Ryan Akkina describes MITIMCo's internal management practice when dealing with fund managers in MIT's endowment portfolio.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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…”
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.”