Latest / Connected With Latham / Episode 121 – The Growth Rocketship: Inside Boutique Venture With NewView Capital

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Episode 121 – The Growth Rocketship: Inside Boutique Venture With NewView Capital · Connected With Latham

• 0:02
  Hello and welcome to Connected with Latham, where we discuss
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  ideas, legal developments and business trends shaping a global economy.
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  I'm Haim Zaltzman, Partner
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  and Global Vice Chair of Latham's Emerging Companies and Growth Practice.
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  In this episode, I'm joined by Ankit Sud, Partner of NewView Capital,
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  a California based venture capital and growth firm.
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  Today, with 3 billion under management move, you invest in high
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  potential technology companies on a primary, secondary
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  or a hybrid basis, complementing flexible funding with the operational impact
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  and trusted connections needed to realize scale and build value.
• 0:42
  Welcome to the episode.
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  Thanks for having me, Haim.
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  Before we dive into NewView Capital, I want the audience to get to know you,
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  your background in your journey, and particularly how
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  that ties into NewViews, mission, your investment philosophy, etc.
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  so can you jump in
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  and tell us first why you're passionate about investing in technology,
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  and how do you end up in NewView and help develop the platform?
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  Sure.
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  You know, I've always been interested in technology.
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  It's being around an ecosystem that is changing
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  the world, of course, but also changing so rapidly itself.
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  That is quite exciting.
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  And investing was just the way I found to do that.
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  So, you know, I, I did the traditional path investment
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  banking went to a larger investment shop doing growth equity investing at general.
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  And then when I met Ravi, he was starting UVU
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  after his 15 plus years in NEA.
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  And the pitch she gave me really resonated, which was,
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  hey, if you want to spend your time meeting thousands of companies
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  and investing in hundreds of companies, this isn't the place for you.
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  But if you want to really have a core group of companies and investments
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  that you will spend time with founders that you will help and relationships
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  that you'll build over time, then that's what I can promise.
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  And so that that is what we do at NewView.
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  We take a boutique approach to venture.
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  We make a limited number of high conviction investments,
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  and we support those companies over the course of their life cycle
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  and are prepared to really be decades long partners with them.
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  Can you tell us, particularly in the current environment?
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  How are your views on the investments in a portfolio has changed
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  what you guys are focused on right now in terms of the NewView aperture?
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  It would be really great to hear how your background has led you to focus
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  on fintech, SaaS, and how you view that in the current alignment.
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  Yeah, I think more than sectors and verticals, it's
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  about high quality business models, and I think that remains true
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  whether we are in an AI cycle or whether as we were,
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  you know, 5 or 6 years ago, in kind of a post-Covid cycle as well,
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  those realities about quality business models remain true.
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  And you can see that across the investments we make,
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  as you mentioned, most of what we do is B2B,
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  whether that's software, AI, fintech.
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  But if you think about our portfolio, there's a few B2C models in there as well.
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  And there's a reason for it, it's because despite it being, you know, quote unquote
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  outside our wheelhouse,
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  we felt like they had the recurring nature of a software business.
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  They had the customer love of a, you know, a network effects
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  that wouldn't exist otherwise.
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  And so we try to see beyond the rules of where we're supposed
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  to invest and take a step back and look at the higher level picture.
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  I think AI is that same opportunity, really, where what's happening
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  today feels frantic and everyone's trying to wrap their head around it.
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  But we happen to believe that if you stay pretty focused on
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  highest quality business models in any given trend,
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  that we will do right by ourselves and our investors.
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  Yeah, and right by yourself and investors is an understatement for the audience.
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  I mean, you've you has been an investor in some of the best tech
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  names out there, from bloom Reach to eucalyptus to hymns and horrors,
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  to human interests, to Lego, to modern treasury, to Mercury,
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  to new core logics and of a bunch of others.
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  So clearly you guys have had great access.
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  And when you talk about the relationship
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  and boutique approach, that's been very attractive
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  to some of the best names in tech.
