Minisode: The Endowment Model, LP Culture Fit & Surviving Venture Cycles

**Beezer Clarkson** (0:00)
It is wonderful to have the point of view that you want to look out 50 years. It is a wildly different thing to have the structure and the assets and the clients and the GP relationships to make that structurally possible. I feel that there's a lot of comfort in that because Minor Star is always, an LP needs to first and foremost be there in service of their GP and their clients. And so this kind of platform allows us to do that because you can't survive cycles if you don't.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Opinions expressed by participants are their own and do not reflect the views of LGT Capital Partners, Asylum Ventures or their affiliates. The content does not take into account your specific investment objectives, financial situation, or needs and is not intended as a recommendation, an offer, solicitation of an offer, public advertisement or recommendation to buy or sell any investment or other specific product. Information is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty is given as to accuracy or completeness and it should not be relied upon. Alternative investments are speculative, involve complex instruments, and carry a high degree of risk. Investments and strategies discussed may fluctuate in value and may not be suitable for all investors. Listeners should make their own independent investment decisions. No funds are being discussed on this podcast.

**Nick Chirls** (1:07)
Welcome back to the Origins Minisode. This is the podcast that dives deep into the business of venture capital, where we learn how the people behind the capital, both GPs and LPs, make decisions.
I'm Nick Chirls, GP at Asylum Venture.

**Beezer Clarkson** (1:20)
And I'm Beezer Clarkson.
And in a bit of our first for the show, I am now joining as a member of the LGT Capital Partners team. As we discussed in the last episode, the Sapphire Partners Investing Team has joined this new platform, and we had Thomas Kristensen, who is now one of my new colleagues, but an old friend, on our guest. So this minisode is a chance for Nick and I to unpack what we took away from that conversation and why it matters for the broader LP and GP ecosystem.

**Nick Chirls** (1:50)
There's probably a lot of topics to cover. I think maybe the more one interesting one, which is maybe a little bit meta, was just seeing two new partners do it. They almost reminded me of a pitch meeting where we're meeting two co-founders talking about how they got to know each other and why they started a company together. So that was kind of fun to witness. I'm curious how much you guys did when talking through this. You guys talked a lot about alignment and company cultures.
Did you guys do the Co-Founder Dating stuff that people do? Oh, wait, that 15 questionnaire thing that people do?

**Beezer Clarkson** (2:40)
Yeah. We did not.

**Nick Chirls** (2:42)
Did you guys do any of that stuff as a team?

**Beezer Clarkson** (2:44)
No. I hope that means.

**Nick Chirls** (2:48)
So then, I guess maybe the question for you is like, how do you understand how the alignment of cultures actually works? Was it a feeling? Was it just knowing each other for a long time? Like curious what exactly happened?

**Beezer Clarkson** (3:00)
No. It was a very unique experience.
And maybe not one that people should use, because I do think there's a lot of value in the 50, I'm not sure it's 50 questions, but I've heard a number of GPs talk about writing down like, what are your code of ethics? What are your morals? What are your values? How do you feel about money? Which is a very important question to ask allocators, your long-term career perspectives. I think because Thomas and I had known and worked together across LPAC tables and co-invested in similar funds for a long time. And when even if we weren't in the same funds, routinely got together to discuss the ecosystem.
We'd sort of done a lot of those questions and we had just a number of shared data points of working together. So you didn't have to ask the question. You sort of knew the answer.
And then when we were going through the discussions of how would this work and bringing our teams together to meet each other. And I would went out and met with a number of senior officials at LGT Capital Partners. That process also was very educational. And I think, I don't know, Nick, you've gone through different sort of joining forces with teams. I'm trying to think of the best words.
You, the process itself is very educational because it's not simple, right? And when you go through things that aren't simple, as far as discussions and different team members, and you have to ask a lot of questions about how things work, and dollars are involved. You do see how people make decisions because they're acting with their feet. And in all of that, it reinforced the messaging of these are people that have a similar culture and values, and they didn't have to fill out a piece of paper. You literally lived it every day in conversations. I can tell you, Thomas is the most even-keeled person I know. He would have a 20-hour day, and he would call me at some ridiculous hour in the wee hours of the morning at 2 a.m. Because I don't know what something would come up that we'd want to discuss. And he was always there like, oh, there's a wrinkle. Let's discuss it. Are you okay? Which again, from the people you can build a business with, and the team that he's built reflects that. And the firm that he chose to be at reflects that. So this is my answer to the, no, we didn't do the questions. I think we just lived the questions.