private equity firms

“The multiples that PEs are paying are around all-time highs.”

“A lot of these firms are coming in not only to invest as minority growth investors, but also to buy our companies, which is a very new vein of exits for a lot of these venture-backed startups. It's really emerged, I'd say, in the last decade”

“A substantial percentage of the public deals have been private equity. I've seen numbers like 60, 70, 80, Maybe even 90% in recent years of public companies have been bought by private equity firms.”

“And now they're getting much more imaginative about the prices that they're willing to pay, but they won't pay you know, 20 times revenue or 30 times revenue or 40 times revenue like a strategic will.”

“PE guys ironically love the things that we don't love. Let me tell you what I mean by that. They love a boring ass software company. In a teeny tiny vertical, with 40% market share, where they can screw the customers for the next five years by raising prices b…”

“Folks that in this sort of mediocre growth level, they're getting no, no tire kicking. Are you seeing lots of tire kicking? It's not happening. Cause I ain't seeing it.”

“Going from what they do to making non-controlled late stage investments Just because, you know, pick a name, Thrive do that well would be, in my view, stupid because Thrive are really good at that, and they're not.”

“A bunch of them are going to become zombie companies, And they're going to try to add AI features as a last resort, not succeed and be sold to PE.”