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  Can you discuss just quickly from a high level, if when you approach companies,
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  do you approach them with that boutique kind of where not X, where not why?
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  This is what we're trying to do.
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  I think the audience would really love to hear kind of NewView, secret sauce
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  to getting access
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  and obviously the conviction to help support some of these top names.
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  Yeah, I think if you're trying to build a boutique venture fund
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  and you think about what a portfolio
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  should look like, there's really two approaches.
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  You can go after companies,
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  spaces, geographies that are otherwise untouched by the largest venture names.
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  Or you can go after what we think are the highest quality,
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  highest return potential companies, in which case
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  you really need to make an argument for yourself over those larger names.
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  And the argument we make is to be very eyes wide open about who we are
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  and how we differ from the large venture platforms and say, look,
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  we are by definition intentionally and orthogonal approach
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  to the folks you already have on your cap table.
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  And so bringing us into the tent
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  brings a different level of value add and a different perspective that, frankly,
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  we rely on our founders themselves to speak our praises.
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  And if you look at our website
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  or the content we put out or frankly, when we need to win a deal.
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  The first thing we do is direct folks to our founders who speak for us.
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  And obviously your founders and you mentioned
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  geography as well, and you also mentioned product lines.
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  And I think when we initially I introduced NewView,
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  I didn't know that you do primary, secondary and hybrid.
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  And you know, as a lawyer at a law firm that handles a spectrum of deals
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  that maybe no one else covers, you guys truly are one of the leaders
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  particularly or early leader in secondaries.
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  So I have two questions.
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  One of them is about geography. And then the second
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  one's about the products that are on the geography side.
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  You know, we've done quite a few deals with you guys internationally,
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  including in the Middle East and Israel.
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  So I would love for you to discuss any geographic focus where you see
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  geographically some of the better companies and technology
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  develop, and whether you think that's going to be on a go forward
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  basis as well, like where does your view in the world focus?
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  And then the second question will be about secondaries, your initial strategy
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  on secondaries, how you guys became someone,
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  the leaders and how you guys think
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  the secondary investment platform will will continue going forward.
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  So we'll start with geography and particularly Middle East Israel.
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  You know,
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  it's obviously a quote unquote hot area right now for both good and bad regions.
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  But we know that's been a huge investment focus for you.
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  It has.
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  And really the reason we chose Israel was not because we identified it
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  as a hotbed of technology, which of course it is,
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  but because we take a pretty thematic approach and we try to map the market
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  regardless of where the companies are based.
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  So a great example is HR software
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  has been a really great place for us to invest.
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  We identified companies across the world building and innovating in this space.
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  And it just so happened
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  that one of those companies, high Bob, that we identified is based in Israel.
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  They serve the world.
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  They serve our companies, in fact, our own portfolio companies across
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  countries and regions.
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  And they just happen to be based in Israel.
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  And I think that repeated itself with core logics, where
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  in the observability ecosystem, we saw their approach
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  as being distinctly differentiated, and they happen to be in Israel.
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  And I think that happened enough times that we actually probably graduated Israel
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  from a the company happens to be their country
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  to a central focus, where I and the team spend
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  considerable amount of time visiting every year
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  to make sure that we know what's happening in the ecosystem.
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  So I think that country itself is probably the exception.
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  So our focus area, of course, for Bay area where US based,
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  we also look at Israel and then across the world,
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  whether it's Cloud Walk in Brazil, Neom in Asia, in Europe,
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  we're really looking for the best companies, regardless of where
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  they're based.
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  We really think of it as being thematically focused,
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  not regionally focused.
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  And so when we go deep on a theme, the idea is to meet every company,
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  meet as many customers, meet all the experts and form a view,
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  and then take a pretty, I'd say, unbiased view
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  as to the best company to back in the space.
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  And very often geography has nothing to do with that.
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  Interesting.
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  The thematic is actually a great segue to the second question,
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  and that's on secondaries.
