Rogue Equity

These poor M&A analysts running merger analysis on a Friday evening for scenarios the CEO is 100% going to reject

Bilt is making this way too hard….cya

@PEoperator Still nothing? Mind shooting me a DM and seeing if that works

@Rogue_Equity Not seeing but chat has been wonky lately

Interviewed a guy yesterday for an open leadership role. We had talked on the phone before (we had a mutual connection). He’s sixty, has related experience, and says his current job is boring. He’s looking for a challenge. So far so good. He asks if he could swing by the office to introduce himself. Sure. We sit down to chat. I asked him to tell me about his current role. He proceeds to regale me with just how good he is. It’s an interview so I try to overlook all the chest puffing… I mean, he’s supposed to tell me about his accomplishments. When he finishes, I ask the obvious question… “sounds like you are in a great spot, why would you want to leave?” With a smug grin, he then proceeds to say “I want to go where I’m wanted. Our friend asked me if I would submit a resume. I said no. I won’t. Because look I don’t need the money. I want to go somewhere that sees how valuable I am and pursues me.” Again, picture that response said in the smuggest, most condescending way you can. It was kind of a shocking response tbh. I was taken aback. So I said, “well look I need people who want to be here, people who are passionate, who want to build.” He sort of retraced his steps but the damage was done. We don’t need a prima donna on our team. We need humble builders serving their customers and employees. One thing that can be difficult in interviews is balancing talking about yourself and your accomplishments with not coming across as arrogant. My advice there is to be matter of fact on accomplishments. I look for people using the word “we” instead of “I”. That conveys a sense of team and humility. I also think asking questions is a good sign. When I asked this guy if he had any questions, you can guess his response (he already knew everything). Another thing is balancing wanting the job with not seeming desperate. In my experience, showing some desperation- how bad you want THIS job- resonates. I think I’m a good judge of character, but it can be hard in a brief interview to evaluate. So anyway, back to the story… I passed on that guy.

@endowment_eddie Any interesting new funds you’re tracking in NYC?

The last four Fund Is or institutional Fund Is I did: - All fund size $125-250 - 1/4 founder, 2/4 operator, 2/4 had prior vc exp - 3 of 4 started as outbound cold emails from me - My bite ranged from $10 to $40 - 1 was an existing relationship/spin out - track record total invested was $12 to >$1B - GP age was ~30 to ~50 - All west coast - preseed to A TL;DR: don’t think there’s a pattern

@sourcesandmuses Senior Associate / junior VP

@Rogue_Equity What level role?

Anyone have good benchmarks and / or experience with comp at a first time fund?

@endowment_eddie @holistic_pm

Any interesting emerging managers focused on tech PE? Ideally based in NYC

@RiggsBarstool @TaylorMadeGolf 113

Alright here we go. I’m giving away a free driver. 30-50mph winds on Pac Dunes. Pouring rain. The green tees (about 6,200 yards). Guess what I shoot & if you’re right you enter to win a free @TaylorMadeGolf Qi35 driver. I’ll send it to you myself.

@Restructuring__ Now raising $30b for bcp

Blackstone’s Latest Private Equity Returns The fact that the last four flagship funds returned 8%, 12%, 10%, and 10% perfectly illustrates how hard it is to scale returns Fund size tripled from $7B to $21B, and returns compressed drastically

@TheIcahnist Do you have this full presentation?

BREAKING: Apollo just launched a new vehicle in sports finance. When billionaires need cash for teams, they call Apollo. Sports are the next trillion-dollar asset class. Thread

Someone better be making “make IPOs great again” hats

@girdley @LuxuryWatchGuy1

If you're into luxury watches: Why? When did you get into them? (Please also let me know your age range.)

@inglouriouscap What’s 20% slope?

I’ll speak for myself in saying that I guess I don’t understand how lonely and difficult a $10 million guarantee and 20% slope must feel. Hope I find out someday.

@EricJorgenson Seems like some Black Mirror level stuff

The invisible made visible. Breakthrough companies are built when we learn how to measure new things. A huge part of human progress is simply learning to measure something new, notice what is happening, and refine our approach based on new information. The mind is a frontier of critical-yet-vague information. Proud to be an early investor in this team of scientists building "Whoop for Brains" Follow them for the coming launch...

@PEoperator What is Silver Lakes differentiation?

The private equity industry has become commoditized. Folks inside the industry will point out how different one firm is to another. But from the outside, they are indistinguishable. Buy a company with debt, cut costs, try to grow, avoid investments that don’t pay back in 3-5 years, sell. And selling is often a shell game where one private equity firm hands off a portco to the next, bigger fish. There are some differentiators- Thrive, Silver Lake, Alpine - all have differentiated playbooks. The LMM guys often have an angle too, providing the first phase of sophistication for SMBs. But the truth is most traditional PE firms exist at this point because they generate ~S&P500 returns while old school LPs (often the GPs alma mater endowment) feel “diversified”. The only people consistently getting outsized returns are the GPs. Many “pre-partners” inside the industry dream of launching their own fund, doing things their own way. But the promise of more money - the payoff - keeps them around. Those folks should be careful. There are no guarantees. Past performance may not indicate future. There is no doubt PE is in a tough spot right now, but it is an industry made up of very smart, rich people. They will fight. The endgame here is going to be interesting.

@housetechnolove @BoringBiz_ Mind sending me a DM? interested in learning more

@BoringBiz_ Look at Courtyard. Tokenized card market with interesting structures and explosive numbers

After spending a couple days looking into this market, I have actually turned a lot more bullish on investing in Pokémon cards These are preliminary thoughts so feel free to point out where I am wrong > Pokémon released in 1996 and the majority of early viewership came from people who are just entering the workforce or their peak earnings years. The folks who actually have a nostalgia factor from the franchise are yet to fully delve into the asset class. My guess is that we have therefore not seen the peak of the market yet > Average household where pokémon was viewed or played was wealthier. This makes sense since you likely had to buy a console or TV, and your parents required discretionary income to purchase these (especially in the 90s and early 2000s). The probability that you end up with high income coming from an already above average income household is quite high, based on statistics. My point is that folks with a nostalgia factor for the franchise likely earn above average income and net worth. This is a fantastic setup in a world that is becoming more bifurcated between have and have nots > Pokémon is by far the largest franchise in the world. Star Wars has 2/3 the franchise value and Mario stands at 1/3. > During the last eBay earnings call, management directly mentioned Pokémon trading card volume as having a material impact on revenues. I think the volume of cards and amount of money moving around in pokémon cards is underestimated > Despite these, the biggest challenge I see today in this market is liquidity. It’s hard to move this product without paying fees to ebay or selling at discount to local game stores or collectors. However, I think there is tons of opportunity for the franchise to get better at this. We are already seeing new platforms such as Whatnot add tremendous amounts of daily GMV in this category. > Graded cards (through PSA) are also interesting and I don’t see any reason why you would not be able to put these into the blockchain. Tokenization is a hot topic right now in Ethereum (@fundstrat ) and I see no reason why Pokémon should not be the perfect target to put on the blockchain Again, all of this is purely speculative, not investment advice and just my initial thoughts. Feel free to poke holes where you think it makes sense

Wonder what Larry Ellison is up to this evening after ‘making’ a cool $100B today…

What’s with dudes on scooters wearing dirtbike helmets and knee pads?

@BoringBiz_ Spend $400K on a HSW MBA to “add value”

Investment banking VPs finding the missing comma in the footnote of page 89 of the appendix