FULL TRANSCRIPT

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Slava Rubin (00:00)

In this episode of Smart Humans, we talk with Ron Biscardi, the CEO and founder of iConnections, the capital introduction platform, network, and event series. We talked to him about how AI is changing his business and the world of capital. How are the coming SpaceX IPOs, Anthropic, and OpenAI going to change how people think about allocations? And of course, we have his predictions for three years out.

Slava Rubin (00:52)

All right, so welcome back to the latest episode of Smart Humans. I am super excited for today's guest, somebody who's really well known in the industry, Ron Biscardi, CEO of iConnections. Thank you.

Ron Biscardi (01:04)

Slava, thanks for having me. It's good to see you.

Slava Rubin (01:06)

Absolutely. So let's get started what we always do, which is how did you get into the world of alternative investments? You can go as far back as you'd like, but how did that happen?

Ron Biscardi (01:15)

it was very  circuitous route.  I was an electrical engineering major in college and but yet I owe I was very much a student of business and of the stock market in particular. I had read P all all of Peter Lynch's books.  in the nineties I had started to really read about Warren Buffett. But  I started in engineering and moved into high tech recruiting.

Which my my engineering background served me really well in the high tech recruiting world. And it was there where I first touched the world of venture capital. We built relationships in during the dot com boom, we built many relationships with venture firms who would you know, at the time they were deploying tens of millions of dollars into pure startups. And oftentimes the team that was getting the capital had never hired anyone before.

So the VC would bring us in as a partner to help that management team hire fifty, a hundred people and and really get the business going. So that's where I first met  folks who were in the investment world directly. And over I wanna say, you know, from the period of probably like ninety seven to two thousand five, I got closer and closer to the world of alternatives until in five,  when I co founded

a an investment seating business. So we were  in essence launching alternative investment products. We would find a team that had a good investment strategy and we would supply them with the startup capital to get that fund off the ground and ⁓ also wrap services around them. We give them some marketing help, back office help, things that every fund business needed to to run. ⁓ and because we had a little bit of scale, because we had a few of these things going at once,

it was cheaper for us to supply those things than for them to rebuild it each time. So that's where I really became I I guess solidly a part of the alternatives world. But most people know me more at this stage of my career, more for conferences primarily, even though iConnections is really a software business at its core.

Slava Rubin (03:29)

We're actually recording this at I Connections live in New York. Yeah.

Ron Biscardi (03:33)

Yes,

yes, our we're here today at our Global Alts New York event and ⁓ the the core of our platform is really the software that enables these events to take place and to take place very efficiently. ⁓ but it was in twenty thirteen when I did a deal to take over a conference business that was about to go under and we morphed it from what was at the time primarily a smaller retail event and turned it into a larger institutional event.

Primarily at that time in the hedge fund world, fast forward to today, iConnections is now the biggest cap intro platform in the world for all alternatives, hedge, private equity, private credit, venture, real estate, anything that falls into the unregulated category of funds.

Slava Rubin (04:20)

So that's awesome. From engineering to recruiting help to services to cap intro, and now one of the best in cap cap intro in the world. How would you say that you've built such an incredible cap intro business?

Ron Biscardi (04:32)

⁓ you know, it's funny, as an engineer you're so focused on meritocracy and it's it's meritocracy of ideas. Everything in engineering is in essence based on the laws of physics and you either figure out how it really works, the the laws of nature, or you don't. If you if you figure them out, you can build bridges and you know, semiconductors and all kinds of amazing stuff, and if you don't figure those out, you can't build any of it. So

It's a very like kind of black and white mindset. ⁓ when I got into business, I realized pretty quickly that that mindset, while it was good for building a bridge, it was actually terrible for business. In business, your relationships are worth so much more than any of your individual skills for most people, right? There are obvious exceptions to everything. ⁓ and there are people who are incredibly brilliant at one particular thing.

That was definitely not me. I knew that I was ⁓ I was sufficiently mediocre at everything across the tech world that I was gonna need help building anything. And relationships are really what makes the world go round. ⁓ so where whereas when I started in business, ⁓ it was weird to me that you would prioritize relationships above your individual knowledge.

Fast forward to today and relationships are literally everything. I mean, r relationships are what make business, you know, go. And this event that we've created is all about building new relationships across, you know, the ecosystem of the alternative investment world.

Slava Rubin (06:16)

You were actually quite prescient because with these AI platforms now more and more of the information is available. So really the in real life and the relationships are even that much more valuable. Amazing. So let's turn the page, which is most people typically think historically that a good personal portfolio is sixty percent equities, forty percent bonds, zero percent alternative investments. Considering this is a cap intro event for alternatives, I imagine

Ron Biscardi (06:26)

Absolutely. Yeah, that's absolutely true.

Slava Rubin (06:43)

You know, your portfolio probably has more than zero alternatives. Is that fair? Awesome. So what would be your percentages, three breakdowns, equities, bonds, alternatives, and bucket all alternatives into one number. What would be your hundred percent?

Ron Biscardi (06:46)

That is very fair.

⁓ I am basically a hundred percent in alternatives.

