What are the key takeaways from this Alt Goes Mainstream episode?

Key insights include: **Return Formation Evolution:** Private equity returns shifted dramatically from 2021 to 2022 as cost of debt rose from 7% to 11%, eliminating multiple expansion strategies. Firms now generate returns through EBITDA growth via revenue scaling and margin expansion rather than financial engineering. Recent credit market improvements have reduced debt costs back to 7%, creating more room for equity returns when combined with operational value creation capabilities.; **AI Value Creation Priority:** Data and AI consume more value creation hours than any other initiative across Goldman's portfolio. The diagnostic process evaluates company data quality, tech stack configuration, and AI enablement potential. AI applications now drive both margin expansion through operational efficiency and revenue growth through improved customer experience, with some companies discovering AI solutions for one problem simultaneously solve adjacent business challenges.; **Network Activation Model:** Goldman's "One GS" structure, implemented seven years ago, activates employees far from investment decisions to support deal sourcing and value creation. The firm deploys over 100 people across six value acceleration sectors: revenue scaling, operational excellence, technology, talent, ESG, and finance strategy. Talent, revenue scaling, and technology consume the most implementation hours across the portfolio, with talent upgrades considered essential for future-proofing companies.

What did Agm Unscripted discuss on Alt Goes Mainstream?

Michael Bruun, global co-head of private equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, explains how the firm leverages its network and value creation resources across an $83 billion platform. He discusses the shift from financial engineering to operational excellence, the critical role of AI implementation, and how Goldman's "One GS" approach activates employees across the firm to drive deal sourcing and portfolio company growth. Key topics include: **Return Formation Evolution:** Private equity returns shifted dramatically from 2021 to 2022 as cost of debt rose from 7% to 11%, eliminating multiple expansion strategies. Firms now generate returns through EBITDA growth via revenue scaling and margin expansion rather than financial engineering. Recent credit market improvements have reduced debt costs back to 7%, creating more room for equity returns when combined with operational value creation capabilities.; **AI Value Creation Priority:** Data and AI consume more value creation hours than any other initiative across Goldman's portfolio. The diagnostic process evaluates company data quality, tech stack configuration, and AI enablement potential. AI applications now drive both margin expansion through operational efficiency and revenue growth through improved customer experience, with some companies discovering AI solutions for one problem simultaneously solve adjacent business challenges..

How long is this episode of Alt Goes Mainstream?

This episode is 28 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

Alt Goes Mainstream

AGM Unscripted: Goldman Sachs' Michael Bruun - Driving Value in Private Equity Through Network and Innovation

February 13, 2026

28 min episode · 2 min read

Agm Unscripted

Episode

28 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Productivity, Relationships, Investing

AI-Generated Summary

Published Feb 13, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Return Formation Evolution: Private equity returns shifted dramatically from 2021 to 2022 as cost of debt rose from 7% to 11%, eliminating multiple expansion strategies. Firms now generate returns through EBITDA growth via revenue scaling and margin expansion rather than financial engineering. Recent credit market improvements have reduced debt costs back to 7%, creating more room for equity returns when combined with operational value creation capabilities.
✓AI Value Creation Priority: Data and AI consume more value creation hours than any other initiative across Goldman's portfolio. The diagnostic process evaluates company data quality, tech stack configuration, and AI enablement potential. AI applications now drive both margin expansion through operational efficiency and revenue growth through improved customer experience, with some companies discovering AI solutions for one problem simultaneously solve adjacent business challenges.
✓Network Activation Model: Goldman's "One GS" structure, implemented seven years ago, activates employees far from investment decisions to support deal sourcing and value creation. The firm deploys over 100 people across six value acceleration sectors: revenue scaling, operational excellence, technology, talent, ESG, and finance strategy. Talent, revenue scaling, and technology consume the most implementation hours across the portfolio, with talent upgrades considered essential for future-proofing companies.
✓Strategic Exit Focus: Goldman maintains discipline by underwriting every deal with a strategic buyer or financial sponsor exit in mind, avoiding reliance on continuation vehicles or evergreen funds as primary exit strategies. While evergreen vehicles provide flexibility and quick deployment for investors less familiar with private equity, they represent a small portion of capital and supplement rather than substitute traditional closed-end fund structures to prevent strategy drift.
✓Collaboration Over Solo Dealmaking: The skill set for private equity investors has shifted from singular deal-making ability to orchestrating resources across large teams. Predicting whether a company remains relevant five years out requires collaboration across public and private investment teams, strategic corporate relationships, and engineering resources. Goldman's CEO AI Academy trains portfolio company leaders to drive AI adoption top-down rather than delegating it solely to technology departments.

