with Neel Jones Shah Eliminating Detention and Delighting Drivers with Erik Malin Will Chu and the Vector Story The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube  

How did our guest Joe Lonsdale go from high school chess champion to super successful VC? His diverse network and a wide variety of interests to start. Joe has been a part of founding more than a dozen mission-driven companies, including Palantir, Addepar, OpenGov, Affinity, Epirus, Resilience Bio, and 8VC. In today's episode, Joe talks about how he's been able to build such strong teams over the years and why even in a remote world, human connection is key to building a strong foundation.Press play to hear Joe's thoughts on…Developing a Company Culture“You have to have a really clear vision of where the company's going. You have to have really clear values that people share and they talk about, that they put down together. And a good way to talk about values is to talk about scenarios, things that could come up and how you deal with them.”Hiring Great Engineers“Elon Musk says, ‘Cost of cost is much less than the cost of time.' So great engineers figure out how to like manage the scarcity of time and to get things done very quickly as well, to attract others and to know how to measure other talents and use other talents and inspire other talents”Bring in the Adults“When you're building these companies, you want the highest IQ, brightest, hardest work, working innovators early on to kinda iterate toward prototypes and customers, fresh product market fit and really get there. And then once things are working a certain way, you still wanna have the innovative part of the business and you wanna nurture it, but you also wanna bring in adults who know how to run processes.”

As a financial advisor, the primary goal is to provide outstanding client experiences. As consumers become more sophisticated, they expect a seamless, personalized experience across all channels, including in-person, online, and mobile. How can wealth management firms integrate disparate technologies and data to create a seamless, omnichannel experience for clients and advisors? In this episode, Ali and Sanjeev talk with Hunter Flynn, Senior Sales Director at Addepar. In their conversation, Hunter shares his broad insights on how firms utilize their CRMs to create a better wealth experience. Hunter also talks about his three areas of focus when speaking with clients, the importance of incorporating technology into workflows and processes, and the best practices he has seen among financial services companies. Key Takeaways [00:52] - An overview of Hunter's professional career. [02:19] - Hunter's three areas of focus when speaking with clients. [04:06] - How advisor experiences are evolving. [07:46] - The importance of incorporating technology into workflows and processes. [10:41] - Hunter's thoughts on artificial intelligence in fintech. [17:05] - The best practices Hunter has seen among financial services companies. [24:13] - What the future holds for Addepar. Quotes [09:08] - "As complexities grow, we're always going to need technology that can overlay across an organization and simplify those workflows and make people more efficient." ~ Hunter Flynn [16:22] - "CRM is that engagement layer that allows you to create the preferences and give insight into those end clients. It's all about the data you're collecting and what you are doing with that data. If you can organize it, make sense of it, and act on it, that's where you differentiate your firm from others." ~ Hunter Flynn [18:02] - "When organizations start to think about what that next stage and evolution looks like for their firm, they're looking for technology and partners on which they can build a resilient business and continue to innovate across every aspect of their business." ~ Hunter Flynn  Links  Hunter Flynn on LinkedIn Addepar Salesforce Connect with our hosts Ali McCarthy Sanjeev Kumar Skience Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts

Logan Allin is the Managing Partner & Founder of Fin Capital where he is responsible for management of the firm, sourcing/making investments, maintaining board responsibilities, and adding operating value across the portfolio. Logan was most recently Vice President of SoFi Ventures, where he was tasked with investing in and working hands-on with FinTech companies, as well as running SoFi's accelerator and corporate development efforts. Prior to SoFi, Logan was focused on entrepreneurial advisory and operating roles at Light Street Capital, Formation 8/Group, Zanbato, Addepar, Point Finance, Price, BridgeAthletic and ONEHOPE. Prior to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Logan was a corporate executive, as Head of Strategy, overseeing the enterprise FinTech strategy and execution, while serving as a member of the Operating Committee at Atlantic Trust, the Private Wealth Management arm of Invesco (and now CIBC). Previously, Logan was a Senior Vice President in City National Bank's wealth management division (now part of RBC) where he led the technology strategy, open product architecture platform, and other strategic initiatives. Logan spent his earlier career in management consulting, in leadership positions at PwC, EMC, and Capgemini, focused exclusively on the intersection of Financial Services and technology. Logan earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in public policy and political science from Duke University and a M.S. in Management from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business where he was a Sloan Fellow.

Adam is the co-founder and CEO of Boom & Bucket. Adam has built 3 enterprise B2B businesses with a combined value of more than $10B as an early exec and operations leader. Prior to Boom & Bucket he was the COO at Bolt where he has partnered with visionary founders to lead 40x revenue and 11x headcount growth (from 15 to 175) over three years. Prior to Bolt he started, built, and sold an HR tech company. Early in his career he was the first employee at Addepar and partnered with the founders from seed to post Series C. Adam is a leader for high-growth environments with significant ambiguity, shifting roles, and changing priorities. He has a strong ability to synthesize complex business challenges and build operational and action-focused plans. He enjoys all aspects of business operations from sales and marketing to human resources and finance but is particularly passionate about recruiting and building teams.Connect with Behind Company Lines and HireOtter Website Facebook Twitter LinkedIn:Behind Company LinesHireOtter Instagram Buzzsprout

Kevin Zhang is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, a Venture Capital firm with over $4B in AUM. Previously Kevin attended Columbia University and is currently an advisor at Almarowks, Columbia's startup accelerator.  Before joining Bain, Kevin led business development at Addepar was the Head of Product at Fundera (company by NerdWallet), and was a VC at Bowery Capital. Twitter of Host: @mbitpodcastTwitter of Guest: @kevinzhang

A few weeks ago, Alt Goes Mainstream went to the capitol of capital for alts, AltsLA by CAIA, the largest alternative investments conference on the West Coast, to speak with industry leaders about how they are allocating capital.Alt Goes Mainstream partnered with CAIA, the premier educational organization for the alts space, to have topical conversations on the world of alternative investments.With the backdrop of an uncertain macro environment and changing investor preferences that have resulted in a 60/40 portfolio no longer, top allocators in the industry discussed how alts are becoming an increasingly important part of investors' portfolios.Over the next few days, we will bring you CAIA shorts: live interviews with the people who are making the decisions for many of the world's largest investment institutions. Apologies in advance if there is background noise on the podcasts, but it's because we recorded live and unfiltered from the AltsLA conference.There were 10 great podcasts with such rich conversations from some of the world's smartest investors, so we will release these episodes in 4 parts.Today's episode (6/10) in this CAIA mini-series is with Ashby Monk, Head of Research at Addepar. Ashby and I talk about how he's helping the world's biggest investors make smarter investment decisions and create a positive impact at the same time.

Thursday, March 3, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University   The Hoover Institution Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group invites you to a virtual discussion on Antitrust & the Future of Big Tech on Thursday, March 3, 2022 from 9:00 am - 10:00 am Pacific. It's no secret that the Biden administration and 117th Congress are targeting Big Tech. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are pursuing legislation that targets the market power amassed by companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Leaders at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division–key enforcement agencies–are also aligned against Big Tech; the FTC is actively prosecuting a lawsuit against Facebook for monopoly behavior.  Joe Lonsdale, Managing Partner at 8VC and Co-Founder of Palantir, joins us virtually to discuss how antitrust law may impact high-tech firms' size and sway. He recently proposed in a February 7, 2022 Wall Street Journal article that Amazon should be split into two businesses – AWS and Amazon.com – not because big is “bad,” but because Amazon's ability to undercut its competitors with below-cost prices may stifle the scope and speed of innovation in areas like logistics. We hope you will join us to learn more about what antitrust advocates are getting right, what they are getting wrong, and the potential impact of breaking up Big Tech. ABOUT THE SPEAKER Joe Lonsdale is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He is the managing partner at 8VC, a US-based venture capital firm that manages several billion dollars in committed capital. He was an early institutional investor in many notable technology start-ups including Oculus (acq.FB), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Oscar (NYSE: OSCR), Illumio, Anduril, Wish (NASDAQ: WISH), JoyTunes, Blend (NASDAQ: BLND), Flexport, Joby Aviation (NASDAQ: JOBY), Cityblock, Orca Bio, Qualia, Synthego, RelateIQ (acq.CRM), and many others. Joe has been on the Forbes 100 Midas List since 2016 and was the youngest member included in 2016 and 2017, and ranked 18th in the world last year. Before focusing on institutional investing, Joe co-founded Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) a global software company known for its work in defense and other industries, as well as for providing the platform to run the COVID-19 common operating picture for key decision makers in over 35 countries. After Palantir, he founded and remains as Chairman of both Addepar, which has over $3 trillion USD managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which provides software for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies. More recently, he is also a co-founder of Affinity, Epirus, Resilience Bio, and other mission-driven technology companies, which he continues to create with his team out of the 8VC Build program. Joe began his career as an early executive at Clarium Capital, which he helped grow into a large global macro hedge fund. He also worked with PayPal while he attended Stanford. PARTICIPANTS Bradley Body, Mark Brilliant, Tom Gilligan, Taylor McLamb, Max Meyer, Elena Pastorino, Meghana Reddy, Manny Rincon-Cruz, Marie-Christine Slakey, John Taylor, Amy Zegart  

