Alexa Binns 02:51
Welcome to swimming with alligators. This is a DDQ episode featuring myself, Alexa Binns, and my co host, Earnest Sweat. Thank you.

Earnest Sweat 03:02
Glad to be here. Don’t know why I said that. Always here.

Alexa Binns 03:06
Always here. This is a little play on the Due Diligence Questionnaire. We discuss debate and then answer questions from the audience. First topic in the discussion section, there’s a crazy number, 3000 applications come in for each cohort at VC Labs, which is offering free basically GP accelerator type cohorts as well as LP courses too, 3000 So I am curious to discuss that with you.

Earnest Sweat 03:43
Yeah, when you, when you shared this with me, I was pretty surprised in seeing the kind of numbers. I don’t know how long the BC lab has been around, but you know, in the peak of 2020, and 2021, where there’s so many new types of emerging managers coming to market. It seems like that this number of applications is further proof that despite how choppy fundraising is, how hard it is being an emerging manager, especially in venture capital, let alone any other asset class, there’s still a lot of interest, and kudos to them being able to build a strong program that gets, garners a lot of interest. I get a lot of emails from them, a lot of different offerings that they’re bringing. So yeah, it seems like it’s a great thing. The question I always have with these are like, will it have staying power? Yeah,

Alexa Binns 04:44
yeah. No. I It is a funnel, I believe, for their then software that helps you, like, manage your fund and fundraising process and things like that. And for friends that have gone through it, the feedback I’ve heard is they do. To, like, push people out pretty hard. They’re saying, like, commit if you’re actually going to do this, really do it. And I think that’s actually very helpful, like, if you’re listening to this podcast and you have been mulling on whether you should or shouldn’t launch a fund, maybe that is good to have that pressure. It’s like, you know, taking a book writing class. If you’ve always had a book in mind that you wanted to write, it just like holds you accountable and holds you honest, so that otherwise, if it turns out like, now isn’t the time, or in fact, you realize there are some other things that you’d rather do with your life, you can move on. And it sounds like a helpful

Earnest Sweat 05:42
I don’t know, for some reason it made me think of two different stories. One more recent, I was speaking to with an LP for, I think, a pre recording, a pre interview conversation. And he came from the large private equity world. And so he still had a lot of friends in it, and they were asking him, Hey, we’re thinking about jumping into venture and starting on VC firms. What advice do you have? And so he just, like, gave them all these stats on how hard it is, why they shouldn’t do it, how long it would take. And so he was like, you probably shouldn’t do it. And then he said, they were like, so how he was like, if you come back to me after me saying all this, then I know you’re ready to be a venture capitalist. And so that’s very similar to, like, one of the first times. Well, I think this is probably 2014 and I got connected through a friend to rich Kirby, who’s now the managing partner of field ventures. And at the time he was at another firm, and I asked him, I was like, Man, I really want to get into venture full time. And he was like, be a founder. And at first I was, like, extremely pissed about that. The answer is, like, I didn’t come to you for that, but I get it now. You know, so many VCs, so many, especially LPs, have people. There’s, this is an interesting job from the, you know, outside perspective, and but it takes a lot to actually be good at this and sustainable, have a sustainable career in this path. And so people see people fly by night all the time of how much they want to be in this, but actually, the commitment and self belief is necessary to even get to a point of being able to raise a fund.

Alexa Binns 07:42
So why do VCs not or accelerators of startups not drill the same impossible dream? You know, like we, we don’t harp on this is probably going to go to zero because we need all 30 companies in our portfolio to think they are the winner, and so, like, you’re not as honest,

Earnest Sweat 08:12
That’s a great point. Well, I think the assumption is, if you’re starting a company, you already know that there’s a higher likelihood that you could start a Michelin star restaurant, than actually have a large exit? Yeah, I’m probably being facetious. Somebody’s gonna come back to me and show the data. Actually, the data is pretty convincing that it’s the other way around. God bless you. But I think, yeah, that’s the assumption. And so you want to come in and what you’re doing actually, when doing diligence is pushing buttons to see all right, how much do they believe this? Do they know more than I do? They thought about every problem or every key problem. What do they think is something that they want to solve? And I think the best founders have this uncanny ability to show the self confidence, but also have a self awareness of like, where they, you know, fall short,

Alexa Binns 09:14
yep, I am quite curious about the failure rate of startups versus failure rate of funds. And check that out.

