00:00Sometimes the company ringing the bell is interesting. Sometimes it's less interesting.
00:03We have this closed-end fund debuting from Robinhood. We're focusing on the private markets.
00:07And that does interest me, the kind of wider interest in getting into companies here in early stage.
00:11You're in venture capital. What do you make of that kind of level of excitement that we're seeing kind of
00:15manifesting itself in these new funds that are being introduced on the New York Stock Exchange?
00:19I regret to say I'm quite nervous about it all. And here's why. These companies are private and illiquid for
00:26a reason.
00:27Right. They're private and illiquid because you don't have the transparency around the valuations. It's quite hard to get to
00:33fundamental value.
00:35Venture capital has risen as an asset class where they cause skill of being able to look at businesses that
00:40often are visions and dreams and about backing the founder.
00:44Most people don't have that skill set. And it's not because people can't. It's because reps, pattern spotting, pattern recognition
00:51is so critical and networks and insights.
00:54And it's very hard for most investors to have that if they're not doing this all day, every day professionally.
00:58That's for sure.
00:59I do worry. It is very tempting to hop into these sexy names. But if you buy the funds that
01:05are going public, how do you as the retail investor diligence, the underlying companies that sit within that fund, the
01:12trust you need to have in that fund manager is very, very high.
01:16I just worry for this class, which is the publicly traded funds are not quite there yet.
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