FULL TRANSCRIPT
Slava (00:00)
In this episode of Smart Humans, we talk with Michael Goodbody, who's CEO and founder at Get Access. They are the membership club that gives you opportunities to pre-IPO companies before they go public and while they're growing. He gives us his perspective on the market, what's happening in the pre-IPO landscape, and of course, some picks for three years out.
Slava (00:47)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Smart Humans. I'm excited for today's guest. We're gonna be talking about the world of private investments, pre-IPO. It's very trendy right now. We're talking about Anthropic, SpaceX obviously just went IPO. We have Michael Goodbody, who's CEO and founder of Get Access. Michael, welcome.
MG (01:04)
Thank you for having me.
Slava (01:06)
Yeah, so we always like to get started. I mean, I'm very excited about this episode because I love to talk about this stuff. But let's start from the beginning, which is how did you get into this world? Take us back as far as you'd like, whether it's grade school, college, your first job, some sort of catalyst. How is it that you end up in this role? Going back to the beginning.
MG (01:24)
Yeah, I mean I I'm actually fairly new to the world of private markets investing. and that's you know a sort of recognization of what's going on in the space. so my background is more in the technology side. Actually, so currently I'm the CEO of Get Access. I joined in January. Prior to that it was the Global Head of Marketing at Robin Hood.
From sort of I think end of 2022. And I I've spent the last 10 years in various sort of leadership marketing roles at fairly successful fintechs, you know, Credit Karma TransferWise, Dave. And and I would say the vast majority of my investing activity and my exposure has always been public markets, which is something that you know brought me to Robinhood. I was you know, really loved that space. And when I was actually at Robinhood,
You know, during that period, I sort of left last year, we were increasingly sort of seeing this trend around private market wealth creation, right? Which was which the sort of user base that we were both serving and acquiring. you know, we're just seeing this trend of sort of companies going public at a later and later stage where you know all the value creation sort of happened and we were looking at how we solved that problem. And so I worked on that.
specifically at Robinhood in terms of how do we sort of solve that problem for our users. And when I left, I sort of left with a you know a sort of interest in how to actually like solve that at scale you know through with the sort of consumer product fintech mindset that I'd learned and built in the 10 years that I've been away. So that sort of prompted me to sort of move into the space.
and has been a big part of my journey over the last year.
Slava (03:08)
Amazing.
So if I heard correctly, typically you were in like the marketing or one of the other leadership roles, but now I understand you're the leadership role, which is you're the CEO. Is that right? So how is it different
MG (03:19)
Yeah.
Slava (03:21)
in the CEO seat?
MG (03:23)
it's I think for me personally it's obviously very different. I think what remains the same is you know understanding how how product and positioning sort of drive the business. I think you know I've been lucky enough to work at four incredibly successful startups that have grown to be multi billion dollar companies. I think the consistent thing that I've always seen in the CEOs and founders that I've worked with, often they've been like engineering.
Technical founders. But what I think has separated them out and led to the success of those companies has been that they're incredible product marketers without knowing it, right? They know like what their audience is, they know what their audience wants, they know how to build great products, they know how to like position it. I think that's often the like core truth of like why these companies have been successful early on. you know, Vlad at Robin Hood or Kristo Karmann who's the CEO at Wise.
I wouldn't they would probably wouldn't think of themselves that way, but they are in they're really good at that. and so I think that I learned a lot from them, was able to bring that to this business. and it's helped me to build a product, build a team, build a sort of an offering and a go-to-market that's sort of shaped in that is built on my marketing foundations. But yeah, there's a ton of additional things which I've had to learn and get get up to speed with as I've gone past that. And I think having exposure to
you know, throughout my career to like really strong CEOs and leaders has helped me get some of that. But you know, I would say the marketing component, the product marketing, the product piece of my job is probably, you know, it's gone from being a hundred percent of my world to maybe thirty to forty percent of my world and the and then and the rest has been filled with other things that perha that I've done less of in the past, but it gives me an opportunity to learn and grow and that's what's been that's a big reason why I took the role.
Slava (05:03)
Amazing.
So you mentioned you were already doing some pre IPO stuff at Robinhood. Obviously, private markets has been getting momentum for years. it's kind of a new concept to get a two trillion dollar, you know, IPO company this year with SpaceX. The idea of a hundred billion dollar private company is not exactly shocking anymore, which to me is somewhat shocking, given the fact that you used to go IPO at five hundred million, which is kind of crazy.
What was the catalyst for you to go from working on that space, you know, at Robin Hood to wanting to start a brand new company in this space?
