How Altimeter Is Investing $100M+ Checks | Anduril, SpaceX, K2 Space

Erik Kriessmann, Partner at Altimeter, joins Molly O'Shea to share his journey from leading human capital at Khosla & Index to writing $100+ million checks into Aerospace & Defense at Altimeter's $10 Billion AUM Fund. We go deep into his investment strategies, and his thoughts on key industry trends. Learn about his work with prominent companies like SpaceX, Anduril, and K2 Space, as well as the unique approach Altimeter takes in supporting founders and investing in transformative technologies. Erik also discusses the evolving exit environment, the impact of AI, and future opportunities in aerospace, defense, and hard tech. Don't miss this comprehensive dive into the minds of one of venture capital's most under-the-radar legends. Molly on X: https://x.com/MollySOSheaErik on X: https://x.com/ekriessmannBrought to you by:Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, and travel. As a Sourcery listener, you can unlock up to $500 toward Brex travel or $300 in cash back, plus exclusive perks to help you move even faster: https://brex.com/sourceryKalshi—The largest prediction market and the only legal platform in the US where people can trade directly on the outcomes of future events: https://kalshi.com/sourceryFollow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc/ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Introduction 00:49 From Khosla & Index to Altimeter 06:50 Building Relationships & Trust 08:35 Sponsorship Message from Brex 09:38 Investing in Real World Technologies, Aerospace, & Defense 14:19 Deep Dive into Anduril 24:22 Spotlight on K2 Space 29:54 Building a Winning Team 31:41 Recruitment Challenges & Strategies 34:14 Altimeter's Investment Approach 40:28 Evaluating Success in Investments 41:46 Exit Strategies & Market Trends 45:36 Opportunities in Aerospace & Defense 50:58 Kalshi Predictions (AI, Wealthiest Person, SpaceX, Aliens) #podcast #investing #technology #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #siliconvalley

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Molly O'Shea?

  How are you guys thinking about the exit environment and navigating this very volatile year?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Extreme volatility and uncertainty. Max tech uncertainty, max political uncertainty, max economic uncertainty. And so it's not the most appealing environment to go public in. You still can do it. There's always going to be appetite from investors to invest in great businesses.

• 0:19Molly O'Shea?

  Eric Crispin, welcome to Sorcery.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Happy to be here.

• 0:23Molly O'Shea?

  I'm so pumped. You are kind of a legend. You are a legend. You fly a little bit under the radar, but you have a wonderful track record already. You've been at Ultimater almost three years now. They have over 10 billion AUM. And you've invested into some of the most consequential founders in this generation. Companies like SpaceX, Anduril, K2 Space, and some more. I'd love to just start with, what's your biggest bet right now?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Happy to be here. Far from a legend. And I try to fly a bit under the radar and just be a great partner to the entrepreneurs I'm working with. Biggest bet right now in terms of position size is Anduril.

• 1:05Molly O'Shea?

  Wow. Okay, so we need to get to how we got here. So you've been in human capital most of your career. You worked at Index, you worked at Cosla. How did you flip over to the capital capital side?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I've been in venture capital over 10 years. Started at Cosla Ventures, got recruited there, worked really closely with Keith and Vinod, and Dylan was there at the time. And I was kind of co-leading human capital or talent. And so I was working with companies like Fair and Maxroads over there, right after we led the seed round, companies like GitLab. And, you know, I remember I was talking with Vinod, I was like, Vinod, how are you going to measure if I'm good at my job, if I'm being successful, if this is valuable? And he was like, oh, Eric, easy. Like, I'm just going to ask the entrepreneurs that we've asked you to spend time with, like, hey, what do you think, Eric? And if they tell me, hey, he's great, thank you so much, like, I know you're doing your job, I trust that what you're doing is, you know, beneficial and making an impact to the

• 2:04Speaker 01

  companies. And so... You know, I was doing that at COSLA. I got recruited to index to kind of like lead all of human capital and really had a blank slate to do it there. And that was like a playground for me, right? To kind of design something from scratch. And you know, how we thought about it there was you've got, you know, entrepreneurs, you've got current founders, future founders, sort of, you know, LPs, talent in the ecosystem. And what's the relationship we want to have with all these people? And like different relationship journeys, almost like you think of a customer journey, right? And so a series A company wants to have, you know,

• 2:45Speaker 01

  the CMO of a public company as an angel investor and advisor before they can, they can hire them. Or, you know, if you're a late-stage company, before you go public, you're thinking about bringing on an audit chair or a CFO to take you public or a new president. And, you know, those same people want to angel invest and advise early-stage companies. And so we started seeing all this like cross-pollination opportunity within our portfolio. And we just thought about who, like, how do we earn the right to have the, the relationships with these people? What do they want? What's important to them? What do they care about this stage of their life and career? And how can we be the conduit to that thing for them? And that allowed us to just build like really deep intimate relationships with these people.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  And then, you know, in parallel to that, we're, you know, working with our largest positions in our portfolio, spending time with, you know, Alex Wang or Dylan Field or Asaf while I was at index of, of, you know, Wiz and, and Figma and Scale AI. And really just sitting down with them and like understanding like, okay, what's the number one thing any investor could do for you this year? That would be transformational for your business? Like, I'm not an employee, but what's the one thing that I can do for you that would fundamentally move the needle for your company? It's usually like one or two or maybe three things over the course of an entire year. Almost all of them come back to like something people-related. It's a key hire or a key introduction or strategic introduction, something like that.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  And so spending time with them to identify that thing. And then you just deliver. You just do the thing. You build, and then you build trust with the founders. You, you, you kind of like deepen your relationships with the people that you're kind of like working with to accomplish that. And you earn the right to kind of like be that consigliere or, you know, trusted partner to the founder. And if, we found out that through doing that.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  You know, I'm working with Alex Wang at Scale AI on the CTO search. We ended up hiring Brad Porter, who's since left and started collaborative robotics. And so we started seeing that like, okay, this, these talent activities are leading us to these other exceptional people who are starting companies, right? You know, we initially got to know Zach Abrams and Sean from Bridge when they were like, starting to think about what's next before they'd even decided they were going to start a company and then quickly realized, oh, they want to start a company. And so, you know, that led us to kind of like source and co-lead the seed for Bridge, which eventually got acquired by Stripe after I had since left. And, um, you know, so there was all these kind of like flywheels in the function.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  And ultimately, how this led me to Altimeter is Index and Altimeter had a bunch of co-investments, companies like Confluent and ClickHouse, to name a few. And, you know, at least what I heard is the Altimeter team started to hear about me in these board meetings, that I wasn't in. Yeah. And, uh, you know, the founders were saying, oh, Eric from Index was super helpful on this specific thing. Um, and the Altimeter, who is this guy? It's like not here that's getting called on the board meetings. Who's Eric? And so I knew Jam in a little bit socially. And so, you know, I got to know them and was kind of more so started off with, they were thinking about, oh, do, do we want this function and this capability at Altimeter? And I was helping them think through that. And then there was this moment where, um, you know, they were kind of like, hey, have

