Private Equity Spotlight: Reinventing Operational Excellence with Cory Eaves

[00:00:00] Sean Mooney: Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, Louie's founder and CEO. In this episode, we have a fantastic conversation with Corey Eaves, partner and head of portfolio operations with Baypine. Enjoy. So we're in for a real treat today. I've been really excited about this episode for a while. We get to talk with Corey Eves today. Corey, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. It's nice to be here. I'm excited about this one for a number of reasons. So as we'll get into, Corey was really kind of one of the earlier innovators in the operationalization of private equity. And now he's recently kind of made this jump into the next phase. I won't get into the story here, but it's going to be a really interesting one about this industry that's
becoming an industry and evolving. So maybe just to jump into it, Corey, I'd love to hear your story. Like how did you get into private equity? What's the story of you?

[00:01:16] Cory Eaves: Yeah, it was probably a little bit of a unconventional path. So I'm a software guy by background. I even made it take a half step back before that. I grew up basically on a farm in Iowa and managed to get a software engineering degree. And I was at a company. A small software company that general Atlantic invested in. And during the time there, the company did well. I sort of progressed through my career and became the chief technology officer of that business. At that point, GA sold the business to another company, another investor. And they, over a short period recruited me to the second one. It was a little bit of rinse and repeat. I went to the second one. I was the chief product officer is probably what you would call it today. I ran all the engineering and product management and all that stuff in the business. That business happened to be mostly in the Netherlands. So that was kind of an interesting experience. And then when GA sold that, they recruited me to the third one and it was rinse and repeat. And when they had sold the second one, it was one of the largest returns at that point in the firm's history. And so when you do that, you get on the Christmas card list. They call you back when you do that. And I was at the third one. This one happened to be in London. It was going well. I had been at this point working for. GA companies for about a decade. And the partner from general Atlantic was a friend and mentor of mine. At this point, he came over, sat down to dinner. And the first thing he said to me was, I'm going to retire. Would you like my job? And that's how I joined GA. So I joined general Atlantic. I was one of the very first operating people that the firm hired and the firm was an amazing place, good brand name known for doing technology work, but small, and it was early days at GA and. As I said, I was one of the first operating people there and I helped build and lead the operating team at GA over 15 years. As the firm grew, I was just incredibly fortunate to be there. The firm went from probably something like 5 billion of assets to over a hundred billion in assets during my time at GA. If you counted all the various direct and indirect employees, we were probably pushing a thousand people at the firm or something. So it was just a period of tremendous growth. I couldn't broadly describe bleeding the ops team. They're sort of three chapters, if you will, as the firm grew and scaled. I can say more about that later. And then after doing all that, I pushed down on the elevator one last time, a few months ago and joined a new firm. And so I was fortunate enough to be part of a firm called Bay pine. Now Bay pine is a new private equity firm. We're a kind of startup private equity firm, which is a little bit like eating your own cooking, going to a startup. I've been here a few months and I can tell you a little more about Bay pine here in a second. It's been a super fun first few months at my new place.

[00:04:04] Sean Mooney: That's one of the great things I really appreciate and have fun with on this podcast, getting to speak with people like you, Corey is there's this very consistency of the serendipitous journey where you kind of find your way into it while never intending to.

[00:04:18] Cory Eaves: Yeah, that's very much true. I was thinking about that as I was making a few notes for today. It definitely played out that way. I think. At this point, 15 or 16 years ago, the operating function at a private equity firm wasn't really even a thing. You couldn't have planned that, I think, if you had wanted to at that point. Maybe a little different now, but yeah, very true.

[00:04:37] Sean Mooney: You had kind of a front row seat, the one in the technology side of private equity, which Even when you started in it, it was probably technology is probably mostly thought of as kind of a bastion of venture capital, but in between that time you had incredibly storied firms like GA that were changing the game as well within technology companies as they became companies versus the earlier days of liftoff and rocket ships. Kind of a thing.

