Jessie Guo

0:00 Actually, in certain investment deals, if you actually bet it on the right company, the return profile can still look pretty attractive, even at the billion dollar fund size. Jessie Guo is an investment partner at Next Legacy, and this is how she decides

0:16 which funds get back. We like that in our portfolio, we'll have a diversified exporter and allocation into different profiles. Currently, in our portfolio, we probably roughly have a quarter-ish of our

0:32 capital. In, we say, those platform-planter firms, where currently we see a lot of instructors. These are expected open AI. A lot of these giant big tech companies that these platform-planter firms have

0:49 invested. We also have a dedicated emerging manager from a fund. Building that's early, early trust with the founder. That can help them to identify and get into the next generation of ads for off- kick.

1:04 We also talk about Next Legacy's commitment to donating 100% of their fund distributions to charity, and the numbers speak for themselves. There's very few firms that actually walk the talk. I think the number that I had seen is over 2 billion. We just crossed over 3 billion dollars.

1:20 That's incredible. You're generating real alpha, you're backing real firms, but you're finding ways of re-contributing that into the ecosystems that mean the most. Hey everybody, welcome back to LP Uncovered. The podcast we spend time with the people behind the allocator industries that

1:36 we all work closely with. An incredibly special episode with Jesse, who's an investment partner at Next Legacy. For those of you all that aren't familiar, Next Legacy's a really unique firm. It's a combination of merger between Next Play and Legacy Partners. Next Legacy Partners has been around for a while, very philanthropic.

1:53 It has an incredible story in how they work with their LP allocators and how they invest. Next Play was started by a group that was really cultivating a network of philanthropists, athletes, entertainers, and they blended this together in a beautiful way about three years ago. Jesse talks a lot about how they engage in their community, how they think

2:10 about investing. But also we spend a ton of time on her background. Prior to coming to the US, she built out one of the first fund-of-funds in China with CICC, a large investment bank. And since then, she's been spending a large amount of pretty much exclusive of her career as an LP allocator.

2:26 We get a ton of insights on what matters, how they're thinking about the market today, and how to stand out as a GP in this space. Excited to have you learn more from Jesse. Jesse, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you, Marcos. Great to see you. And look forward to the conversation. Yeah, same here.

2:41 I feel like I learn a ton every time that we connect. I'm glad that we can record it this time. And I would assume that a lot of folks know who Next Legacy is. But if you don't mind, just give us a high-level overview on Next Legacy. And then we'll kind of back into how you created your career there. Yeah, sure.

2:56 Sounds great. So Next Legacy, we have been around since 1999. So it's a long time. It's a combination of two prior firms, Legacy Venture, which started back in 1999,

3:11 and really has been on to the mission to help the community of philanthropists and nonprofit organizations to invest in early-stage venture. And Next Play Capital was started over a decade ago on the mission

3:28 to help the community of leaders from the sports and entertainment industries to invest in early-stage venture. So we announced Next Legacy Partners three years ago and continue to serve the combined community of philanthropists

3:44 and athletes into early-stage venture. The entire firm's focus is venture capital. So 100% in venture. I don't need to worry about multi-icered education. Regardless of upcycle, downcycle is all venture.

4:01 And we focus on early-stage, generalist within the technology space. And you also ask how I got into our team. So it's actually a fun story. I initially started my career back in Beijing in China, also on the LP side.

4:21 And I was helping high net worth individuals to invest in early-stage venture funds. And once I moved to the US as an immigrant and wanted to continue my career in the US,

4:36 I found our team, I was like, wow, I really like the mission-driven organization, like how I can, on one hand, do the job that I'm professionally interested in,

4:52 but also knowing that all the work we do can help to play a small part, to make the world a better place. So our flagship fund fund, which all of our investors in that fund are

5:10 philanthropic, individuals, families, nonprofit organizations. And they promised to donate 100% of the distributions from our fund to nonprofit causes that they are passionate about.

5:25 So we invest to knock on the roof, the best managers, and they donate. So we can amplify their donations. That's really what draws me into our team. So I literally called the email at our founder.

5:41 And it was so kind to respond to my email on the same day. And Rice is really grateful for him. So here I am, 12 years later, I was still on the team. I love that, Jesse. And what's so funny is from these conversations, one of the big takeaways

5:58 is like, cold emails don't work, get warm intros. Not in this case, that's awesome. The initiative that you took to reach out and the legacy that it's created for you and for the firm. I almost want to start a little bit further back, though. So you mentioned CI/CC is a large investment bank in China.