Slava Rubin (07:01)

Zero percent public equities. I  am zero percent bonds.

Ron Biscardi (07:04)

Very close to zero percent public equity.

Slava Rubin (07:07)

So you don't have like a retirement account which

Ron Biscardi (07:10)

Absolutely no bonds. No, I and by the way, do not do this. Okay. I am I am I am not the poster child for the appropriate asset allocation.

Slava Rubin (07:21)

But

to be fair, this is exactly what our listeners love to hear 'cause they love to hear all these different flavors of allocations. So you're literally zero percent public equities? I

Ron Biscardi (07:28)

I

am. I'm zero percent public equities, but I'm I'm in a I'm in a different situation. Well, first of all, most of my net worth is tied into iConnections, right? Like we've built this thing from scratch. It you know, whatever my net worth was when we started this, it's gotten a lot higher primarily through my ownership and iConnections. ⁓ so that skews the number ⁓ a lot for sure. I'm you know, as the CEO of iConnections, I am

presented with pretty unique deal flow, right? I get to see stuff that other people don't usually get to see investments, individual companies, like there's there's a very eclectic flow of deals that come across my desk. And you know, it puts me in a unique spot to access things that and by the way, I am not a large investor. You know, I am, I'll say I'm probably above average

Slava Rubin (08:06)

Meaning alternative investments.

Ron Biscardi (08:28)

But I'm I'm definitely, you know, the kind of money being moved at our event here today is billions and billions of dollars. That's not me. ⁓ but I am in a spot where I can access things that are generally tough to access unless you're a fund or a pretty high-level professional investor. ⁓ so that's part of why my portfolio looks weird. It's like I'm getting access to stuff that other people can't easily get access to. And

I'm more excited about that, frankly, than I am putting it into ⁓ stocks or and certainly more so than putting it into bonds. But having said that, it's probably not the smartest thing. It's ⁓ but it is definitely more fun. And, you know, I guess I'll see in a few years how this all works out.

Slava Rubin (09:17)

Perfect, let's double click into your 100% alternative. So if you pull that back one more layer, alternatives are typically bucketed into like private equity, you know, like hedge funds or PE or ⁓ venture. Then you have crypto or real estate, private credit, ⁓ you know, art or collectibles. How would you slice across those? Where would you put your 100% alternatives across those assets?

Ron Biscardi (09:41)

⁓ I would say it definitely skews probably more towards venture than anything else. I've had some private credit, a little bit of hedge, ⁓ I would say not much private equity. ⁓ I've done probably more venture venture funds and individual venture investments than pretty much every other category.

Slava Rubin (10:02)

So in that hundred percent, what percentage would you say is direct venture or venture funds? So your venture allocation application

Ron Biscardi (10:08)

I'd say it's probably fifty to sixty percent.

Slava Rubin (10:12)

And then any crypto.

Ron Biscardi (10:14)

No, no crypto. I to be honest, and I have nothing against crypto. I think I think crypto is now completely legitimate. ⁓ I think it's ⁓ I I think the blockchain technology that we have is gonna change the world in a bunch of great ways. But it's not an area that I really understand. So it's not it's not something that I've done much of. I put a little bit of money into Bitcoin ⁓ a couple of years ago, but yeah, and and then I sold it.

Slava Rubin (10:41)

Then you sold it or you still

Ron Biscardi (10:44)

⁓ I just don't really understand it.

Slava Rubin (10:46)

I mean it's at sixty thousand right now as we record, so is it an opportunity to get in or you're just like I'm gonna just stay on the

Ron Biscardi (10:51)

I I think I sold it in that vicinity. I think I sold it in like the high fifties. Okay. So I could get back in and it's kind of like I didn't skip a skip a beat, I guess. ⁓ but I probably won't.

Slava Rubin (11:03)

How about ⁓ real estate? ⁓ beyond your primary home obviously, but i are you investing into real estate as an asset class?

Ron Biscardi (11:09)

No, I'm really not. And real estate is another one that I just don't feel I completely understand. you know, because of my tech background, ⁓ and I feel like I've been around venture kind of throughout my career because as I said earlier, I kind of started ⁓ in investing by getting to know a lot of the venture funds in the nineties. It's the space I feel like I understand the best and I'm I'm just more comfortable there.

It's all tech oriented in some way, and that's my background. So ⁓ that's the primary reason for it. It and again, like, do not do this. This is not a strategy that I'm recommending to anyone. ⁓ it's just for me, I liked putting money into things I felt I can understand.

Slava Rubin (11:57)

And are you investing into anything dividend yielding?

Ron Biscardi (12:01)

there were a couple things, yeah, that I on the private credit side.

Slava Rubin (12:05)

Got it. I was just gonna ask related 'cause if you're investing a bunch over fifty percent into venture and directs, et cetera, you know, they don't really have a lot of liquidity. They're typically quite tired. So

Ron Biscardi (12:14)

Exactly right. So it's

gonna take a few years before we know how this actually does.

