So now we have one question about investors and one question for sponsors. So the first, what is
the most powerful insight you can give to investors that are striving to be where you're at?
I guess we'll start, Jeff, again. I think key insights would be don't always assume that risk and
return are somehow connected. And always think out of the box.
when i met when i met a billionaire for the first time i asked him the question i said how did you
get to be a billionaire and the answer he gave me was that you need to find asymmetrical return
versus risk and you need to really focus on the risk it took me a long time to figure out what that
meant and how to apply it correctly right so what i would always say is that look at a situation
from the investor's perspective and say, how can I literally zero out my risk or almost zero out my
risk and maximize my return to the point where it's unlimited, right? Don't always assume that risk
and return are so closely connected, right, that in the way that the traditional thinking.
So what I would say is break out of the traditional ideas and understand that where the greatest
opportunities lie. or in the areas that you would least expect them to be and always challenge
traditional thinking. Before we go on, if you guys are taking notes, I think that's going to be one
of the takeaways from this. The asymmetric risk return, that's quite interesting.
I would say also, even as an investor, people say this a lot to people who are raising capital,
but I say this to the investors too. Think about what you add. What's your value add?
this is a relationship that's a two-way relationship. And even if you're an LP, certainly the
success of the company and your investment is part of your success. So if you can open doors for
them, if you can make introductions, if you can help them raise additional capital, if you have
expertise in the industry, whatever that is, I would try to add value as an investor and not place
it all on them to try to add the value. And then the other, Thing kind of kind of related to that
is that if you gravitate towards potential investments where you can add value then they're
probably Automatically in your sweet spot where they're in an area where you have a competitive
advantage or industry knowledge or something So you're you're probably within your wheelhouse if
that is true Dan other than having a massive confidence. What should investors do?
Confidence comes through performance. Treat the money as if it's yours.
I'm sorry, I didn't hear that one? Treat the money as if it's yours. Ah, yes.
Okay. Well, let's see if I can follow that one up. You can follow that,
Dan. He's really great.
Well, because it's so true, right? Because you really have to, if you don't...
When you're investing with other people, you're going to have to realize that nobody is going to
treat your money as well as you treat your own. So if you take on others, you really have to take
on that same mindset. But that's kind of his advice. Mine I would go with is to always be on the
lookout for situations when your own tactical success is linked to or you know,
affects strategic failure. So taking an example that I was just involved in recently,
you know, there's, let's say you've got this portfolio company and they're giving you a really,
really interesting equity deal. You know, they want to take on your money and they're going to give
you, you know, say 15 percent, 20 percent of this of this company. And you think,
wow, that's a great deal. What you might not know is that they also have, you know, all these
agreements with other people that maybe they've actually pledged more than 100 percent of the
equity in their company. Or maybe maybe maybe it's not even that egregious and fraudulent. Maybe
they just, you know. Maybe they've just given away maybe up to 50%,
maybe a little bit more. All of a sudden, that person you're dealing with is a hell of a lot less
interested in making sure that everything works successfully for everybody because they have a much
less cut of whatever will come out. And you don't know what's kind of on that other side unless
you... unless you go in and ask and if they really are you know pledging more than a hundred
percent of their equity you can bet that they're not going to be straight with you to begin with
right so so first comment treat the money as if it's yours assume everything's a lie yeah you know
our group is centered on our our judgment is based on we're all investing our own money which which
becomes a very powerful metaphor but but what i really wanted to answer is that from our
perspective A good idea, sexy technology, is worth about 1%.
Everything else, 99%, is the entrepreneur and the founding team.
That entrepreneur makes every hiring decision, every motivating decision, every pivot. And it's all
about the entrepreneur. So what we have to do is, yes, check out, can the technology work,
can they protect it, et cetera, is it big enough, et cetera. But when it's all said and done, there
were three or four companies back in the early 2000s that were selling books online.
There is one that succeeded, and that was why, because of the entrepreneur.
What we have to figure out is, are they telling us what we want to hear, or is it real? Hi,
I'm Richard C. Wilson. Our community has closed over $1 billion of transactions. We have over 16
million registered members across 100 plus LinkedIn groups. And I own billionaires.com and run
Family Office Club. Over 19 years, we've hosted 300 live events. I've built 50 of our own AI tools.
And between the billionaires I've interviewed... distant to millionaires who have spoken on stage
and over a thousand decamillionaires who have presented, we've found there's three things that
really can build your wealth. Proximity, superintelligence, and scale. That's exactly what we
provide at Family Office Club. We host 30 events a year, including five large summits for wealthy
founders and investors. dozens of workshops and masterminds, including 12 artificial intelligence
laptops out implementation workshops. So you leave with AI implemented.
To learn more, please go to familyoffices.com. And I look forward to personally meeting you at our
next live event.