Joe Lonsdale is the managing partner at 8VC, a US-based venture capital firm which manages $5 billion in committed capital. He was an early institutional investor in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus (acq.Facebook), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Oscar (NYSE: OSCR), Illumio, Anduril,, Flexport, Joby Aviation, and Orca Bio. Joe has been on the Forbes 100 Midas List since 2016 and was the youngest member included in 2016 and 2017. Before focusing on institutional investing, Joe co-founded Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) a global software company known for its work in defense and other industries. After Palantir, he founded and remains as Chairman of both Addepar, which has over $2.5 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which provides software for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies. More recently, he is also a co-founder of Affinity, Epirus, Esper, Swiftscale Bio, Resilience Bio. Joe began his career as an early executive at Clarium Capital and also worked with PayPal while he attended Stanford.

What makes some people react positively to a certain message while others absolutely hate it? The answer is simple: that message is relevant to them. In this episode of INSIDE Inside Sales, Darryl teams up with Ryan Scalera, rockstar branding specialist and Head of Business Development at Addepar, to uncover the secret sauce behind crafting winning sales messaging. Darryl and Ryan share their tips on creating content that will get your prospects to respond, infusing your outreach with relevance, and why relevance is the next-level personalization. https://info.vanillasoft.com/subscribe-to-the-inside-inside-sales-podcast (Subscribe now and learn how to strike the right chord with your buyers and align what they need with what you sell.)

Rebalancing is one of the most important tasks performed by financial advisors. But in an increasingly complex world where markets are moving faster, clients are not the only ones who need guidance. Advisors need solutions to overcome roadblocks that impede their ability to provide the best service to their clients. With the right technology, advisory firms are able to reduce the time needed to rebalance portfolios, as well as manage tax and risk more effectively. In today's episode, Jack talks with Damon Deru, CEO and Founder at AdvisorPeak and Senior Product Director at Addepar. Damon started his career as a registered investment advisor where he manually rebalanced and traded hundreds of clients' portfolios using Excel spreadsheets. Frustrated by the lack of affordable and intuitive options in the market, it was in this role where the idea of a customizable robust portfolio rebalancing system was born. Damon relinquished his role as an investment advisor to focus his efforts on building the most innovative rebalancing software for the financial services industry. Damon talks with Jack about the evolution of AdvisorPeak, how rebalancing software can be a powerful tool for managing client portfolios, and why it is highly beneficial to the firm, their advisors, and their clients. Key Takeaways [01:17] - What inspired Damon to create AdvisorPeak. [04:10] - The reasons for Addepar's acquisition of AdvisorPeak. [05:35] - What separates AdvisorPeak from other rebalancing software providers. [7:46] - The complexity of managing portfolios. [10:52] - How the partnership between LifeYield and AdvisorPeak can benefit advisors. [14:41] - Managing portfolios in a tax-smart and risk-smart way. [16:16] - Asset allocation vs tax-loss harvesting. [17:40] - Where the world is going for AdvisoryPeak. [20:54 ] - Damon's key takeaways. [23:00] - Interesting things Damon does outside his job. Quotes [9:14] - "This is something the software does very well. Once you build in all the rules and the analysis, it can calculate all the information very quickly. A click of a button can rebalance hundreds or thousands of accounts in a matter of a few minutes." - Damon Deru [21:31] - "If you're not using rebalancing software, you're also probably not looking at things from a unified managed household perspective as well. This is real-world savings that you can bring to your clients by looking at things on a household basis and trading tax efficiently." - Damon Deru Links  Damon Deru on LinkedIn AdvisorPeak Addepar iRebal Portfolio Rebalancing TD Ameritrade Envestnet |Tamarac RedBlack Software Utah Valley University BlackRock Alladin Riskalyze Brian Ross FIX Flyer's Connect with our hosts LifeYield Jack Sharry on LinkedIn Jack Sharry on Twitter Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify LinkedIn Twitter Facebook

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Peter Bruce Clark, Partner at Social Impact Capital.Headquartered in New York, New York, Social Impact Capital specializes in impact investing, which they define as investments that can deliver top decile returns in addition to a positive social impact. They focus on the "essentials of human need"​ — energy, water, food, health, environment, education, housing, access to capital, and social justice.Having co-built the firm from early inception, Peter now oversees the development and management of key venture capital relationships, partnerships, advisors, limited partners, and portfolio support. Prior to joining the firm, Peter was Head of Business Development at Real Capital Innovation (acquired by Addepar), an investment technology platform backed by 8VC and Soros Fund Management. Peter started his career in Silicon Valley by creating an early-stage venture capital firm focused on high-impact areas of AI application, and institutional investor strategy consultancy, Kalytix Partners (acquired).In his spare time, Peter is an advisor to global funds focused on the environment, health, and sustainability, such as Tyson & Blake in Sweden, Extantia in Berlin, Andon Okapi in Africa, and Brace VC in Greece. Peter is also an active angel investor in over 20 global impact startups. In addition to his work, Peter is a volunteering Ambassador to the Rockefeller family's BankFWD initiative, which is focused on climate justice in global banking, and a Counsel Member of the Saïd' family's Toucan Project, which cultivates future leaders from across the world. He is also a member of Rebalance VC, Impact Capital Managers, TTI, and GBx. Peter has an MPhil in Business Administration and Finance from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and a first-class honors BA in English and Critical Theory from Queen Mary, University of London.Peter advises investors and startups, discusses the state of impact investing, and some of the changes he thinks we will see in the next 12-24 months. You can visit Social Impact Capital at , via LinkedIn at , and via Twitter at .  Peter can be contacted via email at , via LinkedIn at , and via Twitter at .   ____________________________________________________________________ For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at:    Check out our other podcasts here:   For Investors check out:   For Startups check out:   For eGuides check out:   For upcoming Events, check out    For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group    Please , share, and leave a review. Music courtesy of .

First Jason covers the $19M Bored Ape Yacht Club bid on Sotheby's & the Loot NFT collection launched by a Vine co-founder (1:42), and briefly covers Tether being banned from Canadian exchanges (11:07). Then serial founder and investor Joe Lonsdale joins (19:53) to discuss his companies (Palantir, Addepar, OpenGov), his new podcast "American Optimist," what regulations need to be fixed in the US, China's bold moves & more.

First Jason covers the $19M Bored Ape Yacht Club bid on Sotheby's & the Loot NFT collection launched by a Vine co-founder (1:42), and briefly covers Tether being banned from Canadian exchanges (11:07). Then serial founder and investor Joe Lonsdale joins (19:53) to discuss his companies (Palantir, Addepar, OpenGov), his new podcast "American Optimist," what regulations need to be fixed in the US, China's bold moves & more.

