20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Miles Dieffenbach is Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helps oversee a $4 billion endowment with a focus on venture capital, private equity, and alternative investments. Under his leadership, CMU’s private book has remained self-funding during some of the toughest years for liquidity.

Agenda for Today:

00:04 – "I Had Cancer at 26 – It Changed Everything"

07:00 – Inside the $4BN Carnegie Mellon Endowment: The Investment Blueprint

10:45 – Are LPs Getting Screwed in Venture?

13:30 – 90% of LPs Shouldn’t Be in Venture – Here’s Why

16:00 – Seed Funds Are a Trap (And No One Wants to Admit It)

20:00 – The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds

24:00 – "Index Is the Best in the Game – Here's Why They Win"

29:30 – "The Dirty Secret of LPs: Brand Over Performance"

34:30 – "When Founder-Friendly Goes Too Far"

38:00 – "The OpenAI Bubble – Will It All Go to Zero?"

44:00 – "Ping Pong Diligence & Wildest Fundraising Stories"

Transcript

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0:00.0	So my message here to all venture capitalists now is the time. Please take your companies public.
0:05.9	I breathe investing. These business models these GPs are creating are some of the best high margin
0:10.3	businesses ever created. My question to any new allocator or an investor is do you think you're
0:16.0	going to have access to top decile managers? Because at that point, top decile, you are achieving returns
0:22.0	above the PME consistently. But below that, even top quartile, you're not.
0:28.3	This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, the best podcast are shows where you've never heard
0:33.5	the guest on any other show, and you hear truly unique stories. Well, today we dive inside
0:39.2	the $4 billion Carnegie Mellon Endowment Fund with a first time interview with this guest. When we
0:45.5	uncover what they look for in managers, red flags, how they view venture today in their portfolio,
0:50.9	the rise of multi-stage funds, what specific funds they love and what they
0:55.0	don't. And joining us in the hot seat, Carnegie Mellon's managing director of investments,
0:59.7	Miles Diffenback. Now, this is a newfound friend for me, and this is one of the joys of doing
1:03.9	the show, making incredible relationships with awesome people, a very special conversation today.
1:09.5	But before we dive into the show today,
1:11.3	I love seeing the team come together to make this show happen. What I don't love is trying to
1:15.8	keep track of all the information, the data and the projects that we're working on across
1:19.8	dozens of platforms, products and tools. That's why we use Coda, the all in one collaborative
1:25.5	workspace that's helped 50,000 teams all over the world
1:29.3	get on the same page. Offering the flexibility of docs with the structure of spreadsheets,
1:34.3	Coda facilitates deeper teamwork and quicker creativity. And their turnkey AI solution, the
1:39.8	intelligence of Coda brain, is a game changer. Powered by Grammally, Coda is entering a new phase of
1:45.5	innovation and expansion, aiming to redefine productivity for the AI era. Whether you're a startup
	...

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