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  And you guys were and again, giving you kudos or the leader in secondary
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  setting up spvs for secondaries, making major secondary purchases
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  earlier than before it became, you know, the total standard.
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  I mean I don't I would say not that we look up
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  particularly the slowdown in the IPO market.
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  Secondary transactions have been the dominant force in
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  the transfer of dollars in the venture community.
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  And you guys were very early on that.
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  Can you talk about your history with secondaries, what you did,
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  what the plans are and how you see that product line change?
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  Yeah, our origin story itself was, in effect, a very large secondary out of NEA,
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  where we purchased 31 positions
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  from them for $1 billion on day one.
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  And that was a incredibly unique transaction.
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  It allowed us to start a growth fund in a sort of accelerated manner,
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  but it also gave us insight into a problem that was happening across the industry.
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  And so when we think about approaching companies,
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  we're always thinking about what their product market fit was or is.
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  And similarly, our product market fit in a lot of respects was taking this problem
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  that was occurring, lack of liquidity and figuring out how to productize it.
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  And so NEA was our first customer in a sense.
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  We've gone on to transact with dozens of venture funds across dozens of companies.
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  Secondaries AR a critical part of our strategy.
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  And we look at it two different ways.
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  One, it's solving a problem for those stakeholders,
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  whether they be employees to employee tenders, founders, investors
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  who have been in the company a long time, and even LPs
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  who are expecting distributions from their VCs.
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  But it's also solving a problem for us because we feel that it is,
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  in a lot of respects, the best
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  risk adjusted way to play venture growth today.
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  And we think that part of the reason for
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  that is because not enough people are doing it.
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  But as more enter the market, as has happened,
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  as you alluded to, it's become more of a standard.
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  We still believe that there's a lot of opportunity there.
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  I mean, it's really interesting
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  what you just said, and I'd like to double click
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  for the audience and maybe have you say couple word that the whole concept
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  of a risk adjusted way in the venture world, that's not a phrase
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  you would typically associate or link to venture investing
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  picking out a decade ago, because all the hockey stick way right,
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  you either get the one at a ten, you shoot for that star.
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  But the risk adjusted way, particularly later stage, is, is becoming
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  more and more the investment platform for other.
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  And you guys were in the lead of really looking at it.
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  Can you tell me a little bit more about the way you guys think of what risk
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  adjusted means in venture, where you don't necessarily have cash flow at all?
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  It's not positive by any means.
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  Maybe you have some revenue, maybe trending towards revenue,
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  maybe significant, but it's on that spectrum.
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  What does risk adjusted mean for you?
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  I think it's just another example of ventures evolution, in the same way
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  that private equity evolved.
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  So private equity has evolved to use a whole host of tools
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  to improve their returns, to improve the product for their
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  constituents and similarly, ventures doing the same thing.
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  Today.
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  Secondaries are one of those tools,
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  and secondaries themselves take a lot of different forms.
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  LP stakes have happened within venture for a long time.
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  What we have popularized
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  is the idea of liquidity to the other stakeholders as well.
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  So normalizing founders, taking some chips
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  off the table at the right time, normalizing employee tenders.
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  We did seven last year.
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  This is becoming by far and away the fastest growing part
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  of the secondary market.
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  And you're seeing some of the biggest names in tech do it.
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  It's totally standard.
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  You guys are really I mean it's become common, right?
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  Yeah.
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  And we you know, we did our first tender
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  I want to say in 2019, which was months after we were founded,
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  we led a tender and plaid for a company that knew they had to go the distance.
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  It really allowed them to give liquidity to their employees who had deserved it
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  along the way, and and kept them focused for the next six years since.
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  Yeah, it's amazing what it's at.
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  So where does it go for now?
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  What's going to happen?
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  Because, I mean, I'm telling you from my experience at Latham, walk ins,
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  including doing these transactions with NewView on is
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  we're seeing more and more demand for the secondaries.
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  It's becoming standard of basically every investment.