The number one problem ultra high net worth families face is finding a resource that helps them have a complete view of their wealth as a family, regardless of where the assets are managed or by whom they are managed by. That's why SineCera Capital enlisted Addepar to help solve this problem. In this episode, … Continue reading The One Question Every Family Asks Me — With Dan Golosovker (Ep. 7) →

Ayaan asks Joe Lonsdale if we should rebuild or reform failing institutions. They also discuss Joe growing up in Silicon Valley, tech and the media, and whether or not the word “nerd” is still a derogatory term. Joe Lonsdale is the managing partner at 8VC, a US-based venture capital firm which manages several billion dollars in committed capital. He was an early institutional investor in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus, Joby Aviation, and Guardant Health. He has been on the Forbes 100 Midas List since 2016 and was the youngest member included in 2016 and 2017. Before focusing on institutional investing, Joe co-founded Palantir, a global software company known for its work in defense and other industries, as well as for providing the platform to run the COVID-19 common operating picture for key decision makers in over 35 countries. After Palantir, he founded and remains as Chairman of both Addepar, which has over $2.5 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which provides software for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies. More recently, he is also a co-founder of Affinity, Epirus, Esper, Swiftscale Bio, Resilience Bio, and other mission-driven technology companies, which he continues to create with his team out of the 8VC Build program. Follow him on Twitter @JTLonsdale. Follow Ayaan on Twitter @ayaan and subscribe to her website at ayaanhirsiali.com.

Roger Dickey is the Co-Founder of MADE. Roger is a serial entrepreneur & active angel investor based in San Francisco. Roger's first company was an AirBnB for tutoring started in Austin in 2006.He entered the games industry in 2007 with a Facebook app startup, launching 19 apps with the largest generating 300M+ page views per month. After an acquisition by Zynga, Roger went on to found Mafia Wars (100M users), FishVille (35M users), and 5 other titles in his 3 years there. Roger served as an international product team advisor for Zynga helping the company grow its games in India, Japan, and China. Since leaving Zynga, Roger has launched Gigster, a marketplace for software development services. Alongside his work at Zynga, Roger began advising & investing in bay-area startups in 2010. His investments include Docker, Addepar, iCracked, OpenGov, ClassDojo, and Wanelo. Advisory roles include Formation 8, Nest, OpenDoor, and The Thiel Fellowship. In this episode, we talked about: Made Renovation and how it serves people Made Renovation's satisfied customers Roger's team and system Their all-in-one renovation system Overcoming market risks His career as a CEO and Co-founder in Gigster What drove Roger to start Gigster Founding Mafia Wars

Natalie Sunderland believes the primary job of a marketer is to create growth. It's a simple but powerful conviction that's helped her land and thrive in high-impact roles throughout her career at some of the largest, most venerable brands in the Financial Services industry. In her talk with Jesse, Natalie describes her lifelong journey as a marketer that began with producing public television programs in her native Ontario. She describes the experience of leading legendary product teams at American Express, the challenges of re-building Citigroup's brand after the Great Recession, and the strenuous and unexpected role of leading Castlight Health to its IPO in 2014. Ultimately, she leaves us with a look at the changing role of the CMO as businesses continue to build and re-center their brands around consumer experiences.Guest BioNatalie Sunderland is the global CMO of Addepar, a leading fintech platform for wealth management. She is a noted enterprise SaaS marketer with a track record of building iconic brands, creating new categories and accelerating growth. Prior to joining Addepar, she served as Vice President of Marketing at A.I. leader Qventus as well as Castlight Health, leading both companies through periods of hyper-growth. Prior to that, she held leadership roles at American Express, Citigroup, and Ameriprise Financial. Natalie is from Canada and holds a degree from Queen's University.Helpful LinksAddepar's websiteNatalie's appearance on Fintech Impact podcastNatalie on LinkedIn

Bob is VP at Addepar, and in charge of their engineering function. As we look to a hybrid working-environment, Bob shares his thoughts on how this might work and the considerations an organisation needs to make, as well as thinking about how much we're asking our people to do.

How to help wealth managers manage client assets in various asset classes and spread around different institutions? Alastair Cairns, Addepar's Head of Insights and Marketplace, explains how Addepar has been serving many wealth managers in the US and abroad to provide a seamless client experience in the sector ripe for disruption.

Will Chu and the Vector Story Joe Lynch and Will Chu discuss Will’s story and the story of his company, Vector. Will is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vector, a firm that is digitizing the pickup and delivery process. About Will Chu Will Chu is a Co-founder and CEO of Vector, a logistics technology company that enables seamless collaboration by all parties in a shipment’s lifecycle. From shipper to carrier to consignee, Vector’s end-to-end solution digitally captures all workflows to facilitate contactless pickups and deliveries. Prior to co-founding Vector, Will helped start Addepar, a leading wealth management platform that specializes in data aggregation and analytics. Will earned a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. About Vector Vector is a mobile-first workflow and transportation management platform for shippers, logistics brokers, and carriers. Vector works with transportation management systems and makes them more powerful by enabling mobile workflows for drivers and automating the billing process. Vector has partnered with the leaders in the telematics industry. Their solution runs on their platforms to provide best-in-class driver experiences. Vector integrates with your existing workflows to provide document capture. Vector’s LoadDocs product helps companies reduce operational friction and increase productivity by streamlining workflows with electronic forms and best-in-class document capture. Learn More About Will Chu and the Vector Story Vector Will Chu Other Inside the Founder Studio Interviews Nicole Glenn and the Candor Expedite Story Jason Traff and the Shipwell Story Greg Price and the Shipwell Story Kevin Nolan and the Nolan Transportation Group Story The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn

Josh Albrecht is the co-founder and CTO of Generally Intelligent, an independent research lab investigating the fundamentals of learning across humans and machines. Previously, he was the lead data architect at Addepar, CTO of CloudFab, and CTO of Sourceress, which Generally Intelligent is a pivot from. Learn more about Josh: http://joshalbrecht.com/ (http://joshalbrecht.com/) http://generallyintelligent.ai/ (http://generallyintelligent.ai/) Every Thursday I send out the most useful things I've learned, curated specifically for the busy machine learning engineer. Sign up here: https://www.cyou.ai/newsletter (https://www.cyou.ai/newsletter) Follow Charlie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharlieYouAI (https://twitter.com/CharlieYouAI) Subscribe to ML Engineered: https://mlengineered.com/listen (https://mlengineered.com/listen) Comments? Questions? Submit them here: http://bit.ly/mle-survey (http://bit.ly/mle-survey) Take the Giving What We Can Pledge: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ (https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/) Timestamps: 02:15 Introducing Josh Albrecht 03:30 How Josh got started in computer science 06:35 Josh's first two startup attempts 09:15 The tech behind Sourceress, an AI recruiting platform 16:10 Pivoting from Sourceress to Generally Intelligent, an AI research lab 23:50 How Josh defines "general intelligence" 28:35 Why Josh thinks self-supervised learning is the current most promising research area 36:15 Generally Intelligent's immediate research roadmap: BYOL, simulated environments 59:20 How Josh thinks about creating an optimal research environment 01:11:35 The "why" behind starting an independent research lab 01:13:30 AI alignment 01:17:00 Rapid fire questions Links: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.07733 (Bootstrap your own latent: A new approach to self-supervised Learning) https://generallyintelligent.ai/understanding-self-supervised-contrastive-learning.html (Understanding self-supervised and contrastive learning with "Bootstrap Your Own Latent" (BYOL)) https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.10241 (BYOL works even without batch statistics) https://open.spotify.com/show/1hikWa5LWDQJwXtz5LoeVn (Generally Intelligent Podcast) https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.03896 (Consequences of Misaligned AI) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep (Why We Sleep) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26312997-peak (Peak)

Joe Lonsdale wants to build an experimental tech Beta City on the outskirts of Austin with transportation tunnels, autonomous vehicles, robots, flying drones, smart buildings, and all the latest technology applications. Lonsdale is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, who recently moved 8VC, his investment firm, and The Cicero Institute, a public policy think tank, to Austin from San Francisco. The project would rival Neom, the revolutionary $500 billion new city that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is building in the desert bordering the Red Sea. That project is slated to be complete by 2025 and will include drones, robots, artificial rain, holographic teachers and more, according to plans obtained and reported on by the Wall Street Journal. Lonsdale, the Co-Founder of Palantir, Addepar, OpenGov, Affinity, Esper, is also on the board of The Boring Company, founded by Elon Musk. The Boring Company recently bought a building in Pflugerville, according to the Austin American Statesman. Lonsdale plans to help solve Austin’s transportation problems using technology and tunnels built by The Boring Company. Lonsdale plans to do that project and the Beta City with a little help from his friends, which include Musk, who recently moved to Texas. 

