E149: Interview with Mike Collins, CEO of Alumni Ventures

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: This week's Dose, we had the honor of speaking with Mike Collins, CEO of Alumni Ventures, a venture capital firm that provides accredited investors and institutions with access to professionally managed diversified venture portfolios.

Speaker A: We first got to hear about Mike's background, including how he became fascinated with the world of venture capital and startups into what sparked his idea to start Alumni Ventures.

Speaker B: He then dives deeper into AV's business model, both on the fundraising and investment side, and how the firm differentiates itself as more of a fintech company than a traditional vc.

Speaker A: We then get to hear more about what lies ahead for Alumni Ventures, the sectors that excite Mike the most, and specifically, some of his commentary on AI at the core of it all.

Speaker B: And in our last segment, Mike gives us a couple of his contrarian takes, how he leverages AI personally and professionally. And lastly, some simple advice to the Pilgrims who want to get into venture.

Speaker A: As an AV employee. And with Sam having been a Venture Fellow back in the day, this conversation was especially meaningful to us and marks a significant milestone in Venture Pill history. We are ecstatic to share this episode with the Pilgrims and, and we hope you all enjoy.

Speaker B: You see here, kid, you gotta just go for it. Don't think about what comes after or what came before. You just gotta bend your knees, take

Speaker C: a deep breath, and jump.

Speaker A: This is venturepill, your weekly dose of, uh, startups and venture capital. We break down recent startups in the news and interview founders and investors to help you stay informed in the evolving world of venture. On this week's Dose, we have the pleasure of hosting Mike Collins, CEO of Alumni Ventures, America's largest venture firm for accredited investors dedicated to democratizing access to professional grade diversified venture portfolios. Mike, we're about to go deep on Alumni Ventures. But first, good morning. How's it going?

Speaker C: Excellent. Thanks for having me. Sam. Brandon, thanks.

Speaker A: Of course, we are absolutely pumped to have you on this week's Dose. And, uh, let's get into it, starting with your background leading up to the aha moment that led to you founding Alumni Ventures and how you've brought that vision to life.

