Neil Mehta - Finding Future S&P 500 Companies - [Invest Like the Best, EP.419]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2025

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today's guest is Neil Mehta, founder of Greenoaks Capital. In 2012, aged 27, Neil left D.E. Shaw to start Greenoaks with his friend Benny Peretz. One of their first investments was in Coupang, a South Korean e-commerce company led by founder Bom Kim. Neil was so convinced of Coupang's potential that he invested 40% of their initial $50 million fund into the company—a bet that eventually returned about $8 billion. Over its first 13 years, Greenoaks has backed legendary companies like Figma, Wiz, Carvana, Stripe, Discord, Rippling, and Toast—generating over $13 billion in gross profits with a 33% net IRR. Henry Kravis, one of Neil's early investors, describes him as "extremely disciplined" with "exceptional timing" who has "gone against the tide many times." Greenoaks operates with remarkable concentration: just 55 core companies across nearly $15 billion in assets, managed by only nine investment professionals. Their approach reflects their singular pursuit: finding companies that will become a meaningful part of the S&P 500. In our wide-ranging conversation, Neil shares this mission along with his framework for identifying exceptional founders, his concept of "jaw-dropping customer experiences," and how his grandfather's gun shop in India shaped his appreciation for builders of all kinds. Please enjoy my excellent conversation with Neil Mehta. Neil Mehta's Profile in Colossus Review. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. – This episode is brought to you by Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Head to ridgelineapps.com to learn more about the platform. – This episode is brought to you by AlphaSense. AlphaSense has completely transformed the research process with cutting-edge AI technology and a vast collection of top-tier, reliable business content. Invest Like the Best listeners can get a free trial now at Alpha-Sense.com/Invest and experience firsthand how AlphaSense and Tegus help you make smarter decisions faster. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:06:32) Connecting Craftsmanship to Career (00:07:45) The Concept of Jaw Dropping Customer Experience (JDCE) (00:09:48) Building a Successful Business: The Coupang Case Study (00:17:26) The Importance of Founders & Business Models (00:30:05) Greenoaks' Unique Approach to Venture Capital (00:37:54) A Memorable Encounter with Henry Kravis (00:40:52) Early Career and Lessons from Hong Kong (00:44:53) The Partnership with Benny (00:50:28) Navigating the Competitive Landscape (00:59:14) High Conviction Investments: TripActions, Rippling, and Carvana (01:07:00) Investment Strategy and Company Evaluation (01:13:23) Adventures in Emerging Markets (01:17:09) Challenges and Lessons Learned (01:26:16) Personal Values and Community Impact (01:32:16) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done For Neil

Transcript

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0:00.0	Something I speak about frequently on Invest Like the Best is the idea of life's work.
0:04.5	A more fun way to think about it is that I'm looking for maniacs on a mission.
0:08.5	This is the basis for our investment firm, Positive Sum, and it's the reason why I'm so enthusiastic about our presenting sponsor, Ramp.
0:15.0	Not only are the founders, Karim and Eric, life's work-level founders, certainly maniacs on a mission.
0:20.0	They have created a product that is effectively an unlock for founders and finance team to do more of their life's work
0:25.5	by streamlining financial operations, saving everyone their most precious resource time.
0:30.9	Ramp has built a command and control system for corporate cards and expense management.
0:35.1	You can issue cards, manage approvals, make vendor payments of all
0:38.2	kinds, and even automate closing your books all in one place. Speaking from my own experience
0:42.8	using Ramp for my business, the product is wildly intuitive, simplistic, and makes life so much
0:48.1	easier that you'll feel bad for any company who hasn't yet made the switch. The Ramp team is
0:53.1	relentless and the product continues to evolve to save you time
0:56.0	that you would never have dreamed of getting back.
0:58.2	To me, there is nothing more interesting
1:00.0	than technologies that reduce friction for other entrepreneurs
1:03.7	to be able to build the thing that they want to.
1:06.1	So much attention has gone to cloud computing,
1:08.8	APIs, and other ways of making life easy for founders,
1:12.5	what RAMP has done and is doing is build yet another set of tools in this category.
1:18.0	To get started, go to ramp.com. Cards issued by Celtic Bank and Sutton Bank, member FDIC,
1:23.9	terms and conditions apply.
1:27.3	Ridgeline gets me so excited because every investment professional knows this core challenge.
	...

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