You roll out this fantastic new talk track… and only 2 people use it. You can't get discouraged or offended. You have to cheerlead for their success. In this episode of the Sales Engagement podcast, I had a chance to talk with Jamin Fochtman, Head of Sales Enablement at Addepar, about sales enablement. Jamin told me about: The critical skills of a sales enablement professional Some hurdles to implementing change His favorite technology & how he uses it for coaching For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.

Mark is delighted to welcome “perhaps the youngest person to have ever earned the appellation ‘a legend’” to the podcast today. Joe Lonsdale truly is a legend in the fields of business, philanthropy, and public policy, and was the youngest member of the Forbes ‘100 Midas List’ in 2016 and 2017. As an investor in, and founder of, numerous businesses, Joe has found great success with such companies as Wish, OpenGov, 8VC, and Addepar, to name just a few. The passage he has chosen to discuss with Mark today is Deuteronomy 32. Joe starts off by summarizing the passage, sharing why he chose it, and highlighting the notion of accepting blame that is found within it. He then goes on to discuss his experiences with both failure and blame, how self-criticism is needed now more than ever in society, and the discipline and framework that chess has taught him. Joe also offers his advice on what should be passed on to children, the current lack of gratefulness that he observes in his own generation, and the importance of criticism and how it is delivered. He concludes the episode with the lessons he has learned about humankind and his advice for young parents. Joe’s objective observations about his own failures are inspiring, especially considering the vast amount of success he has achieved in his life, and the lessons he derives from this prophetic passage, so very relevant to society today, reinforce yet again the role of the Torah as an eternal guidebook for us all. Episode Highlights: · Joe’s summary of the passage and why he chose it · Accepting blame and striving to do better · Joe’s experience with failures and blame · Avoiding Moses’ prophetic warning · Accepting blame in the world these days · What Joe has learned from playing chess · His perspective on the inheritance to pass on to children, and the current lack of gratefulness for American core values among those born in the 80’s and 90’s · The importance of criticism and how it is delivered · The things about humankind that Joe has learned · His message to young parents Quotes: “This is the last speech that Moses gives the people before they enter Israel.” “When things are not going well, I think the first thing you should do is look at what you’ve done, and look at how you could be doing better yourself.” “The only way you get better is rather than blame everyone around you, you blame yourself.” “Most of the Torah is essentially reminders.” “As soon as you start to tell yourself that you’re really good at something, that’s when you stub your toe.” “When things are going well, become paranoid.” “Acknowledge your own faults.” “Whether you win or you lose, the discipline’s the same, right? You’re reviewing to see how you could have done better irrespective of the result.” “The hardest things we have in life is when you have success, when…life is going really well because…those are the easiest times to forget your values and forget your principles.” “Grateful am I.” “Love involves criticism, or else it’s not love.” “If you have to deliver the rain, deliver it with the dew.” “People respond better when you actually see their strengths and you actually show confidence in them and believe in them than they do to criticism.” Deuteronomy 32 - https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.32?lang=en&aliyot=0 Links: The Rabbi’s Husband homepage: http://therabbishusband.com/ Mark’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/markgerson?lang=en

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Jamin from Addepar join us. Jamin, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Jamin Fochtman: Sure. Thanks for having me on today Shawnna. I’m happy to be here. As you mentioned, I’m Jamin Fochtman with Addepar. I am the head of our sales enablement team and we specialize in performance of reporting and analytics for folks who manage money. So, happy to join and share some insights as to what we’ve been doing this year. SS: Absolutely. I’m very excited because you and I were just chatting, and you recently executed your sales kickoff. And I think right now that is top of mind for sales enablement professionals across the board. So, I’d love to hear from you, how was your event structured and delivered this year in particular? JF: Yeah and this year, obviously it was a little bit different, but for us, as we really thought about getting the team together, it was critical not just to sort of tackle the standard things that we do at a kickoff in a normal year. For us, I also put a really high level of emphasis in terms of team engagement and making sure that people really embraced the days together rather than just dialing into another zoom. So that was really important for us. Ours was structured over two days where we dove into key wins, key losses, took some time on new product development, as well as marketing initiatives. But I will say this year, we put a little bit more emphasis on taking time to celebrate the wins across all of the different teams. And that came out of kind of soul searching, where we were looking back and noticing folks didn’t necessarily know what other teams were doing when it came to our AEs BDRs, AM’s all working really hard but not necessarily knowing what each team was doing and the big wins that they were having. So, we did, we spent nearly 50% of our time really digging in and celebrating key wins and how those wins were achieved. SS: I love that. And I think you’re absolutely right in this more remote environment it’s very hard to stay connected in that manner. So, I think that’s absolutely critical to accomplish during SKO this year. So, tell us a little bit about what this new planning process looks like. JF: It was fast. So, we kind of took a step back and I actually did, it was really helpful for me to do a dry run with just a 45-minute team meeting. So, I wanted to kind of feel out. So, very important to highlight we used zoom for our sales kickoff, and I just wanted to test out a few different workflows. Whether it was going into breakout rooms, did people stay engaged? Did they not? Doing shorter sessions, did people feel more comfortable, really focusing? So that was critical for my planning phase was doing just a dry run in terms of using the functionality and see how the team responded to that functionality. The other piece, I guess it felt very new normal when it came to planning our sales kickoff in that I was still meeting with key stakeholders. We were going through presentations, making sure that all the material was on point. So, I’ll be really honest Shawnna, my planning felt very similar to any other year. SS: Well, that’s good to hear. And I think for those in the audience, maybe if this is, you know, per se, their first sales kickoff that they’ve ever had to do, I’d love for you to give them some insight into who all is typically involved in the planning and execution of a sales kickoff. What other departments, and you mentioned stakeholders, are you partnering with to ensure that it’s successful? JF: For us, our sales organization is made up of sales executives, sales engineers, business development, account management, and sales ops. So, all of those teams and the directors are certainly very involved in key stakeholders. The other component is we always make sure to invite our entire C-suite and actually have them be extremely engaged. So, our CEO, CFO, COO, they all take part in our sales kickoff. And then I also work very closely with our product marketing leads as well as our services organization in that every deal sales closed is handed off to our services org. So, having a very tight alignment there is always valuable. SS: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Now obviously it couldn’t have been completely smooth sailing. So, you have to tell us what were some of the key challenges that you encountered in trying to figure out how to effectively deliver this sales kickoff virtually? JF: I think everybody’s already thinking it, how do you keep people engaged? And that was my number one concern, and I felt it even on the first day. So, I think it’s always helpful to, in terms of our sales kickoff, the way it was structured was we would do a, call it a 40-minute talk, and then break out for 20 minutes into smaller groups. And I just didn’t know how people would respond to that. And over the course of the first day, it was going okay, but I noticed throughout the day, a number of cameras that had started on were turning off. That to me is a big red flag of uh oh people are starting to check out. So, what I did was start to integrate more polls that I would literally write as a presentation was going. And what that enabled me to do, Shawnna, was test the level of engagement, how many people were still dialed in really paying attention. Because on those polls, I could tell immediately how many people are responding and almost more importantly how quickly they were responding. So that was, I knew it would be an issue I experienced on day one, and that’s how we started to sort of just respond accordingly of let’s make sure people feel like they have to be accountable. But in order to keep them engaged, breaking things up into much shorter bite-sized chunks made a material difference for us. And that was arguably the biggest difference where I’ve hosted a number of kickoffs back-to-back hour presentations all day, that’s what you do. And for this, it was just such a different approach of really keeping it shorter, tighter. I broke down, one team came to the table with almost 35 slides and we set a five slide maximum of if you’re doing a presentation five slides max, and you got to keep it short. And that really helped to get through those two days in a fun way that people didn’t feel that zoom fatigue at the end of the day. SS: I love that. Although five slides is quite a challenge, so I’m not sure how you got people to stick to that. What are some other strategies that you were able to use to also, you know, kind of hold the attention of the audience and really keep them engaged? JF: You know, I tried something a little different this year. So, although most of the team has been together or I have a lot of folks who I’ve worked with on the team for the last five, six years. I did a number of icebreakers throughout the day and the way we went about that was using our breakout sessions as part of it, you would do a quick icebreaker at the beginning. And one thing that worked really well is I went back and forth on the breakouts, whether to do it randomly or assign the groups. And I ended up assigning the breakout groups for the duration of the day. So, in the morning on day one, the folks in your first breakout you’re with again and again throughout the day, we did an icebreaker in the morning and the afternoon. And that just seemed to break up the day where people thought it was fun, you learn something new. And our icebreakers had really nothing to do with Addepar. It was very personal oriented in terms of your family, personal goals, things that are important to you, different things like that and that was really fun for us. I would say that combination of using breakout groups with fun icebreakers, and then keeping those people together throughout the day with kind of my hope was that two, three, four weeks after sales kickoff, those groups are still talking and still getting together, you know, even once or twice a week to just talk about things that are going well for them or not going well. SS: I think that segues really well into the next question that I have for you. How are you going to follow up with employees after SKO to try to keep this momentum going? JF: We’re leveraging technology to follow up from our sales kickoff. And that’s kind of in a combination with a few different products. So, a lot of the things that we covered, new talking points, competitive Intel, I’m rolling out to our team on a platform where they actually have cue cards. So, it’s front and center on them during their calls. And then I’m back testing, making sure all of that information resonates with the team as I review all their calls. So we’re kind of using a combination of new tools for the remote world just to make sure it all makes sense and really enabling them to have all of the information responses at their fingertips. SS: Absolutely. I think that’s fantastic. Now I have to close with the question I think we always get asked at the end of every enablement initiative, but it’s around how do you measure whether it was successful or not? So, how are you going to go about doing that? How can you measure the impact of sales kickoff, especially in a virtual setting? JF: If I knew. For us, we put a really high level of emphasis on the time to close. So, we have set up specific barometer trackers around how long our sales stages are and the efficiency of moving from one stage to the other. So that for better or worse makes it very finite process for us of how many days is each stage. I can tell if that is shorter or longer. The other piece really has to do with continually surveying the team around group engagement. So, as I’d mentioned, we noticed that folks are feeling disconnected, didn’t know what other teams were doing. So, I followed up our kickoff with refreshers at the end of every other week, just to do check-ins. And we’ve actually continued to do those breakouts at the end of each of our large sales meeting every other week. So, we kind of do a check-in of how things are going, are you still talking with your group and just making sure that people are understanding what they learned. So, so far so good. It was just a week and a half, two weeks ago, so we’ll continue to keep an eye on those metrics. SS: Well, thank you so much Jamin for having this conversation with us today. Like I said, it’s very timely for sales enablement practitioners everywhere. So, thank you again so much for making the time. I really enjoyed our chat. JF: Of course. Thank you so much for inviting me, Shawnna. I appreciate the time. SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Dovi is an entrepreneur and Founding Partner of Group 11. He has invested over $150M in many of Silicon Valley’s most prominent and disruptive technology companies, including: SoFi, Addepar, Tipalti, TripActions, HomeLight, SunBit, Next Insurance and others. Previously, Dovi was VP at Deutsche Bank AG Private Bank and founded SG, a global financial advisory firm. He is also well known for his appearance as a “Shark” in the Israeli Shark Tank show.

