We wired the money. Now what?

Today’s Big Picture

Sending money into a private company takes about a minute.

Then, for years, nothing happens. No daily price, no ticker, often no news at all.

That long, silent stretch is where most bad decisions get made. Yesterday, in a ballroom at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the Inflection Club spent its first morning on it.

In private investing, the decision takes a minute and the waiting takes years, so the waiting needs a plan too.

Below, the club’s co-lead, Maxwell Nee, takes you inside Day 1, with photos from the room.

Two Dollar Coins Paid 7% This Week. The Average Savings Account Pays 0.38%.

In Tuesday’s Beat Banks, the calmest pool on The DeFi Doctor’s list held two dollar stablecoins and showed 7%. That’s about 18 cents a day on every $1,000.

Another kept your money in ETH and showed 9%, about 25 cents a day per $1,000.

Beat Banks is our twice-weekly newsletter on earning yield in decentralized finance, written by The DeFi Doctor. Every issue lays out six pools across three risk tiers, with where the yield comes from, what it means in dollars and what could go wrong.

Higher yields come with bigger risks, and Doc spells those out too.

See how Beat Banks works →

Yields are as of Nov. 10, 2026, change daily and are not guaranteed. The savings figure is the FDIC national average. Decentralized finance carries risks, including smart-contract failures, stablecoin depegs and the loss of principal. Nothing here is a recommendation.

Featured Contributor

Today’s guest is Maxwell Nee, Chairman and Founder of Family Office Insider and a co-lead of the Inflection Club, a private investment club for accredited Decentralized Masters members. Nothing in this section is an offer, a solicitation, or a recommendation, and private investments can lose their entire value.

Day 1 in Vegas: What Happens After You Wire the Money

I’m writing this late last night, after the dinner, with the bow tie finally off.

It was a long day and a good one, and I wanted you to see it before Day 2 starts.

9:00 a.m. We open by mixing the room

Vanessa Braun and I opened the day. Our first ask was for everyone who’d been at our first meeting in Austin to stand up and find someone who hadn’t, and tell them the one thing they wish someone had told them before Austin.

Vanessa says the sound of that room talking is her favorite part of the job. I’ve stopped arguing with her.

We also repeated a promise we made in Austin: a club that only ever shows you its winners is marketing with a membership fee. Saying no to deals is still the part of this job I like most.

9:30 a.m. Life after the wire

Then Salim Elhila, Decentralized Masters’ co-founder, took the stage. He started with a question: who in the room had ever checked the amount on a wire three times before pressing send?

I’d have put my hand up first.

His point was that the wire takes a minute. Everything hard comes after it.

Twenty squares. Out of every 20 startup investments, about 13 return less than you put in. About six give your money back or a few times more. And about one pays for all the others. That’s roughly what industry data show over many years, and it isn’t a forecast for any deal.

Year three. Private investments usually look worst in the early years, before the winners have had time to grow. Salim put it plainly: “Year three will look like a mistake. It’s the plan, right on schedule.”

Yellow. A company that’s clearly failing is painful, but at least you know. The hardest one to live with is the one in between, not failing and not working yet. You can’t sell it, and worrying harder won’t help.

Who else knows? Private deals don’t show up on a bank statement. So Salim asked everyone to write down what they own, for the people they love, in case they ever need to find it.

10:40 a.m. My turn

My session was the long version of the piece you read here yesterday: twelve good companies can still add up to one bet, and the sentence each company needs to be true is where that bet hides.

Standing in front of people who have written those cheques is different from writing about it. I always learn more from the questions than from my own slides.

After lunch: how your table thinks

Vanessa ran a session on DISC, a way of describing how people make decisions. It goes back to a 1928 book by the psychologist William Moulton Marston, who, it turns out, also created Wonder Woman.

It comes down to two questions. Do you go fast or take your time? Do you question first or trust first?

Then Vanessa showed the room one deal through four sets of eyes:

One person asks, “When do I need to decide?”

One asks, “Who’s the founder?”

One asks, “What does my table think?”

And one asks, “Where’s the full report?”

Vanessa’s summary of how I decide was “True, next question. False, we’re done.” I’d like to dispute that, but I can’t.

The line I wrote down: the person at your table who drives you a little crazy is often the one who catches what you’d miss.

A founder on stage

Vanessa and I then sat down with a founder for 40 minutes: her story, then the room’s questions. I’ll leave the company out of it, because the club’s deals stay inside the club. Having a founder in the room is one of the things we promised every Inflection Club event would include, and it’s my favorite 40 minutes of any of them.

Six at your table

We finished the afternoon with Expert Rotations: six experts moving between tables every 15 minutes, so nobody had to get up once. Dziugas Butkus, Rami Al-Sabeq, The DeFi Doctor, Vanessa and I each had a table, along with one of our own members who spent decades on the other side of these decisions.

Two chimes meant move on. For one afternoon, a chime got to tell me when to stop talking. Vanessa enjoyed that more than she should have.

6:30 p.m. Shaken, not stirred

Dinner had a James Bond theme and a cocktail dress code. I’ll let the photos speak for that part.

Three things worth stealing

If you own anything you can’t sell tomorrow, like a private company, a property or a friend’s business, these three ideas from yesterday travel well.

First, expect most bets to disappoint. The math works because of the rare winner, so size every cheque as if it could be one of the 13.

Second, decide today what you’ll do in year three, when it looks like a mistake. A plan written on a calm day beats a feeling on a bad one.

Third, write down what you own and where it is, for the people you love.

The minute you invest is the easy part. Plan for the years after it.

Day 2 starts in a few hours. I’ll see you on the other side.

- Maxwell Nee

Chairman & Founder, Family Office Insider | Inflection Club

Private investments are illiquid and high-risk, and you can lose all of the money you put into any one company. Industry figures are long-run averages, not forecasts. Nothing here is an offer, a solicitation, or a recommendation.

Want More From Max and the Inflection Club?

The club’s two days in Vegas are for members. Its podcast is for everyone.

On YouTube, the Inflection Club shares conversations about investing at the inflection point, including an episode with Decentralized Masters co-founder Salim Elhila. It’s free, and it’s the closest you can get to the room without being in it.

Watch the Inflection Club on YouTube →

The Inflection Club is a private club for accredited Decentralized Masters members. Nothing here is an offer, a solicitation, or a recommendation.

Final Thought

A quick word on markets. On Tuesday, we said a core inflation reading above forecast would make a December rate hike more likely.

Core came in at 0.3%, a tenth above forecast, and headline prices rose 0.4%. By Tuesday evening, traders put a December hike at close to 9 in 10, according to CME FedWatch.

Today, the Treasury sells $25 billion of 30-year bonds at 1 p.m. ET, the bond market’s first big test after its Veterans Day break.

Max’s point applies here too: the decision is the easy part, so plan for what comes after it.

Tomorrow evening, Ocean’s DM opens at the Bellagio, and we’ll have photos from Day 2 of the Inflection Club.

See you then.

- Rami Al-Sabeq

Editor in Chief | Future Finance

Want a Seat at the Table Next Time?

Ocean’s DM opens tomorrow evening at the Bellagio. It’s for Decentralized Masters members, and so is every live event we run.

Membership starts with the ABN Incubator, where new members learn the system our members use to build their portfolios, with a written plan for what to do before the market forces a decision.

If this week’s idea of practicing decisions before you need them made sense to you, this is where that practice starts.

See how the ABN Incubator works →

Disclaimer: This content is not financial advice, it is for informational purposes only. All investments involve inherent risk. Any financial decisions you make are solely your responsibility.