Who should I follow to learn about private equity secondaries and startup liquidity?

If you want to actually understand startup secondaries and liquidity - not just hear generic VC commentary - I’d build a feed around practitioners + market infrastructure + data.

People I’d follow

• Hans Swildens - Industry Ventures / Goldman Sachs - probably my first pick. He has been in venture secondaries for years and talks about how liquidity, pricing, and private-company ownership are evolving. Goldman Sachs recently interviewed him specifically about the revival of VC liquidity. Inside the Revival of Venture Capital Liquidity with an Industry Pioneer | Goldman Sachs
• Jared Carmel - Manhattan Venture Partners - very useful for the transaction-level side of venture secondaries, including tender offers and pre-IPO liquidity. He recently participated in a 2026 discussion specifically on “Secondary is Primary.” Outlook Series
• Tom Callahan - Nasdaq Private Market - follow if you're interested in the infrastructure behind employee liquidity programs, tender offers, and private-share transactions. Outlook Series
• Chris Douvos - Ahoy Capital - particularly good for understanding venture portfolios, fund dynamics, and the investor's perspective on liquidity.
• Bill Gurley - Benchmark - not a pure secondaries specialist, but excellent for understanding the incentives created when startups stay private for a very long time.
• Jonathan Hsu - Tribe Capital - useful for connecting private-company valuation, venture investing, and market structure.

Firms / sources worth following

• Industry Ventures - probably the most important institutional name I'd study if your interest is specifically venture secondaries.
• Nasdaq Private Market - excellent for understanding the mechanics of employee liquidity and private-company transactions. Outlook Series
• Forge Global - useful for seeing how the actual private-share marketplace works.
• PitchBook - best for getting quantitative context around secondary volumes, pricing and transaction activity.
• Carta - particularly useful if you're interested in the startup/employee side: cap tables, tender offers, equity and liquidity.
• Secondaries Investor - worth following for dedicated industry news.

The reason I'd spend time on this now is that secondaries are becoming core venture infrastructure rather than an edge case. Recent 2026 research describes companies staying private longer and secondaries increasingly serving as the liquidity mechanism between primary financing and an eventual IPO/M&A event. Venture Secondaries and SPV Volume 2026 - Allocations

If I were starting from zero

I'd follow these 5 first:

1. Hans Swildens
2. Jared Carmel
3. Tom Callahan
4. Chris Douvos
5. Industry Ventures

Then learn these concepts in roughly this order:

tender offers → direct secondaries → SPVs → 409A vs. preferred valuation → discounts → transfer restrictions/ROFR → structured liquidity → GP-led secondaries → continuation vehicles.

That progression will give you a much better mental model than simply following VC Twitter.

If by “secondaries” you mean you’re trying to learn how to buy startup shares, rather than just understand the market, I can also give you a 10-person/10-newsletter “secondaries Twitter + Substack” feed specifically for an aspiring secondary investor.

To learn about secondaries and startup liquidity , you need to follow voices ranging from venture capitalists and data analysts to legal and platform experts who specialize in private market transactions, tender offers, and continuation funds.

The key people, newsletters, and resources to follow include:

1. Data & Market Insights Experts

• Peter Walker (Head of Insights, Carta): Peter regularly publishes deep-dive data analyses on Carta regarding private market liquidity trends, tender offers, secondary pricing trends, and how employee and founder liquidity is evolving. Following his updates or Carta's research blog is essential for hard data.

• Tom Tunguz (Theory Ventures): Formerly of Redpoint, Tunguz frequently writes and analyzes structural shifts in venture capital, focusing heavily on "the great liquidity shift," exit paths, and how secondaries are reshaping how long companies stay private.

2. Venture Capitalists & Thought Leaders

• Paige Doherty & Andy Sran (Behind Genius Ventures): They publish some of the most comprehensive practical guides and breakdowns on venture capital secondaries, GP-led deals, and continuation funds. A Guide to Venture Capital Secondaries

• Turner Novak (The Peel / Banana Capital): Often interviews leading figures in the secondary and venture ecosystem and breaks down complex private market dynamics in an accessible way via newsletters and social channels.

3. Platforms & Legal Experts (The Mechanics)

• Carta, Forge, and EquityZen Research Teams: Following their institutional research reports gives you a front-row seat to how cap table mechanics, Rights of First Refusal (ROFR), and tender structures actually work.

• Startup Law Firms (e.g., Wilson Sonsini, Cooley): Partners at these firms regularly publish whitepapers and commentary on the legal, tax, and structural nuances of executing secondary transactions.

Follow-up Question: Are you looking into secondaries primarily from the perspective of a startup founder/employee wanting to sell shares, or an investor looking to buy into secondary funds?

