Breaking Into Finance

Building on our earlier Venture Capital Primer episode, Blaise is back to discuss some strategies and tips for breaking into venture, optimal entry points for launching a career in VC, and how to stand out in the interview process (or create your own process!)

In this episode I sit down with Rodrigo Castellanos, VC & Growth Equity investor at StepStone, to talk about his path into finance, and MBA and then to growth equity & venture investing. Rodrigo breaks down how late-stage venture and growth investors think about valuation and make investment decisions. Learn about how and why privately owned startups that are unprofitable today can still merit multi-billion dollar valuations!

Ever wonder what the differences are between investment banking, venture capital, private equity and hedge funds? In the final part of a 3-Part series, we're talking about the hedge fund industry and how it differs from VC and PE. In the second half of the episode we wrap up our discussion by talking about the social impact of each industry. This is an especially important part of the conversation if you care about ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) criterion as a part of your investment strategy and personal philosophy.

Ever wonder what the differences are between investment banking, venture capital, private equity and hedge funds? In Part 2 of a 3-Part series, we're talking about the private equity industry and how it differs from VC and Hedge Funds. Topics include a quick history of Private Equity (it's evolved a lot since the 1980s!), attributes that make for a successful investor and an introduction to the LBO model.

Ever wonder what the differences are between investment banking, venture capital, private equity and hedge funds? Over the next two weeks we'll talk about each industry and how they differ from what another. In this episode, we'll talking about venture capital, the attributes that make for a successful investor and the financial metrics you'll need to become an expert VC investor.

In this bonus episode, we wanted to publish a quick but important question that Blaise had on how an acquisition or merger can create value. This episode gives a short intro to synergies and some different ways that two businesses combining can (sometimes but not always) generate greater profits than the sum of the parts.

This episode covers a cousin of the Accretion/dilution analysis: present value of future stock price (which you might sometimes see abbreviated as PV of FSP). This PV analysis of a company's future stock price can be helpful if a public company is determining whether to make an acquisition or investment that is dilutive in year 1 but might lead to higher earnings and/or earnings per share in the future.

This episode covers the accretion / dilution analysis, which is a tool that public companies and investment banks use to help evaluate potential acquisitions. Blaise, Olivia and Craig discuss several accretion / dilution examples to demonstrate how the source of funding (cash vs. equity vs. debt) can impact meaningfully impact whether a deal is accretive or dilutive.

This episodes builds on the valuation ratio content from the last episode, and uses the example of Cava's recent IPO to illustrate the importance of using several different ratios to try to triangulate valuation.

What is a P/E ratio and why does it differ by company? How do you value companies with low or negative earnings? Olivia and Craig use the example of comparing a gas station to a software business to discuss why and how analysts use different ratios to compare the valuations of similar companies. This is the foundation of valuing a company based on how their financial ratios compare to other comparable publicly-traded businesses.