6:16 You are based in Beijing. For folks that aren't familiar, that's the largest investment bank in China, very active at a time when there's a lot going on. I'm curious, how did you first make your way into CI/CC? And I also know you were hands-on in launching a lot of the Fund of Fund initiatives. So what was it like in those early days there?

6:33 Pre-really, Fund of Funds and Venture being as much of a category as it is today. Yeah. So now that you ask and look back, that was a fun time. So I was initially got into CI/CC through an internship, just like as a finance

6:56 major, like back in '08, every top student at college wants to go to a banking or consulting. But I tried consulting and feels like not my good fit for me.

7:14 So I wanted to try investment banking also. Once I got to know CI/CC, I realized actually the traditional investment banking business is not as exciting or new to me.

7:35 And at that time, they started to build the wealth management business within CI/CC. So their traditional initial revenue mostly come from a banking commission and

7:51 all that. And they started to build the investment management pillar, where you can also, you know, AUM-based, like, fee-based business. And I saw that some very interesting opportunity and domain for me to, as an

8:11 early career, Jan Jase, to contribute to and to be part of almost like a startup team within a big organization. Also a backdrop on that is in 2007, the limited partnership law was issued in

8:29 China. Previously, the limited partner structure was actually not fully, like, officialised or legalised in China. So you can do venture funds, but it's not on now what we see the LP structure.

8:46 Interesting. And I'm curious, what did that LP law, what did that enable? Was it just more individuals could now become limited partner investors or just more clarity around what designates that category? Yeah, so it's basically, you know, how China learned from U.S. and other

9:05 countries to finally make like, now, you know, twice is like so common, right? It's a limited partner partnership structure for any normal venture fund.

9:20 That was finally put on paper in China back in '07. So with that, it enabled, as you can imagine, the explosion of the formation of the venture funds. And previously, it's a little bit more complicated to have a venture fund setup

9:41 . Say if you are a emerging manager or a smaller team, it's a little bit too complicated and difficult, but after the law, it's much more easier. So there is an explosion of venture capital funds being formed in China.

10:02 And also another context there is like, back then 70% of the LP base in China were individuals. It's very different. I remember I was thinking, well, like, all these individuals who are interested

10:20 in venture funds, how can they select all these VC funds? And before say, as you say, I was also advising technology startups to raise capital from VC funds a lot of time.

10:37 So I was already thinking about the VC fund. I was trying to teach the clients to how big of the quality variance it was. So where initially the manager selection rules came out.

10:52 And I was pretty lucky that I had a supervisor and manager back then. And she was very sensitive to new opportunities. She was the one that actually led a small group of people, like, well, I'm one

11:11 of the four people who helped CICC to start the experiment of the fund of fund business, including helping their wealth management clients to invest in venture capital funds.

11:28 Initially, like a Cambridge associate model as a advisory. And then eventually we started to craft internal business plan for a venture fund. Now, obviously, CICC has a very big venture fund fund.

11:45 But when we were initially working on that, it were all starting from a few family, like, high net worth clients. Yeah, pretty incredible too, just in the stage of innovation within China, right? That's where you really started to see a lot of payments, infrastructure,

12:02 communications infrastructure really start to take off from that time period. So a good time to pass that law and give more folks exposure to the upsides that came. But for you, you started the practice and you came to the US. So you came to UC Davis, home of the Aggies, got an NBA.

12:19 What prompted you to make that jump and certainly what pulled you back into the fund to fund space? All the homework, dating back to all these years. So I went to high school and spent a lot of time in Sacramento.

12:34 I know that the home of the Aggies, it's close to home literally. Awesome. Awesome. I moved to the US in 2012 and it's half personal reason, half professional aspiration.

12:50 So I got married very early on. I got married when I was still in university and with my high school sweetheart . And so Valentine, he took a postdoc position when I was working at the ICC.

13:09 And we were already married for a couple of years. And I can't imagine just living on two ends of the globe as the married couple for just a couple of years and that's kind of the personal reason.