Slava Rubin (12:19)

Sure. So I was just wondering how like on a year to year basis you think to allocate your kind of, you know, more freer cash flow opportunities or where you keep your you know, your money that is a little bit more liquid. Is it just money markets or somewhere else?

Ron Biscardi (12:33)

Yeah, it's basically money markets and I am ⁓ my liquidity is really coming from events, right? It's coming from we put money into a company, it was sold, it went public, it's it's driven much more by that. I don't have a big concentration in cash flowing ⁓ assets.

Slava Rubin (12:55)

Awesome. So let's now move. Thank you for sharing all that. The listeners always love to hear everybody's unique perspective. ⁓ so it's a very open ended question. What do you think about the economy and the stock market today?

Ron Biscardi (13:07)

⁓ I think I think that the economy is doing better than I think generally people feel. ⁓ look I I'm very much an optimist, so I definitely am a see the glasses half full kind of guy, ⁓ most of the time. ⁓ I think America is just generally a great bet, a better bet, ⁓ especially on a relative basis.

When I look around the world, like is there a place I would rather bet or build a business than America? I don't think so. ⁓ I mean, I think we're leading on the AI front, which is the most important front in in the you know, in the business world to be focused on right now. And ⁓ that's making it cheaper and easier to do so much that you need to do when you start a business. ⁓ I'll tell you a quick story. So at iConnections, ⁓ we're as I said, software at the core.

But many of our employees are not software developers, right? They're they're in all kinds of roles, client success and sales and investor relations. And many of these areas of the business require software to get their jobs done. But it's often really hard to allocate software resources towards internal tooling and internal needs. We always prioritize the platform that touches our customers as getting, you know, the majority of our our

tech teams attention. Well, because of AI, it's now possible for basically anyone to build software. So I held a contest, which I called a vibe codathon contest. And I created, you know, first, second, third prize, you know, a thousand bucks, seven fifty, five hundred, and a panel of judges to judge submissions. Well, we have 120 employees and we got 80 submissions from our employees, most of whom

Have never coded anything in their life. But I said, just build something that's either useful for the company or useful for you and your individual job. And the creativity that came out of this was unbelievable. People built dashboards, they built things that enable them to follow up with customers directly, to ping them and remind them about things at key moments through the year.

Slava Rubin (15:04)

Incredible.

Ron Biscardi (15:27)

ways to share information across the groups. Like there were so many cool things that came out of this exercise. None of this was possible, honestly, even a year ago. And so to to be starting a business with this capability now, I mean, actually the the Codathon itself was run solely by me. I'm the CEO of the company, right? I got a million things going on. I was able, using my open claw bot, to

Slava Rubin (15:37)

It's amazing. ⁓

Ron Biscardi (15:57)

Create a website, update it. I had the thing generate videos throughout the tournament or the contest to just like keep the buzz going and you know, make people laugh. I had dance-offs of like the various people who submitted with like caricatures of them created by the open claw bot. I mean, it it's unbelievable what you can do. So I don't know. I I think I think this is gonna end up being an unbelievable period of innovation and creativity and

Ultimately entrepreneurism. And I, you know, there's a lot of people who are super negative on AI and they're talking about unemployment. I am I am I'm look, I'm not smart enough to know what's gonna happen. No basically no one is smart enough to know exactly what's gonna happen. And there are serious concerns about the level of unemployment that AI could drive. But I will tell you, in our business, I'm totally not seeing it, even though all these tools are there.

I still need someone to take it and maintain it. And if it's going to become a tool that we use every day, like someone needs to be responsible for it, right? If the server crashes, if the thing has a bug, someone's got to deal with it. I feel like the real outcome of this is we can just do so much more. The productivity gains, I think, are massive. That I think is the real story here of AI. Now, does it mean, you know, we won't have layoffs that some of these big companies

Probably not, right? I think that probably is coming. But if you're starting a business, man, it is so much easier and cheaper to start it now than it was when I started back in the nineties, my first company. I mean, I spent so much money on websites and trying to build custom tools and it took months and months. I mean, we have an idea and it's basically functional in a matter of hours. That was just

You know, that capability I really think is a reason for everyone to be super excited. So f from my standpoint, I think I think the economy underneath is actually much stronger than people realize. And I'm very excited to see what gains are gonna come out of this capability that we all now have. And it's also so much at its infancy. Like most people don't even know you can do this. Like guys like you and I are probably in the weeds on it and you know, our nerdy friends are in the weeds on it. But

You know, like actually I just showed my dad was a software developer, he's eighty three years old. I just showed him Claude Code. He took a software product that he built four or five years ago for a client. Believe it or not, he still has one client. And he took that product and put it into Claude Code and it completely updated the whole product in a matter of minutes. And now he's gonna go back to the client and say, Hey, I have I have a new version for you.

Slava Rubin (18:27)

Wow.

That's amazing.

Ron Biscardi (18:48)

And it's beautiful and it works perfectly and there's no bugs. I mean, so anyway, I I feel I feel pretty good about the future of America and and the future of capitalism. It's like this is all I think just gonna become much more accessible to everyone because of these tools.