Joe Lonsdale is a General Partner @ 8VC and in the past has invested in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus, Oscar and Guardant Health. As a result, in both 2016 and 2017, Joe was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas List. Prior to 8VC, Joe co-founded Palantir, one of the world's most impactful multi-billion dollar software companies. Joe also co-founded and serves as Chairman @ Addepar, which has over $1.8 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform. If that was not enough, Joe is also a founder of Affinity, Anduin and Esper. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Joe made his way into the world of tech and startups, came to co-found Palantir and Addepar and how that led to his founding 8VC? How does Joe believe the study of history makes one a better investor? 2.) Why does Joe believe that the best VCs are company builders? How does Joe think about, evaluate and put into action the incubator model? How does Joe respond to LPs that suggest it is a distraction? How does voting for incubations differ for investment voting? 3.) What does contrarian thinking really mean to Joe? What does Joe do to specifically engender contrarian thinking in the 8VC partnership? What is the relationship between contrarianism and political correctness? How does Joe think about the dangers of woke culture today? 4.) How does Joe advise founders to think through cash burn and runway today? What is going to happen to companies that sacrified growth for gross margin in 1 year? How does Joe advise founders on the balance of sticking to your vision and mission vs knowing when to give up? 5.) Why does Joe think it is important to not just start new companies but new cities also? Despite the insane cost of living, why does Joe believe the Valley has given rise to the insane levels of innovation it has done? Will the dominance of the valley remain over the next decade? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Joe’s Fave Book: How Innovation Works, A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus Joe’s Most Recent Investment: Beacon As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

In this episode, we chat with David Lessing, the Chief Revenue Officer of Addepar, which is the leading enterprise software company for wealth management professionals. Nearly $2 trillion in assets are currently managed on Addepar with $10 billion of assets added to the platform each week. David shares with us his background and career experience as well as his insights into Addepar’s solutions and future expansion plans.  We hope you enjoy the show.     

Joe Lonsdale, General Partner, 8VC; Founder, Palantir, Addepar, Open Gov; Board Member, Strive for College; and Member, Forbes Midas List, with Michael Moe, Founder, GSVThe ASU GSV Summit wishes to thank our sponsor partners, Google Cloud, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Pearson. Please visit www.asugsvsummit.com for more information.

Eric Poirier is the CEO of Addepar, a leading investment technology company with a ten-year track record serving institutional clients. With more than 400 institutional investor clients with approximately $2 trillion in assets on Addepar’s platform, Eric has a fantastic view into how the smart money responded during the COVID crash and where funds are likely to flow during recession and recovery. Addepar has raised $245 million since inception to build and scale its platform and recently launched primary and secondary market investments in alternative assets to its clients. For all of our past episodes and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Eric Poirier.

