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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Jeremy Giffon on Business Ideas, Distressed Venture, and Winning Lazily
- Giffon says the most interesting opportunity beyond his own buyout fund is partnering with people who have audiences to build or buy businesses, since he thinks audiences are underpriced and equity will dwarf ad income.
- He and Shaan Puri highlight regulation and compliance software as durable, mission-critical businesses, and Giffon describes distressed venture, where a broken cap table rather than a broken business creates buying opportunities.
- Giffon argues that holding companies are overrated, that bragging about owning many businesses is a contra signal, and that most buyers would do better starting a business themselves than buying one.
- The hosts and Giffon contrast grinding with working cleverly, and they praise fast responses, persistent follow-up (being Dennis the Menace), and hanging around the hoop as habits of successful dealmakers.
- Giffon says net worth and billionaire status are misleading, that cash flow and liquidity matter more to how free people feel, and that many Silicon Valley people envy New York hedge fund pay.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasAudiences are underpriced and equity beats ad reads
Giffon believes people with audiences will eventually earn far more from equity in businesses tied to them than from sponsorships. He suggests offering a creator equity in a natural product while you run the operation, as Tiny did with Mateína and the Habits app.
Regulation only moves in one direction
Shaan notes that compliance rules rarely get rolled back, and Giffon likes such software because it is cheap but mission critical and fairly AI resilient. He adds that you can front-run new rules and be the only provider for a while.
Distressed venture means fixing a broken cap table
Companies that raised too much in 2020 and 2021 may have healthy revenue but a pref stack that leaves founders and investors with no real upside. Giffon wants to restructure these so the founder owns more and the business runs profitably.
Holding everything forever is a flawed premise
Giffon says most companies, such as a $5 million software business or Chrome plugin, are not 50-year companies, so selling at a great price can maximize returns. He also notes that a holdco means running a big operating business, which is a very different skill from investing.
Apprenticeship is an exception to starting right away
Giffon generally says to start a company rather than gain experience elsewhere, but he sees working as a protege or chief of staff to a top person as the sole exception. It can open doors to investment, vouching and connections.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesI think every, um, person with an audience will eventually, the money that they make from equity in a business that they own will massively dwarf the money that they make from ad rates, uh, or, or sponsorship reads.
— Jeremy Giffon
Bragging about how many businesses you own is really weird and probably like a contra signal to how good you are.
— Jeremy Giffon
The most successful people in the world respond instantly. I cannot believe... It's kind of infuriating how true it is.
— Jeremy Giffon
movement creates information. Like, you learn more by doing more things, and so it's a really powerful combo.
— Jeremy Giffon
I view laziness as not that you don't do anything, it's that you don't do things you don't wanna do.
— Shaan Puri
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
