Larry Cheng

Growth equity, we tend to lose money maybe 20% of the time as an asset class because we're investing in growing businesses.

We don't want to lose money.

And in some sense, the upside is a little bit less than the huge home runs that you might experience in venture.

But where there's a conflict, I think, and the entrepreneurs need to understand this, is if you take on venture money...

That partner who you're working with, that firm that you're working with, if they are good at their job, will lose money about 60% or 70% of the time.

There's no difference in loss rate between a really great venture firm and a mediocre one.

The only difference is how much they hit the home runs.

And so all of the advice that you're going to get from an early stage venture firm is to go for the home run, because that is their business model.

So it's going to raise as much capital as you can.

invest it as aggressively as you can, grow as aggressively as you can, and if it doesn't work out at the end, so be it, because they have a portfolio.

But if you're the founder,

That company is your entire net worth.

It's your entire life's work.

And you have to decide what type of investor mentality you want to bring on.

And so a lot of our founders don't want venture dollars because of that very dynamic.

For us, we hate the idea of losing money.

We understand if we lose money, that means the founders lose money.

That means everything that they've worked for, they've lost.

That's a terrible outcome.

And so we talk about helping founders reach their dreams without risking them.