[00:05:05] Cory Eaves: That's exactly right. Sean GA was folks may or may not know. They did growth equity, largely in technology. And that was a category that GA kind of invented and. A little bit for that same reason, the prior generation were venture capital firms who were doing very early investments. And GA was one of the first guys to do later stage technology investing. And it was exactly what you described. It was sort of riding that wave of the tech industry, sort of becoming a much more mature industry. So I often have people asking me about. And that was not quite what the firm did. It was later stage stuff.

[00:05:41] Sean Mooney: It's interesting in some ways, going back to the future for you, where it's like, you're going in, there was this transition, there was this innovation. And I'm curious to hear more about that next leap that you just made going back. A startup.

[00:05:54] Cory Eaves: It definitely feels like that. I joked to my wife the other day that parts feel exactly the same, like looking at deals and talking to entrepreneurs and that stuff, and then parts totally feel like a startup. One minute I'm like talking to companies the next time, like picking out furniture for the new office and stuff. So yeah, it definitely feels like a startup. One of our founders at Bay Pine is David Rue. David founded and ran Silver Lake for many years. And the way. Dave describes it as like the idea with Silver Lake was to buy technology businesses and improve and grow technology businesses. The idea with Bay Pine is to do the opposite, which is to buy non technology businesses and use technology to improve and grow those businesses. That's kind of it in a nutshell. And Dave's theory here is that as the technology industry has matured, technology now is pervasive. It affects every industry and one way to invest in it would have been to buy tech companies, but now another newer way to invest in it is to Bring that technology to these other sectors. And so that's really what we're up to at Baypine

[00:06:57] Sean Mooney: I think that's a great insight and even as you think about like the lens through which we see the world So it's many PE firms. They're using us as like this magic toolbox for Value creation. And one of the things that always surprised me was kind of the surge of the technology diligence and technology work and what we're seeing is like a huge massive spike in tech. And it's not for tech companies because like software is becoming pervasive in every business. And for you to have that so native and bringing that to the fold for companies that aren't involved in it, maybe historically, that's got to be just a huge advantage, having the backgrounds that you all do. And we'll get into that in just a bit, like some of the ways that you approach these things. One of the things before we get to that, Corey, is I'd love to get your perspective on kind of what you look for in a company. And I don't know about you, but for me, when I was in PE, you're looking at literally hundreds of deals or companies a year. It's hard to read a a hundred page SIM cover to cover, you know, that pace. Otherwise the zero time I had to go negative zero. So I developed kind of like a yardstick, like here's kind of the elements of value that I would look for over time. And it got better with kind of each year in terms of not only is this company good and probably more importantly in today's world, can it be good? And so for our listeners thinking, if this is something that someone like Corey is thinking about good, you probably should think about it too. So Corey, when you're thinking about looking at a company, what's your kind of like personal yardstick? Like this is kind of what I'm looking for in a business in terms of whether it has it or could have.

[00:08:31] Cory Eaves: Yeah, that's great. I wish I had like a catchy mnemonic or something to remember this by, but I don't, I guess I would just also skip over all the financial metrics. Everyone looks at market size and. Growth rates and profit and so on. So those are a little bit of table stakes for me. It's a couple of things to maybe go to the next level. One is I know this sounds very straightforward, but it's just the leadership of the business. I think in almost every industry or all the investments I've worked on in my career, there's just no question in my mind that the caliber of the leadership of the business is what really makes or breaks these things. I say that even having spent most of my career as the tech guy, you'd say I'd start with tech. But it's not where I start. I mean, I think it really does come down to leadership. And so one of the things we always look at, I always look at is, you know, what is the team like and who's there? And if you have a thesis about the business or the product and the management's not quite right, then are there ways that you can augment management or make changes that get you where you want to be? That's a big one. A second one is what I think of a little bit. It's just like the clarity of their strategy. Is this a business that's got eight different irons in the fire and you can't quite tell what they're focused on or is a business where they've got a really clear mission, they've got a really clear set of ideas of what it takes to win. That idea of just focus and clarity and strategy is a super important one. And then maybe the last one I'd throw out is what I think of for a lot of the businesses I work on is sort of a product orientation. A lot of companies I find, you know, they sort of start out life where they're doing, uh, projects or customer things, totally normal, like they're doing whatever it will take to win, but they're basically doing things one off from one customer to the next customer with the next. And there's this sort of maturation where companies sort of figure out how to productize that, how to build something that's repeatable. And that's usually the unlock to a big scale boost in the company. So for me, it's a little bit trying to work out where are they on that journey? Are they still scrappy and doing everything they can win to every single customer, or are they a little more mature in how they're thinking about go to market? So those are a couple of things I think about.

