New
@ThePeelPod with
@orenzeev
He manages $2.7B across 11 funds with no team. He has no meetings, doesn't write investment memos, and has never shown an LP a single slide from a deck.
We get in to the 30-minute conversation that turned into his first fund, why most partners add negative value, the days his calendar is empty enough to surf on a Tuesday, his fund that had only five companies (and why diversification is a lie), how Navan went from a $90M run rate to zero in a month (and survived), why he does cross-fund investing, refusing DPI when LP's want it, and the 30-year history of Israel's startup economy.
Full episode here + links below.
Timestamps:
0:00 Running $2.7B with no team or partners
1:58 How one person can beat a team
4:43 Omission beats commission: why committees miss
7:13 What really fills a partnership's day
9:23 The returns business, not the production business
10:58 A week in his nearly empty calendar
16:49 The mistakes new solo GP's make
19:34 Eleven funds, zero slides
22:09 No thesis
24:28 Why diversification doesn't work
27:14 The fund with only five companies
30:44 TripActions insight: everyone hates their travel software
34:59 Paying employees to spend less
37:34 COVID: $90M run rate to zero
39:24 How Navan survived
41:34 A $100M round with no way to price it
44:29 Keeping the team: the real test of leadership
46:04 What Oren looks for in founders
50:39 Cross-fund investing, and "trust me, bro"
53:59 Always his own biggest LP
55:14 The DPI stand that cost him LP's
58:54 Decart, and the Anthropic deal
1:03:54 Inside the 30-year rise of Israel's tech ecosystem
1:07:19 The Yozma program that built an industry
1:11:59 Why Israelis build now instead of selling early
1:14:39 Moving to the Valley in the 2002 nuclear winter
1:17:19 Audible, and why the first home run matters
1:19:29 Leaving Apax, and going solo
1:22:04 Peter Thiel and a fund raised in 30 minutes
1:24:24 The second fund: 48 hours, still no deck
1:25:49 ICON: helping Israeli founders crack the Valley
1:30:29 The leader he admires most: Anwar Sadat