Earnest Sweat 09:24
Well, yeah, I think it also determines what’s your definition of a fund? Is it someone saying they’re going to raise a fund? Is it somebody who you know, raises at least $1 and has, you know, LPA, yeah, documents, yeah, that could look different too. Or it could be, it’d be, yeah, that’d be really interesting data. And then, you know, some people just disappear, like the third child and family matters, and never show up again. So you never know what happens. Yeah. Yes, rest in peace. Judy,

Alexa Binns 10:04
I appreciate that. Another topic that I was discussing offline with an LP that I thought would be interesting to get your take on. It is, when you’re taking a pitch, would you prefer to listen to the deck or just like, sit down and have a conversation. And I realized I was like, Oh, I have taken so many more startup pitches that I really do appreciate following the deck. Because I’m like, you only have 30 minutes. Let’s make sure that we hit, for the most part, the required information. Because if you’re sort of chatting, you sometimes leave off, actually, some, like, meaningful details,

10:46
yeah,

Alexa Binns 10:47
versus, there’s like, really nothing in a deck for a GP, so why talk through it like all the details are probably more or less the same?

Earnest Sweat 11:02
Yeah? Because we all like, yeah, one of my friends, he’s a GP, and he said, sheep all think they look different to sheep, but like everybody else, they look the same, right? Yeah? Yeah. I think that’s a great point. I think the for me on the side of the table as a VC talking to a founder, I can go either way, because some people are such great storytellers that they’re going to say very interesting things that are really relevant to what they’re building and actually what motivates them, yeah, when, and it’s not on the deck. And so I always say, Whatever makes you more comfortable, like, I’m fine with that, and then I can look at the deck later for GPS, you know, pitching to LPs. I think you have to like it to be a conversation, because this is a long term relationship, right? It’s not apples to apples. Is the experience with VCs and and founders and so I think you telling them why you’re doing this, why you are differentiated, or maybe how you’re not differentiated.

Alexa Binns 12:27
Yeah, the differentiation is what you like. That is literally the only unique piece of the pitch versus a startup pitch you like, truly do probably learn something from each pitch that you take like, even if you’re extremely familiar with the problem that they’re addressing, their solution includes some unique, you know, you’re gonna, there’s some detail in there that you’re you’re gonna learn something. Okay, interesting. Yes, yeah, yeah, Boris. I think Boris, after helping, what did he do? He said he had slots for a couple LP positions last year, and he said his main takeaway was, like, your deck does not matter.

Earnest Sweat 13:16
It doesn’t have been, I wouldn’t even say, surprising, but over our now 80 conversations, it has consistently been like you are the differentiation. It’s really hard to systematically create the luck that’s necessary to be good at this. So you just have to be chasing for and know what game that you’re playing, whether you’re a momentum player, which is mostly kind of like established brand name funds, or a conviction player, newer funds and smaller funds. And then the track record is, is not. It’s like a top two, top three, top four thing, not always. Is never top one totally Well,

Alexa Binns 14:03
Meson lender just shared with you on a mini episode some really cool data that was on we’ll share this with everybody. If you haven’t seen that episode yet, he’s the CEO of vantager, and they surveyed their clients, which are laps on what are the key elements that they are looking for when considering an LP investment. And it was surprising. It was surprising to me. I think the lowest one was co-investment, yeah. And I’ve been sort of like chewing on that because, you know, do LPS really want access to SPVs? Or what was your interpretation of