[00:10:49] Sean Mooney: I think those are all completely spot on. They resonate with me on many levels and particularly. When I was in PE, I had a reasonably similar yardstick. But then when I went through the journey here, doing a startup, and then you realize in some ways that hustle stuff, you got to do it at the beginning. But as soon as you start becoming quite a, quite a real company is what I say here, it's like, everyone are coming to like, we're coming to real companies. So everyone is like, you got to find that focus, that precision, that intensity of purpose, and do it with really good people. And particularly in, in the areas that you spent time previously, I'm sure you'd see a lot of that where. They maybe started off as this fast growing startup, but if they don't narrow the aperture of their lens a little bit and be more purposeful, they probably risk stalling out as they're ascending.

[00:11:36] Cory Eaves: I think that's right. I think it just gets really hard to scale that. I mean, I worked on a business at my last place. I won't name the business, but they were selling into the pharmaceutical industry and they had a handful of very large customers and each customer that they won was a huge contract to win. Um, But it also resulted in months or years of effort for every single customer. And like, that's just not a model that scales very well. Right. So I think that transition is one of the exact things we were helping them work through.

[00:12:04] Sean Mooney: And what you shared, they're just kind of universal maxims, not only for tech companies, but business. And so I really like how you tease that out. And I'm curious a little bit, maybe to go on one vertical down, when you think about leadership. What are some of the elements of leadership that you see that say, this is a good team, or this is a good leader that we can grow with here.

[00:12:29] Cory Eaves: I've worked in a business actually just closed a couple of weeks ago here at Bay Pine, and we were getting into the management team and it came out that the Ahead of sales was the CEO's son in law at the business. And the CEO actually over time had fired him and replaced him. And I thought to myself, first of all, that must make for some interesting holiday conversations when he's replaced them. But I was also pretty impressed that here was an entrepreneur who had the foresight to make the tough changes in his management team that he needed to make. And I think that's always something I try and think about how they do that. I also think, again, in growing or small organizations, a lot of times you see an organization structure that's really built around a lot of the people and personalities in the business. And that's another one of those maturation things where you can kind of watch companies get more intentional, more thoughtful about division of labor and the people that they bring in. And then maybe again, a last one I'll throw out, I'll kind of put my tech hat on for a little bit is where does the tech leadership sit in the organization? Is the CEO, the kind of. Guy or girl that thinks about the product and is driving it. Is that reside with maybe a CTO, a chief technology officer in the business? It's not a great sign. If you look around and the technology team is reporting in a level down, or there's one person has 10 different functions, including it, or something like that from a tech and product perspective, that's a big signal. In the business too.

[00:14:00] Sean Mooney: So I think for all the business builders, entrepreneurs, C suite leaders are listening to this. What Corey said, model that. It's a great observation and lesson, and I think it's just lost on a lot of folks. So I appreciate you bringing that forward. As we kind of turn the chapter here, I'm curious to get your perspective on the business of Bay Pine, going to what you're doing there as the private equity industry continues to evolve and become more and more like a business and more and more like an industry, like you are becoming, like I said, like us, like a real business, you know, so watch out. And so I love to hear kind of how you all are approaching this concept of value creation and the resources that you're bringing to support the lift and the journey of the portfolio companies that you're partnering with.

