How I Invest with David Weisburd
E439: Ethan Thornton: The 22-Year-Old Building a $3.7 Billion Defense Company
What if the future of warfare is determined by who can innovate faster, not who can spend more? Ethan Thornton is the Founder and CEO of Mach Industries, a defense technology company he started after dropping out of MIT. We break down how Mach went from experimenting with roughly 20 technologies to becoming a multibillion-dollar company, why Ethan believes asymmetric technology is reshaping modern warfare, and how Pentagon procurement is evolving. We also discuss China and Taiwan, lessons from Ukraine, autonomous warfare, recruiting exceptional talent, taking risk, and why Ethan believes great founders should empower their teams rather than make every decision themselves.
E438: Will Robbins on Elon Musk, AI & the Future of Silicon Valley
What if the biggest edge in venture capital is identifying an exceptional founder before everyone else does? Will Robbins is a technology-focused venture investor and founder of Robbins Capital, where he backs companies starting at formation. Previously, Will joined Contrary as its first employee and helped grow the firm to more than $250 million in AUM. In this episode, Will explains why traditional VC brands may matter less in an AI-driven world, how he identifies exceptional founders before they have traction, why the best startups often pivot, and why reputation with founders may be the most important asset a venture investor can build.
E437: Doug Beyer on Raising Capital, LP Psychology & GP Stakes
What if the biggest opportunity in private markets isn’t backing companies—but backing the next generation of investment firms? In this episode, I sit down with Douglas Beyer, managing partner and founder of Roaring Brook Holdings, to discuss why emerging managers remain one of the most undercapitalized opportunities in alternative assets. Douglas explains how anchor capital changes fundraising dynamics, why LP relationships determine whether firms survive, and how the best emerging managers build trust through transparency and execution. We also explore GP seeding, organizational durability, and why fundraising momentum matters more than most managers realize.
E436: Nnamdi Okike on Billionaires, Founder Psychology & the Venture Capital Bubble
Can venture capital really be turned from instinct into science? Nnamdi Okike is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 645 Ventures, where he leads Seed and Series A investments in software and software-enabled companies. We discuss why Nnamdi believes venture investing is driven by the totality of an investor’s experiences rather than pure instinct, how 645 quantifies founder qualities, and why missionary and “non-central casting” founders can become exceptional investments. We also explore why startups need the right market inflections, how stablecoins and agentic commerce are reshaping fintech, what Nnamdi has learned across five fund vintages, and why raising too much capital at Seed can actually hurt a company.
E435: Why Most Companies Aren’t Ready for AI
Which competitive moats will actually survive the AI era? SC Moatti is Managing Partner at Mighty Capital and Board Chair at Products That Count. We break down what Mighty Capital learned from mapping 550 companies by defensibility, why traditional SaaS advantages like switching costs and data moats may be weakening, and why network effects and counter-positioning are emerging as powerful AI-era moats. We also discuss why SC disagrees with the conventional power-law approach to venture, how AI is transforming M&A and corporate innovation, the Product Alpha Effect behind Mighty Capital’s investment strategy, and what venture firms must change to survive the AI transition.
E434: Warren Gibbon on How AI is Changing the Private Markets
Are private markets still positioned to outperform public markets? Warren Gibbon is a Multi-Family Office Chief Investment Officer with deep experience across asset allocation, equity research, and portfolio management. We discuss why investors may need to re-underwrite their assumptions about private markets, how higher rates and growing competition have changed private equity, and why public-market earnings growth may be underappreciated. Warren also explains why he is more constructive on venture, what he looks for in emerging managers, the risks created by passive investing, and how he would deploy $100 million of fresh capital today.
E433: AlphaSense’s Chris Ackerson on AI, the Future of Finance & Finding Alpha
What happens to financial analysts when AI can do the work they used to spend all night doing? Chris Ackerson is SVP of Product at AlphaSense, where he focuses on applying information retrieval, natural language processing, deep learning, and recommendation systems to search and discovery. We discuss how AI is changing the analyst role, why vertical AI can outperform general-purpose models in financial research, and why proprietary data may become one of the most important competitive advantages in AI. Chris also explains why LLMs hallucinate, how AlphaSense is using AI to conduct expert interviews, where humans still create investment alpha, and why the future of financial research may look less like software and more like an AI teammate that never sleeps.