Earnest Sweat 14:47
that data? Yeah, my interpretation is that, like most data, it depends. But my assumption is, I think we’re at a crossroads where roads, where, um? Um, LPs are trying to determine what’s the right alternative to the alternative of fund investing. Is it doing more CO investing? Is it doing your own direct investing that just comes through your own pipeline, or is it secondaries? What’s the right path to get, utilize all the data you have, utilize all the access you have, to build the best returns based on certain risk appetite. And so, you know, I think for family offices, specifically, that group is, and I’ve talked to a number of them over the last couple of months, they just feel, hey, we don’t want to pay fees, and so we’re going to do this ourselves. And the catch 22 there is, even if you’re good at it, it’s going to become overwhelming, because if you have $1 to spend on your entire family office, right? Only about 10 cents is going to venture right. Yet the amount of time, if you’re spending an hour on that dollar, probably roughly 30 minutes is going to be spent on that? On that 10 cents, right, if not more time? Yeah. And so it’s a real crossroads of like, how do we actually find alpha if you’re a family office, is it just doing direct investing? Is it being kind of hand held with some of these co-investment opportunities? But then there’s always that kind of like, back your head, like, is, like, you know, is this their adverse selection here? Totally

Alexa Binns 16:55
No, for sure, yeah, having seen co investments ranked as sort of the last reason why an LP commits to a GP made me think, okay, maybe everybody is offering co investments, and therefore it’s just sort of a wash, as opposed to a differentiator. Or you’re somebody has to first have great sourcing their own great nos, and then the CO investment is valuable. You know? It’s almost like they recognize that, like the first thing they need to do is identify the top decile GP, and then the CO investments will follow.

Earnest Sweat 17:39
Yeah, yeah. And another thing you, I believe you heard from an LP is, if they only have one GP slot, right? You know, we haven’t seen as much liquidity. So this, you know, picking, you know, your next fund investment that’s net new high, high barrier, and an LP told you you have to have insane connections and returns today. What are your thoughts on that? Is that fair? Is that the right approach?

Alexa Binns 18:14
Yeah, I thought that was worth sharing on the podcast, because, for the most part, people are not open who come on the show about how many slots they have left and, and like, pretty good isn’t good enough in terms of, like, returns today, you are one out and, and we understand this math, because that’s how we feel when we’re picking individual portfolio companies too, right? But I think part of the issue is you don’t get feedback. I’ve been thinking a little bit about the difference, about why people pass on deals versus why they pass on funds, and why you pass on a deal can be something that is not arbitrary. It’s like, Oh, I’m so sorry. We just, I wish we had met sooner at this valuation. It doesn’t make our fun math work, or, man, you are such an expert on this space. We’ve invested in this space once before, and it burned us, and I just won’t be able to get my partners excited about this. It’s got nothing to do with you, those things you can’t argue versus, like, why you’re passing on a fund is really a little bit more arbitrary. It’s that we think somebody else is going to make us more money, and you wouldn’t be doing this, hopefully, if you’re a GP who doesn’t think you’re going to be insanely good and so like you never get the feedback that like you’re middle of the road or like there’s things about you that are pretty generic and and for somebody who likes this guy who’s seeing lots of deals, it’s like a pretty easy pass on people who are really exceptional, because you. He can wait for just like, like, like, just a unicorn equivalent,

Earnest Sweat 20:10
yeah, yeah, yeah. Part of me, I think it’s hearing so many LP perspectives, I think you also need to think about two things. One, kind of doing an audit of your entire portfolio with respect to venturing growth equity, and maybe your entire audit of your entire, you know, all the asset classes, if you do all the different privates and publics and seeing, kind of, you know, where you underweight, and then moving into the venture part of the the book, and see, are you getting, you know, market beta, are you getting that access? And if you are, maybe you should think very highly about, like, all right, what type of firm could possibly get me venture Alpha? Because that’s the whole point. And I’m not so sure always LPS or even other GPs have a clear understanding on, like, what insane connections means today, right? And now we’re moving to the debate section. This is where one of us will bring up a topic and a question that we’ve been thinking about. Will lightly say our point of view and then ask our co host their point of view and have a healthy debate. So all these things typically have come from conversations we’ve either had on the podcast or having around the podcast when talking to those in the community. So I’ll start it off. So I’ve been thinking recently about how LPS diligence VC firms both old and new, and something I’ve become acutely aware of is every new fund announcement is not an article, but it is a well produced video and commercial of that company, so and so has raised a Series A of $20 million and we led the round, and I’m here with founder y, founder y, you’re awesome. Why did you pick us? You’re awesome. Tell us about what’s going on and so that’s happening all the time. It made me really think, is this a new diligence signal for LPS? Do LPS trust GPS, who does this? Does this become table stakes? And then it also made me think about, has it changed the construction of a VC firm? So this idea of like, what is a full stack VC firm, it has investors totally it has actually a fund manager, which is a different than it can be an investor, but somebody who’s actually running a fund. We used to have platform people, talented people. Now do you need a marketer? Social media, PR, presence,