MG (05:40)
Yeah, I mean I think it's important to zoom out and really kind of ground ourselves in what's changed, right? And I think I my first I moved, you know, I was working in traditional kind of like big fine finance companies for the first stage of my career. And then I moved into tech in twenty fifteen. First job I did was to run marketing for transfer wise when it launched in the US. TransferWise is now, you know, I think twelve billion dollar.
company, you know, listed we listed in the UK, it's relocated, it's listening to New York. But when I went to work for that company, there were we were valued I think eight hundred and forty million dollars, right? And that was we were Andreys in Horowitz's first investment in the UK, I think in Europe at the time. And I remember you know trying to tell that narrative as we moved to the US, obviously marketing communications was part of what I did. and what we had to look at there was
Setting ourselves in the context of everything else that was out there. I think there were 80 unicorns at that point in time. So we were one of 80 unicorns. It was certainly less than 100, when we went from past that $1 billion valuation shortly after I joined. And I think the total market cap of all those unicorns combined was somewhere in the region of 300 million dollars, 300 billion dollars. and you know that was 10 years ago. if you look at it now.
or sort of earlier in the year when I s when we did a bit of analysis on it, there's fifteen hundred unicorns. And the combined market cap of those unicorns is private market unicorns is was five and a half trillion dollars. And in addition to that and within that ecosystem within that group you've got anthropic, open AI, at the time you had SpaceX. You know, we forget about Byte Dance and TikTok, but like that that's in there as well. And so you look at every single what I would c what I would sort of say
transformational technology that has sort of come to fruition in the last five years, they've all come to maturity in private markets before they go public in a way that just simply hasn't happened before. You know, Amazon I think is six to seven thousand X what it IPO'd at right now. You know, and Google's almost 200x what it IPO'd at. I haven't looked today, but I'm assuming SpaceX is somewhere in the like one to one point one or zero point nine of where it's
and that's a big issue, right? Like if you're a somebody that's traditionally investing in public markets or traditionally investing what's what what's easy for you to get in or what's accessible to you, you're looking at, you know, your AI play has over the last five years has been NVIDIA and Google, and maybe you're taking a swing on meta, or you're trying to figure out like second, third degree exposure to AI, if you recognize that as a transformational technology.
Very hard to directly invest in a company that is, you know, just doing and just successful in the AI space. and I think that's really sort of crystallized this this that this sort of demand that we're seeing. and that's what you know we were trying to get when I was at Robinhood, we were trying to figure out, okay, well, we see that coming along, our users are public market investors. How do we get them exposed to these companies before they go public? Because increasingly, you know, you're not gonna see this like opportunity to get in
Not even on the ground floor, like you're getting on a top floor on a lot of these companies once they go public. and you know, perhaps there's five X left in SpaceX if it's the most transformational company in the history of the world, which it may well be, you know, it's got a chance. But as an investor, I think we were really focused in how do we give them exposure to some of these things earlier on. And that and that's what we worked at Robinhood, but we were limited by, I think, not necessarily limited by, but we you know.
solving that for the Robin Hood user and I think in my mind I was sort of thinking about myself as a user and a and as an investor and thinking about well what is a product that would work more for someone like myself rather than somebody than your sort of traditional public markets investor like that.
Slava (09:24)
Amazing.
So we'll talk more about Get Access in just a second. I want to hear more, and one of the unique things about this show is we get to hear about how you like to invest, actually, Michael. So the traditional portfolio is 60% public equities, 40% bonds. I'm gonna guess that's not you, and 0% alternatives. So if there was a hundred percent basket, what are your three numbers underneath that? What's your public equities, bonds, and alternatives?
MG (09:52)
yeah, I mean public equities is going to be a significant majority of my investment portfolio. So I'm actually kind of like overexposed there by the nature of sort of my work. and I would say I'm sort of in that 80% there, trying to move that actually like my main investment strategy over last sort of couple of years has been trying to how do I move that down and move it
into bonds and into sort of more longer term stable investment strategies and then at the same time trying to up my exposure to private markets. because again I see that as being my where the where it plays. So really it's probably at this point in time like eighty fifteen ten, ten ten, eighty fifteen five or eighty ten and that's sort of how I'm looking at it. I think, you know, long term I my objective is to sort of move it to be more
to be more geared towards that balance. But I still see myself as like a growth investor. I think I have a an ability to sort of see companies that are going to be successful. And so I would always find myself being like public markets and private markets. Equities are going to be something that I think is always going to be very overweight in my portfolio.
Slava (10:59)
So eighty percent public equities, ten percent bonds, ten percent alternatives, high level. So
MG (11:04)
Mm-hmm. yeah,
I mean I think yeah, exactly.
Slava (11:08)
In the public
equities, are you just taking some ETFs or some indexes or are you stock picking?
MG (11:14)
I mean the majority of it's gonna be stock picking, yeah.
Slava (11:17)
nice. We'll save that for another show. and then in the alternatives, inside the world of alternatives, that was a hundred percent. What's your allocation across the various things, which is obviously pre IPO venture, MPE, crypto, real estate, private credit, art collectibles? Obviously, you could have a bunch of zeros, but how would you think about a hundred percent allocation into alternatives?
