The Deal Table

Northern England, then Israel, then an MBA, then rabbinical school, then recruited to Des Moines. Leib Bolel now runs a venture fund in Arizona.

More on Leib Bolel and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/leib-bolel

He also has six children and five Ironman finishes, which turns out to be relevant: the discipline argument he makes about triathlon is the same one he makes about holding a venture position for a decade.

The substance is data-driven venture capital, and what that phrase actually means once you strip the marketing off it. Why most venture tech stacks are still siloed and simplistic, how sourcing from data rather than from your network changes which companies you ever see at all, and what the Moneyball comparison gets right and wrong.

He is equally specific on the debt side, where founders quietly get hurt: how capital structures end up misaligned, what predatory venture debt looks like from the inside, when flexible capital beats a priced round, and why a founder should have an ideal investor profile the way a company has an ideal customer profile. Plus Israel's role in dual-use technology and what it takes to scale an Israeli startup into the US.

Leib Bolel is the founder of Lioncrest Ventures, which provides flexible multi-product financing to early growth-stage technology companies, and a partner at Grayhawk Capital, where he has spent nearly seven years investing in B2B software. He previously founded the Arizona Israel Technology Alliance.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 England, Israel, Iowa, Arizona

05:20 Five Ironmans and staying in the race

11:44 Data-driven venture capital explained

14:52 The Moneyball comparison

18:34 The edge outside the coasts

20:04 Debt against equity for founders

22:37 What predatory venture debt looks like

30:35 Israel, innovation, and security tech

43:06 Sourcing from data, not the network

57:45 Return targets across equity and debt

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The Power Law: amzn.to/3RJfzfN

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

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The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Eric Bennett managed $10 billion as a chief investment officer before deciding the most interesting returns were in the brain.

More on Eric Bennett and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/eric-bennett

He co-founded Talison Wealth Management and served as its chief investment officer, then became founding executive director of the Brain Performance Institute at the UT Dallas Center for BrainHealth in 2013, where he raised more than $105 million, built a new facility and served over 50,000 people. In early 2025 he launched Brain Capital Partners and the Brain Super Fund.

The underwriting is the interesting part. Biotech can create value and even exit before it has any revenue, so he explains what he actually prices, how he separates evidence-based neuroscience from supplements that never had to clear the FDA, why the regulatory pathway is the gate, and why psychedelics became investable in the last five years when they were not before.

He also covers brain-machine interfaces and the government's quiet role through DARPA, transcranial magnetic stimulation and implants, where AI accelerates both discovery and diligence, and how the Brain Performance Institute got military veterans through the door by offering better brain performance rather than treatment for PTSD.

Eric Bennett is the founder of Brain Capital Partners and the Brain Super Fund, which put venture and growth capital into brain science. He co-founded Talison Wealth Management as chief investment officer and was the founding executive director of the Brain Performance Institute at the UT Dallas Center for BrainHealth.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Why the brain, and why now

08:06 The fund structures, side by side

10:45 Mental health, Alzheimer's, longevity

20:26 Real science against snake oil

26:18 How capital flows into brain tech

29:21 Brain-machine interfaces

35:30 DARPA and the government's quiet role

38:40 Psychedelics, PTSD, and reframing it

47:30 Valuations and exit paths

54:38 Suicide, phones, and burnout

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Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Mara McNeill took over Toyota's bank the month COVID shut the country down, as the fourth CEO in four years. She grew it from $1B to $6B.

More on Mara McNeill and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/mara-mcneill

She breaks down how the growth actually happened rather than how it reads in a press release: the Mazda captive relationship that unlocked a new lending strategy, an SBA license secured fast enough to run Paycheck Protection Program loans for shut-in dealers, 465 loans that helped save roughly 40,000 dealer jobs, and why brokered certificates of deposit turned out to be stickier than regulators believed.

From there the conversation turns to what boards missed at Silicon Valley Bank in 2023, why the problem was not capital requirements, what changes in expectations between a $1 billion bank and a $10 billion one, and how she sold a $6.9 billion student loan portfolio.

