some thoughts I’ve collected from VC/LP dinner season: 1/ LPs are genuinely concerned about how quickly funds are deploying capital and this applies to both large funds in their portfolios and emerging VCs. the only difference is that mega funds have hot logos that allow them to keep vacuuming $$$ from everywhere, while for EMs, every new fundraise is an uphill battle (supported by early markups in the best cases). 2/ many emerging GPs spend a surprising amount of time (and deck slides) trying to “educate LPs” or explain why “venture is broken,” rather than showing why founders would choose them and what their actual edge is. imho, it feels like these decks are designed for retail LPs and more institutional LPs see this as a low-quality signal (sometimes even as manipulative). 3/ there’s a growing number of funds moving away from solely pre-seed/seed strategies, mixing them with other instruments like growth secondaries or liquid assets (crypto, public equities, etc.) to provide better liquidity. I’m sure there’s a market for these strategies, but most LPs with EM mandates are fine with a clear secondaries model for VC's portfolio rather than an "overengineered fund strategy" that will fix the industry. 4/ surprisingly, there are plenty of genuinely high-quality GPs who struggle with fundraising (many pursue highly risky, non-consensus strategies driven by media/community/academia leverages) that are difficult to underwrite, while some "vibe-investors" raise pretty large funds. imho, relationships matter more than most people want to admit, and LPs are still largely intolerant of new approaches to founder sourcing and continue to buy "GPs' networks" and pedigrees. 5/ everyone talks about pricing discipline, but once you start reviewing SOIs, you realize how just a few managers actually (a) execute the strategy they pitch, while (b) avoiding investing in "tier-3 companies", and (c) generating some early markups. most GPs still pitch themselves as disciplined investors targeting sub-$10M/$20M valuations, yet somehow end up participating in $60–100M rounds bc "they don’t want to miss out on generational founders.”