Kyle Kuzma on VC investing: following smart money, American Dynamism, and the SpaceX bull case

we've been running late.

I got a feeling we won't have to wait that long.

Thank you so much for taking the time. Have a great see the team.

Have a good one. Uh up next we have Kyle Kosma, NBA champion, entrepreneur, investor. He's with us in the waiting room and we'll bring him into the TVP Ultra. Very excited to meet you. Kyle, how you doing?

What's up, boys?

What's up?

How are we doing, man?

You've been tearing up the timeline.

Yes.

We love it.

Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. Thank you guys for having me. I learned a lot from you guys, actually. So, um you guys help out a little bit. So, thanks.

Yeah. What What What got you into investing originally? Well, I mean that really starts like when you first get into the NBA and obviously you have a financial advisor and then you learn about, you know, typical stocks and bonds

and then I had a lot of great mentors like Kobe Bryant was a really good mentor for me especially, you know, he had a fund right before he passed away and he told me to get into it and I think that was my very first

no way,

you know, type of access and like get in with the whole VC in the tech space with everything and um you know, we can only play basketball for a certain amount of time.

Yeah.

And you got to make it count, but then you got like 40, 50 years to, you know, still live. So, what else are you going to do? Cuz, you know, that money doesn't last forever. So,

yeah.

What What was Kobe's advice to you? Was it, hey, here's all the things not to do because you get into the MBA, suddenly you're making money, and you get a million opportunities thrown at you every day. Okay. So, I imagine your financial advisor's primary job is like how do we just make sure to not do all the dumb stuff, focus on the basics, but what was Kobe's, you know, main advice for you? Well, the number one thing is probably just keeping the main thing the main thing and that's like, you know, making sure you're focused on whatever your true primary thing is and that's always basketball because

there's going to be nothing that gives me a return, you know, unless I'm like an early investor into SpaceX or something that is going to, you know, propel me like basketball will. But yeah, when you have a financial adviser, they they try to keep it very very conservative and you think about the little things that you can get, you know, God willing, 10 11% um you know, annual return. But you know, for me, I want more. And I think that, you know, when you start thinking about like the private investment side, looking into space and tech and all these things that have crazy crazy multiples and are like flying off the shelves right now, um you know, that's where the interest is, uh at least for me. So

yeah. H how do you think about endorsements versus equity versus investing? There's so many different ways uh outside of basketball to apply your skills, make money, compound. Uh but they are there are sometimes tensions and uh sometimes an investment makes more sense. How do you how do you think about these different trade-offs?

Well, you know, I'm I mean I'm going into almost year 10 in the NBA, right? And I think that as an athlete

overnight success,

you have all these, you know, you have your agents, you have your managers, and they definitely want you to get,

you know, the endorsements, right? Because they get their fee, and it's it's a little bit harder for

sure

you really justify, you know, okay, what does this equity mean for me? Because, you know, 90% of things fail anyways, right? So, you know, I think it's all about, you know, getting with the right people, understanding what you're getting into, and like educating yourself. You know, for me, I'm not the smartest person in the room. And, you know, I think that's one of my best traits that I've had because, you know, anytime you can be inquisitive and you have curiosity, like you have the upper edge on, you know, almost literally everybody. So,

yeah. But you might have uh increased access, increased a availability to just meet CEOs early, get into rounds. Have you ever thought about having other teammates or friends or uh even traditional investors sort of tag along with you? Have you do you see this becoming a career like Kobe did with a fund that other people could invest in?

Oh yeah, 100%. You know, I think for me over the past couple years, I've been, you know, kind of that singular investor and, you know, getting onto cap tables or, you know, hopping into other people's SPVS or, you know,

in the VC space that I know and I can hop in. But, you know, learning this space a little bit, you know, the money is, you know, having a fund, you know, being able to, you know, take the upside off of your access that you have. And you know, I'm in such a unique position because um as an athlete, everybody wants to talk to you. You know, everybody wants to be around you. And you know, you can use that for multiple ways. You can use that, you know, to be cool and, you know, party and have a fun good time and be famous. But you can also use that um as leverage to build your own platform if you're knowledgeable enough to then um use that access to get into, you know, blue chip companies that, you know, can really change your life. So

yeah. Yeah, those blue chip companies, I feel like there's a tight enough circle that you can probably take those meetings during the offseason or when you're not practicing or playing, but uh have you had to have you had to turn away meeting invites to seed series A founders because just to see the landscape of everyone who's operating at that level would be just dozens of meetings every day or is there something about that that like, oh, you want to go earlier stage at some point? No, I think you definitely want to go earlier stage at some point. I think I'm at that type of inflection point now. You know, I think a lot of my investing has been typically if it's not, you know, real estate or CPG, you know, getting into the tech space, a lot of late, you know, late stage growth companies,