• 6:04Speaker 01

  you ever thought about being an investor? Like, you've kind of done the hard part of showing that you can build trust with and be valuable to like exceptional entrepreneurs and you have a really interesting network. Like, would you have a desire to be an investor? We think you have great potential. If you wanted that for yourself, perhaps you could be great at that here. You know, Index was a fantastic place. I was happy to be there, grateful to be there, but it was just a no-brainer opportunity to kind of go from human capital to being an investment partner, having a seat at the table, working with Brad and the entire team at Altimeter. And so, you know, I jumped at that and that was a little over two and a half years ago. And, um, man, it's been, you know, incredible kind of making, making the jump.

• 6:46Molly O'Shea?

  Congratulations. That is, that's huge. That's awesome.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:50Molly O'Shea?

  And so you have developed a superpower throughout all of this, like of the details that you mentioned, authenticity, trust, between all these relationships. What do you think are the key components of developing relationships with different people and talent?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  I think you have, like, curiosity, right? Like, you have to take an interest in other people and actually care to get to know them, what's important to them, what do they care about? Um, I don't know, maybe it goes, like, I'm an only child and so I, growing up, like, had to make friends. You gotta take an interest in, in other people. Um, and so I think it starts with that. And then there's just like a simple thing of, it's not what everybody can do for you. It's about what can you do for everybody else to earn the right to have a relationship or a friendship with these people, to be a part of like their career journey or their life journey. Um, and like, I say that from a position of privilege of like, hey, if you're working at a CoS or an Index or an Altimeter, like, you're in the ecosystem. You're gonna benefit from being a good actor in the ecosystem. And whether

• 7:50Speaker 01

  that's a short term, you earn the right to invest in this company, or it comes back around because, you know, you did the right thing for somebody else. Um, you know, careers are long, uh, venture cycles are long. And so it was a couple of those things of just being curious, genuinely wanting to get to know people, being useful to them, being helpful. And then, I don't know, like, in venture, in this ecosystem, like, these are incredible people, doing inspiring things, important missions. Um, so if you, if you don't love it, maybe it's hard to do, but like, if you have that love of the game, if you're interested and curious about these people, um, then it's kind of like heaven and it, it's kind of, I don't know, at least somewhat easy.

• 8:35Molly O'Shea?

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• 9:20Molly O'Shea?

  Companies like Scale AI, DoorDash, ServiceTitan, Hims, Anthropic, Flexport, Robinhood, and Plaid, trust and use Brex. Start today at brex.com/sorcery. That's B-R-E-X dot com slash sorcery. So you're particularly focused on real-world technologies like aerospace and defense.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:45Molly O'Shea?

  How did you get interested in that after being exposed to all of the categories?

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know,

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I think there's, like, one, it's just cool. Like, it's just, it's just cool. And then, two, you know, as I think about companies, it all comes back to people and talent, right? And so I believe, like, if you can create a fundamental, like, talent advantage at, like, you know, the human level within your company and get a high density of talented people, like, you have a, you have better odds of success and the magnitude of success can be a lot larger. And so, like, talent is the leading indicator of success of any organization, right? And this was, like, ingrained to me at Index, or, excuse me, at COSLA. The team you build is the company you build. And so I just think that companies in, call it deep tech, aerospace, defense,

• 10:38Speaker 01

  energy, autonomy, mining, robotics, all these categories, you're seeing the This sort of like new class of entrepreneur go after these opportunities that were, you know, trained or had success at Palantir and Tesla and SpaceX and etc. And not only are these like massive market opportunities, like truly just huge slices of the economy that haven't been kind of attacked by entrepreneurs with venture capital in a while, but and so it's like too daunting for most. Most won't even try. Even fewer are capable of pulling it off. But these couple of teams, you know, paired with, you know,

• 11:16Speaker 01

  venture dollars, you kind of can attract like exceptional talent into your company at an early stage because there's kind of like nobody else doing this thing. And so if someone is passionate or wants to come work on something that's meaningful, that's difficult, that's challenging, but if successful is like really going to leave a mark or really have an impact, there's not 50 companies doing the thing. There's one or a couple. And so again, you can consolidate and get this like dense pool of really talented people into your business and that just gives you the strategic advantage. And so I like companies where you can stack the deck in your favor. And so like, I just think companies in this space have a fundamental like advantage on talent.

• 11:59Molly O'Shea?

