We invest in and operate one company at a time with the goal of building businesses that we could own forever.

Owner Operators

We invest in and operate one company at a time as owner-operators with the goal of building businesses that we could own forever. We work hand-in-hand with our executive team to help drive strategy, allocate capital, and guide capital structure for our companies. In doing so, we gain perspective on the most detailed aspects of operations while developing a deep appreciation of the macro dynamics driving our investments. We also actively engage within our industries both at an association level as well as with the many broader constituents who play an active role as owners, customers, vendors and advisors. We believe the perspective we have gained from this level of immersion is a very powerful differentiator. 

Our deep domain expertise supports the strategy and growth of our companies. It also allows us to understand, respond to and hopefully predict the future needs of our customers. More importantly, in a buy-and-build thesis, our industry credibility helps us to relate peer-to-peer with other owner‐operators as potential new members of our team / company or as thoughtful competitors that contribute to the success of the industry.

Long Term Orientation

We define long term in 'decades' and not 'years' because we believe that it takes time to build great companies. A long‐term perspective helps us to make investment and operating decisions more thoughtfully and with the conviction and patience to see our plans through no matter how ambitious. In a world of buy and flip, we have the privilege of time to take a step backward in order to take ten steps forward.  

Time allows us to develop the deep domain expertise that we believe is so important to driving value. Over the right duration, we can work with our management team to connect more adjacent dots and do more extraordinary things. With our long term orientation, we can not only be part of the dialogue with our customers and team members, but we can also consistently be the ones helping to stimulate it and see it through.

People

We believe a cohesive team will produce exponentially greater results than that of individuals working independently. The partnership we form with our people, managers and leaders creates a contagious culture for teamwork and desire to collectively enhance value within our companies. Because we engage so closely with our teams, we take an active role in inspiring the team, recruiting exceptional talent and driving entrepreneurial behaviors. This combination of actions, ideas and energy fosters a powerful 'success culture' where our companies endeavor to challenge conventional wisdom and be bold.

One of the yardsticks we use to measure our own success is whether our companies are great places to work. Exceptional cultures and high quality work environments do not develop overnight and can be especially fragile during a company's expansive growth. That's why we work extremely hard with our team to make long term decisions that support culture and a strong sense of community. In particular, we are believers in enabling growth/learning opportunities, providing competitive compensation including equity and other incentives to reward long term value creation, and offering solid benefits for all employees. If we are able to inspire companies with great people, we believe other components of success will fall into place.

Systems

Supporting our people with the very best tools is a key buttress to building great companies. Systems and technology are the means to enable fact‐based decision‐making, analytics that make jobs easier, and visibility that creates new opportunities for value enhancement. We are fortunate to be based in the Bay Area where we have access to leading IT companies and the brightest technology minds in the world. By staying connected to this community, we work to gain access to the very best systems available for our companies and people. Collaborating with technology leaders at our companies, we help procure or develop these tools and deliver the resources to deploy them in the field.