Alexa Binns 24:26
Yes, I love this topic. In my career before investing full time, I was a marketer, and it is like, feed the beast. You have your Instagram, like, it’s just gotta it’s like, your newsletters go out regularly, and you need to have content. And it is kind of a kind of content for content sake is the worst example of this. And honestly, it’s like one of the reasons why I was like, I don’t know that. I want to be a marketer. This is the point of this. Not just like a month has passed, so we need to do it again. If I think about what LPS hopefully sees and can assess, it is that the extra effort that they’re putting into this content somehow drives meaningful results for them. So I work with a couple of GPS just informally on their own marketing techniques. And we have to start with, what are your goals like? Why are you doing this? And if it’s to get in front of more LPs, or if it’s to increase the quality of your sourcing pipeline, etc, then, like, then you sort of back into what the right actual marketing platforms and content is for your goals. So, like, I love if it’s about just like, having founders actually trust you and like think of you as somebody who is on their team, like a super informal hang at your home once a month where everybody is getting to actually know you and you’re sees all the people who respect you, and not some sort of flashy sit down dinner, I think is way more appropriate, right? So you can design your marketing strategy to fit. I think what has happened because of Andreessen is that everybody thinks in order to be considered for billion dollar fund investments, they need to have a podcast and that they need to have regular content and things like that, and that’s a little bit like keeping up with the Joneses.

Earnest Sweat 26:48
Yeah, I, I do think the what’s underlining here is people understand more and more that if you can control your narrative as best as you can, that is that is powerful, and companies are realizing that they need to do that even at an early, early stage to be able to set the tone, because their ideal customer profile might change, or preferences with their customers might change, or I recently, I can’t remember the exact company, but they raised a new round and switched the market that they were going after. And it wasn’t just that they switched. They actually had made significant revenue in the new market. And so that’s going to happen more and more from a company like going from just real estate to healthcare and you being able to control your narrative, to speak why you’re doing this is better suited in your hands than giving it to a journalist that might not, that might be looking to like, get clicks based on who invests in all that, how much It is. So I think there is something there. But again, it all comes back to how genuine it is to you and who you are, and how it fits what you are doing.

Alexa Binns 28:13
Yeah. And also, maybe there’s a lot more room for things like thought leadership very early on, like if you’re funding pre seed, you need a lot of thought leadership, because you’re making bigger bets. But if you’re funding series D and beyond, that’s a known universe. Like, you’re just like, well, of the best companies, we will try to get them, we will try to lead them.

Earnest Sweat 28:39
Like, yeah, yeah. It makes you think, why. But I think the why is, no matter what stage and this is, this comes from, what’s going to be one of my picks to answer one of our community questions. But I heard one investor speak that everybody’s trying to be a flagship in whatever stage that they are, because you want to just be, you want to have a brand where, and I heard I read an LP, say, write this, but you want to be able to fish where they’re coming upstream to you, right? But up until that point, you’re just hunting. You’re just trying to find wherever you can, to find a great catch. Some people just have a house on the river and can take advantage of it. And so that’s what you want to be, is somebody who’s like, sit on your back deck and you still got to work. You still got to work, because you might catch it and be like, I don’t really like this and then throw it back. It means you can lose a lot of great deals, but you at least want to be known as someone that they that these great catches go to. You

Alexa Binns 29:52
want to be a fisherman, not a hunter,

Earnest Sweat 29:55
yeah. Yeah.