  You're writing over $100 million checks now. You go from cap, human capital, straight to $100 million checks. That's truly incredible. And you're doing it for Altimeter, who is traditionally very well known as a software investor. How did you convince Altimeter, Brad, the team to get into this space?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  You know, it's helpful when the entrepreneurs that you are building conviction in and you put in front of the team are, you know, great. And so the team is good at recognizing greatness. But, but it stems with, you know, a lot of data and a lot of market work pointing to like, what is changing in the world? Like, what is the super cycle? Or why isn't now the right time to kind of go after some of these opportunities? You know, obviously, our investment, you know, in SpaceX helped inform our investment in K2. And with Anduril, like, it was pretty clear how exceptional the team was, what they were doing, why they had a fundamentally like better like cost structure and business model and how they're

• 13:02Speaker 01

  being innovative to, you know, capture, you know, a very large sort of like market. Opportunity within defense and so you know convincing the team is doing a bunch of work and you know explaining the size of of the opportunity why this team is uniquely well suited to go after this opportunity what's their insight what's it's informed by why have they earned the rights why have they earned the right to go after it and then you know stemming back to my human capital days it's like yeah you can identify the like difficult or hairy things that aren't perfect yet but you also can see like okay well I know how to help on that thing or I know that that is the worst it's ever going to

• 13:41Speaker 01

  be and that's going to improve over time and so you you can build you know fundamentally better businesses which we can talk a bit about like some of some of the trends lines within space or defense but you know our team is smart and so you know when you present the data when you meet the teams when the teams come and present and talk about hey here's what we're doing here's why it's different here's the size of the prize here's why we're going to win you know it it makes it easier to kind of you know convince the team or at least communicate my conviction based on all the work that that I've done.

• 14:18Molly O'Shea?

  I want to dig into a couple of your companies let's start with Anduril okay so let's break this down from a deals perspective.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah so after I joined Ultimeter one of the first things I wanted to do was invest in Anduril I just had a deep belief for actually you know like years I hadn't had the opportunity to invest in the company but I was like God this is just obvious to me like the team is so good how they're going about attacking the market is just I I just thought it was an obvious like great venture bet and I I thought it was destined to be a wild success and so I joined I was like okay you know we need to invest in this company and you know there was there were there were some pre-existing relationships with with Brad and some of the team but ultimately it was our mutual friend Christian who'd kind of

• 15:07Speaker 01

  like reconnected us to Trey and we spent a bunch of time with Trey and Brian and and the team over there and pretty quickly realized that they were. We're right on the cusp of, you know, some, some pretty special things. In, in fall of 2023, we made our first investment. And, you know, I think for us, it was, hey, we understand your business. We understand your market. We are highly concentrated investors. We think diversification is the enemy of outlier returns. And so, you know, we wanna earn the right to partner with you now. And we wanna concentrate and build a really large position in your business and help you, you know, go from, you know, the private to public markets and build, you know,

• 15:51Speaker 01

  an enduring standalone, you know, outlier epic business. And I think, you know, candidly, it's like, we flew down there. We spent the time, we had a point of view. And I think that's why, you know, that coupled with, with the brand and, and some of the relationships. And I think they could, they could sense our genuine sort of like, you know, passion and care for what they were doing and then, and then how we could be a good partner to them as they also, you know, scaled the business. So that's.

• 16:20Molly O'Shea?

  A clear power law winner.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  A clear power law winner.

• 16:22Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 16:25Molly O'Shea?

  And so what was the evolu-, I guess, to reframe that, they're a clear power law winner.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:32Molly O'Shea?

  They've almost made a whole vibe reset within the defense industry.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  It's cool.

• 16:40Molly O'Shea?

  They've got merch, they have a really good design.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Getting their merch.

• 16:44Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  But they do, yeah, Jan and the design team have exceptional taste. And almost like, you know, a consumer sort of like brand or affinity for their brand.

• 16:55Molly O'Shea?

  It's incredible.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, what they're doing with like the anime. I think they should make a video game, maybe an anime series. But I think they're, they're humanizing it and they're also like highlighting the, the importance of it and the importance of the mission. And they're doing it with so much authenticity, right? And I think that just resonates with investors, with their customers, with obviously, you know, talent that they're recruiting and retaining. People realize like, hey, this is a really important American company.

• 17:27Molly O'Shea?

  It's crazy to me because they have created this whole movement and this new kind of positivity in an industry that was never viewed well in venture. Coming from a traditional venture background, defense wasn't something that you would look at. I don't think it was, like you're used to looking at software companies. And so when they came around, you know, they had a tougher time starting and everything. But now they have critical mass, everybody wants to get behind them. They have ridiculous leadership. I'm curious, what have you learned from working with Palmer and Brian?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  You know, I think what stands out from them is that one, like, mission matters and authenticity is important, right? Like, even though they got a bunch of flack early on and faced like extreme sort of backlash in some cases or negativity, which is interesting, like, there's almost like unwavering support for the men and women who serve in the armed forces, yet there's like so much hate and negativity, you know, for the companies that provide, you know, the men and women of the armed services with the capabilities and products and tools that they use to, you know, be effective in their jobs, to, you know, defend and deter and be safer. And so that's like kind of interesting.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  But I think in spite of all of that, like, they were driven by a mission and they weren't going to be derailed by anybody else. And clearly that resonated with, you know, people from, you know, ultimately Palantir, where they came from, in other great places that wanted to come work on something that mattered, right? That wanted to make a dent in the universe, that, yeah, this is really hairy, this is really difficult. Your family might not understand it, your friends or whoever might like, you know, look down on you or whatever it might be, but like, you're going to be building stuff that matters. It's really hard challenges, it's going to be super fulfilling, probably fun. And oh, by the way, like, the wealth generation upside for you personally is like massive. And so... I think they've just done an incredible job with that.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  And people have come around to realize that like, yeah, this is important. I do want to work on something like this. And so hats off to them, right? Like, they did it. Early on, before it was cool, obviously, it's, I always thought it was cool. But it's, I don't think it's any surprise where they are today.

