## Background
Published on June 7, 2026, by the All-In Podcast on YouTube, this video features a panel discussion from the All-In Liquidity Summit. The episode brings together Brad Gerstner, Gavin Baker, and Kelly Rodriques to join the Besties in exploring how secondary markets are booming, competing with traditional IPOs, and democratizing access to private tech equities.
## TL;DR
The private tech market is undergoing a massive structural shift as secondary markets evolve from a discounted 'wild west' into a highly sophisticated, premium-priced alternative to traditional IPOs. Driven by companies staying private longer, these markets provide critical liquidity for cash-poor employees and venture capitalists seeking to return capital to their LPs. Through major partnerships like Forge and Charles Schwab, as well as innovative structures like interval funds, retail investors are gaining unprecedented access to late-stage giants like SpaceX, though experts warn of the risks of chasing peak-valuation hype.
## Atmosphere & style
The panel has an energetic, highly sophisticated, and insider-driven atmosphere, blending deep financial expertise with sharp, candid critiques of Silicon Valley dynamics. The speakers share a palpable excitement about the democratization of private equity, balanced by a sober, cautionary tone regarding retail speculation and the 'ZIRP' era's double standards. It feels like a high-stakes, backstage conversation among seasoned market operators who are actively rewriting the rules of venture liquidity.
## Key takeaways
- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=0s) Secondary market volume is experiencing record-breaking growth, effectively doubling its previous 2021 peak and competing directly with traditional IPOs.
- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=0s) Late-stage private companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, and Anduril are now 'quasi-public' assets with shares trading on a daily basis.
- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=0s) Secondary transactions have shifted from trading at historical 80% discounts to commanding a premium of 106% of their last primary valuation.
- [02:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=161s) Orderly, company-sanctioned secondary liquidity programs are essential for retaining talented employees who are wealthy on paper but cash-poor.
- [04:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=272s) The 'Special Flower' dynamic in private markets shields founders from honest feedback, whereas public markets deliver rigorous, course-correcting discipline.
- [09:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=553s) Forge's partnership with Charles Schwab connects private tech equities to 46 million investors and $12 trillion in assets, mainstreaming the asset class.
- [16:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1014s) Venture capitalists are increasingly adopting a 'third way' of liquidity, normalizing secondary sales at mid-stage valuations to return capital to LPs early.
- [21:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1308s) A massive divergence is occurring in venture returns, where a few mega-winners skew the mean upward while the median fund faces franchise risk.
- [21:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1308s) Post-IPO lockup expirations will free up hundreds of billions in mutual fund 'dry powder' currently constrained by private asset caps.
- [30:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1825s) Unlike the speculative dot-com bubble of 1999, today's private giants are extraordinarily real businesses with massive revenues.
## Detailed walkthrough
### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=0s) The Rise of Secondary Markets and Quasi-Public Companies
The private markets are undergoing a massive structural shift, opening up to a broader base of US and global investors. Brad Gerstner sets the stage by presenting data on the secondary markets over the last decade, tracking the flow of capital entering and exiting venture capital (VC) each year. For the past five years, far more money has been poured into VC than has been distributed back to investors. However, the secondary market is currently experiencing record-breaking volume, effectively doubling its previous 2021 peak.
Gerstner refers to these late-stage, highly valued private companies—such as SpaceX, Anthropic, and Anduril—as "quasi-public companies" because buying and selling of their shares occurs on a daily basis. In 2025, employee secondaries and secondary transactions represent a staggering 31% of all primary venture activity. Secondaries have officially begun competing with traditional IPOs and acquisitions as the primary mechanism for exits. Furthermore, while secondaries previously traded at a discount (around 80 cents on the dollar) to help venture firms return Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) to their Limited Partners (LPs), they are now trading at a premium of 106% of their valuation.
- **31%**: The percentage of primary venture activity represented by secondary transactions in 2025.
- **106%**: The current average pricing of secondary transactions relative to their last primary round valuation, representing a premium compared to the historical 80% discount.
- **Key Companies Mentioned**: SpaceX, Anthropic, Anduril.
[02:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=161s) The Impact of Secondaries on Employees and the "Suckers" at the Table
The rapid growth of the secondary market has not been without its "wild west" elements, including unregulated Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) charging 10% load-in fees, double carry, and various gray-market, off-market transactions. Despite these structural flaws, Gavin Baker argues that secondary liquidity is absolutely necessary for employees. Because companies are staying private much longer, many employees find themselves incredibly wealthy on paper but cash-poor in reality.
Baker points out the human toll of this dynamic, noting that employees make tremendous sacrifices for companies they believe in, only to find themselves in year seven, eight, nine, or even fifteen of their tenure unable to buy a home or afford nice things for their families. "You tell your spouse we're worth 10 million on paper, 30 million on paper and you don't own your home," Gerstner adds, highlighting the absurdity of paper wealth in prolonged private cycles. This makes orderly, company-sanctioned liquidity programs essential for retaining talent.
[04:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=272s) Why Companies Stay Private and the Myth of the "Special Flower"
When asked why companies choose to stay private longer, Baker and Gerstner agree that there is no truly good reason. The primary driver is simply that founders want to avoid the intense public microscope, preferring to build without constant external scrutiny. However, Baker challenges the common perception that private life is easier or better for long-term thinking. He recalls Mark Zuckerberg's public commentary regarding Facebook's "near-death experience" around 2010 to 2012, during the transition to mobile.
At the time, Facebook's leadership was split in a "cataclysmic debate" between building native apps or relying on HTML5 to make websites look mobile-native. Zuckerberg initially chose HTML5, a decision that took three years to unwind. Gerstner, who was intimately involved in the debate, recalls telling Zuckerberg that they needed a billion dollars to build a phone to secure a "third leg of the stool" alongside Android and iPhone. Zuckerberg declined because they lacked the capital, but going public a year later changed everything. Baker argues that had Facebook been public during that critical debate, the rigorous, detailed questioning from smart public equity investors would have forced Zuckerberg to correct his course much faster.
- **The "Special Flower" Dynamic**: In private markets, successful CEOs are treated as "the most special flower" by their board members and investors, who often tell management teams only what they want to hear to maintain access for future rounds.
- **Public Market Discipline**: Once public, a company is one of thousands, allowing investors to buy and sell freely and deliver unfiltered, honest feedback to management.
[09:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=553s) The Democratization of Private Equity and the Schwab-Forge Partnership
Kelly Rodriguez, CEO of Forge, offers a counter-perspective on the transition from private to public. Having been both a private and public company CEO, Rodriguez notes that the jobs are entirely different and that being a public CEO is "much less fun" because the role shifts from being a visionary, product-first builder to acting primarily as an investment manager. With the massive pools of capital available today, companies like SpaceX can successfully remain private for over two decades while running orderly, company-permissioned liquidity programs.
Forge's partnership with Charles Schwab represents a major milestone in treating private tech equities as a legitimate, mainstream asset class. By putting these private shares into well-managed, regulated SPV structures, they can offer access to a broader audience. Rodriguez's pitch to founders is that instead of fearing the public markets, they can use these structures to transition smoothly. Schwab represents 46 million investors and $12 trillion in assets, offering a massive distribution channel. When Forge first structured SPVs for SpaceX in 2018 and 2019 with Elon Musk's permission, it paved the way for retail investors to access $50,000 slices of the company at the IPO price.
- **46 Million**: The number of investors Schwab brings to the table, representing $12 trillion in assets.
- **SpaceX Liquidity**: SpaceX has run orderly internal liquidity programs for almost a decade to satisfy investor demand and employee liquidity needs.
[13:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=808s) The Dangers of "YOLOing" into Late-Stage Privates
While the democratization of private markets is appealing, Gerstner urges caution, warning that "with great power comes great responsibility." He expresses deep concern about retail investors blindly following trades or "YOLOing" into double-fee, high-load SPVs without doing proper due diligence. Gerstner emphasizes that true, durable democratization requires building trust, which is destroyed when retail investors rush into late-stage private companies at the peak of the market only to be disappointed when the asset does not immediately triple in value.
Gerstner shares advice he recently gave on CNBC: if an investor has $100,000 of fresh capital, they should not shove it all into the market at once, especially after major run-ups. Instead, they should invest in sizes—perhaps putting 30% to work initially. He views the current high-priced secondary market as an excellent opportunity for "exit liquidity" to return capital to his own LPs. If a venture fund can sell a slice of a 7- or 8-year-old investment at a 4x or 5x multiple to satisfy LPs' demand for DPI, they will gladly take advantage of the premium prices buyers are currently willing to pay.
### [16:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1014s) The "Sell" Side of Venture Capital and the Friction of Secondaries
The public markets require a daily discipline of deciding whether to buy or sell, a mindset that Brad Gerstner notes is often entirely missing in "Ventureland." While venture capitalists are structurally wired to focus only on the "buy" part, staying private longer means managing multi-billion dollar positions and actively returning capital to limited partners (LPs). However, executing secondary sales in the private market is fraught with delicate personality dynamics. When a VC decides to sell a portion of their position, founders "never like it" and often beg them not to do it due to signaling risks and a desire to keep the transaction quiet.
