• Asset managers like Coatue, D1, Tiger Global, and more are diving into the private markets again.
• This cohort of funds, known as the Tiger Cubs, helped fuel private market valuations in 2020 and 2021.
• After a tough 2022, these funds are once again allocating big money to private companies.

The Tiger Cubs are on the hunt — and they're ready to pounce on private market opportunities.

Big-name asset managers such as Tiger Global, Coatue, and D1 — a group collectively known as Tiger Cubs, given their connections to the late Julian Robertson's Tiger Management — are back to investing in private markets, talking about start-ups, and fundraising for non-public strategies.

These managers, once burned by the 2022 tech market rout, when soaring interest rates and plunging valuations forced them to retreat, are now riding the artificial intelligence boom in big-name tech stocks and late-stage private companies alike. In private markets specifically, there's been a slight uptick in the number of deals these crossover investors have done in 2025 compared to the last two years, and a significant jump in the size of checks they've been writing.

PitchBook data shows that the median valuation of private companies in which Tiger Global has invested so far in 2025 is more than $2 billion, compared to roughly $300 million in 2022. The venture rounds and private deals these funds have done this year are, on average, significantly larger than what they were doing three years ago, according to PitchBook.

Even with public equity markets as strong as ever, hitting record highs in late October before a dip at the start of the month, private markets are where hedge-fund stockpickers hoping to distinguish themselves from cheap index investors and run-of-the-mill mutual funds are flocking.

D1 founder Dan Sundheim, who originally made his name in the industry compiling deep dives on potential short bets of public companies in an online investing forum, said "public markets bring distraction and pressure" to top startups.

"Many private companies would do better staying private," Sundheim said on a podcast with Stripe cofounder John Collison last month.

The public markets are desperate for new entrants, but the "IPO market is broken beyond repair," according to Coatue's founder, Philippe Laffont, who invests across both public and private tech companies.

Investing in private companies has become an easier way to bet on long-term potential, he said, thanks in part to the efficiency and number of players in the public markets.

Speaking at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference earlier this month, Laffont said an investor in a public stock has to ask, "Not only do you believe in the future, but is it already priced in or not?"

Wary of 2022's troubles

In 2020 and 2021, these firms, especially Tiger Global, helped fuel sky-high valuations for startups with a plethora of bets across the board. The pain in 2022 forced these managers to do some soul-searching, and Tiger Global reworked its risk management processes.

Now, even smaller Tiger Cubs have returned to private markets in recent times after a pause.

Mala Gaonkar's SurgoCap was a part of iCapital's $820 million raise this summer. Gaonkar's former firm, longtime Tiger Cub Lone Pine Capital, resumed private-marketing investing last year when it backed Canva and travel platform Spotnana — the manager's first venture bets since late 2021. This year, the firm invested in Singapore payments startup Airwallex.

Meanwhile, Maverick Capital's stand-alone private markets fund focused on AI, Maverick Silicon, has done eight deals since launching in mid-2024.

Funds mentioned declined to comment.

This isn't to say that these managers are selling all of their publicly traded stocks or that these funds just started investing in private AI companies. Tiger Global backed OpenAI in 2021, for example, at a valuation of $15.7 billion; the company is now worth more than 30 times that.

Publicly traded chipmakers and tech giants investing in AI are among the top holdings for most of the Tiger Cubs, regulatory filings show, and Maverick Silicon's head, Andrew Homan, said at October's Robin Hood conference that public chipmakers like Nvidia and SK Hynix would be smart bets in the coming decade.

Valuations for private companies like OpenAI and Anthropic continue to surge, though, and pure-play venture funds and crossover managers, such as the Tiger Cubs, are ready to put their billions of capital to work.

"As we like to say in this industry, it's on," said Tiger Global's founder, Chase Coleman, at the Robin Hood conference.

When a conference in Miami coincided with Sarah LeMoine's 24th birthday, she arranged for a friend to join her and turned the work trip into a mini vacation.

And when LeMoine's job took her to Los Angeles from her home in Canada, LeMoine again added on a few days of personal travel. She spent the weekend exploring the city and creating content for her 57,000 TikTok followers.

"You don't need a man to fly you out for free vacations. You just need to work a corporate job that has travel perks," LeMoine explained in a recent TikTok. "I'm always going to make the most of business trips and traveling for work because it's free travel."

Approaching a work trip as an opportunity to stay at a fancy hotel or enjoy an especially nice meal on someone else's dime is not new to Gen Z. But, in an environment of increasingly relaxed work-life boundaries, supplementing a business trip with some vacation time has become one of the generation's favorite travel hacks.

Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z workers say they bundle business and personal travel, according to a Harris Poll survey conducted for the business travel platform Engine. Meanwhile, Gen Z business travelers are also more likely than other generations to extend a work trip, according to Hotels.com's Business Trip Report.

Compared to the sullen, briefcase-carrying road warriors of old — catching flights to windowless convention halls and drinking alone at the hotel bar — Zoomers are more likely to quietly bring along a plus-one and find ways to extract maximum enjoyment from a trip they'll be making anyway.

For LeMoine's experience-driven generation, a trip's a trip, whether it started out as a vacation or has the potential to become one.

"Younger generations are so experience-oriented and savvy about travel," says Christie Hudson, a travel expert for Hotels.com. They're "posting their upgraded flights, their cute outfits, and hotel room — and then going to the conference. It's definitely a different vibe."

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Zoomers, and to a lesser extent millennials, are not only extra-excited at the prospect of a work trip — they're also more likely than older generations to reach into their own pockets to have a more luxurious experience.

Nearly nine in ten Zoomers and seven in ten millennials see work trips as a chance to upgrade their lifestyles, the Hotels.com report found. They're more than twice as likely to pay out of pocket to upgrade a flight compared to older colleagues and roughly two-thirds have personally paid to switch to a nicer hotel, compared to just half of those from older generations.

"If it was a pretty good price, like $300 to $500, I would definitely go for it," says LeMoine. She describes herself as budget-conscious and says she would draw the line at paying over $1,000 for an upgrade.

They're also more likely to extend their stay at a nice hotel and take advantage of their company's corporate rate.

Emily Nasser, 26, works for a company that hosts conferences and travels to luxury venues multiple times a year from her home in Toronto. She adores travel, but now almost exclusively vacations where she has to go anyway for work.

Last November, after attending a conference at the luxurious Ojai Valley Inn, Nasser invited a friend to join her for a few extra days to take advantage of the corporate rate. She says they paid $389 for a room that would have cost $800 without the discount.

"It was amazing," Nasser says. "And I wouldn't have been able to do that unless I was sent to that event for my job."

Another time, when a business trip to Orlando included a stay at the Ritz-Carlton, Nasser invited her boyfriend to tag along.

As regular business travellers will attest, a work trip is more likely to take you to Cleveland than the Caribbean. And while most of Nasser's work takes her to California or Florida, she's holding out hope for a more exotic location soon. "Europe is always my dream to go to," Nasser says.

Generally speaking, young professionals are more likely to be up for a long journey if it means reaching a bucket-list destination at the other end. While older professionals welcome a chance to go to London, according to the Hotels.com survey, Tokyo is a top pick among Zoomers.

And one thing business travellers of all ages have in common: it's a points economy.

For a generation of credit card users, business trips can be a lucrative way to build up points, and collect perks to stretch their money as far as it will go. More than half of Gen Z already rely on credit card points and rewards to pay for travel expenses, according to a study conducted by Qualtrics on behalf of Intuit Credit Karma. Almost half of Gen Z business travellers make work travel choices based on maximising rewards and 42% of millennials have cashed them in for cheap hotels or upgraded flights later down the line, according to Hotels.com.

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Take a cursory scroll through social media and you'll think that business class is full of 20-somethings sipping champagne and doing their skincare mid-flight.

Gen Z has grown up watching influencers be treated to all-expenses-paid, business-class trips, giving hotel room tours of expensive suites and ordering room service. It makes sense that a new generation of business travellers want a taste of that for themselves, even if they need to pay for the upgrades out of pocket.

Yet, for a generation deep in the trenches of buy-now-pay-later and drowning in personal debt, keeping up with the Joneses can create problems if Zoomers are upgrading out of pocket for experiences they can't yet afford.

"Here's the real crux of Gen Z," says Grace McCarrick, a keynote speaker focused on soft skills education and bridging the gap between internet and professional culture. "So much of their understanding about the adult world is built on theory and observation rather than experience."

McCarrick notes, "the algorithm makes it feel normal, but in reality, most people are in coach—maybe Delta Comfort."

Still, tacking a vacation onto a trip that your employer has already paid for can be a sensible choice.

And, in the era of side hustles and influencer culture, business trips are also prime content opportunities — which could mean adding on the extra days will pay for itself.

For a generation encouraged to go through life as the "main character" and romanticise their day-to-day life, that's exactly what they are doing. Zoomers post 3 to 5 times more per day on social media than their older colleagues while on work trips, with 75% splurging on high-end dinners and entertainment just to get better content, according to Hotels.com.