• 20:02Molly O'Shea?

  I guess to break down Anduril further, I'd like to assume everybody knows what Anduril is, because I know what Anduril is, you know what Anduril is.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:10Molly O'Shea?

  It's everywhere.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:11Molly O'Shea?

  But could you just give a high level overview of Anduril and maybe their evolution over the years?

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they're building a modern, Anduril's building a modern Defense Prime. You know, kind of leveraging software, AI, mass manufacturing, designed for mass manufacturing. And, you know, it started out with, I think initially it was like a border security company. And I believe their first product was like a sentry tower, so kind of like a surveillance tower. You know, they now have, you know, many product lines across air, land, sea, and space. And so, you know, they made a recent acquisition that got announced, this company, Klaus, which is a ruggedized, you know, edge compute and networking sort of, you know, product and platform. You know, they've got a whole suite of products, you know, underwater with Dive and Copperhead and, you know, sensor networks.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  They've got all types of like counter UAS.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  They've got drones, they've got Fury, which is their Group V autonomous, you know, drone for the CCA program. So.

• 21:16Molly O'Shea?

  Roadrunner.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, they've got Roadrunner, they've got stuff in space, they've got Barracuda. And so, you know, they've got multiple business units, a whole bunch of products. And oh, by the way, it's all stitched together with Lattice, which is a modern, you know, software platform that, you know, makes everything sort of just work better together. And so ultimately, like, the government is just getting a lot more value per dollar of spend by buying from Anduril. And, you know, so they've done a great job with organic sort of like R and D and innovation. And they've also done an incredible job with inorganic growth and making acquisitions that are very strategic in identifying, you know, requirements and programs that the government has clearly said like, we need this.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  And they've identified the technology and that technology probably never would have found its way into the hands of, you know, the government or the warfighter without Anduril. And so they've made some incredible acquisitions which have led to Dive, which have led to Fury and really sort of, you know, transformed the trajectory of that business and they'll continue to do that. And at this point, you know, like the, the growth is pretty incredible. You know, obviously the, the brand is incredible and I think the reputation of kind of, you know, what they're doing and how they're doing it. And so that's, yeah, that, that, that's a high level overview.

• 22:37Molly O'Shea?

  They're intense.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, they, they are. But they're also like,

• 22:46Speaker 01

  they're intense, but they're, and obviously they're also driven by the mission, but they're also just like fun, down-to-earth people to hang out with. They've mastered, obviously, how to, you know, resonate and build trust with the customer in DC and sell to the government and capture those programs, which again, I think comes, comes back to trust and really understanding. And then, you know, you've, you've got Palmer and, and Brian in the team that is just exceptional on both hardware and software product development and how to actually like get more innovative products into the hands of their, their customers to just get more bang for your buck, which is ultimately like you are, you're saving the taxpayer dollars,

• 23:27Speaker 01

  like taxpayer dollar, or the government is going to spend this amount of money. They're just going to get a lot more for what they're spending.

• 23:34Molly O'Shea?

  I listened to Brian at the Hill and Valley Forum and one of my biggest takeaways and from one of the clips was they're not bottlenecked by manufacturing, they're bottlenecked by regulation. Have you noticed that?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Um, I think there are definitely, you know, getting things certified, like, you know, testing at certain ranges, there are, and in some cases for good reason, but there are certainly,

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Hoops to jump through in certain cases for these companies. And so, you know, they're more intimately, I think, feeling the pain day to day as the operators of the company than I am as an investor. Like, you know, I think they're doing incredibly well, but I'm sure they could be moving even faster in certain areas.

• 24:22Molly O'Shea?

  So another one of your portfolio companies that I want to break down is K2 Space. Could you share more about the company and how you got introduced to them?

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So Karan and Neil, the founders of K2 Brothers, you know, Neil spent a bunch of years at SpaceX and the team is just an incredible, you know, group of sort of engineers that were long tenured at SpaceX, kind of some of the core people from Dragon and Falcon 9, even Starship, Starlink, Starshield. And they're building very large satellites. And so the insight that they had working at SpaceX was that SpaceX is going to own launch and absolutely own, you know, proliferated LEO, which is low Earth orbit. And so that's where their Starlink constellation orbits.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Now there's, you know, MEO and GEO, there are other orbits and there are benefits and interesting use cases in those orbits, both for the government and for commercial use cases. But in those orbits, you need to design a specific sort of like satellite for those. And SpaceX had no desire or interest to do that. And so K2 had identified a really interesting market opportunity of, hey, we can build very large satellite buses where we can stack 10 of them in a Falcon 9 and we can deliver like just unprecedented sort of capability and performance into these other upper orbits at a price that is just drastically lower than anything that had ever been done.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  So for example, ViaSat-3, ViaSat's like a legacy satellite operator. ViaSat-3, one of the most high-powered sort of like satellites ever launched into orbit. I think it was like 26 kilowatts of power, cost 500 plus million dollars to make. You can launch one of them at a time. K2 satellites are 20 kilowatts apiece. You can launch 10 at a time. And, you know, call it a 10x reduction in sort of price. So you can have 200 kilowatts of capacity launched into space, 10x like more, more capability at, at like 10x cheaper

• 26:35Speaker 01

  cost. And part of that is, you know, this team came from SpaceX. They know how to vertically integrate and build all of the subsystems and components from scratch to where if you're just an integrator and you're buying from the supply chain, well, you're going to buy a reaction wheel from Honeywell that's going to cost $2 million apiece. Well, they can build theirs for, again, like, you know, a 10 or 100x reduction in price. And you do that across the, the entire bus. Fundamental insight was that cost to launch a kilogram of mass to orbit was super expensive historically. And so everyone spent a ton of time and money to like shrink the size of things, but there were massive trade offs. Like the smaller