MG (11:39)
I think it's alternatives, it's sort of sixty forty between private market and crypto.
Slava (11:45)
okay. Nice. So
MG (11:46)
Mm-hmm.
Slava (11:46)
pr private market being all the stuff that Get Access is doing and beyond.
MG (11:50)
Yeah, pre IPO
Slava (11:52)
Pre IPO.
MG (11:52)
sort of
Slava (11:53)
forty percent crypto. I like that. give us another sentence or two on that. How are you thinking about your crypto allocation?
MG (12:00)
I think I think I've a fairly traditional crypto investor. You know, I don't I'm not super speculative on that front. You know, I believe I have his you know, I I've held Bitcoin for a number of years. I think that's always been like the sort of main staple of that. And you know, I would say the vast majority of that crypto investment is just it's just Bitcoin for me because I see that, you know, I buy into the long term cap you know, the long term sort of play
the scarcity of that product as it goes. You know, and I think I have it some ETH and every now and again I'll just I'll buy into, you know, an interesting coin that drops. and then, you know, I keep some meaningful component of it actually in Robin Hood's a product on the sort of lending on the earning side. I can't remember exactly what they call it, but you know, US
Slava (12:50)
U
S T G
MG (12:51)
Yeah, I think so. And so
Slava (12:53)
I think it's like seven percent right now.
MG (12:55)
Yeah, and they pay at like seven percent, yeah. So that's actually a really nice you know, if I have cash lying around often we'll just sweep the cash into USTG and just sort go use that as a way of farming additional yields.
Slava (13:05)
I completely agree.
They're not even sponsoring our show. But yes, I think that's a great way to get yield on just like money market, basically.
MG (13:12)
A hundred percent. Yeah, it's great. It's actually it's incredible. you get it every day, like you see it ticking up every day. it's a great product.
Slava (13:18)
Awesome.
So you've worked at four incredible fintech companies. Now you're obviously CEO at another. What's your view on where we're at in the market? So this is a very open ended question. But what do you think of the stock market right now and the economy?
MG (13:32)
I mean I I think it's a great question. I I've almost stopped trying to ask myself that question in a way. I think I think it's if you'd have asked me four years ago, I'd have probably been like, it feels a bit hot. and I and it still feels a bit hot, but I think it's been that way for a long time. And I think I think we're at
You know, there's no doubt in my mind that we are seeing, you know, something incredible happening on the technology front right now that's completely changing the world that I exist in. You obviously I work in like a t in the technology space, but you know, day to day my how I built this company this year versus how I would have built it even twelve months ago or twenty four months ago is just manifestly different. And so I see that happening. I see, you know
developments across the board. So I it's hot. It feels like the multiples are on a lot of these companies are are you know historically high. But at the same time, you know, I think I do think that what we're seeing is something that will completely change productivity at a human level and I think that, you know, it's hard to price that in. So yeah, it's
I would say I'm not
Yeah, I've got I don't really spend much time now thinking about okay, am I where are we at in the cycle, try and predict the cycle. It's more, you know, w what do I think's gonna win in the like five, ten years? and really just try and zoom out and put my effort into trying to invest on that basis. And you know, I I'm like you know, in and sort of ride rape ride the waves as they go up and down, like take long term view.
Slava (15:14)
Perfect.
I'm gonna put you in the hot seat here, ask you a lightning round of some macro questions. You're probably gonna
MG (15:20)
Show.
Slava (15:20)
say not something I'm focused on, but we'd love to hear our guests' opinions on this, which is twelve months from now, recession, yes or no?
MG (15:29)
No.
Slava (15:30)
The interest rates up, down or flat twelve months from now.
any guess on how much?
MG (15:37)
I think it'd be north of four. I mean I think we'll be I think you know, in terms of I think we'll be at me you know, a couple of more point more rises from where we're at now.
Slava (15:46)
Okay. inflation, up, down, or flat a year from now.
MG (15:50)
I think it's gonna I it was it three point seven yesterday? I think it will I
Slava (15:57)
It was pretty hot yesterday.
MG (15:58)
yeah, I think that's probably gonna stay flat. Like from where f but that, you know, th it's pretty hot. I don't think it's gonna cool off too much, but I don't think it's gonna I don't think it's gonna rip from where it's at.
Slava (16:08)
All right. Unemployment. Up, down, or flat? Twelve months from now.
MG (16:13)
I think it's gonna go up.
Slava (16:14)
Any perspective on how much?
MG (16:16)
I no, not really.
Slava (16:19)
Are we thinking
like a little bit or considerably because of AI?
MG (16:22)
I don't think considerably, but I think it's a gradual shift, right? I think generally it's you know, again, building a company right now, it it's very easy to create productivity without adding headcount. And I think that's just a trend. I don't necessarily think you're gonna see like a ton of cutting. I but I d I don't know that the new jobs that we're gonna create are gonna offset like the natural decline in other areas. So that's how I would.
