Why Altimeter: Interviews, Careers, & Portfolio

Altimeter Overview

Altimeter Capital is an American venture capital firm based in Boston, MA and Menlo Park, CA. The firm primarily invests in technology in both private and public markets globally.

For public markets, Altimeter manages a long / short public equity fund which financially supports tech companies. Their public equity fund has a strong performance – with average annual returns of around 29.5% since 2011.

For private markets, the firm handles private growth equity funds which puts funds in both early and late stage tech companies.

Brad Gerstner founded Altimeter Capital in 2008. It was launched with just around $3 million from Gerstner’s circle of friends and family members during the financial crisis of 2008. Prior to that, he worked at General Catalyst and PAR Capital Management.

Altimeter AUM

As of March 31, 2023, Altimeter has $8.6 billion in assets under management according to most recent regulatory filings.

Altimeter Interview Process & Questions

Firms can change their interview process with each candidate as they see fit. However, you’ll find consistencies in the general nature of the process if you interview at Altimeter (or a firm like it) such as the following:

• The process consists of 4 to 6 rounds of interviews
• For the initial interviews, the HR team or junior investment professionals will supervise the process. For the later rounds, the more senior folks will be in charge.
• The entire process typically takes several weeks (unless it is “on-cycle” or “on-campus” recruiting)

Anticipate interviewers to ask a mixture of behavioral questions, fit questions, and technical / investing questions.

For in-depth lessons and guidance, check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Why Altimeter

Firms often want to know the specific reasons behind each candidate’s interest to apply. That is why you’ll almost always get asked the crucial question “Why this firm?”

This is the perfect opportunity to mention whoever you’ve met at the firm and how they’ve made a really positive impression on you if you did some networking prior to the interview.

It’s also advisable to do research about the firm.

One of the best ways to learn about a firm is to hear the thoughts of the firm’s founders, investors, and executives. For this, I recommend listening to their interviews and podcast guestings.

For example, here’s CNBC Television interview with Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner:

More interviews

• Altimeter’s Brad Gerstner explains why A.I. tech tools will be ‘bigger than the internet’
• Brad Gerstner, CEO @ Altimeter, on why he put 20 percent of his fund in Facebook

Altimeter Case Study

Case studies are an integral part of interviews at firms like Altimeter because these exercises help firms to assess their candidates’ technical knowledge and communication skills.

Most case studies revolve around investment recommendations and financial modeling. But for junior roles, a cold calling case study may be required as well.

To help with your preparations, I’ve tackled case studies in great detail inside my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

Altimeter Salary & Compensation

According to Glassdoor, the estimated annual pay for analysts who work at Altimeter is $97,293. This figure represents the median and can still change depending on many factors like experience, education, and skill level.

Analyst

Based on other public data, recent analysts at Altimeter have earned $140,000 per year, while there’s no recent data for associates.

Altimeter Careers, Jobs, & Internships

To see what roles are currently open at Altimeter, check out our job board which also has a list of job vacancies from similar firms.

Altimeter Portfolio & Investments

According to Crunchbase, Altimeter has made 94 investments since inception across two funds. They also made notable deals such as Reify Health, Prisma, and Samooha.

Notable Transaction: dbt Labs

dbt Labs helps data teams to deploy analytics code and transform data in-warehouse following software engineering best practices.

This new way of working, called as analytics engineering, has been pioneered by dbt Labs together with the dbt Community of over 25,000 data professionals.

In the past two years, dbt has become the industry standard for data transformation in the cloud.

On February 24, 2022, Altimeter, alongside existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and Amplify Partners, raised $222 million in Series D funding at a $4.2 billion valuation for dbt Labs.

New investors participated in the said funding including GIC, GV, ICONIQ Growth, Tiger Global, and Coatue. No new board member joined the team.

The funding helps dbt Labs to create the next layer in the modern data stack.

Next Steps

Altimeter can be the right fit for you if you’re interested in technology investments. The firm is definitely an excellent place to develop your career in finance.

If you want to send your application to Altimeter and make sure you stand out from the competition during the hiring process, I highly recommend you check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide.

It’s a self-paced online course which will help you get a good grasp of growth equity concepts (such as market thesis, valuation, financial modeling, and many more) which typically get asked during interviews. Take a peek and start learning!