We asked a $15B Investor how to survive the AI bubble

**Graham Weaver** (0:00)
15 years ago, we set an objective to become the number one performing private equity. Since we set that goal to four funds we invested after that, have all done 5X or better.

**Shaan Puri** (0:09)
How do you do 5X in six years? Well, you go get Navy Seals to run plumbing companies. That makes perfect sense, too.

**Graham Weaver** (0:17)
It works pretty well.

**Shaan Puri** (0:19)
In your world, there's a bunch of AI roll-up. We're going to buy a company, we're going to throw AI in it, and it's going to be awesome. Is that a good strategy?

**Graham Weaver** (0:26)
These venture-backed apps, they'll have 2 million of revenue and a $500 million valuation, and they're going to go to zero.

**Shaan Puri** (0:32)
How do you see the world in the market? Where do you see opportunity? Where do you see destruction? And where do you see overhype?

**Graham Weaver** (0:38)
Okay, I'll start with overhype. How about that?

**Shaan Puri** (0:50)
All right, well, listen, we have Graham Weaver here today. You've seen this guy all over YouTube, TikTok, wherever you've seen. What I'm interested in is I would have always loved to go to Stanford and go to Stanford Business School. There's probably a lot of people listening to this that kind of wonder what would it be like? And that would be cool to be able to go learn from the best at one of the best schools. Well, we get to kind of do that today. We have somebody who not only is out in the field, you've got a private equity fund that has almost like 20 billion in assets under management, but you also teach at Stanford. And I think today it'll be fun if we get to hang out and pick your brain and be students like we're in your class.

**Graham Weaver** (1:25)
Love it. Looking forward to it.

**Sam Parr** (1:28)
You know, what's funny is like you, I've watched your talks for a long time and they're amazing. How to Live an Asymmetric Life was a really good one. How to Live Your Full Life, I think that wasn't the exact title one, but that was my takeaway from another talk. And I was doing research on you and I'm like, I didn't even realize this guy had a PE fund. And I think that's great that your ideas are actually what you're known for more than your work. So are you, besides the talks, can you explain with your fund, how successful are you beyond just the talks?

**Graham Weaver** (2:01)
About 15 years ago, we set an objective to become the number one performing, private equity fund in the world as measured by net MOIC, you know, the return on capital. And our last, since we set that goal, the four funds we invested after that have all done 5X or better, or the fourth one's on track to do that. So, it's been great, like, it's all the content that I try to bring to my talks or to the students at Stanford, you know, I like to think they're really based in stuff that really works. There's a lot of amazing people that are, have a lot of really good motivational content. I like to try mine out in the real world a lot and see what actually works.
And I think, you know, the stuff that I try to talk about is exactly what we do at Alpine. But yeah, we've had a really great run. And I'm really proud of how we've done it too. We've done it, you know, with people, treating people really well. We build our entire business around the people at Alpine and the people, the entrepreneurs in our portfolio. And, you know, try to be a force for good. The three goals are be the top performing fund, be a force for good and be a place where the best people want to come and works and spend their careers. And I think hopefully we've done it that way.

**Shaan Puri** (3:14)
So, you just said we set a goal to be the number one performing private equity fund in the world.
No big deal. That's right. And you said 5X MOIC, which is multiple uninvested capital. And that's over like 10 years or what's the time frame we're talking here?

**Graham Weaver** (3:32)
I mean, from the day the first dollar comes in to the last dollar goes out, yeah, maybe it might be, it's probably easier to talk about, probably average is about six years of the average investments, probably about six years.

**Shaan Puri** (3:43)
That's pretty remarkable. So you normally, sort of rule of 72, you put your money in the SP 500, in seven years, you should double your money. So you should get 2X if you're there. And you're basically in roughly the same time frame trying to get a 5X, right? So you're really trying to outperform. Can you, in plain English, because Sam knows this, I spent the last two days having, I had 40 private equity meetings. And half the time I'm just like, they're like, yeah, we're a small fund, a billion and a half under management. And I'm like, that was the story all day. I was like, how much money do you guys have? And what the hell do you guys actually do? So can you give me the simple, what the hell do you guys actually do? Are you guys buying like HVAC companies? Are you buying software companies?