"I try showing that I'm grateful, as opposed to, 'Look at me! I get to do this,'" says Nasser, who posts under the name 'THAT Corporate Girl' to over 100,000 followers on TikTok. "I definitely use it to my advantage to post because why wouldn't I if I'm in a beautiful spot in a new city."

While Nasser's company is supportive of her TikTok channel, not all will be. Prolific posting can create tension when it comes to filing the expense reports.

"If people are upgrading hotels or airfare, be smart about it," advises McCarrick. "If you know you're flying with other people and everyone's flying coach, don't be the youngest person on the team upgrading yourself. That looks crazy."

"An attitude of entitlement, "I deserve this", will always be tough for colleagues to swallow," she says.

At the same time, employers who discourage work-vacation bundling might find that potential employees take notice. For a professional cohort who are working to live, rather than living to work, a business trip that's all work and no play may lead younger employees to disengage and seek out more flexibility elsewhere.

"Younger workers do pay attention to how flexible employers are. They might be drawn to companies that encourage experiences and don't micromanage travel," says Hudson. "Younger employees care about time-off policies and work-life balance, and this all fits into that."

Nasser concurs. "I love showing that there are companies out there that do do this," she says. "And, if you're not happy at your company, well, maybe you should look at corporate events or a company that does allow you to travel." 

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Eve Upton-Clark is a freelance writer covering culture and society.

• Wall Street says Nvidia's blowout quarter shows the AI boom is far from peaking.
• Nvidia posted $57 billion in revenue on Wednesday, topping analysts' $55 billion estimates.
• "Fears of an AI bubble are way overstated," one analyst said.

Nvidia's blockbuster earnings just blew a hole through Wall Street's AI bubble anxieties.

Analysts said the chipmaker's third-quarter results prove the AI boom is nowhere near running out of steam.

On Wednesday, Nvidia posted $57 billion in revenue, topping Wall Street's $55 billion estimates. Its data center division generated revenue of $51 billion, surpassing the $49.31 billion analysts had projected. The company reported earnings of $1.30 per share compared to the $1.26 estimate. It also forecast $65 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations of $61.98 billion.

Nvidia's stock rose about 3% in after-hours trading following the results and climbed about 4.5% after hours as the analyst call wrapped.

"Fears of an AI bubble are way overstated," Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, wrote after the print. The tech bull called the results a "pop-the-champagne moment" for tech investors.

"This is another validation point for the AI revolution," Ives wrote. "We are in the top of the third inning of this AI game."

Other analysts echoed that view. Thomas Monteiro, a senior analyst at Investing.com, said Nvidia's report shows the AI revolution is "nowhere near its peak," with both demand and supply chain scaling continuing.

Despite concerns that ballooning capital expenditures — estimated at more than $400 billion across top cloud platforms — could lead to a slowdown, Monteiro said Nvidia's numbers show that tech companies remain committed to scaling their data centers.

Daniel Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust, said investors remain wary of what he calls the "three C's" — capex sustainability, circular financing, and rising competition.

"While these issues were not put to rest, the recent print does give investors confidence that Nvidia is still executing at a high level," he wrote. Nvidia's results suggest those fears can at least be "punted" into the next quarter, he added.

EMARKETER tech analyst Jacob Bourne told Business Insider that while Nvidia "delivered another blockbuster quarter," investors are increasingly focused on whether physical constraints — including power availability, land, and grid access — may limit how quickly hyperscalers can turn GPU capacity into actual revenue.

'Blackwell sales are off the charts'

During the earnings call, Nvidia reiterated that it has "half a trillion" in Blackwell and Rubin chip revenue through 2026.

Things are "on track" and "the number will grow," Colette Kress, the chief financial officer, said.

"We'll probably be taking more orders," she said, noting that new customers — including Anthropic following its recent deal — would add demand. "There's definitely an opportunity for us to have more on top of the $500 billion that we announced," she added.

Huang drew attention at Nvidia's October GTC conference after revealing that the company has $500 billion worth of AI-chip orders booked for 2025 and 2026, including orders for its Blackwell and Rubin chips.

"Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out," Jensen Huang said in Nvidia's earnings release.

Jefferies' analysts said that Nvidia's Blackwell GB300 GPU sales, which accounted for two-thirds of Blackwell sales, were "very strong."

"Nvidia answered the bell with GB300 shipments driving healthy upside to estimates," they wrote. They said that Nvidia's results "should help steady the ship" for AI stocks into the end of the year.

"Commentary around cloud service providers being sold out across the board and full utilization for Blackwell, Hopper, and even Ampere should help put the useful life conversation to bed," the analysts added.

The AI bubble chatter

The Nvidia CEO kicked off his remarks on Wednesday by taking aim at the "AI bubble" chatter.