[00:14:56] Cory Eaves: Yeah, I should start by saying it's a work in progress, so we're definitely getting going and starting. So what I'll say next is probably somewhat today and somewhat aspirational of what we'd like to do. Maybe I'll just start by saying that our mission at Bay Pine is to do digital transformations. It's kind of an overused phrase, but the idea is that we want to find well run, middle of the road businesses and then really intentionally apply technology, data, AI to change the revenue or cost trajectory of the business. That's what we're kind of setting out to do. I always find myself saying in private equity, like that sounds like a super common approach. It's not. Most private equity firms don't want to take that on. Most private equity firms, they see a business that needs an ERP upgrade, they kind of run in the other direction from that. I do think it is a little bit of a unique strategy. Even the firms that attempt it tend not to underwrite it. They sort of treat it as a upside case. And not something that they're kind of leaning into from a valuation perspective. So that for us is all a little bit of a starting point of what we're setting out to do. The other thing I would say is at Bay Pine, it's also a little bit of a filter. So in our case, we want to find companies and leaders and CEOs who actively want that transformation. And so maybe said the other way around, if you want an investor, this kind of Interested in a more conservative approach, or you're not interested in doing something like that, then we're probably not the right partners for you to go do that. But with those two things as a ground rule, we're going to then use a little bit of a known approach. I hesitate to say playbook, but the idea is we're going to have a combination of people at Bay pine that are folks who are senior industry, people who know digital. So for example, on my team here at Bay pine, we've got the ex Chief digital officer from McDonald's who brings amazing sort of consumer oriented experience. We've got the ex digital officer for one of the PNG divisions who brings it kind of a manufacturing experience. So we're trying to get some folks who are industry level, relatively senior folks. And then we'll also have some people who are specialists in some of the functional areas. So I'm actually actively recruiting for a head of data science that we're going to bring to the team. And we'll fill in some more conventional positions to like a head of talent and head of finance and so on. So it's. That combination. And then from there, it's. A little bit back to the focus idea, trying to map out not a hundred, but let's find the two or three things we can engage with the company on that will really help them on a digital front and focus on those. And that's what the intent is at Bayvine.

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[00:17:59] Sean Mooney: I love that approach because you're taking things that you all and your partners had literally probably built decades of experience on in a different segment, and then bringing that to an industry that is candidly behind, but that expertise is enabling you to, to your point, confidently underwrite the opportunity versus. This is in the optionality bucket. It might work and that can do nothing but give you edge in a competitive world because you're able to, I'm sure, build this into your value creation plans before you close a deal. Before you kind of say, here's the point, certain price that we'd believe this business is worth. It's giving that proverbial alpha versus beta.

[00:18:40] Cory Eaves: I think you're spot on there, Sean. And I'd also add. It sort of changes how people think about it when you underwrite it too. Suddenly there's not a problem with alignment at that point. The management team knows that you underwrote it. All your partners at the firm know it's part of how we make our return. It just brings a little bit of a clarity of thinking when the dollars are tied to the outcome.

[00:19:00] Sean Mooney: I'm sure the part of it too, is particularly for these traditional economy companies, that old song, like, I want you to want me. They're probably like, well, we really want Bay pie because they're going to show us how to do this stuff. I'm not going to sing it for you. Hopefully, hopefully people know that song.

[00:19:19] Cory Eaves: I love that. I hope that's the case. I mean, that's what we're setting out to build. I think if we are successful in building that, I do think we'll become one of the firms that people do seek out. We hope that that will become our distinctive competence that we can focus on.

[00:19:34] Sean Mooney: It's really great to hear the way that you're approaching that, like, once again, it's kind of like, here's where the world's going. Was it Wayne Gretzky said, go to where the puck's going, right? And so, one of the things I'd love to turn the page on and get another element of your perspective and wisdom here, regards, Some of the big themes as you guys peer into the future that you're thematically engaging with in your portfolio companies That you think not only your companies but really people in general as good business builders should think about