Alexa Binns 29:59
Another. Third topic, I would love to debate with you, do smaller LPS even have a path to real diversification, or is this an insider’s game? What’s

Earnest Sweat 30:16
your view on it first?

Alexa Binns 30:20
Well, I think certainly, like the fund of funds, who have come on the show will tell us, like, unless you can index and participate in every vintage, you shouldn’t be LP, ing, and there’s 1000s of new GPS so you need to meet with them all in order to make sure you’re seeing the creme de la creme. Mm, I think this is about self awareness. Smaller LPS who are average, this absolutely need diversification, and small LPS who are college roommates with, I don’t know, Sam Altman, don’t need that. So I think listening to a show like ours is huge for recognizing how likely it is that you are average and therefore you need to be indexing. I think the rule of thumb is like six to 10 investments over three to five years as an LP, versus if you only make one bet, are you, is there a chance that you are betting on one of these? You know, like, if you’re just trusting because your college roommate called you up and said, You know, I’m putting money into this. You’d put money into who’s the guy who’s calling you? I think is what matters,

Earnest Sweat 31:52
Yes, about what if you realize what access you have and what you don’t? And so I yeah, I think we have a lot of funds to fund on, and I’m fund to fund biased. I think people should, whether they’re foundations or small endowments or family offices. I think they should, first, they should have an outsourced CIO or fund to fund that they work with, particularly in this crazy asset class that we’re in. And so I think you can go about it here on your own, but you also have to know the time frame it takes to actually get good at it. I always bring up this quote that one of my bosses told me in the past was, you know, John Doerr is rumored to be saying that, like, you don’t know the venture business until you’ve crashed a 747, and so where you get at is like you’re going to lose money in this, but as if you’re losing money and learning and not giving So many people give up after trying, especially in other parts of the country that aren’t on the coast, or one of the, you know, first or second tier tech hubs, yeah,

Alexa Binns 33:13
Does then AI concentration make this even harder? Like we’ve moved from, like, venture has an asset class where there’s like, huge divergence of results, and then you like, layer on that what AI is doing to this industry.

Earnest Sweat 33:36
You mean in like the operations, or you mean in the actual

Alexa Binns 33:40
investments in evaluations and that, yeah, well, I think the

Earnest Sweat 33:44
Again, like they’re still like none, contrary to property belief, they’re still consumers and that are non AI companies. You have B to B Tech, that’s non AI. I think that that’s a moment where we’re just like when we used to have mobile VCs, mobile investors, we used to have just cloud investors. And I think as things become more ubiquitous, and the AI stack, it just becomes our modern tech stack, it’ll just be where technology is, where I thought you were going is like, you know, some family offices have told me their issue with fund to funds is the fact that you don’t get any diversification, because the firms that they’re investing in are all doing party rounds in the same companies. And so if we’re all in the same AI company, am I really getting the diversification that we might as well just pick the funds that I want that are doing different things. And so that’s a different I think that’s a different question, and different thought. It’s interesting. I don’t know if it’s completely right, but it is. As long as we have a healthy amount of non consensus, but right bets that end up being right, I think it’ll all even out.

Earnest Sweat 35:16
And so I think the next one that I had was, we’ll edit this out. Okay, I think we talked about these, right?

Alexa Binns 35:33
Yeah, we could ask two questions in the community here. Okay, yeah, are we doing on time? I have this minimized so I don’t have the clock

Earnest Sweat 35:40
35 minutes now, but we like, we like to talk for like eight All right, yeah, you can open up for the community questions. All right, or maybe I’ll do it, because then you can ask me the second one. Cool. All right. So next we have questions from our community, of those that are interested in venture allocators, emerging managers, VCs and everything in between. So our first question was from the community that says, I have a pretty good track record. It’s 6x and I invest in AI. What a surprise. How do I actually differentiate?