Speaker C: Yeah, we go way back. Um, you know, my parents were teachers. I grew up in the Midwest. I was like a basketball player and went to Dartmouth College in the 80s to play basketball. Um, you know, interesting story. One of my, uh, something I try to work into every conversation is I got to guard Michael Jordan with when he was at North Carolina, who dropped like 48 on me. But, uh, uh, yeah, I, uh, came east and then my first job after college was At a venture capital firm. Um, this is way back 1986 with a firm called TA Associates. So, um, really lucky and, and fortunate that my first job was in something that I just found so interesting. Um, and great mentors, super talented people to learn from. Um, and then a second big influence that really impacted Alumni Ventures was, ah, Harvard Business School. I got to meet a guy named Clayton Christensen. Wrote kind of a, one of the most important books, I think, on innovation called the Innovator's Dilemma. Uh, just an amazing human being. Got to know him, had a good relationship with Clay for many, many years. Um, and really my entire career has been at this intersection of investing, entrepreneurship, venture capital, taking, you know, sometimes as an entrepreneur, sometimes as an investor. And the genesis of this company, Alumni Ventures, really came out of my own personal frustration. On one hand, I just saw the power of this asset class and the value that was created and how it was really the entire engine of the economy, which is fairly obvious now. But again it was a lot less obvious, you know, in the 90s, um, but I very much felt that it was like so important, but as an individual, really impossible to access. It was an industry really designed for institutions like pension funds and endowments and sovereign wealth. You know, not a very successful retail investor. Right. Some of that was law, some of that was, uh, we want to protect citizens from themselves. Um, you know, really kind of about a decade ago, the JOBS act was approved, which opened it up a little bit. And really that's what I did. I set out on a mission to bring smart, simple venture capital to retail investors. And everybody thought that was crazy. And you know, you know, we proved them wrong. We, you know, we, we've raised about a billion five. We have, you know, 11,000 customers, um, growing at a really fast clip. Um, we organize people around either areas that they want to invest in, kind of verticals like Quantum or Strategic tech, Health tech, or groups that they want to invest with, right. You know, kind of as affinity groups like alumni clubs, you know, where we have alumni funds at all the major colleges and universities. So this idea of, uh, you know, get access to the very best companies and we do that because we co invest alongside, you know, name brand VCs like, you know, Sequoia, A16Z, Benchmark USV, etc. And we use the power of this network which everybody kind of viewed as a, you know, a bug is a feature. So if you're an entrepreneur, we have an incredible Rolodex and that's really appealing to bring in as a co Investor into your round. So that's in a nutshell, our backstory and, uh, I'll shut up for a minute and let you ask another question.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's a great story and, you know, awesome to open up that asset class to thousands of people. Uh, I'm curious how it's evolved over the years. Um, I'm sure it was hard to get into rounds at the beginning. Much easier now that you've established this presence and raised so much and now have a long track record. How has that evolved over the years? And maybe talk a little bit more about the investment thesis, if you could.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, in our early days we really relied on, uh, really the benevolence of fellow alumni. They provided capital, but they really also helped us get into deals because we were writing pretty small checks. But, you know, the power of alumni connections are really strong in our culture. So, you know, I'd be able to call up, you know, a VC or a founder who, who went to Dartmouth and say, hey, you know, you have a really strong lead. We're not going to write a big check. But we both went to Dartmouth. It'd be great if you let us in for $100,000 or something. And enough, enough, enough people said yes, that we were able to kind of get the things off the ground and get some traction. So, you know, it's one of the, one of the tricks of entrepreneurship is really kind of what's your entry point? You may have big ambitions, and I had big ambitions back in the day, you know, thinking of this more as a fintech company as opposed to traditional venture fund and where we could learn and grow and improve at a rate that was much steeper than traditional venture capital fund firms have. So that's proven to be true. But you got to get the flywheel going, right? And so in the early days, we really leaned on those alumni connections and thinking small hand to hand combat kind of thing. Um, and then as we've grown, we've been able to really think broader about, you know, the customer wants access to these amazing deals, but they want to, you know, they want the version of that that is a lot more like what they could do with public stocks. Right? Meaning, hey, I want to invest with people I want to invest in, but I really am, um, very interested in these particular verticals or I want to see individual deals and learn about picking the winners from the losers. I want to exercise my venture capital muscle. So the evolution was really from just alumni funds to really a full suite of ways that you can now build your own venture portfolio. If you want to kind of just fire and forget it. We have fully diversified funds that are, you know, to get you uh, a large diversified venture portfolio and you can kind of just check it off, fire and forget and you're good with this asset class. Other people, you know, want to be a little more active if they want to say, geez, I'm a really, I want to, I want to place a few bets in quantum computing or I really am fascinated by AI and education or here's a pitch from a particular company that really resonates with them with me. So I want to put some money behind them. So really building out the entire suite has been uh, part of our strategy. The first principles haven't really changed, which is we only co invest and we put a lot of stock in who the lead investor is, their expertise, their conviction with the check they're writing. Um, that's a very special relationship. Um, and we put a lot of stock in that. And when we do our own due diligence, we've established a pretty disciplined process based approach that is, you know, scorecards, due dil, you know, traditional due diligence, investment committees, you know, this is, you know, if you're going to scale a business, the processes are really, really important. And those have really um, remained pretty constant as far as the strategy goes. I mean I, and this is now my opinion is, I think most of the value that a venture capitalist brings and most is really in the getting into the deal early frankly. And uh, the replacement value of one VC over another is not that great. It's a little overstated. Right. Um, you're really identifying an opportunity, you're getting in early and you're putting more money to work over time is really the trick. It's not you're going on the board and mentoring the founder to be successful versus not um, the board's important, but um, again the replacement value of you versus someone else is not that great in my opinion. And probably venture capitalists number 2, 3, 4 and 5 on a board probably provide negative value. So um, you know we put a lot, we put a lot of stock in who the early lead is, um, and trying to get into the really very best deals because there is data that totally does support the very best companies end up with the best venture capital firms. Right. And that, and that's more like the company is picking what, what money they want to take. That's uh, you know, if you're Lebron James and you just, you're picking your Team, not, oh, look at me, I've identified LeBron James and turned him into a talent. So there is strong correlation. But it's not because. It's because the good, the good entrepreneurs make their way to the best venture firms and the very best venture people. Um, is how that works.