[00:20:04] Cory Eaves: the one that's top of mind I know it's sort of on everyone's mind right now is really around data and AI Not only is it in the news every day and sort of all the hype at the moment But it will be for us. I think a key part of our strategy going forward So even if you look through the hype that's Absolutely. Something that we're focused on. And to be more specific, I mean, we're trying to help our companies kind of move from pilots to implementation on this. And what we've seen is, and I can maybe just cite an example or two, but what we've seen is our companies have built small prototypes and think of one in our education business, for example, that helps them select students up front who are most likely to be successful going through the journey of getting to a degree at the end. And. It's pretty focused. It's using all the latest machine learning and data models to make this prediction, but then it essentially scores students when they start, and then we use that in several ways through the journey and the early pilots of that have had really dramatic high teams type increases in completion rates. We've rolled that out in a couple of small pilots, and the agenda for this year is to roll that out across the whole platform across hundreds of thousands of students. At the business. And I think that is a good example of what we're trying to do. I would also say in the same vein, even a couple of our businesses that are not yet doing this, I think we already see opportunities where they can. And so we're going to be helping them try and do that. Maybe just one other quick thought on this. I would also say like, this does not have to be splitting the atom. I think in some cases. Some of this data stuff, machine learning stuff is now actually available kind of off the shelf. You find it embedded in your tools. You find it as a service. You can download it Azure like you don't have to really create something from scratch in many cases to do this. And so if a company can find something like pricing or a store location or some pretty straightforward use cases for this, then it's pretty easy to see a path from pilot to rollout. By focusing on some of those things that are maybe a little less advanced science kind of stuff.

[00:22:20] Sean Mooney: I love what you shared there and it's kind of like you're using the word and versus or as well and so as I kind of look back on last year and I think things just move so much faster it reminded me and I'll date myself reminded me of 1995 when Netscape came out if you remember and everyone was like there's this thing called the internet it's amazing That's your strategy and yourself, just internet. And then you're like, well, I don't know if it's a strategy. It's more of a tactic. Uh, and then people started chilling out and they're like, Oh, it's really good for moving goods and services and information real efficiently. And then last year it felt like that, just like AI, our robot overlords are going to rule everything. And then it was like, no, it's really good at synthesizing information more quickly and doing what humans can do maybe a little bit faster. Just like the internet was just like the iPhone did. Yeah. What I think you're sharing is one on the more of the actual things. After a year of buzz, this stuff is getting embedded into tech stacks that people already use very quickly. And so if you're willing to flip the switch on that module, you're going to get a lot out of it.

[00:23:24] Cory Eaves: I think you're exactly right. It is absolutely peak hype right now for this stuff. If you can see past that there really are, I think, real world applications. They're not super hard to do from a technology perspective. I think the big cloud platforms like. Azure and AWS and Google are going to be where this stuff mostly lives. So I don't think companies, the average company is not going to have to invent a lot of technology to go do this. And most companies are already running applications on those platforms. So I think it is kind of slowly moving from concept to reality.

[00:23:57] Sean Mooney: It's kind of interesting as we looked at the first quarter data that we had here from 2024 and think about this. It's kind of a case study idea here. You have many hundreds of private equity firms. There's thousands of portfolio companies that come in for organic needs first quarter 2024. Technology needs up 40 percent versus first quarter last year. Maybe the calls last year where I need to talk about neural networks and really what it is like now we need it. Maybe a strategy that started last year, but we're going to implement tools that are embedded in other technologies and thoughtfully and proactively embrace what's already becoming available. Whereas I think the vast majority of the world are going to be late to even embrace what they have in the systems are already buying. Your point is like, I think a really good one is like you don't need to create your own neural network, but you do need to be willing and open to either use the systems that are embedded in the ones that you're using or switch to the ones that are going to do it much better. And then what I also really loved what you're saying is like, but you're also being really thoughtful about the tools that are commercialized and that you can commercialize. Cause like the original vision of blue wave was going to be much more of a self serve SAS platform. And what we realized was the dimensions that we were solving for in these connections that we make were too multi dimensional and Alexa wasn't smart enough then. So every year I would call this team of data scientists that were in our network, like. Can a mere mortal company that's not Google or Meta or Apple make this stuff? And they're like, no, unless you want to spend 50 million bucks. I'm like, Nope, don't want to do that. So we did it. And then 2022, I called them again and they go, yeah, it's ready. Like, what do you mean it's ready? It's like, yeah, like mere mortals, like you can do it. Like really? And so we started developing our own recommendation engines and they work really well if you have the gumption to do it. And it doesn't take a Google or an Apple or a Meta budget. It's not cheap. But it's having profound impacts on the speed, the efficacy, the precision, the comprehensiveness of thoughtfulness of all of the ecosystem that we kind of manage here, what you're describing with your education business, it's exactly that, right? It's like you're using it to make the students more successful throughout the process and seeing a tangible lift in a relatively short period of time.

