Miles Dieffenbach, Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University, explains why late-stage and growth venture capital funds should lower their management fees and carry to align with public equities.
“But those growth funds that are really for scaled businesses that are mature assets, like, you should be charging long-only public equity fees, which are one in 10, and if you really love your LPs, it'd be zero in 10, but, or budget-based, right? Based on the team. But 10% carry, I mean, that's the number for a passive long-only investor.”
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More from Miles Dieffenbach
Insight
$7B Multi-Stage VC Funds Require $800B in Exit Cap for 4x Net
“You're close to, you know, eight hundred billion of market cap needed to return a Forex net for those multi-stage funds. Now, for reference, twenty-twenty-one, the best exit year of all time, there was 850 billion-ish of market cap exit value from that year. O…”
Miles DieffenbachAug 4, 2025▶ 38:34Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionOpen · timeframe Aug 2035
$100B Venture IPOs Will Remain Rare Generational Outcomes Through 2035
“So, so my guess is that a hundred billion dollar IPO over the next 10 years is still going to be a generational outcome. And so the question I throw back is, you know, do you think there's going to be 10, 20 A hundred billion dollar plus IPOs. I do not think s…”
Miles DieffenbachAug 4, 2025▶ 40:17Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Venture Capital Fee Structures Must Change for Large Funds
“You know, we really try to understand has the magic bond been broken between GPs and LPs, which, you know, leads us to, you know, like we think the fee structures need to change to accommodate for that.”
Miles DieffenbachAug 4, 2025▶ 47:51Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Large Venture Funds Charge 2-and-20 Fees for Passive Investing
“You are essentially acting as a long only public equity investor, right? You're not, you know, actively, you know, managing the company. They've got their own HR team. They're doing all their own hiring. You know, they've got a 20 person product team. They've …”
Miles DieffenbachAug 4, 2025▶ 48:20Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
AssertionPartly supported
Only Top-Decile VC Managers Consistently Beat Public Markets
“Because at that point, top decile, you are achieving returns above the PME consistently. But below that, even top quartile, you're not.”
Miles DieffenbachAug 4, 2025▶ 0:19Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
AssertionSupported
Mature Venture Funds Yield a Median 8% Net IRR
“The median IRR is about eight percent net for that asset class, and the top quartile is a bit higher, 15%, but the MOIC is about two and a half x, right?”
Miles DieffenbachAug 4, 2025▶ 9:06Miles Dieffenbach: Inside Carnegie Mellon’s $4BN Endowment & The Math Behind DPI, TVPI, Illiquidity · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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