Courtney Reum on Venture Capital, AI Hype & Smart Wealth Building 📈 E163
3/10/202623 min
On this episode of The Money Mondays, Dan Fleyshman sits down with Courtney Reum—co-founder and partner at M13, former Goldman Sachs investment banker, and co-founder of VeeV—for a practical conversation on the show’s three pillars: how to make money, how to invest money, and how to give it away. Courtney shares his path from banking into entrepreneurship and venture capital, where he now helps back and build high-growth companies through M13. y get deep into what makes a founder stand out, why most pitches get ignored, and what actually earns a second meeting with a VC firm.
Courtney explains the traits he looks for beyond pattern recognition—grit, self-awareness, adaptability, and the ability to build a strong team around personal weaknesses. He also breaks down why so many founders misuse the AI label, and why staying aligned with your investment thesis matters more than chasing hype.
Investing side, Courtney opens up about how his thinking has evolved over time—from taking aggressive risks to build wealth, to thinking more seriously about preserving capital, generating cash flow, and diversifying into areas like real estate. He and Dan also talk candidly about financial literacy, why families need more honest conversations about money, and how marriage, future kids, and changing life stages can shift your personal investment strategy.
Discuss why giving back matters for both brands and individuals, how mission-driven companies build stronger culture and loyalty, and Dan closes with the signature legacy question: how much wealth should you really leave to your children?
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Fleyshman· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays podcast. We cover three core topics: how to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. As you guys know, this podcast is designed to be under 40 minutes, around 34 to 38 minutes for your listening pleasure, because the average workout is 45 minutes, the average commute to work is 45 minutes, so we'll keep this episode short and sweet for you because we have what's called a 93% listen-through rate. We stay top 50 podcasts in the world because of our listen-through rate helps us on the charts, and you help us on the charts, liking, commenting, subscribing, and sharing. As we dive in, you gotta keep in mind, when you're listening to these podcasts, it's not just for you. You might hear from someone that can help someone that's your friend, family, or follower from your past, present, or future. This episode might help you six months from now. Two years from now, you might be sitting there thinking, "I should forward this episode to my friend because of the important person that's on this episode." So without further ado, Courtney Reum, give us a quick two-minute bio so we can get straight to the money.
Courtney Reum· Guest1:04
Two-minute bio. Uh, let's see. Chicago born and raised, moved to New York when I was 18. I'm now a reformed Goldman Sachs investment banker. Uh, originally cut my chops working on, um, consumer, uh, acquisitions, things like Procter & Gamble, Gillette's merger, helped take Under Armour public, was around all these brands and people that were really contagious, and I'm sure we can get into, and it made me think, "If they can do it, I don't know if I can, so let's find out." [laughs] So, um, now almost 20 years ago,