Jason Calacanis argues that the industry has crossed over into a "third way" of liquidity, moving past the binary options of traditional M&A and IPOs. He shares that as an early-stage investor entering at $10 million to $20 million valuations, he now tells founders upfront that once the company hits a $500 million valuation, they will sell pari-passu (side-by-side) to recycle capital into the next generation of startups. This is a stark contrast to the peak "ZIRP" (zero interest-rate policy) era of 2021, when founders would beg early investors to stay loyal and not participate in secondary rounds, even while those same founders were personally clearing tens of millions of dollars.
Chamath Palihapitiya raises a practical frustration: the secondary market is incredibly clunky and lacks a systematic exchange. Currently, a VC looking to hit a bid must have their CFO call a handful of brokers, resulting in a confusing array of mismatched bids that resemble "ticket brokers" rather than a modern financial market.
- **The "Third Way":** Early-stage VCs are increasingly normalizing secondary sales at mid-stage valuations (e.g., $500 million) to return capital early.
- **ZIRP Era Double Standards:** In 2021, founders frequently cashed out massive sums (e.g., $40 million out of a $110 million round) while pleading with early VCs not to sell their own shares.
- **Secondary Market Friction:** The current process relies on manual outreach by fund CFOs to a small pool of brokers, leading to inefficient price discovery and administrative headaches.
---
### [19:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1189s) Building the Infrastructure for Private Market Liquidity
Kelly Rodriques explains that the industry is at a tipping point. Over the last three years, Forge has built a brand-new platform designed to allow private companies to plug in and offer liquidity as seamlessly as listing on a public exchange. By merging platforms, they are expanding their reach from 3 million investors to a massive pool of 49 million investors by connecting to major retail brokerages like Charles Schwab.
The discussion turns to the regulatory hurdles of retail access. Currently, trading individual private shares directly on a cap table or through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) requires being an accredited investor. However, new structural products like "interval funds" (closed-end funds with periodic liquidity) are emerging. These funds allow unaccredited retail investors to participate with minimums as low as $500, offering exposure to a basket of highly valued private companies like SpaceX.
- **Platform Expansion:** Forge is integrating with major retail brokerages, scaling its potential investor base from 3 million to 49 million.
- **Interval Funds:** Closed-end fund structures are bypassing traditional accreditation rules, allowing retail investors to buy in with $500 minimums.
- **Price Discovery:** Unlike some closed-end funds where valuations can drift from reality due to "FOMO," systematic platforms aim to bring true price discovery to the secondary market.
---
### [21:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1308s) The Great Divergence in Venture Returns and the Return of Mutual Fund Capital
Gerstner predicts a massive divergence in the venture capital landscape. While the *mean* return for the asset class will look incredible due to a few trillion-dollar winners, the *median* return will remain poor. Venture firms without material exposure to these giant, era-defining companies are beginning to exhibit "franchise risk" as their lack of Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) pushes them out of the top quartiles. To compensate, some of these struggling firms are behaving unnaturally—chasing speculative "call options" in hot sectors like AI labs just to have a story to tell their LPs.
A major structural shift is also underway among long-only mutual funds and crossover investors (such as Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, and T. Rowe Price). By SEC rules, these massive pools of capital can allocate up to 15% of their portfolios to private assets, though most self-impose a conservative cap of 3% to 7%. Because of the explosive valuation growth of holdings like SpaceX, many of these funds hit their limits and were legally forced to sell down their positions. However, as these mega-private companies finally go public and their lockups expire, those assets migrate out of the "private" bucket. This transition will instantly free up hundreds of billions of dollars in late-stage "dry powder," putting founders back in the driver's seat.
- **Mean vs. Median:** A small handful of mega-winners will skew average venture returns upward, masking a bleak reality for the median fund.
- **Unnatural Behavior:** VCs lacking top-tier exposure are "chasing" and gambling on high-priced AI deals to manufacture a narrative for LPs.
- **The 15% SEC Rule:** Large mutual funds are currently constrained by self-imposed private asset caps (typically 3% to 7%).
- **Liquidity Release:** Post-IPO lockup expirations will unlock massive capacity for mutual funds to reinvest in the late-stage private market.
---
### [25:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1501s) Tokenization, Retail Risk, and the "YOLO" Top
The conversation shifts to the future of venture fund liquidity. Calacanis asks if venture funds themselves will ever become tradable on secondary platforms, allowing LPs to exit easily during life events like divorces. Rodriques notes that while secondary fund trading and blockchain-based tokenization are evolving, most LPs in top-tier funds do not actually want to sell their entire fund position; they usually just want to liquidate their exposure to the single "big winner" within that fund.
The panel debates the systemic risks of opening these markets to retail investors. Palihapitiya asks if retail investors risk becoming "exit liquidity" for overvalued mega-companies. Rodriques cautions that retail investors should look "down-market" at earlier, high-growth opportunities rather than chasing the heavily hyped names featured daily on CNBC. Gerstner agrees, noting that while technology is "fully valued" right now, long-term retail investors will do fine if they have staying power. The danger is that retail investors tend to "YOLO" at the absolute top of the market, driven by hype and leveraged products.
- **Fund Tokenization:** While technically viable, the primary demand from LPs is to trade out of specific winning assets rather than entire fund portfolios.
- **Retail Risk Mitigation:** Experts advise retail investors to seek earlier-stage private opportunities rather than buying mega-cap privates at peak valuations.
- **Leveraged Hype:** Gerstner points out the absurdity of financial engineering in the private markets, noting that "14 ETFs" are planning to launch leveraged products tracking SpaceX on the day of its eventual IPO.
---
### [30:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1825s) Market Cycles: 1999 vs. Today and Top Private Targets
When asked if current market cycles are compressed, Gerstner and Palihapitiya emphatically state that today's volatility is "nothing" compared to the dot-com bubble of 1999 and 2000. Gerstner describes 1999 as "Vegas on a Friday night after way too many drugs," pointing to companies like CMGI, which had no revenue but saw its stock skyrocket from $2 to $2,000 in six months, bought a football stadium, and went bankrupt two years later. In contrast, today's private giants like Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are "extraordinarily real businesses" with massive revenues. The closer comparison is 2021, where valuations simply got ahead of themselves.
To close, Palihapitiya challenges the panel to name a private company valued under $50 billion (excluding the top 10 mega-names) that they would buy on the secondary market today. Gerstner notes that this "inflection growth" bucket is the trickiest part of the investing landscape because these companies enjoy high valuations but still carry binary risk. He points to Sierra, founded by Brett Taylor, which is building "agent-native" software designed to revolutionize customer service, sales, and marketing.
- **1999 vs. Now:** Today's market is characterized by real revenues and business models, unlike the pure speculation of the dot-com bubble.
- **The Inflection Growth Bucket:** Private companies valued between $3 billion and $50 billion represent the highest risk-reward profile in the current market.
- **Top Pick:** Sierra (Brett Taylor's company) is highlighted as a prime example of an "agent-native" enterprise play poised to disrupt traditional SaaS.
[33:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=2008s) The Agentic Layer and the Appeal of Revolute
The conversation begins with a discussion of the European startup landscape, highlighting a company called Parlo. The speakers weigh the risks and rewards of investing in specialized AI startups. On the downside, tech giants like OpenAI and Anthropic could easily decide to build competing features, potentially "eviscerating" hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue overnight. However, the massive upside is that these startups have already constructed highly sophisticated agentic layers. Consequently, major players like Meta, Google, and SpaceX are highly motivated to acquire them simply to accelerate their own paths into AI agents.
The discussion then shifts to fintech, a sector one speaker admits to having largely ignored after early plays in Coinbase and Robin Hood. However, a backstage pitch from Thomas Leant completely changed their perspective on Revolute. Intrigued, they even started looking up Revolute's share price on secondary markets to potentially buy in. Revolute is described as a next-generation neo-bank that has completely rebuilt the banking stack for the modern era, successfully unbundling traditional incumbents within a highly regulated market.
- Revolute has tens of millions of customers and operates 14 distinct lines of business.
- The company's modern, rebuilt stack allows it to thrive in regulated markets where traditional banks struggle to innovate.
---
[34:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=2097s) Specialized Networking and European AI Logistics
The panel shares more specific investment ideas, focusing on the infrastructure required to support the AI boom. Gavin highlights two companies they are publicly involved with: Arya and Driveets. Both operate in the networking space, which is becoming critical as data centers grow more specialized and complex. This complexity is driven by the "disaggregation of inference and pre-fill and decode," which requires highly specialized chips. To make these chips work together "like a symphony" and ensure the right chip is used for the right job at the right time, networking must be completely reinvented. The speakers credit Gavin with being one of the earliest to identify this impending "super cycle" in infrastructure, networking, and silicon.
