Why are so many senior associates / VPs leaving Vista?
Just something I noticed since I'm connected on LinkedIn to quite a few investors in the firm, and I could find 4-5 who have left in the past few months. Did something happen internally or is it just the normal cycle of people moving fund to fund?
Path to promote is looking ROUGH for the time being. Mid-level folks are in many cases better off taking the brand name and shopping for a good lateral opportunity to get to Director/MD/Partner quicker.
What are exit opps looking like? Not necessarily just seniors either, anywhere from analyst to partner
Dude use LinkedIn. It's a top 3 tech/top 2 software PE fund. What do you think?
one girl went to early stage AI company
Would you mind elaborating more, why is that the case? Is this specifically at Vista or other tech PE funds too?
Recent funds not performing the best, top ranks are heavy and they're not just going to promote you because you've spent X years in a seat. Usual reasons. Top heavy orgs causing murky paths for promotion are a re-occurring difficulty you'll run into at any established MF, not just Vista.
Don’t disagree with the other comments but the largest point being missed is Vista is no longer generalist across funds for juniors.
Vista got all the juniors on a call and announced allocated fund seats — some obviously not pleased with placement outcomes. Alongside writing on the wall for poor fund performance outside of flagship and diminishing long term seat potential —> time to hit the exit door ASAP hence the movement
Bold to even say Flagship is performing better than poor as well - think their Flagship and Foundation funds are flatlining at best (Flagship will definitely not raise another $20B fund, especially as Fund VII comes to light, and Foundation is mid-fundraise right now, so TBD) - can’t say either of the same about Endeavor though
Not true. Flagship is performing fine relative to comparable funds/vintages for Fund VII and Fund VIII is doing quite well. Foundation and Endeavor are very different stories though...
How would you say this impacts exit opps, if at all? Still part of the greater Vista brand, seem these associates were randomly placed which is out of control, and the reps experience across the funds is generally still the same at the analyst and associate levels (especially Flagship and Foundation)?
Just signed 2026 ASO and awaiting fund placement, but willing to drop if there is a significant impact. My initial leaning is no, since it is still the Vista brand which will do dividends for my career (plus, I’m not sure if I can get a better offer with recruiting again) - would love to hear any thoughts though
Bump on exit opps
Another thing that isn't being mentioned is that a ton of people got let go. A lot of the movement you're probably seeing right now is involuntary lol. Massive spring cleaning occurred at the firm.
How would you say this would impact incoming analysts / summer analysts?
So what does this mean - varied exit opps across funds? Or still the same given the Vista platform (and since placement was 100% random from sources I’ve spoken to)
Dude you really need to stop spamming this thread asking about "exit opps" from one of the most successful tech funds, and funds period, on the planet. The cachet will let you go to industry, startups, school, smaller or similar funds, etc. and specific-fund performance will not really matter, especially for people looking to leave at the junior and midlevel. At that stage, it's really more about what you want to do with your life than some linear life path. Broadly speaking the fund performance isn't going to make your options the same as if you were at fucking Trilantic (and hey, the Trilantic exits are probably pretty good too), but the main determinants are going to be your personal characteristics, references, interests, experience, and ability to advocate for yourself.
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One thing that I just need to chime in here on — while their last vintage across the strategies has been pretty shit, saying that Vista hasn’t been performing well for a long time is just not true. Across all 3 strategies, there’s been a pretty dramatic fall off in their last vintage, but funds before that performed consistently well and current vintages are doing pretty good as well. It very well could pan out that this is just a blip in their overall history. That being said, it also could very well pan out that this is the beginning of the end. The one point that’s making me lean the former is that the entirety of the software PE landscape has been on a similar path the last couple years. Thoma’s last vintage was awful too. Just think people here are rash to jump to conclusions when the reality is that this is a very cyclical industry with very long holding periods and poorly performing funds do exist for some of the greatest firms out there. Speaking in terms of definitive truths is misguided.
You seem to know what you’re talking about, so I’ll take it that you work for one of the few firms - how do you view exit opps from this “random fund silo-ing” that Vista did recently, and what Thoma already does I believe.
Are doors shut immediately because you’re in this one fund and not another?
Disagree with most of this - “cyclical” implies Vista has had ups and downs since ‘07 or whatever the great vintages were - there truly has not been “ups” in performance, just AUM growth.
Cyclicality is a firm like Bain Capital who has had ups in performance but downsized a couple of funds, and still maintaining the edge as an OG PE investor.
Vista’s essentially being exposed for not having any differentiation, just first movers advantage, which doesn’t last long in a saturated industry like PE. Everyone does software buyouts nowadays, and Thoma switched their entire mandate 8 years later than Vista and now has $66 BILLION more in AUM than Vista. Newcomers like FP, Hg, and legacy MFs crowd the mid-market as well, so there’s nowhere to really “hide” anymore, so I lean more towards the latter, not the former, point in your argument
Could even stem (or result?) from a talent perspective - not seeing the same amount of high caliber people at Vista anymore; there definitely still are, but I feel like for every Harvard/Goldman/Valedictorian, you have 1-2 people from W.T.F. schools and random jobs, totally uncharacteristic for really any megafund. I’m not saying everyone has to be like H&F hiring (I’m a total non target myself), but just something I’ve noticed from my network
See this thread for reference of more concrete math / return profiles: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/private-equity/vista-vs-thoma-bravo
In terms of fund performance, pretty much every single vintage except the last one has had a net IRR of ~20%+. Not sure how you look at that and say there’s no way it could possibly just be a blip.
In terms of your point on talent, a big part of that is that they do an analyst program which means a lot of the backgrounds you see on that page are internships from college. Heavily contrasted with other PE firms that pull only from elite banking programs. In fact out of the banking analysts Vista does hire, they’re just as pedigreed as everyone else — top group, top school — so this isn’t a correct statement either.
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This thread is like 50% useful information (including from an Analyst) and then like three users spamming Pollyannish squeals about whether their exit opps are crushed forever
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If those had actually been rockstar Senior Assocs / VPs, they would've been promoted. Go figure
All incoming Vista sophomores, interns, analysts, and associates viewing this thread like 👀👀👀👀👀
Bump a year later, wtf is happening?
Just a couple more senior exits below (that I’ve seen), not to mention a plethora of junior and mid-level exits everywhere (Thoma Bravo, Hg, EQT, MMs, Growth, Startups, CorpDev of their own portcos, and a lot more)
Incoming associate there, should I be picking up the phone with headhunters quickly thereafter? Feels a bit naive to view this as a “Oh look, more spots for upward promotion!” Lol
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/energize-capital-hires-senior-vista-investor-alan-glass-as-partner-to-co-lead-endurance-platform-302557071.html
https://www.einpresswire.com/article/818625035/nicolas-stahl-joins-ionic-partners-as-principal#:~:text=AUSTIN%2C%20TX%2C%20UNITED%20STATES%2C,and%20commitment%20to%20deepening%20its
following
Probably the former, as someone who was there :)
You should get great looks for HFs, other PE firms, and growth/VC if you want to stay in investing. This doesn't feel like a Bain or TPG in 2008 situation, given the massive, yet specific, secular tailwinds affecting the industry (not just fried macro like how it was back then). Realistically, unless they pivot into doing all types of tech or some sort of AI rollup strategy, I can't see how they can make it work.
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