Short Squeez
Posts
🍋 The Shortcut to PE

🍋 The Shortcut to PE

Plus: Dimon says he wouldn’t touch stocks or Treasuries, Goldman is chasing the next SpaceX for its rich clients, and Carlyle is quietly unwinding an ESG bet.

Short Squeez
July 22, 2026

Together With

“You cannot be sure that you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do." — Milton Friedman

Good Morning! Carlyle is in talks to hand its ESG consulting firm to Bridgepoint after buying it for $538 million in 2023. Goldman Sachs is launching a private markets platform to help wealthy investors find the next SpaceX and Stripe. And Jamie Dimon says he wouldn't buy stocks or Treasuries at current prices.

Google is expanding in Miami to about 45,000 square feet after its billionaire founders bought homes there. Secondaries deals for private assets surged to a record $121 billion in the first half of 2026 as fund managers held onto trophy assets longer. And SpaceX snapped a seven-day losing streak.

Plus: A luxury taxi company wants to stop New York from tracking its wealthy riders, Italy's AI-proof family factories are drawing private equity interest, and why following your passion can derail your career.

Daloopa helps financial institutions reliably use AI tools for investment research. Check it out today.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

The Shortcut to PE

For years, the private equity dream had a pretty clear ladder: get into banking, survive two years of Excel and realigning PowerPoints, move to a fund, grind for a decade and hope that one day the carry actually hits.

Or you could just buy a plumbing company.

It turns out that Gen-Z and millennial investors are turning to search funds and independent sponsors to run their own private equity playbook and become owners. Instead of waiting 15 years to become a partner at a megafund, ambitious operators are raising money deal by deal to buy HVAC companies, plumbing outfits, specialty manufacturers and other boring-but-profitable businesses. It is basically private equity without the fund.

These companies are not glamorous, which is kind of the point. A Boston-area plumbing business is not going to get 40 venture funds into a bidding war, so buyers can sometimes pay tiny multiples compared with traditional PE. One Harvard Business School grad and Navy veteran bought a plumbing business for 1.8x EBITDA, merged it with a smaller one her husband had started and helped take revenue from $2.2 million last year to a projected $6 million-plus this year.

But, even despite the lower multiples, it’s anything but easy money for some. Buyers have to convince skeptical owners to sell, assemble financing from lenders and investors, personally guarantee debt in some cases, manage crews, take customer calls and become the CEO of a business that probably still runs on dispatch software from 2007. The upside is that you are not just underwriting the business, but the downside is that you are the business.

The trend is also being fueled by a realization that the old path may not pay like it used to. Private equity firms are holding companies longer, exits have been slow and midlevel employees are less confident they will ever see the life-changing carry they were promised. In 2025, 77 search funds were raised, still historically high even after cooling from the 2023 peak, and the number of independent sponsors has roughly doubled since 2019 to about 1,400. The impatient ones are not waiting around for someone else’s carry pool; they are trying to create their own.

The economics can be real and some search-fund CEOs can collect up to 25% of the profit when the company eventually sells without putting in much of their own money. Independent sponsors can earn closing fees, annual management fees and 20% to 30% of the upside. But there is no investment committee to hide behind, no managing director to blame and no clean memo once the deal closes. It is just you, the debt, the employees, and the P&L.

Takeaway: The hottest shortcut to private equity riches is not joining Blackstone; it might be buying the boring business Blackstone would never bother with. Searchers and independent sponsors are betting that small-business ownership can deliver the upside Wall Street used to promise without waiting 15 years for someone else’s carry pool to vest. Private equity made people rich by buying boring companies, and now ambitious 30-somethings want to cut out the middleman and do it themselves.

PRESENTED BY DALOOPA

Supercharge Your AI Tools with Daloopa’s MCP

As AI transforms investment research, verifiable data has become the foundation for trustworthy financial workflows.

Daloopa provides the structured, audit-ready financial data layer that enables AI tools to produce accurate results. The platform spans thousands of KPIs for over 6,000 tickers globally and each data point is linked to its original source for traceability.

Leading AI labs such as Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (ChatGPT), Microsoft (Copilot) and Perplexity have chosen Daloopa for financial data connectors to power their users’ investment research workflows.

You can easily connect your AI tools to Daloopa’s LLM-agnostic MCP and get a reliable data layer for inflection tracking, benchmarking, due diligence and more.

Request a demo to see how investors are accelerating their decision making with Daloopa.

HEADLINES

Markets Rundown

Market Update

U.S. equities closed higher, led by a rebound in technology stocks, while the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.63%.
Asian markets finished mixed, European markets moved broadly higher, and WTI crude oil climbed to around $84 per barrel as Middle East tensions continued.
The U.S. dollar strengthened alongside higher Treasury yields.