Another notable mention is Neurobotic (referred to as "Neuroobotics"), a company based in Germany rather than the high-priced real estate of Silicon Valley. It is described as a quiet but highly successful company focused on AI-powered logistics robotics.
- Neurobotic is already generating $100 million in revenue while flying under the radar of mainstream Silicon Valley.
- Arya and Driveets are leading the charge in next-generation networking to coordinate specialized AI chips.
---
[36:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=2181s) Space Stations, Drones, and Zipline's Origin Story
Jason shares his own investment theses, focusing on two main areas. The first is leveraging the falling cost of space travel driven by Elon Musk, which led him to invest in Vast, a company building space stations. The second thesis is what he calls "Uber 2.0," which led to an investment in Zipline. Zipline's drone delivery system dramatically lowers delivery costs from $15 to $5, and eventually down to $2. While drones suffered a "false start" that caused many investors to abandon the sector, Zipline succeeded through a simple, elegant innovation: the drone stays high in the air and drops a tether to deliver the package, avoiding the danger of landing a heavy, spinning robot in a backyard.
The speakers dive deeper into Zipline's incredible origin story. To make autonomous systems work, developers must gather real-world data, but getting approval to fly autonomous drones in American airspace was initially impossible. To solve this, Zipline's founder, Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, took the technology to African countries to deliver life-saving medical supplies and blood to remote villages. By focusing on maternity care, Zipline managed to cut maternal mortality rates in some of these regions by 90% to 95%. A midwife in a small village could press a button on an app, and within an hour, a drone would drop a refrigerated package of medicine and blood.
- Zipline operated in Africa for seven years, gathering crucial real-world data and saving lives before bringing the technology back to the United States.
- Jason admits he initially passed on the seed round because "hardware is hard" and he lacked insight into the African market, but he has since corrected that mistake by investing via a syndicate.
- The panel wraps up the session on this high note, thanking the hosts and the audience.
## Notable quotes
> [02:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=161s) You tell your spouse we're worth 10 million on paper, 30 million on paper and you don't own your home. — Brad Gerstner
> [13:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=808s) With great power comes great responsibility. — Brad Gerstner
> [30:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=1825s) Vegas on a Friday night after way too many drugs. — Brad Gerstner
> [36:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lFjTWx36I&t=2181s) Hardware is hard. — Jason Calacanis
## Mentioned
Brad Gerstner, Gavin Baker, Kelly Rodriques, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, David Friedberg, SpaceX, Anthropic, Anduril, OpenAI, Sierra, Brett Taylor, Revolute, Thomas Leant, Arya, Driveets, Neurobotic, Vast, Zipline, Keller Rinaudo Cliffton, Charles Schwab, Forge, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
Secondary markets have evolved from discounted, secondary mechanisms into a primary liquidity channel competing directly with traditional IPOs. Speaking on the All-In Podcast, industry investors and executives argue that while this shift accommodates prolonged private cycles and employee needs, it creates market frictions and risks for retail participants.
Structural Expansion and Quasi-Public Valuations (0:00)
Brad Gerstner reports that secondary transactions represent 31% of all primary venture activity in 2025, with secondary volumes doubling their prior 2021 peak. Rather than trading at historical discounts of roughly 80 cents on the dollar to generate Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI), transactions are averaging a premium of 106% relative to primary round valuations. Gerstner terms heavily traded mega-cap private firms like SpaceX, Anthropic, and Anduril 'quasi-public companies' because their shares transact continuously.
While Kelly Rodriguez of Forge points out that massive private capital pools allow firms to remain private for decades without facing public market scrutiny, Gavin Baker and Gerstner argue that companies stay private primarily to avoid public accountability. Baker notes that private founders are often shielded by flattering board members, whereas the rigorous feedback of public markets can accelerate crucial strategic pivots.
Employee Liquidity Pressures and Market Frictions (2:41)
Prolonged private tenures have created severe cash flow challenges for startup staff who hold substantial paper wealth but cannot monetize it. Baker emphasizes that after seven to fifteen years, employees frequently struggle to afford homes despite holding millions in equity, making orderly, company-sanctioned liquidity programs essential for talent retention.
Simultaneously, the execution of secondary sales faces operational and cultural friction. Gerstner and Jason Calacanis note that founders often resist secondary sales due to signaling concerns, contrasting with the 2021 era when some founders cashed out substantial personal sums while discouraging early venture investors from selling. Chamath Palihapitiya points out that the secondary market remains administratively clunky, relying on fund CFOs calling individual brokers for mismatched bids rather than using a systematic exchange.
Retail Access Infrastructure and Investor Risks (9:13)
Private market infrastructure is rapidly scaling to accommodate retail capital. Rodriguez highlights Forge's partnership with Charles Schwab, providing potential access to 46 million investors and $12 trillion in assets. Structural vehicles such as interval funds are lowering minimum investments to $500, enabling unaccredited retail investors to gain exposure to high-profile private companies.
However, panelists caution against retail speculation. Gerstner warns of the dangers of retail investors 'YOLOing' into late-stage private rounds through high-fee, double-carry Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) at cycle peaks, potentially acting as exit liquidity for venture funds. He recommends pacing capital deployment rather than committing windfalls all at once. Rodriguez advises retail buyers to examine earlier, high-growth companies rather than chasing heavily publicized mega-cap names.
Venture Fund Disparities and Emerging Sector Theses (21:48)
Gerstner projects a sharp divergence in venture outcomes: while a handful of trillion-dollar winners will elevate average industry returns, the median fund's performance will struggle due to lagging DPI, forcing lower-tier funds into speculative bets. However, as mega-cap private companies eventually hold IPOs and lockups expire, mutual funds constrained by private asset caps—such as the SEC's 15% ceiling—will free up hundreds of billions of dollars in late-stage dry powder to redeploy.
Looking beyond the largest mega-cap privates, panelists highlight high-risk, high-reward inflection companies valued under $50 billion. Opportunities cited include Brett Taylor's agentic enterprise platform Sierra, European neobank Revolut, logistics automation provider Neurobotic, and AI networking specialists Arya and Driveets. In hardware and logistics, Calacanis details Zipline's tether-based drone delivery model, which proved its autonomous logistics by delivering blood and medical supplies in Africa for seven years before entering the United States.
While secondary platforms increasingly mimic public exchanges and solve crucial liquidity demands, the market remains divided over whether expanding retail access will responsibly democratize venture returns or simply provide exit liquidity for overvalued late-stage assets.
[2:41] Brad Gerstner: You tell your spouse we're worth 10 million on paper, 30 million on paper and you don't own your home.
[13:28] Brad Gerstner: With great power comes great responsibility.
[30:25] Brad Gerstner: Vegas on a Friday night after way too many drugs.
[36:21] Jason Calacanis: Hardware is hard.
Original transcript
[0:00] Everybody wants access to these private
[0:02] markets. Joining [music]
[0:02] >> us right now to discuss all of this is
[0:04] Kelly Rodriguez. He's a Forge CEO. We
[0:06] see a world where the [music] private
[0:08] market opens up and is accessible to any
[0:11] US and global investor. There's 19
[0:14] companies in the private market AI
[0:16] basket. These companies have grown on
[0:18] average 300%.
[0:20] >> Please join us in welcoming Gavin Baker,
[0:22] managing partner and CIO of Atrades. The
[0:24] ROI on AI has
[0:27] empirically, factually, unambiguously
[0:30] been positive. Investing is the search
[0:32] for truth. We welcome in Brad Gersonner.
[0:34] It's good to be back with you. You have
[0:36] a program called Invest America.
[0:38] >> I think we have a historic moment right
[0:40] now to get [music] everybody into the
[0:43] game of capitalism.
[0:46] >> Do we have a few slides from Brad to
[0:48] kick this off?
[0:49] >> You know, let's startic like old times.
[0:53] like old times. This uh this panel I I
[0:56] actually was backstage. I said, "Gavin,
[0:57] do you know we're talking about
[0:58] secondaries?" He's like, "What do you
[1:00] mean?" And I said, "Okay, so here, let's
[1:03] just set this up for everybody. The
[1:04] room's full of people who are
[1:05] allocators. People are looking for
[1:07] distributions. So this is um secondary
[1:10] markets over the course of the last
[1:12] decade. This is the amount of money
[1:14] going into VC each year, the amount of
[1:16] money coming out of VC each year. The
[1:18] red line represents the net effect of
[1:20] that. So Jamath, we're in like 5 years,
[1:23] right, where a lot more is going in
[1:24] than's coming out. But the secondary
[1:27] market is at record volume. So this is,
[1:30] you know, I call these companies quasi
[1:32] public companies. These are these later
[1:34] stage companies. There's buying and
[1:36] selling that's going on every day. Look
[1:38] at that, Jason. Relative to the 21 peak.