Speaker A: And Mike, just to educate our listeners a little bit more, could you elaborate on the power laws, the J curve and general investment philosophy?

Speaker C: Yeah, venture capital is a uh, hits business. Meaning that if you look at a portfolio of 30 companies, the returns, you know, you might have half of those companies go to zero and you know, maybe another quarter of them do, you know, they lose a little, they make you a little. And then really all the returns are driven by a handful of deals. That's called the power law. It's a hits business. It's like a lot of things where you know, um, this isn't like do pretty well with a couple of deals. It's really like crush it with a few. So it's, it's. So a good investing strategy is to be sure that you have a very large portfolio, meaning in venture capital, you know, something like 50 to 200 companies is really where the data says you want to be. And actually the bigger the better. So if you can develop over time, meaning over three to five years, a portfolio of 200 venture deals that are all led by really strong lead VCs, you know, this kind of perception that VC is risky. It's risky if you're doing a deal a year that is shown to you by your brother in law kind of thing. That's, you know, that's definitely, you know, DraftKings. So um, M. But if you, if you take this kind of systematic approach which we try to bring on behalf of our customers, we think it's, you know, it's where a huge part of value is created in the economy. Right. This is just. And companies are staying private longer. I think everybody has seen that. You know, when I started out, companies would go public at a 300, 500 million dollar valuation. And now companies are raising 15 billion at a, you know, 100 billion pre privately. Right. Kind of thing. So it's like if you're waiting for anthropic to go public, you know, and your entry Point is $200 billion. That is a whole lot of value that you've missed out on. Right. So that's just the reality of the way the world's evolved. Um, so having a big diversified portfolio where you're investing with really good lead VCs is the way to play the asset class. It is also just, you've got to go into this as a, uh, long term investor. I mean, it takes five to 10, 15 years for really great companies to be built. You know, Jeff Bezos, you know, is worth what he's worth because it's 30, 35 years of compounding Amazon growth. Right. Kind of things. So it's like we live in a society that's very much like day trading. Instant gratification. I think there's real time arbitrage returns if you're willing to be disciplined, be patient, use diversification. Um, and then again, I'll just come back to this example of a portfolio of maybe 30 venture deals where you're going to have three to five of them really make all the difference to you and to the fund. Um, usually what will happen is there's something called the J curve, which is basically the bad investments go bad early and the good ones take longer. So it's like you can be three years into a venture fund and it's like, oh, look at this. Out of the 30 companies, 10 have already disappeared. Right. Um, this must be terrible. The truth of the matter is the three that are crushing it, that are going to return the whole fund, one investment is what you're shooting for. They're chugging along and compounding every year. So again, you need to go into venture capital. As you know, this is a long term, illiquid asset class that you need a big diversified portfolio. And you just have to stomach the fact that, you know, uh, some of these things, a lot of these things aren't going to work out. And so but for the people who do it in a disciplined way, there's enormous value created. You are rewarded for being illiquid, you're rewarded for being a long term investor, and you're rewarded for what is really the engine of the economy. I mean, I was talking to a section mate of mine who's in Japan and I'm like, you know, you realize I could take a bike ride from San Francisco Airport and there's something like, I don't know, 10 to $15 trillion of market cap that I can go on my bike ride past, which is, you know, maybe three to four times the GNP of Japan. So it's like, you know, this is, this is where the world is. And I, uh, think it's like, that's pretty obvious now that whether it's war and peace, you see $500 drones taking out, uh, $3 billion tanks in the Ukraine. The how AI is going to impact know most jobs, most industries, productivity, you know, the next five years is not going to be anything but probably even more of that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you look at, you look at really the, you know, where returns in public equities have been, they've been through tech companies over the past decade, right? It's, you know, 10 or 15 companies have driven the returns.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You touched on a couple things we'd love to double click on there. Just kind of the long term nature of things. In order to serve your customers, you had to build a sustainable, long lasting business. And um, you talked about some of the systems which we'd love to hear a little bit more about. We'll certainly get your take on AI later on. I know you'll have a lot to say on that, but we were just wondering as you kind of build the business, right, you talked about the intersection of being an entrepreneur and also being an investor. But thinking of AV as a fintech company, I thought that was interesting. Over, over those, those years of growing it, how have you balanced the need to innovate and change, uh, with the need to maintain and strengthen what you've got going already?