• 27:18Speaker 01

  something is, the less capable it is. But it was so expensive to launch anything into space, you know, you, you, you wanted to make it as small as possible to make it as, as sort of like cheap as possible. Now SpaceX kind of bent the cost curve down so far on, you know, launching a cost of kilogram to mass to orbit. It was just inevitable that, you know, things are going to get bigger again. And, you know, bigger is better in space. You can have, you know, more power, more aperture, more mass. All of that leads to being more effective. The more power you have, like it's directly tied to, for instance,

• 28:02Speaker 01

  if it's communications use case, like it's directly tied to like bandwidth or throughput capacity. And so bigger, more power equals more dollar signs.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  And the team had the skill set and the capability to vertically integrate and you know, design for mass manufacturing, large satellites that could be highly performant in really tough orbits like MEO or GEO at a, at a tenth of the price of kind of existing solutions. And this is critically important for both the DOD and kind of, you know, all of GPS and position navigation and timing is in MEO. There's a major like mandate from the Space Force to proliferate across all orbits. So SpaceX, Starlink already owns LEO. Starlink and Starshield, which is their government constellation, already owns LEO.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  MEO and GEO are up for grabs. And you have to design specifically for those orbits, which K2 is doing. And bigger is critical for both of those environments. And so, yeah, multi-orbit, sort of like proliferation. And so they're building multi-mission, multi-orbit, very large satellite buses for, for government and commercial use cases.

• 29:19Molly O'Shea?

  Tying in your superpower and your background to your companies, how do you support them in ways in which you've seen other investors not? I guess to reframe that, what do you think the biggest difference is in your approach to supporting founders versus traditional VCs?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  I mean, I can't speak about to all the traditional VCs. I, you know, I, I know what, what I do and, and how I like to partner with my founders. And again, I, it comes back to talent is the leading indicator of the success of any organization. Like, the team you build is the company, the company you build, like best team wins. And so, you know, I spent a lot of time with the companies identifying like, okay, what do we need to be great at? Do we have the, the people, the team, the person that is great at that thing that we need to accomplish? If not, like, okay, we need to identify that person and get them into the business. And it's like a constant sort of, you know, that, that's as soon as you Solve one, you're kind of on to the next. And so I spent a lot of time with with the founders, thinking through

• 30:29Speaker 01

  the team, the org structure. What are the, what are the things that are important for us? What do we uniquely, we need to be uniquely great at? What are the biggest risks? What are the biggest opportunities? How are we identifying and getting after those opportunities? And how are we, you know, getting the people that are the best at the world at those functions into our company properly incentivized and motivated? Because everything that shows up in a spreadsheet or shows up on a, on a hype video or, you know, shows up in a customer's hand is just an output of what a person or a team did. Right? Like that, that's it. And so I spend a lot of time on, on kind of the people element and then also as well as like

• 31:13Speaker 01

  the construct of the business, like are we, are we building a great business? And are we keeping in mind the ultimate goal, which is, you know, I mean, now companies are staying private longer, but, but still I think the goal is to build a self sustaining, enduring public company.

• 31:28Molly O'Shea?

  I think one of my deeper questions is we've seen throughout this category that it's like it's newer, it's newer that there's like a vibe shift going on for like it being in the spotlight. Are the companies having trouble or are you having to help support them a little bit further on the recruiting standpoint? Or is there talent running at the doors?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  You know, spend a lot of time pre investment before we decide to do something, building conviction, like can these founders recruit? Of course, you, you, you are always going to need to help them. But the beauty about a company like K two is, you know, Neil and Karan are talent magnets, people, they have reputations like other people that they've hired are were critical, sort of like, you know,

• 32:18Speaker 01

  respected leaders or managers in, you know, roles at SpaceX. And so they have followings. Right? And so, again, going back to like the core nucleus that you start a company with, or as you kind of like make each incremental hire, people are like, oh, that person went there like, I want to see what's going on there. I want to join. And so. Um, I do think it is important for founders and leaders within companies to be great at recruiting. You cannot be a great leader or a great CEO or a great founder if you're not great at recruiting, in my opinion. Um, but yes, there are also times where it is helpful for a board member to recruit an executive or to have a conversation, sometimes with a recruit's significant other

• 33:02Speaker 01

  or, or husband or wife to give them an assurance of like, um, help them understand the business or the, you know, the, the, the backing or the support that they have. And so absolutely, I spend like, you know, a half an hour of my time or an hour of my time helping one of my companies, um, recruit a transformational sort of hire. That's going to spend 60 hours a week or more in the business is just like an unbelievable amount of, amount of leverage and like a great use of my time.

• 33:29Molly O'Shea?

  And Anduril made a really good recruiting video.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  They did. Yeah, very good. Um, yeah, employer brand and ultimately like you wanna put that out there. So people wanna self-select into like, I wanna be a part of that. I, I know what I'm signing up for. I, I wanna go be a part of that. Um, yeah, Anduril's done a really, a really good job of that. Um, you know, and now I spend time with the founders thinking about, okay, what's the next big domain that we could build a business unit in? Okay, who's the best person in the world to come run that business unit? How do we start to build that relationship? Um, and how might we think about, you know, creating that with them? And so that's also, you know, really, really fun to do.

• 34:13Molly O'Shea?

  Wow. So I wanna shift over to the broader structure and strategy of Ultimater. As I mentioned earlier, and how we've talked about it a bit, Ultimater, very known for software investing, hard tech, hardware, space, that's new.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:31Molly O'Shea?

