Essays
Long-form thinking on capital, conviction, and building across borders.
LPs Don't Fund Optimism. They Fund Endurance.
The capital goes to the people who've already been tested. After ten years in the room, the pattern is unmistakable.
One Layer Down Is Consensus Now
How the largest IPO in history exposed where the AI-and-space physical-economy trade actually still sits — and where it's already too late.
The Capital Nobody Tracks
Julia Titova has spent 20 years building the infrastructure around social capital — the asset class that doesn't appear on any balance sheet.
What an Operator in Dubai Sees That Investors Abroad Don't
Dubai pulled in $11.2 billion in FDI in H1 2025, up 62% year on year. Max Marka is one of the operators on the receiving end.
The Best Research Satisfies Curiosity. The Best Diligence Satisfies Doubt.
What happens when you point an autoresearch loop at decisions that don't have a number at the end — and what the search didn't return.
The Payslip Is the Asset
Alex Jotic built and exited a company with eighty people on payroll and still cannot get a mortgage. Around 40% of the people he employs can. What the Dubai migration is really buying is not tax relief.
Below a Hundred Million, Don't List
A company asked Chris Haunschild to take them public at a $100 million valuation. He told them not to, and said his fees would have been higher if he had. The listing decision is usually made backwards.
Nobody Writes About a $60 Million Fund
Our own fund directory holds 106 funds above a billion dollars and six below twenty-five million. The billion-dollar funds are not 17 times more numerous. They are 17 times more legible.
Half the Capital, None of the Conversation
Gulf allocators account for 48% of the recorded venture allocation in our LP directory. Every podcast teaching managers how LPs think is American. GPs raising from the Gulf studied for a different exam.
Your Guest List Is Your LP List
Packy McCormick has 239,000 subscribers and a $10M fund. Harry Stebbings has a podcast and $400M. If audience converted to assets those numbers would be reversed, and the gap explains what the content is actually doing.
Tourists and Locals
The emerging-manager shakeout everyone keeps predicting already happened. First-time fund formation fell to 21% of its 2022 peak. The question now is telling a tourist from a local before the market does it for you.
The Hidden Cost of SPV Stacking
Your 3x SPV return might actually be 1.88x after fees. Here's what nobody tells you about layered fee structures.
The Real Cost of Running a Fund
Most emerging managers underestimate what it actually costs to run a fund. Here's the math nobody shows you.
When Runway Becomes a Weapon
The founders who survive aren't the ones who raise the most. They're the ones who know their numbers cold.