Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Akkina: Generating consistent public market alpha is harder than venture

Ryan Akkina · Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jan 29, 2024 · at 43:38

Ryan Akkina is an investor at MITIMCo, which manages MIT's endowment portfolio. He explains why he shifted his investment focus from public to private markets over his 15-year career.

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“I just find it much easier for me and my personality to I think generate alpha on the private side. I mean, the public side is always becoming more competitive. You think, if you think venture is competitive, try making alpha versus you know, the NASDAQ, right, as a public manager. That's, Incredibly difficult to do on a consistent basis.”

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More from Ryan Akkina

Insight
Akkina: Every venture firm eventually declines due to botched generational transitions
“Every firm, no matter how great, has a half-life, right? No firm is going to be great forever. They'll eventually botch a generational transition or something, if they even try.”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 17:31 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Akkina: Virtually Every Venture Firm Was Undisciplined in 2021
“We all know that, that we were all undisciplined for some period of time, right? It's not a secret, and you know, every, every, virtually everyone did it.”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 24:31 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Akkina: MITIMCo Passed on an Early Opportunity to Invest in OpenAI
“I mentioned we're investors in YC, and when Sam left YC, around then we also had an opportunity to invest in OpenAI, and we didn't do it. So that's definitely an error of omission that I think about a lot.”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 44:31 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Akkina: VC managers should not force LP evaluations too early
“It's good to build relationships, but you don't necessarily want to force people to evaluate you too early. Because I think particularly with larger institutions, it can be the case that, you know, once they evaluate you once, they may not be willing to look a…”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 47:30 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
MITIMCo is significantly reducing its investment exposure in China
“We're definitely, I think like many others, we're doing a lot less there now. I mean, we're not gonna categorically not do it at all yet. But we are reducing it, and to the things that we keep doing, we're, you know, we're very careful about whether they're pe…”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 50:22 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Akkina: MITIMCo will scale out of VC funds that become too large
“If a firm gets too big and we're no longer confident that we can make exceptional returns over time, we're going to have to scale out.”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 52:40 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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