The Ledger
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Escobari: General Atlantic uses an AI model to vote on all deals
“So we've been training the sixth member of the IC based on 45 years of data. So she votes on all our deals. And we've been having her do this for the last three years.”
Escobari: General Atlantic is accelerating its China investments after five years
“We've been underweight China for the last five years. We're, we just did two deals. We're gonna pick it up a little bit.”
Escobari: General Atlantic's backtested AI model outperformed human investors
“And she's much better than the humans. But it turns out someone who's been trained in the past is very good at the past.”
Escobari: Non-US Markets Are Low-Trust Cultures Requiring Rigorous Referencing
“We're also low trust cultures. The even though most of them are religious, doesn't mean you can trust. So a higher percentage of the time you may find yourself with a crook across the table. So the value of referencing Is, is, is much more important. And how t…”
Escobari: Rushing to do deals to build a track record is wrong
“You want to get going. You want to get deal experience. You want to get notches on your belt. And that's completely wrong, wrong, wrong instinct.”
Escobari: Dominant platforms are always worth more than 6x EBITDA
“A dominant platform will always be worth more than six times EBITDA.”
Escobari keeps 95% of his net worth in General Atlantic and Treasuries
“I have 95% of my net worth in that product, and I sleep well at night. I have a vastly undiversified portfolio of, you know, two assets, GA and treasuries.”
Escobari: Dedicated regional funds cause investors to buy high and sell low
“The reason we do well in Latin America is we don't have a Latin America fund. Because if we had a Latin America fund. We're going to buy at the top and sell at the bottom.”
Escobari: General Atlantic compensates partners based on total firm performance
“We have a communist system of compensation, which is you all get a percent of the Total performance, not your individual performance.”
Escobari: Only LPs with skin in the game provide honest reference checks
“For an investment, you do it with the family that has given you money to make investments. And you say, João, we're about to invest two hundred million dollars in this entrepreneur. You know his father, you know his grandfather. Do you think we should take thi…”
Escobari: Investors over 50 are rare because their brains lose plasticity
“The hard thing, and that's why there's not that many Venture and growth equity investors over, over the age of 50. It's not just that we call in rich, or we get tired, or we develop new interest. I think our brain ages and stops being plastic.”
Escobari: General Atlantic Investment Committee Includes 190 Professionals Without Presentations
“Investment professionals. So every Tuesday, a 190 people sign up and there's no presenting. We come in directly to Shark Tank, just questions.”
Escobari: Growth investors can no longer be generalists and must specialize
“And then you have to be a specialist. Can't be a generalist anymore.”
Escobari: GA recruits local family offices for insight, not just capital
“In every geography we're in. We have the best families, the most entrepreneurial families become investors and we cultivate them, not necessarily for their money, but for their insights around the country and around the entrepreneurs with which we partner.”
Escobari: General Atlantic AI model could beat human investors in 10 years
“I'm hoping that by the time we retire, I retire about 10 years, should be better than the humans.”
Escobari: General Atlantic's Top 10% of Deals Generate 50% of Returns
“If you look at the distribution of our returns, 10% of our best deals, and we get lucky, and they produce 50% of returns. And so we lose money very little, and then 10% we get five X plus, and these are really important. And these, all of them are better than …”
Escobari: $100M-revenue fast-growing companies have increased tenfold
“The number of a hundred million dollar revenue business growing 40, 50% has grown 10 X because more technology, more people taking risk in more places.”
Escobari: Bill Ford is pushing General Atlantic into robotics despite reservations
“Pushing me now to go into robotics and human noise. I'm like, Bill, too early. No, we need to go.”
Escobari: General Atlantic is taking a slow approach to AI investing
“Our approach, which may prove to be too conservative, was to take it slow. Because it's not clear yet where the value Is going to be created. It's not clear yet how much more powerful the large language models are versus others that are more efficient or how m…”
Escobari: General Atlantic requires worst-case scenarios where companies grow into valuations
“We don't take binary risk. For us, in, when we do this sort of the scenario planning of three to 1000 scenarios and one dozen in one mine, like you do when you think of an investment, For us, a worst case scenario, a company grows into the valuation we paid fo…”
Escobari: Foundational Trauma Drives Many of the Most Intense Entrepreneurs
“I find when trying to understand the person I do it with entrepreneurs, seeing what their trauma was is super useful. Because I find a lot of the most driven people are driven because of foundational traumas. And if you understand them and you're traumatized y…”
Escobari: General Atlantic employees have over $5B invested in firm funds
“Right now we have about, the employees of General Atlantica have about eight percent of the funds we administer is over five billion dollars of our own capital.”
Escobari: General Atlantic invested in XP when 80,000 Brazilians owned stocks
“I invested in the number one investing platform in Brazil when there were only 80,000 people that own stocks in Brazil and now ten million people own stocks... XP. It's publicly traded, ten billion dollar market cap. I invested when they were nothing.”
Escobari: General Atlantic competes against 19,000 GPs
“Unfortunately, we compete against 19,000 GPs.”
Escobari: Capturing Right-Tail Outcomes Depends Primarily on the CEO
“In all those lucky scenarios, there was a spear fisherman at the top to capture an opportunity that was available to Benny, but they seized it. So it's a lot more about the CEO.”
Escobari: High-intensity teams can do seven years of work in one
“What the .com taught me, and I just realized this recently, you can do seven years of work in one year.”
Escobari: GA's Brazilian anti-fraud portfolio company serves 97% of financial institutions
“We have a platform that 97% of financial institutions use for digital onboarding. Turns out Brazil is the world capital of online fraud, and this is the one company that catches it”
Escobari: Under 10 tech investment firms have survived and succeeded 45 years
“They're not that many. You can count them in, in both hands. The number of firms that are investors in tech and innovation that have been around have been successful this long.”
Escobari: Outsized returns require moving fast on rare opportunities every 4-5 years
“Every four or five years, there's a once in a generation opportunity that you have to be ready And be willing to move quickly to capture. And if you do, you can create disproportionate value for your company, for your investors, for your employees.”