FamilyOffice10x - Inside Eric Schmidt's Family Office - Ken Goldman, Fmr. President, Hillspire

We did an analysis and thought, boy, you know, Alphabet Google is, we can probably make more money in investing outside of Alphabet Google than keeping Google. Fortunately, that was not executed on because the best investment that Eric has made and continues to make of all of his investments is still Alphabet Google.

You were at the helm of one of the biggest family offices in the United States. What are the functions that you were comfortable with outsourcing? And what were the ones that you wanted to bring in-house and do yourself?

Everything that Eric had with his family was incorporated into this family office. We managed the planes for Eric and the other Google founders. So that was all incorporated. We had a separate organization. involved with that. We had an oceanography book called Falcor that did all these oceanography studies around the world. Three shifts. We had all the people associated with that.

How did your public market CA for discipline translate into building a playbook for a family office?

So instead of just doing finance, I had the entire organization. But when I was there, it was over 500 people, and it's bigger now.

How you build that team, and more importantly, on how you retain that team. Because

you have to attract people that are not looking for the equity kick. Are you going to get the best AI people? Probably not. So you look for a different kind of individual.

Hey everyone, this is Rishan, and I'll be hosting

the VC10X podcast. And today we have Ken Goldman with us.

A few years ago, the team at Eric Schmidt's family office ran an analysis. It's suggested they could possibly make more money investing outside of Alphabet than by holding it, although they didn't act on it. Alphabet is still Smith's single best investment to date, outperforming all other investments. My guest today is Ken Goldman, who was the president of Hillspire, Smith's family office, for about five years. Previously, he was the CFO of Siebel Systems, CFO of Yahoo, and he has served on dozens of public and private boards. We cover how a 500% family office actually operates. how you hire and retain people when you have no equity to offer, what he looks for before backing a fund, and why he thinks we are in a bubble even though the insider he talks to keep telling him otherwise. So without wasting any time, let's dive straight in.

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Hey Ken, so good to have you on the VC10x podcast. How are you doing?

I'm doing good. Good on a Monday. You got me on a Monday, which is a little early for the week, but that's okay.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad I was able to get, you know, that Monday slot. But lovely, let's get this