She is a former Air Force captain who served at the Pentagon, with degrees from the Air Force Academy, Georgetown and Harvard, and senior roles at JPMorgan Chase and the US Treasury, where she worked the auto bailout during the 2008 financial crisis.

Mara McNeill is the President of PayPal Bank. She previously ran Toyota Financial Savings Bank, growing it from $1 billion to $6 billion in four years, and held senior roles at JPMorgan Chase and the US Department of the Treasury. She is a former United States Air Force captain who served at the Pentagon.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Fourth CEO in four years, in March 2020

02:00 Scaling the bank from $1B to $6B

05:10 The Mazda partnership that unlocked it

08:30 PPP lending for shut-in dealers

11:05 Why brokered CDs were stickier

18:00 What boards missed at SVB

27:10 A $1B bank against a $10B bank

40:10 Selling a $6.9B student loan book

48:10 Moral hazard and bailouts

56:30 Michigan, and the Treasury auto bailout

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Mara McNeill on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/maramcneill/

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Victor Vescovo warned OceanGate that the Titan submersible would fail. Two of his friends were aboard when it imploded.

More on Victor Vescovo and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/victor-vescovo

He explains why carbon fiber was the wrong material for a deep sea hull, why Stockton Rush would not hear it, and how the same risk discipline that keeps him alive at full ocean depth governs the way he underwrites a deal. Turning back on Everest and walking away from a term sheet are the same muscle.

Vescovo co-founded Insight Equity and raised $1.5 billion in private equity, and now runs Caladan Capital. He is a former US Naval intelligence officer who has flown to space with Blue Origin, summited Everest, and piloted a submersible to the deepest point of all five oceans.

The investing half of the conversation covers where he puts money now: SpaceX, de-extinction work at Colossal Biosciences, asteroid mining and other exotic technology, plus why first-mover advantage is mostly a myth and what actually makes a company durable.

Victor Vescovo is the founder and CEO of Caladan Capital and a co-founder of Insight Equity, where he helped raise $1.5 billion. A former US Naval intelligence officer, he has summited Everest, flown to space with Blue Origin, and is the first person to reach the deepest point in all five oceans.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 The Titan question, asked up front

02:48 Everest, the deep ocean, and space

04:46 Fewer people down there than in orbit

06:01 Titan against Limiting Factor

11:43 Betting on de-extinction

16:32 What exploration teaches venture

23:51 Risk when the stakes are your life

27:26 Everest, and knowing when to turn back

48:58 Asteroid mining and space tech

55:26 First-mover myths and durability

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Suresh Narayanan's father was a Concorde mechanic. When he started his own company, he picked the least glamorous corner of aviation on purpose.

More on Suresh Narayanan and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/suresh-narayanan

Narayanan is the founder and CEO of Jets MRO, which opened in Dallas in January 2024 doing heavy scheduled maintenance on business jets, alongside a component repair station the company acquired. He was previously chief operating officer of JSX and an aerospace engineer working on military jet modifications.

His argument is that the business jet aftermarket never matured the way the airline world did, which leaves an obvious gap for anyone willing to run it properly. He sells to the maintenance manager rather than the aircraft owner, treats mechanic turnover as the industry's real constraint, and designed the facility around the people working inside it rather than the aircraft parked in it.

The deal content is unusually practical: raising capital for a greenfield operation on nothing but a business plan, acquiring and integrating a repair station, how he thinks about strategic fit against building new, and what quality of earnings and diligence look like from the seller's side of the table.

Suresh Narayanan is the founder and CEO of Jets MRO, a Dallas business jet maintenance, repair and overhaul company launched in January 2024. He was previously chief operating officer of JSX and an aerospace engineer at AQRD working on military jet modifications.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Choosing the unglamorous corner

01:59 Launching Jets MRO in Dallas

07:56 People first, as a business model

18:33 The gap in business jet maintenance

26:08 Who actually decides on a repair

33:19 Designing a hangar around mechanics

37:38 Raising money on a plan alone

41:39 Acquiring the repair station

51:47 Strategic fit against building new

55:32 Quality of earnings and exit planning

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Douglas Smith picked up the phone and called the CEO of Delta Air Lines. That call became TSA PreCheck and Global Entry.