13:28 And professionally, I had always wanted to go abroad and experience outside of China. And travel for work internationally, occasionally, but never studied, never

13:47 worked outside of China before that. And I'm really curious, curious of what venture capital industry looked like. Most of my knowledge is either from research or talking over the phone with

14:11 folks in the US industry. So personal, like not. And also the professional interest in the curiosity really was how I decided to quit my job and apply for the MBA program.

14:30 And my husband went to Stanford and I drew a hundred mile circle from Stanford and Stanford didn't want me. So I went to Davis, which is exactly a hundred miles from Stanford.

14:45 So a very lovely town. I biked everywhere and that has been a couple of good years. That's amazing. And I'm sure what seemed like, let's go for a couple of years and kind of see how it goes now. Fast forward, it's been 14 years and you've made a home for yourself in the Bay

15:01 Area. Unlike many of my MBA classmates, I didn't want to pay it because I feel like I was lucky enough to find my career aspiration and passion in L.P.

15:16 Even though everybody around me, my friends in Amazon banking consulting or as an amendment with bigger firms, they always thought, "Oh, venture L.P. feels like a very

15:32 niche area." And I feel grateful that I somehow through the early works back in Beijing, I was able to find my passion. So I knew when I came into U.S. that I was not looking for a pivot.

15:47 I want to continue to be an L.P., continue to want to be in a venture space. So easier for me to find where I go. You need to land and I know, "Okay, this is what I need to go."

16:03 And I need to find who are the organizations that I'm interested in. Yeah. I love that. And I guess what I'm curious to learn is you have such incredible pattern recognition just from being in the industry for so long. But at that point, I'm curious, what were some of the first things that you

16:19 noticed? I'm sure there were some things that were similar between the markets that you 're investing in and the allocator base you're working with. And then you move to the U.S. and you start working with legacy partners. What were some of the things that were the very similar and then what were some things that really took you some time to have to adapt to moving from the Chinese

16:36 market to the U.S. market? I feel like personally, a lot of the adoption that I had to navigate is how I can authentically build my network here in the U.S.

16:53 So there's a lot of similarities in terms of how the business conducted, how the innovation is initiated in the entrepreneurial journey. We can resonate with that. Manager selection can always do our research, we can always understand the GP.

17:12 But essentially, it's about deeply understanding the people who are behind the funds, who are behind the startup businesses. So I personally feel like I had to find the right way that feels authentic to

17:34 me to get to know people, expand my network, build that resonance with people that I'm in relationship in conversation with.

17:50 That's probably one of the biggest initial adoption. It's super helpful and everyone talks about it, but to your point, we're in a very relationship driven industry and ecosystem where even with a lot of these AI tools that are

18:08 being built now, it's very difficult to change the authenticity of those relationships, which there's unfortunately no shortcut, there's social clubs and different things that can help accelerate it. But there's no shortcut for those interactions.

18:23 But I do know that you're a Kauffman fellow, right? You've been a part of that society, you stay active. I'm curious, how was that a proponent for your career and a catalyst for these relationships that you require to be an active part of being an allocator?

18:39 Kauffman Fellows program has been super, super helpful and actually, like before I even joined Max Legacy, I stand up for an online class called Venture Deals that was

18:55 sponsored by Kauffman Fellows program and-- How cool. Clean and Mariam at Wooloo Ventures were the lecturers when I would participate in the online class, that was first how I heard about Kauffman Fellows program.

19:12 Once I joined our team and turns out my partner, Ben Choi, he's one of the OG Kauffman Fellows and-- No way. --from class. And then after a few years, my other partner, Kelly, she also joined the Kauff

19:30 man Fellows program and she was from class 21. So I had always wanted to join the society and also we have team members in there, like I got even more understanding about this community, so I joined class 23 back

19:49 in 2018. And just in light of how people are open to have peer-to-peer learning among the Fellows, how much help me to have even a more international holistic perspective in

20:08 Montreal because the class is global. We have people from all kinds of countries. And the relationship builds through there, which in turn helped me also to speak up authentically build the relationship and network on Kauffman Fellows has been a really

20:26 helpful catalyst. And I made a lot of great friends through both the classmates and also Fellows in other class. We got to collaborate together and just really, really helpful particularly for

20:43 me thinking about all the prior network work in China and really grow and accumulate my network in the US in other areas of the globe. I can appreciate that and you mentioned some great names Clinton, Maryam, are

21:01 two phenomenal investors. Clinton, I love sitting down with him, he's got such an analytical brain towards things that are more art and science, some would say very much science for the great work that they do. And I'm kind of curious though, to be talked about network, but back to pattern