Alexa Binns 36:35
This was a fun conversation to have with a friend, because we kind of giggled for a little bit, and I was like, um, on who you know, who’s an LP? That is how I think you can differentiate, differentiate, so rather than spending too much of your time like trying to change your track record or come up with a sneaky new thesis, putting some effort into, like, hacking these people who really believe in you. I do feel like that is a huge differentiator, like your LP network.

Earnest Sweat 37:19
Yeah, I think what we, I feel like we’re a broken record, but it’s, it’s about developing relationships with individuals, if, if one fund is going to be around for 10, 1215, years, it should be a little bit more than just like, hey, I have a 6x and it’s going to happen every time. First of all, I don’t think a lot of people will believe that. But secondly, if you read too many times when it comes to like narrative, this is going to be a bad reference, but hopefully people will get it. But so many times when it comes to like, when you’re telling a story or self belief, I always think of the Seinfeld scene where George is trying to teach Jerry how to lie, and he’s like Jerry. Jerry thinks he’s got it. As Jerry leaves the restaurant, George is like, remember, Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it. And so, like so many things, it is like, if you don’t even believe that you’re differentiated or feel that passionate about your sorry, no one else will. And so I think it comes from there, really digging down and like, what am I doing to help me win this? And then nothing that might help you can’t come up with ideas. Ask the people who helped you get that 6x right, like, as founders, and say, Hey, what was it about me that you wanted to some might be just like, hey, man, I thought you were a good Hank or some might say, Hey, you asked a lot better questions. Or you really, when you said you were hands on, you were actually hands on. Mm, hmm.

Alexa Binns 39:11
No, I’m okay. But the devil’s advocate side of this is, like, you really are just like, taking money from one hand and putting it in another. Like, part of the job is there’s a basics to the job, which is, I don’t know, maybe, like the realists who are fundraising are like, this is a little bit of a nail, like narrative.

Earnest Sweat 39:38
I don’t think many realists. You kind of have to be a realistic optimist, right? Yeah, fair. You can’t. You have to and to do this well, as you even mentioned, you need to be top decile. If you don’t believe you have a shot at being top decile, you should not do this. Yeah? You. Care, because, yes, it’s giving, taking one it’s taking. Because the people who are giving you money are taking money from one place and giving you money. You need to believe that you have a shot to give. Take their money, which is in the 25% of their entire book, and they can put it in T bills if they want something guaranteed. They want something that has high return versus the risk.

Alexa Binns 40:23
Yes, all right. Well, lovely transition to our other question that we got asked on social earnest, are you starting a fund? And if so, when?

Earnest Sweat 40:34
Yeah, the plan is to buy for me, and I think if you look on my socials, everybody sees that, you know, the idea for the name is stress wood, but I want to be it’s kind of a good transition, be authentically me and how I do it. And I see that there’s an opportunity to build a strong team, build relationships and build communities around the firm before actually launching it, right? And so you’re still building a plane while flying it, but it’s not necessarily like you’re taking all the passengers at the same time, right? And so, you know, the target is still mid 2027, to launch, but doing great work on swimming with allocators has some other things in the pipeline as well, and staying active in the market.

41:37
What’s the focus of stress wood?

Earnest Sweat 41:41
So stressing will be a this is where people come come in, because everything I said before, people will be like, Well, that sounds pretty generic, but no, I think there’s an opportunity for a generalist series, a fund with individuals of strong brand who have dedicated at least a decade of their career focused on a certain industry or product type. So for me, over my 11 years in venture I’ve always done a lot of vertical software and applied AI. So that’s what I’ll be doing. But my colleagues will be doing things in their focuses of consumer healthcare, infrastructure, commerce, marketplaces, and so we believe that there’s an opportunity, especially at that series, a round, where somebody can be just focused on that and really be a bridge for Customers advisors that can lead them to exponential growth. Yeah, yeah, cool and great thing. Thank you. And another question we got was, we get this repeatedly? In between our, you know, we produce another DDQ, every 10 ish, 1012, ish when we’re not traveling. Episodes, the question we get is, what lessons have we learned over these last 11 episodes? And if you have to pick one must listen episode, which would it

