01:42:15 · Alana Palmedo, John Coogan
[01:42:15] S9: Yeah. Well, I think in 2018, crypto was the most interesting frontier to be investing into. And, like, that really was the heart of how we started building the firm. Mhmm. And it was the it was the thesis behind being the sort of researchers, builders first. How do you get really close to the tech to be able to understand and underwrite these things from first principles? And then I think over time, it's become pretty obvious that it's not the only frontier and really hard to ignore what's happening in AI. But actually, like, I would say it's more than that. It's like the world itself has started to blend together. Yeah. And drawing these concrete lines is, like, no longer applicable. I think that, like, even something that called itself a crypto project years ago today, like, things that are right on the periphery, tech is just all touching each other. And when you think about trying to separate it, it just doesn't work that way. [01:43:07] S1: How are you thinking about the early stage? There's been some chatter on the timeline about, oh, like, every VC just wants to pile more money into the biggest private companies, the trillion dollar private companies. Why would I waste money or time talking to an early stage founder? How are you thinking about opportunities at early stage, mid stage, late stage? What even is mid stage now? Is that 10 a mere $50,000,000,000 company early stage at this point? Who knows?
01:43:07 · John Coogan, Alana Palmedo, Jordi Hays
[01:43:07] S1: How are you thinking about the early stage? There's been some chatter on the timeline about, oh, like, every VC just wants to pile more money into the biggest private companies, the trillion dollar private companies. Why would I waste money or time talking to an early stage founder? How are you thinking about opportunities at early stage, mid stage, late stage? What even is mid stage now? Is that 10 a mere $50,000,000,000 company early stage at this point? Who knows? [01:43:34] S9: Yeah. I think well, I think stages is a hard thing to define because, like, what are we really talking about? Are we talking about the stage of the company, the valuation? Like, I think it's impossible to not be backing some of the earliest founders and folks who are coming out with new great ideas. And so for us, it's like talent led, would say. You find great people, oftentimes they're in their early twenties. So I don't think you can ignore the early stage, but you also can't ignore the dynamic that you're describing, is like the power law of what's happening with these larger later stage companies and how much they're able to capture in the compound rate of growth. So I think it's like you have to do both. [01:44:14] S0: From an actual product standpoint, are you breaking out the fund? Is there some amount segmented for the early stage, some for growth, some for incubation? Incubation? How should founders be thinking about the new vehicle?
01:44:14 · Jordi Hays, Alana Palmedo, John Coogan
[01:44:14] S0: From an actual product standpoint, are you breaking out the fund? Is there some amount segmented for the early stage, some for growth, some for incubation? Incubation? How should founders be thinking about the new vehicle? [01:44:30] S9: It'll be truly stage agnostic. So we're gonna invest in everything from super early seed stage, even pre seed in some cases, all the way into growth markets. We also, you know, are we have a core flagship fund which is an open ended vehicle and so we invest into public markets too. [01:44:47] S1: Oh, interesting. Very cool. What is the effect of this year's IPOs? What have internal learnings from the the the the height of the opening of the y of the IPO window? It feels like it's sort of open, but maybe not fully wide open. We've got a lot of exciting IPOs that have done well. But how is that affecting the fund and your your feeling around the market right now?
01:44:47 · John Coogan, Alana Palmedo, Jordi Hays
[01:44:47] S1: Oh, interesting. Very cool. What is the effect of this year's IPOs? What have internal learnings from the the the the height of the opening of the y of the IPO window? It feels like it's sort of open, but maybe not fully wide open. We've got a lot of exciting IPOs that have done well. But how is that affecting the fund and your your feeling around the market right now? [01:45:11] S9: That's a good question. I think it's a hard thing to answer. One of the interesting dynamics happening in IPOs is like hyper liquid and some of the trading activity we've seen in advance of the IPOs. Been pretty fun to see like the twenty fourseven, March markets really come alive, which has been a long term thesis that the crypto markets have had. I think Jeff Lowe at Hyperliquid has just done an incredible job pulling it off. Jeff Lowe at trade.xyz and Jeff Yawn at Hyperliquid. Yeah. And so like the Cerebras IPO, SpaceX IPO, like all of these now, like we had all of this trading activity going into those. And so there was a lot more transparency on pricing in advance of the IPO event itself. [01:45:55] S0: Yeah. How accurate was the on chain pricing relative to what these IPOs actually opened at? And do you feel like [01:46:06] S9: Surprisingly accurate. Mhmm. Yeah. Surprisingly, like, quite accurate, actually.
01:46:06 · Alana Palmedo, Jordi Hays
[01:46:06] S9: Surprisingly accurate. Mhmm. Yeah. Surprisingly, like, quite accurate, actually. [01:46:11] S0: Interesting. And have you heard of any institutions, like, starting to, you know, bigger, like, firms on Wall Street that you think will, if they're planning to invest in the IPO or or trade it after it opens, actually start their activity on chain? Is that something that you see happening in the future as we get sort of more evidence that on chain trading tracks, you know, real life after these IPOs actually happen? [01:46:39] S9: Yeah. It's a good question. I mean, if I were them, I would be doing that. I don't know what the rules are and and what the playbook is for them today and, like, what the liquidity and depth of those books looks like. But I mean, I think that's the thesis for what twenty fourseven, three sixty five markets look like in the future is you're going have a lot more institutional activity. Certainly we're seeing that in perps as a derivative product themselves. I think they're just a much more efficient pure play product for big hedge funds to come in. I would even say like the same thing can be true in prediction markets. Like what we're seeing is some people are relating to prediction markets as an institutional product for getting exposure to things and bets that they wanna place that is much more precise than we've had in the future, or excuse me, the past. And so the future I think holds like still a lot of white space in terms of how these markets are gonna evolve, but we continue to be really excited about it.
01:46:39 · Alana Palmedo, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[01:46:39] S9: Yeah. It's a good question. I mean, if I were them, I would be doing that. I don't know what the rules are and and what the playbook is for them today and, like, what the liquidity and depth of those books looks like. But I mean, I think that's the thesis for what twenty fourseven, three sixty five markets look like in the future is you're going have a lot more institutional activity. Certainly we're seeing that in perps as a derivative product themselves. I think they're just a much more efficient pure play product for big hedge funds to come in. I would even say like the same thing can be true in prediction markets. Like what we're seeing is some people are relating to prediction markets as an institutional product for getting exposure to things and bets that they wanna place that is much more precise than we've had in the future, or excuse me, the past. And so the future I think holds like still a lot of white space in terms of how these markets are gonna evolve, but we continue to be really excited about it. [01:47:31] S1: That's great. [01:47:31] S0: What do your internal meetings look like? Do you have like, you know, a meeting once a month where you guys pitch new frontiers that you're Mhmm. Kind of kicking around? Like, at what like, what what is what is forming a thesis look like? Is it is it all partner driven or is it more collective? You guys have kind of a general idea of a category that you're excited about and then you work together. Mhmm.