Bill Gurley

And that's a new reality.

It's tied to the lack of IPOs and the lack of M&A.

It's also fairly new and unique.

I found this stat in the first quarter of 2025, U.S.

colleges and universities issued $12 billion of debt.

which was the third highest quarter ever.

That's an interesting reality if you're using debt to fund capital commitments because your endowment doesn't have the liquidity it needs to pay out the three or 5% or whatever it is that they always had traditionally paid out.

And then very recently, you probably saw this,

Harvard announced they're in the market selling secondary for a billion.

They have a lot of unique things that would make them be out there.

But even more interesting, Yale has announced that they're in the market looking to sell $6 billion of private equity.

The fact that Yale is the one doing it is super important and super interesting from a historical perspective.

I would argue no single institution's had a bigger impact on the strategy of endowment management than Yale.

David Swenson is the historic- The godfather of this model.

No doubt.

And so Yale, I think they say, had a 13% compounding return over 35 years under David Swenson.

He is known for the Yale model.

And the Yale model is put a lot more money in illiquid assets than liquid assets.

And the reason no one did that originally is there's a lack of transparency.

There's a lack of liquidity.