[1:40] We thought that was crazy at the end of
[1:42] 21. We're double that now in terms of
[1:45] secondary transactions. This is the
[1:47] amount of employee secondary. So this is
[1:49] people buying into Anderal, Anthropic,
[1:53] SpaceX now represents 31% of all primary
[1:56] venture activity is buying into these
[1:59] secondaries in 2025.
[2:02] Secondaries are now competing with IPOs
[2:05] and acquisitions as the principal way
[2:08] that these guys are exiting. So, I
[2:10] thought that was a decent setup to start
[2:14] the conversation this morning just to
[2:16] level set how important secondaries
[2:18] [clears throat] have become. And then
[2:19] the final one is secondaries over the
[2:21] last couple years were trading at a
[2:23] discount to market. So, if we wanted to
[2:25] sell shares in one of our companies,
[2:28] right, to buyers out there, they were
[2:29] willing to give us 80 cents on the
[2:31] dollar in order for us to get liquid so
[2:33] that we could send DPI back to our LPS.
[2:35] Today it's at 106. Uh uh so a premium in
[2:40] the market as a coupon.
[2:41] >> And this doesn't include some of the
[2:43] wild west of SPVS that have been
[2:46] unraveled recently.
[2:48] >> People charging 10% loadin fees, double
[2:52] carry and a lot of gray market offmarket
[2:55] stuff. This is also having a profound
[2:58] impact, Gavin, on employees at these
[3:01] companies that I want to hear about
[3:02] because you've seen it up close and
[3:04] personal with SpaceX and they have a
[3:05] very orderly process here. So, why don't
[3:08] we start there? What impact is this
[3:10] having on the employees, Gavin? And then
[3:14] on the market, how orderly is this? And
[3:18] and who are the buyers? Are the buyers
[3:20] the sucker at the table? are these
[3:22] family offices, high netw worth
[3:24] individuals who keep hearing us talk
[3:26] about Anthropic or SpaceX or Andril and
[3:30] they just say I have to own the name and
[3:31] they're not discerning. So Gavin, maybe
[3:34] you can start about the impact on the
[3:35] SpaceX employees you saw firsthand, etc.
[3:38] Well, maybe broadening it beyond SpaceX,
[3:40] I do just think if companies are going
[3:42] to be staying private longer, this is
[3:45] absolutely necessary. There I think
[3:48] there are a lot of people who are very
[3:50] um very wealthy on paper but actually
[3:54] cash poor and if you're making
[3:56] tremendous sacrifices
[3:59] uh because you know you work for a
[4:00] company that you really believe in and
[4:03] you're contributing a lot to that
[4:04] company. It's hard if you can't buy a
[4:07] nice house for your family. It's hard if
[4:10] you can't afford to do nice things,
[4:12] >> especially in year seven, eight or nine
[4:14] of working at the company and you tell
[4:16] your spouse we're worth 10 million on
[4:17] paper, 30 million on paper and you don't
[4:19] own your home.
[4:20] >> Yeah. Or year 15. And so I think this is
[4:23] necessary and important and you know
[4:26] whether it is good or bad, I think it is
[4:28] very clear that companies um are going
[4:30] to stay private for longer.
[4:32] >> What's the reason to stay private
[4:34] longer? Truly
[4:36] >> I I I don't think there is actually a
[4:40] good reason to stay private longer
[4:42] >> here. Here
[4:43] >> and
[4:43] >> I completely agree with you too.
[4:44] >> Yeah. And I
[4:45] >> Why has it happened? This is founders
[4:47] don't want let's just call it what it
[4:48] is. Founders don't want to be under a
[4:51] microscope. They want to build and enjoy
[4:53] life and have it easier than being on
[4:55] the public market microscoped.
[4:56] >> Yeah. I think there is a perception that
[4:58] life as a private company is easier and
[5:00] you have more freedom and you can think
[5:02] long term.
[5:03] I don't agree with this. I always think
[5:05] about um Mark Zuckerberg's commentary
[5:08] that had he been public. So just you
[5:12] know Facebook um I won't call it a
[5:15] near-death experience but long ago it's
[5:18] difficult to believe but I don't 10 112
[5:22] um Facebook did not believe in apps they
[5:25] believed in something called HTML 6
[5:28] >> and HTML 5
[5:29] >> HTML 5 HTML 5 Yes. You you you you were
[5:32] the actual
[5:33] >> it was the cataclysmic debate and it was
[5:36] me and Brett Taylor. Me versus Brett. I
[5:38] was like apps I want to go build a
[5:39] phone. Brett was like HTML 5. Zuck
[5:41] picked Brett. Spent the next three years
[5:44] unwinding that decision.
[5:46] >> Absolutely. And Mark Zuckerberg and
[5:47] basically the idea was you know the
[5:49] iPhone comes out and initially there was
[5:52] not a big app app ecosystem and there
[5:56] was a thought that hey there's no need
[5:57] for apps. you're just going to use the
[5:59] web browser on your phone and HTML 5 was
[6:02] a way of look of making websites look
[6:06] mobile native
[6:07] >> dynamic.
[6:08] >> Yeah. And this seemed like kind of the
[6:10] future to a lot of very smart people
[6:11] including Google, Facebook. Um but it
[6:14] was not the future. Um it was wrong. And
[6:17] what Mark Darker has said, I think
[6:20] several times in public is he profoundly
[6:22] believes that had he been a public
[6:24] company
[6:25] um when you know there was this internal
[6:28] debate between the and the detail was
[6:31] actually I went to Zuck and I said I
[6:32] need a billion dollars to build this
[6:34] phone and we are in this moment in 2010
[6:37] where we can have the third leg of the
[6:38] stool. there's Android, there's iPhone,
[6:40] neither have really taken off yet.
[6:44] And and he's like, we don't have a
[6:45] billion. And I said, but the public
[6:47] markets will give us a billion. And he
[6:50] said, no, but then we went public a year
[6:52] later,
[6:53] >> but that year made all the difference.
[6:54] >> Made all the difference. And he said
[6:56] that had I had the constant pressure
[6:59] testing from public market investors,
[7:02] you there's a dynamic. I was I was
[7:04] talking to another CEO here this
[7:05] morning. When you're the CEO of a
[7:07] private company, you are the most
[7:09] special flower to all of your investors.
[7:11] [laughter] You're like, you are as
[7:13] important to your board members,
[7:15] particularly if you're really
[7:16] successful. You know, maybe as the board
[7:18] members families or parents, you know,
[7:21] the board members think about you a lot.
[7:23] Um, once you're public, you're one of
[7:26] thousands of companies. Um, and that's
[7:28] its own dynamic. But the consequence of
[7:31] this is is that private investors are
[7:33] often selling to management teams. And
[7:35] at some level that can mean telling
[7:37] management teams what they need to hear
[7:40] because you want to be able to keep
[7:41] participating in the rounds. Once a
[7:43] company's public, you can buy or sell as
[7:45] you wish. And this means that investors
[7:47] feel freer to give companies management
[7:49] teams. And Zuckerberg Zuckerberg said,
[7:51] "Had I been public, had I been getting
[7:54] rigorous, detailed questions from really
[7:57] smart public equity investors, I think I
[8:00] would have, you know, by the way, the
[8:02] second unwritten story of that, which
[8:03] has never been said, he called me. He's
[8:06] like, "Hey, man, what the is going on
[8:07] over there?" Uh, and I was like, "Yeah,
[8:10] I know." Cuz I had just left and then we
[8:13] wrote a deck
[8:15] and I walked over to Zuck and I'm like,
[8:17] "Here's the deck of what you need to
[8:18] do." Yeah,
[8:19] >> do these things. Well, this is a key
[8:22] point. I think Gavin is when you're
[8:24] private, you do not get clean
[8:27] information as the CEO and the
[8:29] management team because people want
[8:31] access and once you give the truth or
[8:34] you ask the hard questions, you might
[8:35] lose access
[8:36] >> 100%.
[8:37] >> The sickopantic nature of private
[8:38] markets is real.
[8:40] >> Now, an exceptional CEO
[8:42] >> Elon
[8:44] >> seeks out negative feedback. looking for
[8:46] that.
[8:47] >> But not many and actively discards, but
[8:50] not many CEOs maybe are are wired that
[8:53] way. And by the way, I do think we have
[8:54] to give Brad credit. That was a very
[8:56] good deck. You said back in 2012.
[8:58] >> No, cuz he did a second one. He had
[8:59] >> when he did the second one, he did the
[9:01] open letter to Zuckerberg at the end of
[9:03] Was that at the end of 22?
[9:06] >> October 22.
[9:07] >> Why don't you call it? Get fit. What was
[9:08] the uh time to get fit?
[9:10] >> Time to get fit. That was an impact.
[9:12] Those are two very impactful.