  But you're also a crossover investor. And so you guys are doing privates, you're on the private side, then publics as well. You've invested into some pretty incredible names like Snowflake, CoreWeave, HammerSpace, OpenAI, Plaid, StockX, Uber, Airbnb. I'm just really curious, how does that structure influence the way that you invest?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Me personally?

• 34:57Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  So, yeah, what I think is great about Alt-right is we do have publics and privates, right? Like Brad founded the firm with the goal of, hey, I just want to earn the right to invest in exceptional, like, companies, exceptional entrepreneurs, regardless if they're public or private. So like an OG sort of crossover. Now, we have a dedicated public fund and a dedicated private fund, but the two absolutely feed into each other. You know, for instance, all of the private sort of, you know, investment in stuff that was going on in 2022 informed, you know, our public investment into Nvidia. And our public investment in Nvidia helped inform our private investment into CoreWeave. And our, you know, relationship with Snowflake, which started when they were pre-revenue

• 35:41Speaker 01

  and still persists today, helped inform our investment into Samuho, which Snowflake later acquired, or into Tabular, which Databricks essentially, you know, acquired, or into Sigma, or into ClickHouse. And so, you know, you're, we're constantly thinking about what's changing the world, how are we connecting these dots? And everyone kind of spikes in different areas. And so, and everyone's, everyone's sort of curious. And so I think it's an advantage in terms of us identifying, like, super cycles and themes, and then obviously taking the time and doing the work to identify, like, okay, well, who are the best teams that are building in these areas? And then, of course, sometimes you just meet someone who's incredible and is building something that maybe you have a prepared mind for, but,

• 36:24Speaker 01

  you know, you weren't necessarily seeking out. So it's a blend of all that.

• 36:28Molly O'Shea?

  And how do you, do you share resources between the two? Like, do you, does the public's research help inform the private side? How does that?

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:37Molly O'Shea?

  Balance?

• 36:38Speaker 01

  So, I mean, you know, every Monday, we spend our, like, literally a couple of hours together, just talking about everything. And then every day, you know, even when people are traveling, we'll open up a Zoom or on WhatsApp. You know, people are constantly sort of like talking and sharing. So there's a lot of just like dialogue amongst the team. Um, and then absolutely, right? Like there's a bunch of data and a bunch of resources, um, and a bunch of different themes. You know, that we're tracking, uh, that help inform, you know, the investments that we're making. Also, like, we don't make a lot of investments.

• 37:08Molly O'Shea?

  Let's talk about that. So dig into the strategy there because you, you mentioned you're concentrated. You do few investments. But you're writing large checks. So could you break that down?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Diversification is the enemy of outlier returns. And so few things matter, less but better. We want to earn the right to partner with a couple of companies, the couple of teams. That have the opportunities to build like truly special companies. And so we're investing out of our seventh venture fund right now. You know, don't quote me on this, but I think like less than 70 total investments on, on the private side across those seven funds. Right? And so, you know, Brad's really great as a partner to all of us of like, hey, guys, like. Wait for your pitch. Um, you know, spend the time, you know, one or two investments per partner per year. Not that that's like a hard rule, but we do really, um.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  You know, we're not a high volume shop. We're not making toehold investments. Like we spend a lot of time really intentionally to identify and build the relationships with the teams that we're most excited about to. You know, make an initial investment and then constant earn the right to concentrate a significant amount of capital in each, you know, round going forward. Um, and we are very comfortable writing a large check to start because of all that work that we've done. And because of the conviction and belief that we have in the team, in the market opportunity, in the company of itself. And then, you know, like, we're happy to put, um. A significant percentage of, of a fund into one company that's clearly hitting escape velocity.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Or, or becoming an outlier. And, um, I think that's, that's somewhat unique. And I'm grateful for it. Like, I think it's the way to do venture capital. We believe in the power law. We don't believe that there's going to be 500 interesting companies. Uh, you know, there, there's going to be a handful. And so we're going to make, you know, fewer, better investments. We're going to put more capital into fewer companies that are our best ideas. Um, and.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  You know, it allows us also to spend a lot more time with each individual company, really understanding their business, really having the context on the industry, really being able to like, you know, help them as a result. So, you know, I, for me, it's like, I think this is a great way to, to kind of like do venture capital. And I think the way that we have it set it up all the time, or at least for me is like, this is incre- this is awesome.

• 39:40Molly O'Shea?

  What's your typical check size and stage that you get into?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, no like dogmatic rigid rules at Altimeter. You know, we will lead a Series A, we will do a very large check into a quasi-public round, like an OpenAI, or maybe the most, you know, the latest annual round. But if we're doing a, a Series A, it's typically like a 15 to 20 million dollar check, or maybe 25. And then, you know, at growth stages, call it 50 to, you know, 250 or more.

• 40:12Molly O'Shea?

  So, Sorcery is fortunate enough to be sponsored by Brex, a performance corporate card that helps you spend smarter and move faster. They've helped companies like Wiz, Scale AI, Anthropic and more, to be more efficient and scale faster. So what metrics or elements are you looking for when determining success and diligence?

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, early on, you're really, you're really looking at the team. And so I think, you know, if there's 10 reasons we invest in a company, maybe the first eight are like team, then product and market. And of course, you, you need to validate and confirm like metrics on the business. The earlier stage, the less sort of, you know, data you're going to have. The, the later stage, there's going to be a lot more data. So for software companies, you're looking for, you know, sales metrics. You're looking at ACVs, you're looking at ARR, you're looking about at expansions and NDR within accounts, you're looking at churn, you're looking at, at, you know, gross margins, you know, stuff like that.

• 41:09Molly O'Shea?

  How do you determine success in hard tech companies?

