Transcript: Jon Staenberg: Investing in Startups, Venture Funds & Search Funds

Host: Hey John, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.

Guest: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to share a little bit about what I've been up to and, and answer some questions and have some fun.

Host: Uh, so I was looking into your background and as part of the research for this conversation and you've done so many things in your career, uh, it's almost like confusing to me to where to get started with.

But it's also a good thing because we have a lot of shared interests, I think. I think the conversation is going to be fun. Uh, but just to give a little bit introduction to the audience.

Uh, can you talk a little bit about, you know, your early education and your early career?

Guest: Absolutely. I, uh, as I always start off with, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, which was a big part of who I am today. And, I refer back to it often and think back to it often as a place that was very free place to grow up as a kid.

And we would run around the neighborhood and didn't have a lot of restriction and could be creative and, and pursue our creativity side and have a lot of friends and it just, it was a very Mayberry RFD kind of experience growing up.

And my parents were, were really encouraging of us trying things. And I think that has been a big part of my life throughout. And I did decide for college to basically try and go as far away from Omaha as I could.

So I looked on the East Coast and I looked on the West Coast, and ended up in Palo Alto at Stanford, and again, super incredible time of my life where I got to just try a lot of things and explore and created a great set of friends and rich experiences.

And, uh, it's funny, I've always been a person who says, "I haven't done that before, I think I should go try that." Um, and so after college, I ended up saying I'd never lived in the South. So I went down to Dallas, and I did real estate down there.

And my family's been involved in real estate for a long time and my brother is very active in real estate. My father was, uh, really a leading edge developer of apartments in Nebraska.

So we've always had a bit of an entrepreneurial dinner table conversation orientation if you will.

And, uh, after that, I went back to Stanford and, um, well actually right after that, I also spent time in Asia, because I've never done Asia and I thought, "Oh, that would be really interesting." And I learned some Chinese and I did some volunteer work, which is always important to me.

Then I went back to business school, and from there I was so lucky to be exposed to technology and venture capital and again more entrepreneurship.

And I think those, those pieces that I've just described to you are very much the foundation of the path I took.

Host: How, how did, uh, because you didn't, you did your undergraduate, then you did your Asian Studies and then you did your MBA at Stanford. How, how did Stanford end up shaping you?

Guest: Well, Stanford, at the time, was really, uh, an incredible college experience and on the leading edge of what a college experience meant, I think.

They encouraged you to think about things differently, the amount of, uh, support around developing your own major or having access to resources or just being in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, even though back then it was very nascent, was still influential.

And I loved, the thing I loved about Stanford, it was a incredible mix of work and play and people who cared about you and supported you in whatever dream you wanted to carry out.

And so, it's really, I have to say, formed my way of thinking of how I want to be in the world, how I want to support my family, how I want to support, uh, entrepreneurs, uh, how I want to pursue my career, because I was always told, "Yeah, why not go try that?

Why not do things a little bit differently? Why not explore?" And so, I think for me Stanford really played an influential role there and just being around, I was inspired.

I mean part of the most important thing to me in life is inspiration, and I'm constantly trying to reach out to people who can inspire me, read books, listen to podcasts.

And Stanford had that in spades, and I took full advantage of that when I was there. So that's, I think that's really how it set the foundation for me.

Host: And post, post Stanford, how did your career start?

Guest: Yeah, so I was pretty darn sure that I was either going to do real estate, uh, because the family connection, uh, which I felt was quite entrepreneurial, or I was going to do venture capital.

And venture capital back then was pretty darn new. In fact, when I said venture capital to people, they looked at me like, "What's that?" which is kind of funny, and when I say that today, everyone smiles because it's so much part of our world.

And everyone knows what venture capital is, right? But back then nobody did. And I've always been a person attracted to, "If everybody's going right, I'm going to go left." If there's a parade, I'm going to go around it.

And so in venture capital seemed to have everything that one would ever want to do in life. It was an opportunity to be entrepreneurial. It was an interesting asset class from a return standpoint. It was on the leading edge of technology.

It was changing the world. I got to meet with really smart people, smarter than me, and learn every single day. And there's a bit of a journalist in me. I was a journalist in, uh, college. I was an editor of one of the papers.

I was on my high school yearbook. And so for me, asking questions, learning about other people, you know, it's, it's, I've always thought I should do a podcast because I love what you do.