[9:13] >> Okay. So look, there's you're you're
[9:16] hearing the bulls on going public, but
[9:17] Kelly, take the red team the other side
[9:19] because you're on the other side. You
[9:20] built a private business, you sold it to
[9:21] Schwab, so clearly one of the largest
[9:23] financial institutions now is going to
[9:25] ram its way into this market. But then
[9:27] you're seeing a lot of push back.
[9:29] Anthropic is like, "Hey, uh, dissolve
[9:31] these SPVS." OpenAI, I think, was saying
[9:34] today now, dissolve these SPVS.
[9:39] Should we dissolve the SPVS? Where are
[9:41] they coming from? And why are you on the
[9:44] right side of history?
[9:45] >> And and have you had to dissolve any of
[9:47] the ones on your marketplace?
[9:49] >> No.
[9:49] >> No. Look, I think that uh first of all,
[9:53] being a private company CEO for most of
[9:56] my career and then being a public
[9:58] company CEO for three years, I recognize
[10:00] the job is incredibly different. It's
[10:03] much less fun. Uh you're not doing
[10:06] >> Hold on. What do you mean when you say
[10:07] much less fun? Turning into an
[10:10] investment manager primarily as a public
[10:13] company CEO
[10:15] is a very different job than being a
[10:19] visionary [clears throat]
[10:20] product first uh first principles
[10:23] business when you become a public
[10:26] company CEO everything changes and I
[10:30] would say in the world we're in now the
[10:32] kind of capital you can raise the kind
[10:34] of capital that was represented in the
[10:36] very last discussion allows you to
[10:38] extend extend your private life. SpaceX
[10:41] private company for 24 years. Um but the
[10:45] reality is these SPVS that are now
[10:48] emerging because these companies are
[10:49] getting so big is because a market's
[10:52] trying to happen
[10:54] and a company like SpaceX has done this
[10:57] extraordinarily well. They've run
[11:00] essentially liquidity programs for
[11:03] almost a decade
[11:05] because there's so much pent-up interest
[11:08] in both being an investor and getting
[11:10] liquidity for some of the reasons that
[11:12] Gavin was mentioning. So I think what we
[11:14] see now is the next phase of this this
[11:17] Schwab deal with Forge basically says to
[11:20] the world this is a real asset class.
[11:23] It's more than just secondaries.
[11:26] We're going to put these companies, the
[11:29] company's equity into fund products into
[11:34] very well-managed, regulated SPV
[11:37] structures because they do serve a
[11:39] purpose in the market.
[11:40] >> Yeah. But if you're how do you convince
[11:43] Elon specifically to give you access to
[11:45] that when he wants to do it himself and
[11:48] he has a team and every six months he
[11:50] runs it himself? How do you get access
[11:51] to that? What's your pitch to the next
[11:53] Elon?
[11:54] >> Here's the pitch. The pitch is you're
[11:57] going to go from being a private company
[11:59] eventually to a public company. What
[12:02] Schwab represents is 46 million
[12:04] investors and 12 trillion.
[12:07] This will change capital access and the
[12:10] way that you distribute your shares
[12:13] moving from private to public.
[12:15] >> How did that work when you pitched them
[12:17] on that?
[12:18] >> Were you Well, I'll tell you. We got our
[12:20] first SPVS on SpaceX in 2018 and 2019.
[12:24] Were they was he okay with it?
[12:26] >> Absolutely. Totally permissioned. And
[12:28] then as we got closer to the IPO, we
[12:31] said, "Guess what? Um, we've got 30
[12:34] million retail investors that would like
[12:37] to have a $50,000 slice of SpaceX."
[12:41] And and he went out [snorts] publicly
[12:44] and talked about having broad-based
[12:45] distribution
[12:47] >> at the IPO price.
[12:48] >> At the IPO price and Schwab was named
[12:50] one of the IPO allocations.
[12:52] >> Beautiful. I do think this is actually a
[12:54] very effective pitch. I think a lot of
[12:56] these CEOs, they're a little bit
[12:58] ambivalent about, you know, and I think
[13:00] they understand that maybe the
[13:01] institutions who are investing in these
[13:03] private rounds, you know, they may
[13:05] represent, you know, unions, they may
[13:07] represent retirement plans, but I do
[13:10] think they like the idea of
[13:11] democratizing access and if they're
[13:14] building something that they think is
[13:15] great, giving ordinary Americans an
[13:19] opportunity to participate. I actually
[13:20] think that's a very appealing story to
[13:23] to a lot of these CEOs
[13:24] >> because they're capitalists and and they
[13:26] understand the power of equity. So Brad,
[13:29] >> what is the downside then of cuz you're
[13:32] part of the go direct movement now? BG2
[13:35] pod officially fifth bestie. Gavin
[13:37] officially sixth bestie. You [laughter]
[13:38] got that's Gavin. That's new news. We
[13:41] officially made you six bestie today.
[13:42] >> But does that mean I'm definitively
[13:44] behind Brad? Cuz [laughter] that that's
[13:46] the real news.
[13:46] >> I can You're standing behind Brad.
[13:49] You're just giving him that big bear hug
[13:51] right behind him.
[13:52] >> Wow.
[13:52] >> So, are you saying I'm the big spoon?
[13:54] >> You're the big spoon now [laughter] in
[13:56] the in the side draw with the extra
[13:58] spoons.
[13:59] >> But Brad, it's getting very weird very
[14:01] quick.
[14:03] >> In all seriousness, with great power
[14:05] comes great responsibility.
[14:08] Sometimes the, you know, the enthusiasm
[14:11] people can have can exceed reality.
[14:15] >> Correct.
[14:16] >> Going direct, you've become more
[14:18] measured. I've noticed as your profile
[14:21] has gone up.
[14:22] >> I think all of us have to like just make
[14:24] sure people don't blindly follow trades.
[14:27] Don't
[14:28] >> you were talking stuff down on CNBC a
[14:31] couple of times saying, "Hey, I don't
[14:33] think the average American needs to be
[14:35] in some of these companies. There's
[14:37] time."
[14:38] >> I get worried. I get worried at this
[14:41] point in the market stage, particularly
[14:42] on CNBC where you're talking to retail
[14:44] investors at home. Yes,
[14:46] >> I was one of those retail guys looking
[14:48] up to everybody on this stage, trusting
[14:50] everybody on this stage. And when people
[14:52] are telling you to yolo into right
[14:55] double fee structure, SPVS and all this,
[14:57] you know, like it's time to be careful,
[15:00] to do your work, to be thoughtful. We're
[15:02] in this because we want this to be
[15:04] durable democratization for a long time.
[15:07] Yeah.
[15:07] >> We want to build trust among those who
[15:10] feel left out and left behind in
[15:13] capitalism. We all think that we need to
[15:15] go public sooner. The reason I think we
[15:18] it is destabilizing
[15:20] when you're creating trillions of
[15:22] dollars in private value and 80% of
[15:25] America think it's a scam where they're
[15:28] left out and left behind. That's
[15:30] >> and then they come rushing in
[15:32] >> and they could be
[15:34] not so good cards,
[15:35] >> right? So, all I'm saying, like I said
[15:37] about they asked the question on CNBC
[15:40] last week, if you had $100,000 of fresh
[15:42] capital and you were sitting at home, is
[15:44] today the day that you would shove it
[15:46] all into the market? And I said, no, I
[15:48] think about it in sizes, right? We just
[15:51] had two of the biggest months in the
[15:53] last 10 years in the public markets.
[15:55] They've been big months. So, if I had a
[15:57] stack of a hundred, I may put 30 to work
[15:59] today. I'm never going to pick the
[16:01] bottom. I'm never going to pick the top,
[16:03] but I certainly wouldn't be putting it
[16:05] all to work. And I'd say the same thing
[16:06] about latestage privates, people who are
[16:09] yoloing into this stuff, and then they
[16:11] feel really disappointed. They're like,
[16:13] "Hold on a second. I bought the SpaceX
[16:15] IPO and it didn't go up 3x."
[16:17] >> Let me ask you then.
[16:18] >> Yeah.
[16:18] >> Do you view this as exit liquidity for
[16:21] you? Like, would you shape your
[16:22] portfolio and returns and increasingly
[16:25] say, "You know what? I don't know when
[16:26] this guy's going to go public."
[16:27] >> Yes.
[16:28] >> Let me just pump the stuff out. Let me
[16:30] get the distribution. and let me send it
[16:31] to my LPs and just call it a day.
[16:33] >> We we are selling into this.
[16:35] >> You're selling into this,
[16:36] >> right? So, I have LPs in this room who
[16:39] say, "Listen, we invested in your VC5 or
[16:42] VC6 7 or 8 years ago. If you can go sell
[16:46] a slice of that at four or 5x and we get
[16:50] DPI and it's priced really high, then go
[16:54] sell some of it." And we often don't
[16:56] talk about this in Venturland. Half of
[16:58] what we do is in the public markets.