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  Almost every acquisition is starting to get layered into it.
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  Where do you see the market going
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  near-term, and what does that mean for the IPOs in the public market?
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  The folks who are probably most squeezed by the growing
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  popularity of secondaries or the secondaries only funds?
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  These are folks who are generally seen as asset managers.
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  They view themselves as stock pickers.
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  They tend to be highly transactional.
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  And what they now have to contend with a main
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  line venture, funds and funds like ours
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  contributing to that, to that environment and now competing them by being closer
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  to the action, closer
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  to the founders, closer to understanding of the product and trends.
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  And where we see opportunity is that we can be that hybrid partner.
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  We have led primary investments and primary deals
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  where we've layered on secondary, either alongside the deal or years later.
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  You know, human interest is a great example where what started
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  as a sort of a co-lead of a series C
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  led to us deploying many times
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  that much capital over the years as early investors needed liquidity.
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  And we built that into a large position that we're very excited about.
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  And along the way, we think we added value to those
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  who took some chips off the table as well, and they were happy to transact with us.
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  Yeah, I mean, that's
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  that's super again for the audience is going to be another key takeaway.
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  You know, we mentioned earlier that move you and obviously
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  lots of other we can do primary secondary transactions.
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  Those are what folks focus on.
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  But the question I think the answer as well is whether,
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  you know, the VC model has evolved to be hybrid, that you have to be able
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  to do primary and secondary, and if you don't,
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  you may be at a disadvantage, at least for some of the top names.
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  Would you say that's definitely the case?
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  Or at least that's definitely how you. Looks at it.
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  That's certainly how we look at it.
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  And I would say that from my conversations with other funds,
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  they have started to look at it the same way.
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  In fact, when I speak to folks who aren't registered advisors and have a 20% cap
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  on the secondaries that they can engage in, almost everybody is maxed out today.
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  And those who have taken the step that we took to become registered
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  and to focus on secondaries, we're quite excited about that.
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  It's normalizing a transaction that we spent years
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  trying to bring into the light, if you will, and now that it has become
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  a standard part of the venture ecosystem and what companies and startups
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  expect, we just think that there's going to be more to do.
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  That's super.
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  I, I'm taking a moment because I do think
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  that is a huge takeaway, that the venture capital model
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  has now evolved, where we rarely see the successful,
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  or at least it's not likely going to have a lot of traction
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  if you can't do both primary and secondary at every given transaction.
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  And that's definitely what we've been seeing in the market as well.
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  So super interesting. Great, great segue.
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  More generally, to move towards the macro trends
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  is something I try to cover in every episode.
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  And for you, the question is what's the most challenging aspect right now?
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  Is it the tech company specific stuff?
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  Is it the impact that AI is having on SaaS,
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  or is it just a broader macro challenges?
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  Is it the geopolitics, the instabilities
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  in certain markets, the ups and downs and the public markets?
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  What is it more?
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  Is it more company specific
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  micros or more broader macro that's really keeping you awake?
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  I think here in Silicon Valley we don't do a great job
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  of appreciating the broader macro.
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  So I do think that it has a role to play and everything from the regulatory
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  environment, impact on fintech to the macro environment, on business confidence.
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  And therefore IT spending does have a big say in how some of our companies perform.
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  That said, right now, given the shifts that we're undergoing with AI,
• 17:27
  that really is top of mind.
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  And I think if you think back to what we were talking about, our duty
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  as company builders alongside these founders
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  is to make sure that we're with them every step of the way.
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  And so while it feels like the industry has forgotten
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  about their existing portfolio companies who are going through
• 17:47
  a challenging time right now in the face of AI, we certainly haven't.
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  And we are trying to spend
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  the time and cycles with companies that are reinventing themselves.
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  And we think that that reinvention is actually one of the most exciting
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  things to be doing today, alongside your net new investments.
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  It speaks to what we feel
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  our priorities are,
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  which is continue to find the next big thing, alongside being
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  incredibly supportive to those founders who have trusted us to begin with.
