On Father's Day
The job description changed twice, tough s***
I was thinking a few weeks ago on Mother’s Day about how difficult it must be to be a mom and to also be a fund manager, especially since 1% of LP capital in all $82T of managed capital goes to women fund managers. This is completely b******. I am grateful that the LP Blueprint community has nearly always been 50/50 gender-balanced.
I had a good Father’s Day today, and got to spend the day riding around town with my kid (new bike), reading comics, playing Xbox, listening to Coheed, eating bagels, my usual.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about what it means to be a dad and also a fund manager in the last three years.
Being a dad has changed since the last generation. Gender roles, say, of the ‘80s and ‘90s generation of fund managers, and that generation of fathers, was very different. The market was wildly different, too.
Funds of the 1985-2000 vintage had the structural advantage of financial engineering (leverage), but the modern cohort relies on operational execution (margin expansion). These are different animals, and don’t forget the internet.
The big difference between the two, and the talent set a man, or a father, would need to be a star performer in one era versus the other is simple.
In the 80s and 90s, fund managers could borrow really cheaply. Essentially, if the business cost $1M, the investor would use about 200k of their own capital and borrow about 800k from a bank. Those fund managers needed to know more about how to schmooz, how to have great banking connections and how to be kickass at financial modeling (you can’t make a killing unless you structure super-complex debt agreements to maximize profit).
Post-2000, it’s a different ballgame, and frankly probably less fun. You can’t just buy a company, load it up with cash, and sit back and wait. Knowing the financial math is now table stakes and what fund managers do with companies now is more akin to “extreme renovation”. Say, if the 1985-2000 vintage fund manager was a savvy Wall Street Banker, you’d think of the 2000-2026 fund manager as the seasoned CEO who has a very strong operations background.
So, where does that leave you as a dad, if, say, the entire job description changed over the course of a generation?
The job itself became relentlessly demanding in ways like never before (and this certainly impacted women stakeholders and moms), and then modern fatherhood changed, right underneath their feet, especially in the last 6 years, since Covid.
The financial engineering playbook? Completely obsolete. Then, the fatherhood playbook, that got thrown out too. Both were handed down by a generation operating in totally different conditions.
The overaly background hum for a GenX/Millenial Dad is something like: “I’m doing this differently than my dad did, and I’m still not sure if I’m doing it right.”
The conflict specifically: he was raised by fathers who equated provision or “providing for” with love.
Then he had kids and found out his kids needed something his dad never had to give. This would be presence, emotional fluency, or flexibility. And then the job got harder, not easier, and the economic pressure got worse, not better. And while this was happening, the gender dynamic, the way that women and men began to relate to one another, became murkier.
It became less clear in the mom-dad relationship whose job was what. That makes being a father more confusing.
My five big things on being a fund manager and a father:
The impact that you have on your children’s lives is more important than any fund you raise and that will be your legacy, not some fund returns.
Your children are going to observe how you treat yourself and how you treat other people. This is their model for living. If you treat them with respect and make certain that they learn to treat others with respect, and reinforce this concept often, they will go far.
Teach children to not be afraid of money, but instead to use it as a tool. Talk about money in the home, and talk about it in a way that does not demonize the wealthy or the poor. Explain why money is a form of energy, and explain how it can be attracted and/or repelled. If you do not agree with this framing, explain why.
Know that nothing is permanent. Not how your children are, not how your relationship or marriage is, nor your health. Sure, running a fund is important, but being able to run a fund or a business and simultaneously be a parent, that is the thing
Bedtime - very important. Children need very calm minds at bedtime. It’s very important for them to have a wind-down routine that lets them feel safe and cared for and also very relaxed so that they can get a good night’s sleep. You too, Mr. Fund Manager.