[00:26:13] Cory Eaves: I think that's right. I think, you know, just as a side, we don't own any of these businesses at any point, but. I think one of the years you're going to see this happen really dramatically. It's already happening is around software development to these technologies are already having a really, really big impact on software development, and hopefully that has a downstream impact on a lot of other things, other industries as well. But the productivity that you can get on the software side is astounding. I

[00:26:38] Sean Mooney: a thousand percent agree. And it's software development. It's marketing. One thing that we did here. I put a freeze on entry level hires almost across the entire organization and said what everyone is getting is this instance that we kind of privately constructed using one of the large language models. And I said, everyone is getting an intern or a 22 year old. And sure enough, what we're seeing is this tremendous efficiency and what you're talking about on the coding side, it's got to have an amazing impact on the types of businesses that you're investing in. Absolutely.

[00:27:10] Cory Eaves: Absolutely. Well, I think what you're going to see is. It's going to raise the tide for software development in general. I think you're gonna see a lot of good programmers, like the top of the pyramid for good programmers are insanely productive, but there's a lot of programmers in the middle and bottom end of the skill stack that this is going to really, I think, move up pretty quickly.

[00:27:28] Sean Mooney: And I'll tell you that we are seeing tremendous lift, even within our own dev groups, in terms of the productivity, it's going through the roof and you have, particularly for the developers who embrace it early, they become super coders in ways that you couldn't. I don't know about you, but the hardest thing that we're having is like trying to figure out what the benchmarks are now because they've all changed. I'm like, what do you, what should be the expectation now? Cause they're like, I don't know.

[00:27:53] Cory Eaves: I was coding something for a side project I was working on and I was on a cross country flight a couple of weeks ago and I had chat GPT open in one window and my code editor opened the other window and I got more done in six hours flying cross country that it would have taken me a month to do previous.

[00:28:07] Sean Mooney: Oh my God. Since I have zero coding skills. I'm probably a few years away before I can even like get back to my erector sets and build stuff, but in software through like normal language. But I'm very jealous of your ability to do that. Cause. It would probably also inform my weekly discussions with our tech team when I say, how hard could it be? Yeah. Like, you have no clue how hard this is. So I admittedly, that's a flaw that I have a weakness, so I mean, I'm jealous that you actually know how hard it could be. Maybe as we round out our conversation here, Corey, I'd love to kind of bring you back into the way back machine. Cause we've talked a lot about the future in the current now and where the world is going. And one of the things that I constantly benefit from, from the really good fortune of being able to have conversations with people like you is. I always learn things. I wish I knew, like, I was like, how did I know that? And I was like, you know, other people have to have those same kind of thoughts. And so. I'm curious, Corey, if you were to go back to 22-year-old Corey or thereabouts and give your then self a piece of advice, what would be one of those things that you'd share?

[00:29:18] Cory Eaves: Yeah, I thought about this when I saw this question come up. First of all, I had to stop and shudder and think for a second what meaning my 22-year-old self would even be like So once I got past that, I think back to when I was 22, I was very, very focused on my career like a lot of young people are, and in a way. I sort of had that healthy impatience to improve and progress and learn and do more. So that was probably all positive. I think the advice I would probably give myself is to do two things. One is maybe plan a little more back to the serendipity point you made about getting into private equity. I'm always a little jealous of people who can kind of chart this multi year course and navigate some 20 year career in some thoughtful way. That didn't happen for me. And I sort of look back and wonder if I could have been a little more intentional. I probably stayed at a couple of jobs early in my career a little longer than I should have if I had been a little more thoughtful. My other piece of advice to myself would be sail more. My personal passion is sailing. I love to do it. And I think if you look back There's a lot of weekends and travel and stuff where I was putting in the extra hours at work in the long run, probably would have been better off if I had been sailing with my kids or something, instead of traveling around the world.