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean uh, this is very much a fintech company. There was no playbook for, you know, sending out 50,000 K1s to our investors in the spring. Right. So you know, we have 15 person finance and compliance department, we have a 15 person engineering team, we have a marketing and communications team. So we have built, and we have 10 investing teams, right. Of four people each. So you know, we've had to build systems, we've had to figure out how to do things that no one had done before. So um, I embrace doing hard things and I think actually most good entrepreneurs do. And again, coming back to what do we look for in our investments? We love people that are, that view the world differently and have some domain expertise, have lived the problem, understand the problem and then are just unbelievably passionate about tackling the hard problems. And that's again, you know, doing hard things is how good things come about. And so if it's real easy to do, anybody can do it. And in today's AI world, anybody can do that pretty fast. So you know, this idea of looking to do a startup that's easy, run the other way, right. It's like, you know, so we do a deal a day, that's hard. We manage a team of 120, 130 people, that's hard. We have 11,000 customers. Um, those things are hard compared to you know what I would say the other 3,000 venture capital firms, most of them are alike, their partnerships, um, they don't have a big engineering department, they don't have a big finance department. They're trying to minimize the size of those things. So um, but that allows us to do things that we can do that other venture capital firms can't. And you know, we benefit from network effects. So one of the things that is in our roadmap is to go beyond, uh, America. So we're opening up an office in London, opening up an office in Tokyo. We want the AV network to be a global network. So our vision, which will take time and will be hard is, you know, you have a startup in Berlin that we can make connections to. You know, they want to come to New York and meet venture capitalists to do their A round. Uh, we can facilitate that. There may be in factory automation. And so they want to meet with um, Japanese, um, manufacturers and factory operators. We could facilitate that. So again, my vision of where we are five or 10 years is a global network of tens of thousands of individuals, dozens of organizations and institutions that are really just in a network of trying to create great new businesses and innovation and technology and, and entrepreneurship.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's an exciting and ambitious vision. Excited for the global expansion. Uh, let's shift gears a little bit just because I know you got to jump at the top of the hour. Uh, let's get into some market perspective. Curious to hear two to three sectors that you're particularly bullish on and why, and conversely if there's any sectors where you're exercising more caution than the market is.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I would say, um, obviously AI is a generational technology and I think there's different ways to think about it. Um, I think there's. So I'll just drill down in AI a little bit. You know, we love um, the idea of AI roll ups, meaning taking an industry that has maybe been around a while, that's maybe pretty fragmented, you know, bringing AI to it and then um, kind of adopting the PE playbook of kind of buy, merge, consolidate, um, and build a national brand. I think that's an interesting way to play AI. I think there's some AI first startups where a small team can disrupt an industry that may have gotten a little bloated, a little overserved in kind of classic disruptive fashion. So I think the power of a very small group of people to do much, much more has been trending down for a while, but I think we're probably seeing a step, function down of what a really small team can accomplish now. I think, you know, this five person team that you know can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars I think is definitely here now and eventually could be billions with a very, very small team. So AI first is another way to go. Uh, I think there's also you know, AI and healthcare I think, which you know, healthcare is just this big, fairly awful monstrosity that you know, we're all dissatisfied with. But it's been, it's been the hill of which, you know, entrepreneurs have gone to die for a long, long time. I think that could change. Same thing with education. I think healthcare is gonna get disrupted, education is going to be disrupted, um, because of AI. So I think, I think that's just you know, a little level down of beyond the obvious of AI would be one. I think energy is another. I think again, if you look at the need of electrons, um, for AI for just historically, um, standard of livings have been very tightly associated with energy. And so you know I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that we're beginning to think new about uh, technology and energy. Fission, fusion, solar, new approaches to, you know, mining, all of the above frankly are needed. Right. So um, I think energy would be a second one. I would also, I would then turn to kind of, you know, life sciences. I think what is go, what the potential to go on with um, things that are tackling the big scourges of disease. Um, you know, the four horsemen I think are in the crosshairs of technology now. You know, heart disease, diabetes. We've seen just with GLP1 drugs, really a transformative technology, technology there. But I think that's just the beginning of what we're going to see over the next five or 10 years when it comes to heart disease, cancer, brain, um, issues, Alzheimer's, etc. I think M, there's some very exciting things in the life sciences as well. I could go on, but that gives you a sampler of a few of the areas that we're just very excited about.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's nice to go a layer deeper than just AI. You know, just to hear a little bit of how you're thinking it will be applied in the most impactful ways. How do you possibly sift through when you're looking at founders? You know, you see um, you see Zuck going after these big time AI guys, like huge NBA or MLB contracts with hundreds of millions. You know, clearly there's a saturation concentration of, of talent. How do you Possibly sift through who is going to be the best to lead these AI forward companies.