21:18 recognition, so you've seen markets in China, you've seen markets in the US, you can argue we're at another inflection point, right, where over the last five years, certain firms and services, the cartos of the world, they've lowered barriers to entry, we saw an explosion

21:34 of venture capital funds largely driven by abundance of capital on 2020 and 2021. And now we're seeing this retrenchment in a lot of the innovation that we're seeing across the AI sector. But the output of that is almost polarized where you've seen a lot of, I think

21:49 it's like 75% of total capital has gone to 20 firms. And so you see this really stretching and elongating of the category. And so that's probably too much leading the witness. But I am curious, you know, from everything that you've seen, where do you see

22:04 the category heading next? What are some of those inflection points and in some cases too, like where do you see it staying the same and how do you view the opportunities that you're looking at, especially being specialists within this specific space? Oh, you know, important and great questions on top of our minds, right?

22:24 I feel like certainly our industry has evolved a lot and to your point, particularly now in the AI native era, like we are also constantly thinking about, you know, how

22:39 as a venture only LP, we should navigate in this environment, how should we think about building our portfolio thoughtfully to capture the opportunities looking forward?

22:56 And you touched base on like a lot of the capital concentrated in, you know, small number of big firms, which actually I feel like is because following off the amount of

23:11 capital that in, you know, this handful of, you know, now break out for the leading AI native companies.

23:29 And what does that gives, say, the space for smaller, earlier emerging managers , how does that make sense for, you know, all the other emerging young AI native startups

23:52 as they are navigating their cap table, their investors, for their scheme, the way we are seeking about it, obviously, was you constantly in discussion. And if I'm putting my portfolio construction hat on as a LP, like, we like that

24:14 in our portfolio, we will have a diversified exporter and education into different profiles of managers that have different approaches, probably different areas of emphasis and their

24:33 superpower. Like, currently in our portfolio, we probably roughly have a quarter each of our capital in, we say, those platform, venture firms, where currently we see a lot of, you

24:50 know, and traffic, space, like open AI, a lot of these, like, you know, giant big tech companies that these platform, venture firms have invested actually through multiple

25:08 stages and benefit from it. And they also have a much broader market coverage, where in almost every vertical or thesis area,

25:23 you will see some leading companies that will be covered by these firms. We think that's great for a few of the factors. One is like, it's great for us to continue to make sure we have to, back to

25:43 your pattern recognition comments, is you would like to have the holistic views and the market knowledge and perspectives through the coverage of all these companies.

25:58 And now that the AI business also have much faster velocity and scale, right, actually in certain investment deals, if you actually bet it on the right company, the

26:13 return profile can still look pretty attractive, even at the billion dollar fund size. I know people often talk about, will the billion dollar fund size continue to generate great

26:29 return? It's a hard math problem, I would say, for sure, but we also saw our billion dollar fund size managers, which they are really the tough ones because you can move more.

26:46 That's not like, that's only a quarter each of our portfolio. We think there's still opportunities for the classic venture capital firms, where they have long enough history, but they as a firm may be very focused, they don't

27:07 have multiple strategy, they either domain experts in enterprise infrastructure, or FinTech, or consumer tech, they have their edge and differentiation, that the founders value their domain

27:27 expertise, and they naturally have their authentic relationship with the founders in the sectors or domains that they are focusing on. We think there's space for them, actually, to be early, be focused and continue

27:45 to perform well. We also have a dedicated emerging manager from a fund, that we back fund that in their fund 1, 2, 3 is, that tend to be a little bit earlier in their stage, precede C, A,

28:02 and tend to be running smaller size fund. I would say, in this space, it is challenged in terms of fundraising, competition in getting into the runs,

28:21 for sure, very competitive and challenged. But I feel like many of us is very optimistic person. You have to in this industry, and that helps us to

28:39 identify the opportunities where those opportunities are. I think for this type of manager, which we continue to want to make sure we have education and position for them in our portfolio.

