Because we have too few entrepreneurs, we can’t put enough money to work.

we find other publicly traded companies (or companies whose valuation and financial metrics are publicly known) that look and feel like the startup we are trying to value—so-called comparable companies.

smallest portion of Yale’s endowment is targeted to deflation hedging assets—7.2 percent, well below the 12.7 percent allocation of the average university endowment:

Insurance companies

Real estate—Yale has a 12.5 percent allocation to real estate investments, well in excess of the 4 percent average at other university endowments. Over the last twenty years, Yale’s real estate portfolio has returned about 11 percent annually.

the ability to incorporate compelling market data and allow it to evolve your product thinking. Have conviction and a well-vetted process, but allow yourself to “pivot” (to invoke one of the great euphemisms in venture capital speak) based on real-world feedback.

What is the management fee for? It’s the pot of money from which the GP pays the bills necessary to keep the lights on in the VC fund—employee salaries, office space and supplies, travel, and any other day-to-day expenses of the fund.

VCs are fascinated to learn how your brain works. We want to see the idea maze.

Insurance companies earn premiums from their policyholders and invest those premiums (known as “float”) for when they are required to pay out future benefits. The monies they earn from investing these premiums are then available to pay out the insurance policies as they mature.