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, hard tech companies, early on, you're looking at like technical progress and milestones. Obviously, you want to see some pull and demand from the customer. You know, it could be partnerships, it could be like early sort of program wins. Ultimately, like, yes, you need to be paying attention to like the forecast, bookings, pipeline coverage, you know, ACV, how that turns into revenue, how that converts into ultimately like earnings and free cash flow. And then, you know, how are you being mindful on kind of like the margins and, and sort of the operating, you know, cash needs of the business?

• 41:46Molly O'Shea?

  I want to move into the exit environment because you and your team have such an interesting perspective on this, being a crossover fund, having eye on the publics. Brad is a genius. He is like the oracle of software companies and everything in general and BG2, big fan. Great podcast. So I'd love to understand from your perspective and the team's perspective, how are you guys thinking about the exit environment and navigating this like very volatile year?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, extreme volatility and uncertainty, right? Like max tech uncertainty, max political uncertainty, max economic uncertainty. And so it's not the most appealing environment to go public in. Now, you still can do it, of course, right? If you have a great business, there's always going to be appetite from investors to invest in great businesses. But there's also more optionality for founders in great companies than ever. And so there is a lot of private capital that is seeking return, that is happy to invest at higher valuations into later-stage companies, which allow these companies to stay private longer. And so, you know, founders and companies have more, you know, optionality for capital than they historically have.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  I think most companies' goal is to go public, be a standalone enduring, you know, company in the public markets, but it's not the only path, right? As we've seen with SpaceX, you know, they do buy annual tenders where if you're an early-stage investor or an employee, there's opportunities for liquidity and they've done that very successfully. And you're going to continue to see that. Now you're seeing that more with Stripe and Databricks and, you know, Andro is still private. And so great companies are staying private longer and a lot of that value is accruing to investors who have access to those companies in the private market. Some of those companies may never go public. Some of them absolutely will.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  And so I think you're just seeing the maturation of the capital markets and how to underwrite and partner with these businesses regardless of, you know, the exit path that they choose.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  And it's always going to be a tale of like the haves or the have nots, right? Like I don't think there's a lot to worry about. If you're an early-stage investor in a company that ends up being SpaceX, you will be able to generate liquidity for your LPs, right? Now, if you're an early-stage investor that was overcapitalized and has a really high valuation and doesn't have, you know, any sort of, you know, secondary interest in the private markets or doesn't have a path to go public or isn't going to get acquired and you're kind of stuck, well, that's, you know, another situation entirely.

• 44:36Molly O'Shea?

  Do you think that we're just going to get stuck with a class of secondaries? And that'll be a new financial industry to breed off of?

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Hmm, I don't know if we're going to get stuck with it, but I certainly think that, you know, what SpaceX has done works well for them and their employees and like all stakeholders and shareholders. And, you know, ultimately, the longer you stay private, you have early investors who, employees who might benefit from some liquidity. It allows you to kind of manage dilution well. If you have a very profitable business, you can start to buy back your own stock. And so I think you are seeing more creative ways for companies that are staying private longer to kind of like manage those things, the needs of their business, the needs of their investors, the needs of their employees.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  And, you know, capital markets are going to kind of form themselves around these special assets and these special companies to serve their needs.

• 45:36Molly O'Shea?

  More macro on aerospace, defense, industrials. Where do you see the biggest opportunity for the category?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  You know, I think aerospace and defense. I think there's like Anduril's on a roll. So like they're they're well on their way. I think there's massive opportunity in space. Hence, the investment in in K2. Obviously, Anduril is a space division SpaceX. So we think we're very like well set up to to capture a lot of the profit dollars of of that market there. I think there's a really large opportunity in missiles and munitions. As we're seeing kind of highlighted very publicly with the, you know, lack of supply of solid rocket motors or munitions that are kind of being in stockpiles being drained, you know, given sort of like Ukraine and in Israel and rebuilding the stockpile is super important for sort of like deterrence. Those are two of the

• 46:31Speaker 01

  big ones. I'd say autonomy is getting there, just like autonomy across air, land and sea is kind of inevitable. Those are the big ones in in defense, I would say, that that that are exciting. And so maybe it's like nothing earth shatteringly insightful there.

• 46:47Molly O'Shea?

  Are you as bullish on drones as everyone else?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  You know, we're talking like drones in the because you're, you know, you have drones on water, drones under underwater, drones in the sky. I

• 47:02Speaker 01

  I don't think there are going to be a hundred massive drone companies. I think there will be a couple. I do think that drones are going to play a major role in, you know, you know, future conflicts in in defense. Absolutely. There's going to be different classes of drones, right? Like large ones, small ones, medium ones, ones that, you know, are on the surface of the water, same thing. So there's going to be whole fleets of these. But

• 47:31Speaker 01

  we haven't made a standalone investment in the category yet. And so but I do think there there are some some companies, some large companies that can be built there. I think there's other use cases that are really interesting for drones, like drones for for public safety. You're seeing kind of what Flock Safety, their acquisition of Aerodome. Like, I think that we will see a lot of police departments using these for, you know, public safety and and policing communities in a way that they can more quickly respond to 911 calls or keep the community safe. So I think you'll see really interesting use cases for drones there. I think you'll see drones for deliveries. So I do think you will see a lot more drones in in general in the future. Other things we're excited about.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Energy, mining, minerals, autonomy, robotics, like massive opportunities in those markets as well, and some really exceptional talent entering those markets and building in them. And so we're spending a lot of time there as well, you know, to think about how we want to, who we want to invest in and how we want to participate.

• 48:37Molly O'Shea?

  Well, we recently had Base on and Justin and Zach absolutely crushed it. They did such a good job.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, Justin and Zach are just incredible. I mean, talk about exceptional entrepreneurs, like super complimentary, just like hyper relevant experience. Yeah, that was a no-brainer investment for us. You know, we'd kind of known Zach going back to his days at Thrive. So when he let us know he was starting a company, we were, you know, thrilled to be able to participate in the Series A and, you know, double down in the most recent Series B and big, big fans and supporters of what they're doing.