Summary:In this 112th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Natalie Sunderland, Chief Marketing Officer of Addepar, to talk about embracing risk, the benefits of technology, and the importance of advancing data reporting in wealth management. Episode Highlights: ● 01:03: – Addepar is a wealth management platform that specializes in data aggregation and performance reporting that currently has $1.7 trillion being managed on the platform. ● 02:10: – Addepar was founded in the wake of the financial crisis when the founder was struggling to understand how the crisis was impacting their assets. ● 03:53: – Getting a complete picture and understanding your assets is even more difficult now that people often split up their assets into different accounts, different financial institutions, and with different wealth managers. ● 05:22: – Financial advisors are limited in the advice they can give clients by the legacy software and tools they have. ● 06:40: – Addepar strives to create a friction-free experience for wealth managers and their clients, including the use of a mobile app. ● 08:50: – Addepar’s core value proposition is to aim to serve those who manage wealth and allow them to create tailored conversations with their clients. ● 10:08: – The Addepar interface is referred to as “Apple lite” and is very intuitive. ● 10:58: – The platform is customizable and allows wealth managers to include their own branding on reports. ● 13:55: – Having a personal conversation with your financial advisor shouldn’t be reserved only for those with ultra-high net worth. ● 15:42: – Advisors have said that with Addepar, activities that used to take them days now only take them hours or even minutes to complete. ● 17:10: – Addepar has built over 200 pipes from scratch to different banks to ensure they have the highest quality data rather than using scrapers. ● 21:42: – If Natalie could change one thing it would be to help these firms to embrace more risk. ● 22:48: – The biggest challenge for Natalie has been building a story for a company that is 10 years old, and also helping the market understand that Addepar isn’t a niche product or solution. ● 24:40: – Natalie is most excited about the investment they’re making to improve the experience for clients who use the platform, and the overall data opportunity. 3 Key Points 1. Understanding your assets is even harder when they are divided among multiple financial institutions. 2. Addepar allows you to create custom reports in moments, built to answer specific questions. 3. Improving data collection and reporting allows for more personally tailored conversations between wealth managers and their clients. Tweetable Quotes: ● “There are some pretty complex assets out there and we could provide a very valuable service to the wealth managers and their clients to truly help them understand, get that 360 view, and help them make better decisions.” –Natalie Sunderland ● “Independent advisors who choose Addepar are doing so because they realize the value that technology can bring to helping them scale their practices, becoming much more efficient, and being able to service their clients in a way they demand it these days.” –Natalie Sunderland ● “One of the things I’m excited to do is help the market understand the capabilities that we have and help them realize that moving from legacy to modern technology doesn’t have to be as painful as they think it will be.” –Natalie Sunderland Resources Mentioned: ● Website – Jason Pereira’s Website ● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook ● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn ● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact ● https://www.addepar.com/ – Addepar Website ● https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliesunderland – Natalie Sunderland’s Linkedin Full Transcript See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/rated-1-in-irresponsible-security-journalism/) No security alert is too small for us to completely misrepresent its severity. The sky is falling on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor, Zix. Zix simplifies administration and reporting with a single management interface. Configuring, deploying, and monitoring email security and unified archiving services has never been easier – or faster. ZixSuite combines a cloud-based email threat protection, email encryption, and unified business communications archiving, all backed by Zix’s gold standard 24/7/365 support. On this week's episode Why is everybody talking about this now? Two recent stories showed some fallibility in multi-factor authentication or MFA. We repeatedly recommended MFA on this show. But, the FBI announced some technical and social engineering techniques that are being used to break multi-factor authentication. In addition, Twitter admitted that email addresses and phone numbers used to set up MFA might have been sent to third party advertisers. The FBI says its news shouldn't change our trust in MFA. William Gregorian, CISO, Addepar, posted on LinkedIn that the press is claiming that MFA is broken and that's irresponsible journalism. Let's dig a little deeper Security professionals thrive on hearing about and learning about the latest threats. It feeds the latest security headlines and conferences. While it's often fascinating and keeps everyone interested, to what level are security concerns based on well-known years old threats vs. the latest threats? "What's Worse?!" Whose mistakes are worse? Yours or the vendors'? Please, enough. No, more. We've talked a lot about machine learning on this show and the definition of it is broad. What's ML's value in threat protection. We discuss what we've heard enough about with regard to machine learning being used for threat protection And what would we like to hear a lot more. When companies in retail or enterprise remind their online visitors to change their passwords, are they doing them a favor or causing them grief? Password managers exist, of course, as do newer forms of passwordless authentication, multifactor authentication and behavioral and biometric data. But ultimately, whose responsibility is this? Should a merchant website place the onus of personal security back on the customer? And if so, how would this protect the merchant’s own property? If this jeopardizes a sale or transaction, the cost of proactive security, at least for the short term appears too great. And it’s obvious, from the avalanche of data breaches of recent years that stored data of any sort becomes a permanent liability. More available on CISO Series. Check out lots more cloud security tips sponsored by OpenVPN, provider of next-gen secure and scalable communication software. OpenVPN Access Server keeps your company’s data safe with end-to-end encryption, secure remote access, and extension for your centralized UTM. Ask a CISO Gina Yacone, a consultant with Agio, asks, "If you’re performing a table top exercise. Who are the only three people you would want to have a seat at that table?"

Joe Lonsdale is a founding partner at 8VC, a leading venture capital firm that partners with top founders and entrepreneurs to build lasting technology platforms.  He began working at Peter Thiel’s PayPal while Joe was an undergraduate at Stanford, and upon graduation became an early executive at Thiel’s Clarium Capital, which became a multi-billion dollar global macro hedge fund. From within Clarium, Joe went on to become a co-founder of Palantir, and later founded Addepar and OpenGov. After operating this series of successful start-ups, he turned to early stage venture investing for himself and then as a founding partner of Formation 8, the precursor to 8VC.  In 2016 and 2017, Joe was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas List. Our conversation begins with Joe’s dive into entrepreneurship out of school, the founding of Palantir and Addepar and his shift from operator to venture capitalist.  We discuss the venture landscape, 8VC’s competitive advantage, building new companies within 8VC, price competition for deals, the due diligence process, adding value to portfolio companies, and new ideas on the horizon in venture investing. Although we were pressed for time, Joe packs the conversation with great nuggets of wisdom from his incredible success. Learn More Read the Transcript Subscribe to the Capital Allocators Blog or Monthly Mailing List Don't Subscribe, but Let Us Know Who You Are Write a review on iTunes Follow Ted on twitter at @tseides Review past episodes of the Podcast

This week, Cory Levy speaks to entrepreneur JD Ross, co-founder of OpenDoor, a company that makes it possible to sell a home in minutes. Opendoor has raised a total of $320 million in venture funding and has surpassed a multi-billion dollar annual revenue run rate. Before Opendoor, Jd started 2 successful businesses during college and went on to lead growth as the VP of Product at Addepar. In this week’s episode, JD and Cory talk about JD’s college experience, avoiding bankruptcy, landing in Silicon Valley, and how to accelerate your personal growth curve. “MY LIFE HACK IS JUST THE WILLINGNESS TO DO THE THINGS THAT ARE SIMPLE AND HARD; SLEEP EIGHT HOURS A DAY, EAT HEALTHILY, BE NICE TO MY GIRLFRIEND, SPEND TIME IN THE GYM.” Entrepreneur JD Ross uses his curiosity to his advantage. “My superpower is just an incredible level of curiosity. I just get obsessed with certain things and dive as deep as I possibly can,” says Jd. He has used this superpower to quickly understand extremely complicated industries and business models. Four years ago, Jd Ross and three co-founders launched Opendoor, a company that gives homeowners the option to sell a home online in just minutes. The company has raised a total of $320 million in venture funding and has exceeded $1B in annual home purchase rate. Before starting Opendoor, Jd founded two startups while in school at Washington University and soon became employee number five at Addepar.

In part 2 of 2, Eric Poirier, CEO of Addepar, explores the ongoing role technology plays in the different stages of a business, as well as a firm’s valuation, and what independent firm owners need to consider as their businesses and clients evolve.

Alex Wang is the Founder & CEO @ Scale, the data platform for AI providing high-quality training and validation data for AI applications. To date, they have raised over $123m in financing from some of the best investors in the business including Founders Fund, Index Ventures, Thrive, Spark and Coatue and then also some of the world's best operators and founders of Dropbox, Instagram, Quora, Github and Twitch to name a few. Prior to founding Scale, Alexandr was a Tech Lead at Quora, directly responsible for all speed projects and before that a software engineer at Addepar responsible for building and maintaining financial models. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alex made his way from growing up in Los Alamos to being one of the hottest founders in the valley with Scale's new round giving them a unicorn valuation? How did growing up outside the ether of the valley shape Alex's operating mindset today? 2.) Why does Alex believe that AI is under-hyped relative to the state of technology today? Would Alex agree that most projects claiming to be AI are merely rebrandings from actuarial science, data science etc etc? What questions does Alex ask to determine true AI or BS? 3.) How does Alex think about how AI can deal better with ambiguity of data? What other core areas would Alex like to see meaningful step-function improvements in? How does Alex think about the value of data-set size? How does he think about the utility value of data reducing with every incremental data point? How does Alex think about the rise of synthetic data? How does this change the landscape? 4.) What are Alex's biggest lessons on what it takes to hire incredible people before you are a hot company? How does Alex determine whether someone has the right risk profile and desire to work in a startup? What questions reveal that? Where does Alex believe that many go wrong in the early days of hiring? What would he do differently now? 5.) For the $100m Series C, how did the round come together? What did the process look like? How did this round compare to the other rounds? How does Alex think about and approach the element of investor selection? How can founders build relationships with investors in these hyper-compressed fundraising timelines? What have been Alex's biggest lessons when it comes to CEO growth and then also board management? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Alex’s Fave Book: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Alex on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.  