[00:30:33] Sean Mooney: I think it's a great piece of advice, particularly if I dared to look back and I try not to, it's just so scary. But yeah, I was just running and half the time I'd run right into a wall, bounce off it, it's like, settle down, dude, just look left and right, maybe a little bit and don't just go charging. I love that. It's And sailing is a uh, skill that I'm also tremendously jealous of because I lived in the coastal areas of Connecticut for years. We joined a club that was a sailing club and it was mostly because it had a pool for the kids and tennis courts for them. When I, we joined it was like, I'm going to learn to sail and I grew up in Texas so there really wasn't an option. And to this day, I really regret that I didn't because it seems like it's just tremendously peaceful but also it has this element of sport and tactic and strategy and you can decide which one you want to do depending on your mood.

[00:31:22] Cory Eaves: Yeah, that's what I love about sailing. I think you nailed it. The other thing I think is sort of cool about sailing and this will be the engineer that comes out in me a little bit, but they teach kids to sail in these tiny little boats. They're like a bathtub. They're called an Opti. Opti. And these are the world's most boring boats. Every kid learns to sail on these boats. And if these things don't snuff out the passion for sailing, nothing will. They're absolutely terrible boats, but everything you learn on that boat, how to steer, how to trim the sail, how to read the wind, all of that. Applies all the way up to a 200 foot yacht. It's absolutely the same theory, the same learning, the same skills. And so, and I think there's something kind of neat about learning some skill as a five year old that you can take all the way through your life. It's one of the things I love about sailing.

[00:32:10] Sean Mooney: Quick aside on this. My wife's father was a, like a champion sailor growing up. He was on the star boat class and he went all over the world. in these boats. And I understand they're kind of like little race boats, kind of a thing. So he tried to get his daughter, my wife, into sailing and her sailing career was apparently pretty short. And I think she'll forgive me for telling this story. On her, one of her first ventures out in those little bathtubs, she had a firm disagreement with the young person who is deemed to be the captain. And she immediately threw him overboard. So apparently that was the end of her sailing career. So she wasn't able to teach me to sail. So Corey, this has been a tremendously insightful conversation. I've got a little stencil pad where I take all these notes during these conversations. I really do appreciate you taking the time to share your lens into the world that that's a really unique one and particularly in an industry of private equity that's so rapidly changing. So thank you for spending the time here with us. And teaching me all these sorts of things that I wish I knew beforehand.

[00:33:16] Cory Eaves: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

[00:33:27] Sean Mooney: That's all we have for today. Special thanks to Corey for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Corey Eves and Bay Pine, please see the episode notes for links. Please continue to look for the Karma School of Business podcast anywhere you find your favorite podcast. We truly appreciate your support. If you like what you hear, please follow, rate, review, and share. It really helps us when you do this. So thank you in advance. In the meantime, if you want to be connected with the world's best in class, private equity grade, professional service providers, independent consultants, interim executives that are deployed by the best business builders in the world, give us a call or visit our website at bluewave. net. That's B L U W A V E and we'll support your success. Onward.

Private equity insights for and with top business builders, including investors, operators, executives and industry thought leaders. The Karma School of Business Podcast goes behind the scenes of PE, talking about business best practices and real-time industry trends. You'll learn from leading professionals and visionary business executives who will help you take action and enhance your life, whether you’re at a PE firm, a portco or a private or public company.

BluWave Founder & CEO Sean Mooney hosts the Private Equity Karma School of Business Podcast. BluWave is the business builders’ network for private equity grade due diligence and value creation needs.