• 49:11Molly O'Shea?

  And they're executing violently.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Executing violently, yeah. I mean, the density, like the density of talent in that company is just unbelievable, right? And so they have this exceptional team, they've been able to raise money and like big, bold, like hairy market opportunity, but like I really think they're the only ones who have a shot.

• 49:31Molly O'Shea?

  No, it's incredible. I remember in the interview Zach was sharing that they've had people move to Austin just to work for the company and thinking that it's a startup, you know, they just raised their Series B. I mean, it's a huge Series B, but that's pretty incredible. Like that's when you know you have great leadership and a really good mission.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, Zach is pretty exceptional at pitching Texas and Austin in particular. And then, yeah, back to like mission matters, right? Like there aren't many companies you could go work at if you want to work on that problem. And so like Base is probably the best one. People care like for people that care about what they do for work every day. Um, you know, that's a unique opportunity. And so, yeah, Zach and Justin have been very successful at convincing people who have a lot of options and what they could do to come move to Austin to be a part of Base. And like, you know, speaking about like metrics and indicators, like those are the indicators that really matter is like, okay, who is the team hiring? Because again, that's the leading indicator to,

• 50:32Speaker 01

  you know, the success of any organization. And so like, man, if you just track who Base and who some of these companies are hiring, like, that's really how I build conviction. That's really what I think maybe back to your question earlier, like what most investors miss is like, pay attention to that, really study that and really understand and have the ability to like identify the talent that's joining these companies. Um, and that is going to tell you a lot.

• 50:58Molly O'Shea?

  Such a good, that's such a good place to transition to a rap.

• 51:02Speaker 01

  All right.

• 51:02Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, so I want to do something fun.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:04Molly O'Shea?

  I usually end these with future outlooks.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:07Molly O'Shea?

  Because I want to know what people are most interested in, predictions, that sort of thing. I thought it would be fun to incorporate Kalshi.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 51:14Molly O'Shea?

  I pulled out some really, some, some really good ones that are relevant for you.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:20Molly O'Shea?

  Um, okay. So, these will, these encompass everything from AI to finance and whatnot. So the first one is best AI this month. You get to choose Gemini, Grok, or ChatGPT.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  For me, it's ChatGPT, not even close.

• 51:38Molly O'Shea?

  Really? Are you using deep research?

• 51:40Speaker 01

  I am using deep research. Oh, three is incredible. I, I do like Grok. When I'm using X, like Grok is super intuitive and like, you know, in line with the product. And so that's super helpful. I, I'm not using Gemini, but I'm also not coding or using, you know, cursor or any of the other kind of like, you know, coding agents that I think is quite like, uh, excuse me, Gemini is quite popular with, with developers, but ChatGPT for me is just like next level.

• 52:05Molly O'Shea?

  I've been toggling between Grok and ChatGPT, but I usually just go back to ChatGPT.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, three.

• 52:11Molly O'Shea?

  I just, I need a separate interface. It needs to be outside of it. Cause sometimes I'm like, am I going to accidentally tweet this question?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah. ChatGPT is just so good and now like they kind of like they've got more memory it kind of knows who I am and so it just gets better and better for me and so I've really shifted. I even I use perplexity a lot early on. I've really shifted over to just like just using ChatGPT, although I do spend a lot of time on X and so.

• 52:36Molly O'Shea?

  I don't use perplexity at all.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't really anymore. It's helpful. I I enjoy it for like really basic question answers, kind of like basic Google search type of stuff, but if I'm like.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Like trying to understand something or doing more research or more like longer form questions, I do all that in ChatGPT.

• 52:54Molly O'Shea?

  Wow.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:55Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, so the next one, we've got four of these.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Okay, cool.

• 52:58Molly O'Shea?

  Buckle up. The next one. Who will be the top three wealthiest people in the world?

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Um, when?

• 53:08Molly O'Shea?

  I don't know.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  I don't think I don't know if Elon's gonna get unseated anytime soon. Um, right? Like, look at the companies he's building, the trajectory that they're on, like, I, you know, I think.

• 53:19Molly O'Shea?

  I'm really surprised he's not in the top three for this right now.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Is he?

• 53:22Molly O'Shea?

  It might change, but right now it's Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Huh. Isn't Elon the?

• 53:31Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've, you know, I think it's probably gonna remain Elon. Um. Yeah, I guess, I don't know if I had to guess Elon, Elon and Elon, no Elon, Elon, Jeff and Mark.

• 53:47Molly O'Shea?

  Elon, Elon, Elon. Good answer.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Dial on, dial on, dial on.

• 53:51Molly O'Shea?

  Done. How many launches will SpaceX have this year? You can choose between above 160, above 180, and above 200.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  I think it will be. Above 160.

• 54:07Molly O'Shea?

  All right, we're locking you in for above 160.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  I think it will for sure be above 150, but given those options above 160, maybe even 170.

• 54:15Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, yeah, these, these are pretty high.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  I think, yeah, but very doable.

• 54:20Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, good to know. Oh, my God, this, wow, this is a really, this is, this might throw you for a loop. Okay. Will the US say that aliens exist this year?

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Hmm. I hope they do. If it's true, I don't think that, I don't think they will.

• 54:39Molly O'Shea?

  No?

• 54:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:40Molly O'Shea?

  Right now, it's at about a 6% chance.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, the odds are in my favor then.

• 54:45Molly O'Shea?

  The odds are in your favor. Maybe that goes down, maybe something happens.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 54:49Molly O'Shea?

  Who's to say?

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:51Molly O'Shea?

  Well, Eric, this was so much fun. Thank you so much for joining.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Super fun. Thanks for having me, Molly.

• 54:55Molly O'Shea?

  Perfect. Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.