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by David Lessing, Chief Revenue Officer at Addepar (https://addepar.com). In this extensive interview, David explains how Addepar empowers financial advisors and investors to navigate the increasingly complex world of investment management. David also discusses how the wealth management industry has evolved with the proliferation of breakaway advisors, the regulatory hurdles that financial advisors and wealth tech platforms face, and how Addepar’s data aggregation, financial operating system, and real-time analysis help investors monitor their portfolios. Addepar works with hundreds of family offices, wealth advisors, and private banks representing more than $1 trillion of assets on their platform. Addepar gives investors and advisors a clearer financial picture at every level of their portfolios. With real-time analysis and customizable reporting, financial advisors can visualize and communicate relevant information to their clients. David Lessing recently joined Addepar after serving as a Board member, advisor, and CEO of several financial services startups over the past four years. He has spent most of his career in senior leadership roles in the wealth management industry, serving as Chief Operating Officer for Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Field Management Group and Head of Merrill Lynch’s Global Private Client Direct Division.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. One of the hardest things in serving the ultra high net work community is providing them with the type of analytics we’ve become accustomed to in other parts of financial services and investing. It’s been a challenge to provide investors and their investment advisors with pricing and performance information on assets that sit across multiple institutions, may of which don’t price regularly. This is the audience Addepar serves but when you listen to CEO Eric Poirier, it’s clear that his mission and his company’s is much broader in scope. On today’s show, we discuss why it was important to build an ecosystem around the ultra high net worth community and what it takes to do this successfully. Eric shares the challenges in serving this community and how Addepar has worked to overcome them. Lastly, we discuss the future of wealth management and how Eric aspires to continue to serve the underserved. Eric Poirier is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast. I’d like to thank our sponsor MX for supporting Tearsheet’s work. MX is the leading data platform for banks, credit unions and fintechs, enabling its clients and partners to easily collect, enhance, analyze, present and act on financial data.

All links and images for this episode can be found on CISO Series (https://cisoseries.com/passwords-so-good-you-cant-help-but-reuse-them/) We've just fallen in love with our passwords we just want to use them again and again and again. Unfortunately, some companies more interested in security aren't letting us do that. We discuss on the latest episode of CISO/Security Vendor Relationship Podcast. This episode is hosted by me, David Spark (@dspark), producer of CISO Series and founder of Spark Media Solutions and Mike Johnson. Our guest this week is William Gregorian (@WillGregorian), CISO, Addepar. Thanks to this week's podcast sponsor Cyberint The high ROI is what makes spear phishing campaigns so attractive to threat actors. Read our breakdown of TA505's latest series of attacks. CyberInt has been tracking various activities surrounding this and other similar attacks where legit means were used to hack international companies in the retail & financial industries. How CISOs are digesting the latest security news Chris Castaldo of 2U and a former guest on the show posted this great story of TripAdvisor invalidating user credentials if a member's email and password were found in publicly leaked data breach databases. Is this a great or bad move by TripAdvisor? Ask a CISO On LinkedIn, Chad Loder, CEO, Habitu8 posted an issue about the easy deployment and ubiquity of cloud applications. He argues it's no longer Shadow IT. It's just IT. And securing these cloud tools you don't manage nor know about requires a lot of education. Is Shadow IT inevitable. Should we lose the name? And is education the primary means of securing these services? It's time to play, "What's Worse?!" One of the toughest rounds of "What's Worse?!" we've ever had. Close your eyes. Breathe in. It's time for a little security philosophy. Mike posed a "What's Worse?!" scenario to the LinkedIn community and got a flurry of response. The question was "Would you rather have amazing, quality cybersecurity incident response in 24 hours or spotty, unreliable response in one hour?" I wanted to know what was Mike's initial response and did anyone say anything in the comments to make him change his mind? For quite a while, IT security experts have been touting the value of two factor authentication (2FA) as a better way to keep data safe than simply using passwords alone. We have even spoken about it here. In its most popular form, 2FA sends a confirmation code to your phone, which you must then enter into the appropriate log-in confirmation window within a short amount of time. This is like having a second key to the safe, like many bank vaults used to have. (more on the site) It’s time to measure the risk Chelsea Musante of Akamai asks, "What would you say to someone who thinks their risk for credential abuse / account takeover has decreased because they've implemented MFA (multi-factor authentication)?"

Prospective breakaways often ask, “How can an independent firm possibly compete on a technology level with the wirehouses?” Eric Poirier, CEO of Addepar, joins the show to answer that question and explores the role of fintech in independence.

Alexandr Wang is the Founder & CEO @ Scale, the startup providing high quality training and validation data for AI applications. To date, Alexandr has raised over $23m with Scale from some of the best in the business including Index, Accel, Y Combinator, Dropbox’s Drew Houston, Justin Kan, Thumbtack’s Jonathan Swanson and more. Prior to founding Scale, Alexandr was a Tech Lead at Quora, directly responsible for all speed projects and before that a software engineer at Addepar responsible for building and maintaining financial models. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How did Alex make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Scale? What were some of his biggest takeaways from seeing the first hand scaling of Quora and Addepar? Why does Alex take the contrarian view that “TAM in the traditional sense barely matter”? What two characteristics of the market should founders really look to examine? How does Alex approach the element of market sizing? Does he prefer top down or bottoms up and why? Why does Alex believe that you must invest in customer success before you think you need it? What were the benefits for Alex of investing early in customer success? Why does CS over sales ultimately drive the growth of your company? How does one know when is the right time to hire their first in customer success? What is the ideal profile of this candidate? How does Alex think about the integration of customer success and product teams? Why is it crucial from the product perspective that founders pick their first customers well? How can your customers drive your product decisions? How can one ensure to be customer informed and not customer driven?      Why does Alex believe that in the early days it is not important to focus on the size of the deals you are signing? What should founders be focusing on with these early customers instead? When is the right time to flip the switch and opt for value extraction as a more primary objective? How does Alex respond to the fact that VCs often look at these first customer deals as an indication of the size of the pain point you are solving?   60 Second SaaStr: What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning? What does Alex believe is the hardest role to hire for today? Who does Alex think is crushing it in the world of SaaS today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Alexandr Wang

Today we have Kris “Speedhunter” Duggan on the Startup Selling Podcast. “If you’re not a sales-oriented founder, sales is a critical part of your business success and you can’t outsource it. You should put as much effort on sales as you put into product.” — Kris Duggan Kris is an expert when it comes to startup sales, especially enterprise software. Kris’s experience and accolades include: Advising Palantir, RelateIQ (acquired by Salesforce), Addepar and Blend (and other…) on their go-to-market strategies; Starting two venture-backed companies that have raised $100M in combined capital. Interviewing over 1000 salespeople, and hiring 15 senior executives in the last 10 years. Personally meeting with 50% of the Fortune 1000 companies.  Carrying a $25M sales quota. His 2018 goal is to help 100 startups, if you’re interested in getting help from Kris, you can just go to his blog at https://krisduggan.com/ and contact him through there. Look for the blog post titled – “ Live, Personalized Advice for 100 Entrepreneurs – How can I help?” In this episode, Kris and I cover: Top pitfalls startups make – doing work for free, overcomplicating the price sheet, giving multiple price options, not staying engaged with executives. The fallacy of free trials. Negotiation – Getting people to tell you what you need to do to get the deal done. How to design your pricing so that no customers churn. The pilot program fallacy and what to do instead. What to do when you get asked for proposals. When should startups hire their first sales person, and how much the CEO has to sell BEFORE hiring sales teams. Some of the books and resources that were mentioned by Kris: Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Markets by Michael Bosworth Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson. The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results by Brent Adamson and Matt Dixon Where to find Kris on the Interwebs: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krisduggan/ Persona Blog: https://krisduggan.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kduggan

erek is the joyful CEO of Exeq, previously led product development teams at both Addepar and LinkedIn. He's also a self-proclaimed party animal. Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. Entrepreneurs can get in their head so much that they forget to execute. 2. As the CEO, it’s your duty to share the vision you see with your audience and your team. 3. You can’t play the blame game as a leader — everything that happens is YOUR responsibility at the end of the day. Visit Derek’s website - Exeq Sponsors: Four Sigmatic: Mushroom Coffee - that doesn't actually taste like mushrooms - and that has a ton of benefits! It tastes just like regular coffee, and I love that it gives me a strong and steady energy force that lasts the entire day thanks to the active ingredient: Lion’s mane mushroom. Visit FourSigmatic.com/fire and enter promo code FIRE for 15% off your order today!