And, and it's just a great opportunity to, everybody has a great story, right?

And you combine that great story in the case of venture capital with someone pursuing a dream, thinking up a new way of doing things and changing the world, what could be better?

And so, I, I thought, "Okay, coming out, I'm going to, I'm going to do either real estate or venture capital." And then along comes this guy and says to me, "Well, you know, have you ever been to Seattle?" And I never had actually.

And remember from what I've already said to you, I like to go where I haven't before, whether it's Asia or Dallas or East Coast or West Coast.

And he said, "There's a little company called Microsoft that I'm involved with, and would you like to just, we'll fly you up, why don't you come interview?" And I thought, "I'll get to see Seattle, why not go do that?" And it was the most grueling set of interviews I'd ever experienced.

And some people would take that and think, "Oh my gosh, this is painful." It was the exact opposite for me. Every conversation was super exciting. They were presenting real life case studies.

What the things they were working on, how would I approach it? How to think about it? And for me that actually cemented the deal. I went in a direction I didn't think I was going to do. Neither, it wasn't real estate and it wasn't venture capital.

But because the people inspired me, that's where I went. And maybe there's a lesson there.

If you can find great people to be around, people that you feel like are smarter than you, that you can learn from, that can inspire you, maybe that's the way to pick out a job. For me it was anyway, and it served me really, really well.

Host: This, this was late 80s and early 90s, right?

Guest: Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Host: So, what was it like?

Guest: Don't bring that up. It sounds like I'm a dinosaur.

Host: Oh, what was it like to work for Microsoft back then?

Guest: So exciting. I, I honestly, you know, people, younger people today, if I say this, probably think I'm a little cuckoo, but I think we thought we're changing the world.

I mean, the tenacity and the, uh, excitement that everyone felt coming to work was palpable. We all really were clear about the marching orders. Back then Bill said, "A PC on every desk in every home," and, uh, we believed it.

We, we, we felt like this thing called a computer, this personal computer, was the most important thing that was going to change the world.

Now, because they're ubiquitous today and actually our phone is more our computer in some ways, maybe we look back on that time and say, "Yeah, yeah, whatever, it was going to happen." But at the time, you know, I had a cot in my office.

I slept in my office.

And it's funny to me to hear people who work at some of the larger tech companies today who say, "Oh yeah, my boss says don't work so hard." Or, you know, they're getting all this, the, the benefits, massages and, you know, their nails done and, and free food.

And I'm thinking to myself, "Really? Or is that the right way to build this hardcore, gonna take the world by storm company?" Maybe. It's just a different world for sure.

But back then we all thought we were in the trenches together doing, doing something that was truly different, unique, and, um, it was going to be part of our legacy. And it was just exciting. And honestly, the people there were so smart.

And, and what was also interesting is the way Microsoft hired back then and that taught me something. Microsoft hired not for experience, because who, who had experience in startups or tech companies, there just weren't that many, right?

They hired people who were tenacious and were smart, right? And were independent thinkers and didn't mind having someone say to them, "No, you're wrong," and see if people could respond to that. Yeah.

And, and so it was just, it was such a special time, and I feel like I sat on the front row of the world changing and had a great seat and got to be part of it. So that's what it was like.

Host: Amazing. And then you, uh, went on to work at AOL and started your own company?

Guest: Yeah, so I did after Microsoft. I, you know, I lasted, I say I lasted, five years. I'm not a big company person, I knew that. Um, but, but it was great as I said, but I knew I the venture thing was still something I thought about.

And so, I left and started really small in actually finding deals and presenting them as one offs. A little bit like the AngelList syndicates today if you will.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: Um, but back then there was no such thing, of course. And so I would have to have these gatherings. You know, that's a, that's a theme of my life getting people together. I've done that for 30 plus years.

And I would present a deal and maybe I'd get a few investors and it started building up and that led to some people saying to me, "Why don't you just do a fund? Don't keep coming back to us every time.

We get what you're doing." And that led to the creation of sort of what I'll call Steinberg Ventures 1 and Steinberg Ventures 2.

Um, and my whole premise back then was connecting Seattle and San Francisco, Seattle and Silicon Valley, which is to say Microsoft with the startups there, because Microsoft at that time was the big player and people were always nervous.

If they were going to start a company, what was Microsoft doing? Or was there a way to partner with Microsoft? It's funny again, today people don't think that way as much, of course.

