Episodit
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Adam Crawley has been obsessed with the markets since he was seven years old. In college, a professor insisted you can't beat the market. Adam set out to prove him wrong: from the Morgan Stanley trading floor to six years at SharesPost, then out of the industry, until Noel's cold LinkedIn found him at a martial arts retreat in Australia. The capital markets episode: how top private companies get sourced, priced, and accessed, and why liquidity is the last reason left to go public.
In this episode, Max sits down with Adam Crawley, co-founder and President of Augment. They discuss:
Capital, branding, liquidity: the three reasons to go public, and why liquidity is the one left unsolvedThe institutional-first playbook: anchor orders, centralized flow, and retail buying on the same termsThe Anthropic decision: the FTX estate auction, and foundational models vs. the AI peripheryStill no market makers: ex-Citadel traders who solved the quant but not the qual, and the first year of electronic tradingDestiny Tech 100 and Robinhood Ventures: hacking a supply-demand gap, not tracking underlying valueThe Rob Chandra method: one question for every top VC, and the biggest mistakes investors makeABOUT THE GUEST
Adam Crawley is the co-founder and President of Augment. He started at Morgan Stanley, rising from operations in Baltimore to the headquarters trading floor in New York. He spent six years at SharesPost, one of the first online marketplaces for private securities and the firm behind Forge Global. He co-founded Augment with Noel Moldvai.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-crawley-b2146753
Company: augment.market
OUTLINE
(00:00) Obsessed since seven, the professor's challenge
(01:40) Morgan Stanley: Baltimore ops to the floor
(04:15) SharesPost, Australia, and Noel's cold LinkedIn
(05:59) Capital, branding, liquidity
(07:23) The institutional-first playbook
(13:00) Primaries, tenders, and secondaries
(15:37) The Anthropic auction and foundational models
(19:22) Why there are no market makers
(22:56) Destiny Tech 100 and tracking the underlying
(29:15) Getting issuers on board
(32:00) The biggest mistakes investors make
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Morgan Stanley. SharesPost. Forge. Anthropic. OpenAI. SpaceX. Stripe. Kalshi. Robinhood. Destiny Tech 100. FTX. The Power 20: https://augment.market/the-power-20
FOLLOW
Max Melmed on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/max-melmed
The Augment Exchange: augment.market/exchange
Augment: augment.market
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Augment Exchange is a biweekly conversation about how private markets operate, with the people running it. Produced by Augment (augment.market), building the access and execution layer for the pre-IPO market. New episodes every other Wednesday.
DISCLAIMER
Please note that this conversation is for informational purposes only. None of the information provided represents investment advice, an offer, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any security. All views are subject to change.
Private securities are typically illiquid, have limited pricing transparency, and often require longer holding periods. These investments are available exclusively to qualified accredited investors and offer no guarantee of returns. An IPO or other liquidity event is not guaranteed. Additionally, past performance of private securities does not indicate or predict future results. Investing in private securities involves a high degree of risk, including the potential loss of all invested capital.
Augment Markets Inc. is a technology company. Brokerage services are offered through Augment Capital LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services are offered through Augment Advisors LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Augment Capital LLC and Augment Advisors LLC are wholly owned subsidiaries of Augment Markets Inc. Please see Augment’s disclosures here: https://augment.market/disclosures
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If Noel had known how hard it would be to build the infrastructure for the modern pre-IPO market, he would not have started Augment. He started it anyway. Five years and over a thousand trades later, he walks Max through how a real venue for private stock works: why his original order-book idea had to give way to a managed marketplace, what the SPV debate is really about, and the four variables (access, simplicity, transparency, liquidity) anyone trying to build for this market has to solve.
In this episode, Max sits down with Noel Moldvai, co-founder and CEO of Augment. They discuss:
• The Rubrik liquidity story: cold LinkedIn DMs, twenty brokers, and the 6% fee. All leading to the creation of Augment
• Why the order-book idea had to die: the three-sided marketplace problem (buyer, seller, company), and what a managed marketplace solves
• The four variables any real venue for private stock has to solve: access, simplicity, transparency, and liquidity
• The SPV debate, on the record: layered fees, chain of custody, and why Augment runs a 0/0 structure
• How institutional anchors give a $10,000 accredited investor institutional-level pricing
• Why the previous attempts (SharesPost, Forge, EquityZen, Carta) did not solve it: a product-and-tech vs. broker-and-banker culture clash
• The regulatory triad: broker-dealer, ATS, and registered investment advisor, and what each piece actually enablesABOUT THE GUEST
Noel Moldvai is the co-founder and CEO of Augment. Before Augment, he spent five years at Rubrik as an early engineer and architect, joining at 23 and staying through the company's journey to being a unicorn. Before Rubrik he was a software engineer at Google, and before that a Berkeley EECS undergrad and astrophysics researcher. Augment is the company he started after selling his own Rubrik shares in 2020 and discovering the process was held together by one-person brokers, opaque pricing, and a 6% fee on his transaction.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noelmoldvai
Company: augment.marketOUTLINE
(00:00) Intro and Noel's path: Berkeley, Google, Rubrik
(01:00) Selling Rubrik stock in 2020: cold DMs, twenty brokers, and a 6% fee
(09:00) Meeting Adam, the venture-scale question, the early build
(11:00) Why the order-book idea had to die, and what replaced it
(13:00) The four variables: access, simplicity, transparency, liquidity
(15:00) The SPV debate: Bill Gurley, layered fees, and Augment's 0/0 structure
(21:00) Who is actually trading: 80% institutional, $10K to $50M checks
(25:30) The pricing trick: institutional anchors and retail-level access
(27:00) Why this has not been solved before: product vs. broker culture
(34:00) The future: Augment behind your Fidelity, Schwab, or E-Trade account
(38:30) The regulatory triad and what 1,000 trades looks like
(41:00) Hindsight, family, and the founder reality checkMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Rubrik. Google. UC Berkeley. SharesPost. Forge. EquityZen. Carta. SpaceX. OpenAI. Anthropic. Anduril. Kalshi. Polymarket. Robinhood. Fidelity, Schwab, E-Trade. Bill Gurley on SPVs. The JOBS Act of 2012. The Power 20 (Augment's report on the most-in-demand private companies).FOLLOW
Max Melmed on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/max-melmed
The Augment Exchange: augment.market/the-augment-exchange
Augment: augment.marketABOUT THE SHOW
The Augment Exchange is a biweekly conversation about how private markets operate, with the people running it. Produced by Augment (augment.market), building the access and execution layer for the pre-IPO market. New episodes every other Wednesday.DISCLAIMER
Please note that this conversation is for informational purposes only. None of the information provided represents investment advice, an offer, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any security. All views are subject to change.
Private securities are typically illiquid, have limited pricing transparency, and often require longer holding periods. These investments are available exclusively to qualified accredited investors and offer no guarantee of returns. An IPO or other liquidity event is not guaranteed. Additionally, past performance of private securities does not indicate or predict future results. Investing in private securities involves a high degree of risk, including the potential loss of all invested capital.Augment Markets Inc. is a technology company. Brokerage services are offered through Augment Capital LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services are offered through Augment Advisors LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Augment Capital LLC and Augment Advisors LLC are wholly owned subsidiaries of Augment Markets Inc. Please see Augment’s disclosures here.
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