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AI today feels like the dot-com boom on steroids.
The pattern is almost identical, only faster, louder, and with more zeroes. In 1999, we had people registering random domain names and raising millions because they had a “web business plan.” No product, no revenue, just a buzzword and a slide deck. Sound familiar? Now it’s AI. Every company
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Everything in life and business, compounds.
The gym sessions you skip. The calls you make. The habits you tolerate. The people you surround yourself with. It’s all compounding, every day, quietly, without fanfare. In business, we obsess over financial compounding......IRR, MOIC, reinvested profits. But the real magic (or destruction) is happening elsewhere. Culture compounds.
life
When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Don’t squeeze them, sweeten them, or start a small-batch organic lemonade brand.
Freeze the lemon and shove it as far back up life as you can. Elbow deep. Because in business, you don’t win by coping, you win by counterattacking. Most people have been trained to absorb problems politely. They call it “resilience.” They think if they just keep calm, manage
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Business isn’t about the party you’re in. It’s about finding the other room.
You’ve been there. You just walked into the best party in Vegas. Perfect music, open bar, crowd full of people who all look like they’ve made it. The room hums with self-importance .........everyone telling each other how great things are. You feel it too. You’ve made it
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How do I become an Operating Partner in PE?
Short answer? You don’t. You get invited. It’s one of the most opaque, relationship-driven roles in private equity—and it doesn’t follow a normal recruiting process. You don’t apply. There’s no job board. No clear path. It’s more secret society than career ladder. Here’
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The problem isn’t that portcos miss their plans.
The problem is no one updates the plan. A deal gets signed. The spreadsheet gets built. Revenue projections go up and to the right. EBITDA margin magically improves by year three. And everyone agrees to it because, well, it has to pencil. But here’s the issue: Six months in,
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Everyone’s got capital. Everyone’s got deal flow. Almost no one has a real talent strategy.
Capital is commoditised. So is M&A. Everyone has access to debt. Everyone’s getting banker decks. Everyone’s playing the same playbook from 2012, just with higher entry multiples. The last true edge? Talent. Not the “we’ll bring in a new CEO post-close” kind of talent. A
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If I were building an LP pitch today
I’d spend 5 minutes on past returns and 25 on how we actually create value. Because past returns don’t win the next deal. And they certainly don’t justify 2 and 20 in a market where PE is getting harder. The days of buying low, levering up, cutting
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If you’re looking for the first real casualty of AI… don’t overthink it. It’s call centers.
Why? Because the call center model is a perfect storm of inefficiency: • High cost, low value-add: Average U.S. call center agent wage is ~$38k. Add training, turnover (30–45% annually), and management overhead… the true cost per seat is easily $60k+. • Customer experience is broken: Long waits, scripted answers,
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Operating Partner roundtables have always struck me as a bit like group therapy.
The format is almost predictable. Everyone goes around the table, venting: • “The deal team doesn’t listen.” • “The CEOs won’t follow through.” • “We don’t have real authority.” • “We’re treated like consultants on retainer.” Nods of sympathy, stories swapped, maybe even a war wound or two. And then
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Judgement used to be the currency of private equity.
The sharp associate who spotted the hidden growth lever in diligence. The partner who intuitively backed a founder others passed on. The ops lead who made the 51/49 call and unlocked 3 turns of multiple. This was the game: pattern recognition, gut feel, reps. And it was a moat…