Slava (16:48)
stock market, you could take the you know S P, the Dow, the NASDAQ, whatever you want
MG (16:52)
Yeah.
Slava (16:53)
as your index, year over year. So 12 months from now, is it up, you know, flat, down? Is it traditional eight, twelve percent? What's the what's happening a year from now?
MG (17:04)
Well I mean if I
I've got my money in the market, so I think it's gonna go up. know,
Slava (17:10)
all right.
MG (17:10)
I think it has and it it's very robust and it I think it it's you know, I think there's a lot of things that can affect that, obviously, but you know, if I was that's put my money where my mouth is, it's in the market. And I th I think it it's more likely to be a surprises on the upside than the downside.
Slava (17:26)
I'm gonna ask
you a couple more that maybe geared right at you. So open AI, a year from now, is it public or not public?
MG (17:34)
That's a great question. I think it will be public. I think a lot of it depends on what happens with anthropic. But you know, I assuming that that's successful, which I have every belief that it will be, I think that it sort of pushes them to follow suit rather than the other way around.
Slava (17:52)
Are you in the camp that Anthropic goes public by Thanksgiving or are they pushing? No insert no insider information here, of course. We're just having discussion. Yeah, course.
MG (17:56)
by Thanksgiving. I don't have any insider information, but I think,
you if I give anyone any advice in the investment world it's like get out before Thanksgiving. don't go after Thanksgiving.
Slava (18:06)
Perfect. And then SpaceX obviously has been part of the pre IPO story for so long. Where do you think SpaceX is at a year from now?
MG (18:13)
I think it came in priced high and I think it's gonna take a while to sort of justify that valuation. but I think long term, you know, again, I think I'm an investor in SpaceX. I believe in I don't think I think they're what they're doing with Starlink is just unbelievable. Like it's completely transformational. You know, that they're moving into the mobile space, like there's a lot of opportunity for them. I think there's a little bit of a drag on
with what they did with the combination with XII and the cost that they pumped into the business. But again, I think that that's something that could that that's something that is starting to
become I think less of a d yeah less of a drag and yeah, I love the model and I wouldn't bet against Elon. So don't think that's a great bet to take.
Slava (18:59)
yeah, no, it's hard to bet against
Elon, even though his multiples are a bit crazy.
MG (19:03)
They
they're insane, but that hasn't you know, I I I've listened to a lot of people try and talk me out of investing in Tesla o over the years because of that and it hasn't that hasn't worked out great, so yeah.
Slava (19:15)
Exactly.
So I'll ask one last question just for fun, which is there's rumors now in the December board meeting for Tesla the SpaceX that they're gonna become one in December. Are you yay or nay on that? Do you think that in twenty twenty seven it's one Elon company or they it's two separate companies?
MG (19:34)
I think it'll be one company. I don't have any insider information, but it makes sense. I mean, I think they already operate again from the outside looking in. I mean, I just saw a flying car yesterday, so it it
Slava (19:46)
That was ridiculous.
MG (19:48)
it feels like maybe there's some synergies that are starting to emerge there. So that could be interesting. No worries.
Slava (19:53)
Absolutely. Okay. Well, thank you for playing that game.
as a quick summary there, you're thinking no recession, interest rates up, inflation is flat, unemployment up, and stocks doing well. So it's an interesting combination. let's talk about get access. So obviously you mentioned how you got into the space, but for those that are not familiar, it's a pretty new company. Can you give some background? What is Get Access and how can people get involved?
MG (20:17)
Yeah, sure. Get access is a private markets investment platform. And we connect, the way we look at it is we connect founders and these sort of like transformational companies that are raising with what we call useful capital at scale. So the way to think about it is you know, again, I spent time at Robin Hood like focused on the problem, which is this massive growth in pre pre-IPO wealth creation that's happening at these companies.
