Two mental models of investment firms I find interesting:

- Sequoia of Debt
- Apollo of Tech

1) Sequoia of Debt - top VCs attract the best companies & command better terms largely bc of their brand, the services they provide entrepreneurs, and the outcomes they help generate. This doesn’t exist in debt (as its mostly commoditized / perceived as anti-founder friendly).

2) Apollo of Tech - a small handful of firms are going to go through a similar transformation to PE over the past 25 years. They will leverage their position and relationships with entrepreneurs to move into adjacent asset classes and stages (and become full scale “platforms”).

2 continued). This is largely driven by companies staying private longer and VCs wanting to capture more of the economics vs. giving them up to traditional growth and public markets investors. It’s also defensive as many PE/hedge funds have moved aggressively down market.

2 continued). I predict you’ll see firms add public market, buy out, and debt funds in addition to their more traditional early and growth stage vehicles.