Any good endowment style investing starts with a good emerging manager program. The general thesis is usually that, hey, I worked at Airbnb, and I think Airbnb will be a big startup factory going forward, and therefore everybody who spends out of there who are all my colleagues, I'm going to be able to back them. And that's my angle. That's a great angle. That has worked well over time and very fruitful for a lot of venture investors. The issue and the trick for the folks

in our seat is it's got a three-fund shelf life. By the time you finish Fund Three, everybody you know

at Airbnb has left. By Fund Four, you're talking to strangers. I'm Ted Sides, and this is Capital Allocators.

My guest on today's show is Jay Ripley,

head of investments and deputy managing partner at Global Endowment Management, or Gem,

an endowment-style OCIO overseeing $12 billion.

Jay joined Gem in 2014, following six years in private equity,

where he developed an analytical rigor and mindset of an owner-operator.

Jim's co-CIO Matt Bank joined me on the show last year for a broader discussion of the firm,

and that conversation is replayed in the feed.

Our conversation dives into manager selection, particularly with early stage funds.

We discussed Jay's entry into the business, transition from GP to LP, and Gem's approach

to identifying and backing emerging managers across buyouts, venture capital, and hedge funds.

Jay shares insights on the evolving landscape for independent sponsors, the challenge of manager

selection amid dispersion, and the art of staying early without chasing scale.

Before we get going, I've been waiting for an easy one-stop shop to follow public equity

managers for more or less forever.

In the Stone Age at my desk at New Haven, Connecticut, we did our work the old-fashioned way.

There was no internet back then, so we sourced, diligent, and invested using a telephone, a bunch of newspapers,

and a pile of mail delivered by the friendly neighborhood postman. I've seen quite a few pieces

of software over the years, but nothing like what Campbell Wilson is put together at Oldwell Labs

or Owl. It's literally amazing. Al assimulates everything that's publicly available

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