Nick Beim

One is finding the smartest people in the world in certain problem areas, technology areas, the application of certain technologies to different business sectors.

They're out there.

I spend a lot of my time just trying to find who the brightest people are to help figure out what are the big new opportunities in a space.

Often they're entrepreneurs who are active in that space and who have a lot of calibrated imagination about what's possible in it.

The other thing that's very valuable in venture capital, you don't always have the chance to experience this, but if you invest in a company that's a real pioneer in an area, it's doing something very disruptive.

Usually they're the kind of companies, Data Miner was an example of this, Altruist was an example of this.

where people sort of scratch their heads and say, really, you think you can do that?

That seems impossible.

Like, you know, talk to me in two years and let's see where you are.

And if those companies succeed, which both have, both are, you know, multibillion dollar companies now, they often bring a huge wake of innovation behind them.

And they often have, if you are an investor in those companies and working with those management teams,

you have really interesting insights into what else is possible in innovation in related areas.

And so I think in part because of my investment in Altruist seven years ago, I had a chance to work with Jason Wank, the founder, and

He created such a terrific company that opened up so many other opportunities that it led to a much deeper focus on my part in wealth management because I suddenly saw all these big opportunities.

And Jason and myself, Bill McNabb, the former CEO of Vanguard and others, collaborated on

finding and making the best investments, also in creating some brand new companies.

So all of which is to say, if you are fortunate enough to be in one of those pioneering companies, that gives you disproportionately valuable and often proprietary insight into where other opportunities lie.

I'd like to say it was all prescience that I had this all figured out 15 years ago, but it was very opportunistic based initially on the success of Altruist and then the success of other companies like Vanilla and Moment that I've invested in and

wealth management and i found that in virtue of those investments i just not only could i see where the opportunities were and did i have a group of people that were so well attuned to where innovation was possible in the industry but i also knew all the major customers i got to know you know so many of the you know leaders of large rias of of the wire houses and and custodians that um it became very straightforward to help create new companies to go after new opportunities

I find it's often very helpful to yield to that sort of temptation because the world is changing so fast.