Episode
Will Duckett, Co-Founder & COO of Equity Shift: Opening Up How Private Company Ownership and Markets Operate.
- Podcast
- NC Tweener Talks
- Published
- Sep 10, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3097
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/347ce11f
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Summary
Will Duckett, co-founder and COO of Equity Shift, joins me to talk about building the infrastructure behind secondary liquidity in private markets. The conversation covers Will's path from a hedge fund back office in New York to co-founding a regulated broker-dealer in Raleigh, what it actually takes to get licensed with FINRA and the SEC, and why Equity Shift describes its platform as a digital operating system for private companies rather than just cap table software. Will and I dig into the mechanics that most founders never see up close: tender offers, the daisy-chained SPV structures that made SpaceX famous for not knowing all of its own shareholders, and how Equity Shift built a system meant to prevent that. We also trace the company's growth from small business customers up into some of the largest private equity firms in the world, and the underlying blockchain patent portfolio that powers it all. Will offers a candid look at what it's like building a capital-intensive fintech company in North Carolina, plus hard-won founder lessons from seven years and two economic shocks: expect everything to take twice as long as planned, and don't underestimate the value of a strong co-founder. Timestamps 00:00 Cold open & sponsors 01:36 Welcome & meet Will Duckett of Equity Shift 02:16 From Chapel Hill (and ancient Roman history) to Wall Street 02:40 Hedge fund back office to a Columbia MBA 03:06 Moving home and meeting co-founder Tom at a blockchain meetup 04:41 Why a blockchain meetup, in 2018 07:21 Founding Equity Shift with Tom Gordon 08:24 First customer and becoming a broker-dealer 09:53 Secondaries 101: SpaceX, Pendo, and tender offers 10:41 What Equity Shift actually does 13:17 The SpaceX SPV daisy-chain problem 14:45 How Equity Shift compares to Carta 16:1…