{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Modern Capital: The Private Markets Podcast","title":"Ken Fine: The Submarine Engineer Rewiring Private Capital","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3132,"description":"The most opaque asset in private capital is a relationship.\nEvery investment starts with a path to a CEO or a board. That path lives in one partner's head, inbox and calendar.\nKen Fine spent five years designing propulsion systems for nuclear submarines, where a single error could sink a boat with the crew still aboard. Then more than a decade at Financial Engines, turning Bill Sharpe's Nobel-winning models into a product individual savers could use to run their 401(k)s.\nToday he runs Affinity, a CRM purpose-built for private capital. His first reaction: \"a CRM? Hasn't that been figured out?\" Then he saw the data set.\nFor about a decade, the platform has ingested its customers' emails and calendar appointments, and mapped out the relationships inside firms and across them. Basically who knows whom, how and in what context.\nBy Ken's count, roughly 40 to 50% of the venture capital market is on it. The map reaches past the firms themselves to the founders, board members and bankers they deal with. Private equity and private credit are now where the platform is growing fastest.\nHumans can only know so many people, and we recall fewer when it matters. Firms often end up waiting for a banker to run a process instead of finding the path they already had.\n\nIn this episode of the Modern Capital Podcast, Ken and Marc cover:\nWhat designing nuclear submarines teaches you about ownership, and when software needs the opposite\nWhat the Financial Engines playbook means for putting private assets into 401(k) plans\nWhy the line between a VC firm, a PE firm and a private credit firm is disappearing\nThe three layers of what comes after the CRM: raw data capture, compliance, and agents for sourcing, deal qualification, IC prep and portfolio monitoring\nWhat is left for the human when the agents do the rest\nHow Ken uses AI every day, from inbox triage to a thought partner he tells to be cynical\n\n\"This space, as much or more than most, is relationship-driven. So if you're in the venture...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/WtfSQHA--1-XpZlRXLqWOYkNNyL8XBtIdhKD0g1BFfY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jOTc2/YmJiYTk4ZjgzY2E2/MmJhZDZlNmIxZGI0/Yjc3NS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}