Cheer Up, My Brother
w.264 | Professional-Managerial, Women's Sports, VC Benchmarks, Liquidity & Integrity
Dear Friends,
I’ve returned to Austin. With the birds chirping and afternoons of “Sun, High 70s",” it feels like spring - bridging on what I would think of as summer - has arrived. I hope you’ve been able to spend some time outdoors and enjoy it wherever you are.
Today's Contents:
Sensible Investing
Song of the Week: Cheer Up, My Brother
Sensible Investing
The Professional-Managerial Class Has No Future
But the PMC is, at its core, merely well-paid labor, and is structurally unable to break free from its institutional dependence. Real, enduring success, then, comes from moving beyond labor into ownership of capital. The next step up the ladder isn’t more credentials or higher salaries, it’s not even a brokerage account bulging with passive index funds. It’s the accumulation and stewardship of owned, actively managed capital and skills within families and communities.
See that word ‘owned’? I agree with the spirit of the article but not the harshness of the conclusion. We’ve all seen the perils of bad management and leadership; those who can lead and manage other humans well will always be in high demand. It’s just a scarce skill, in the same way exceptional capital allocation is.
Beyond the Billion-Dollar Barrier: The Next Play in Women’s Sports. Deloitte's report is hideously designed, but this is a real trend.
I prompted Preplexity Deep Research, which drew on the Deloitte report and others and put together a better-structured overview here.
TL/DR: It’s mostly a North American market; Soccer and Basketball account for ~80% of the current revenue, but the long tail is growing.
VC Fund Performance Benchmarks from Carta. Lots of great data and charts in here. They tell a familiar story: the venture market has become more efficient and competitive, driving performance and IRRs lower across all performance bands. The thing to always remember in investing, particularly in venture, is that outliers are the only things that matter. You can analyze all this data, but an exit event like Wiz can shift all the numbers quickly.
The Exit Path of 2024: Secondaries. We all knew this, but Tomasz Tunguz provides a good data-based summary. The lesson from the Crypto/web3 era of 2020 and 2021 is to be careful and cautious about being someone else’s liquidity provider in a low-information environment.
Integrity Above All. Nikola founder Trevor Milton was pardoned by President Donald Trump this week. At the same time, Charlie Javice was convicted of defrauding JP Morgan.
“You’re looking for three things, generally, in a person,” says Buffett. “Intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two.” - Warren Buffett.
Testing all counterparties for integrity and investing (or not) accordingly is a fundamental skill for maintaining and growing wealth. Think independently and do not expect others (including the government) to do this task for you.
Seen On Twitter: I asked ChatGPT if you had to ensure that the majority of stock market participants lost money. What would you do?
A good reminder of what most people are sold every day:
Song of the Week: Cheer Up, My Brother
Here on YouTube.
The lyrics speak about understanding and finding clarity as we journey through life. It reminds us that even though we may not have all the answers now, we will eventually gain knowledge and wisdom.
‘We’ll understand it all by and by’ is an excellent line for many things.
“Cheer Up, My Brother“ by HNNY
Farther along we'll know all about it
Along we'll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine (sunshine)
We'll understand it all by and bySelfie of the Week
This picture is a few weeks old. I’m now working through all my follow-ups from the flurry of events.
I attend many networking events, and it’s now trendy to hire professional photographers to document the gathering. I now think this is generally wasteful. This is not a wedding. The shelf life of these pictures is short. Pictures are usually awkwardly taken at a meal or mid-conversation. But sometimes they can be okay, and for that, see above.
Thanks for reading, friends. Please always be in touch.
As always,
Katelyn