
Inside Goldman’s $22B Bet on Venture Capital | Hans Swildens, Industry Ventures
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About this episode
Hans Swildens started Industry Ventures in 2000, and this is his first podcast since selling it to Goldman Sachs in 2026. Hans has been buying venture secondaries longer than almost anyone, and the combined business is one of the largest VC portfolios in the world: 525 firms, 1,600 funds, and over $22B in capital commitments. We get into why he sold to Goldman, the barbell market quietly killing middle-stage venture, how VC's are manufacturing their own exits, why most seed funds without a real angle have 5 years left, the LP base that's a completely different species every fund cycle, how he started Industry by acquiring funds at 99% discounts during the Dot Com Collapse, the day he passed…