The biggest venture investor you’ve never heard of

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hey all. Lizette here. Everyone expects the recent rush of tech IPOs to create a tribe of nouveau riche, jack up home prices, and bankroll the next wave of startups. Those billion-dollar payouts are also enriching some of America’s oldest private foundations. Seven foundations tied to wealthy family names including Rockefeller, Mellon and Packard are major investors in Benchmark, the venture capital firm that bet early on Uber Technologies Inc. And despite Uber’s initial public market belly flop, Benchmark and its investors are still getting one of the fattest paydays in VC history. Who isn’t cashing in? Retired employees from the state, school and public agencies in California. Calpers, the nation’s largest pension fund that manages those groups’ retirement money, has been effectively shut out of the best venture deals for nearly a decade because it committed the sin of transparency. Calpers published venture fund returns along with the performance of equity, fixed-income and other assets the pension giant held. So top firms, including Sequoia, Benchmark and Accel, shut out Calpers because they didn't want their performance numbers exposed. This left Calpers with [lesser]( venture firms, and the pension fund at one time vowed to exit the asset class. But the VC business has changed dramatically in recent years. It used to revolve around relatively small investments. Now, SoftBank’s Vision Fund and other megafunds have made $100 million startup funding rounds a regular event. That's created a new opportunity for major market players like Calpers to write big checks -- not to VC funds, but directly to startups. Calpers recently [found]( that private equity was its highest performing asset class over the past 20 years, reinforcing the need for a new approach to venture capital. The pension giant [plans]( to pour as much as $13 billion a year into private companies. There's a traditional buyout-style fund and another vehicle that makes later-stage bets on startups in technology, life sciences and healthcare. This week, Calpers [appointed]( Greg Ruiz, formerly of Altamont Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs, to lead the new program. So the very venture firms that previously shut out Calpers may now find themselves competing with Ruiz’s team to get into the hottest startups. And if the newest venture investor in California has some luck, it may be spreading some IPO riches to the state's teachers and other public-sector workers.-- Lizette Chapman  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news: WeWork's CEO is a good listener. He's [not so good]( with names. The company [lost a little less]( money lately.  China will dominate the [electric vehicle business]( for years.   Here's [what might happen to iPhone prices]( if President Trump's latest tariffs kick in.  Cisco Systems Inc. is an important barometer of corporate spending on technology. Tariffs haven't ruined the economy yet, according to [its latest earnings report](.  Heads-up graduates! Data scientists [get paid more]( than Wall Street analysts now.  Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. [revealed]( that its new Amazon.com Inc. bet totaled $861 million at the end of March.   Sponsored Content by [Darktrace]( As organizations embrace cloud services, the attack surface is increasing. Meanwhile, cloud-based threats are fast and unpredictable, often outpacing existing defenses. But cyber AI is changing the game. Thousands of companies use AI to detect and respond to advanced attackers in the cloud, before they do damage. [Learn what’s missing in cloud security and how cyber AI can help.](   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to [sign up here](.  [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022