Private Equity Data Guy

Why PE Firms Are Asking the Wrong Question About AI

Elon Salfati joined me this week to break down what most PE-backed companies are getting wrong about AI. Not the surface-level stuff, not the board slide version. The real operational gap between clicking a button and actually changing how a business runs. Elon advises PE firms, enterprise operators, and has consulted the UK House of Lords on AI policy alongside leaders from Microsoft and Palantir. His firm, Safari Group, works with businesses to replace manual, people-dependent processes with governed AI systems that scale without adding headcount. What stood out most in this conversation was the idea of decision sovereignty. When a company hands all its strategic thinking to an LLM, it loses its competitive edge. An LLM echoes the past. It will not discover gravity if an apple falls on its server. The real opportunity is flipping the model so the company reaches out to the human for creative judgment, not the other way around. Elon walked through a real case study with Key Loop where they reduced churn by rethinking the entire process workflow before touching the technology. [00:06:43] Wrong question vs right question [00:08:42] Point solutions on broken processes [00:10:39] Political resistance to change [00:16:08] Why AI initiatives stall [00:29:09] Decision sovereignty explained [00:36:09] Human with an army of agents [00:41:19] Turning service companies into software [00:47:01] Personal AI at work and home Guest Information Elon Salfati is the founder of Safari Group, a Zurich-based AI consultancy. His background spans cybersecurity, scalable systems, and applied AI research. He is currently completing his PhD at Imperial College London focused on building secure AI systems and organizational AI culture. Companies Mentioned Safari Group Key Loop IBM Capital One PepsiCo Blackrock NewsCorp Palantir Microsoft Anthropic Websites Mentioned https://www.safari-group.ai [https://www.safari-group.ai] Takeaways AI without process redesign adds chaos, not speed. The companies winning are the ones asking what the operating model looks like when AI runs the operational layer, not just what AI tool to add. Decision sovereignty keeps your competitive edge intact. The shift worth building toward is an army of agents that surfaces decisions to the human, not humans triggering every automation manually.

This Is How He Turned Agency Ownership Into a Video Game

Peter Kang built Barrel into a cash-flowing agency over fifteen years before he ever touched a deal. That patient foundation is what separates Barrel Holdings from a traditional PE firm. No fund, no management fees, no forced exit timeline. Just cash flows reinvested into acquiring good businesses at fair prices, with SBA financing doing the heavy lifting until the flywheel grows strong enough to need less leverage. We talk through what Peter looks for beyond the obvious numbers, including client retention, average tenure, concentration risk, and whether there is real leadership depth below the founder. We get into the Bolster story, the design agency he incubated, loved, and had to walk away from when he realized he was the only reason it had any business at all. And we get into how AI is changing what agencies can deliver, what clients are willing to pay, and how the hourly model is holding on by a thread in a world that rewards output over time. TIMESTAMPS [0:00] Peter Kang and Barrel Holdings [2:02] Holdco Tycoon game origin [5:18] Holdco structure vs PE fund [8:31] Price, leverage, sourcing lessons [16:18] AI reshaping agency work [21:05] What data matters in acquisitions [23:01] Culture risk and Bolster story [30:26] Documenting failures publicly KEY TAKEAWAYS Buying discipline matters more than deal flow. Overpaying is one of the fastest ways to get into trouble, and time pressure only makes it worse. Client retention and average tenure tell you more about an agency than revenue growth. Concentration risk is a red flag worth walking away from. Culture is not a feeling. It is the standards a leadership team enforces and models every day. When those standards clash post-acquisition, good people leave. Publishing failures is a sourcing strategy. Trust is built through transparency, and founders looking to exit remember who showed up honestly. AI is not replacing agencies. It is raising the standard for speed and output, and the pricing models that survive will be the ones tied to value, not hours. COMPANIES MENTIONED Barrel Barrel Holdings Agency Habits Bolster WEBSITES MENTIONED peterkang.com [http://peterkang.com] barrel-holdings.com [http://barrel-holdings.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkang34/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkang34/] GUEST INFORMATION Peter Kang co-founded Barrel in 2006 and spent two decades building it into the foundation for Barrel Holdings, a portfolio of digital agencies across e-commerce, Amazon, B2B marketing, and home services. He published The Holdco Guide and created the Holdco Tycoon game to share the capital allocation lessons he learned the hard way. Peter writes openly about wins and failures and runs Barrel Holdings with a decentralized, operator-led model.