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  So is there a NewView on playbook for reinvention?
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  Give me the top five things that you guys are talking or top three things.
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  It's easier like 3 to 5.
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  Those are those are the numbers.
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  Are they like four is not like a number apparently.
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  So I avoid it 3 to 5 things.
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  That is the NewView reinvention playbook.
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  This is your things that you guys are.
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  I need to make sure with our portfolio companies.
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  I need to make sure the investments that they're hitting with respect to
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  AI right now and the impact that the AI revolution's having.
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  Yeah, I think that we have a pretty great front row seat to this reinvention
• 18:46
  that's happening.
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  And I can point to a couple of great examples.
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  Companies like intercom with their fin product, or I would say
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  leading in a very large AI dominated space.
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  Companies like Tio, which just announced its acquisition by SAP,
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  found a way to make its data management product even more relevant
• 19:05
  in the age of AI than it was in the prior generation.
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  And I think there's a few things that these companies are doing really well.
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  I don't know if I can narrow it down, but,
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  you know, at the very least, everyone is changing the narrative.
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  So it's easy to add a AI to change your website.
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  I don't actually put that on the list. Makes it
• 19:23
  you think actually change in narrative is now the market is seen through.
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  It's all worth it.
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  It's not worth it.
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  And in fact you are guilty until proven innocent.
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  When it comes to these companies who were formed in a prior era.
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  Again, it's a great line, and fortunately, this is sometimes a way
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  the business world works because the markets are short
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  term, are a voting machine and long term or weighing machine,
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  and that means you're basically guilty until proven innocent.
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  So in the initial term, you should expect the vote to be guilty
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  until the measuring machine gets you to a different result.
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  And that can be frustrating and take time.
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  And I think that's true not only for the way that your investors
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  or prospective investors or the public markets will view you.
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  I think it's also true of the way your customers view you, because today,
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  more than ever, customers themselves are well informed.
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  They aren't looking to make decisions on their technology stack
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  that will keep them in a prior generation.
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  They're trying to make sure
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  that they are future proof, and so the narrative shift is required.
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  Everyone is doing it.
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  It's important, but I would say that it's table stakes.
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  And really reinvention comes down to product itself,
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  where not every product in its current form is relevant for the next era.
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  And the best founders are taking a completely objective
• 20:43
  approach to evaluating their product today, meaning
• 20:48
  shutting down products that are no longer relevant for the AI era,
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  building new products that benefit from years of data
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  that they've gathered, and really being pretty disciplined in how they think
• 21:00
  about business building and not clinging to the successes of the past.
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  And I think there's many examples across the portfolio where I. Can make it.
• 21:07
  So is there is something you said was is different than a lot of the the answer?
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  The way I think about it is the customers are the customers,
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  the load star for the founders, for management to wear.
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  Yeah, that's actually
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  a very important directional thing because there's lots of noise everywhere.
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  Yeah, we got lots of stakeholders in every business, whether private or public.
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  Obviously some of its impacted more in a public right
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  because it's more violently it's right there.
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  But some of these concerns are similar to all of them.
• 21:37
  Is that the lodestar. Should be.
• 21:40
  It should be.
• 21:40
  I think the investor universe is fickle,
• 21:44
  and having them as your lodestar is a dangerous game to play.
• 21:47
  Customers who you already have, who you already have relationships with,
• 21:51
  and the ones who are going to test your product
• 21:53
  and tell you whether you're onto something.
• 21:55
  And so I think the things you have to change with
• 21:58
  those customers is not only, as I mentioned,
• 22:00
  building that new products, because the pace of development
• 22:03
  has increased and the ability to build products has increased,
• 22:06
  but also to figure out how you're going to add
• 22:09
  value and claim that value back,
• 22:12
  whether it is changes in the way you price or monetize your product.
• 22:16
  So both the examples I gave Intercom and Realtor have done an incredible job
• 22:21
  changing the way
• 22:21
  that they monetize away from seat based pricing to usage based pricing.
