Conrad Shang is a Director at UTIMCO, The University of Texas and Texas A&M Endowment, where he leads the VC portfolio for one of the largest university endowments in the country. He’s been on both sides of the table, having also previously been a VC at Norwest Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures. This was a particularly fascinating conversation because Conrad now oversees what is probably the largest VC portfolio of anyone we've had on the Origins podcast to date.

In this episode, we discuss Conrad's background and what led him to this new role at UTIMCO, the strategies that are possible and make sense for an endowment of that size, and how they're approaching the venture asset class overall, now and into the future. We also discuss topics that are particularly relevant today as we head into 2019, including LPs increasingly looking to make direct investments, how UTIMCO is thinking about blockchain investing, and how the endowment thinks about allocating through both bull and potentially bear cycles.

Conrad Shang, UTIMCO

Origins is a podcast about Limited Partners, the firms and institutions that invest in venture capital funds. Through a series of interviews, we explore what has historically been an opaque corner of the startup ecosystem and learn how the people behind the capital make decisions. This podcast was created by Nick Chirls of Notation and co-hosted with Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners.

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In the first Origins episode of the year, ⁠Nick Chirls⁠ (Notation Capital) and ⁠Beezer Clarkson⁠ (Sapphire Partners) host Scott Kupor, a Managing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
In his role as managing partner, Scott invests in growth-stage companies building in the bio and healthcare industries, manages the firm’s investor relations team, and is responsible for the firm’s growth initiatives. 
Scott was the first employee at Andreessen Horowitz and managed the firm’s growth from $300 million in AUM to more than $30 billion. Prior to joining the firm, Scott worked as vice president and general manager of software-as-a-service at Hewlett Packard. Before that, he held numerous executive management positions at Opsware, including senior vice president of global field operations, vice president of financial planning and vice president of corporate development. 
Scott is also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It, and serves on the boards of Cedar, Headway, Foursquare, Labster, Ultima, and SnapLogic. He also served as chairman of the board for the National Venture Capital Association.
In this episode we discuss:
 - The evolution of Andreessen Horowitz as the firm approaches its 15th anniversary
- Reflections on how Scott’s role has changed since becoming the first hire at a16z
- The state of venture today with AI as an inflection point + valuation corrections
- Managing LP/GP expectations in the current environment (e.g. markdowns)
- a16z’s decentralized business model and keeping important cultural values
- How to think about (and debate) fund size and what is the TAM today
…and much more
Follow us:
⁠⁠https://twitter.com/nchirls⁠⁠
⁠⁠https://twitter.com/beezer232⁠⁠
https://twitter.com/skupor

Building a venture firm w/ Scott Kupor (a16z)

In the last Origins episode of the year, Nick Chirls (Notation Capital) and Beezer Clarkson (Sapphire Partners) host David Clark, Investment Director at VenCap International plc.
With nearly four decades of experience in investing, David has backed some of the most established VC funds across the US, Europe, China and India and shares historical figures on where to find performance in venture. David recently uncovered 30 years of data from 400+ funds with 15,000+ underlying portfolio companies and found that 50% of VC investments don’t actually return capital. So how does an LP unlock performance and find the enduring managers?
Three individuals with three unique strategies - Nick (emerging manager), David (LP investing in established), and Beezer (LP investing in emerging & established) – find out how their models differ, where perspectives intersect and what David’s return data shows.
Follow us:
⁠https://twitter.com/nchirls⁠
⁠https://twitter.com/beezer232⁠
https://twitter.com/daveclark85
Links:
David on TVPI vs DPI: https://twitter.com/daveclark85/status/1729188482919383202?s=20
David on power laws: https://twitter.com/daveclark85/status/1693976973079462366?s=20

Power Law VC Performance with David Clark (VenCap)

In this episode of Origins, Nicholas Chirls (Notation) and Beezer Clarkson (Sapphire Partners) host Ed Sim, founder of Boldstart and Seyonne Kang, Partner at StepStone.
Ed is the founder of boldstart ventures, a day-one partner and true believer for developer first, enterprise infra, & SaaS founders. He is currently a board member/observer of Snyk, Blockdaemon, Kustomer (sold to Meta), BigID, Protect AI, Env0, among many others.
Seyonne is a member of the private equity team, focusing on venture capital and growth equity investments. Prior to StepStone, she was a partner with Greenspring Associates, a venture capital and growth equity investment firm that merged with StepStone in 2021.
We cover a wide range of topics, including our predictions for Q4 fundraising, when the market will bottom (if it hasn't already), what happens to multi-stage firms, AI (and other) hype cycles, and how VCs can and should think about liquidity in a market like this. Enjoy!


Links to articles discussed:
Best startup locations in the US
Raise Less, Build More

Q4 Market Predictions w/ Ed Sim (Boldstart) & Seyonne Kang (StepStone)

In this episode of Origins, Nicholas Chirls (Notation) and Beezer Clarkson (Sapphire Partners) host Ed Sim, founder of Boldstart and Seyonne Kang, Partner at Stepstone.
Ed is the founder of boldstart ventures, a day-one partner and true believer for developer first, enterprise infra, & SaaS founders. He is currently a board member/observer of Snyk, Blockdaemon, Kustomer (sold to Meta), BigID, Protect AI, Env0, among many others.
Seyonne is a member of the private equity team, focusing on venture capital and growth equity investments. Prior to StepStone, she was a partner with Greenspring Associates, a venture capital and growth equity investment firm that merged with StepStone in 2021.
We cover a wide range of topics, including our predictions for Q4 fundraising, when the market will bottom (if it hasn't already), what happens to multi-stage firms, AI (and other) hype cycles, and how VCs can and should think about liquidity in a market like this. Enjoy!
Links to articles discussed:
Best startup locations in the US
Raise Less, Build More

Q4 Predictions w/ Ed Sim (Boldstart) & Seyonne Kang (StepStone)

Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners and Nick Chirls of Notation host Adam Valkin, Managing Director of General Catalyst at their NYC office.
Adam Valkin is a Managing Director at General Catalyst. Adam leads the firm's global early-stage practice and co-led its international expansion. He has been at GC for over ten years after joining the firm from Accel London. He has a uniquely global perspective on venture and entrepreneurship and has experience as both an operator and investor. 
In this episode, we cover a variety of topics, including how founders and VCs can navigate difficult moments faced in 2023, how he approaches investing, firm building, and partnering with founders, and why perhaps the current market is not as bad as many have feared. There was a wealth of wisdom in this episode, and many thanks to Adam for agreeing to do his first pod with us.

Conrad Shang, UTIMCO

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