Um, but back then it was a, I called it, "I'm the bridge." The bridge between the two important regions and, and it worked out great because it allowed me as a small fund, small investor, to get into some deals where people said, "Yes, we, we would like you to be part of this.

You can kind of make sure we've got that piece covered as part of your value add." And so I always try and think what's my unique differentiator?

What's my value add if I'm going to take something on and, and so that's how I positioned myself, uh, and had a great run and, uh, gosh, we did, uh, as I said two funds and then I became part of a larger fund in LA called Rustic Canyon Partners.

And, and the whole time again it was just, uh, this marvelous front row seat into the world changing.

Host: Um, I, I was checking how many deals you're a part of, I think you're approximately part of 200 deals.

Guest: It might be more.

Host: I think.

Guest: It might be more. I'm not sure that's a badge of honor. Uh, but, but, uh, I have been quite active and you know the, the nature of venture, right? It's you hope that you get the the outsize return one to cover for a lot of mistakes.

And, um, but, but I also, you know, it's funny, I don't say this publicly very often but part of why I want to do this is because I feel like I'm supporting entrepreneurship and the ecosystem. And nothing makes me happier.

Of course, I love it when the outcome is great for me, but nothing makes me happier than to see an entrepreneur, blood, sweat and tears, succeed. So for me it's, it's an, an odd way of sort of giving back.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm holier than thou, but I just, it, it for me it's, it's really important to support the entrepreneurs in this country, uh, and to be part of that.

I get a lot of excitement when they succeed, and if I can be helpful in that process in any way, so I have, I've been quite active both as a, as a fund manager, as a GP, but also as an angel investor.

Host: So, uh, I mean, you've been part of some iconic company deals, I think, right? Uh, DocuSign, StubHub, Splunk, Automatic, uh, which is, uh, the company behind WordPress. Yep. Um, and Avalara, uh, so what, what was your biggest, uh, you know, exit sort of, uh, company, uh, in either the fund or individually?

Guest: Yeah, I've been, I've been lucky to have a few good ones for sure.

Um, the one that I think I really didn't have a lot to do with, but was just, it was just, uh, a good example of being at the right place at the right time and creating friendships, uh, may have been, uh, Seagate actually. Mm.

Um, there was a little, back then there was a little private equity company called Silver Lake, which wasn't actually little at all, but, but it was doing something others hadn't done before.

And a couple of the GPs were friends of mine, and I just always think it's funny to think back to that capitalization table where it was a, it was basically taking Seagate private to take them public later.

Uh, in a very incredibly creative financial, uh, move as well as allowing this company not to have to deal with public market quarter by quarter and actually grow this business to bring it back out later and to split off part its pieces and, etcetera, etcetera.

But anyway, the point is, uh, the cap table was something like Silver Lake, I don't remember the exact numbers, had hundreds of millions of dollars invested. Goldman Sachs, same thing. August Capital, same thing.

And then there was my little fund, uh, Steinberg Capital at $10 million, which it, like you, it was an asterisk.

But it returned our fund and, and led to a whole bunch of other great things and, and it just happened, I was at a conference talking to someone and, it didn't expect this, but someone said to me, "Hey, we're doing this deal, it's the most exciting deal I've ever done.

You want to be part of it?" I'm like, "Yes, please." That would be amazing.

And I dug in and I got to learn about it, I was like, "This is incredible." And if I had been a bigger fund, I would have done more, um, and it was back when it was a tough time in venture.

So it ended up, the reason it's so important to me, it ended up bringing my fund back to life really, because we had had a really tough run. And so it was a little bit of a pivot for me.

It was a little bit about me being in the right place at the right time.

Um, and, and just again working with really smart people and, and, and it's fun because Seagate's still around and they're doing incredibly well and it's, it's, it'll always have a very special place in my heart for, for helping me at a time when it was much needed.

Host: Oh, in all your investing career, were there any big misses that you had an opportunity to invest in but said no?

Guest: So many big misses, are you.

Host: Oh yeah.

Guest: Oh yeah. I mean, here's what I like to say about, uh, misses and, and it took me a while to really understand this. Someone said to me the other day, "Gosh, I, we gotta figure out this AI thing. I gotta get in now.

It's clearly changing the world." But people always forget is that if you had bought Amazon in the first couple years, you'd be up, you know, three digits X, right? If you had bought Google, same thing. So I missed a lot, right?