And I you know the solution you know that we were looking at there weren't great solutions to the problem. I think they're that you know you have right now if you want to get exposed to those markets that you can effectively get, you know, fund of funds exposure, you can get you can put a big check into a V C fund, which is out of reach for most people. And on the other side of it, you know, you can kind of play in the SPV space and sort of you know
or in the secondary space and try and find exposure through all those different areas. And I think as a consumer of the product of the or like trying to get into the space myself while I was at Robinhood, I looked at all of those different options and none of them really work for me, right? Like I don't really want to I think fund of funders is exposure to an asset class, but it doesn't give you any like qualitative capability to like assess and invest. and I think you know VC
huge check sizes and even then you're like competing to get into the best into the best funds. And then I think on the SPV side, you know, when I looked in the secondary side, when I looked at that, it just felt extremely opaque, hard to get into, and just a ton of work to sort of as assess, you know, the deal flow that was out there. And so that was a problem set then we that we were looking at that was hard to solve. And w in sort of October last year I met with Guy Oseary who is the
GP at Sound Ventures. So he probably slightly more famous for being Madonna's manager and the Red Hot Chili Peppers manager, and Ashton Kutcher's partner at Sound Ventures. But phenomenal investor. Incredible portfolio and incredibly successful investor. And I met a guy and I think
He sort of had this sort of the concept around Get Access was built from him and his network. So he's obviously super plugged in within the within Hollywood, a bunch of artists, he spends all of his time meeting incredible people. And what he was sort of telling me was very similar to my own experience, which is you know, he almost everyone he meets is like, how are you learning about these companies, how are you investing in these companies? How are you learning about these companies, how are you investing in these companies? And we're talking about like A-list people who
weren't able to sort of get access to this next generation of wealth creation in these transformational companies. and that sort of resonated with me because you know I kind of have built my career being a senior executive at all these technology companies. I'm in Silicon Valley. I'm not like one of the most recognizable names in technology and it's all and it's
Hard for me to get into these deals, right? you have to work it and work it if you want to, or you know, rely on you know, Angel investing through your network, which often is, you know, sometimes feels like you're writing a check more out of goodwill than sort of like real conviction in where a company's going, or you're putting money behind some time. So, you know, I think when we were looking at this like, okay, there's this the problem we're trying to solve is if you're somebody like, you know, okay.
running marketing at Robin Hood or you're a Grammy Award winning artist and you're struggling to get into these deals, there's a problem. Because when you go and talk to founders want people like that on the cap on their t cap table. you know, use you know, the number one thing you hear from VCs is like, we can be more than just capital. We can be more than just capital. And so the a concept behind get access is how do we make that happen at scale? How do we build a membership of high quality
you know, executives, artists, people that can effectively experts, people that can effectively help companies that are raising on the platform. And you know, by so doing, bring in like that top five to ten percent, the top echelon of venture capital deals. because those companies want exposure to the member base that we're bu that we're building. And so this is what we're what we've built of Get Access is, you know, what we have and in order to do that, we built a third leg of this flywheel, which is
We've actually onboarded a hundred what we call like what we're calling them access investors, but they're effectively venture insiders, angel investors like angel investors and sort of early stage investors like you know, Eliad Gill, Jim Breyer, Custom Jim you know, Aaron Levy, like people that have exposure, and you can go on getaccess.com and sort of look at who we're talking about, but you know, Josh Wolfe, Kevin Howard, people that are extremely successful in that space.
You know, people, you know, I think requirement that we build is you have to have multiple billion dollar investment, like but unicorn hits basically is the way we sort of think about it, in order to be an access investor. And then what we do is we take that network, they bring us deals and we surface one deal a week to our users. So users come, you they sign up, they pay us on a membership basis, they actually pay a subscription fee, and then we surface the deals to customers on a weekly basis. So it's curated deals to a curated audience.
in a curated set of companies. And that's what like spins that flywheel. you know, and then what we're what I've what I'm trying to do is bring my consumer product building experience to this space. And what I found was that like the thing that's cutting people out are i that you know like myself like like guys network is you know they don't have the time to do the curation they don't have the time to study and look at like a like multiple companies every day
But then when they go past that, there's so many questions about like how like how to invest in this space. You know, is a structure, is it direct on cat table, is it secondary, is it layered? Do you own the stock? Right. That's become a big topic of conversation around anthropic and space X and you know, is the company gonna let you sell it? You know, I think that's a big thing with the conversation around Anduril and so you have that on one side. And then the pricing, you know, I think often when you look at this, if you do manage to get in, is it
You know, big management fees up front is you know, what's the carry, you know, all of that stuff creates complexity in the market that shuts out this audience that we're trying to get to. not because they can't figure it out, but because they don't have the time, they don't have the expertise to figure it out. And so what we've built is this product that is effectively it's a membership product once a week, you know, zero car zero sorry, zero percent management fees, like we don't charge any setup fees.
Literally you pay us your annual membership, which is $5,000. So it's a decent whack. But once you get past that, it's 10% carry and no other costs to you. and the way we look at it, the math effectively works out if you're putting $15,000 to $20,000 a year into private market opportunities, the math starts to work in your favor after like $15k. and what happens because we've changed that model, we don't make more money based on
the amount of money that you put into the funds or into the companies. We make money based on, you know, we make money based on retaining our users and providing them with a great experience. And so then what that allows us to do is build an incentivization structure that we're incentive to bring great deals on a weekly basis and the best deals on a weekly basis to sort of keep you engaged and keep you subscribed. And we don't care if you put in, you know, the minimums are two and a half K, but we've had people put in two million to some of our deals. We treat those people the same.
and so if you're an investor that that typically is trying to get in these companies and is sort of you you'll get treated very differently if you've got two million to deploy versus two and a half thousand to deploy in a company. You know, we're able to close that gap and treat everyone the same. so the model is sort of like, you know, how do we take this consumer fintech mindset that we've I've built up at RobinHood in these other places and apply it to private markets access in order to open it up to this audience of
useful capital that founders are looking to get.