Slava Rubin (19:06)

do you recall who won the thousand dollar first place prize for the hackathon? I d and what what was the actual product feature?

Ron Biscardi (19:09)

So there was

There was a little bit of a hiccup in my contest. So I made the contest available to the whole company. And the tech team, of course, is familiar with these tools and what they can do. So we quickly started to see, you know, the people who had who weren't technologists did really cool stuff for themselves, ⁓ but had you know, they were much less sophisticated. My tech group built

An unbelievably sophisticated AI tool that LPs and GPs can integrate into their email. It will scan all of your emails and filter based on whatever your investment preferences at that moment are. So you tell the system, you know, I'm looking for private credit this month. It will scan your whole history of emails and say, okay, well, while you're looking, here's the stuff in the iConnections platform that you might want to look at. And by the way, here are 300 funds that you collected emails on.

over the past ten years that also ⁓ are a fit for what you're currently looking for. ⁓ and then they built in all kinds of bells and whistles about follow ups and automating like the workflow of being a you know on both sides, the GP and the LP. So when I saw that thing, I said to myself, Okay, this is not fair. Right. Like these people are just too advanced compared to, you know, my sales team, my so I just split it into two. So there was there was a tech group

Slava Rubin (20:34)

Both won prizes?

Ron Biscardi (20:39)

and a non-tech. And yeah, it's you know, when you're the CEO, you can just make up your rules. So I did. And as long as as long as everyone got to participate, it was it was good. So no, I I think people appreciated that there were two categories. And and that tool is now going to go into production in the next thirty to sixty days. Well I mean exactly they're they're refining. I honestly I'm kind of thinking about it. I might give everyone a break ⁓ for a little bit but

Slava Rubin (20:40)

Cool CEO move, I like that.

Ron Biscardi (21:07)

I do think it's something we probably should do a few times a year. And I highly recommend it to everyone. It's it's not hard to do because everyone has access to Claude and even if you're on, you know, the twenty dollar a month plan, you can you can accomplish a lot of stuff.

Slava Rubin (21:23)

Probably for the future version, maybe what you do is ⁓ only allow up to two engineers per team. And that way you divide the engineers across the teams.

Ron Biscardi (21:30)

That's actually a good idea too, right? Like give each of the non-tech a tech resource. Yeah, that's a really good idea. One of the things I did that I thought would be ⁓ a really cool idea, but it didn't really get any traction was something I called a remix. If you saw because as as submissions came in, they got posted to the website, I I had my my bot build. And you could actually click in as the contest went on and and actually see what was being built.

Slava Rubin (21:36)

That's why it's more collaborative.

Ron Biscardi (21:58)

And I thought I created another category of reward where you could take an existing thing and make it add on to it. Right. Twist it in some way. To make yeah, exactly. ⁓ that didn't really get any action. The contest was only two weeks long, so maybe it needed, you know, people. But yeah, it was ⁓ and you know what was funny? The first week I thought, this is gonna be a dud. I think we had maybe fifteen submissions. And then in that next week, people like got the hang of it.

Slava Rubin (22:16)

Weeks is pretty significant.

Ron Biscardi (22:28)

And it th the submissions were coming in in droves. It it was really fun.

Slava Rubin (22:32)

And now that you had the first one, the next time you actually have this it'll be much faster momentum.

Ron Biscardi (22:36)

Totally. And the part that I love about it is it opened everyone's mind to what is possible. Like we had people in it who built really cool stuff before the contest had barely used ChatGPT. Like, you know, they're doing if you're a salesperson, you're on the phone all day talking to customers. It's not it's not something that you really have to ⁓ you don't have a good reason to really use it as much. ⁓ this really opened up everyone's mind to the possibilities.

Slava Rubin (23:05)

We're gonna do lightning round now about the stock market and the economy. So ⁓ I wanna hear your thoughts ⁓ up, down, or flat for each of these points of views. So first inflation, twelve months out. Inflation you think will be down. how much are you thinking?

Ron Biscardi (23:19)

Down.

I don't know. I think the whole inflation thing is totally overblown. I  don't think we have an inflation problem.

Slava Rubin (23:31)

Okay. Unemployment twelve months from now, up, down, or flat? Tell me a little bit more.

Ron Biscardi (23:35)

Flat.

I think the

Slava Rubin (23:42)

I

the most recent employment report came out was a little hot. So we're they're saying maybe your rates are gonna go up because it's a little hot. So I just want to hear your thoughts. ⁓

Ron Biscardi (23:49)

⁓

so on unemployment, I just think where you're gonna see layoffs, you're also gonna see other companies. Like I I think the last that I saw software hiring, software developers who everyone has been saying, like, software engineers are dead, you know, we're gonna be laying them off in droves. There's more demand for software engineers now than there was three three or six months ago, whatever it was. ⁓ so my guess is that's gonna balance out more than people realize. So

I I'm I'm predicting flat.

Slava Rubin (24:20)

Fed rate, ⁓ federal fund rate, so up, down or flat, twelve months from now.

Ron Biscardi (24:28)

I'm gonna say down. I yeah, I am. I'm gonna say down. I

Slava Rubin (24:30)

Lower.

