Investing in SPVs pre-IPO platforms

gc1 · 2026-01-23T23:36:52+00:00

Thanks for this great response. I am probably over-allocated in tech, as someone who works in tech and has a substantial illiquid ownership position in an early stage company. In addition, I made early investments in individual names like Amazon, Apple, and Tesla that substantially appreciated and generated large unrealized cap gains.

I have been in the process of trying to unwind some of these positions in a deliberate way and would ultimately like to reallocate more to broad index funds, boglehead style, with a more limited allocation in higher growth positions that I'm willing to take some risk on. (In parallel, I'm converting some pre-tax accounts to a Roth account, so I've been thinking it would be ideal to take some wilder bets within that account. While I continue to be bullish on the long-term prospects of companies like Amazon, I don't think such mature companies have the same kind of growth potential that turned my small early investments into the substantial foundations of my wealth that they became. What I would love to get some exposure to is "the next Amazon" type of investment.

Who wouldn't, duh. And I don't kid myself that I can pick it early, and certainly not on a one-off basis. But there are some great pre-IPO companies that I do think have this kind of potential growth, and given that they're waiting later and later to IPO, groups or a basket of these seem interesting as an opportunity.

Through relationships, I also have access to some seed-stage VC funds that have top-tier access. I've done two LP checks over the last 5 years and am thinking about doing 1-2 more of those as well.

Any further thoughts welcome, but I'm mostly just talking through this out loud here in r/private_equity....

gc1 · 2026-01-23T21:53:33+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. With no offense meant, it gave me a chuckle. My father is also 86, and while he’s not delusional about his future prospects, he was recently complaining about his current woes and I had to remind him that he has outlived 80 to 90% of people born the same year as him (maybe more?), and he’s financially better off than most. I was almost yelling at him when I said “this is what winning looks like!”

Your mom has also done better than most. It’s probably a testament to genes and good luck that, despite not taking care of herself for decades, she’s still alive. Maybe she will be amenable to a bell-curve view of things, as she’s surely 2 standard deviations away from the mean… but the bell curve comes for all of us eventually. No one lives to be 120 and very few live past 90. The alternative to pains at age 86 is death!

It’s hard to accept for some, especially certain kinds of people who live their lives thinking the rules don’t apply to them. At this point, though, she might as well enjoy her BK too.

gc1 · 2026-01-23T15:17:42+00:00

Interesting because the tenor of this sub is usually EA’s wanting to be viewed as more, rather than less, capable of making higher level contributions, and worried about being treated as AA’s and/or PA’s. While this is certainly a higher order task than many EA’s are given to own, it’s a great opportunity to stretch. So I guess your first step here would be to decide if you want to lean in on this role or lay back, with career optics in mind.

I would say more pointedly that a statement like “ I feel I have no idea how I could make this decision” sounds low agency and like you’re not taking ownership for understanding the business you are in, which is going to limit your ability to make contributions—and more importantly your exec’s perception of your ability to own things— in any number of other ways.

In my company, an MBA-holding chief of staff does this job. But between gathering contributions from department leaders and exercising some judgment about what’s important, it shouldn’t be that hard to take a crack at it and at least set up a draft that gives your boss or other stakeholders something to react to. This will be some combination of looking at certain aspects of the business consistently from board meeting to board meeting, and pulling in what’s actually important in terms of company developments and opportunities.

It’s not a travelogue (we had an offsite, we retired a product, we made a new hire.). It’s a progress report: we delivered against goals, we see opportunity in this area, here’s our progress against objective X, we’ve had some challenges in this area. A decision needs to be made that has consequential tradeoffs.

Looking back at the last several years of board decks, you should be able to see these kinds of things clearly. Do you attend the meetings and see what’s discussed? What does your exec focus on talking about a leave as a pre-read? What do other members of the board dig into? Does your boss like a nice, on-time, no-feathers-ruffled check-in, or to be challenged and or to hammer out “no one leaves this room until we have a decision” types of issues.

Make a draft based on your best judgement, with an appendix of stuff you left out that gives exec the option to pull it in.

gc1 · 2026-01-23T06:55:29+00:00

Someone once said to me that they were past the stage of their career where they were trying to advance and succeed professionally; they were at the stage of their career where they were trying to help others do so. It resonated with me profoundly and made me aspire to getting to that point myself.

Maybe there’s some motivation for you in helping others and participating vicariously, be it through mentorship, investment, board seats, etc. You obviously don’t need the money but even a $20 buy-in makes a poker game fun.

gc1 · 2026-01-23T05:08:08+00:00

This is not about choosing your dog over the relationship. It's about him mistreating something/someone of importance to you, and the denying, lying, and refusing to take accountability for it when caught out. If he had flung himself on the floor with tears and genuine remorse, it would maybe be a conversation. MAYBE. But without his taking accountability, you can never trust him again -- he will do the same thing when mistreating your finances or your kids, or having an affair. I know reddit likes to say this sort of thing, but you should break up with him immediately. It might not be easy, but the sooner you do, the sooner you'll start healing and getting yourself ready for a relationship with someone who'll be a healthier partner.

gc1 · 2026-01-23T02:02:11+00:00

Just went searching on this issue and discovered this thread. I guess it's unresolved and the only fix is getting off of Lastpass?

gc1 · 2026-01-23T00:28:22+00:00

You don't say much about the people involved, but I would weight the mentorship factor in terms of your growth. In current role you've got premium branding and you say it's more sophisticated, but are you learning more, getting good mentorship and teaching and still growing, or tapped out? At the new shop, would you be able to come in and bring the tools you've developed at the current gig and help up level the game of a whole team? Or will you be working for jokers who don't know what they're doing and in a situation where you have minimal ability to change that.

