“When investing in funds, you are investing in a blind pool of human potential.” – Adam Marchick

Over the past twenty years, Adam Marchick has had unique experiences as a founder, general partner (GP), and limited partner (LP). Most recently, Adam managed the venture capital portfolio at Emory’s endowment, a $2 billion portfolio within the $10 billion endowment. Prior to Emory, Adam spent ten years building two companies, the most recent being Alpine.AI, which was acquired by Headspace. Simultaneously, Adam was a Sequoia Scout and built an angel portfolio of over 25 companies. Adam was a direct investor at Menlo Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures, sourcing and supporting companies including Carbonite (IPO), Rent The Runway (IPO), Rapid7 (IPO), Archer (M&A), and AeroScout (M&A). He started his career in engineering and product roles at Facebook, Oracle, and startups.

You can find Adam on his socials here:
X / Twitter: https://x.com/adammStanford
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammarchick/

And huge thanks to this episode's sponsor, Alchemist Accelerator: https://alchemistaccelerator.com/superclusters

OUTLINE:

[00:00 ] Intro

[03:14 ] Who is Kathy Ku?

[06:20 ] Lesson from Sheryl Sandberg

[06:39 ] Lesson from Justin Osofsky

[07:46 ] How Facebook became the proving grounds for Adam

[09:26 ] The cultural pillars of great organizations

[10:40 ] When to push forward and when to slow down

[12:39 ] Adam's first investment: Dell

[14:20 ] What did Adam do on Day 1 when he first became an LP

[17:00 ] Emory's co-investment criteria

[20:02 ] Private equity co-invests vs venture co-invests

[21:15 ] Teaser into Akkadian's strategy

[23:03 ] Underwriting blind pools of human potential

[29:03 ] Why does Adam look at 10 antiportfolio companies when doing diligence?

[32:11 ] What excites and scares Adam about VC

[35:36 ] Engineering serendipity

[37:52 ] Where is voice technology going?

[39:45 ] How does Adam think about maintaining relationships?

[43:20 ] Thank you to Alchemist Accelerator for sponsoring!

[44:20 ] If you enjoyed this season finale, it would mean a lot if you could share it with 1 other person who you think would love it!

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