• 22:26
  As an example, relative uses
• 22:29
  an MCP server for customers to access data
• 22:33
  that they otherwise would have a difficult time accessing across multiple systems,
• 22:37
  and it's allowed some of the largest enterprises
• 22:40
  in the world to a use AI
• 22:43
  with the stack they already have in place, and b derive
• 22:47
  the kind of ROI that wasn't possible in a software only world.
• 22:50
  I mean, your answers are kind of leading me to take a view that,
• 22:54
  you know, you view and you are have a very optimistic view on AI.
• 23:00
  This is a chance to reinvent.
• 23:02
  It's a product line versus a more defensive,
• 23:05
  pessimistic view of, hey, the downside risk.
• 23:08
  We got to protect that.
• 23:09
  You got to focus on the customer and shift towards that optimistic way.
• 23:12
  This is your chance.
• 23:13
  You got to do that rather than just be defensive
• 23:16
  and try to hold on to the structure that you have the contract.
• 23:19
  Is that a legit statement?
• 23:21
  I think you're right that I'm optimistic
• 23:23
  about companies abilities to reinvent themselves.
• 23:25
  And almost every company is trying to do this today.
• 23:28
  But there's also a reality that not everyone can do it.
• 23:32
  Not everyone will make it. It's incredibly difficult path.
• 23:35
  Not every product is relevant in the next era of of technology.
• 23:39
  And so it's not for everyone.
• 23:40
  It's not certainly not for the faint of heart.
• 23:42
  I have an incredible amount of respect for those founders who have found a way to
• 23:46
  to make this reinvention happen for their for their companies, but
• 23:50
  it's not for everyone, and it'll be a harder path.
• 23:53
  And I think people understand.
• 23:54
  But you have to have that conversation,
• 23:56
  right, is you've you sometimes being the initiator of,
• 24:00
  hey, how you guys are renting or is it the founders
• 24:04
  and the management doing it sounds like they're
• 24:06
  doing an audit themselves because they're they're feeling that
• 24:08
  they're coming to you guys.
• 24:09
  How are you guys taking part in that reinvention conversation
• 24:12
  and channeling them towards, hey, this may not be a
• 24:15
  you may need to let go of this product versus here are some of these where
• 24:18
  the customer is leaning because obviously everything is moving really fast.
• 24:22
  Probably the fastest cycle we've ever had.
• 24:24
  You know, obviously since Covid, which was brought upon us
• 24:28
  rather than forced by technology layer.
• 24:31
  How are you guys having those conversations?
• 24:33
  Founders are definitely coming to us.
• 24:35
  They are not ignorant about what's going on.
• 24:39
  They're facing these issues and they're coming to us to help them work through it.
• 24:42
  I think if you say as an investor that you are in service of your founders
• 24:45
  and service of your companies, then your actions better back that up.
• 24:50
  And so, as an example,
• 24:52
  what we've been doing, more so in the last year than ever before,
• 24:55
  our customer calls with companies that are already in our portfolio.
• 24:59
  So we're going out there and speaking to customers of our portfolio companies.
• 25:03
  We're speaking to customers of their competitors,
• 25:06
  customers of the newest AI products, and trying to understand where the needs
• 25:10
  have changed to and take that information and deliver it back to those companies.
• 25:15
  That's not in our traditional job description, but I think
• 25:18
  the best investors don't really think in the sense of a job description.
• 25:22
  And we're more so than, than, than anything in service of those founders.
• 25:26
  Interesting.
• 25:27
  I mean, that's again, a lot of things that I just for
• 25:30
  the audience between the lodestar
• 25:31
  and the customer being the lodestar and how do you work around it?
• 25:35
  And then having that true conversation about reinvention,
• 25:38
  those are things that every founder, every company, every board
• 25:40
  obviously needs to be top of mind.
• 25:42
  I want to move to the last part of the episode in my favor.
• 25:45
  It's what I call the speed poker round.
