OP #264: Surprise OP Letter Packed With Reads and Listens

A dense OP packed with great reads and listens from the first half of the summer.

Author

Darren Herman
July 18, 2024

Hello OP Community!

As promised, I’m on my Summer Siesta* which I take every year. However, I've been diving into a lot of interesting reads (and podcasts) lately and couldn't wait until the end of the summer to share it with you.

I am writing this OP while listening to Eminem’s new album. Wow, this album is an artistic conceptual album. 50 Cent loves it. Speaking of music, I’ll be at back to back concerts this weekend for the first time in many years (outside of DMB). Friday is Noah Kahan and Saturday is OAR with Fitz and the Tantrums. I’m extremely excited for both. If you are at one of these shows this weekend, lets connect and say hi.

Thank YOU for all the feedback in the last OP Letter. I have created a Google Doc with all of the themes that were mentioned and I’ve begun writing about them… building a bit of a content bank to be used when the OP returns. I am going to go very deep on Operating Partners/Specialists in PE, which seems to be a hot topic that many of you are interested in.

At work, we’ve been busy this summer with acquisitions of Power School ($5.6b), Envestnet ($4.5b) and the sale of Varsity Brands to KKR. Many of you know VB is near and dear to my heart and I love the business and team.

💥 Emmett Shine put together a Google Doc of his ad-stack for running his DTC business. I bet a lot you, OP readers, would like to see the GenAI tools he’s using.

😎Retail Brew is one of my favorite newsletters; are y’all subscribers?

📈 My friend Mike Duda and his partner, Brent Vartan from Bullish, Inc. appear on Chris Kocek’s podcast on the topic, How Honor and Vengeance Can Grow Your Brand.

🏀 Kendall Baker has such a good piece on the Caitlin Clark effect.  It’s incredible to see how many new fans and more engagement that CC is bringing into the WNBA marketplace.

👕Amazon and Salesforce invest in the new Saks Global (Sakes Fifth Avenue + Neiman Marcus). Will we see Amazon and Salesforce invest in more businesses?

📝 Jim Cook, my former colleague and CFO at Mozilla (and Netflix) launched his own blog called Cook’s PlayBooks. I’ve read a few so far and they are good.  Here’s a Playbook on Decision Making which I know all too well as I leveraged it as I worked with Jim at Mozilla/Firefox.

🎙 I appeared on one of my favorite podcasts this week, the Karma School of Business. If you are interested in listening, the episode lays out as follows:

  • 1:29 - Darren's journey from tech executive to Bain Capital.

  • 6:07 - Digital's integral role in business operations.

  • 14:21 - Silicon Alley Sports and 'play well and do good' philosophy.

  • 22:27 - Bain Capital's consulting DNA and value creation.

  • 33:24 - Impact of optimization and AI on marketing.

Here’s a link to the podcast episode on Spotify and YouTube.

✨Charlie Friedman (Google), an Operating Partner community member recommendations:

Here are some of my reading links to get us started:

I hope you are having a wonderful summer so far. I’ll be sending the next OP out in late August/early Sept and will start back up the regular cadence.

*I am fully working this summer, I just take a break from writing the Operating Partner to reset and recharge.

Darren

Join Me at Creativity with a Conscious

My buddy Pete is hosting the inaugural Creativity with a Conscious Summit in Orange County, CA on September 9 & 10th.

I know he’s been working on this event for quite some time and is looking forward to turning it into a Netflix docuseries.

Creativity with a Conscience is not solely about sustainability. It is a platform that combines value creation, capital returns, and impact. Yes, all three, and told through the lens of creativity.

This unique gathering will showcase, discuss, and celebrate programs, initiatives, and stories that are making a difference in our communities, our economy, and our environment. In today’s algorithmic, always-connected, content-driven world, companies and leaders prioritizing "something good over nothing bad" often face similar communication and educational challenges, and struggle to influence doubters.

Pete’s explanation of CWAC

September 9th is a welcome dinner and experience, and a private tour of the award-winning Orange County Museum of the Art YSL exhibit. On the 10th, it’s a full day of content.

I’ll be there in support and to learn - and maybe even on the stage for a session. If anyone is interested in joining, you can purchase your ticket here.

Below are some articles that I have found interesting since the last OP. I apologize ahead of time if many are under Paywall.

Q2 Seed Funding On The Rise (Primary Venture Partners)

TV Ratings and the Election (State of Screens)

Unpacking Cannes Notes (Ivan Kayser)

AI’s $600B Question (David Chan, Sequoia Capital)

100 Visions and Parallax (Andrew Kraft)

Career Opportunity With Impact

As many of you know, I am interested in education for children who learn and think differently. A friend of mine who I’ve met along this journey just shared this job at Understood.org on his LinkedIn and I wanted to share this with y’all incase you know anyone who might be right for it. Please apply through the link below.

To advance Understood’s mission and to further our impact, we’re hiring a Strategic Research Manager, reporting to our Associate Director of Ecosystem Research. The ideal candidate will have experience in doing research to inform business strategy, leveraging secondary desk-research. A majority of your research will focus on supporting Understood with some engagement with our partner venture capital fund. This role requires identifying insights, trends, opportunities and sharing how it applies to the business. You will perform both scholarly and industry research, analyzing and interpreting information from a variety of sources, from published studies to journal articles. You will contribute to our evolving view at the intersection between impact as a non-profit and the commercial nature of for-partner partners. 

You are a storyteller and have the ability to consume lots of information, distill it, and birth a powerful insight. You have an understanding of both the social impact and market space. You enjoy leveraging business acumen to solve social impact problems. You are a self-starter who loves to multi-task and go above and beyond. You “roll up your sleeves,” ready to support all types of projects. You have an innate curiosity to want to understand people, culture and the world. 

What you’ll do

  • Scour the internet and use every avenue possible - owned tools, secondary research and scholarly research - to identify competitors, industry trends, and potential impact 

  • Support and conduct varied desk-research methods, from product landscape analyses to literature reviews

  • Assist the venture fund in activities related to potential portfolio investments, producing impact assessments and competitors reviews 

  • Develop thought leadership pieces for external consumption when relevant

  • Contribute to the production of high-quality, business-driven insights for many teams (marketing, product, partnerships, external research, and more)

Must-haves 

  • Working knowledge of the for-profit landscape across industries such as education, tech, health, and mental health, etc.

    • 1-2 years of industry or start-up experience, in a business setting 

    • 1-2 years experience doing research (non-academic)

  • Some understanding of business and impact frameworks and models

  • Capability to build strong relationships with colleagues across the organization

  • You are a strong critical thinker, insight miner and creative problem solver

  • Ability to distill many sources of information into impactful summaries 

  • Committed to embodying and being a steward of our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging

You can apply here.

For those OP community members who will be at our Silicon Alley Tennis Invitational, I’ll see you next week! I cannot believe the event is right around the corner.

For everyone else… have a fantastic rest of summer.

What did you think of today's OP letter?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.