Episode 17: "Your Board Can Make or Break the Company" | Curtis Feeny on Governance, Market Cycles, and the "Say Yes" Career

Today's episode explores three ideas that caught my attention:

1. The university endowment mindset shift: Transition from the for-profit real estate world to Stanford's endowment revealed how different time horizons (centuries vs quarters) fundamentally change decision-making.

2. Weak markets force better habits: Launching a career in Oklahoma during the energy crash of the 80s and jumping into Silicon Valley post-internet-bubble taught Curtis that downturns force rigor and prevent the development of bad habits. A counterintuitive advantage in the face of a “tough” market.

3. Advisory board seats are earned: The Khan Academy progression from “informal advisor” to board member showed how the best board seats develop organically through proven value. The “give first” mentality seems to pay off.

I explore these ideas in this week’s episode with Curtis Feeny, Senior Advisor at Peterson Partners.

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Curtis brings rare perspective from helping grow Stanford University's endowment from $1.5B to $10.5B, serving on over 35 corporate boards (including CBRE, Staples, Khan Academy, and more) and spending two decades as a venture investor at Voyager Capital. His unique journey from real estate operations to endowment management to venture capital provides him with an uncommonly broad view of how companies succeed and fail across multiple market cycles.

During our conversation, he shares:

• Insights on the evolution of university endowment investing, including cautionary tales of concentration risk from NYU and Emory's experiences.

• Clear warnings about premature scaling, demonstrated through the story of Verari, a high-performance computing data center startup that reached $100M in revenue & raised growth capital at exactly the wrong time.

• Perspectives on emerging opportunities in nuclear power, cybersecurity, and deglobalization that suggest where future innovation may be needed.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

What We Cover:

• 0:00 Intro & The Power of Early Lessons: Curtis's First Business

• 2:45 Following Open Doors: From Engineering to Real Estate

• 5:30 Geographic Flexibility: Moving for Opportunity

• 9:15 Stanford Endowment Years: Managing $10B

• 14:30 Asset Allocation: Lessons from University Endowments

• 20:45 Entering Venture Capital During the Dot-Com Crash

• 24:15 The Verari Story

• 31:30 Board Governance: Lessons from 35+ Boards

• 38:15 The Modern Advisory Role: Helping Young Companies Scale

• 41:00 Future Opportunities: Nuclear, Cyber, and Deglobalization

Connect with Curtis

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisfeeny/

Connect with Andrew

• Newsletter: https://thediligentobserver.substack.com

• X: https://twitter.com/AKazlow

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkazlow/

• Book: https://angelops.pitchfact.com/

• Website: https://pitchfact.com/

Curtis’ Bookshelf:

• Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream-dp-0062292986/dp/0062292986/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

• This is How They Tell Me the World Ends by Nicole Perlroth: https://www.amazon.com/This-They-Tell-World-Ends/dp/1635576059

• The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan: https://www.amazon.com/End-World-Just-Beginning-Globalization/dp/006323047X

• Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen: https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-War-Scenario-Annie-Jacobsen/dp/0593476093

• Zero to One by Peter Thiel: https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296

• The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz: https://a.co/d/b3bhcbU

Stuff We Reference

• Mostek Semiconductor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostek

• George Lippe: https://www.nreionline.com/mag/crow-flies-high

• Trammel Crow Company: https://www.trammellcrow.com/

• Steve Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-clark-332a6714a/

• Joel Peterson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelpetersongsb/

• Condoleezza Rice: https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/rice-condoleezza

• New York University: https://www.nyu.edu/

• Emory University: https://www.emory.edu/home/index.html

• Warren Buffett: https://www.forbes.com/profile/warren-buffett/

• Sequoia Capital: https://www.sequoiacap.com/

• Kleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

• Tim Draper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothydraper/

• Reid Dennis: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/sfgate/name/reid-dennis-obituary?id=54696176

• Arthur Rock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rock

• Bill Gurley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgurley/

• John Doerr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-doerr-03248211/

• Mike Moritz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmoritz/

• Bessemer Venture Partners: https://www.bvp.com/

• Byron Deeter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/byrondeeter/

• Mike Maples: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maples/

• Floodgate: https://www.floodgate.com/

• Mark Leslie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markleslie1/

• Carbon Robotics: https://carbonrobotics.com/

• Verari: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/business/verari-sold-driggers-back-as-ceo

• Sal Khan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khanacademy/

• Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/

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All opinions expressed are personal and may not reflect the views of the individual’s organization or of The Diligent Observer. Not investment advice.