"There's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble," said Huang, who is a longtime AI bull. "From our vantage point, we see something very different. As a reminder, Nvidia is unlike any other accelerator. We excel at every phase of AI, from pre-training and post-training to inference."

Some tech leaders have been warning that AI may be in bubble territory.

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates said in October that the market could be in the middle of an AI bubble.

"The value is extremely high, just like creating the internet ended up being, in net, very valuable," Gates said in an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box". "But you have a frenzy. And some of these companies will be glad they spent all this money. Some of them, you know, they'll commit to data centers whose electricity is too expensive."

"There are a ton of these investments that will be dead ends," he added.

Others, like Huang, have pushed back on the AI bubble narrative.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in July that the AI frenzy may resemble a bubble, but that doesn't mean it is one in reality.

"I think it's unlikely, based on my experience, that this is a bubble," Schmidt said during an appearance at the RAISE Summit in Paris. "It's much more likely that you're seeing a whole new industrial structure."

• Jane Fonda, 87, says she isn't afraid of aging and feels "better now" that she's older.
• "I'm afraid of dying with a lot of regrets. I watched my dad die with a lot of regrets," Fonda said.
• Fonda previously said that she hopes to stay strong and healthy for the sake of her grandkids.

Jane Fonda, 87, says her biggest fear isn't aging.

During an appearance on Wednesday's episode of "The Look" podcast hosted by Michelle Obama, Fonda said she found joy and confidence in growing older. The episode also featured guests Bethann Hardison and Jenna Lyons.

"And what is more astonishing is that I'm better now. I wouldn't go back for anything. I feel more centered, more whole, more complete. I'm very happy. Single," Fonda said.

Fonda said she has never been afraid of aging or dying, but turning 60 made her reconsider how she wanted to spend her remaining years.

"This is the beginning of my final act. And I didn't know how to live it. So I thought, well, what am I most afraid of?" Fonda said. "I'm afraid of dying with a lot of regrets. I watched my dad die with a lot of regrets. That was an important realization for me, because if you don't want to die with regrets, then you have to live the last part of your life in such a way that there won't be any regrets."

The actor added that the mantra has guided her for the past three decades.

Living without regret also means caring for her body and staying healthy as she grows older.

Speaking to People in January, Fonda said her workout routine has stayed consistent over the years.

"I essentially do everything I used to do, just slower," Fonda said. "I used to be a runner, but now I love walking. I love being outdoors in the woods, especially up and down hills."

In April, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she wants to be strong and flexible even as she ages because of her family.

"Unless you want to end up in a wheelchair and be totally dependent on others, you have to stay strong, getting in and out of cars, carrying your own luggage, lifting up your grandkids, or looking over your shoulder when you're backing up a car. They all become challenging under any circumstance, but if you're flexible and strong, it gets easier," Fonda said.

• Elon Musk and Donald Trump are extending olive branches to each other.
• Musk was at Trump's CEO-studded White House dinner on Tuesday.
• He later thanked Trump on X for "all he has done for America and the world."

Elon Musk and Donald Trump were at war all summer, but that relationship appears to be warming up.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO received an invitation to Trump's White House dinner on Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The dinner had a guest list dominated by CEOs. Musk was joined by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. This was Musk's first public appearance at the White House after he fell out with Trump in May.

Following the dinner, Musk posted pictures taken at the dinner on X, which showed himself, the crown prince, Huang, and Trump.

"I would like to thank President Trump for all he has done for America and the world," Musk's post said.

And during his speech at the US-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Trump made some lighthearted jokes at Musk's expense.

"You're so lucky I'm with you, Elon. I'll tell you. Has he ever thanked me properly?" Trump said.

The slow thawing of tensions between the two comes after several months of intense public feuding.

Timeline of the Musk-Trump feud

Musk and Trump have had a tumultuous relationship over the past year. The two became steadfast political allies when Musk backed Trump's 2024 presidential bid.

Musk then called himself the "first buddy" after Trump's win.

Musk later headed the White House's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a post he left in May.

The relationship soured in June, when Musk criticized Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." The two men started feuding publicly, with Musk saying Trump would not have won the presidential election if not for his support. Trump, meanwhile, threatened to cut government contracts that Musk's companies held.

Musk then said he would form a new political party called the "America Party."

"Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom," Musk wrote in an X post in July.

The duo have been spotted in public together since their alliance imploded. They were seen shaking hands at political activist Charlie Kirk's memorial service in September.

And before Trump's visit to Asia in October, Trump said he had always had a good relationship with Musk.

"I like Elon, I've always liked him," he told reporters on Air Force One in October.