Slava (28:15)
Awesome. So you're probably the best salesperson and I could be a potential customer. So let's just walk through that. So do I need to be accredited or not accredited?
MG (28:25)
Yeah, you have to be accredited. So, you know, we don't market to non accredited investors because it's a the nature of the
Slava (28:31)
And you mentioned that it's a membership model. So can I just sign up and pay or do I have to be accepted?
MG (28:37)
have to be accepted. So any anyone can apply. we evaluate all of the applications based on you know three criteria. We'cause we we're looking at like do you have the ability to help the companies basically because we want that's how we bring the great deals in, right? You know, founders bring it in because they want access to the cup to the customer base. And so we look at, you know, are you I you know do you have institutional influence so like p control over PL at a large company?
do you have cultural influence, which is you know, do you have reach a an audience of you know, hundreds of thousands of millions of people and then you know you're an expert in your field. So is work published about you, do you publish work? And I think those are the three ways that we look at people. And I think you know, we launched two weeks ago, we already have I sent a sort of recap out yesterday, but we already have Academy Award winners and Grammy award winners and Emmy Award winners on the platform. I think we have
Creators with a total audience of 130 million. We have NBA champions, we have World Series champions on the platform. We also have, I think, 27 unicorn founders and like 33 C-suite public markets, public companies. So again, you know, that that's the sort of group that we're trying to bring together. you know, as well as senior executives at sort of public and private firms. So yeah,
Slava (29:52)
is there any interaction between those amazing members, between each other or between the members and the companies?
MG (29:58)
Yeah, so we're building that out. I think the right now we're focused on getting the deal flow right, getting the experience right, getting the customers, getting the members onboarded. where you know, our intention in the sort of short to medium term is start building out events, opportunities for people to to meet other people within the membership base, but also to meet the contribu like what we call the other access investors, contributors who are sort of bringing the deals and sort of and the founders. So we're trying to build that.
network out. And then yeah, so we see that as a as an important part of this in the sort of medium to medium term. But we right now we're focused on building that first that first sort of like set of customers. And then on the product side certainly we see a lot of interest from founders in terms of how do okay how can you productize this audience. I I'm you know I'm I would be really interested in getting in front of, you know, a good example is maybe
Harvey or GCAI, like companies that focus on legal AI, like how do they get in front of people that work as GCs or head of legal or you know, we have you know 10 to 20 of those, hundreds of those, hopefully at scale within our member base. How do they get in front of those people directly? And so that's something we're looking at, how do we productize over time? Right now we're focused on building the audience, but once we've built that audience out, that's something that we'll make work. And that there's no like requirement for a member to actually
do anything or even be accessible to the companies. But we think about it more in terms of like serendipity. Like if these peop you know, the best way to market to anyone, particularly somebody who's super busy and super influential, is market yourself as an investment. And then they'll spend the time digging in and understanding it. it's way more effective than marketing yourself as a, you know, as a service. And I think that's sort of the mechanism that we want to put to play.
Slava (31:42)
And did I understand that the fee structures I pay five thousand dollars a year and
MG (31:46)
Yeah.
Slava (31:47)
then it's ten percent carry on each of the individual deals, but outside of that, are there any other costs?
MG (31:53)
no other costs. so we're trying to take all of those fees out. No management fee, no brokerage fee, no setup fees. Again, I think you know it's kind of surprising that hasn't been done today in the space, but we want to make it so that there's nothing else that comes up and sort of surprises. So all of that is wrapped up. We pay we even pay the setup fees on the SPVs if you come in because each
Slava (32:13)
Nice.
MG (32:14)
of the deals is structures an SPV.
and we sort of go from there. and then yeah,
Slava (32:18)
tactical question
sorry a tactical detail question so am i getting to invest into an spv into the same exact round that the other investors are getting into or is my sp marked up there's a premium price versus the actual price round price
MG (32:35)
So we all every deal that we do is in a the like the price is being set within a round. So the typical model is there, you know, th that we're working on right now and that we've done a lot of years, it is around. You get in alongside the V C the VC that's leading the round at that same like fund round price.
Slava (32:55)
That's awesome.
MG (32:57)
we also like we're
All of our vehicles are direct on cap table and they're all like with founder aware. So again, there's so many things that you have to solve in this industry because you know, it's like the and so we're sort of laying these things out. Founder every company signs off on every investment. We're always get ac get access is always on the cap table. no secondary, no le no leverage, nothing like that. So that allows our users to have that confidence that we have the stock and they're not like having to trace that back.
yeah, and I again I think getting in alongside somebody else that's setting the price, either in a price round or a strategic investment is the other component of it. So we we're not evaluating these things. it's that lead or that strategic that's evaluating and setting that price and doing the doing the sort of like you know, you have confidence you're investing at that point in time.