• 25:47
  So I'm going to ask you a series of questions here.
• 25:50
  You get to only give me one answer.
• 25:51
  You can explain the answer, but only one answer, right?
• 25:53
  So you can't know. Hedging. This is the no hedge section.
• 25:56
  You know.
• 25:56
  You know I'm a big fan of poker.
• 25:58
  I think it's the best stochastic game.
• 26:00
  There's lots of things that are relevant for it.
• 26:01
  But anyways, let's start with the first question before we get into
• 26:04
  the final one would be the Pokemon.
• 26:06
  What's the biggest professional obstacle you faced?
• 26:08
  One thing.
• 26:10
  I would say choosing a job for the wrong reasons.
• 26:13
  You have to know what matters most to you, and it may be different
• 26:16
  from what matters most to someone else.
• 26:18
  And in that level of personal insight goes a long way.
• 26:22
  And give me a couple of things like.
• 26:23
  What perfect example is.
• 26:25
  Turns out I'm not really interested in finance, I'm interested in technology.
• 26:29
  And so choosing a job because it's closer to technology, closer to founders,
• 26:32
  closer to products is what makes me most motivated.
• 26:36
  Very interesting phrase it back to the Lodestar.
• 26:38
  What's your personal lodestar in the closer you can get to it?
• 26:41
  Although I will, I will notice that even though you care
• 26:44
  more about tech, you still your job still involves elements of finance.
• 26:48
  So absolutely, there's a lot of stuff in the world.
• 26:50
  I had this conversation with my associates all the time.
• 26:52
  Like none of us get to do perfectly exactly
• 26:55
  and only the exact thing that we're super, super hyper excited about.
• 27:01
  There's lots of other stuff where you have to roll up your sleeve.
• 27:03
  You still have to do it. It's part of the business, it's part of, etc..
• 27:06
  So and I think obviously for you,
• 27:07
  like you're a venture capital investor, tech is your lodestar.
• 27:11
  But you still have to understand finance.
• 27:12
  You still understand capitalists, you understand supply chain.
• 27:15
  So the same for other economy.
• 27:16
  So and as long as what I'm working on is with that end goal in mind to be closer
• 27:21
  to those industries, it turns out everything else gets easier as well.
• 27:25
  Yeah, I actually very important. It's great.
• 27:27
  It's great statement.
• 27:28
  Next question what's your ideal teammate?
• 27:30
  You can pick one.
• 27:31
  Someone who has education, experience or the right temperament.
• 27:37
  I've got some pretty ideal
• 27:38
  teammates around me at Newville already, and it's a no brainer for me.
• 27:42
  It's temperament. Those three. Why.
• 27:45
  I think of temperament as keeping it cool through difficult conversations.
• 27:49
  So disagreeing with people, challenging them,
• 27:53
  and still coming out the other side as teammates is, I think, critical.
• 27:58
  And it's the type of,
• 28:00
  you know, investment community discussion that we try to get to.
• 28:03
  It's a type of hallway discussion we try to get to at NewView.
• 28:08
  And we're coming to my favorite question, the poker table question.
• 28:11
  So you're sitting in UVU right now.
• 28:13
  And you get to change or just one thing and only one thing.
• 28:17
  Is it the game itself, broader economy?
• 28:20
  Is it the table?
• 28:21
  The VC industry, the investment industry broadly is at the house.
• 28:25
  The regulatory regime, the government fiat, etc.?
• 28:28
  Is it the stack of chips?
• 28:30
  How much cash you guys have, the font size, ability to allocate cash, etc.?
• 28:36
  Is it the other players?
• 28:37
  Someone's not playing dice in industry.
• 28:38
  You know, coordinated enough and so on.
• 28:40
  One thing, what do you do.
• 28:42
  When I'm if you're offering me a stack of chips, I'll take the stack of chips.
• 28:45
  That's the issue.
• 28:47
  Everybody wants a second chips, but that's also.
• 28:49
  The opportunity is large enough to support it.
