During this past summer, we had two interns from Princeton (where I got by BA) come and work with us for a month each.
We created the (paid!) intern program mostly because neither Jon nor I knew that real estate private equity existed when we were in college, and we wanted to give some motivated students the opportunity to experience the business first-hand.
Have to admit that I did not expect the interns to add any value whatsoever to Adaptive, because what we do is pretty complicated, with a steep learning curve.
Am happy to let you know I was wrong! Towards the end of the summer, one of our interns found a deal that we absolutely would not have found otherwise, and we’re going to buy it. The fees we’ll earn from the deal massively exceed the total cost of the internship program, and we and our investors will be very happy to own this building forever.
Over a drink or two, I guess I would admit to believing that the universe has a way of giving you back what you put out there. Just don’t usually expect to have it happen so fast.
Anyway, needless to say, we’ll be continuing the program next summer.