Is Direct Indexing Worth the Setup?

AI is reshaping software valuations in real time. Emila Damjanovic and Evan Skorpen, Partners at Lead Edge Capital, sit at the intersection of public and private markets, which means they see repricing before most. They break down which business models win in an AI world, the widening public/private gap, and where the software market is heading.

Listen here.

Direct indexing involves holding the individual stocks of an index rather than a single ETF, allowing you to sell losing positions to offset gains elsewhere (tax-loss harvesting) while maintaining index exposure.

The strategy comes up frequently in Long Angle discussions. We polled 245 members to benchmark adoption.

27% currently use direct indexing for at least a portion of their public equities, and another 35% are considering it. Together, that's nearly two-thirds of respondents already sold on the tax benefits or seriously evaluating them.

A few themes stood out in the discussion thread:

The direct indexing discussion continues inside Long Angle.

People do all sorts of things to optimize their health: saunas, cold plunges, supplement stacks, continuous glucose monitors, methylene blue.

But the evidence suggests health benefits follow an 80/20 rule: a small handful of basics drive most of the outcome (80%), and everything else contributes at the margins (20%).

The 80% for health and longevity is simply:

Everything else may have real benefits, but they don't substitute for the fundamentals. 

For example, sauna use has real research behind it. But sauna without exercise is optimizing in the wrong order.

One growing trend within the 20% that works: using AI to analyze blood test results annually. It’s an accessible way to track what’s changing with your health without requiring a specialist.

Read the full article: What High Earners Should Stop Optimizing For

Biotech can be a good investment when treated as a small, diversified sleeve inside a broader portfolio. As a high-variance asset class, it rewards breadth over concentration.

Biotech returns are driven by binary events. A clinical trial reads out, and a company's value can roughly double or collapse on the result. Since roughly one in ten drugs that enter human trials reaches approval, owning only a few names is closer to speculation than investing.

Two structural features make diversified biotech vehicles worth considering as part of an alternatives allocation:

There are three main ways to invest in biotech, each with pros and cons:

Learn more in our guide: Biotech Investing: How the Money Is Made and Where the Risk Sits

Long Angle members post in the app asking for advice from people who’ve been in their exact situations before. 

Here’s a snapshot posts from the last two weeks:

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Chris Bendtsen

Insights Lead, Long Angle

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