Billion Dollar Moves™ with Sarah Chen-Spellings | Global Venture Capital
00:18:21 · Sarah Chen-Spellings, Michael Anders, Sarah Chen-Spellings
[00:18:21] S1: How do you differentiate between hype and substance here? [00:18:23] S0: When you're looking at investing in a company, an AI business, you wanna really dive deep, avoid the hype, and get into the substance of what's the adoption of their product. How are they growing? And of the many, many, many AI businesses that they may be competing with, how are they stacking up in terms of usability and use case and adoption relative to their peers? And I think it's very easy to put money into AI right now. It'll be just as easy to lose money in AI. And I think what you really have to do is navigate through that hype because there is an enormous amount of hype that is not gonna translate into success, and yet there's going to be enormous wealth creation and business productivity created through AI. [00:19:09] S3: In a space clouded by noise, Mike and his team are focused on substance, not slash. They aren't chasing trends. They're backing builders. So I asked him, what separates the companies that actually make it? [00:19:21] S1: What is, like, the common thread among, you know, some of the big names that you've invested in from Figma to Adyen?
00:19:21 · Sarah Chen-Spellings, Michael Anders, Sarah Chen-Spellings
[00:19:21] S1: What is, like, the common thread among, you know, some of the big names that you've invested in from Figma to Adyen? [00:19:26] S0: What we're really looking for is customer adoption and then a lot of diligence calls around users of this software, this this business. How are they using it? How are they finding it? What's, you know, helping their business? So there's an enormous amount of work that goes into validating the product, the efficacy of the product, the likelihood of continued growth of the product. And then also too, you know, we have a network beyond just the immediate iconic client base of some of the largest single family offices around the planet and sovereign wealth funds around the planet. And so when we invest in a company, you also get the ICONIQ network behind you. And so when we look at investing in a business, one question we always ask is, can we really add value here? We don't wanna just be a capital provider. We wanna be a partner to their business. We wanna help them think about growing their board. We wanna help them think about key executive hires, and we certainly wanna be very active in making customer introductions and helping generate ARR and inject more energy behind the growth that they were already seeing. [00:20:28] S3: Mike and his team have built a front row seat to the evolving tech economy. And today, that vantage point has never been more critical. From macro uncertainty and market cycles to the AI gold rush to the question of values in corporate culture, Mike has seen it all. So what does he make of this very moment?
00:20:28 · Sarah Chen-Spellings, Michael Anders, Michael Anders
[00:20:28] S3: Mike and his team have built a front row seat to the evolving tech economy. And today, that vantage point has never been more critical. From macro uncertainty and market cycles to the AI gold rush to the question of values in corporate culture, Mike has seen it all. So what does he make of this very moment? [00:20:48] S0: I had twenty years less gray hair than I do today. And so winning that trust early on was certainly one of the hardest things we had to do. Starting ICONIQ since then has had less friction because we had the trust of clients. We had a track record of delivering for them, and we had really this network that we had begun to use for this information edge, this access edge. And so day one of ICONIQ, while it was not without bumps, certainly didn't have the early stage hardship that comes with any, you know, startup business, if you will. But of course, along the way, even with an ICONIQ, there were bad hires we made. There was a couple businesses we started and didn't work out. And as long as you take a step back and have an honest assessment of what went wrong, Why did things not work out like they did for our growth business? [00:21:44] S4: Copy shot. [00:21:45] S0: Then you get better. Then you get smarter. [00:21:47] S3: So what was the hardest moment in the ICONIQ journey that you can speak to?
00:21:47 · Sarah Chen-Spellings, Michael Anders, Sarah Chen-Spellings
[00:21:47] S3: So what was the hardest moment in the ICONIQ journey that you can speak to? [00:21:51] S0: I think one of the hardest moments of the ICONIQ journey was dealing with, you know, the financial crisis in '2 thousand and '8 was just a very, very tough time because it was so much uncertainty. Not too dissimilar to what's going on right now with, you know, the tariffs and the confusion over what's going on. I think whenever clients are panicky and stressed and are worried about their own business, not just their portfolio, there's a level of stress that you unnecessarily have to absorb or necessarily have to absorb. We've had a few curveballs that were thrown at us over the course of of the last ten years that certainly caused enormous stress. And also too, a lot of these things turned out to create enormous opportunity for us. I think being an entrepreneur is, you know, accepting things that are not right, not just dealing with the curveballs that are inevitably part of starting a company, but then figuring out how to turn that into something constructive. [00:22:54] S1: So when you think about the state of the market, we touched on this briefly, but with the new administration in full force, the uncertainty that is very much alive. I mentioned I'm heading off to Europe after this and the anti wokeism is very, very real in the minds of investors, including family offices. Thoughts on state of the market and how we should behave as investors?
00:22:54 · Sarah Chen-Spellings, Michael Anders
[00:22:54] S1: So when you think about the state of the market, we touched on this briefly, but with the new administration in full force, the uncertainty that is very much alive. I mentioned I'm heading off to Europe after this and the anti wokeism is very, very real in the minds of investors, including family offices. Thoughts on state of the market and how we should behave as investors? [00:23:14] S0: Yeah, I mean, I'll answer the first question. I think right now there's a general sense of confusion. And I think that there is no sort of clarity about what's happening because so much of the news feed is changing day to day, if not more rapid. What's been interesting is I've been in and around the investing world for thirty years and was in Paris working for Societe Generale when the Europe launched the Euro. I was working for Societe Generale when the Russian currency crisis in 1998 happened and the Latin American debt crisis and when long term capital management failed and the dot com bust and the financial crisis in two thousand eight and COVID. And in any of those financial crisis, the government, a government, multiple governments, where there is a rational backstop. This is the first crisis that in part is being caused by irrational governments and the uncertainty that they're creating. So to have clarity to have answers right now is dishonest. So I think what you do is you proceed with caution and you don't change the course dramatically from where you are.
00:23:14 · Michael Anders, Sarah Chen-Spellings
[00:23:14] S0: Yeah, I mean, I'll answer the first question. I think right now there's a general sense of confusion. And I think that there is no sort of clarity about what's happening because so much of the news feed is changing day to day, if not more rapid. What's been interesting is I've been in and around the investing world for thirty years and was in Paris working for Societe Generale when the Europe launched the Euro. I was working for Societe Generale when the Russian currency crisis in 1998 happened and the Latin American debt crisis and when long term capital management failed and the dot com bust and the financial crisis in two thousand eight and COVID. And in any of those financial crisis, the government, a government, multiple governments, where there is a rational backstop. This is the first crisis that in part is being caused by irrational governments and the uncertainty that they're creating. So to have clarity to have answers right now is dishonest. So I think what you do is you proceed with caution and you don't change the course dramatically from where you are. [00:24:33] S1: So from state of the market, let's talk about state of corporate culture. There is a lot going around with the emasculation of what feels like America's culture and how it needs to revert. I know you care a lot about race relations and diversity, equity, inclusion, thoughts on that, and especially ICONIQ Impact's role in this.