How many like ⁓ twenty five, fifty, a hundred?

Ron Biscardi (24:37)

I don't know. I'm not enough of an economist slob to really have a strong opinion on it, but I just think I think directionally I think Walsh is going to want to support Trump's agenda. Trump's been pretty clear. He wants rates to go down. Now it doesn't mean he's gonna do it just for that reason. I think he's a very ⁓ like principled guy. ⁓ but I think I don't know. I I just I I feel like

the vibe of what's happening in the world is it's all getting better. And I I just don't think we're gonna have an inflation problem, which I guess is the main reason I think it's gonna go down.

Slava Rubin (25:17)

Got it. ⁓ twelve months from now, recession or no recession? No. Twelve months from now, we're still talking Middle East geopolitical issues or not?

Ron Biscardi (25:21)

Hour session.

I mean aren't we always talking tr I mean are we still at war with Iran? No. No. I don't think we're at I don't I I don't.

Slava Rubin (25:29)

But you know what I'm saying. Fair enough, fair enough. Yes, that's the question.

So Iran is not sending any missiles to any country in the Middle East.

Ron Biscardi (25:40)

I don't think so. Twelve months from now.

No, I don't think so. I think look, truthfully, the United States is better positioned. I if if you remove all the political calculus and 'cause like after the midterms, he would actually have more time to just hang in there and continue this if you wanted to. We are totally winning to this in my mind. Like there are parts of the world where they're super dependent on Middle East Oil. We're not.

I think we're winning to being in this relatively speaking to other countries. I'm not advocating that, you know, we should stay in it or that it's a good thing to be in it, but I do think we could hang in there for twelve months and it's not gonna impact the US economy nearly as much as it's gonna impact other economies. But I think clearly the administration is kind of signaling they want this to end. I don't think it's gonna be an easy thing to end.

Chances are I think Trump is gonna have to just pull the plug and declare victory in whatever form he chooses to ⁓ you know define ⁓ as victory. But I don't think ⁓ I don't think we're gonna be in a hot war twelve months from now.

Slava Rubin (26:57)

Okay. twelve months from now, ⁓ stock market, you think it's up, down, or

Ron Biscardi (27:04)

I think it's up. I do. I think it's up. I think we're gonna have a really good year of IPOs. I think there's gonna be a lot of action. And you know, I've seen lots of arguments for why it's it's overvalued and maybe it is, but you know, we've also seen stock markets stay overvalued for long periods of time. And you also see activity that catches up and then the value doesn't look as high as it as it once did.

So I  think the stock market is up twelve months from now.

Slava Rubin (27:37)

So you just mentioned the IPOs. So SpaceX is IPO around the corner. ⁓ and you have Anthropic, OpenAI, lots of other companies are gonna use this window as well. How is that impacting the iConnections cap intro business and how the mentality of the the LPs and GPs?

Ron Biscardi (27:54)

Yeah. So it's having a huge impact. ⁓ actually just at this event, the meeting interest of LPs to meet with ⁓ venture and private equity is up about 30% year over year. That's a really big move. Like our market it doesn't move very much in one direction or another year to year. So that's a pretty substantial move. And what's even more significant is private equity and venture have been

Flat to down for three years. It's been a very tough period of time for private markets. And the main reason is that the IPO market hasn't been great for a long time. And IPOs drive MA activity. So if IPOs aren't happening, MA activity is going to be less. So all of these private market strategies, private equity and venture in particular, growth funds, they all have lacked their historic liquidity levels.

Where you'd put money into a fund, and in years seven, eight, nine, you're gonna get most of that money back plus your returns. That enables you to take that cash and reinvest it in the next set of ⁓ of funds. ⁓ that's the game that the LPs here have been playing for 50 years. It's really been a tough five years in that regard. Most LPs have seen either neutral cash flows to negative cash flows. Very few have seen positive cash flows.

From their private markets portfolio. Now, the good news is the value of the portfolio has been going up, but the liquidity hasn't been there. Pay for the right on paper. Exactly. Because people just haven't been able to get exits at the rate we have historically. So I think this year with the IPO market finally coming back, and not only is it back, you've got the biggest IPO in history that's about to take place. You know, what is this? We're recording Tuesday.

Slava Rubin (29:29)

On paper they're getting more not actually seeing the dollars.

Ron Biscardi (29:50)

It's going to happen on Friday. You've got Anthropic coming not long after it. And now OpenAI just announced they're going public. So you're you're about to see some of the biggest IPOs in history. I think it's going to be a huge shot in the arm to the portfolios of all of the investors. And I'll say one other thing. It's unfortunate to me that this is true, but it is true. All the money in these companies is institutional money. If if you can access

the venture funds, the growth funds, the private equity funds that got access to these deals, then you have exposure to this and you're about to have a massive payday this year. Unfortunately, the way the rules shifted, you know, largely following the dot com bubble, it's made it basically impossible for retail investors to access these deals. So where, you know, if this was happening in the nineties, these companies would have gone public at ten billion dollars.

Slava Rubin (30:45)

ninety percent ago, yeah.