[17:00] Gavin and I get up every morning and we
[17:02] think to ourselves, should we buy today
[17:04] or should we sell today? Venture
[17:06] capitalists don't think about the sell
[17:08] part. They think about the buy part. So
[17:12] one of if we're going to stay private
[17:13] for longer and we're going to have
[17:15] trillion dollar you know private
[17:18] companies and data bricks at $200
[17:19] billion you got to think about is today
[17:22] a day we should be selling some and
[17:24] returning it to our investors because
[17:26] >> doesn't it create though as as what
[17:28] Jason said these very complicated
[17:31] personality dynamics where maybe you get
[17:34] shut out of a new company maybe you get
[17:35] shut out of an incremental round and you
[17:38] know there's bad blood because you're a
[17:40] credible investor And there's this
[17:41] signaling risk. Whereas in the privates,
[17:43] if you and Gavin decide to sell, nobody
[17:45] knows.
[17:47] >> Well, no. In the in in the private,
[17:49] nobody knows.
[17:50] >> Exactly. The public's they don't know
[17:52] until our 13F comes out. Okay.
[17:54] >> But in the private market, it's always a
[17:57] conversation between me and the founder
[17:59] to say, "Listen, we're we're going to
[18:01] sell 30% of our position." They never
[18:03] like it, Chimath. They're always like,
[18:05] "We wish you wouldn't do that. They
[18:07] don't want it known, etc." But my job as
[18:10] a fiduciary to the LPs of this is to do
[18:13] that.
[18:14] >> It does feel Gavin like we have crossed
[18:16] over for early stage venture to a point
[18:20] in which there is a third way. Either
[18:23] your company had M&A and we saw in the
[18:25] presentation yesterday that during the
[18:28] wrath of Lena there was no M&A and they
[18:31] just froze the market. Now it's coming
[18:32] back. IPOs we did have some freezing of
[18:35] that market for certain periods. But
[18:38] this third way is now fantastic. I can
[18:41] tell you as the earliest of the early we
[18:44] are now pari pursu selling into every
[18:48] chance we get because our average
[18:49] investment is at 10 to$20 million
[18:51] valuations. When they hit 500 million I
[18:53] tell the founder you're going to start
[18:55] selling at 500 million. I'm going to
[18:57] sell right alongside you so that I can
[18:59] invest in the next you coming into the
[19:01] market. Everybody's fine with it. I but
[19:03] I can tell you six or seven years ago
[19:05] when I did this with a company they
[19:07] begged me to not participate when they
[19:09] hit peak zerp 2021 they begged me Jay
[19:12] Cal you have to be loyal to us you can't
[19:14] sell paru and I said you you guys are
[19:17] clearing 40 million of the $110 million
[19:20] [clears throat] round I'm just asking to
[19:21] be next to you same amount can I ask
[19:24] Kelly a question how do you systematize
[19:26] this so that it's like an exchange so
[19:27] like if we just want to hit the bid we
[19:29] can do it like what I don't like about
[19:31] the secondary markets is, you know, I
[19:33] ask my CFO, he calls five guys, then my
[19:36] fun CFO, she calls like four. You know,
[19:38] >> it's like ticket brokers. We get a bunch
[19:40] of bids. None of it makes any sense. And
[19:42] I'm like,
[19:43] >> and I'm already dealing with, as Brad
[19:45] said, the agit from the CEO.
[19:48] >> It's got to be easier than this. Like,
[19:49] >> yes. Yeah. Look, we 10 years ago, we
[19:52] said there needs to be infrastructure to
[19:54] pull this off. This can't just be a big
[19:57] shadow market. We're sort of in this
[19:59] tipping point now where we spent the
[20:01] last 3 years building this brand new
[20:03] platform so that a company could plug
[20:06] into it the same way they could list on
[20:08] an exchange and say we're going to offer
[20:10] liquidity. And furthermore, if you're a
[20:12] VC and you're on that cap structure for
[20:14] 10 years and you want to offer LP
[20:16] liquidity, you can do it in
[20:18] >> to be specific. What do you mean you're
[20:20] like we would be plugging into Schwab's
[20:24] 30 million humans that are buying stuff
[20:26] on? There's there's a platform. We
[20:28] brought a a platform with about 3
[20:30] million investors and now we're going to
[20:31] add 46 million investors to them.
[20:33] >> Yeah. But wait, hold on a second. Aren't
[20:34] those are those accredited investors? Do
[20:36] they need to be? Because we just had the
[20:38] chair of the SEC on
[20:41] >> So today, if you are trading individual
[20:43] shares, whether it's in an SPV or direct
[20:45] on a cap table, you're accredited.
[20:47] However, there are products coming to
[20:50] market, we can talk about this in detail
[20:52] later, that have 60 companies, including
[20:55] SpaceX, that are listed products for
[20:59] unacredited $500 minimums. And that
[21:02] capital for those funds will be the
[21:05] underlying
[21:06] >> closed end funds.
[21:07] >> These are interval funds.
[21:08] >> Interval funds. He's got one out now.
[21:10] >> I think Naval just did USVC as one of
[21:14] these. He's gonna contribute to
[21:15] >> now. the closed end funds
[21:17] >> are are a very different bet because
[21:19] you're betting on FOMO because if you
[21:21] look at the underlying value of some of
[21:23] the assets and those closed end funds
[21:25] they have no bearing to reality of what
[21:27] those underlying shares are actually
[21:28] worth. So price discovery is another key
[21:30] component of this structural shift. But
[21:33] to answer your question specifically, if
[21:35] a VC's LPs want to recycle or want to
[21:38] get liquid, then a platform like this
[21:42] will allow them to recycle that capital
[21:46] and put it back into the next vintage
[21:47] fund if they want.
[21:48] >> I have a I have a question for you based
[21:50] on this. When these returns come out,
[21:54] the mean
[21:56] return in venture is going to look
[21:57] incredible.
[21:59] The median return is still going to be
[22:02] So walk us through how people will sort
[22:06] through that and the reality of what's
[22:07] going to happen in the next year.
[22:08] >> Well, so I think there's there's two
[22:10] very important things. one, I observe if
[22:13] you if you were a venture firm and you
[22:16] do not have material exposure to one of
[22:19] these trillion dollar plus companies
[22:21] that you had many many chances, you
[22:25] know, to to buy into. You're not only
[22:28] your returns not going to be good, but
[22:29] you're not going to have DPI on a
[22:32] relative basis, but you're not going to
[22:33] have DPI. And you know, there's
[22:34] exceptions. you know are you know you
[22:36] know great series A firms they may not
[22:38] have this but their returns are still
[22:40] amazing with great DPI but in so I am
[22:43] beginning to see venture firms who don't
[22:47] have exposure to one of these companies
[22:49] behave in strange ways because I think
[22:52] they're starting to feel a little bit of
[22:53] franchise risk because their DPI and
[22:57] their returns are going to go from you
[22:59] know hey top quintile top tile tile
[23:03] >> so they're doing unnatural ads doing
[23:05] unnatural things. They're writing what I
[23:07] see as call options, like a bunch of
[23:09] these, you know, Neolabs. Well, I need a
[23:12] story. I've done something. And maybe
[23:14] some of these call options pay off, but
[23:17] I do think they're engaging at some
[23:20] level and maybe
[23:21] >> they're chasing it.
[23:22] >> They're chasing gambling terms. Whereas
[23:25] the people who have exposure to this, I
[23:27] are being a lot more disciplined because
[23:28] they know they're in in in a great
[23:29] position. I think another very important
[23:32] dynamic is going to happen in the world
[23:33] of longon only mutual funds and
[23:35] crossover funds. So, Long Only Mutual
[23:38] Funds, uh, you know, my for former
[23:40] employer, Fidelity, amazing place, love
[23:42] it. Uh, Bailey Gford, Capital Research,
[23:45] Wellington,
[23:47] >> Tro, they all can, per SEC rules,
[23:51] allocate up to 15% of their funds into
[23:54] privates. And these are the biggest
[23:55] pools of capital in the world. They
[23:57] dwarf sovereign wealth funds. But, you
[24:00] know, most firms, because they don't
[24:01] want to get in trouble with the SEC,
[24:02] they say, "Hey, we're going to cap it at
[24:04] 3% or 5% or 7%. It was very public.
[24:07] Bailey Gford was forced to sell SpaceX
[24:10] last year
[24:10] >> for regulatory reasons. And um what's
[24:15] going to happen as these companies go
[24:18] public? All of these long only mutual
[24:21] funds are by and large finding it hard
[24:23] to participate in private markets right
[24:25] now because they're at the limits of
[24:28] their self-imposed
[24:30] >> 3%
[24:30] >> 3 5%.
[24:32] >> When a company goes public and the
[24:33] lockup expires, it moves out of that
[24:35] bucket. Nice.
[24:36] >> So, this is going to be hundreds of
[24:38] billions of dollars of new late stage
[24:43] demand that is coming back to the market
[24:46] after kind of being out out of the
[24:48] market for a while.
