Insight
McLaughlin: Startups should hire two competing AEs before hiring a CRO
“Then when it comes time to do your first hire, it's really a trick question too. You don't hire one, you hire two. You need to hire two AEs, because, or call it, you know, junior salespeople, or just salespeople with a little bit of experience, because those t…”
Insight
McLaughlin: AI's best opportunity is transforming legacy businesses, not cost cutting
“I think one of the interesting things about our job is, is there an opportunity to invest in companies that look boring and then make them tech companies? And that's very different. I don't think a lot of people are saying that they're mostly sort of saying, o…”
Insight
McLaughlin: Turnarounds Resemble High-Growth Environments in Velocity and Decision-Making
“Turnarounds are a lot like growth and people don't realize this. And it's like, you're making lots of decisions. Things are changing very fast and you have to, and you're trying to rebuild the company. It's different than growth where you sort of have a clean …”
Disclosure
McLaughlin: Emberline lost a deal because the seller was untrustworthy
“We were in a deal last year that fell apart. Cause we were trying to do a deal that had all those four ingredients, but not the fifth, which was having someone who's trustworthy on the other side of the table.”
Insight
McLaughlin: Post-acquisition leadership handoff is one of the biggest risks in deals
“And a lot of investors view the transition as one of the biggest risks in any deal where it's the handoff. So you really need like a willing seller and a good seller that believes in the people in the company because they know it's not over.”
Insight
McLaughlin: Choosing Between Steve Blank and Steve Jobs Is a False Dichotomy
“And I think what we are, where we're unique is that you can merge those two. You don't have to choose one or the other. It's kind of a false dichotomy. So for us, it's, we're listening to what the customers need and we're interpreting it in our own sort of pro…”
Opinion
McLaughlin: Extended resume gaps do not prevent candidates from getting hired
“And what I hear is people say, oh, I can only take a month off or I can only take two months off because if you come back, people aren't going to hire you, but I think you can get a job. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think, you know, there, people a…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2030
McLaughlin: Hotter and drier climate conditions will lead to more wildfires
“The data shows world's getting hotter and drier. And that means there's going to be more fires. It's very clear correlation.”
Assertion Supported
McLaughlin: Interra Serves Most Western States, Cal OES, and Forest Service
“And we have a majority of Western States on the platform. We do it all for the California office of emergency services. We and we do it for the feds, for the federal government, for the U S forest service.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
TBX achieves an over 50% trial-to-paid conversion rate
“For our, for TBX we're in a very fortunate position because 50% of the people who trial, we have a trial to pay over 50% who trial it, buy it. So we have a very high trial to pay conversion.”
Insight
McLaughlin: Anyone claiming company culture takes under a year is fabricating it
“Anybody who tells you that culture takes less than a year. Hasn't ever been in a company. They're making that up.”
Assertion Supported
McLaughlin: Taser transformed from a $200M hardware company into an AI ecosystem
“Taser was a two hundred million dollar market cap company that sold tasing guns to law enforcement. Today it is an AI company. They bought, you know, they launched the camera, which was, you know, axon and they have evidence.com and it's an end-to-end ecosyste…”
Assertion Partly supported
McLaughlin: Erickson Operates Across 33 Countries in Firefighting and Infrastructure
“That company, by the way, is like the Goldman Sachs of aerial firefighting. It operates in 33 countries around the world, deep in aerial firefighting, power line construction, and timber harvesting.”
Disclosure
Emberline Acquired Hazard Risk Platform Intterra in 2021
“We started Emberline. We raised money and really around the first thematic view was the world is going to burn down. How do we put together the right technologies to mitigate risk? And at the time, what we saw was the world was set up around sort of legacy inc…”
Disclosure
McLaughlin: Emberline operates as a hybrid fund with limited partners
“We're a hybrid. We have a fund structure, right? With limited partners in it.”
Disclosure
McLaughlin: Emberline executes 100% cash-out acquisitions for full founder exits
“The other companies that we acquire were a hundred percent cash out, which is a little bit different.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McLaughlin: Macro Risk Advisors traded 10% of daily VIX options
“We're trading 10% of the VIX options in any given day, you know, we supported all the who's who over a hundred, you know, massive hedge funds and a really awesome place to learn about options.”
Disclosure
McLaughlin: Emberline mitigates risk through operational processes, not financial options
“We don't hedge it out, or I don't think of hedging it out. Like I would like buying a put, I think it was something like a task or a process. So I spent a lot of time thinking about what could go wrong.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
McLaughlin: Emberline acquired the domain airworthy.com from a film producer
“It's the new domain that we bought for our aviation businesses and we bought it from a guy who was in film, and I reached out to him out of the blue. I said, hey, if you're gonna hang up your hat it was, you know, he's a film producer, and he owned airworthy.c…”