More on Douglas Smith and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/douglas-smith

Appointed by President Obama as Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector at the Department of Homeland Security, Smith coordinated private sector engagement across all 22 DHS divisions, led delegations to more than 40 countries, and ran the interagency response that kept global supply chains moving after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami.

Here he tells the full build story of Global Entry: the throughput crisis at US airports after 9/11, the idea of shrinking the haystack instead of searching all of it, the call to Delta chief executive Richard Anderson, the premium-traveler insight that made the program sellable to the public, and the four ports of entry where it was first tested.

He also explains how the emergency alerts on your phone were built with the wireless carriers, why he once found one of his own DHS memos sitting in a three-ring binder in the UAE, where cyber risk actually concentrates in a supply chain, and why dismantling the government's critical infrastructure advisory councils should worry the private sector.

Douglas Smith is the Global Head of Public Affairs and Managing Director for the Middle East and North Africa at The Nuclear Company. He previously served as Assistant Secretary for the Private Sector at the US Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, and has spent 30 years across national security and business.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 "They were true patriots"

03:41 Global Entry: shrinking the haystack

07:15 The part government could not do

10:21 Why throughput is a security strategy

13:37 Who actually runs the government

26:17 Where supply chain risk concentrates

31:38 Cyber defense: small firm or giant

34:32 Dismantling CISA and the councils

40:59 "Data wins the war"

43:59 AI, and what a father worries about

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Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

General Jim Williams survived multiple helicopter crashes and once told his command he was going to go negotiate with the terrorists.

More on General Jim Williams and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/jim-williams

He spent 38 years in the Marine Corps and retired a two-star general. What he does now is argue, with the same directness, that American financial literacy is a national weakness, that most business owners are nowhere near exit ready, and that discipline is a system you build rather than a trait you have.

The conversation runs from combat operations to the boardroom: mission clarity and planning, when persistence becomes stubbornness, the retirement crisis, Enron and the ethics lessons of 2008, and what employers owe their people on health and financial wellbeing.

It ends on competitiveness. Automated manufacturing and the talent shift, global demographics, China and the supply chain, the decline of US steel, the return on a college degree, and how to build a team you can actually delegate to.

General Jim Williams is a retired two-star general who served 38 years in the United States Marine Corps, including combat command. He now works with business owners and executives on leadership, financial discipline and exit readiness.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Combat mindset in the boardroom

03:45 Negotiating with terrorists

09:30 Financial discipline as a weakness

14:30 The retirement crisis nobody plans for

26:10 Enron and the lessons of greed

29:45 2008, ethics, and the Harvard MBA

44:30 The financial burden of living longer

49:00 Automation and the talent shift

52:20 China, steel, and competitiveness

01:11:40 Exit planning and owner dependence

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Start with Why: amzn.to/4khcQHu

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Charlie Calise thinks private equity overpaid across the last cycle, and the companies underneath those deals may never make the math work.

More on Charlie Calise and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/charlie-calise

He is blunt about what cheap money did to deal math, and about a consequence buyers rarely price in: overpaying does not just produce a bad return, it breeds toxicity inside the operating company. He walks through what actually makes an acquisition accretive, and tells the story of a client that bought a company for its store-door delivery model without ever checking whether there was room left on the truck.

Calise is the CEO of Calise Partners and chairman of Imaginuity, which he acquired in order to own the full customer journey rather than build the capability internally. He has done multiple acquisitions and runs a family office, so the conversation moves easily between buying capability, integrating culture, and what happens to a family's money afterward.

Also covered: owner dependency and the exit-planning trap, family operating agreements and generational wealth, the cost of a bad hire and how hiring standards changed after COVID, and where AI is genuinely changing agency economics rather than just headcount.

