logo
episode-header-image
Aug 4
1h 27m

20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endo...

Harry Stebbings
About this episode

Miles Dieffenbach is Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helps oversee a $4 billion endowment with a focus on venture capital, private equity, and alternative investments. Under his leadership, CMU’s private book has remained self-funding during some of the toughest years for liquidity. 

Agenda for Today:

00:04 – "I Had Cancer at 26 – It Changed Everything"

07:00 – Inside the $4BN Carnegie Mellon Endowment: The Investment Blueprint

10:45 – Are LPs Getting Screwed in Venture?

13:30 – 90% of LPs Shouldn’t Be in Venture – Here’s Why

16:00 – Seed Funds Are a Trap (And No One Wants to Admit It)

20:00 – The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds

24:00 – "Index Is the Best in the Game – Here's Why They Win"

29:30 – "The Dirty Secret of LPs: Brand Over Performance"

34:30 – "When Founder-Friendly Goes Too Far"

38:00 – "The OpenAI Bubble – Will It All Go to Zero?"

44:00 – "Ping Pong Diligence & Wildest Fundraising Stories"

 

Up next
Today
20VC: The $BN Greenoaks Backed Protein Bar | Hitting $100M Revenues in David's First Year: Lessons & Mistakes | $0 to $600M: The Untold RXBAR Story | Product-Market-Fit, Pricing, Branding: What Every Founder Gets Wrong Today with Peter Rahal
Peter Rahal is the Co‑Founder & CEO of David Protein, the highest protein‑to‑calorie ratio for any protein bar on the market. Peter has raised over $85M from Greenoaks, Dr. Peter Attia and Dr. Andrew Huberman with the latest round valuing the company at $725 million. The company ... Show More
1h 6m
Yesterday
20VC: Figma's 250% Pop - The Greatest IPO Mispricing Ever | Meta and Microsoft Blowout Quarters: Broken Down | Cognition Raises at $15BN and Ramp at $22BN | CRV Downsizing and What It Means for LPs and GPs
Agenda: 00:00 – The Worst IPO Mis-Pricing Ever: What Really Happened at Figma 02:30 – Fidelity vs Founders: How Important is Fidelity When Going Public 07:00 – Why Founders Secretly Want a Pop, Even If It Makes Them Look Stupid 10:15 – The Truth Behind the $3B Figma "Left on the ... Show More
1h 20m
Aug 4
20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO’s Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Ron Gabrisko is the Chief Revenue Officer at Databricks, where he joined in 2016. Under his leadership, Databricks has scaled from $0 to $3.7BN annualized revenue. He has grown the sales team from 0 to over 1,000 globally, leading expansion into enterprise, government, and intern ... Show More
1h 15m
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2024
Venture Capitalist Who Called 2021 “Everything Bubble” Thinks VC Valuations Are “Reasonable” | Fabrice Grinda, Super Angel Investor, on Geopolitical Threats, AI, and Yield-Bearing Stablecoins
Forward Guidance is sponsored by VanEck. Learn more about the VanEck Morningstar Wide MOAT ETF (MOAT) at https://vaneck.com/MOATFG.Midas’ website: https://midas.app/Follow Midas on Twitter https://x.com/midasrwaFabrice Grinda’s website: https://fabricegrinda.com/Fabrice Grinda on ... Show More
1h 30m
Sep 2020
Value: After Hours S02 E36 Masa Son's $4billy YOLO Trade, Slime Value Investors, Creativity in Value
Value: After Hours is a podcast about value investing, Fintwit, and all things finance and investment by investors Tobias Carlisle, Bill Brewster and Jake Taylor. See our latest episodes at https://acquirersmultiple.com/  Donate to the FinTwit Value vs Growth War here (it's for a ... Show More
59m 19s
Feb 2022
ALO03: Lessons from a $25 billion CIO ft. Elizabeth Burton
Alan Dunne is joined today by Elizabeth Burton to discuss managing a public fund versus a private fund, the challenges to those invested in the traditional 60 / 40 portfolio, the current outlook for inflation, performing above expectations, how to re-position a portfolio for high ... Show More
1h 3m
Aug 2024
Too Many Investment Accounts? Here’s How to Reduce the Clutter
3 Reasons Why Investors Should Streamline Their AccountsHow Low Can You Go with Retirement Accounts?How You Can Consolidate Tax-Deferred AccountsConsolidate Retirement Accounts with the Same ProviderThe Week Ahead in MarketsHere's What to Expect from Macy’s Upcoming EarningsWhat ... Show More
15m 54s
Sep 2021
LBO Myth: Jeffrey C Hooke on private equity myths with Tobias Carlisle on the Acquirers Podcast
Jeffrey C Hooke is a full-time finance lecturer at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, an experienced investment banker and private equity professional. He is a keen observer of the institutional investment business, and he is the author of five books. A portion of his second bo ... Show More
41m 7s
Feb 2020
Danger Man: Mark Simpson on finding your edge, avoiding behavioral errors with Tobias Carlisle on The Acquirers Podcast
Mark Simpson is a value Investor and author of Excellent Investing: How to Build a Winning Portfolio   Buy the book: https://amzn.to/2Pb43d5 Mark's Website: http://excellentinvesting.org/  Mark's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DangerCapital ABOUT THE PODCAST Hi, I'm Tobias Carlisle ... Show More
1h 22m
Mar 2025
Investment Clinic: I'm 67 - will US stocks crash my retirement?
Sixty-seven-year-old Paul invests using index funds. Over the years, his exposure to US tech stocks has helped him build up a sizeable retirement pot — but recent stock market volatility is making him worry.Now that he’s no longer working, Paul wonders if he should diversify into ... Show More
24m 44s
Dec 2023
#190 Top Investment Stories of 2023: A Stock Club Recap
Dive into 2023’s most insightful conversations on investing and personal finance with the "Stock Club" podcast's special year-end episode.  Relive the top highlights featuring industry experts like Michael Lucas, James Early, Derek Riley, and acclaimed author Brian Ferroldi as th ... Show More
32m 56s
Feb 2020
Pop Delusions: Dylan Grice on the golden age of duration, why economists are cargo cultists, and the anatomy of a forecast with Tobias Carlisle on The Acquirers Podcast
Dylan Grice is the founder of Calderwood Capital Research. Before Calderwood, Dylan was the Head of Liquid investments at Calibrium AG, a private investment office based in Zurich, Switzerland.    Prior to joining Calibrium AG in 2014, Dylan was a part of the consistently top-ran ... Show More
55m 23s
May 6
How a CEO’s Faked Results Led to a $300 Million Wipeout
In late 2018, five years after launching fish-feeding company eFishery, Gibran Huzaifah found himself all out of cash. To save his business, the CEO started plugging fake numbers into financial reports. The brighter picture drew hundreds of millions of investor dollars. But his h ... Show More
16m 39s