[24:48] >> That's a lot of dry powder. There's a
[24:50] lot of dry powder.
[24:51] >> The net trade is up. Then the the
[24:52] marginal trade is is up.
[24:54] >> Founders are going to be in the cap bird
[24:57] seat. People are going to be looking to
[24:58] put money to work. Interesting
[25:01] buzz going around about accreditation
[25:03] rules. We had the head of the SEC on
[25:05] Allins interview show. We did it. And
[25:08] they're going to have a sophisticated
[25:09] investor test, something I've been
[25:10] talking about for a long time that would
[25:13] really democratize the way Invest
[25:15] America has access. Um, and then funds.
[25:19] I've been getting pitched for years on,
[25:21] oh, put your fund on blockchain or sell
[25:25] your fund into this ETF. Maybe you could
[25:27] talk a little, Kelly, about the
[25:28] possibilities around venture funds being
[25:32] more tradable like secondaries are. Is
[25:35] that on your road map? Obviously,
[25:37] there's demand for it. What would that
[25:39] because I can tell you what that would
[25:40] do for my LPs, you know, Brad Chamat's
[25:44] LPs and and previous funds. If you could
[25:46] come in and out of these funds, the way
[25:49] you can come in and out of anthropic, my
[25:52] lord, that could be just incredible for
[25:55] folks who, I don't know, they have a
[25:56] divorce, they have a life event, you
[25:58] know, just a little more fluidity.
[26:01] >> So, there's been there's been secondary
[26:03] fund trading for a long time. Um, I
[26:07] think blockchain and tokenization makes
[26:09] it more efficient. That world will will
[26:11] come. But the question we're asking
[26:13] ourselves now is if you're an LP in a
[26:16] fund that's holding something as
[26:18] valuable as this, uh, are are you really
[26:21] interested in trading your fund position
[26:23] or do you just want to get out of
[26:26] >> the big winner, that name?
[26:28] >> Um, and and our view is it's probably
[26:30] the latter.
[26:32] Um, and in some cases funds will come to
[26:36] us and say, "We've got a vintage fund
[26:39] that has two companies in it that are 15
[26:43] years old and we can't clear that fund."
[26:45] And so that's that's an application of
[26:49] liquidity to the market that we think is
[26:51] coming to the market.
[26:52] >> Are you are you worried at all over this
[26:54] next year about this idea of retail
[26:58] being exit liquidity for these three
[27:01] ginormous companies? like is is there
[27:02] any risk? Like how do you bucket the
[27:04] risk? How do you manage the risk? Yeah.
[27:06] >> What is the risk if something were to
[27:08] happen? What's the blowback?
[27:09] >> I was talking with Brad about this
[27:10] yesterday. We're we're watching these
[27:13] valuations and these multiples. We had
[27:14] this conversation at dinner last night
[27:17] and saying, "Wow, these are these are
[27:20] extraordinary and people should come
[27:22] into this market." And
[27:23] >> extraordinary is a coded word for
[27:26] >> uh it's you know, it's okay fine. Um
[27:30] >> it's a bubble. You're saying you're
[27:31] saying you think they're high the
[27:32] valuation.
[27:33] >> I think the retail investor coming into
[27:35] this space needs to look down market and
[27:38] look at interesting opportunities that
[27:40] aren't the things that are on CNBC every
[27:42] day and have access to them earlier. And
[27:45] we had a bunch of retail investors show
[27:47] up in 2018 and 2019 that wanted to be in
[27:50] SpaceX and they're and they're thrilled
[27:52] that they got in when the valuation was
[27:54] 30 billion.
[27:55] >> Yeah.
[27:55] >> Um and I think if the market opens up,
[27:57] that's what we'll be talking about. what
[27:59] what's what what do I want to get into
[28:01] now that's not you know at the very very
[28:03] top of the market getting ready to go
[28:05] public
[28:05] >> also Brad and Gavin we're getting better
[28:07] shout out to um Gurley we're getting
[28:10] better at pricing these IPOs and not
[28:12] leaving money on the table they're fully
[28:14] valued in most cases when they go public
[28:17] yeah or in some cases
[28:18] >> they're still mispriced they're
[28:20] massively mispriced
[28:20] >> well no we we have seen some that have
[28:22] gone down you know after they go out so
[28:25] you know
[28:26] >> nothing good that anybody wants
[28:27] >> I mean listen anyway what what do you
[28:29] guys think is are we are we closer to
[28:32] correctly pricing them?
[28:33] >> I mean Gav and I have been doing this 25
[28:35] years. There are moments that the public
[28:37] market is undervalued relative to
[28:39] privates and moments where privates are
[28:41] undervalued relative to public. Right
[28:44] now everything in the world of
[28:45] technology is pretty fully valued,
[28:48] right? Like it's you can't have the
[28:51] parabolic moves we've had and think that
[28:54] everything is cheap. That's not to say
[28:56] that we're not going to go higher, but
[28:58] when you've been punched in the faces
[28:59] many times, as all of us have over the
[29:02] last 15 years in technology, we know
[29:04] it's a jagged line up and to the right.
[29:07] So for the retail investor, so long as
[29:09] they have staying power, so if if you're
[29:12] going to launch a product, as long as
[29:14] the retail investor can stay in that
[29:16] product through the draw down, they're
[29:18] going to do fine. The problem is most of
[29:21] them yolo at the top because everybody
[29:23] gets them all jimmied up and excited and
[29:26] so they're, you know, they're levering
[29:27] up. They're doing 2x levered, you know,
[29:30] memory trades and all this that Gav
[29:32] and I are. There are 14 ETFs launching
[29:35] on the day of the SpaceX IPO that are
[29:39] levered ETFs into SpaceX at like
[29:42] whatever 1.75 trillion. So, this just
[29:45] tells me that there's a lot of signal.
[29:48] We may not be at the top, but we ain't
[29:50] at the bottom.
[29:51] >> We're bouncing along. The top might be a
[29:53] fair, you know, you got to allocate
[29:56] accordingly. And that's what active
[29:58] management is about. If we do not if
[30:00] we're not thinking about that, when when
[30:03] people are puking into their garbage
[30:05] cans at the start of the Iran war and
[30:07] the market is down, Gavin and I are
[30:09] looking at each other and saying, "Good
[30:11] God, these anthropic revenues are off
[30:13] the charts. We got to get more dollars
[30:15] at risk. shove more onto the table in
[30:18] both anthropic and public market stocks.
[30:20] But then 75 days later, it's all
[30:23] changed. Right now, the market,
[30:25] >> have you guys ever been in a market
[30:26] cycle [clears throat] where these moves
[30:28] are just so concentrated in time where
[30:31] you take like a year or two's worth of
[30:33] moves and you compress it into 30 days,
[30:36] 60 days?
[30:37] >> I mean, this is nothing relative to 99
[30:40] and 2000.
[30:41] >> Nothing.
[30:41] >> This is nothing relative to that.
[30:44] >> Like, I mean, describe describe. Yeah.
[30:45] Just package. Sometimes they wake up.
[30:47] >> What was 992000 like in terms of like a
[30:49] if this is a roller coaster, what was
[30:51] that?
[30:51] >> Yeah.
[30:52] >> And what was that? I mean, I don't you
[30:55] know, this is this is this is like a uh
[30:57] this is a roller coaster that's um like
[30:59] kind of a gentle sinewave.
[31:02] >> 99 was Vegas on a Friday night after way
[31:05] too many drugs.
[31:07] >> Okay. Like it was out of control nuts.
[31:11] CMGI had no revenue and the stock went
[31:13] from $2 to $2,000 over the course of,
[31:17] you know, six months. They buy Foxboro
[31:19] Stadium. They're on the cover of Time
[31:21] magazine and they're out of business 2
[31:23] years later, right? Like that is very
[31:25] different than Anthropic, Open AAI, and
[31:28] SpaceX. These are extraordinarily real
[31:30] businesses. So, I think the better
[31:32] compare is like 2021. Yeah.
[31:35] >> Right. Where valuations get ahead of
[31:37] themselves or they're at the top end of
[31:39] the range. We could have a normal
[31:42] run-of-the-mill consolidation in the
[31:44] public markets in the semi-index of 10
[31:46] or 20% which means high beta would be
[31:49] down 30 to 40% and a lot of people who
[31:52] just got in would be panicking right but
[31:54] the people who have been in for 6 months
[31:56] or 3 years would would would notice that
[31:59] that's just a blip. So I don't think
[32:01] it's at all like that.
[32:02] >> Okay. I have a question for the three of
[32:03] you. Four. Yeah. Final question.
[32:04] >> I have final question. Take the top 10
[32:06] names private companies off. Okay.
[32:09] Forget those. You can't pick those. Give
[32:12] me a sub,
[32:14] you know, in the tens of billions, few
[32:16] hundred billion private company that you
[32:19] could buy today a secondary in that you
[32:21] do not own that you would want to own.