Slava (33:44)
Amazing. And since you have a network of members, is the idea that I potentially can sell my shares to another member or is that in the future roadmap or that's not an option?
MG (33:54)
it's something we are looking at actively. you know, I think because we're a you know, we're a closed marketplace, but like you know it's our own SPVs there is a the world in which that that can happen. I think right now we're focused on opening up access to people to invest in the actual tools themselves, but it's we have some interesting op options on that we haven't really announced yet. So more to come.
Slava (34:18)
Amazing. I don't know if this metaphor is one that you think about or like because it might not sound as premium, but I'm really hearing almost like a Costco model where I'm
MG (34:26)
Yeah.
Slava (34:27)
paying a membership and then I just get crazy access to amazing prices to things I really want.
MG (34:33)
Yeah, I don't know that that's the yeah, I think you're right in that that's not really the way that we're positioning it. But look, I think we're trying to put the friction in up front. We're selling a scarce resource, right? Like it's really hard to get in these deals. And so, you know, what we're trying to do is make sure that our incentives are aligned with our customer, which I don't think exists in that in this space at this point in time. Like and yeah, that the that somebody that wants to
Slava (34:59)
Me meaning when you say
that the incentives are online, most of the other players you're saying are just looking for transaction volume, more throughput. Is that right?
MG (35:06)
I th I think that that's a that's basically the economics of the business, right? it's all about, you know, how much money you know, if you if you're ba if you're monetizing the off of purely off of the management fee, then yeah, like the more that you can raise the more you're the more money you make out of it. and it becomes a scale play. And I think obviously people care you know, in this space care a ton about the results for the cut for the their members and their investors.
and that's a big part, you know, that's how you build a successful business here. But, you know, at the end of the day, I there are some there are, you know, s there are incentives that creates and not just in terms of maximizing the amount of sort of volume that you get into the deals, but also just how you treat different customers in it. You know, I think what we're trying to open up is you e even for this audience that we're trying to open up, they don't want to be necessarily be putting a hundred thousand or a million dollars into deals, right? Like
if you want to do it properly, like take a look and invest four, you know, two, five, ten in a bunch of different deals and get some exposure, but also spread out your capital. And I think that's something that we're trying to we're trying to build a a product that treats customers like members of that profile really well. and right now I think it's hard if you're in that sort of group to get treated really well in this ecosystem because
People want to go and get the whales, they want to get the big checks 'cause it's just easier.
Slava (36:25)
Amazing.
so if there's listeners right now, they're trying to become a member, what are the next steps for them to take to try to become part of this?
MG (36:33)
Yeah, I mean so we we're on our you know, go to getaccess.com and you know, have a look, learn more and there's a you can just request access on the website, it's just an application. and we go through and we assess every application that comes in by hand with a little AI assistance. and yeah, we'll we sort of we'll review everything and get back to you and let you know if we're if you're a fit. but again I think we look at it
In a lot of different ways in terms of how people can add value to the companies that are raising and that's a it's a pretty straightforward process.
Slava (37:07)
Amazing. You mentioned some incredible investors, Ilad Gill, Jim Brayer, Annalevi, et cetera. Are you able to share any of the companies that you've been raising for or things like that?
MG (37:19)
Yeah, so
we we've been operating for two weeks, and then before that, publicly, and then before that we were in beta for a couple of months. So we did Crusoe micro 1 which recall s sort of exposure in the AI space. you know Whisper Aero which is a really interesting, like def defense play, which is they built sort of silent engines. you know, we just we close superpower, which is
I was actually a customer of Superpower. They're really interesting like blood testing blood testing app. Aalo Atomic. So you know, we just build nuclear sort of power centers for data centers. So some really interesting companies.
Slava (37:59)
Amazing. Anything else you want to mention?
MG (38:01)
No, I mean just if anyone's interested, like come have a look, reach out to me directly. I think you know we're always interested in learning and figuring out what the what the pain points are that we can solve. And again, I think trying to take this sort of consumer first mindset to what has historically been a pretty opaque opaque industry. You know, even to the extent we've built this like gap, you know.
we've one of the things that we hear a lot about is you know, I don't necessarily want to pay the five thousand dollars and then see the deals afterwards, like how do I know the deals so we we've actually built this model where it's if you don't invest in the first ninety days, like you get your money back. we're like you know, we put our money where our mouth is on that front, like we'll bring you great deals. and so that's the other part of it. We'd you know, taking that completely different approach to how we how the markets operate historically.
Slava (38:47)
I love that.
That's amazing.
