YouSaid · the spoken record

Miles Dieffenbach

lines on the record: 112
first: 2025-08-04
most recent: 2025-08-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I mean, we take a very hard look at the data that comes out of the asset class from there's really good data from 98 to today. You look at the median IRR for the asset class over that time period for mature funds, right? So we'll look at the 10 and 15 year returns for every one of those vintages, kind of stopping at 2016 as that's going to be the closest to a mature vintage you're going to get. The median IRR is about 8% net for that asset class and the top quartile is a bit higher, 15%, but the MOIC is about two and a half X, right? And the big, you know, the difference is when you look at those performance numbers, then on a DPI number, we'll stretch that from 10 to 15 year, top quartile DPI from 1998, 15 year vintage funds per vintage year up until 2015 is 1.8x top quartile. And so”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We take everything from a lens of risk first starting off. So when you think about the different private asset classes there, you've got real estate, natural resources, private equity, venture capital, which is a mixture of growth in an early stage. You know, take real estate, for example. You could have a industrial building that does triple net lease rents, being leased to Amazon. Those rents increase 3% a year. It's a very stable asset. There's a replacement cost to that asset. Not nearly as risky. And so the returns will compensate for that it is not as risky of an asset, right? Venture picture early stage venture, you know, it's a hundred million dollar fund investing into two or three people in an idea could be a completely new idea. It could be an idea going against big incumbents, the company's not going to be profitable when they start out. Probably the riskiest asset class you could have. So you want to get compensated. You need to get compensated for that risk you're taking within that asset class.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd say we're overweight venture. I call it anywhere from five to ten points versus most other endowments of our size. We're underweight hedge funds and real assets, which would be real estate and natural resources on privates as a whole were right on par with most endowments plus or minus five points.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so we, you know, from a liquidity perspective, we've been fortunate compared to most endowments where that private equity book has been self-funding the past three years. So our distributions have paid for our capital calls over the past three years. Now, the sub-asset classes within that have had much different performance. So our buyout portfolio, our private equity portfolio, has contributed the most to those distributions. Venture has been the largest detractor of those, but it's been self-funding, right? So our private equity book at kind of that 50% number has stayed relatively consistent for the past six or seven years. Venture as the distributions had slowed down over the past three years dramatically, has risen as the navagers, but there's been markdowns over the way as well.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From a top down perspective, we manage four billion on behalf of the university. And so starting at the highest level, we think of equity and fixed income as kind of the two parts of the endowment. 85% of the endowment is equity, 15% is fixed income. That is our allocation. And we managed to do that on a quarterly basis. One step below that then is the sub-asset classes within that. And so our target is 50% of the portfolio is in privates. That's a mixture of venture capital, private equity, real estate, natural resources. private credit. The other 50% is hedge funds and liquids, which the liquids are public equities and fixed income. And so that is the top-down management of the portfolio within that private bucket. We have free reign into the underlying allocations within that. So we call it a best athlete portfolio. So how do we find the best risk adjusted returns globally across all of those different private asset classes so we can have the best risk adjusted?”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I mean, the perspective you have, you know, moving forward after that is one of the great blessings of that, right? Life is an incredible joy and a blessing, right? And so there's not many things that can take me down mentally at this point.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's special. And looking back on it, you know, everyone's having adversity. You've had adversity in your life. A lot of people do, everyone does. No life is perfect. But there's beauty in the struggle, right? Like that makes you who you are as a person, right? And it builds you into a stronger person. And so the trials of life are many. And I wouldn't change anything.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was crazy because I got in there. You get a scan right before and then you go into the office and I waited two hours in the office post scan. Usually it's like 30 minutes and I'm sitting there like I might be like biased towards negativity. I'm like it's got to be bad news if he's waiting two hours. And he came in and he had his arms wide open and gave me a big hug. It was pretty incredible.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, you know, I took that running that next day. I said, I'm going to attack this. I can't change the situation I'm in, but I can change how I react to it moving forward. And so I basically said, you know, cancer can't kill me if I don't stop moving. So I basically started, you know, a pretty insane regimen of workouts. And when I would go in and get my chemo, that was like my R&R. That was my recovery period. I'd get out. I'd start that again and flash forward four months. I was cancer free and have been so ever since.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, let's dive into it. We'll dive into the heavy and hot. It's a surreal moment when that happens. You know, I think everyone at that age thinks you're invincible. I did. And you get that news and you're in a bit of shock, right? And it was so abnormal to me when they told me I had lymphoma. I said, oh, great. What's lymphoma? I thought it was like a cold. I didn't even know what it was. And they said, it's cancer and it's progressed, you know, quite substantially. And we need to, you know, start a chemo process here within the week. And so like, I'd say most of all people I sulked for about 12 hours went home, was mad at the world, didn't want to speak to anybody. Why me? And I woke up that next morning. And one of my college football coaches had a great quote that really stuck with me, which was, you know, success in life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react what happens to you.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. You've had some incredible guests on the podcast, and I'm honored to be one of them”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, my message here to all venture capitalists now is the time. Please take your company's public. I breathe investing. These business models these GPs are creating are some of the best high margin businesses ever created. My question to any new allocator or an investor is, do you think you're going to have access to top decile managers? Because at that point, top decile, you are achieving returns above the PME consistently. But below that, even top quartile, you're not.”
2025-08-04 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source