Building a firm versus being an investor

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.

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SPONSORS:

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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

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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