Pinned post
Ho Nam
Verified account This account is verified. Learn more@honam
Co-founder and Managing Director of Altos Ventures
996 Following 62K Followers 14K Posts
Latest posts 5
This is interesting. While Sequoia goes back to the flat partnership model (more like old school VC but without Monday partner mtgs), a16z is eyeing the AUM and fee streams of PE and will double down on the firm buildout approach to “investing.” Which will win over the long term?
Who the heck knows. There are many ways to make money. For me, I’m a believer in simplicity. Not specialization. Simplicity.
Few companies matter and you don’t need to be in every hot deal. Just pay attention to your own portfolio and if you’re fortunate enough to be in the game over decades, there will be a power law distribution on just in your own companies. Don’t need to worry about what everyone else is doing. That will help simplify things and also help with envy and FOMO.
Who the heck knows. There are many ways to make money. For me, I’m a believer in simplicity. Not specialization. Simplicity.
Few companies matter and you don’t need to be in every hot deal. Just pay attention to your own portfolio and if you’re fortunate enough to be in the game over decades, there will be a power law distribution on just in your own companies. Don’t need to worry about what everyone else is doing. That will help simplify things and also help with envy and FOMO.
This article makes absolutely no sense.
Firstly, there’s a list of complaints and criticisms about PE which clearly apply at least as well to modern venture.
(Poor performance, weak liquidity, sloppy markup practices, etc.)
It makes a spurious case about VC outperforming buyout by using the power law as a smokescreen — ignoring the totally different distribution of returns.
An equally spurious case about persistence of performance, ignoring the fact that multistage firms have changed substantially over the last decade.
The idea that VC marks are more rational than PE marks is also comical. PE is far more rigorous about valuation — a term that few VCs even understand.
It makes no sense that a16z would choose to lash out at a more mature, better performing strategy in a way that highlights all of their own flaws so clearly.
The obvious explanation is that they want to consume a bigger chunk of PE allocation as they move further away from VC, and they’re making this move before the AI trade implodes.View quoted post on X
Love this. So classic. I was at this shareholder meeting (as well as in 1999) when similar comments were made.
in April 2000 a Berkshire shareholder stood up and told Warren Buffett he'd made over 100% in tech funds in 1999. enough to cover everything he lost on Berkshire that year.
in the clip below he asks Buffett and Munger to put 10% of the money into "the only play in town."
"isn't there enough left in your brain power to maybe pick a few and see what's going on?"
Buffett doesn't argue about tech. they never buy anything they can't value 10 years out, he says.
then he offers the man a booth.
if he has business cards, shareholders are free to invest with him instead. Berkshire will even set him up in the exhibitor section.
Munger finishes it.
"there are worse things in life than being left behind in possession of a lot of lovely money."
the Nasdaq had peaked a few weeks earlier. over the next two years it lost almost 80 percent.
two old men protecting the money - or two dinosaurs who just got lucky with the timing?View quoted post on X
I’ve paraphrased this idea by saying that I don’t have to be a better investor than you to beat you. My businesses have to be better. In the long run, the ones who own the superior businesses do better than the ones who trade in and out of them. If my business isn’t great then I suffer the consequences. That’s ok. That’s life.
Warren Buffett: “If you find 3 wonderful businesses in your life, you’ll get very rich…”
“If you look at how the fortunes were built in this country, they weren’t built out of a portfolio of 50 companies. They were built by someone who identified a wonderful business.”View quoted post on X
Holy cow. Susan Buffett owned 2.2% of Berkshire at the time of her death in July 2004. That $3B of stock would be worth over $27B today. And Buffett slightly underperformed relative to the total return index since then. Compounding is marvelous. Don’t interrupt it.
Warren Buffett's first wife owned $3 billion in Berkshire stock. She lost his credit card. He never asked for it back.
"The guy was spending less than she did."
Her name was Susan Thompson. They married in 1952. Three kids.
In 1977, after 25 years, she moved to San Francisco. Warren stayed in Omaha.
They never divorced.
Before she left, she introduced him to Astrid Menks, a hostess at The French Cafe in Omaha. Asked Astrid to look after him.
Astrid moved in.
Every Christmas, the three of them signed the same card. "Warren, Susan and Astrid."
Years later, Buffett called her leaving his biggest mistake. Said it was "99% my fault."
Susan owned 2.2% of Berkshire Hathaway. At the time of her death, that was roughly $3 billion.
She died on July 29, 2004. She was 72.
Two years later, Warren married Astrid.
He joked about the credit card. Called losing Susan the biggest mistake of his life. She introduced him to the next one. For 27 years, they all signed the same Christmas card.View quoted post on X