Charlie Calise is the CEO of Calise Partners and the chairman of Imaginuity, a Dallas marketing and technology firm he acquired. He is a veteran marketing strategist who has run multiple acquisitions and oversees a business handling millions of transactions a year, alongside a family office.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Why the multiples do not survive

07:05 Data against gut in marketing calls

10:20 What AI actually does to efficiency

18:15 Buying Imaginuity instead of building

22:40 The capital strategy behind the deals

34:20 Culture clash and why integrations fail

39:45 Owner dependency and the exit trap

50:35 Valuation myths and truck math

01:04:00 The real cost of a bad hire

01:20:45 The power of family operating agreements

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As a Man Thinketh: amzn.to/4i4Y1Gg

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

John Terry tells his students that 80 percent of businesses are started by people who got fired or laid off. He left on purpose.

More on John Terry and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/john-terry

Terry co-founded ChurchillTerry and has taught the entrepreneurship and starting-a-business courses at SMU for 25 years, first to MBAs and later to the executive program. He advises owners on valuation, exit readiness, and what buyers actually pay for.

Most owners price their company on what they need rather than what it is worth, and the gap between those two numbers is where deals die. He takes apart the truck factor fallacy, the idea that a competitor's sale price tells you anything about yours. He explains what owner dependency does to an offer, why accrual accounting and clean books move the number, and how buyers really weigh risk, return and the illiquidity discount.

There is also a case of profitability hidden inside client mix, a multi-generational family business turnaround, and the two executive MBA students who wrote a plan in his class, got a B, and turned it into Two Can Cocktails.

John Terry is the co-founder of ChurchillTerry and has taught entrepreneurship at SMU for 25 years. He advises business owners on valuation, exit readiness and the mechanics of a sale, and works across entrepreneurship, corporate finance and investment advisory.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Why 80% start after losing a job

04:39 Entrepreneurship is mindset, not method

13:56 Leaving corporate for ChurchillTerry

23:11 Profitability hidden in client mix

25:34 Turning around a family business

28:34 The truck factor fallacy

33:44 Pricing on need, not on value

35:18 Why accrual books move the number

37:40 Owner dependency caps your price

49:22 The class project that became a brand

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The E-Myth: amzn.to/42Ora3R

Build a Business, Not a Job: amzn.to/4aSK5wB

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Blockbuster turned down Netflix for $50 million in 2000. Jim Keyes did not become CEO until 2007, and the internet still blames him for it.

More on Jim Keyes and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/jim-keyes

He walked into a company that had already violated its bank covenants two or three times. He bought a streaming service from the studios with 3,000 titles already digitized, doubled EBITDA in twelve months, and had a two notch Moody's upgrade in hand when Lehman Brothers collapsed. Then all six studios cut Blockbuster from 90 day credit terms to cash, $300 million of float left the company in two weeks, and there was no choice but to file.

As he puts it, the company was listing, not sinking, and the iceberg was the financial crisis. He beat Carl Icahn in bankruptcy court, had a scotch with him the next day, and sold the business to Charlie Ergen's Dish, which intended to bypass the internet with wireless. Before Blockbuster came 21 years at 7-Eleven, from chief technology officer to CEO, a 10x on equity value, and the 1987 buyout that left $4 billion of debt at 17 percent interest.

The other half of the conversation is education. Keyes wrote Education Is Freedom, and he argues that falling college attainment is a national security issue, with China moving from 40 to 60 percent while the United States slid into the low 40s.

Jim Keyes is the author of Education Is Freedom and the former chief executive of both 7-Eleven and Blockbuster. He spent 21 years at 7-Eleven, rising from CTO to CFO to COO to CEO, and took over Blockbuster in 2007. The youngest of six, he graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and holds an MBA from Columbia.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 "The idiot that turned down Netflix"

14:20 Education as a national security issue

24:11 Six kids, a shack, then Holy Cross

55:15 Blockbuster: the debt and the late fees

58:03 The iceberg was 2008, not Netflix

59:25 Buying 3,000 digitized titles

01:01:21 Six studios go to cash, $300M walks out

01:06:10 Charlie Ergen and the plan to bypass web

01:08:52 Beating Carl Icahn in court

01:12:37 $4 billion of debt at 17% interest

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Instagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.