Um, and sometimes I thought I did some that this was so clear but I was too early. The company was too early.

Timing's a really difficult thing and what one of the things that is hard about especially about being a small investor, an angel investor, is you don't really get, uh, to go along for the ride actively.

You know, you're a little bit the the flotsam and jetsam on the ocean. And if the ocean's rising, you're rising, if it's not, if it's turbulent, you're, but you're not, you're not steering that ship.

And, and the alignment of interest from an investor standpoint, the big guys really aren't that concerned about you, little guy, little angel. And so, um, that's made me think about how I invest today and what I'm doing.

But I, but I had a, I had a lot of misses. And I will say this too, that as much as I'd like to be able to tell you at any point in my career, "This is the one that's going to be great," constantly surprised.

Surprised on the upside and surprised on the downside. Meaning, I thought this was going to be the company that was going to return my fund, it failed.

I never thought this little guy company would, would, would be much of anything and then it became something amazing.

So, the surprise factor, and, and, and that's born out, by the way, in venture and I don't want to get off too much on a tangent, but there's these, a lot of venture funds do what's called an opportunity fund where they take their best deals and then double down and raise a separate vehicle to do that.

Those funds you would expect to be great because they know, right, what's going to be good? They're generally not.

Host: This is, this is happening again in a, in a, in a sort of different sense because we're seeing funds which are investing in early stage like Seed and Preseed, raise opportunities funds for secondaries.

Guest: That's right.

Host: Uh, and I sort of tend to not believe that the same fund can make that good decision, even though they think that they have more information. But honestly, the one that is discounted, maybe you don't have the information because you didn't invest in the Seed and Preseed.

Guest: Well, close to it and you're biased.

Host: Biased. Yeah. So I feel like it's sort of like the same cycle happening in a different form, uh, with these unique secondary opportunity deals, which I think venture, people who run venture from sort of not suited to do secondary funds, right? I think people from private equity may be a better, better people to do that.

Guest: Yeah. That's right. And, and you know, we, the thing about the movie we're watching, it's repeated itself and will continue to repeat itself.

Host: I think that's a, that's a good segue for you to talk about, you know, what, what are you seeing, you know, with all your experience with running two funds, um, you know, very early on and, you know, the whole venture ecosystem, seeing the downs and ups and, you know, the 100Xs and, you know, even the zeros.

What is happening right now?

How do you see like, you know, we have seen this incredible high in last, you know, 2021 where everything got peaked and then we're sort of in a all the growth stocks went down and that is sort of defining the private market behavior.

Um, so how, how are you seeing the state of, you know, venture capital, right now?

Guest: Well, look, it's messy. It's noisy. It's crowded. Uh, it's one of the reasons I'm not as directly involved.

Host: Is, is VC now too big so that the edge and the alpha that you can generate is much harder and much smaller?

Guest: I think so. I think so. Um, it, it, look, to be clear, technology is exploding. We are not at the end game, even close, right? Yeah.

And to be clear, unlike when I was doing venture in the beginning, when you had one technology and then a next technology and a next technology, today you have an explosion of technologies, right? We didn't have that.

You know, we had, uh, personal computing and we had networking and we had the internet and we had serial kinds of big tidal waves.

Now you've got this incredible everything from cleantech to medtech to real estate tech to AI to quantum computing to space tech and, you know, so on, right?

And so naturally, uh, money is going to flow into that, because they all promise these incredible things to change the world. So it's not surprising, but, but, you know, we talked about timing earlier. We have no idea on the timing of this stuff.

But people can make some really interesting big bets right now and that's going to bring money in.

My personal view as an investor hat with my investor hat on, or Stanford in this case, um, my personal view is that I'm not clever enough, I'm not full-time enough, I'm not immersed enough, I'm not anything that I can make those kinds of decisions on a data day, day-to-day basis.

So I'm going to invest in a couple of broad-based funds, because I still want to exposure to the alpha that's possible in venture. But it is harder today and there's going to be a lot of money lost. A lot of money is flowing in.

And venture is so it relies on the macro, it relies on a robust acquisition M&A market. It relies on a good IPO market. And if those things aren't there, well your returns are not going to be as good. Period. End of story, right?

So, I'm still going to have exposure to it personally, but it's going to be less.

Um, and because these ideas are so big right now that we're talking about, I go back to my comment about being able to as a personal investor invest later, whether it's public opportunity or what have you, and maybe do great.

