1/ “There’s a rule in our office that you’re not allowed to talk ab returns without also talking ab time.” David Morehead, CIO of @Baylor, joins @HarryStebbings to offer rare transparency into how a $2.6B endowment approaches venture, portfolio construction & mgr selection👇

🚨Calling all emerging mgrs! Applications now open to one of the biggest VC EM events of the year: 11/4/26 @EqualVentures' Emerging Manager Circle (EMC) brings EMs together w peers & experienced GPs/LPs to share insights on building enduring venture firms. 🙏TY to this year’s inaugural selection committee of 40 respected GPs and LPs for helping build this community. 🔗Link to apply below!🗽🍎

Next time you hear a GP predict their new fund will hit 5x or an LP say they are targeting 5x returns from VC, just show them this table from @PeterJ_Walker Exceptional returns from venture are possible. But, by definition, they are the exception, not the norm.

when @Beezer232 asks – we cook data. a few weeks ago we published data on VC fundraising in H1 2026, and @Beezer232 asked whether the barbell effect is real and similar to the 2021 ZIRP era. we don't have fund-level 2021 data in our own tracker at @murphcapital (we only started tracking in Jan 2026), but @PitchBook's global fundraising series goes back to 2016, so I pulled it and looked at two metrics: average fund size (capital raised ÷ funds closed, per year) and fund count. and although there's no breakdown by EM vs. middle vs. mega-platform, here's what I found: > in 2021, the market closed 4,739 funds and raised $377.1B – average fund size $80M. > in H1 2026 alone, the market closed 727 funds and raised $98.8B – average fund size $136M. that's a 1.7x jump, but worth being careful about why, though: average fund size can rise for two different reasons, and aggregate data alone can't fully separate them: 1/ real concentration: the top tier is taking a bigger slice, and the middle/bottom are genuinely losing share. 2/ survivorship: weak or small managers simply stop closing funds at all (they disappear from the denominator), which mechanically pushes the average up even if relative tier shares hadn't moved. one tell for which effect is doing more work: fund count fell to ~15% of 2021's level (annualized), while capital only fell to ~26%. If this were pure survivorship, count and capital would have fallen together. that gap is the tell that the funds still standing are taking home more each, not just that small managers vanished. so to answer directly: no, this isn't "similar dynamics to 2021." It's more squeezed now and I'd frame like "2021 was concentration inside a boom, when capital and fund count were both exploding together and 2026 is concentration inside a contraction". if you want the full breakdown, we're publishing our detailed Q2 2026 fundraising report tomorrow on Substack: murphcapital.substack.com

[New Blog Post] about Patience, linked below 👇 Lots of chatter about securing the bag now or remaining forever part of the permanent underclass. Patience means you'll be poorer today but secure a lot more bag in the future, a strategy fewer and fewer are willing to undertake, but more important than ever.