Ben Miller

“We created what was the first public venture fund. So it's a venture fund, like any other venture fund, typically venture funds are closed end funds. This fund was registered with the SEC so that anyone can invest in it. And so we have a Fundrise has this platform where you can show up and invest it at $10 minimum.”

“The weighted average growth rate of public tech companies last year was 25%. The weighted average growth rate for our portfolio for VCX was 193%.”

“I think democratic ownership is the solution to how we deal with AI. The idea that everyone wants to get like universal basic income, I think that's a horrible idea. But universal basic ownership, I feel like that is magic. It's like instead of people saying, okay, the American dreams own a home, the American dreams own like the means of production, which is AI.”

“The closed ended fund, it's like any other venture fund and people are buying and selling the actual fund itself in the public markets. So that was, it was a novelty because everyone told us that closed end funds will trade at a discount. Like that's what, in the history of closed end funds, 99% traded discounts. That's how normal closed end funds work. And I thought, well, this is different. This is not like a normal closed end fund, it's something new. And I think it would trade at a premium.”

“If you're a company, if you're a tech company, you're trying to build some cutting edge software and you're taking a lot of risk, the public markets are just risk. They're just burden, they're just complexity. You don't need it if you can raise money in the private markets. And so companies don't go public until they're really mature, or if ever.”

“Some of the companies you named, and I'm not supposed to say which ones, we bought from distressed funds who were having to sell in early to mid 2023 So there was like this downturn. I mean, Silicon Valley Bank blew up in April. And so again, there's a lot of luck and some opportunistic hustle on our part, but it was just not what people thought was the smart move.”

“I think that like 10 years from now, every single person in America will have 5% of their portfolio in like public venture capital. It'll be totally normal. It'll be like an ETF. It'll be just this thing that's standard. And the public capital, so the public markets will be a huge source of funding for private tech companies.”

“I think more than 20 percent, but less than 50 So like let's say five years, 20 to 30 percent of jobs are not just displaced, but also suppressed. So you don't make that marginal higher, and that adds up to tens of millions of jobs.”