Ad break

CJ sits down with Mike Jung, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Founders Circle Capital. They unpack the rise of structured liquidity, how secondaries went mainstream, and what CFOs should know before running a tender. Mike shares lessons from the dot-com era, AI’s “super cycle,” and what separates durable growth companies from hype.

—

SPONSORS:

RightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for modern pricing models like usage-based pricing, bundles, and mid-cycle upgrades. RightRev lets companies scale monetization without slowing down close or compliance. For RevRec that keeps growth moving, visit https://www.rightrev.com

Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you’re scaling on an ERP that wasn’t built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj

Tabs is an AI-native revenue platform that unifies billing, collections, and revenue recognition for companies running usage-based or complex contracts. By bringing together ERP, CRM, and real product usage data into a single system of record, Tabs eliminates manual reconciliations and speeds up close and cash collection. Companies like Cortex, Statsig, and Cursor trust Tabs to scale revenue efficiently. Learn more at https://www.tabs.com/run

Abacum is a modern FP&A platform built by former CFOs to replace slow, consultant-heavy planning tools. With self-service integrations and AI-powered workflows for forecasting, variance analysis, and scenario modeling, Abacum helps finance teams scale without becoming software admins. Trusted by teams at Strava, Replit, and JG Wentworth—learn more at https://www.abacum.ai

Brex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metrics

Metronome is real-time billing built for modern software companies. Metronome turns raw usage events into accurate invoices, gives customers bills they actually understand, and keeps finance, product, and engineering perfectly in sync. That’s why category-defining companies like OpenAI and Anthropic trust Metronome to power usage-based pricing and enterprise contracts at scale. Focus on your product — not your billing. Learn more and get started at https://www.metronome.com

—

LINKS: 

Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsN

Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikjung

https://www.founderscircle.com/

CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/

https://www.mostlymetrics.com

—

TIMESTAMPS:

1:08 Founder Circle origin

3:15 The founder liquidity insight

5:16 Staying private longer problem

6:04 Secondary market control vs chaos

8:44 Secondaries over IPOs

10:12 Liquidity keeps VC alive

11:27 Ask Jeeves dot-com lesson

12:26 $190 to $1 + AMT reality

13:10 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | Tabs

16:39 Private share opacity risk

20:25 Founder + employee liquidity playbooks

21:55 Early investors need liquidity too

22:31 Cap table math actually matters

24:17 SPV fee stacking insanity

25:37 Sponsors — Abacum | Brex | Metronome

28:54 Tender offer guardrails

30:09 Minimum vs maximum liquidity balance

33:01 Growth stage sweet spot + IPO bar rising

34:17 AI Cambrian explosion

34:58 Buying fear vs buying hype

36:29 AI growth sustainability

37:19 Founder-led advantage + product velocity

38:47 TAM is created, not measured

41:06 Anti-portfolio lessons

43:01 What is a supercycle

44:34 Do supercycles end in crashes?

46:16 AI’s unprecedented adoption curve

48:31 Community as a moat

52:50 Earning the right to be on the cap table