28:55 It's like if they're really finding their angle of building that early, early trust with the founder and being that early, early help to the founder in their

29:12 initial journey of the entrepreneurship, that can help them to identify and get into the next generation of anthropic AI applications at a very early stage. Even if some of these companies may not

29:34 eventually become a few hundred billion of the scale, may get an exit in a few hundred meaning of the acquisition. Now the MA market is super active as example. That

29:49 can still serve really well for some of these smaller players, but you have to find the right angle. A lot of the managers I really resonate and respect, they are taking a very community-driven approach and they crafted a community around themselves. It could be a

30:12 technical operator that had in their late 20s or early 30s. As example, or really crafted trusted communities who sought leadership as another example. That's kind of a no concrete answer

30:30 to all that you say, but it's honest how we think about our portfolio construction, where we would spend time and where the future of opportunity will continue to support for the cohort of

30:49 the platform firms, the cohort of the classic focused domain experts of the VC firms. I'm also very hopeful to see more and more like high quality, dedicated, persistent emerging managers and microv

31:08 ices capture their niche to support the entrepreneur journey and also support their fund returns. Yeah, honestly, I appreciate the breadth of it because it's very helpful for me and for anyone who's listening in that just think how you break up the portfolio in your

31:25 exposure and the buckets that you have. I guess staying within the emerging manager bucket, I've developed a lot of empathy for allocators because you have sheer quantity, you have the largest quantity of funds to evaluate. But from your ticket size, it's one of the smaller tickets that you have in

31:43 your total allocation. So you tend to spend more of your time on a smaller position and that can be really challenging. So I'm curious from your perspective, you mentioned community as being important. You mentioned referred this in the past as like zone of genius, but what is your specialty that you can

31:58 really outperform on? I'm curious, are there another two or three examples of, I'd say checkboxes out of the way, obviously track record, making sure that you've got all the policies and things in line, assuming that's all in order. What are some of those like intangibles? What are the things that really get you excited about a particular emerging manager, I

32:16 guess, outside of community and specialty? We don't really think too much about the track size for managers when it comes to the community and relationship building. From the portfolio

32:32 construction perspective, for sure, we need to make sure we thoughtfully execute our portfolio construction, where we tend to write like one to five meeting commitment size for emerging managers as

32:49 a start. And then we grow with them over time. Many of them actually over the years are graduated into our flagship fund, more established visions, the firms where we can write like 15, 20

33:09 million core commitment size. We think about that from the portfolio construction side. But from where I spend the time, where we engage with our community and build that relationship, we don't think

33:28 too much about that. Essentially, the only reason we have the different track size is what is best suited to the underlying managers, depending on their fund size, their fund cycle, or how that may be. In terms of community and relationship, it's all next legacy commitment

33:49 . It's all next legacy GP managers in our community. We're actually engaging with our GPs and helping them support them through a full flywheel of next legacy community. At the beginning, I

34:07 talked about next legacy. We represent the community of philanthropists, nonprofits, athletes, celebrities, influencers, and a lot of times we won't listen. What our GPs need, what our GPs may find

34:29 helpful through not just our team, but also our community of investor basis. Sometimes it could be their personal philanthropic interest. Great, we involve them in some of our philanthropy focused events

34:45 and having that peer-to-peer learning with the other philanthropic investors' organizations. How to think about where to spend time to pick my nonprofit causes or how to be a good non-profit board member or that? If their portfolio companies won't certain help say

35:05 marketing or business development, some PR, some of our athletes and celebrity members can facilitate the collaboration and they can help the underlying companies.

35:21 So we really build that trust and relationship and that continue to depend on collaborations through a lot of these community-driven activities. Similar to our founders also, we also have a co-investment program and we collaborate with our GPs to co-invest and the

35:41 founders in our community. Actually, both the founders directly in our direct investment program and the founders who the GPs may feel that they could benefit from the community, we can also involve them. We host a lot of events and not necessarily the

36:00 investment or reentered events. They can be very family-friendly, you know, Super Bowl watch party. They can be fun sports-oriented events. They can be just like no agenda, like dinner or,

36:18 you know, single table, jeffersonian dinner. We engage in a certain topic. So that's kind of how we think about, you know, relationship, building that trust and continue to strengthen our bonding with the GPs. I love that and so much alignment with our own philosophy around community

36:36 building and having that. And I would argue that now is more important time than anywhere. AI can generate content, it can generate email, outreach, all these different things that the community building, the face-to-face interaction is more important than it's ever been before. And

36:52 love that about the community that you all have built in. One thing I'd love to learn from you is, you know, you are part of this blending of two different worlds, which is somewhat rare in the allocator space, your role at, you know, legacy partners and then next play. Two