U.S.-Canada Trade

The Trump administration announced 50% tariffs on nearly $20 billion of Canadian imports, primarily targeting the automotive, alcohol, and dairy industries.
The tariffs are scheduled to take effect August 19 and would apply even to many USMCA-qualified goods.
Oil, natural gas, potash, critical minerals, and certain other products are exempt, limiting the tariffs' scope to roughly 5% of Canadian imports into the U.S.
The 30-day implementation period leaves room for negotiations before the tariffs take effect.

Earnings Season

Alphabet and Tesla are scheduled to report earnings after today’s market close.
S&P 500 earnings are expected to grow 23% year over year, with energy, technology, and materials projected to lead profit growth.
Analysts expect earnings growth across 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors, indicating broader participation than earlier in the year.

Movers & Shakers

(+) Nebius Group ($NBIS) +10% after Meta will allow listings on Facebook Marketplace.
(+) Taiwan Semiconductor ($TSM) +6% because the chipmaker plans to raise prices by as much as 10% next year.
(–) Danaher ($DHR) -11% after issuing weaker-than-expected third-quarter revenue guidance, citing soft bioprocessing sales.

Prediction Markets

Earnings Call Special (after markets close): Alphabet
Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

Fluidstack, an AI cloud platform, raised $830 million
Sila, a battery technology company, raised $300 million
Neo, a Boston-based agentic security company, raised $100 million
Draig Therapeutics, a neuropsychiatric therapies biotech, raised $65 million
Instalily AI, a maker of an AI forward deployed engineer, raised $60 million
Microagi, a robotics-deployment company, raised $55 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Defending Taiwan

Description:
A strategic analysis from Eyck Freymann examining one of the world's most consequential security challenges. The book explores the military, economic, diplomatic, and technological factors shaping the relationship between China, Taiwan, and the United States, arguing that deterrence, not escalation, is the key to preserving peace. Drawing on geopolitics, defense strategy, and international relations, it outlines practical approaches for reducing the risk of conflict while maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific.

Book Length: 304 pages
Release Date: April 21, 2026

Ideal For:
Readers interested in geopolitics, national security, U.S.-China relations, and understanding the strategic challenges that could shape the global economy and international order.

The strongest defense is not preparing to fight a war but creating the conditions that make war the least attractive option.

DAILY VISUAL

The great AI Wealth Transfer

Source: Axios

PRESENTED BY DILIGENCESQUARED

How to Skip the $500k McKinsey Bill

Most funds skip commercial due diligence early on. Not because it wouldn’t help, but because at $500K to $1M a pop, they can’t afford to. So they wait until after initial IC and first-round bids, go deep on a few late-stage bets, and pray the thesis holds.

DiligenceSquared runs AI-native CDD at a fraction of that cost. Built by ex-Blackstone and BCG operators, it delivers investment-grade market and customer insight, so funds screen more targets earlier, reach conviction before the competition, and save the heavy spend for deals that already cleared the commercial bar.

Help your fund win deals faster. Book a demo today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Adverse Selection

The counterparty most eager to make a deal with you is often the one you should be most suspicious of. This sounds cynical, but it is basic economics. If someone possesses information you do not, and they are rushing toward the transaction, the rushing itself is data.

Insurance markets learned this the hard way. The people most eager to buy a policy are disproportionately the ones who already suspect they will need it. The eagerness is not a coincidence. It is a signal, and the less-informed party is the one left holding it.

The candidate who is suspiciously available immediately. The seller who accepts your first offer with a little too much relief. The deal that closes unusually easily is not always luck. Sometimes it is adverse selection, quietly telling you what the other side already knows.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

1 habit most intelligent people have in common
6 science-backed tips for staying hydrated during the hottest months
Why following your passion can derail your career
The 11 best ways to stay alert on no sleep
Why does retiring early lead to cognitive decline?

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

📣 Partner With Us: Get in front of an audience of over 1 million finance professionals, business leaders, and policy influencers. Submit a partnership inquiry.

📊 Wall Street Comp & Culture Data: Get the most detailed comp, carry, and culture insights across 1000+ Wall Street firms. Explore the data.

📈 Grow With Us: Work directly with the Overheard on Wall Street team to scale your finance brand. Schedule your free consult.

🧢 Wall Street Shop: Explore our collection of finance-themed apparel and merchandise. Visit the shop.

📬 Deals Newsletter – Buysiders: A curated roundup of major M&A, private equity, and VC activity. Plus access to private deal flow. Subscribe here.

What'd you think of today's edition?

Reply

or to participate.