Maybe you don't get the 10,000 to 1, but hey I'm okay with 1,000 to 1 kind of situation. So for me, you know, look I love venture, to be clear.

And I'm always going to wake up in the morning and read my various tech and venture newsletters, but I'm just not as active investing, uh, directly like I used to be. I, I've saved that for something else that we can talk about later if we get there.

But, um, for me right now venture is really tough. But of course a ton of money is flowing in. How could it not? These are some ideas that are some of the biggest in the history of personkind.

Host: Yeah.

Host: Uh, you somehow then also figured out to launch a wine company in all this.

Guest: He's been there. 17 years ago.

Host: How, how did that happen?

Guest: You know, people go, "How long have you been doing this?" And I say, "In dog years?" Yeah. You know, it's funny, I went to business school, as you know, and we would do business case studies, right? And I think wine, uh, may be the the absolute worst business model I've ever encountered.

Host: Why is that?

Guest: Well, think about it, right? What, what are, what, what are things that make a bad business model? Well, having inventories is tough, right? But not only that, having inventory where you have to guess how much you will sell.

You have really no idea. You're a farmer at the end of the day. So what happens when the hail comes, which that's real by the way, or the Zonda winds, so that's tough. You're in a regulated industry. That's another layer of complexity, right?

I'm doing it in Argentina, let's make it hard, both, uh, from a country risk, political risk and just 10,000 miles away. Uh, I'm in a category that is competitive, it's hyper competitive, right? When I started, there were X number of wineries.

Today there's more than 2X number of wineries. When I started, there wasn't microbreweries, microdistilleries, non-alcoholic. So the, the, cannabis. They think about all the choices that people have today.

When I started there used to be a thing called loyalty. The new generation has no loyalty. They want to try the next cool thing. I think I could keep going, but I think you're starting to see why I think this is not the best business model.

I like to say people, you want to be in the wine business, make a lot of money somewhere else and buy great wine because it's quite enjoyable.

Host: But still you, you know, went ahead and decided to start one, right? How, how did that happen?

Guest: Are you an idiot, right? Is that what you're saying. I truly, okay, to, to, to, to not completely make light of this. Look, I did it for the following reasons.

Uh, I was lucky enough to partner with a great winemaker who was in my business school class. He just, his wine was ethereal. Great. Uh, life-changing. I mean, really got wine after I drank his wine. Argentina is seductive as hell.

If anyone goes down there, you know, let me know and I'm happy to give you some tips and tricks.

But most importantly, I did a very simple back of the envelope calculation, and that was I could buy land, beautiful, rich terroir soil down in Argentina for about 1 100 the cost of Napa.

And so really I led with a, with a purchase of land down there, thinking that was going to be a great investment. Um, and then I did get into the wine business, which is hard. Uh, the, the land has done great, the wine business has done okay.

Uh, net net, it's been an incredible experience. You know, I checked the box. Um, and, and, you know, in the last two weeks, I've had four wine dinners, and so I use the wine as kind of a way to bring people together. And it works.

And, you know, people get connected, ideas happen, startups happen. Uh, I get to meet incredible people. So it has, I've integrated it into my life and my investments. And so it's, it's actually been an incredible journey.

Host: That's a good segway to ask you about because we met in one of the events that you hosted. Right. And while I was researching I realized that you have this common thread of hosting events in some form or another.

Uh, you know, I think you have the executive club, then you have the top chef. You have WUD, uh, so you all through your career you kept a way to sort of bring people together. Talk to me like, why do you do that? What do you get out of it?

And how did it, it really help you in your career? Or in your personal life?

Guest: Yeah. It is and this is a great example, this is how we met. That's how it helps me. Right?

I've been doing, I'm just, I think I get it from my mother, who would have a lot of, I remember growing up and we would always have people in the house and there were parties going on. And I'm a real people person.

As I said, it goes back to a little bit my journalist roots. I know everyone has a story, and I know good things happen when, uh, well actually I'll tell you a very good, when I get people together, but I'll tell you a story.

I had a conversation yesterday with a gentleman who said to me, "I don't know if you remember me, but 15 years ago I came to one of your events, and I said to you at the time, 'You have the best events I go to bar none.'" He said this to me yesterday.

I said, "Oh, that's really nice." And, and he said, "You said to me, 'Don't tell me that, but tell my team, tell my admin who helped me with it.'" And it's always been a team effort.