What PE Buyers Find When They Actually Look at Your Data

In this episode, I sat down with Derek Sather, CRO at KKR-backed Education Perfect, to talk about what actually happens when someone with deep systems thinking and revenue architecture experience steps inside a PE portfolio company. Derek breaks down what it means to move from managing a pipeline to underwriting revenue, and why that shift matters more now than ever before. We get into the real cost of messy data during diligence, what buyers are actually looking for when they dig into your revenue numbers, and why AI will amplify your chaos just as fast as it amplifies your clarity. If you are building toward an exit or trying to make your revenue engine defensible, this one is worth your full attention. [00:01:42] - Derek's background and career path [00:06:16] - What the data looked like going in [00:13:31] - Revenue numbers and diligence breakdowns [00:17:19] - Building credibility one metric at a time [00:22:23] - Demand architecture and the new CRO role [00:29:44] - What buyers look for before an exit [00:34:22] - Retention vs acquisition and compounding growth [00:39:38] - AI, clean data, and the new PE playbook Guest Information Derek Sather is an MIT-educated systems thinker and current CRO at Education Perfect, a KKR-backed edtech platform based in Sydney, Australia. He spent six years at Winning by Design helping over 600 software companies engineer predictable revenue. Find him on LinkedIn. Companies Mentioned Education Perfect KKR Winning by Design Capital One IBM Uber Websites Mentioned https://www.linkedin.com/in/dereksather [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dereksather] Key Takeaways One metric, one owner, one logic chain. That is how credibility gets built. A messy revenue engine does not get fixed by AI. It gets scaled into more confusion. Revenue quality is the asset. Not just revenue growth.

Is your Data telling you the right story?

Holli Moeini spent 35 years as a CFO scaling companies through acquisitions before leaving corporate to help founders protect their value when going up against PE buyers. Her book, Find the Missing Millions in M&A, breaks down the five moments in every deal where money moves toward you or away from you. In this episode, she maps out each one and explains what sellers can do before they ever get to the table. The conversation gets into the financial story, working capital, diligence, earn outs, and integration. Each one is a place where the unprepared seller loses. The ones who walk away with the most are the ones who treat their data and accounting as front office functions, not back office overhead. [00:00| You cannot go it alone [04:55| Five crime scenes in every deal [07:15| Cleaner data, better multiple [11:41| Working capital costs millions [20:57| Earn out clarity control cadence [25:29| Integration starts before close [29:02| Data as a front office function [41:49| Run it like you will sell Guest Information Holli Moeini is a CPA and M&A advisor with over 35 years in finance. She spent her career as a CFO scaling companies from $30M to $200M through acquisitions. She now works with founders and sellers preparing for PE transactions. Companies Mentioned IBM Capital One Barnes and Noble Amazon Websites Mentioned https://hollimoeini.com/ [https://hollimoeini.com/]

Private Equity Is a Talent Business, Not a Finance Business

Tim Schulte leads value creation at Council Capital, a healthcare-focused PE firm in Nashville. He spent years at Vista Equity Partners before building something different at Counsel. In this conversation, we get into why the playbook model breaks down across a diverse portfolio, what a toolkit approach actually looks like in practice, and what AI is doing to the work of value creation right now. We get specific on data infrastructure, change management, and why the people question determines whether any of this works. Tim's view on AI is one I share: the tools are getting better fast, the value still sits in implementation and adoption. We cover the state of PE returns, what the industry has to do to justify its position going forward, and how Council Capital is building real operational capability at the lower middle market level. [00:01:53] Tim's path into private equity [00:06:01] What Vista Equity got right [00:10:08] Toolkits vs playbooks explained [00:14:06] Data infrastructure across diverse portfolios [00:19:44] AI and the toolkit build process [00:26:14] Recommending AI across portfolio companies [00:32:47] PE history and what comes next [00:39:37] Where the industry is heading Key Takeaways The playbook model breaks down when portfolio companies are diverse. Toolkits that operators choose to use work better than mandated processes. Data strategy has to serve the operating team first. If the PE firm pulls data that operators don't use, the problem is alignment, not data. AI saves time on framework creation. The value is still in getting people to change how they work. Companies Mentioned * Council Capital * Vista Equity Partners * Ramp * Anthropic * OpenAI * Brookdale Senior Living * Cigna * Kroger * University of Chicago Websites Mentioned * https://councilcapital.com/ [https://councilcapital.com/] Guest Information Please provide details about the guest who will be featured in the episode. Guest's Full Name Tim Schulte Company / Organization Council Capital Website or Main Page Empty Guest Social Media Links https://councilcapital.com/ [https://councilcapital.com/]