Face of the League

never stop. never settle

An Old Man’s Game

In a seemingly never-ending career, LeBron James has collected accolade after accolade, constantly cementing himself as the face of the league. 4 championships… the all-time scoring title… 4 MVP awards… the list continues.

As he closes in on forty years of age, James still manages to average 25.2 points per game along with 7.2 rebounds and 8 assists.

The narrative on ESPN and TNT, however, is geared towards who his replacement will be when he retires. Many bemoan the idea of James and his competitive cohort (KD, Curry, etc) leaving the league, claiming no one will watch NBA basketball anymore. Still, many anticipate the day that the new guard becomes the main attraction…

Who will be the new face of the NBA?

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Power Vacuum

The transition from the old to the new is not exclusive to hoops; there seems to be a sweeping sense of change in the air.

Venture capital in particular has been hit by significant exits from power players.

  • Michael Moritz, Sequoia: Moritz was an early investor in Google, Paypal, Stripe, and Instacart. He invested at Sequoia for 38 years and helped the firm set a gold standard in VC. Last summer it was announced that he would leave the firm and focus on running a wealth management unit independent from Sequoia.

  • Jeff Jordan, Andreessen Horowitz: The fifth ever general partner at a16z, Jordan eventually reached managing partner status during his 12 year tenure. Invested in Airbnb, Pinterest, and Instacart, and spent 11 years on The Midas List, a list of the world’s top venture capitalists.

  • Bijan Sabet, Spark Capital: Co-founder and partner emeritus at Spark Capital, Sabet was an early investor in Twitter and Tumblr.

  • Reid Hoffman, Greylock: The founder of LinkedIn and the face of Greylock Partners for 14 years. Known for his early investments in Facebook and Airbnb.

blue-chip VCs have seen notable partner exits in the past few years

What’s Next

The main driver accelerating the trend of exits is that megafunds are increasingly harder to deploy in venture capital. The most prestigious venture funds are often so big that investing in one unicorn will not generate sufficient returns for the fund - they need a decacorn (startup with a $10B+ valuation). While this was feasible during a decade long bull run, the past two years have proved challenging to say the least.

Firms like Sequoia and a16z have started to function more like their megafund private equity counterparts, providing diversification for their limited partners, usually endowments and pension funds. Outlandish returns are no longer part of their core value add.

To the contrary, even in an imperfect economic environment, smaller funds with a defined thesis and early stage focus tend to have an advantage in delivering lucrative distributions back to their backers.

After all, the largest Silicon Valley investing platforms started off small and made a name for themselves with their first funds before driving billion dollar investment vehicles into every startup on Sand Hill Road.

The next Sequoia, Benchmark, a16z, etc., is somewhere in America trying to close on their first fund.

League is in great hands

❝

“Don’t be like a lot of professional athletes that sign that last contract and your performance on the field was nowhere near where it was in your glory days.

Alan Wink, managing director at EisenAmper (on venture megafunds in 2024)

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