In this episode, you’ll hear about: -The opportunity Alex saw for humans to amplify the results of machines, and how Scale API plans to act on it -Growing up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the Atomic bomb, and how its emphasis on science impacted Alex’s childhood -How working at Addepar and Quora before college influenced Alex’s career, and how that led to his taking a leave of absence from MIT -The thought process behind starting Scale API, and why Alex and his cofounder Lucy Guo were going to start it whether they got into Y Combinator or not (but they did!) -What Scale API looks for when hiring, and why they feel comfortable betting on smart, inexperienced candidates -Why having a passionate initial user base, even a small one, is critical to creating a successful company Catch the end of the episode, where Alex shares a startup he is a big fan of (hint: it’s a London-based one) and the best advice he took away from being a part of Y Combinator.

Joe Lonsdale is one of the most successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, not to mention a veteran tech entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In early 2016 he launched 8VC, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that aims to fix core processes for some of the world's largest industries. Previously Joe was a founding partner of Formation 8, which manages over $2 billion across multiple funds. Prior to Formation 8, he founded Palantir, a multi-billion dollar global software company best known for its work in defense and finance. Lonsdale serves on the boards of several highly successful companies, including Addepar, OpenGov, insurance unicorn Oscar Health, Illumio, Radius, Hyperloop One and Wish, which has a valuation reportedly well above $3 billion as of additional funding in late 2016. In addition to his work in entrepreneurship & venture capital, Joe is also the Chairman of California Common Sense, a non-profit dedicated to opening government to the public & educating citizens about how government works. In this conversation with IVY's Co-founder, Beri Meric, Joe explained how entrepreneurship can help fix large industries and solve complex problems in an impactful way. Please enjoy our conversation, with Joe Lonsdale. And remember to visit IVY.com to enjoy access to a lifetime of learning, growth, and impact through in-person collaborations with world-class leaders, thinkers, and institutions.  

Steve Loughlin is a Partner @ Accel in San Francisco, one of the leading funds with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Dropbox, Atlassian, Slack and many more incredible companies. Prior to Accel, Steve was the CEO and co-founder of RelateIQ, later named SalesforceIQ following the acquisition of the company by Salesforce in 2014 for $390 million. Steve was also president and CEO of Affinity Circles, a professional social network that connected more than 18 million professionals. Steve has also advised or invested in the likes of Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and Roam Analytics. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Steve made his way into the world of SaaS with the founding of RelateIQ and then came to be a Partner at Accel on the other side of the table? Why does Steve believe the hardest balance a founder has to consider is the balance between building for the future and building for the present? How can this short to long term dichotomy be considered effectively by the team? RelateIQ was early to the AI/ML landscape, what does Steve think they did so right with RelateIQ? Does Steve agree that for an enterprise ML play to be interesting it must fundamentally change the go to market strategy? What were the key learnings from working so closely with Marc Benioff on the Salesforce exec team? What is it about the internal structure and operations of Salesforce that make it the massively profitable behemoth that it is today?   Having been a founder himself and now a VC, how does Steve look to help founders specifically? Where has Steve found that early stage founders need the most help? Where do VCs proclaim to help the most but really do not at all?  60 Second SaaStr What is the worst advice Steve often hears being given? What is something that Steve has changed his mind radically on over the last few years? What is Steve’s favourite SaaS reading material? What does Steve know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Steve Loughlin

On today’s broadcast, Vanare becomes AdvisorEngine after a $20 million dollar investment, RightCaptial gets a favorable review, and Addepar opens up about the capabilities of its technology. So get ready, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now! (WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube) Today’s episode is brought to you by eMoney Advisor, the leading provider of […]

Today we have a conversation with entrepreneur & investor and co founder of software development company Gigster Roger Dickey.  Prior to founding Gigster, Roger led game studios at Zynga after joining when the company had just 30 employees after selling his first company Curiosoft to zynga. Roger oversaw MafiaWar’s explosive growth to over 100million users and 1billion dollars in revenue.  Roger also as an international product team advisor for Zynga helping the company grow their games in India, Japan and China.  Alongside his work at Zynga, Roger began advising & investing in bay-area startups in 2010. His investments include Docker, Addepar, iCracked, OpenGov, ClassDojo, and Wanelo. Advisory roles include Formation 8, Nest, OpenDoor, and The Thiel Fellowship. Lets listen into Roger Dickey interviewed at our san Francisco chapter by startup grind editor in chief Michael Gasiorek. 

Ajay Kamat ( https://www.pear.vc/ajay-kamat ) is a Partner at Pear ( https://www.pear.vc/ ) , one of the premier early stage venture capital funds in Silicon Valley. Prior to Pear, Ajay founded Wedding Party ( https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/04/instacart-makes-its-first-acquisition-with-acqui-hire-of-app-maker-wedding-party/ ) , which was acquired by Instacart ( https://www.instacart.com/ ). Pear was founded by Mar Hershenson ( https://www.pear.vc/mar-hershenson ) ( https://www.crunchbase.com/person/pejman-nozad ) and ( https://www.crunchbase.com/person/pejman-nozad ) Pejman Nozad ( https://www.pear.vc/pejman-nozad ) , who were early investors in Dropbox ( https://www.dropbox.com/home ) , Lending Club ( https://www.lendingclub.com/loans/personal-loans?gclid=CjwKCAiA8ejuBRAaEiwAn-iJ3js0brhKzV1Z5q34L6RPRFB9dgBdvIvGazmDnDqASgITDu0qBuPJjBoCECIQAvD_BwE¶m2=GzB011zA003zAC11x14zLP1z&partnerID=80019&referrerId=490425&utm_campaign=B011%3ALending+Club+-+%5BE%5D&utm_content=312048777992&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_term=lending+club ) , Zoosk ( https://www.zoosk.com/ ) , Addepar ( https://addepar.com/ ) , Path ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(social_network) ) and many others. Some of Pear's notable investments include DoorDash ( https://www.doordash.com/ ) , Philz Coffee ( https://www.philzcoffee.com/ ) , Instaread ( https://instaread.co/ ) , and Memebox ( https://us.memebox.com/ ). You can follow Ajay on Twitter Here ( https://twitter.com/ajaykam ). If you would like to follow your host, Mike, for updates on the show, you can follow @mikegelb ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) and the show @ConsumerVC ( https://twitter.com/ConsumerVc ) In this episode you will learn: * Ajay's journey from biomedical engineering to founding Wedding Party ( https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/04/instacart-makes-its-first-acquisition-with-acqui-hire-of-app-maker-wedding-party/ ). Some of the lessons Ajay learned from being a founder and how it has influenced him as a venture capitalist. The importance of grit when founding a company. * The importance of complementary skills and vetting co-founders. The reason why he switched from being a founder to a venture capitalist. * What qualities Ajay looks for from founders at the pre-seed and seed level? How he evaluates startups building products in markets that don't exist yet? * The advantages of being in Silicon Valley. How he thinks about customer acquisition costs in today's age. * What industry consumer verticals he's excited about the most? One company that he is excited to be an investor in? One piece of advice for founders of consumer companies? If you would like to *follow along* you can *click “Subscribe”* on the *Apple podcast app or whichever platform you are listening on*. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to also leave a review. You are also to see all episodes here and learn more at www.theconsumervc.com ( http://www.theconsumervc.com/ ) and follow Mike on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) or Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/mikegelb/ )