Speaker C: I mean, my view is I don't need to bet on who wins between Google, Zuck, uh, OpenAI, uh, Elon. The good news for America is they're all in the game and they're competing. And we want to invest in companies that are going to ride that wave. Building these models, building these technologies are really foundational. Right? And so the fact that we've got really the five or ten most valuable companies on the planet investing hundreds of billions of dollars annually in this technology is good for mankind. Right. And again, these are smart, knowledgeable domain experts that are in a death match to win. And that is good for my AI education startup because, you know, we want to invest in people that again, as the models get better, you don't want to wake up and say, oh shit, they just released something that made my business obsolete. You want to be rooting for the models to get better because that is going to make your business better. So that's a very important distinction about the right way to invest in this world. You do not want to get in the way of these guys. You want to surf the wave that they're creating. Yeah. So bring it on, Zuckerberg.

Speaker A: Um, Mike, looking ahead, you already touched on it a little bit, but what's next? What are some key strategic initiatives or milestones that's, that are on alumni ventures radar in the next three to five years or longer?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I, if I, I've mentioned already kind of expanding our network globally, I think we want to continue to develop our vertical expertise as a company, which is something that we've been, we started a couple years ago but are still working through. We started out very much with alumni funds as generalists, right. But as we've gotten scale now, and I have 10 teams and 40 investment professionals, our RVCs can develop vertical expertise. So, you know, one of our talented young people, Drew Onslack, is all in on space, right? And you look at his space portfolio, it's really pretty exceptional. We are encouraging all of our venture capitalists to really develop, become what we call T shaped. Which means, yes, being a good venture capitalist is being a generalist. Applying lessons from one industry to another is really a, uh, powerful thing. You can get a little caught up in it if you just do a sector. But combining those generalist liberal arts venture skills with deep domain expertise, where you know all the players, you know, the KPIs, you know, you know who's leaving company X and is in stealth and, and are going to participate in their seed round. That you know, Avs journey to become more T shaped is something that is really a priority for us. We're also in this next decade really looking for partners that are non retail investors. So you know, we're starting to have discussions with corporate, corporate investors, um, international pools of capital. We just think we want to expand our network beyond individuals into uh, partnerships with other kinds of, uh, organizations. We think that that will be accretive to our portfolio companies if we have those kind of institutional relationships. So those are really kind of the big three rocks in my jar at the moment.

Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah, a lot of exciting things on the horizon. Uh, we appreciate that. Look ahead. Shifting gears, Mike, a little bit to our last section here of the interview. We want to get a, get some of your personal takes, learn a little bit more about you. What's uh, one contrarian take that you have?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I think it's pretty, I think it's pretty fundamental that I view, um, a network approach to venture capital as a better approach. Right. I do think, you know, we, while the rest of the industry is fairly one business model, we're over here saying a network of people, um, actually can be an incredibly powerful asset. So I'm just sticking with my kind of core, core insight of 10 years ago and just going to play that through to the end. And I'm all in on it.

Speaker A: Got it. And so as CEO, uh, Mike, how do you think about building and maintaining company culture at a dynamic, evolving company like Alumni Ventures?

Speaker C: I think it's a really important thing. I mean we are geographically spread out. We have offices in kind of the venture hubs. Um, you just have to work really hard at it. So we have, you know, we have weekly must read documents, we have a weekly get together where the whole company gets together. You know, we have retreats twice a year where we bring everybody together. Um, I think there's also just a million little things that you try to model about culture, what you value. Um, you know, it's, we're an AI first company ourselves. AI is really important to us given the amount of transactions, um, we have. But I think it's very important for me to model that. I'm, you know, one of the heaviest users of AI probably in the whole company. So I think you build culture from the top down. Really? Um,

Speaker B: yeah, so it's a great segue. We wanted to ask you what percentage of your life, personally and professionally do you feel like you've successfully Automated.

