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This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business in the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Today's discussion is investing in private equity and venture capital funds versus Index funds. So here's the backdrop for this. For many of us that didn't grow up as investors in private equity and venture capital funds, we probably viewed that somewhat as the holy grail that if you could get to be an investor in private equity and venture capital funds, that you've sort of made it. This discussion is going to be a few lessons from that perspective. I grew up in an era not having an idea what private equity funds or venture capital funds were and probably wasn't really exposed to the world till I became a professional lawyer and worked and started to interact with and see what private equity funds and venture capital funds were. And always thought that essentially that type of investing was far out of reach and not really the kind of investing that people like me did. At some point was fortunate to make a few dollars and start to become an investor in private equity and venture capital funds. And this is a little bit of the lessons from that. What the data has really shown over the last decade or so is that essentially index funds have performed just as well as private equity investments and venture capital investments. So sort of this allure of you finally made it, you could invest in private equity and venture capital funds isn't really borne out by the data. The data shows that essentially for most investors, the index funds are going to do just as well as the private equity and the venture capital funds. Now, there are exceptions to that. What happens with venture capital and private equity is it's not a single asset class. It's not a single monolithic type of thing. It's not like an index fund. One venture capital fund, in their results can vary dramatically from the results of other venture capital funds. The same thing is true of private equity funds. So at any given time, a percentage of private equity funds will well outperform the index funds. And similarly, with a percentage of venture capital funds at any given time might very well outperform the index funds. The flip side, and the challenge to this is, and I'll give you a couple more observations, is that on average, you don't have much outperformance and you're stuck with higher fees in illiquidity. So unless you happen to be fortunate in the investors and the funds that you end up investing with, you're not likely to get that outperformance. At least not on average, you very well might not get that outperformance. That's another piece of the puzzle. The last piece of the puzzle that I'll say is I've had a chance to invest with several different private equity and venture capital funds and the returns have been fine. But more important than the returns, the thing I've been most impressed with with the funds that I've invested with and the people that invest with is how thoughtful, how careful, how intelligent they are, and how much they try and make the investments work through different cycles, through different challenges. So at the end of the day, what I would say is multiple different things. One is I've been far, I've been very, very impressed with the people that I've invested with, with, not necessarily because they've outperformed by so much or I've made so much money, I've not, but because they've been diligent, thoughtful, driven towards good results, good partners to the founders, the, the CEOs, the companies they work with, and ultimately I've just been overall much more impressed than I thought I would be. And, and I'm largely working with funds that at the end of the day, I've ended up investing with through different relationships, business and otherwise. So I, I, I, I, maybe that biases me towards liking the people that invest with and be really impressed with how much they've worked at trying to make all their investments work out well for their limited partners. So I've been really impressed. Now, all that stated, at the end of the day, the ultimate returns, what you see across the market, if you, if you study this is, is over the last decade or so, private equity funds, venture capital funds, haven't really outperformed index funds. So, and you're taking much more risk in which one you choose to join and, and you're paying a lot of fees and your money's very illiquid. So it is what it is, I think a fascinating comparison. You know, in some days I feel like the dog who caught the car. I always wanted to be able to invest like this in private equity and venture capital funds, and then found when I finally could, it wasn't so great to catch the car. It's been. It's been the relationships, the people I've met, the brilliance, the efforts. A plus, the results. Fine. In any event, thank you so much for listening to the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business Podcast. We appreciate your listenership so much. We also appreciate our fantastic producer, Chanel Bunger, who's with us every single day. Chanel, thank you so much. Thank you, folks.