Private equity memes

Private equity memes live where PE people hide from LPs: in group chats, DMs, and occasionally on LinkedIn, posted by accounts like Not Very Private Equity. The best ones land because they are true. An operating partner discovering excel. A mega-fund announcing a "Head of AI" hire the week LPs stop wiring. An associate's 11pm "one more turn of the model" energy.

Below is a curated rotation of the meme formats we use on our LinkedIn page, organised by format. New memes go up most weekdays at 5am Pacific. Follow there for the feed. Subscribe here for the newsletter.

The formats we keep coming back to

Drake Hotline Bling. Two-panel format where Drake rejects the textbook answer and endorses the cynical one. Works for almost any PE truism.

Distracted boyfriend. PE firm checking out a shiny new thesis while their existing portfolio company looks betrayed. Deployed most often on roll-ups, add-on acquisitions, and anything involving AI.

Expanding brain. Four escalating levels from basic to galaxy-brained. Useful for escalating absurdity: cost takeouts, then price increases, then dividend recaps, then a continuation fund.

2x2 matrices. Boston Box-style grids that map two PE-relevant dimensions with witty quadrant labels. Our signature format. See the toolkit for the explainer on why PE firms love 2x2s even when the data does not.

Change my mind. A provocative one-line PE opinion on a sign. "Most operating partners do not move the numbers. Change my mind." Always a fight in the comments.

PE starter packs. The archetypal gear, phrases, and habits of a given PE archetype: the MBA associate, the carve-out specialist, the operating partner who joined last month.

Why the memes matter (beyond the laughs)

The PE industry is overwhelmingly serious in public and wildly irreverent in private. The meme format is the only place where the two versions meet honestly. A 2x2 matrix about board dynamics is often truer than a McKinsey report on the same subject. A Drake meme about carry vesting lands because every VP has had the exact conversation.

That is why the memes rank. Not because they are funny. Because they are recognisable.

The rest of NVPE

If the memes got you here, the rest of NVPE might be useful too. Start with what is private equity for the plain-English overview. Then the toolkit for how the financial engineering actually works. Or just subscribe below for the weekly brief.