Ron Biscardi (30:46)

Yeah.

Right? Ninety percent ago and and this run up would have been accessible to everyone. Yeah. That hasn't been the case. So all of the LPs who are at events like mine are the ones who are invested in these things and they're about to get a massive injection of liquidity. And I think that's gonna drive a hu ⁓ I think that's why our our meeting count numbers are up thirty percent year over year. I think

Slava Rubin (31:10)

Your flagship event in Miami in February is probably gonna be huge.

Ron Biscardi (31:14)

Huge. I think it's I mean, it's already huge, but I think it's about to get a lot more interesting on the private market side because finally everyone's going to get an this injection of liquidity. And look, the key to investing well in private markets is maintaining consistent investment activity across vintage years. The truth is no one really knows which venture fund is going to be the best one.

And that's why you invest in every one of it. You pick a good management team and you stick with them and you invest in each vintage. You basically do the same thing in growth, the same thing in private equity. If you don't get cash flow back, it makes it really hard to maintain that strategy. Right. If you say, if you're you know, a big endowment, you say, Okay, I'm gonna do 10 million bucks in this fund every vintage, but you don't get cash back for seven, eight, nine years.

It starts to get difficult because you don't have the cash to meet those future capital calls. So what the stories we've been hearing is LP saying, I'm having to cut back on my commitments because we just don't have the cash to meet all these commitments. This liquidity event and this year of liquidity events is going to change that. You're going to see a lot more private markets commitments made over the next twelve months because of this year.

Slava Rubin (32:31)

Absolutely. I love your point about d diversification across vintages. A of people forget about that idea. You mentioned the hackathons, which was great examples. Is there anything else you want to cover in terms of how iConnections uses data or AI to improve the business and the cap intro world?

Ron Biscardi (32:46)

Yeah, so what we're working on right now, ⁓ I'm super excited about, but it's basically building a fundraising layer in ⁓ fundraising intelligence layer on top of our existing platform. So you can use our platform to research GPs and LPs and book meetings with each other. Then you go do those meetings and business transacts. We have a tremendous amount of signaling data. We know what everyone searched for, what they clicked on, what they downloaded.

Who their meetings were with, that's really good on the signaling side. But what we're working on now is the outcome side. When we marry those signals with the outcomes, it enables us to build algorithms so that we can make predictions on what is likely to happen in the future based on what the outcomes were, you know, that we we analyzed. So ⁓ that's something we're in the middle of right now. We surveyed 60,000 meetings.

that we hosted over the last four or five years. And about ten thousand meetings worth of responses came in. And so that gave us a great indication of who's in diligence, who's gotten capital, is it private equity, is it private credit? What kind of LPs, what kind of GPs? So we're working hard to really perfect the collection of that data because the more of that outcome data we collect, the better we can make those algorithms. And

And the more predictive the whole system becomes. So then a GP can come to us and you know, it's okay, you're a $500 million hedge fund and this is your strategy. Where should you focus your effort? Where are you likely to have the most ⁓ success? And we can point them in that direction. There's really no one in the world who can do that at scale because they don't have the signaling data that we have.

Slava Rubin (34:36)

I was about to say plus you have your proprietary meeting data, which is just so interesting. ⁓ this past February you had your inaugural Funds for Charity event, which is using the same kind of system and infrastructure that you did for the for profit cap intros to really go towards a nonprofit world, connecting the institutions and the ⁓ the philanthropists. So can you tell us a little bit more as to where that's headed?

Ron Biscardi (34:59)

Yeah, I'm super excited about funds for charity. So the basic concept was, well, first of all, we started the company by way of a charity event. In in the midst of the pandemic in ⁓ May, June of 2020, we created a global cap intro event that was purely virtual. And all the money the GPs paid to be in it, we gave a hundred percent of it to food banks around the world. So as a result of starting the business that way, which by the way was like the best way ever to start a business,

We have always done a nonprofit oriented event every year. And over time, it started to lose its sizzle and the excitement. And I just wasn't feeling great about it. And I said, you know, to the management team, you know, why don't we just put a charity event in the middle of the Miami event? Right. Miami is the biggest cafe show. 5,000, 6,000 people, 55 trillion in assets in the room. Actually, one of my people said today.

Slava Rubin (35:47)

The main event.

Fifty

five trillion trillion now.

Ron Biscardi (35:56)

if you add up the assets managed by everyone in the room and total it, it's fifty-five trillion in assets. ⁓ someone said to me today it's the equivalent of like the top seven GDPs in the world. Pretty good. ⁓ but we thought why not just embed the nonprofit event in the middle of the for profit event? Because you know, we have four or five hundred family offices, a bunch of foundations.

Slava Rubin (36:10)

Nice.