[32:23] I'll start with you, Brad. Just go
[32:24] around the horn. Something you don't
[32:26] own, but if you had the chance to buy a
[32:29] secondary, you would.
[32:31] >> I mean, I take a company, you know, in
[32:34] that what I call inflection growth,
[32:36] Jamas. So, these are companies, the
[32:37] thousand companies that are over 3
[32:39] billion, but let's call it sub50
[32:41] billion. I think it's the trickiest area
[32:44] of the investing landscape. Um, because
[32:46] they're the beneficiaries of high
[32:48] valuations, yet they still have binary
[32:50] risk.
[32:51] >> Right.
[32:51] >> Right. Like Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, I
[32:54] don't think these companies have binary
[32:55] risk, but there are a lot in, you know,
[32:57] in that bucket that do. Um, and so I
[33:01] mean, we own most of the ones I want to
[33:03] own. I I I can't give you one that we
[33:04] don't.
[33:06] If I want to own it, I I generally own
[33:08] it.
[33:08] >> It's a hard question. [laughter] I'll
[33:09] give you How about the last one you say?
[33:12] I'd say like Sierra Brett Taylor's
[33:14] company. Um, you know, what do they do?
[33:17] >> So, they're building basically
[33:19] Salesforce
[33:20] >> agent native.
[33:22] >> Got it.
[33:22] >> So, sales, marketing, customer service
[33:24] agents that are agent native. I'll give
[33:26] you the downside and the upside. We also
[33:28] own a company called Parlo and the same
[33:29] space in Europe that I think is really
[33:31] interesting. downside open AI and
[33:34] anthropics say we're going to do this
[33:35] and all of a sudden it eviscerates their
[33:37] hundreds of millions of dollars in
[33:39] revenue. The upside on on these
[33:42] businesses is that they actually have
[33:44] already built very sophisticated agentic
[33:47] layers and that all these guys Meta,
[33:50] Google, uh SpaceX come along and say we
[33:52] want to buy you because we want to
[33:54] accelerate our path into agent.
[33:56] >> I I'll give you the name that I was
[33:57] convinced of today yesterday by um by
[34:00] Thomas Leant which was Revolute.
[34:02] >> You know, I had always the kind of like
[34:04] I had some early Jack like I owned some
[34:06] Coinbase, I owned some Robin Hood, we
[34:08] did all of that stuff. It was fine. Kind
[34:10] of ignored fintech and Thomas backstage
[34:13] gave me an incredibly we were together
[34:15] an incredibly compelling pitch for
[34:17] Revolute and and I and I actually went
[34:19] and I was like, "Okay, show me what the
[34:21] Revolute share prices in these secondary
[34:23] markets." I got kind of curious. Maybe I
[34:24] should pick up some that. So [snorts]
[34:26] that that would be my
[34:26] >> What does Revolute do? Explain for the
[34:27] audience.
[34:28] >> It's a bank. It's a bank. And what's
[34:29] interesting is it's a neo bank that has
[34:31] a completely next generation stack. kind
[34:33] of what Brad said is like that theme of
[34:35] you rebuild it in the modern era and you
[34:37] unbundle the incumbent that that has a
[34:40] lot of legs and in a regulated market
[34:42] that has a ton of legs and so you know
[34:45] they're doing really well in Europe
[34:46] they're coming to the United States the
[34:47] founder seems to be just an absolute
[34:49] star
[34:49] >> tens of millions of customers 14 lines
[34:51] of business they're like a billion
[34:53] curious like that I I have Gavin do you
[34:55] have one that you've bought recently
[34:57] >> no I would just say um well you know two
[34:59] names that um we've been involved in
[35:02] publicly is leading are Arya and Drivets
[35:05] and they're both in the networking space
[35:07] and basically as um data centers get
[35:10] more specialized and complicated
[35:13] you you're going to have increasingly
[35:15] specialized chips it's called the
[35:17] disagregation of inference and pre-fill
[35:18] and decode and to make all of these
[35:20] chips to work together like a symphony
[35:23] and have the kind of the right chip for
[35:25] the right job at the right time I do
[35:27] think we need to reinvent networking and
[35:29] Arya and driveets are coming at the
[35:32] in a very different way. And if you're
[35:33] an AI lab,
[35:35] >> you've been one of the earliest. I'll
[35:36] give you credit. I think that you you
[35:38] you framed this on one of on a podcast
[35:40] that I saw, which is there is an
[35:41] impending super cycle in infra
[35:44] networking, silicon, and you've really
[35:46] been at the front of it. I buy into it
[35:48] completely now, too. Really, it's a
[35:50] really It's really good. It's really any
[35:52] names.
[35:52] >> Uh Neuroobotics
[35:54] in Europe.
[35:56] >> Neuroobotics is a company name.
[35:58] >> Yes. and uh AI powered um logistics
[36:04] robotics.
[36:05] >> Love it.
[36:06] >> Um they're not in the main strip of high
[36:09] value real estate in Silicon Valley.
[36:12] They're in Germany.
[36:13] >> Uh quiet company, big investors, 100
[36:17] million revenue, kicking ass.
[36:19] >> Love it. Jason, well, I you know, I I
[36:22] have a couple of thesis uh that I've
[36:24] been looking at. One is what is Elon
[36:27] helping put into space as the price goes
[36:29] down. And so we did uh direct on the cap
[36:32] table and SPV for vast which is building
[36:35] space stations and we think they're
[36:37] going to win. The other one is what I'll
[36:39] just call Uber 2.0. You know, we girly
[36:41] and I took a lot of notes on that, Brad,
[36:43] as well. And so we were able to do
[36:45] zipline and we we put a small ticket
[36:47] size into zipline as well because if you
[36:49] can take the delivery cost down from $15
[36:52] to five and then eventually two, that's
[36:54] going to just drive consumption
[36:56] massively and it's going to happen in
[36:57] the air. And these actual drones had
[36:59] such a false start that everybody gave
[37:02] up on the entire sector and now it
[37:04] works. And it was just a very simple
[37:05] innovation that Keller told me, which
[37:07] was it's the drone stays up in the air
[37:10] and drops a tether with the box in your
[37:12] burrito. If you grab the tether and you
[37:14] pull it, it just comes down. You don't
[37:16] have to land like this giant robot in
[37:19] your backyard with blades spinning to
[37:21] kill your dog. Well, I think there's
[37:23] actually a very important like on
[37:24] Zipline. It's an amazing It has done
[37:26] great things for the world. Um so my my
[37:30] at trades is also uh in involved in
[37:32] zipline but zipline started so the hard
[37:35] thing is to make anything autonomous
[37:37] work you need to get it out in to the
[37:39] world and gathering real world data.
[37:41] This is how AI works and it's hard to
[37:43] get approval to fly things around um
[37:46] autonomously in American airspace. So
[37:49] Keller had the idea of we're going to go
[37:51] to African countries and we are going to
[37:54] de you know if a we're going to help or
[37:57] deliver medicines to these small
[37:58] villages and they focused on maternity
[38:01] and they have cut the maternal mortality
[38:05] rate in some of these African countries
[38:07] by 90 to 95%. And so you're in a small
[38:09] village, there's a one midwife, there's
[38:12] an app, a woman goes into labor, they
[38:15] press a button, and you know, an hour
[38:18] later, a zipline drone drops a
[38:20] refrigerated package of modern medicine,
[38:23] blood, and everything needed. They did
[38:25] it for seven years
[38:26] >> and it's had a huge impact on health
[38:28] outcomes in these African countries
[38:30] >> and now it's come to America.
[38:32] >> I I this is an incredible story and I've
[38:34] basically now reconstructed my firm to
[38:36] do the barbell. I missed the seed
[38:39] investment. I turned him down because I
[38:40] was like, "We don't invest on that
[38:42] continent. We don't have any insight
[38:43] into it. We don't understand it and
[38:46] hardware is hard." And he has the email,
[38:48] whatever. And I've stayed in touch with
[38:49] him and he said, "Listen, I figured it
[38:50] out." And I said, "Hey, you know, I have
[38:52] the syndicate. Let me see if I can
[38:53] correct that mistake. May I invest?" He
[38:55] said, "I I you're my dream investor.
[38:56] I've wanted you on this whole time and
[38:59] it's just so important." Um, no. No.
[39:03] we've been friends for all this time and
[39:05] I've you know I have had him on the pod
[39:06] three times
[39:07] >> and he said when are you going to be on
[39:08] the cap table and I said you know what I
[39:11] learning from you guys specifically this
[39:13] late stage stuff I'm like well I can do
[39:14] that and here we are and
[39:16] >> on that note
[39:17] >> yes
[39:17] >> let's wrap up
[39:18] >> yes well done guys thank you so much
[39:20] >> thank you Kelly thank you
[39:23] >> thank Thank you. [music]
[39:35] [music]
