David Haber

You know, you were maybe three months into the job and he gets a call saying, you have a new boss.

And, you know, I think he's like a little bit apprehensive.

You made him feel really comfortable.

But there was a particular deal, I think, that you were working on pretty early in your tenure at the firm.

I think it was for Houghton Mifflin.

It was like a spin-out or a carve-out of Avendi at the time.

And I think the investment committee initially said,

You know, didn't sort of deny the deal, but basically created, like, too narrow a bounding from, like, a price perspective.

And he was describing how he was bummed.

He was, like, you know, having a drink in a pub.

And basically, I think you met with him and was like, you know, how strongly convicted are you in this deal?

Do a bunch of work over the weekend.

Let's go back on a Monday.

And you really, like, he believes, like, put your weight behind him, which gave him the confidence to sort of, like, you know, champion the deal.

And it wasn't a scalable model.

This is like a distinction that I've written about, I think a lot about here in the context of Andreessen Horowitz, which is this notion of firm versus fund.

You know, the sort of contrast that I try to draw is, you know, most people run funds.

Very few people, in my definition, build firms.

And the objective function of a fund is how do I generate the most carry with the fewest people in the shortest amount of time possible?

You know, often that's run by a single CIO.