Ron Biscardi (36:25)

most of these organizations, their primary focus is philanthropy. So the charity event is great, but just the spillover effect of being in a room with thousands of other people who do have a philanthropic bend even though they may not have come for that express purpose, we just thought there's probably like good stuff that's gonna come out of that. So that was the concept. We did it. It was a huge success. Our

you know, two point version of it is we're creating something called the founders group. We're looking for twenty-five individuals who will commit to a two hundred fifty thousand dollar donation and using our tech platform, they'll be able to meet with all the charities in the event and allocate that donation however they like across that set of charities ⁓ who they meet and decide they want to support. and by by agreeing to

be one of those founders, they get the right to bring a charity with them. So the only charities in the event will be the 25 charities that are brought by the founder group. and then we'll have like an up and coming founders group who will have a smaller ⁓ dollar commitment. But if this goes well, we think the event could result in somewhere between six and probably 15 million total.

that'll get allocated at the event. And we're also trying to set it up so that people can actually wire their money to the funds for charity nonprofit before the event. And when they allocate it by the end of the event, we will have moved all that money to the nonprofits and you'll see actual donations made. Like this, this is really an important element for me because I think nonprofit events are great as a general thing, but I don't think they're always that effective in.

actually moving money. And one of the things our event has been really effective at on the for-profit side is we know tens of billions of dollars move through the iConnections ecosystem every year. We wanted to bring the same kind of ethos to charity. And truthfully, in our world, look, I'll be thrilled if we can get five, six, seven million bucks to move every year, but it's not really that much money in in the universe that we're playing in. So ⁓

We'll see how this one goes. I'm gonna be hitting you up, by the way, to help recruit some of these founders. So absolutely

Slava Rubin (38:52)

Absolutely.

In a few years out, it's gonna be billions of dollars transaction in nonprofit world.

Ron Biscardi (38:57)

I hope so. And you know, there I think there's like three hundred billion in DAFs that's just sitting there that's not allocated. And the sole purpose of the DAF is to give it to to charity. So maybe we'll be able to entice some of that to come off the sideline.

Slava Rubin (39:11)

It's huge opportunity. You're obviously a very smart guy, very curious, very connected. What is it that you're reading, watching, listening to, ⁓ doing that keeps you informed? So we ask all of our smart humans and you're one of them, ⁓ this question.

Ron Biscardi (39:26)

⁓ so this is gonna be a sad answer. And I think it's because I'm just so probably my brain is impacted by social media. ⁓ although it's not that I'm I'm not really like an Instagram scroller, but I don't really read books anymore. And I'm just kind of sad about just telling someone this, like I'm sad about it because there's so much you can learn there, but it just takes too long. I'm not a fast reader.

And I find when I wanna learn about something, I go to YouTube much more than I go to a book. And also

Slava Rubin (40:01)

For

the for the video format or for just listening? For the

Ron Biscardi (40:04)

The

for both really. For the video format and now I have my open claw bot watching the video for me and summariz what is yeah, it it can watch you know, it can watch like an hour long video in minutes and report back to me what are the highlights of the video. So ⁓

Slava Rubin (40:12)

Taking notes.

What about what about audiobooks?

Ron Biscardi (40:24)

I can do audio bo I'm better at audiobooks than I am ⁓ than I am with like actually sitting and reading a you know a hard copy. But ⁓ to be honest, I'm like my life is just too busy and moving too fast. I have a stack of books on my nightstand. Is there

Slava Rubin (40:41)

⁓ Is there a newsletter you like every day or every week? Any podcast that you like regularly, or any activity that keeps you sane? Like are you a cold plunge guy?

Ron Biscardi (40:47)

I yes.

I'm not a cold plunge guy, definitely not. I'm too much of a a wimp for cold plunge. ⁓ I love Ted Sidies podcast. I listen to his all the time. I listen to the all in ⁓ podcast. I think ⁓ I think you know, they're all just it's a great collection of really smart people. I loved BG2 with Brad Gersner and Bill Gurley. I know you know, Brad's doing something different now, but but those are all

I just think they're super smart people and I love hearing their perspective on a wide range of topics. And of course, you know, they're all leaning towards the investment world, which which is where I'm living. So those are those are great sources of data for me. ⁓ I also have my bot pulling stuff from all kinds of industry trade journals and ⁓ and actually one of our salespeople, a woman named Ashley Moss

Slava Rubin (41:42)

How sorry, how do you consume that bot information? Is that coming in like an email b digest to you? Or how do you format it like how do you digest that?

Ron Biscardi (41:49)

So

our our one of the members of our sales team, Ashley Moss, built as part of that hackathon project a ⁓ a you know, a little app that now we've integrated into Slack. So now I have a Slack channel that just every day gives me a rundown on interesting news stories in the world of alternatives. You know, Blackstone closed to fund, Carlisle closed a fund.

I w and we absolutely are. Yes. It's all thank you. Thank you. But Ashley's a step ahead of you. Nice.

Slava Rubin (42:19)

That was free advice.

and then our final question, we always put our guests on the spot, which we call three years out. So three years out, what's the prediction for a public markets pick today and a private markets pick today that when we get you back, we can say, Look how good you did or look how poorly you did. What's a good pick for three years out in the public markets today?