37:09 different ecosystems, one more philanthropic where you had started your career and then another one still philanthropic, more towards athletes. But the missions seem to align and coincide just from two different worlds. So I'm curious, what was that process like, you know, putting that together and

37:27 then how has it been, you know, since the merger took place about three years ago? You actually summarize it very well. It's like both prior firms are very mission driven. Even though like, you know, if you look at the room of the investors, they can

37:42 be very different, but like very mission driven and value aligned. That's actually a big drive of, you know, why we decided to combine into next legacy. And we intentionally didn't use

37:57 venture or capital. We use next legacy partners to really think about, you know, building the community together. And the origin of this actually is really started from two close LP

38:12 friends were brainstorming and discussing how we can collaborate on a deeper level during the pandemic. The teams knew each other for, you know, over 10 years, like before we actually

38:32 , you know, merge together. And we were talking about, you know, how we can, like, continue to serve our industry better, how we can, like, you know, we, we, we, we exchange notes, we collaborate, like, but we're like, there must be a deeper way. We can work together and we can

38:52 join forces and then make a bigger impact to the industry. So initially, we ide ated on a co-DP for a emerging manager from the fund. We both prior firms had been

39:10 investing in emerging managers for many years, but we want to make sure it's be a more, like, structuralized and even dedicated program. And, like, that conversation eventually,

39:25 you know, like, wow, we have a lot more to do on the community side. We have a lot to do on the established manager side. We have a lot to do on, you know, the value add to the underlying GPs and for the vulnerable companies. So it's all organically happened. And we

39:44 decided and announced our mergers three years ago. Now, I feel like the past few years just flew by. And now feels like so grateful and privileged that we can continue to serve our combined mission- driven community.

39:59 And with, you know, like, our finance shop pick investors have a lot of fun conversations with our in the asset community. And many of our asset members are already or thinking about, you know, finance shop impact also. So community-wise feels like it's expanded,

40:21 combined, and also continue to even grow together with admission. And manager portfolio and founders now is all next legacy as supporting, you know, early-stage venture folks in the ecosystem .

40:36 It's so impressive too, because there's so many folks who will talk the talk and you go to a website and it talks about mission and values. There's very few firms that actually walk the talk. I think the number that I had seen is over two billion of philanthropy through

40:51 legacy partners and through the partnerships that you have, both with your firm, as well as the LPs that you work with. Now we just crossed over three billion dollars of the decision. That's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, that's real tangible money. And so it's not just how

41:07 you back managers, how you think about investing. And, you know, we're big proponents of you can do good and do well. And I don't think a lot of people understand the concept, but what you all have built is a wonderful example of doing good and doing well. You're generating real alpha.

41:22 You're backing real firms, but you're finding ways of re-contributing that into the ecosystems that mean the most. And I'm curious, have you seen that accelerate post-acquisition and merger, or sorry, merger of the firms? And in what ways is that accelerated? A lot of ways, like on one hand, feels

41:41 like the industry itself is accelerated. On the other hand, it feels like the community flywheel. I just talked about a couple of minutes ago, like how

41:59 the collaboration among our philanthropist, athletes, JPs, funders really also accelerated. A lot

42:15 of the internal decision for us to double down capital in certain areas that we really have higher conviction. Hopefully, we'll also play the small part in accelerating the

42:32 underlying portfolio companies progress. And I also feel like people now are more mindful and also taking concrete actions in driving the impact both through the

42:54 business and also through generating liquidity through the innovative channels. We're still opening a little bit, but for bigger companies. But we see a lot of activities in all different

43:12 elements in the industry that accelerate a lot of these milestones that we're fortunate enough to see and experience. Yeah, it's incredible. I feel like I could talk to you all day. We've just scratched the surface on a lot of the great work that you do. But being mindful of your time,

43:28 I'll shift over into a quick lightning ground of questions for you and kind of back putting your allocator LP hat on, especially from the decades now that you've done this across geographies, across different cycles. What is something that you've seen almost become habitual within either

43:46 emerging managers or venture funds that you wish would just change, whether it's an outreach strategy or tactic? What is something that you feel like is bad behavior, but it's almost become habitual that you would change? Incorporate the active listening learnings into the actions. Because oftentimes

44:06 , we now luckily are empowered by a lot of the AI and technology. You can be very efficient in LP outreach or communication through all different kinds of automations and

44:24 tools. But if this is of my advice to GP friend, if you already spend time to speak with LP or connect with LP, it really tracked your learning from the active listening and made the

44:48 follow-ups that you would have with LP. So if the LP talked about venture only and early-stage focused, it doesn't make sense for growth stage managers to continue to give

45:06 monthly or quarterly update. As one example, but there's many more examples where I feel like the GP 's time can be spent much more effectively elsewhere, if they just incorporate the learnings from active listening.

