Insights from the MIT Sloan Conference

I had a fantastic time at the MIT Sloan School of Management #ETA Conference over the weekend. AJ Wasserstein was the closing keynote and, as always, provided some fantastic insights about the future of our industry. Here's what he's expecting over the next few years:

1) Racial and gender diversity will grow but will still fall short of representation - recent data shows that only 11% of searchers are women and only 6% of searchers are Black. Communities are doing a great job bringing new people into our space.

2) Expect returns will go down - everyone is chasing the same deals, laws of economic gravity (as more people enter a space, the top participants are a smaller percentage of the total), investor competition will lessen due diligence, and new investors will accept lower returns.

3) Expect more investors and more pooled/organized investment funds - agent investors using LP capital as opposed to ex-searchers using their own capital; investors will be more transactional rather than mission-or-asset-oriented.

4) Investors will have to write larger checks and will develop industry niches as generalist money becomes more competitive within top deals. The majority of searchers will get worse terms.

5) Our culture will evolve as more people join the space - as communities grow, degrees of separation between members increase, but pockets of community become stronger. This is exacerbated by a trend where more entrepreneurs want to invest vs operate.

6) CEOs can still win: owning and growing a small business is a fantastic life. People can do well by embracing change. There is plenty of opportunity for people able and willing to seize it!

Hope this was helpful! For more future-looking insights, check out our Private Market Labs Insights episode, live tomorrow on Searchfunder with Jeff Driskel at 3:00 CT!