What It Covers

Michael Bruun, global co-head of private equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, explains how the firm leverages its network and value creation resources across an $83 billion platform. He discusses the shift from financial engineering to operational excellence, the critical role of AI implementation, and how Goldman's "One GS" approach activates employees across the firm to drive deal sourcing and portfolio company growth.

Key Questions Answered

•Return Formation Evolution: Private equity returns shifted dramatically from 2021 to 2022 as cost of debt rose from 7% to 11%, eliminating multiple expansion strategies. Firms now generate returns through EBITDA growth via revenue scaling and margin expansion rather than financial engineering. Recent credit market improvements have reduced debt costs back to 7%, creating more room for equity returns when combined with operational value creation capabilities.
•AI Value Creation Priority: Data and AI consume more value creation hours than any other initiative across Goldman's portfolio. The diagnostic process evaluates company data quality, tech stack configuration, and AI enablement potential. AI applications now drive both margin expansion through operational efficiency and revenue growth through improved customer experience, with some companies discovering AI solutions for one problem simultaneously solve adjacent business challenges.
•Network Activation Model: Goldman's "One GS" structure, implemented seven years ago, activates employees far from investment decisions to support deal sourcing and value creation. The firm deploys over 100 people across six value acceleration sectors: revenue scaling, operational excellence, technology, talent, ESG, and finance strategy. Talent, revenue scaling, and technology consume the most implementation hours across the portfolio, with talent upgrades considered essential for future-proofing companies.
•Strategic Exit Focus: Goldman maintains discipline by underwriting every deal with a strategic buyer or financial sponsor exit in mind, avoiding reliance on continuation vehicles or evergreen funds as primary exit strategies. While evergreen vehicles provide flexibility and quick deployment for investors less familiar with private equity, they represent a small portion of capital and supplement rather than substitute traditional closed-end fund structures to prevent strategy drift.
•Collaboration Over Solo Dealmaking: The skill set for private equity investors has shifted from singular deal-making ability to orchestrating resources across large teams. Predicting whether a company remains relevant five years out requires collaboration across public and private investment teams, strategic corporate relationships, and engineering resources. Goldman's CEO AI Academy trains portfolio company leaders to drive AI adoption top-down rather than delegating it solely to technology departments.

Notable Moment

Bruun reveals that Goldman Sachs engineering has become one of his most critical partnerships, working to productize insights from portfolio company case studies so every CEO and functional leader can access learnings without individual discovery journeys. This approach accelerates implementation across the portfolio, particularly valuable during periods of market volatility when rapid data-driven decisions separate outperforming managers from average returns.

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Episode Transcript

I think no entity that we are aware of have a network like our network, and that's very important for sourcing, and it's very, very important for value creation. But it's not just, like, a network in theory. It's a network in action. And so what we have done, and I commend our executive management team for this, we have created one GS. We created one GS roughly seven years ago, and that one GS is really working full steam. For example, our private equity strategies, but I would say all our alternative strategies. What that gives us is it gives us an opportunity to activate employees far from the ultimate investment decision in the process of deal sourcing or in the process of value creation. I think that that network effect is unrival, seen from my perspective. And the more we activate it, the more of a flywheel we create. Welcome back to the Alcos mainstream podcast. In this special series, we went behind the scenes at the Goldman Sachs alternatives conference and interviewed six Goldman Sachs alternatives leaders about their current thinking on private markets and how the firm has built and evolved its private markets capabilities. The next interview in this series is with Michael Brun. Michael is global co head of private equity within Goldman Sachs asset management. We had an interesting and insightful conversation. Thanks, Michael, and please enjoy. Michael, welcome to the Alcos Mainstream podcast. Thank you. Good to be here. Pleasure to have you. You're over from London. Yeah? Absolutely. We came over a couple of days ago, and we have, like, a a very, very big segment over the next few days working with our investors, talking about what we're doing in alternatives. Goldman obviously has a massive alternatives platform. Tell me about what you focus on and what your background was. I started at Goldman Sachs twenty one years ago, started my career in fixed income, then went on to do capital markets and m and a. And then roughly years ago moved into asset and wealth management. And all that time I've been focused on private equity investing, which for us means focusing on controlled buyouts in the upper mid market space. So fifteen years ago, it was 2010, Private equity was in a very different place than it is today. I think that's a great jumping off point to hear your perspectives on the evolution of private equity as it pertains to your own career arc. What do you think the industry looks like today, and how is it different from when you started in the private equity side in 2010? Obviously, the industry today is dramatically bigger. It has really scaled over the last fifteen years. We started out in an era where rates might have been lower, credit spreads were very benign. You saw continuous multiple expansion. And so the way we generated returns over that era was very much driven through financial engineering, a combination of …

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