MG (38:49)
Yeah, I mean
we don't want unhappy cust unhappy members, right? there's no benefit to us in the long term of that. And so, you know, if we have if your expectations are different from what the reality is, then you know, we don't want to be in a situation where you feel like you spent a bunch of money on something that doesn't quite match up. And I think everyone's kind of exploring this world as well. So sometimes, you know, they might have a different viewpoint of what great public market opportunities are than what we do. And so we just want to make sure that again.
my goal is always to get a ten out of ten on a promoter score survey. That's how I seem great products get built and this is a big part of that.
Slava (39:24)
Amazing. You're obviously a smart guy with a lot of experience, especially in fintech. Is there a specific podcast, book, newsletter, anything that you'd like to read, watch, listen to that we can all learn from you?
MG (39:34)
I think I like twenty V C It's one of the big ones that I probably take my time out to listen to. I'm a huge podcast guy. I I've gone to the I think I just listen to so many of them now that I can't even actually find it hard to read books anymore. I'm like it's shifted me to audiobooks. But yeah, you know, I think that's probably the one that I enjoy the most in terms of like get getting me ahead of things. I listen to T V PN.
like when I can. I think they're really good at giving you the kind of like day to day updates in a way that's engaging and then yeah bit a bit of a longer term view with Tony BC and then if anyone wants to really I mean I'm sure you guys yeah everyone already has this, but you know I think Hard Fork was great and the new machine podcast as well gives you a good way of understanding how how AI is and technology are moving. certainly learnt a lot from those.
Slava (40:25)
Perfect. Lots of good content pieces there. and our final spot is always three years out, which is,
MG (40:31)
Right.
Slava (40:32)
you know, give us one public markets pick and one private markets pick and tell us why. So what's your public's markets pick for three years out that you believe in?
MG (40:42)
Yeah. again I I've come up in the in fintech. I think one of the things that's interesting as a trend within fintech is just yield and you know, th I've been through a couple of cycles of sort of h low lower interest rate environments, higher interest rate environments, lower interest rate environments. One company that I've always seen to pretty well as a competitor within that has been
Wealthfront So Wealthfront does really well in higher interest rate environments. And they have a better, you know, I think they've done a really good job of like growing assets under custody. and I think they've been, you know, what's interesting with that business model is it kind of suffers a little bit as people as they move more into like the robo, you know, invest you know, actually investing side of the space 'cause I think it's harder for them to monetize. they seem to do a better job of monetizing when you know, people are moving back into sort of, you know,
just yield generated products and so I think that's an interesting space you should go look at that. Like I th I think if yield's gonna go up and then no.
Slava (41:35)
Amazing. We don't hear that one yeah, we don't hear that
one every day. So what's your private market?
MG (41:41)
I mean, probably the one I'm most excited about that I've invested in is Crusoe. So again, for me, incredible company, growing at incredible scale. I think they have a hundred billion plus in like locked in contracts. And for me it it's a business that, you know, they effectively you know, they they're data center power. They're like AI infrastructure.
And so, you know, that's a if you want to replicate exposure to that in public markets, you probably have to stitch together four or five different stocks to get even close to it. So I think that's a great company that's doing really well, great trajectory, and is not too far away based on their pricing from going public. And I think that's a good three year bet.
Slava (42:20)
Amazing. Well, we covered a lot of ground. you know, today you're CEO of Get Access, but from the beginning you had four amazing fintech companies you worked with. And, you know, now you're stepping up into the CEO role. You gave us some really interesting perspective that just 10 years ago there were 80 unicorns and now they're 1500. Just 10 years ago they were aggregate worth 300 billion and now they're over five and a half trillion. That's kind of crazy to think about in terms of the opportunity in the private markets you're willing to share in terms of your own.
investment strategy. You're mostly in public equities, 80%, 10% bonds, 10% all, but inside that, you load that pre-IPO space and have some of that crypto exposure. You know, no recession in a year from now, interest rates up, inflation flat, unemployment up and stock market up. You think SpaceX is doing well in the long run. Hopefully OpenAI goes public a year from now. And we got to talk about Get Access which sounds really interesting. Aligned incentives, not like with a lot of the other players where they're just making
MG (43:12)
Line is
Slava (43:13)
more money every time you transact.
Rather trying to align with the customer with a membership model, $5,000 upfront one time a year, and then just the carry after that and trying to get access to amazing deals next to incredible other investors. I think you mentioned Elok Gill, Jim Breyer, Aaron Levy, and others. obviously you're collaborating with Guy Osiri. so when he's not managing Madonna, he's getting access to deals. And then of course we talked about all the interesting content that you mentioned. I love the fact that you even said that you get to try it for 90 days.
If you don't make an investment, you get your money back. You heard it here on this podcast. So in case somebody follows up. And then of course, there was the three years out with Wealthfront and Crusoe. Michael, thank you very much.
MG (43:53)
Thank you for having me.