uh, where it's more surefire, you know, it's going to hit, but you know, those multiples when you you talk about IPO or somebody acquiring you, you know, maybe a three, four, 5x, which is all great, right? But you know to get the 100x the you know the crazy universe

you want let's be honest you want the thousandx you're not you're not

come on of course of course of course

Jason do you find one of the one of the challenges with privates is that you can't you know you can only get in for the most part at least directly in these certain moments

during the season

there's a big round happening

yeah if there's a big round happening do you find yourself being like I'll keep tracking this company but I'm not going to chase it right now or just given given I imagine there's moments where

do you have a partner who can sort of chase it down for you?

Yeah. Well, I you know, um I do a lot of research on my own, but like very very thankful to have just like a vast network of like resources and mentors and people that are like way smarter than me.

And I like I think that's like the most important thing, you know, because

my main thing is playing basketball, right? And I can only do that for so long. But,

you know, I think that, you know, I'm in that situation now. There's a couple companies that like I'm looking at and they're like preeds or they're looking at you know their safe rounds and I really really like them but you know I'm at that point where you know putting you know 2575,000 into like one of those companies it really doesn't make sense when you know I'm focused on a lot of more like late stage broke companies right

so you know I think you want to track you want to do this but

you know for me um I'm just wired differently and I think that like I think part of my ADHD that I have that I'm able to focus on a lot of different things at once. And I think that,

you know, when I'm playing basketball, if I'm during during season, you know, we're not playing basketball 24 hours a day. So, you know, you have to pick and choose, you know, your hours wisely. So, you know, if I'm playing basketball, if I have to study film, if I have to work out, you know, I handle that. But then, you know, as soon as I get home from 3:00 to 6, 3 to 7, I'm in my office. That's great. you know and that's my like study time and my learning time and I can really focus on you know understanding different landscapes because you know every sector is different right and um you know it calls for different thinking so

is uh is AI changing basketball in any way I imagine you guys are accessing new tools all the time using the models to do analysis but uh how how how are things how is AI changing basketball I think most of us kind of hate hate a little bit, you know, just that the analytic standpoint because it's like, you know,

it's like being micromanaged. It's like, oh, you could have been you could have been an inch over here,

bro. It's like it's like literally like a computer telling you, hey, you should not be taking this shot. But the computer is not the human. And I'm sitting there. I'm like, yo, I'm wide open. You're telling me telling me not to take this shot, but I'm open. And I'm a professional basketball, but I made this shot. You know what I mean? So that's I don't know if you guys seen this. I think um and I'm not too super educated into it right now, but I saw Adam Silver, he talked about implementing something like Hawkeye or something

for like out of bounds and replays, which I think that's a great idea. Yeah.

Because, you know, we had these coaching challenges and like, you know, stoppages during the game where,

you know, five minutes of like real time may like go off and we're just sitting there. And I think that like making the game fast in that aspect would be huge for us. So

yeah, just enforcing the rules, but you're not trying to get you're not trying to get micromanaged by a computer.

Yeah. What about what about on the training side? Is there anyone using like AI or I mean the other mega trend in Silicon Valley right now is like peptides. I don't even know if those are legal in the NBA, but uh are there any like breakthrough changes in like training performance longevity that you're seeing like sort of have moments I mean, the whoop is like the biggest moment, I think.

Yeah, the whoop, you know, like

I don't really I wish we could wear it during games. I tried to and then like the league made me take it off because all summer,

you know, that's how I really track my daily life. You know what I mean? Like I they should pay me for what I'm saying right now.

Wait, are you not an investor?

No, I missed that boat. Okay.

Well, they're still pretty, you know, like it's not always about that. It's about, you know, good products and, you know, I think it's amazing because you can track everything that you need, your sleep, your workout, your stress, your strain. Yeah. And I think that, you know, you know, as we go, there's going to be more and more things that pop up, especially in the, you know, athletics and, you know, professional sports and just,

you know, just daily lifestyle, you know, because that's what you're, you know, you alluded to earlier with like, you know, I know the biohacking scene and like the founders in the tech space like it's a huge thing

and rightfully so. Um, yeah, we can't take peptides, but

okay. you know, there's a lot of, you know, studies that suggest that it's really, really good for you and it probably makes better. I know I see you guys talking about the enhanced games. I don't know about steroids,

but

yeah. What was your what was your what was your reaction to the enhanced games? I don't I don't know if you were to track it, but it it it showed us like, you know, just absolute dedication and hard work and the human spirit

can over seemingly overcome, you know, peeds. Well, you know, I don't know too much about the PD aspect, right? But I I kind of feel for certain athletes, right? Because as an athlete, you know, we put our blood, sweat, and tears into this. Yeah.