Speaker C: Listen, I use AI in almost everything I do personally and professionally. Now it is really an operating system for my life and my work, which means, you know, um, like I'm surrounded by four screens and I've got three AI models, you know, chewing on stuff, you know, and summarizing things, doing deep research, using agents to get things organized. Um, I would say over half of everything I do is, uh, I think it's rewired my brain pretty significantly and how I think about things. So. And that also impacts, um, personal stuff. So I'm taking an old family canoe and I'm, you know, I want to kind of freshen it up and, and you know, I've used AI to kind of, you know, mock up what I want it to look like and then go buy, you know, tell me how I'm going to apply paint to an aluminum canoe and you know, walk me through that step by step and buy the products for me that I'll need. And you know, it's just in everything, right? So it's just, um. And I'm not 21, right? So I think it says that if you work at it and you are a believer and you play and you're curious that you can become pretty AI native regardless of where you are in life. I do want to come back to one, to the question too of, you know, one thing that I do view differently that is very, I think, timely is that there's a debate right now about AI and entry level jobs. And I think there's a lot of conventional wisdom that it's kind of destroying jobs for entry level people. And I'm actually on the opposite of that. We are hiring. Probably half of the people we're hiring right now are people. We want people like right out of college who are, you know, frankly, if you went to college and are graduating now, you, you're fairly, especially if you were in any of the STEM majors, computer science, biology, you are AI native. And we want to hire young AI native people that we can match up with someone very experienced. And I do think this marriage of, um, young, hungry, smart AI native talent with someone who's experienced, has judgment, has taste, has life experience, knows how an organization works, knows how marketplaces work, has, you know, I think that combination can be magic where the young per, you know, we call them special assistants. It's bringing back the special assistant to the cmo, right? So the young person right out of college, what an amazing opportunity to learn from an experienced chief marketing officer. And then the chief marketing officer gets the value of AI. And, um, it's kind of one plus one equals ten that we have just seen. Really, really powerful. So I would say that that's one thing, the power of recent college grads who are really AI native, um, and just didn't use ChatGPT to write a term paper, but really understand, you know, this technology and how to use it and know a little bit about coding and cursor and, you know, those kinds of things I think can be really powerful for an organization to really turbocharge itself.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's a winning formula and a great way to position yourself if you're just coming out of college. In fact, if Mike described you to any listeners out there, feel free to reach out to us. We'll connect you all. Um, and I can confirm you're certainly a power user. I see it on the AV side, and, uh, the way you've leaned into the technology is remarkable. Curious to hear Mike Give me one to two CEOs that you've modeled your style as a CEO after.

Speaker C: You know, I think I, um, really appreciate Steve Jobs as someone who was, um, really understood what was important and kind of ruthless focus and passion. Um, I think there's a lot to learn from him still to this day. Um, I also think, you know, I've taken a lot from Warren Buffet, who, you know, just the discipline, the time arbitrage, the, uh, sticking to what he knew. And listen, you know, Warren, one of the great investors of all time, missed a lot of stuff. Like, you know, he missed the whole tech boom, frankly. I mean, um, but because he knew what he knew and stuck to it and then used and then just every year, you know, grinding out just the lesson of stick to itiveness, focus, um, kind of the opposite of a faddish day trader. Uh, I think both of those big impact on me.

Speaker B: And what are two to three books, resources, or even hobbies that have significantly shaped your thinking as a leader and investor?

