E173: Billionaire Michael Loeb on Risk, Innovation, and Never Giving Up
What happens when you get fired from one of the most prestigious media companies in the world at age 36? For Michael Loeb, it meant inventing a new category in subscription services, launching one of the earliest venture studios, and incubating Priceline—one of the internet’s first great successes.
In this episode, I speak with Michael Loeb, founder of Loeb.nyc, about how getting fired from Time Inc. led to the $800M sale of Synapse back to Time, his early partnership with Jay Walker to incubate Priceline, and what makes a great entrepreneur. We also dive into how Loeb.nyc works, the role of trust and pivots in building companies, and why pattern-matching VCs often get it wrong.
Michael doesn’t hold back. He’s honest, funny, and full of war stories from decades of building companies—and backing founders through multiple lives.
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57:38
E172: How Cannabis Beverages are Disrupting the Alcohol Industry w/Sasha Pieterse
Sasha Pieterse might be best known for her acting career — but behind the scenes, she’s been building a beverage empire.
In this episode, we dive deep into how Sasha's personal health journey led her to launch Hippie Water, a hemp-derived THC beverage brand that’s now in 140+ stores across 9 states. We talk about what it takes to transition from Hollywood to the CPG world, why Gen Z is drinking less alcohol, and how Sasha is redefining what it means to be a “celebrity founder.”
This conversation goes beyond cannabis — it’s about leadership, authenticity, and building brands with staying power.
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43:09
E171: SBIC Funds: How to Raise $175 Million for Private Equity & Credit Funds
This episode is a masterclass on one of the most powerful — and under-the-radar — capital structures in private markets: Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs).
I’m joined by Brett Palmer, President of the Small Business Investor Alliance, and David Demeter, who helps manage Davidson College’s endowment. We dive deep into the SBIC program — a unique public-private partnership that lets private equity and credit funds access 2:1 fixed-rate, non-recourse leverage from the U.S. government.
The result? LPs can access equity-like returns for credit-like risk, and fund managers gain scale without sacrificing strategy. Most people haven’t heard of it. That’s exactly why we did this episode.
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34:38
E170: How an AI Agent Is Outperforming VCs w/Andrew D’Souza
What if your venture partner could talk to a thousand founders a day — and actually listen?
In this episode, I speak with Andrew D’Souza, the Founder/CEO (aka Creator) of Boardy and previously the founder and CEO of Clearco (formerly ClearBank). Andrew is building something entirely new: Boardy, an AI super-connector that lives across voice, chat, and email — and introduces people to each other.
He describes Boardy as a principal, not an agent — a character with its own goals, who is building goodwill and helping founders, fund managers, LPs, and executives find each other in real time. And here’s the wild part: Boardy is already responsible for over ten multimillion-dollar deals, including helping HF0 select 3 of its 10 portfolio companies, and facilitating LP meetings for emerging fund managers.
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46:46
E169: How to Build an Enduring Private Equity Franchise w/Alex Robinson
Alex Robinson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Juniper Square, a company transforming the private markets through technology and service. In this episode, we go deep into how he and his co-founders saw the opportunity to modernize fund administration, why the private markets are decades behind the public markets, and how Juniper Square is building for the future with AI agents. We also discuss how the best GPs scale trust with LPs, why the retail channel still hasn’t arrived in full force, and the challenges of building a system of record in a fragmented industry.
How I Invest with David Weisburd is a podcast that interviews the world's leading institutional investors. Previous guests include The Ford Foundation, Northwestern University Endowment, CalPERS, Stepstone, and other top limited partners.
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