E432: $24 Billion Investor on Private Credit, the Psychology of Winning & Fear of Failure
Is private credit really in a bubble, or are investors looking for risk in the wrong place? Theodore “Ted” Koenig is Chairman and CEO of Monroe Capital, a $24 billion private credit firm. We break down how private credit grew from a niche alternative to a $2 trillion asset class, why financing shifted from banks to private credit after the financial crisis, and the two ways Ted believes lenders can generate alpha. We also discuss the flood of retail capital into private credit, why Monroe focuses on the lower middle market, the dangers of prioritizing AUM growth over investor returns, and the personal drive and tradeoffs behind building Monroe.
E431: Marty Kausas on AI, Trillion Dollar Startups & Founder Psychology
What if the best reason to start a company isn’t to change the world, but simply because you love the game? In this episode, I sit down with Marty Kausas, CEO of Pylon, to unpack how he thinks about building an ambitious company from first principles. Marty explains why Pylon started with a goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue, why market size can matter more than the quality of the founding team, and why the rise of AI has pushed his definition of a generational company even higher.
E430: Goldman Sachs’ Michael Bruun on AI, Private Equity & The War for Talent
What if AI makes talent, not technology, the biggest competitive advantage in private equity? Michael Bruun is Partner and Global Co-Head of Private Equity within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. We break down how Goldman Sachs competes for the best middle-market assets, why Michael believes talent can move the needle more than almost anything else, and how higher rates have forced private equity back to the fundamentals of EBITDA and cash-flow growth. We also discuss how Goldman is implementing AI across portfolio companies, why transformation must start with the CEO, and why the war for exceptional talent may become even more important as every employee becomes AI-enabled.
E429: Dr. V on AI, Market Bubbles & Finding the Next Anthropic
What if the biggest mistake in venture capital is investing in what already looks like a great venture investment? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. V (Vaibhav Agrawal), Founder ODDBIRD VC, is a San Francisco-based venture investor who spent nearly a decade at Lightspeed, to explore why he believes the traditional venture playbook is changing. Sourcing has become a media and distribution business, companies are staying private longer, and investors increasingly need to think proactively about liquidity rather than simply waiting for their winners to go public.
E428: Michael Green on Peter Thiel, SpaceX, and Inefficient Markets
What if passive investing is actually one of the biggest active forces shaping markets today? In this episode, I sit down with Michael Green, Founder and CIO at Tier1 Alpha Asset Management. Michael challenges the conventional view that stock prices primarily reflect fundamentals, arguing that the transaction itself moves prices and that the rise of passive investing has fundamentally changed who trades, why they trade, and how markets respond to capital flows.
E427: AQR's Peter Hecht on AI, Market Bubbles & How the Best Investors Build Portfolios
Peter Hecht, Managing Director at AQR Capital Management, explains why diversification has to be measured by underlying risk rather than the number of investments you own. At AQR, diversification is a core principle: thousands of relatively small, uncorrelated investment decisions can collectively create an attractive return for a given level of risk.
E426: American Securities CEO on Warren Buffett, Private Equity & Playing the Long Game
What happens when a private equity firm refuses to chase every new opportunity and spends 30 years getting better at one thing? David sits down with Michael Fisch, co-founder and CEO of American Securities, to unpack how the firm grew from a $71.4 million first fund to $23 billion in AUM without abandoning the investment discipline that got it there. Michael explains how private equity evolved from a sub-$1 billion institutional market into a multi-trillion-dollar industry, why American Securities resisted the temptation to expand into every adjacent asset class, and why seeing more deals matters almost as much as knowing which ones to reject.
E425: What 30,000 Founders Taught Me About AI, Judgment & Top Founders
David sits down with Byron Ling of Twelve Below to unpack the judgment required to invest at the earliest stages of technology. After roughly 30,000 founder meetings over the past decade, Byron believes the strongest signals rarely appear on a résumé. He looks for an almost biological drive to win, second-level thinking, exceptional learning velocity, clear communication, authenticity, and a sense of urgency that makes a founder difficult to compete against.
