Karla Berman

Read the Baak deal structure closely

The terms are more instructive than the headline. Berman put 2 million pesos in for 5% of the company, plus a 6 million peso loan — and she structured it that way after other investors had passed because they thought the valuation was too high.

That split is a standard solution to a specific disagreement. Buying 5% for 2 million pesos implies a particular view of what the whole company is worth; lending the other 6 million avoids having to accept that valuation for the larger part of the money, because a loan is repaid regardless of what the equity turns out to be worth. It lets an investor fund a company they like at a price they do not fully agree with, while capping the downside on most of their capital. When you see equity and debt combined in one deal, a valuation disagreement is usually the reason.

The seats that do not appear on screen

Alongside the programme, Berman sits on the board of Arcos Dorados — a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange — and on the investment committee of Dalus Capital. Her background runs through Google, SoftBank and CNN, with an MBA from Harvard.

Those roles are the substantive part of an investing career and the part television has no way to show. A board seat at a listed company and a seat on a fund's investment committee both involve reviewing opportunities, governance and capital allocation continuously, in private, over years. The televised deal is the visible tip of that; the committee work is the actual job.

If this made the sector interesting rather than the celebrity, start with how to begin investing — and, if private companies are what caught your eye, how angel investing actually works.