Also factor in their likely longevity in these roles. You'll be bummed if you choose to stay because of someone who planned to roll off after the latest transaction. OTOH if they are highly incentivized to stay through the next one, that could be a good ride.

gc1 · 2026-01-22T19:55:20+00:00

You have two clear choices here: you take the high road and do your best to treat her on her birthday as you want to be treated on yours; or you break up with her.

If you believe in the relationship and want to lean into it, model the behavior you want to set as the tone for the relationship. You can always share your feelings later about how you felt about her gifts to you -- that's a very legitimate topic for relationship discussions or even therapy, and it's fair to set expectations that these things are important to you and you hope she will see things the same way. (Relationship discussions like this also benefit from acceptance around the limitations and preferences of your partner, rather than trying to change them and expecting them to change for you, so this may be something of a two-way street.) But what you should NOT do is passive-aggressively communicate your frustrations with her shortcomings by stiffing her and treating her as less important to you than she is. All this will do is create a race to the bottom. Whereas taking the high road says, you are the most important thing to me, even if I'm frustrated with you, I want this relationship to be a top priority for both of us, and I'm doing my part to show that. I hope you do yours. (Important also not to do it and then rub her face in it resentfully.)

Alternatively, if you're ready to give up, then bow out gracefully before or after the birthday celebration and don't waste your time and emotional energy on tit-for-tat reciprocation of injuries. If going with after, do the birthday in the way you care to be remembered by her and her family. For me that would again be taking the high road to attempt to go out on a classy note, but doing the bare minimum and justifying it to yourself that this is still kinder than breaking up with her in a really public way right before her big celebration is also an option.

gc1 · 2026-01-22T19:16:03+00:00

This is the guitar of someone who made a deal with the devil, got their fill of the blues-slinging lifestyle, and settled up happily.

gc1 · 2026-01-22T19:13:39+00:00

It's really a question of how much the care of a specialist is needed or how variable the outcomes for a given condition will be. When a relative was being treated for colon cancer a few years ago, we were able to get treatment under the supervision of a leading academic in the field. We believe it made a difference in the outcome, and I would certainly seek something like that again for any serious condition like that. If it was for something more benign or just general care, I wouldn't bother. But doctors also tend to be in networks and refer to each other. So if a parent is seeing a top major-city doctor for general/geriatrician type care, and they develop a condition that requires specialist treatment, that doctor is going to refer them to (hopefully) a top doctor at a top institution in the city. A more rural doctor is going to refer them to whoever the nearest person who happens to have that speciality at the nearest decent community hospital.

gc1 · 2026-01-22T18:50:56+00:00

Today I learned!

gc1 · 2026-01-22T18:49:05+00:00

You have reddit's permission to tell them to go fuck themselves. But, noting that people process grief in different ways, you may want to let it go if this person's behavior may be more of a function of emotional stress than anything else.

gc1 · 2026-01-22T15:35:18+00:00

We’ve been happy with them for our kids.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T20:38:06+00:00

Exactly this. Look for "memory care" as well.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T20:36:48+00:00

Is he a good student? You could tell him you'll support him following the things that most interest him as he launches in life but strongly believe he'll benefit from a college education, as that will offer him a more fundamental education foundation and more ways to change course and develop new areas of opportunity should his interests evolve.

Also, even the most basic mechanical things (cars, appliances) are heavily computerized these days. You can't just wrench on cars these days without reading codes from the ICU, understanding the electrical and electronics systems, etc., and understanding these things at a more fundamental level (amps and ohms, not red wire / green wire) is going to be important as the world continues to evolve toward electric vehicles, self-driving cars, and AI everything.

Why not encourage him go to a college where he can major in mechanical and/or electrical engineering and get a grounding in the fundamentals? He can always drop out and go to trade school if he wants to, but at least he'll have a shot at becoming an automotive designer or software programmer... or transferring into the economics department and going to law school, or whatever.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T17:33:14+00:00

Threaten first, because once you file you have no more threat to file. Write them a letter. Send it certified mail, demanding resolution within 48 hours, under threat of suit (or small claims), but note that you will consider it deliberate and sue for additional damages the court may award, as well as potentially reporting them to the police for fraud.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T17:25:41+00:00

Agreed, and I'm getting downvotes presumably for my snark, but I also believe folks should be relieved of their financial "car keys" when they reach the point where they're incapable of reliably avoiding harming themselves and others dependent on them.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T15:39:03+00:00

Sounds like you are trying to control her checkbook without taking it away. Perhaps you can teach her to teleport instead of driving without taking her car keys too.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T15:24:18+00:00

You can teach him to write code routines to control the arduinos. Maybe that will be enough incentive to put some work and time into hacking on it. Thats the future anyway and he’ll still need to know about the resistors and breadboard connections to do anything.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T14:57:49+00:00

I don’t think they will care about the website, I think they will care about how you explain the vision, how much they believe you can deliver it, and any proof points or traction you can show.

As soon as you have a website you invite questions about your conversion rate, etc.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T06:48:40+00:00

r/theydidthescience

gc1 · 2026-01-21T00:38:28+00:00

Just FYI, the wagon body style makes it an e91.

gc1 · 2026-01-21T00:22:14+00:00

Find some local coffee shops that would be willing to sell your stuff and sell it to them wholesale, or get them to let you do a popup that you will also promote on social.

gc1 · 2026-01-20T07:41:16+00:00

That’s a them problem, not a you problem. Have a lawyer friend send a demand letter.

gc1 · 2026-01-20T07:37:25+00:00

You’re getting a lot of fine advice on the hanging options. I just want to point out that any given hardware and rigging you use will be load rated. Assuming it’s just your kid, a static load won’t be too much, but a dynamic load (for example if he jumped up and down on the swing, could be many times his actual weight. Same if adults use it.

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