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Paul Griffiths Profile picture
@paul_griffiths
Apr 19, 2022 • 18 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
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Jared Kushner's VC pitch deck is 100% mid & as afwul as you'd expect, a 🧵critique from an LP of Affinity Partners PPT
Background: Jared Kushner, the walking equiv of the Dunning-Kruger effect, is fund-raising for his $2B VC firm which is bankrolled by Saudi Prince MBS.

This deck is fairly awful. Let's discuss.
theintercept.com/2022/04/18/sau…
1:The mission

Kushner & Co paid some consulting firm for this word salad of nonsense. What's the market? What's the focus? Why your capital?

Oh c'mon, we know that - it's the ex-President son-in-law. That should have been the mission statement.

1/5 stars Image
2: G2M

Does Jared like baseball bc This looks like a fair-ball batting chart for the Mets, redone in word art.

Why is Affinity a wedge of cheese? Why is Strategic Enablement in the middle? Why is Affinity Value Add moving bi-directionally?

Chart-junk at its finest, 0/5 Image
3: "My Angel Investing track record"

Kush touts his experience w/Middle East Peace as a reason to invest with him. Also, gov't policy is all about "aligned economic interests."

This is the slide where GPs tout they got in early @ Alibaba, FB, Uber b/c their B-school chums. 0/5 Image
4: Literally every deck ever

Affinity focuses on "five key verticals" which is somehow every vertical and no vertical at all. They mention "secular winners" at least, so glad this won't be a theocratically led firm.

1/5 stars Image
5: Secret Sauce time

J/k there's no secrets, there's not even sauce

Their "nexus of industry and country provides differentiated insights."

Also, they invest in "scalable co's that offer best in class products."

Like Jared, this is mayonnaise on toast level bland. 0/5 stars Image
6: More Word Art

The landscape of investments looks a lot like a WordArt PowerPoint auto-generated slide with the word "TRANSFORMATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES" Image
7: Their Process (tm)

J & Co have a process for their deal flow which considers such metrics as VALUATION. But also, ROEffort -e.g. return on effort, how hard it is to due the diligence.

Also, they have an investment committee!

1/5 stars Image
8:More Word Salad

I defy you to explain this run-on sentence:
"Countries and governments with the right game plan to create synergies with top providers of innovation and capital will grow their markets and transform their societies."

0/5 stars Image
9: 21 people

The Firm. Already. Has. 21. People... Image
10: Bios of the Team

... looks as expected, but hey - they have a redhead! Image
11: Jared Kushner, 2 page bio

Here's the star - Jared.

Jared gives himself a 2 page bio, 6 TIMES the space devoted to the retired Major General.

He also does A VICTORY LAP ON COVID-19.

-1/5 stars, I hate it here. Image
TL;DR Jared Kushner's new Affinity Partners pitchdeck is as bland and awful as you'd expect & he's already raised $2B.

1/5 stars, do not recommend
Argh, first tweet should read of "a critique by an LP, of Affinity Partners" - I am in no way an investor in this fund, where is my edit button *Sigh*
Ok this thread is doing numbers, if you like this humor, come back for my totally live Twitter Game Show next week, Terrible Life Advice!
P.S. Like any sacred text, the more one studies it, the more is revealed -

At the center of the logo, three cryptic phrases emerge from the mist:

Growth Markets
Leadership Commitment
Scalable Companies

#inspired Image
Since many ppl have asked:

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More from @paul_griffiths

Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Dec 1, 2022
SBF, gives cringe worthy interviews that will get replayed for the jury when he goes to prison

Kayne: hold my beer

Or here, where he interrupts Alex Jones to correct him on how not all Nazis were bad
Cannot understate how dangerous Ye’s hanging out with literal neo-nazis is - platforming the worst vile
Read 4 tweets
Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Nov 17, 2022
My advice for students considering a career in startups, venture capital or private equity/investment banking:

notes from a recent talk, now a 🧵
MY (BACK) STORY
· Ran a startup for 18 years
· Took Private Equity $ after bootstrapping for a decade
· Started a private family office investing in VC firms
· Helped a company raise pre-seed round in '22
Startups vs. VC vs. Private Equity

Each business plays a different sport, with different rules. Your satisfaction is largely going to be derived by how well you play that sport.

College students often have no idea on what "sport" they are good in, hence this talk. /1
Read 10 tweets
Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Nov 8, 2022
Massive implications here - FTX has liquidity issues with its native token; Binance is a massive shareholder in the token

Binance withdrawls, given their position, would have created/worsened liquidity issues

Alameda, the trading company, owns $14B, $8B of which are in FTT ...
FTX invented a coin, sold it to Alameda, & Alameda held it as assets on its balance sheet

This kind of alt-coin sleight of hand often leads to rug-pulls (okay, nearly always)

The FTX exchange gives discounts, etc. to FTT holders; Binance has analogous offers for BNB holders /2
But Binance has a lot more liquidity since so much of the altcoin market runs on their underlying BNB coin

Alameda had $5B of FTT, which is nearly 2x the market

That's a lot of potential deflation (like worst examples of fiat) /3
Read 6 tweets
Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Oct 25, 2022
Adidas to End Kanye West Ye Partnership👟

For Adidas, was “one of the most successful collaborations in our industry’s history.”

Given they had no morality clause, this may be a leak to test Ye’s legal response over wkd, but 👏it had to be done. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
$1.5B of his $1.8B net worth is from the Adidas partnership & it ran until 2026. Assume a break up settlement worth $$$ so Ye may short term gain unless Adidas believes he’s so erratic/unlikeable they roll the dice. (West had previously said he’d drop Adidas to go it alone.)
Yeezy accounted for up to 8% of Adidas sales. For comparison, Air Jordan’s are about 13% of Nike’s sales.

This will have major implications for future creator-led contracts.
Read 4 tweets
Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Aug 25, 2022
🔮Predictions for Series A funding criteria come 2023: if you’re thinking of raising next year, this 🧵 is for you

In talking to a number of founders & VCs this month, I am seeing three themes emerge about what it will take to get a successful Series A raise done next year…
1/ BACKGROUND

Venture capital funding ground to a halt in May when the public stock of VC darlings dropped 80-90%.

This especially impacted Series A deals where valuation is often driven by comparable valuations of public co’s but the biz is still cash flow negative.
2/ THEMES

There is optimism that deals will start flowing again but the glut of companies means VCs can be very choosy of who they want to fund. This will be a buyers’ market in the way it has been a sellers’ market for the last few years.

Here’s what I hear it will take:
Read 12 tweets
Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Aug 25, 2022
Furious about the student loan double talk here

College as a ticket to the middle class has been a bipartisan pitch for 50 years, a 🧵

What most every hot take is getting wrong abt student loan debt:
1/ The dept of education *owns* these loans b/c the private market was too inefficient to provide them.

In 1972, Sallie Mae was created as a way for the fed gov't to make loans via banks, who in theory knew the business side better. Banks made $$, US taxpayer took the risk.
2/ Under Reagan/Bush, the US needed to reskill blue collar workers to compete with *Japan & Germany* & the bipartisan solution was to subsidize college through loans. Reagan says you gotta pay your own way.

But raise rates bc the banks & college profit from this feedback loop.
Read 15 tweets

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