Fast deployment is defensible because AI companies need huge capital, but vintage concentration has cost Menlo before: Menlo 8, deployed in 10 months, is its only fund in 50 years not to return capital. Listen
Ganesan said LPs cannot have both smaller funds and slower returns to market when AI growth demands capital; Google probably raised less than $50M privately, but AI companies need compute. Menlo 8 was invested over 10 months in 2000-2001, and its subsequent $1.5B (2001) and $1.2B (2004) funds also underperformed. He said GPs should not follow dogmatic rules, but should weigh time diversification and communicate transparently with LPs.
“we only had one fund that's not returned capital, just Menlo 8, which was invested in a 10-month period between 2000 and 2001.”
Listen to the episode Episode Fundraising & investors Link to this