Jason Engelhardt

Earlier this year, Don Smith from GrayCollar.com recruited me to help with something he cares deeply about — elevating Gray Collar work as a serious, respected, and necessary path in this country. Don’s conviction is straightforward: we’ve undervalued the people who build and maintain the physical systems that make everything else possible. He believes we need to correct that. I agreed. A few days ago, I was catching up with Ben Van Bunkirk. We were talking about what we’d both been reading....

Pre-seed isn’t dead. But it has  changed.   Carta just published their Q3 2025 State of Pre-Seed, based on data from 10,000+ companies, and it explains why so many founders feel fundraising is harder and what to do about it. What this report is (credibility + caveat). This is aggregated, anonymized Carta dataSAFEs and convertible notes covering Q1 2021 through Q3 2025, with a snapshot date of Nov 12, 2025. Not advice, but it’s a useful market thermometer. Trend #1 — Pre-seed cooled in Q3Q3...

Joel Stevens National Managing Director - Bernstein “More Than Money: A Family Office Built for Business Owners”  outlines how Bernstein Private Wealth Management  positions itself as a long-term partner to founders—aiming to support decisions before, during, and after  a liquidity event, not just manage investments once cash arrives. The paper emphasizes three core ideas: A modern “family office” model built around the realities of ownership. Bernstein describes integrating investment...