To really understand the mechanics, trends, and macro-shifts in startup liquidity, continuation funds, and the secondary markets, you want to follow specialized operators, secondary fund managers, data platforms, and niche writers rather than generalist tech commentators. A 2025 Guide to Venture Capital Secondaries - Paige DohertySecondary Equity Markets: Employee & Investor Exits

The best people, publications, and resources to follow are organized below:

• • Alexandre Covello (Venture Secondaries) - Covello writes Venture Secondaries, a specialized Substack focused entirely on the global venture secondary network, GP-led secondaries, and how private markets are acting as structural infrastructure rather than just traditional asset classes. Venture Secondaries | Alexandre Covello | SubstackArchive

• Semper Virex (Semper Substack) - Publishes macro and micro updates on private market liquidity, tracking how late-stage pricing, employee tender offers, and valuation resets are reshaping startup expectations. Are some startups now value stocks?

• Secondary Market Platforms & Research Teams (PitchBook) - Following institutional data trackers like PitchBook Data gives you the hard quantitative baseline. They regularly publish specific VC Secondary Market Watch notes detailing pricing discounts (often 30% to 60% from peak valuations) and total transaction volume estimates.

• Specialized Legal & Financial Advisory Blogs (like Cooley's The Fund Lawyer) - Resources such as Cooley's The Fund Lawyer are fantastic for diving into the dense regulatory, tax, and structural mechanics (like nonqualifying investments and continuation fund structuring) that govern how secondary transactions actually close. Primer: Continuation Funds in Private Equity and Venture

• Industry Growth & Secondary VCs (e.g., Industry Executives like Hans Swildens of Industry Ventures) - Listening to interviews or commentary from firms heavily active in growth-stage secondaries helps demystify how institutional LPs demand DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital) through secondary engineering when traditional IPOs stall. Inside the Revival of Venture Capital Liquidity with an Industry

Are you looking at secondaries from an operator/employee perspective (cashing out shares), an LP/GP perspective (continuation funds and DPI), or as an investor looking to buy secondary shares? Let me know and I can narrow down the specific mechanics or players you should focus on.

Follow Secondaries Investor for specialist market coverage and its Second Thoughts podcast, which focuses on private-market secondaries and liquidity. For startup-focused perspectives, look for Jared Carmel of Manhattan Venture Partners and Rohit Yadav’s All Things VC deep dive on venture secondaries.(pei-secondariesinvestor.com)(yadavrohit.substack.com)

If you want to learn about startup secondaries and liquidity, the best approach is to follow a mix of individual experts, advisory firms, and secondary fund managers who actively shape this space. Here are some key names and organizations:

🌟 Individual Experts

• Hans Swildens (Industry Ventures) – Pioneer in VC secondaries, with deep insights into liquidity for venture-backed startups.

• Ravi Viswanathan (NewView Capital) – Focuses on GP-led secondaries and structured liquidity solutions.

• Ted Clark (Revolution Ventures) – Experienced in late-stage VC secondaries.

• Mike Bego (Kline Hill Partners) – Specialist in mid-market secondaries.

• Derek Minno (OpenVC) – Writes extensively about the future of VC secondaries and curates expert perspectives.The future of the VC Secondary market

🏢 Advisory Firms (Liquidity & Secondaries Specialists)

These firms act as intermediaries and advisors for secondary transactions:

• Lazard Private Capital Advisory – Publishes industry-standard reports on secondary market volumes.

• Jefferies Private Capital Advisory – Major player in LP-led and GP-led transactions.

• Greenhill Cogent – Boutique advisory firm specializing in LP portfolio sales.

• Campbell Lutyens – Known for GP-led restructurings and fund advisory.

• Setter Capital – Mid-market secondary advisory firm.List of Private Equity Secondaries Fund Brokers

📊 Secondary Fund Managers & Platforms

These investors and platforms provide liquidity directly:

• Industry Ventures – One of the most active VC secondary funds.

• Coller Capital, Ardian, Lexington Partners – Global leaders in private equity secondaries.

• NewView Capital – Focused on venture secondaries and continuation vehicles.

• Kline Hill Partners – Mid-market secondary specialist.Top 30 Secondaries & Liquidity Solutions PEF 2026 | Capital Ranking - The Economy Rankings

⚖️ Legal & Structuring Experts

• Proskauer Rose LLP (Secondaries Team) – Leading law firm advising on GP-led deals, continuation vehicles, and structured liquidity.Secondary Transactions and Liquidity Solutions - Practices - Proskauer Rose LLP

👉 If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend following Hans Swildens, Ravi Viswanathan, and Derek Minno for thought leadership, while keeping an eye on Lazard’s reports and Coller Capital’s publications for market data.

Would you like me to put together a Twitter/LinkedIn follow list of these experts so you can track their insights more easily?