Ron Biscardi (42:42)

Okay,

so in the public markets I think ⁓ SpaceX is gonna be worth much more money than its IPO price. I think it will have merged with Tesla by then. Yep, I think I this is not really my hot take. Like many people talking about it, ⁓ but I think it makes complete sense. I think it definitely happens within three

Slava Rubin (42:52)

with ⁓ hot take.

No no the rumor's out there but I've heard

But you say it happens within three years.

So ⁓ what do you think? Let's just for the sake of simplicity, call SpaceX right now a two trillion dollar company. What is it three years from now with your pick?

Ron Biscardi (43:15)

⁓

I'm gonna say the two companies are combined. What's Tesla worth today? A trillion five?

Slava Rubin (43:24)

Yeah, but don't count Tesla. Let's just let's only talk about SpaceX.

Ron Biscardi (43:30)

I mean, I think SpaceX doubles in value easily in

Slava Rubin (43:33)

Three years. So it becomes a four trillion dollar company.

Ron Biscardi (43:36)

I think it becomes a four trillion dollar company. And I think if you combine them, it's somewhere between an eight and a ten trillion dollar company.

Slava Rubin (43:42)

And where is most of that ⁓ enterprise value? Is it the AI model, the foundational model, is it the data center play? Is it the rocket company? Is it the comms company?

Ron Biscardi (43:54)

I mean that's a lot. Look, I think all of everything you just said is on a pretty good trajectory. ⁓ I think the data centers in space are gonna be game changing. And I've had conversations with people who are way smarter than me and know a lot more about it, who are really, really bullish on it. ⁓ I think the capability of Starship, forget Mars, forget the moon. The capability of

Filling that thing with goods and flying it to the other side of the planet full of stuff in an hour. I mean, do you know what a business that thing could be if they if they can catch it reliably? Now, is it gonna be at that stage in three years? I don't really know, but I I think that is gonna change commerce ⁓ and the way things move around the world in a major way. ⁓ I think again, thinking about the combination of Tesla and SpaceX.

Tesla is probably gonna be selling way more robots than they are cars by then. I think three I think we'll have robots three years out. I don't I don't have any idea what the volumes would be, but I think you'll be able to buy a robot.

Slava Rubin (44:57)

out

Yeah, buy, yeah.

Ron Biscardi (45:07)

Probably but but it'll be getting valued at that point on the possibility but then you I think did was there one more?

Slava Rubin (45:12)

Elon Halo.

Yeah, the a non public markets pick. Anything anything in the private markets, yeah.

Ron Biscardi (45:23)

⁓ Zipline. So we had ⁓ the CEO of Zipline speak at our event in Miami and Zipline is a company that it's it's basically drone delivery. They started in Africa. They have this amazing story. I would encourage everyone to go online and search for Mark Rober's video on Zipline. ⁓ they built the business and perfected the drone technology by transporting

Slava Rubin (45:25)

What what is Zipline We

Ron Biscardi (45:53)

blood and like vital medicines to remote villages. I think it was in Rwanda. and they've been doing this for now, I think it's like six or seven years. It is such an unbelievable story of how they've saved so many lives because you're in this remote village, there's no roads, it's totally inaccessible. And now the the doctors in that hospital can go to an app and order blood and a drone drops the blood to them, you know, in a parachute in

a half hour an hour. Like it's game changing for a country like that. We've been slow to, you know, change the FAA rules to allow for drones, but that's now happening. They now have trials they're running in Texas, I believe in Dallas in particular. They've got you can order things that are like less than ten pounds from Walmart and get it delivered by drone if you're in the Dallas market. ⁓ when that becomes widespread

Slava Rubin (46:27)

Amazing.

Ron Biscardi (46:52)

it's gonna be it's it's gonna change commerce massively in the US. I mean obviously it does it make any sense to drive a three thousand pound car, you know, forty-five minutes to get a five pound product from door to door. Not at all, if you can have a drone do it. And by the way, the drone's gonna do it way faster than the car could ever do it. Like think about the savings on gas, the pollution, you know

CO2 levels. I mean, it's just a better way to do it for a million reasons. I think Zipline will be, you know, in three years it will right now, most people have probably not heard of Zipline. In three years, everyone will know of Zipline.

Slava Rubin (47:37)

Amazing. You can see your engineering background going all the way from beginning, right? You pick SpaceX and then Zipline. So that's really telling amazing. Well, thank you so much. ⁓ we've covered so much content if you think about it. From your engineering background to then crushing it with iConnections. You're gave us a lot of ideas about the economy. You're quite long, which is awesome. You actually think that rates will ⁓ not be going up, which is ⁓ interesting. And then it was amazing to hear that you're like a hundred percent alternatives, which was super unique, Ron

Ron Biscardi (47:44)

Fun stuff.

We'll see how it turns out though. Right, this is the best idea.

Slava Rubin (48:11)

not financial advice. The hackathon was super smart to learn about and really a great example that other companies can learn from. ⁓ you're not exactly a book reader, but who needs to be when you have OpenCloud doing the reading for you and putting in your Slack channel and you gave us some amazing final picks with SpaceX and Zipline. So three years out. Thank you very much, Ron.

Ron Biscardi (48:28)

Thank you, Slava. Great to be here, man.

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