Right. If you're not really a part of like the power three, four, five sports like that don't create a revenue and don't really have um you know, a system where it's like unity and everything is fragmented like you know like pole vaultting and sprinting and swimming. These guys are training their entire life for four years for five minutes.

Yeah.

And you know, going to the Olympics, they don't make any money. They might make a 100, 200,000. I don't know what it is, but

that just seems like

so [ __ ] to me. You know what I mean? And I think that

um the enhanced game is very very intriguing because these other sports they get a chance to one in this like day and age when you know you think about a AI and you know everybody think oh you're going to lose your jobs and whatever but sports is the only thing that's going to be really bulletproof

u because we want to see it and everybody wants to watch it and feel it and touch it and I think that it's going to be important for these athletes to get paid and if I'm an athlete I train for four years and like I barely make money. Like what am what else am I doing? Like this is a nice avenue that's interesting and it's different. So

totally. Yeah, that was that was my takeaway. I was like the the silver lining here is like athletes have

uh can extend their career.

It these sports maybe become more interesting to follow if there's like highle competition outside, you know, that that gets a lot of attention that's properly marketed like yeah

enhanced games were. And you can imagine that a lot of the more like if they're restricted drugs right now, those might be studied more and then used after someone retires to recover, remain healthy as they age. If they went really hard in professional sports, beat up on their body, they can get some of that back in their 50s and 60s and and not have the toll of the physical the physicality on their body. Um, take us through in uh American Dynamism, uh, Industrials, Anderl, SpaceX, uh, super interesting companies. How did you get interested in those? How'd you get up to speed? Uh, what what was exciting to you about those companies? Well, you know, when I think about that, you know, I think that and this is just like my perspective of like investing and, you know, there's a lot of like tensions, a lot of stress going on like geopolitically.

And uh I love where I'm from. I love America, right? I'm sure we all do because it's given us all this platform to even be speaking here, right?

I like that. And then um you know I just believe that if you're an investor like why are you not focused on investing into one serious things but then two things that have you know America's interest best at heart right and you think about space and you think about defense and where we're at in this world um you know prime example space is a crazy economy that's about to open up obviously you hear about SpaceX and you know all the other companies that getting a lift from valuations within it. But you know, our counterparts and our other people, other countries in the world, they are focused on space and they're focused on getting to the moon and they're focused on all these satellites and you know, whoever really rules space is probably going to rule the world because, you know, when we fight wars and we do certain things on Earth, a lot of things is, you know, horizontal because, you know, we're fighting on this realm, but up there is linear. you're looking down and there's a lot of things that could like really go wrong if we're not focused on, you know, preserving, you know, America. So,

that's a fantastic SpaceX bullcase. I love it. That that that is extremely convincing.

Uh what what you're you're you said uh coming up on 10 years in the league, what advice would you give to the young Kyle Kosma on

private markets with what you've learned so far? you mentioned some of them, you know, work with smart people, build the right network, but if you were to summarize it,

uh, you know, I have a really, uh, a really big friend in the space and I asked him this question. Um, like what would you do um or what type of advice would you give to like a young investor like me? And he told me, don't be stupid and follow the money.

This is the most simplest thing you can do. You know what I mean? Because like I said, there's so many people that are much smarter than me, much smarter than all of us that do all this due diligence that understand the landscapes of every industry, every science, every biotech, every defense space company, you can name it. And I think that, you know, um following those guys leads as much as you can, but also making your own like, you know, critical thinking, educated guess on certain things is super super important. So

yeah, trust your gut every once in a while. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for hopping on the show. Let's do it again soon.

The chat wants to know uh how you're thinking of uh the who you got for the finals.

I don't know if you're making predictions.

I don't know, man. You know, honestly, there's a part of me that I just want to see New York win because I literally want to see New York go up in flames.

Like, win or lo,

literally literally think about this. Win or lose, the city is going to burn

because New York fans are one incredible.

Yeah,

really incredible. And you can just see all the memes and stuff after they win. JR got pummeled in the streets like

I want to see more of this. Like it's just funny that seeing New York win would be just amazing for the NBA. U but this game seven is going to be serious. It's going to be real, you know, and I think it's hard for um anybody win a game seven on the road, you know, and I think history and analytics kind of, you know, support that a little bit, but

you know, I want to see Wendy vers the