Alexa Binns 43:21
be? This is confusing. There’s what we’ve published and there’s what we’ve recorded,

Earnest Sweat 43:26
what we what we published, exactly what they would have

Alexa Binns 43:30
heard. Totally, I’m like, what have you all. Yes, yeah. So

Earnest Sweat 43:34
that’s probably in Episode 61 to 71

Alexa Binns 43:40
I think Wendy Lee is 67. I would call that one out because it feels very unique to me, what they are building, and I really appreciated the logic of it. I don’t know, Ernest, if that would have been yours if I stole your thunder.

Earnest Sweat 44:02
No, no. Well, I love Wendy, and she is an extremely thoughtful person, and I love the fact that she brings kind of the endowment approach to democratizing that to like families and individuals and smaller endowments that can’t do that. I’m rooting for that. I want them to be extremely successful. But when looking at all the episodes that we’ve done since our last DDQ, oh my god, there’s like, You got Claire, who’s just like a rock star, with an extreme amount of humility and brilliance and someone who can just tackle a lot of things. And in that episode, it really brings out how having a non traditional background, and not only do you say non traditional, because I feel like that’s overused, but taking your own aspects as like someone who’s. In art and then being thrown in finance and taking all those experiences to build a family office. Super cool. I think that you know all the things that Brian had experienced in their early venture days of the 80s, and saying no to Kleiner Perkins and his, his, you know, somewhat bearish view on venture, and what you need to consider. I thought that was fascinating and sobering and healthy for our community, but like and then lastly, I probably say Jason on episode 70, who, you know, even in his name, being extremely intentional, this is somebody who’s very successful and sees that, oh, I want to create something that can be that’s really needed in the market when it comes to GP seeding. So

Alexa Binns 45:55
That’s episode 70. I think yes. So you all can tee them up. You can tee them up.

Earnest Sweat 46:01
So listen to them all.
Alexa Binns 46:21
okay, and final question from the audience, what are some LP, GP related content outside of swimming with allocators that you would recommend articles, et

Earnest Sweat 46:29
cetera, yeah, my pick for this, DDQ would be a pretty famous podcast, 20 VC with heavy Harry Stevens said Harry Styles, and that would be a great that’d be interesting episode. But this episode, I don’t even know the number of it, but it’s miles from Carnegie Mellon’s endowment, and he leads their private equity and venture capital book. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking of miles before, and had over like last summer, probably like a 40 minute conversation. Super brilliant guy, Super Down to Earth, and has strong opinions. I would suggest you check this out to one here about his, his story, which is powerful. He didn’t even get into, like the you know, his high level football, college football playing days, but they talk about spin outs, they talk about the endowment model and the headwinds that those organizations are facing and why they focus on partner dynamics So much in their diligence and back channeling. So everybody should check that out. Came out three weeks ago or four weeks a month ago now.

Alexa Binns 47:50
Okay, it’s on my list now, and my favorite listen is always Matt Levine’s podcast. He has famously had this long running Bloomberg sort of like, witty financial column and his podcast, he’s just as he’s, like, just as awesome. And it’s fun to hear like, the voice when you’re actually listening to him, which you get a little bit of that, I don’t know, you’re like, Oh, it doesn’t take him long to write these articles at all, like, this is him, you know, because he’s riffing so well, but, but the reason I appreciate it is because at any given time you’re looking to just sort of like, bond with laps on what’s going on in their lives. And I think, like, there’s probably something super interesting that Matt is writing about or speaking about, but it’s just gonna make like a fun opener chat like he’s always got like an interesting, cool take on what’s happening in the market, and I don’t know, I feel smarter for getting to listen

Earnest Sweat 48:56
to him. That’s awesome. thanks to all our listeners, keep following us on LinkedIn and x, and if you have any questions, just DM us on swim with allocators LinkedIn page.

Alexa Binns 49:21
Thank you.