How Orlando Bravo Built One of the Most Successful Firms in Private Equity

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
With one of the best track records in private equity, Thoma Bravo manages $179 billion in assets.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:07)
Thoma Bravo has grown at a blistering pace.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:11)
Last year, the firm returned over $13 billion to investors.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:14)
In 2019, Orlando became the first Puerto Rico-born billionaire.

**Orlando Bravo** (0:18)
Private equity firms, the good ones, definitely beat the public markets. We are in the business of turning great innovators into great businesses.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:30)
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Thoma Bravo's Orlando Bravo.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:45)
Thanks for coming.

**Orlando Bravo** (0:48)
David.

**Jason** (0:49)
Good to see you.

**Chamath** (0:50)
For those that don't know, let me just do a couple of data points, and then we'll just jump into the story because Orlando has an in.

**Jason** (0:56)
Wait, Chamath, are we seriously going to ignore whatever Virtue Signaling Jay Cal is doing over here?

**SPEAKER_2** (1:01)
Okay.

**Jason** (1:02)
What's this Virtue Signal you got going on?

**Chamath** (1:03)
What are you doing right now?

**David Sacks** (1:04)
This isn't Virtue Signal, this is my bestie, Tulsi gave me an official scarf from her office for my wife, and I stole it from my wife. So I'm wearing it and-

**Chamath** (1:16)
Orlando, you probably didn't see it yesterday, but Jason was run over by the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard yesterday. He was so tilted, she was walking through the Russia hoax. He was so tilted, he had his phone googling and grokking. And all he could come up with is this and literally in this tone, what about Paul Manafort? And nobody knew what that meant.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:40)
Because nobody knows who he is. Including her.

**Chamath** (1:43)
Okay. So-

**David Sacks** (1:44)
Oh, Chamath, my love. Why do you have to beat up Jason so much? You should be nicer to him. He is your bestie. Sorry.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:52)
Continue.

**Chamath** (1:53)
Orlando has an incredibly inspiring story, but let me just set the backdrop of what Thoma Bravo is. Thoma Bravo started in 2008 So what is that? 17 years now. And now has just a little under 200 billion, which is incredible. But here are the two stats that stunned me. In June, you raised $34.4 billion in basically like a set of fun vehicles, which is- I want to understand how that is even possible. And then you basically have owned now or 500 companies. And many of the big software companies that, you know, we probably interact with and have to deal with. But before we get into all those details, I think what's inspiring is you are a child of Puerto Rico, a small town in Puerto Rico. And I've texted you this before, but I just wanted you to tell everybody, how does a guy, and I'm saying this in a nice way, from literally the middle of nowhere, get here. How does that happen? Your parents, your family, like how does that happen?

**Orlando Bravo** (2:54)
Well, by the way, thanks so much for having me. And I'm not sure how we're supposed to talk about serious stuff and private equity when we have this.

**Chamath** (3:03)
You persevere.

**Orlando Bravo** (3:05)
I got this. Look, that touches my heart that you asked that question. Because when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, kind of everything stopped for me because my best friends are there, my family's there, cousins, my whole upbringing. I got there on a plane the day after.

**Chamath** (3:24)
And where were you at the time?

**Orlando Bravo** (3:25)
I was in San Francisco.

**Chamath** (3:27)
Okay.

**Orlando Bravo** (3:27)
And we had gotten a message from Puerto Rico saying, there's some shelters, particularly one that was really close to my hometown of Mayaguez, that had only two days supply of food and water. And there were all these kids and everything else. And the government of Puerto Rico, they had trouble serving these towns. So we said, we'll go from San Francisco and bring you a bunch of food and water. We'll be there tomorrow.
And they actually showed up. When I landed, three of my friends that I hadn't seen in a while, my best high school friends, one of them asked me, oh, now you're doing all this business stuff. How did that happen? And I said, well, the odds are one of us had to get lucky. Out of everybody here, one, I mean, there's some odds to that.

**Chamath** (4:10)
But was that something like your parents gave you, where they're like, you have to go, you have to do something? Or?

**Orlando Bravo** (4:16)
Yes. Now, at every turn, I tell you this, how exactly I got here. I've never created anything new. But I always had my mom, who was a Cuban immigrant. And for her, just me staying there, it didn't feel right to her. She was always, you know, she would put me in positions where I would always have to be traveling to San Juan to play tennis. The sport of tennis, individual. Then if I did well, I remember I played my first tournament when I was 10 years old in Caracas, Venezuela. And I saw wealth back then. Caracas, Venezuela in 1982 was quite a place. And you played in this fancy club. And then you were, if I do really well, I get to play in Florida. So she was always, always kind of giving me a roadmap for that. I was lucky that I wasn't that good to go pro. So I went, so that I went into business. But then the same thing at work, you know, I had the two best mentors and the only thing I give myself credit for is at a young age, I really listened. I had discipline and I would kind of kind of take it all in.