David Clark is the CIO of Vencap, one of the leading fund of funds in the venture landscape. David has been at Vencap for 32 years and has been an LP his entire career. In Today's Episode with David Clark We Discuss: 1. From Unemployed Student in Love to Leading LP: How did a girlfriend lead to David taking his first steps into the world of fund investing? What does David know now about fund investing that he wishes he had known when he started? 2. Is Being an LP Harder than Ever Before: Does David agree with Doug Leone, "venture has transitioned from a boutique high margin business to a low margin commoditised industry"? Does David agree with Ryan Akinna @ MIT, "it is harder than ever to be an LP"? Does David think that venture returns will worsen in the coming years? Has the denominator effect for LPs gone? Do LPs have liquidity today? 3. What Makes the Best Performing Funds: What are the single biggest commonalities in managers that did a 3x net DPI fund? Of managers with a 3x net fund, how many had a single company return the fund? How do the best firms do generational transition? How do the best firms take cash off the table and sell part or all of their position? 4. Five Things LPs Hate In Potential VC Investments: What are the two most common reasons David will turn down a manager? How does David feel about the varying fee and carry levels? How does David feel about the compression of deployment times of funds? How does David feel about managers increasing fund size so significantly on every cycle? 5. Fund Sizes, Exits and Concentrating Returns: Why does David believe exit sizes will increase and fund sizes could be even larger? Why does David think that despite the above, the concentration of returns will be even smaller? Is David concerned by the IPO window being largely shut and the increased regulation on M&A?

Jean-Michel Lemieux is one of the OGs of engineering and product having been the CTO at Shopify and the VP Engineering at Atlassian. Jean-Michel helped grow both Shopify and Atlassian from single-product to multi-product companies and led the building of their platforms.  In Today’s Episode with Jean-Michel Lemieux We Discuss: From band class to Shopify CTO How did Jean-Michel make his way into the world of product? What were Jean-Michel’s biggest lessons from his time at Atlassian & Shopify? How are Shopify & Atlassian the same? How are they different? Why does Jean-Michel think Shopify could have been 10x bigger? Building the Perfect Product How does Atlassian & Shopify build movements instead of product? What does Jean-Michel know now that he wishes he had known before he joined Atlassian & Shopify? How does Jean-Michel balance between shipping speed vs. quality? Why does JM think scrums and TDDs are BS? How did his last year at Shopify change his approach in product development? What is a time horizon friction? And how does it impact teams? How to Lead a Product Team: What is micro alignment, and why does Jean-Michel think it is so important? What 3 types of decisions every team makes? What does Jean-Michel think are the most common reasons teams become average? How does he prevent it? What do Jean-Michel think are the most common mistakes CEOs make today? Hiring the Best Product Team: How does Jean-Michel structure the interview process for new product hires? What signals does Jean-Michel look out for when hiring? Why does he believe experience does not matter? What are Jean-Michel’s biggest hiring mistakes? What were his lessons? What are 2 of the most common mistakes founders make when hiring a product team?