BILLIONS · 2026-06-18 · 58 min
On this episode of BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Peter Singlehurst, who built the private companies team from scratch at legendary investment firm Baillie Gifford, deploying billions into more than 100 of the most important private companies on the planet. Peter operates on a timeline that makes typical venture capitalists look shortsighted. From backing Tesla in 2013 at a $3B market cap to entering SpaceX at a $30B valuation, his strategy completely bypasses the short-term noise of quarterly earnings. In this masterclass, he breaks down why optimizing for the highest possible price at an IPO is a lethal mistake, the massive arbitrage hidden within the world's most misunderstood tech giant (ByteDance), and the raw post-mortem of their highest-profile mistake: Northvolt. We break down: The Philosophy Swerve: How a philosophy graduate skipped a PhD to build a multi-billion dollar growth engine and why Baillie Gifford deliberately hires people with no finance background. The Death of the IPO Monopoly: Why the world's most valuable hyper-growth companies no longer need public exchanges to unlock liquidity.
The man who built a bank for people banks don't want - Jason Wilk [Dave]81 / 100
Why focus on only ONE product built a $1B super-brand (on just $6,000) - Pete Maldonado [Chomps]
Why high valuations are secretly killing tech unicorns - Martino Cadoni [Deepl]
How a $75 sneaker bot became a $300M/Month financial engine - Steven Schwartz [Whop]
Very few growth moats will survive AI - Sandy Diao [Descript]