Nick Chirls

It was creative, and it wasn't all about the money. There were these young kids building all these creative new things on the internet. It was kind. It was nerdy. It was everything that Wall Street wasn't. I fell in love with it. Fast forward to 2021, I felt like basically all the same people from Lehman showed up. Highly transactional. all about the money.

There was no real art or creativity, very private equity, like finding the company, dressing it up a little bit, handing it off to the next guy. And I was about as unhappy as I was in 2021, as I was working at Lehman Brothers in 2007. The big firms have gotten huge. They have gigantic AUMs, as you know.

There was no real art or creativity, very private equity, like finding the company, dressing it up a little bit, handing it off to the next guy. And I was about as unhappy as I was in 2021, as I was working at Lehman Brothers in 2007. The big firms have gotten huge. They have gigantic AUMs, as you know.

There was no real art or creativity, very private equity, like finding the company, dressing it up a little bit, handing it off to the next guy. And I was about as unhappy as I was in 2021, as I was working at Lehman Brothers in 2007. The big firms have gotten huge. They have gigantic AUMs, as you know.

And so we now internally at Asylum, we call them the big banks, not all that different than Lehman and Goldman and the others back in the day. My mission now is to provide an alternative to founders, to the big banks, and ultimately over the next five, 10, 15 years, be a gigantic thorn in the side to the big banks. That's my new mission. It's very personal.

And so we now internally at Asylum, we call them the big banks, not all that different than Lehman and Goldman and the others back in the day. My mission now is to provide an alternative to founders, to the big banks, and ultimately over the next five, 10, 15 years, be a gigantic thorn in the side to the big banks. That's my new mission. It's very personal.

And so we now internally at Asylum, we call them the big banks, not all that different than Lehman and Goldman and the others back in the day. My mission now is to provide an alternative to founders, to the big banks, and ultimately over the next five, 10, 15 years, be a gigantic thorn in the side to the big banks. That's my new mission. It's very personal.

So like I have this view that every particularly private asset class has its own version of a Ponzi scheme. The hedge fund Ponzi scheme. The hedge fund Ponzi scheme is you take a lot of money. You take an insane amount of risk. You double that money one year. You take your 20% of the bonus in cash. The next year it goes to zero and you don't have to give that money back.

So like I have this view that every particularly private asset class has its own version of a Ponzi scheme. The hedge fund Ponzi scheme. The hedge fund Ponzi scheme is you take a lot of money. You take an insane amount of risk. You double that money one year. You take your 20% of the bonus in cash. The next year it goes to zero and you don't have to give that money back.

So like I have this view that every particularly private asset class has its own version of a Ponzi scheme. The hedge fund Ponzi scheme. The hedge fund Ponzi scheme is you take a lot of money. You take an insane amount of risk. You double that money one year. You take your 20% of the bonus in cash. The next year it goes to zero and you don't have to give that money back.

That's the hedge fund Ponzi scheme. And we saw this, by the way, I saw this at Lehman Brothers back in the day. Traders, you're gambling with someone else's money. So you're incentivized to take as much risk as humanly possible with the bank's money. You take a ton of risk. You get a $20 million bonus that year. Great. You lose all the money next year. You get fired.

That's the hedge fund Ponzi scheme. And we saw this, by the way, I saw this at Lehman Brothers back in the day. Traders, you're gambling with someone else's money. So you're incentivized to take as much risk as humanly possible with the bank's money. You take a ton of risk. You get a $20 million bonus that year. Great. You lose all the money next year. You get fired.

That's the hedge fund Ponzi scheme. And we saw this, by the way, I saw this at Lehman Brothers back in the day. Traders, you're gambling with someone else's money. So you're incentivized to take as much risk as humanly possible with the bank's money. You take a ton of risk. You get a $20 million bonus that year. Great. You lose all the money next year. You get fired.

You go across the street to another bank and do it again. I think hedge funds are sort of a similar proposition. The private equity scam is like, we probably all know this is like you can invest in a company. It doesn't actually matter how well that company does. You can take a lot of money out of that company. And if it goes bankrupt, it doesn't matter.

You go across the street to another bank and do it again. I think hedge funds are sort of a similar proposition. The private equity scam is like, we probably all know this is like you can invest in a company. It doesn't actually matter how well that company does. You can take a lot of money out of that company. And if it goes bankrupt, it doesn't matter.

You go across the street to another bank and do it again. I think hedge funds are sort of a similar proposition. The private equity scam is like, we probably all know this is like you can invest in a company. It doesn't actually matter how well that company does. You can take a lot of money out of that company. And if it goes bankrupt, it doesn't matter.

The venture Ponzi, you raise a fund, you take 2% management fees for 10 years guaranteed. It does not matter how well that fund does. And you've taken 20% of that fund and put it in your pocket. That seems absurd to me. It's obviously the main driver of incentives throughout the venture industry.

The venture Ponzi, you raise a fund, you take 2% management fees for 10 years guaranteed. It does not matter how well that fund does. And you've taken 20% of that fund and put it in your pocket. That seems absurd to me. It's obviously the main driver of incentives throughout the venture industry.

The venture Ponzi, you raise a fund, you take 2% management fees for 10 years guaranteed. It does not matter how well that fund does. And you've taken 20% of that fund and put it in your pocket. That seems absurd to me. It's obviously the main driver of incentives throughout the venture industry.

You don't have to make a single dollar and you take 20% out of the capital raised and you put it in the pockets of mostly employees that work there. The other thing I would actually say is I've never understood why venture doesn't have a hurdle that exists in most other private asset classes. You can do reasonably well and not even do as well as the NASDAQ and the S&P and you're still making money.