Cover of Peter Harris: GP of a Student-Ran VC University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, passing on SpaceX

Peter Harris: GP of a Student-Ran VC University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, passing on SpaceX

Peter Harris: GP of a Student-Ran VC University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, passing on SpaceX

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Peter Harris had the chance to invest in SpaceX at a $20 billion valuation, and passed. One of his students was the team lead on that deal, pounding the table ("it is Elon effing Musk"), and was the first person to text him the day SpaceX went public. Today SpaceX is worth about $2 trillion. Peter is the co-founder and partner of University Growth Fund, the largest student-run venture capital fund in the United States, where students scout deals, run due diligence and sit alongside the partners on investments in companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, Lyft and Airbnb. He tells John and Tyler how he joined the fund as a BYU student when it was the $18 million University Venture Fund, helped rebuild it after its founders left, and split off in 2014 to keep doing venture instead of impact investing. He breaks down how a student-run fund gets into deals this good, why his students see a near-100% placement rate and ~$120K starting salaries, raising a $32M Fund I over a two-year grind and a $56M Fund II right as COVID hit, what Tiger Global got wrong in 2021, and why AI is pushing venture into a world where "you're either first or you're big." Plus: his advice for founders ("don't raise venture capital"; it's "like taking heroin to run faster"), how he's rebuilding his mom's bankruptcy practice with AI agents, and a board-game confession: 200+ Kickstarter backs and five-hour games of Twilight Imperium.

(00:00:00) Cold open: the student fund the University of Utah absorbed
(00:00:58) Welcome: Peter Harris, a friend of 20 years
(00:03:35) Official intro: University Growth Fund, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks
(00:05:50) Icebreaker: why Elon Musk is his favorite entrepreneur
(00:08:00) The one that got away: passing on SpaceX at $20 billion
(00:09:41) The student who pounded the table: "It is Elon effing Musk"
(00:15:28) Growing up in Syracuse, and his dad's Rich Dad Poor Dad leap
(00:18:47) Joining the University Venture Fund as a BYU student
(00:21:13) What makes a student-run venture fund different
(00:24:54) 2014: impact fund vs. venture fund, and the split
(00:30:15) How a student-run fund gets into Lyft, OpenAI and Anthropic
(00:33:54) 100% placement and ~$120K starting salaries
(00:36:22) Fund I: $32M, a two-year grind, doubled in the final month
(00:38:27) Why "just trust me" is the hardest pitch in venture
(00:39:31) Fund II: going to market in February 2020, right as COVID hit
(00:41:12) What they look for: $2-4M in revenue and real demand
(00:47:10) How he navigated 2021's insane valuations
(00:51:03) What Tiger Global got wrong
(00:53:04) Tiger's playbook: $100M a year to Bain, term sheets in a day
(00:58:14) The future of VC: what AI does to venture
(01:00:27) The demo day where nothing was fundable
(01:02:31) The power law shifts: "You're either first or you're big"
(01:07:26) Advice for founders: don't raise venture capital
(01:08:04) "Like taking heroin to run faster"
(01:08:38) Leverage AI: rebuilding his mom's bankruptcy practice with agents
(01:11:35) Wrap-up

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