45:21 And also ask questions. That is a good input for that learning. What the LP's focus was their emphasis and priorities in their work, in their life. And that can help to

45:39 really have the relationship building in a continued way that elevate and build up from the prior conversations versus just the very generic. You kind of stay over here if you

45:58 don't do those more pain or made follow-ups. Yeah, I love that. To your point being an active listener, show that you have that. But also it's a two-way street. This is not just an exchange of capital.

46:13 This is a long-term partnership. And I guess to that end, what are some things that you wish were more common from from GP's or from people that you're meeting? Whether it's a specific example of a follow-up that resonated or if it's just more, it's something that you

46:28 wish was more common within our industry. This question makes me think about a few of the occasions I was really impressed or appreciated the question or the asked or topics were touch-based

46:46 on. Is that genuine curiosity from the GP managers that they want to understand why we are doing this. After times in the conversations to GPLP conversation to

47:05 talk about, okay, what's your aim? What's your fun size? How many managers in the portfolio which are very important? But for example, I really appreciate your question that we touch

47:21 based on in this podcast about who are our community? Why we decided to merge and why we decided to come together and do the next legacy to serve our community? What matters for

47:38 the long term when we're really discussing about not just the fund investment, but also the partnership where last, you know, over a decade or a decade long. That curiosity and that genuine

47:54 care about why LPC can cross-table doing this, why we can collaborate and partnership to invest in our areas of focus, but also what are the causes and reasons that we both want to do that. I would

48:12 appreciate the GP's step back and have a more holistic understanding of the impact that we are working together to have. Yeah, I can really appreciate that. I think the same way that

48:28 you feel with GP's is what we feel with founders. When founders, it's just not a stage fit, but then you keep getting the emails and it's like something's clearly not clicking or vice versa , where it's just this capital exchange. So you say, all right, let's keep in touch with these other

48:43 things and you don't hear for six months. And then you're like, all right, you've got two weeks to send a wire. It doesn't make sense. And so I can appreciate all that. I want to be really mindful of your time. I feel like I can keep learning a ton from you. But Jesse, thank you so much. Any parting words,

48:58 anything that you want to leave folks with as they're listening here. And also, if there's a good way for people to get in touch with you, you don't have to share email and phone numbers, but the best way to get in touch with you and the team. First of all, thank you , Markos. Thank you for what you do. And thank you for a fun conversation.

49:16 And appreciate and look forward to continue the collaboration and discussion along the way. And happy to stay in touch with folks. And my email is very easy. Just Jesse,

49:32 my first name, at nextlegacy.com. So happy to get connected, happy to be a thought partner, happy to explore future collaboration and partnerships with folks and in our ecosystem. And just

49:54 like, this is interesting time. I look forward to learning and exchanging thoughts with you. With smart minds in our industry. Learning every day is what I feel like we can land on.

50:09 Yes, yes. That's the best part. It's never a dull day, certainly not now. Jesse , thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your email for anyone who's listening to this point of the podcast or the recording. That's your Easter egg that you can reach out to Jesse. Thank you so

50:28 much. I really appreciate you having on and sharing all these words of wisdom. Thank you, Mark os. And that's a wrap on another episode of LPN covered. Thank you so much to Jesse for joining us today from next legacy partners. Such an incredible combination of next play and legacy partners,

50:44 really focusing on doing good, doing well, community driven approach for philanthropists, for athletes, for influencers, for entertainers. It's a really one-of-a-kind platform. And their results are really showing today. And then also, we've learned so much from Jesse from her background,

50:59 building fund of funds in China to deploying capital here for such a long time period, especially in such an interesting stage of today with where we are with breakthroughs and AI. I hope you learned a lot from today's episode. I certainly did. We've got a bunch more episodes coming your way with a lot of other great allocators. So make sure to tune in.

51:17 We'll see you on the next episode. Thanks so much for joining today. See you soon.