Old Ape Checking Back In – 15 Years Later

Hey all – old ape here (don't know that's still a thing now on WSO). Just realized that I still had this account , so here goes my first post in about 15 years.

Quick background:

• Tier I target school, got lucky with a full scholarship.
• Started in consulting, got my CFA in 18 months then lateral’d into 2nd year IBD, tier I.
• Moved on to a multi-strat hedge fund, basically we lend money to whoever needs it on the best terms possible (aka structured finance).
• Sat on the board of a Nasdaq spac when it was the rage a few years back 

But the truth is I always wanted to build some shit. 

So I took a year off building random stuff, then ended up in Silicon Valley for the last decade. First stop was a new boutique merchant bank spun up by some big names (ex-global chair of M&A at Tier 1, former GS head of corpfin, etc.). Then Trump admin locked down a lot of deals (we focused on Asian buyers / US tech at the time), CFIUS was brutal, deals fell through. 

Then I completely switched gears, found an operating role a venture-backed startup to see what it's all about. Landed at a no-name but turned out the founder sold his first startup for 9 figures in his late twenties - with no outside capital (wtf). Made me realize all these hidden wealth behind the scenes being built in the valley. 

When GPT came out two years ago, something told me this was going to be the biggest thing in my life time, so I called up my buddy who was a researcher at Google Brain (smartest guy I can find) and been heads-down building in AI since.

Long story short, I've seen my fair share of shit, was lucky to have worked with some of the smartest people around, now looking back (and look forward) sharing a message that I tell all of our college interns:

• Take AI seriously. Most bankers statistically won’t make it all the way to MD. PE is going to run leaner than ever with AI. IB → MBA → Big Tech pipeline is shutting down. All while AI is going from a helper role to flat out competitive to most what you can do. Traditional careers are already a thing of the past, the future for most of you is going to be rocky.  
• Had coffee w my hedge fund boss (guy was taking home $50M a year), told me he could now run a multimillion deal with just himself, AI, and maybe one analyst. That’s how real this shift is.
• IB is still one of the best exposures you can get early in your career. But no matter what you do after, learn AI. Better yet - use the new “vibe coding” tools to actually build something.

The last generation had home equity as their wealth base. The future? My bet is product equity. Build 2–5 small products, do it when you are in college, lowest opportunity cost, and got time to burn, keep them running, sprinkle some love and nurture them (not the Silicon Valley go viral or go broke shit), and be a daddy to your product. Own the product, own the community of users. Maybe it goes no where, but my experience tells me time is the greatest equalizer, problem is most people don't have the patience to stay with what they built to make it to light at the end of the tunnel. 

If you can do this consistently (and assuming your product doesn't royally suck), my bet is it will compound gradually over time, you end up with some paying customers, a decent community of users, and a good story to tell. Not only is this the best way to get real world experience, but you will feel human doing it (not pushing papers and excel models). So if you do it well, it's good for the wallet and good for the soul. 

Anyway, figure I write something quick. I will consider a follow up post or answer of questions if I get enough bananas.