Um, but this person who said that to me said, "You know, I hear you're working on this new fund. I remember what you did back then. I heard about your new fund from this other person. Can I invest?" So, 15 years.

I haven't talked to that person in a long time, and yet it comes around full circle and we had this great catch-up and conversation. That's just one small example. We've had marriages from this thing.

We've had, and, and, and by the way, these, these events, I love them. They're kind of exhausting. I've been in San Diego, Salt Lake City, Seattle and San Francisco, doing these events in the last couple weeks.

And I still do them because it's a little bit of my karmic service of bringing people together. And I do them without really an agenda.

You know, people always say, "Well, don't you want to have a speaker or don't you want to have some, are you selling something?" And no, it's really about just bringing people together.

Uh, and it helps me stay relevant, it helps me be in the flow of conversation. I'm always learning. Uh, so it, what I've always tried to do is combine my interests.

Interest of learning, interest of bringing people together, interest in the wine, interest in sharing ideas, etcetera, etcetera. And so that's why I do them.

And it's funny, I hadn't thought about this but back in the day when I left Microsoft, I mean we're talking a long time ago. I would hold these events called Shmoozefest in Seattle, and they got so big we had to stop because I couldn't find places.

They were 1,000 people at several of them. And so it has always been something I've done, uh, and I, and it's just, it's kind of my superpower.

If, you know, I think it's important to figure out where you're, where, where you are gravitating towards and what you're good at and what you can do to help people. And I've always embraced the connection part.

Every single day almost, I get someone emailing me saying, "Hey, you know this person, would you be willing to connect me?" And if I can do little favors like that, that makes me feel good and hopefully helps people.

Host: Yeah. That's amazing. And, um, that, that's one of the reasons I started the podcast because I'm interested in talking to interesting people, right.

And it's a good way to meet interesting people and sort of do it consistently and you're not falling off the tracks and you can continue your curiosity and learn new things.

Like if I want to start a wine company next, which I would not, but I could, I know that I could talk to John.

Host: So you know, I'll talk to John and maybe he'll convince me to join, you know, start a wine company, even though I'm not convinced, right?

Guest: Good. I'll open up a bomb with you, don't do it.

Host: But that's, that's exactly the same reason I started this and especially in a remote world, right?

It's much harder to sort of build a network that you would have otherwise build in a, you know, in person first, uh, world where you have, even if you are in in person world, you're sort of limiting your directions in which you meet.

Like let's say you're working in Microsoft, you're only meaning people who are working at Microsoft. You're not people, you're not meeting other people who are doing other interesting things.

So that's one of my, uh, sort of you have your events, podcast is my sort of platform for doing that. Um, but I think it's also now a good segue to talk about, uh, your next thing that you're doing.

While everyone is, you know, going the right way into venture capital, you're moving away from it and going to start a search fund, uh, which honestly I didn't know what a search fund was until I met you and, uh, started, uh, doing some research around it.

So why don't you go ahead and, you know, introduce what a search fund is and tell us, you know, why you're doing it now.

Guest: Sure. Well, I think that is a good segway. I talked a little bit about my concerns about venture, about my capabilities and abilities and willingness to do direct venture investing these days.

Um, and so, I have been thinking about what are the things I can do given where I am in life, my interests in life, being a dad.

I have a 15-year-old daughter and I want to make sure that I'm present for her, um, and not working 70 hours a week like I used to. And so what are, what are some of the things I can do, uh, in that realm.

So, search funds kind of check the boxes for me. It's exciting on so many levels. It's an extraordinary asset class.

Um, and I'm going to talk a little bit about them, but I would encourage, I don't know if you have liner notes, but I would encourage your audience to look up the Stanford Search Fund Primer and the Stanford Search Fund results, and in about 20 minutes it will give you an amazing overview of what search funds are.

But let me tell you here what they are. My professor at Stanford, just one special person by the name of Herb Grosbeak, uh, invented search funds. And what is a search fund? And this by the way was back in 1984.

Um, and we didn't know much about them coming out, but they intrigued me back then. Uh, I ended up in venture. We talked about, but I am now coming back to search funds. A little bit late. You want to know the one?

You said, "What are the ones you missed?" Maybe I missed the whole search thing, because it's been an incredible run. Search funds are very simply wherein, I'm talking about a traditional search fund model as

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