• 28:51
  You know, you really want to be careful
• 28:52
  that you're not asking for a stack of chips and going all in
• 28:55
  when the person in front of you that doesn't have much to offer.
• 28:59
  But in this case, the opportunity is massive.
• 29:02
  And in order to do that, well, of course, you know you need a stack of chips.
• 29:06
  If I'm offering it.
• 29:08
  I'm offering.
• 29:09
  I just have very limited stack if you have to give you.
• 29:12
  Although although for the audience I am a very, very small
• 29:15
  LP in you, so I'm very, very happy about that.
• 29:18
  So they have my jibs, but it's very limited.
• 29:20
  That will not move your stochastic result on the poker table.
• 29:24
  I mean, it is a very exciting world right now
• 29:26
  with all these options and the AR reinvention.
• 29:28
  And you do think larger dollars ability to actually allocate
• 29:31
  will change results and consequences.
• 29:35
  It's something that you guys think about when you're making an investment
• 29:38
  is how much more cash the company will need.
• 29:40
  I know that's always been an important thing in BC investing, but is it more
• 29:44
  so now in light of the capital intensive
• 29:47
  that the companies need in light of the the need to buy compute,
• 29:52
  potentially for a lot of players and to access that which is not free,
• 29:55
  do you guys think more about the cash that's needed for a company
• 29:58
  than you have in the past?
• 29:59
  I think we are encouraging companies to have more than a comfortable
• 30:05
  buffer of cash, more so because the most exciting
• 30:10
  companies today are pivoting along the way.
• 30:13
  They're pivoting even at scale.
• 30:15
  I mean, you're seeing companies that are trillion dollar companies
• 30:19
  decide whether they're consumer enterprise focused, for instance.
• 30:22
  And so in order to do that, you need resources.
• 30:24
  You need cash.
• 30:25
  I think in this environment, you probably don't need as much as
• 30:30
  we might have needed in the past to develop the next new product.
• 30:33
  But runway gives you the right to pivot and explore
• 30:37
  and find the next big hockey stick opportunity.
• 30:40
  All right,
• 30:40
  well, speaking of sticks or hockey stick sports always make me think of food.
• 30:44
  So my last question is what's your favorite food to eat?
• 30:48
  I work, or when you're playing poker or any other games you play.
• 30:52
  At work.
• 30:52
  I'm sort of obsessed with these electrolyte things called element,
• 30:56
  like the salty drink you've ever, ever tasted.
• 30:59
  It makes no sense.
• 31:00
  But instead of caffeine in the afternoon, I'll do that.
• 31:04
  And then like, for whatever reason, it does.
• 31:06
  It's nothing.
• 31:06
  It's just salt, to be honest with you.
• 31:09
  It's completely psychological at this point.
• 31:11
  But if it keeps me from caffeine
• 31:13
  in the afternoon, which it has done, it has been a lifeline to me.
• 31:17
  So you'll always see me with a huge
• 31:18
  can of element around the office and then playing poker.
• 31:21
  I think you have to eat pizza, don't you? Isn't that like the.
• 31:23
  It's not the reason.
• 31:24
  I mean, you'd be shocked at how few people say that as an answer.
• 31:27
  It is the easiest one.
• 31:29
  You know, we have some fancy folks here who like, you know, like they did like,
• 31:32
  like their sushi and other stuff. Like, well, poker.
• 31:34
  Yeah. Well, if I had this this way, you get. No, no.
• 31:37
  Help me a traditionalist, okay? It's a true pizza guy.
• 31:40
  Well, look, I'll get true.
• 31:41
  Pleasure to have you on the podcast.
• 31:43
  Really appreciate you coming in.
• 31:45
  Thank you so much. Thank you.
• 31:46
  I am for this, but also for the partnership with NewView over the years.
• 31:50
  I really appreciate that.
• 31:51
  Thank you for audience and for checking out this episode of connected with Latham.
• 31:55
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• 32:00
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