How I Invest with David Weisburd
00:49:07 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:49:07] S0: And that's because on a relative basis, they'll be one of the richest people in Milwaukee. [00:49:10] S1: And god bless them for being the wealthiest person in Milwaukee, but that's not what my money's for. Like, I have to have that minimum $500,000,000 type outcome with my first fund in order for my math to work. I don't have to find a trillion dollar company, but I have to have that minimum $500,000,000 outcome. And too often, have found, and this is going back to the analogy of me being a talent scout, I have to make sure that my entrepreneurs are sufficiently grandiose when they take my money. Like, buddy at Greylock coined this phrase that I've stolen. You have to have equal bits, grit, and grandiosity. Grit, I've got all day long in Milwaukee and Cincinnati and Phoenix. What I often have to be much more on the lookout for is the grandiosity piece. [00:49:49] S0: Reminds me of a Jason Lemkin tweet, which I think it was during COVID where he said, in San Francisco, I'm unhappy but productive. Outside of San Francisco, I'm happier but less productive. Therefore, I will stay in San Francisco. So I I think there's something to that. There... There's this memetic copying where, sure, you might have $20,000,000, but if your neighbor has a $100,000,000, now you're suddenly unhappy. And people generally look at this as as a negative in terms of happiness, in terms of productivity, it's a very positive kind of capitalistic type drive that that leads a lot of these submarkets like a San Francisco.
00:49:49 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:49:49] S0: Reminds me of a Jason Lemkin tweet, which I think it was during COVID where he said, in San Francisco, I'm unhappy but productive. Outside of San Francisco, I'm happier but less productive. Therefore, I will stay in San Francisco. So I I think there's something to that. There... There's this memetic copying where, sure, you might have $20,000,000, but if your neighbor has a $100,000,000, now you're suddenly unhappy. And people generally look at this as as a negative in terms of happiness, in terms of productivity, it's a very positive kind of capitalistic type drive that that leads a lot of these submarkets like a San Francisco. [00:50:21] S1: In an ideal world, like, I would love it when young entrepreneurs go to the Bay Area right out of school from one of these noncoastal places and then move back. And so they've been infected. [00:50:30] S0: They could see what [00:50:31] S1: They've been infected by the grandiosity in Palo Alto. Yeah. But they didn't they didn't stick for whatever reason, and they moved back to Phoenix Milwaukee or Cincinnati or Houston. [00:50:39] S0: That's the best model? [00:50:41] S1: With our first fund, we saw kind of an equal split between folks that had done some version of that and then just homegrown entrepreneurs. But I certainly look for it. And because if you've been in Palo Alto and you've seen that work ethic and you have that grandiosity and you just kind of learned how things work, and you can then come back to one of my geographies at a more reasonable price for me as an investor, you bet. That's a great combination.
00:51:01 · David Weisburd
[00:51:01] S0: Yeah. That... And you see this across all of finance. Philadelphia is famous for bringing New York New York City transplants, and it's a model that works. So that... Seeing what greatness looks like, it's one of those things that you lock in. It's one of my thesis around the PayPal Mafia, around your friends, is that just seeing that early on, seeing what hard work looks like, seeing what intelligence looks like. There's so many different degrees to all these things. You have to lock that in to see the gap. Even with podcasting, I I had Jason Gallican. It's, like, episode 10 or so. And I immediately just saw the skill gap between us. I'm like, holy crap. This is both incredibly humbling and that he's, like, 10 x better than me and also incredibly motivating because I see, like, I see I see the the path to that. Another friend of ours, Eric Anderson Mhmm. From Alloy. He's been my mentor for seventeen years. I I met him at at Dartmouth. And when I met him, I'm like, holy crap. There's a gap between us. And, like, I need to figure out, like, what he does, and he's one of these other people that wakes up at 04:30AM and and just just grinds. And it... And now he started $4,000,000,000 plus companies. But just seeing that gap is such, I think, not only powerful, but such a necessary component to greatness.
00:52:10 · Jack Selby
[00:52:10] S1: Totally agree. I totally agree. And that's... Again, to give it fairness and balance and having spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley, just the the grandiosity, it... It's just... It's inspiring. And I think, honestly, it it... It's what makes... Not to be corny about this, but it... What... It's truly the superpower of The United States. Like, we are such a risk on culture, and Silicon Valley takes it to the nth degree, It's a great thing. And that it inspires the rest of us. And, again, I just want my noncultural entrepreneurs to have a little bit more of it at times.
00:52:38 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:52:38] S0: Going back to the beginning of the conversation when we talked about... I I followed this company, EyeSocket, into San Francisco. Mhmm. And I was 22 years old at the time, and I I slept on John Ramey's couch, and I was in the office and just seeing people create stuff. But, also, just in San Francisco proper, and you're just standing around. You're talking to people even at a coffee shop, and they're like, yeah. I started this company. I raised 5,000,000. And you see that enough, your brain starts to believe that it's not some crazy thing. It's almost like inevitable. Of course, you go out and raise a pre seed based on some crazy idea. Of course, you raised $5,000,000 on, you know, $500,000 in revenue. Of course, then you have to raise a series. It becomes almost this... Instead of this preposterous dream everywhere but San Francisco... This was the early two thousands, so Silicon Valley culture was not yet as pervasive across the entire country. But there's something just powerful about just being there and literally, like, touching people that that have raised money. It's it's hard to put in words, but it it is something. [00:53:34] S1: It's inspirational. It's, it's truly a national superpower. Our risk on culture is better than anywhere else in the world. It's amazing, and we should embrace it. [00:53:45] S0: You also cofounded Clarium with Peter Thiel, which is a macro hedge fund. I don't oftentimes have macro investors on the podcast, you and Cliff Asness and a few others. What's your view on the macro climate today?
00:53:45 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:53:45] S0: You also cofounded Clarium with Peter Thiel, which is a macro hedge fund. I don't oftentimes have macro investors on the podcast, you and Cliff Asness and a few others. What's your view on the macro climate today? [00:54:00] S1: I think macro's back. I think, volatility's back. You know, thirteen plus years after the GFC and interest rates were bolted to the floor. We live in a very different world now, I think, whether it's geopolitical, volatility, across the board. So it doesn't mean it's easier. That's for sure. But if you're smart and you can come up with some good theses, in the macro world, I think this is a great opportunity to potentially make money. So I think this is a... I think macro has a... Finally has an opportunity to be in back and being more in vogue. [00:54:30] S0: And kind of the pendulum, you believe, will swing from more passive to more active?