Miles Dieffenbach
Managing Director of Investments, Carnegie Mellon University. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
Miles Dieffenbach is the Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University. He helps oversee the university's $4 billion endowment with a focus on venture capital and private equity.
1shows
1appearances
70statements
19resolved
14supported
0contradicted
74%fully supported
Everything Miles Dieffenbach said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
$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…”
$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…”
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.”
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 …”
Growth VC Funds Should Charge 1% Management Fees and 10% Carry
“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 …”
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.”
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?”
Top-Quartile VC Funds From 1998-2015 Yield 1.8x DPI
“Top quartile DPI from 1998 15 year vintage funds per vintage year up until 2015 is 1.8 X top quartile.”
Multi-Stage VC Is 70% Access, Early-Stage Is 70% Picking
“I would say if you are a multi-stage firm that is, you know, deploying large checks at scale. 70% access. 30% picking. If you are a small and nimble early stage fund that is trying to break into the mold, I'm gonna say it's, you know, 80%, 70% picking. I'll fl…”
Accel and Sequoia Hold Portfolio Books at 20% to 30% Discounts
“Usually the multi-stage firms think your perennial, like Excels, Or Sequoia. They're taking very aggressive discounts on, on basically all of their securities. Even if it's a great company that is maybe achieving even a higher price on the secondary market, th…”
Selling Management Company Stakes Is a Massive LP Red Flag
“It's a, it is a massive red flag for us, and I would say most institutional LPs.”
Owning 10% of a $20B Company Returns 0.2x for a $7B Fund
“If you're a GC, their last fundraiser, seven billion, say you own 10% of a Figma, which is a generational company, two billion, you know, they're going to take 20% of that. I mean, you've returned what? Point zero point two X. You need 15 Figma's.”
Managing $15B in VC AUM Guarantees Billionaire Status
“If you had fifteen billion in AUM, which, you know, God bless, I hope you do someday you're gonna become a billionaire off that fund. Off those funds, right? And that's the difference, right? Is, is you need that capital as a true early-stage venture capital f…”
CMU Endowment Is Willing to Pay 2.5% Fees and 30% Carry
“If you're raising you know, that early stage fund, the core five hundred million dollar Series A fund, charge us your, you know, two and a half and 20, and if you're good enough, two and a half and 30. We're okay with that, right?”
Selling Venture Secondaries Risks Forfeiting Late-Stage Fat-Tail Returns
“And so that is, that's the risk Of selling secondaries as a long-term venture investor is that you're going to have these crazy right-tail outcomes in the fund that could come to fruition at years eight, nine, 10, 1112, 13, that you're traditionally, even if I…”
Public Markets Are Ready for IPOs and VCs Should Take Companies Public
“The public markets are now pricing risk very differently than they have over the three, the last three years. You look at circle, you look at, you know, Nebius, you look at core weave, you look at Palantir, you look at cloud flare. Like these are all businesse…”
An AI Bubble Popping in Equity Markets Is Inevitable
“This would be the ultimate anomaly if a bubble did not pop in AI, right? You look at past historic, incredible technological moments, right? You think of the railroad, you think of cars, you think of electricity, you think of steamboats, you think of the inter…”
Carnegie Mellon Endowment Does Not Screen VC Managers for Founder Friendliness
“Yeah, I mean, we do not, when we're sourcing and we're doing reference work, that is not something we try to dig out. Like we want the most founder friendly GPs. That's not something we source for.”
Half of VC Firms Falsely Claim They Will Never Raise Over $400M
“I would say Miles, this is the perfect fund size for us. We want to be a union square. We want to be a benchmark. 300 to four hundred million, this is the perfect size. We're never going to raise a bigger fund. I hear that. I kid you not. At least every other …”
A VC Manager Marked OpenSea at $13B in 2023
“The bad one, I mean, this one forever stands out, was we underwrote a manager in in twenty-twenty-three that was holding OpenSea at thirteen billion, which, like, I, that one was like.”
CMU's Private Investments Were Self-Funding for Three Years
“From a liquidity perspective, we've been fortunate compared to most endowments where that private equity book has been self-funding the past three years, so our distributions Have paid for our capital calls over the past three years. Now, the sub asset classes…”
Premier VC Firms Rely on Brand Over Systematic Sourcing
“I think there is no systematic sourcing strategy. It's the partners and the brands are so strong and they're so networked in the, you know, S tier founder community that they're just in, they're just gonna be a first call for a lot of these firms.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Miles's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | Managing Director of Investments, Carnegie Mellon University | 1 | 70 | 74% 14/19 | full record on 20VC → |