Speaker C: I mean, I just think there's so many amazing podcasts right now that I think, you know, if you want to learn AI, if you want to, you know, uh, there's just a lot of great people to listen to. So I think, you know, every time you're kind of walking the dog, working out or commuting alone, it really is a missed opportunity if you're not listening to podcasts. I think it's also really important to have some recharging time for your brain. So I think, you know, finding a hobby that is kind of low tech, whether you Know, whatever that is. Running, fishing, painting, you know, I do all of that. And it's just really to kind of, you know, the human brain, you know, and getting enough sleep. I think those are really kind of very quick hacks to being really productive. I'm also, you know, pretty disciplined in like, you know, I'm a morning guy. I'm in the office, you know, usually by 4:30 or 5, and so I get. I'm, um, a big believer in deep work where you just, you know, aren't putting out fires, but are dealing strategically with big issues. And, and if you can get. That's a way for me to carve out, you know, three hours a day where, you know, I'm, um, I, I can get real work done before kind of the meetings happen and the fires to be put out, um, happen. Um, I think those are the things that are really, really important to me.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, agreed on all fronts there. And as podcasters, Sam and I certainly agree about the, you utility of listening to podcasts whenever you can. You know, traffic at home leisurely. Um, real quick, Mike, last question for you here, really, uh, for all the pilgrims out there, that's what we call our listeners who are looking to break into the world of startups and venture capital, either investing or operating side. What's some of your best advice for them?

Speaker C: Just start doing the work. I mean, it's. If you want to be a, a venture capitalist, um, start sourcing companies, start writing due diligence on companies, start, you know, creating, you know, a substack. You know, just get. You got to start doing it. If you want to make movies, start making movies. You can do it with an iPhone. If you want to be a venture capitalist, start. If you want to be an entrepreneur, create a micro business. You know, that is, um, there's no excuse. This idea of waiting for something to come along that is, you know, from the, from some days gone by, I, um, think is. I think, um, I think that's not the way to go. I think start doing the work that you eventually want to do a work and use that as a opportunity to get somebody you can really learn from to hire you. Right. Um, so I would say those two things. Do the work. And this is, again, this was advice that Warren Buffett gave me. He came to hbs, had lunch with him. This was something I still remember, I don't know, 35 years later, which is somebody asked him about career advice and is like, find the smartest person, you know, and convince them to hire you. And so you Know, that's a lot easier if you can walk in and say, I know what you do, I know what you need to have done, and I'm doing it for you already. Let me show you my work. And you know, very much focus on anything to get your foot in the door. Internships, fellow programs, your first job, your, you know, your early part of your career. And again, you know, young people today are going to live to 90 to 120. They're going to have very long careers if they want. So the beginning part of your career is all the steepness of your learning curve. Right. It's not maximizing short term how much I'm going to make so I can wear a fancy watch. You know, at 23, it is what is the steepness of your learning curve. And like, that's what you want to maximize. And if. And if it's. This isn't it for you, you're not learning steeply enough, you got to change, right? That's okay. I mean, it's discovery. Those would be my thoughts there.

Speaker B: No, I love it. And what a time to do that, to lean into AI and to be able to learn anything and dive into anything you're interested in. Uh, I think that's an exciting way to end our interview today. Mike, it's been a pleasure. Lastly, what's the best way for people to follow along with you and with alumni ventures?

Speaker C: I mean, there's great contact information. Visit our website, follow us on social. You know, we're on, uh, YouTube, we're on, you know, TikTok, we're all over LinkedIn. Um, we'll leave the information in the show notes to get in touch with us again. We definitely are looking for talent all the way from, you know, right out of college to people kind of, you know, uh, further along in their venture career. You know, we have, we're always looking for people. We're growing. It's a great platform to learn. Get your foot in the door. In venture capital, we have internship programs. Uh, you know, definitely reach out to our people and culture department if you, if this is something that you're interested in.

Speaker A: Right. And I'll also add that I work at Alumni Venture, so any listeners who want to get in touch through me, feel free to reach out. You know where to find me. Um, but. All right. Awesome. Mike, this has been amazing. A milestone moment for Venture Pill, I think we can say. Uh, but we appreciate your time and, uh, look forward to staying in touch with you and staying. Seeing what's in the future for alumni Ventures.

Speaker C: Great. Sam, Brandon, it's been a pleasure. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks, Mike. Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another dose of startups and venture capital. And as always, we appreciate our pilgrims spreading the word about the show. Share with your friends and help someone else make the pilgrimage. See you next time.

Speaker C: She told me that she only bumps my music when she's lonely.

Speaker A: Thinks my vibes a little low key.

Speaker C: Okie dokie, that's all right. But wait, I don't know how to do things differently than this.