David Frankel
73 statements across 6 episodes · 21 bullish · 26 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Nov 16, 2015 by David Frankel · said 68 times in 15 episodes since 2015 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: David Frankel's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (44), Eric Paley (13), Fred Destin (3), Chris Dixon (3), Noah Glass (2), Zachary Bookman (1), Roger Ehrenberg (1), Jack Groetzinger (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2024 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2023 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2022 14 mentions in 1 episode
2020 7 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: CRV's George Zachary on His Relationship To Money and How it has Changed Over Time, Why The Best Founders Have Often Experienced Parental or Home Instability and The Stories Behind Investing in Unicorns; PillPack, Yammer and Udacity
- 20VC: Are VCs Still "Open For Business", How VCs Attitude To Risk Has Changed & The 2 Most Valuable Assets To Founders Today with Fred Destin, Founding Partner @ Stride VC
- 20VC: Why Now Is The Hardest Time To Raise an Institutional Pre-Seed in the Last Decade, What To Do When The Founder and VC Interests Do Not Align & The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds with Gaurav Jain, Founder & Managing Partner @ Afore Capital
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2018 10 mentions in 1 episode
2017 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective
- 20VC: The Power Of A Concentrated Seed Portfolio, Why Operational Value Add Models At Seed Do Not Make Sense & Why We Will See A Shakeout Of Growth Stage Investors with Roger Ehrenberg, Founder & Managing Partner @ IA Ventures
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 1 mention in 1 episode
Everything said about David Frankel, oldest first
Nov 16, 2015 bullish
Nov 16, 2015 neutral
Nov 16, 2015 neutral
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 18, 2015 bullish
Sep 17, 2018 negative
Sep 17, 2018 bearish
Frankel: Consumer startups without acquisition experts will fail to return capital
“The companies that are attacking consumer verticals that don't have these kind of acquisition experts will just spend like crazy will raise more and more money, and it's unclear whether they will be able to exit in a way that provides a return for any of their…”
Sep 17, 2018 negative
Sep 17, 2018 positive
Frankel: Founders taking "human capital risk" is a key validation signal
“VCs have A huge portfolio and take financial risk all the time, but I always look at the folks who take human capital risk. It's what attracted me to pull back in the first place that Elliot Cohn, I knew had loads of options. He graduated well from MIT compute…”
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022 negative
Frankel passed on Remitly after Sequoia's Roelof Botha raised diligence concerns
“Beam at Mobile, Matt Oppenheim comes to mind. I loved what he was doing, and then I got into diligence, and I spoke to Rulof Buerta, who was in Zoom, and he helped talk me out of it, just talking about how difficult, you know, foreign kind of compensation was,…”
Feb 7, 2022 negative
Frankel: Remote VC work makes rigorous investment discipline tougher
“Doing all of this on Zoom, in some ways, I would say there's this kind of convenience over connection. So if you like getting stuff done, it's very convenient. But if you miss people, the connection stuff's difficult. And wrestling stuff to the ground, which i…”
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022 positive
Oct 14, 2024
Frankel: Founders Fail to Cut Burn Due to Loyalty and Overconfidence
“But these founders get onto this treadmill, and it's just, it's almost impossible to slow this thing down. I think what they feel like is their, and their loyalty is to the team that they've put in place, their loyalty is to the last set of capital that still …”
Oct 14, 2024 neutral
Frankel: Founders will always prioritize brand-name VC firms like Sequoia
“I think some founders still see, you know, a name in lights, and they go, I want that name beyond anything. I, if it's Sequoia, A-sixting Z, Accel, you name it, I want that name, and I think there will always be a steady supply of founders who think that way.”
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Frankel: Secondary share liquidity is almost impossible for smaller private startups
“Like in your high flyers, so in your really well-known companies, there's a real secondary market. Try to get secondary in your smaller private company. It's almost impossible. So I found secondary to be very, very difficult. Where we've done secondary, they'v…”
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Oct 14, 2024 bearish
Frankel: VCs are quiet quitting on struggling portfolio companies
“I do. I do. You know, I think it's for the entrepreneur, It's like, there comes a point where it's like, you can have, it goes back to your earlier question, you can have words, you can have as many discussions. If the business is just not working out, like, d…”
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Frankel: Backing product ideas without founder chemistry is a major VC mistake
“When I look at it and I go, I fell in love with a what? Like, I fell in love with a what, but I really didn't love the entrepreneur at the beginning, and I wasn't, you know, the chemistry wasn't there, that's a mistake.”
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Oct 14, 2024 bullish
Oct 14, 2024 neutral
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Frankel: Private equity firms can add significant value to VC portfolio companies
“I used to think that PE firms were like the enemy of the seed stage, and I've changed my mind on that. We've got some PE firms in two vertical SaaS companies that I'm involved in, and their rigor, their financial discipline, and the help they've given to those…”
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Oct 14, 2024 neutral
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Frankel: Founders shopping early term sheets reveal transactional character early
“I think it's a good signal to investors early if that happens. Like, do you want to be in business with that entrepreneur? So, I'd rather it happens early to me. It happens to everyone. But I'd rather it happens early to me than later on, because it was pretty…”
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Frankel: Venture funds aren't taking enough risk if they aren't losing money
“But I think it's the most unfair feature of capitalism, Harry, is the most you can lose is all your money. The most you can make is three, you know, 3000 X, right, or unlimited. If you just look at that, it is such an unfair feature of capitalism, and my LPs m…”
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Frankel: Investors should never sell shares in companies with real moats
“If I look back, I go, like, never sell a single thing. If you could, and, you know, people have to live and People have various desires, but if you could, never sell a share. And I know we've gone through the up and the down cycle, but great companies, compani…”
Oct 14, 2024 bearish
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Frankel: Backing successful second-time founders hasn't worked out due to hubris
“I would say generally founders who've had enormous, enormous success and exits come to the next opportunity with some degree of hubris. I speak about this personally. I sold my first business And I thought I could conquer anything. And they look at any vertica…”
Oct 14, 2024 bearish
Oct 14, 2024 bearish
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Frankel: Liquidation preferences are a fundamental and fair venture capital mechanism
“Well, I would disagree with Nick, because I would say, prefs are fundamental. Saying, you should give your investor your, their money back, right, before you kind of, you know distribute the spoils to everybody. I think that's a fair tenet.”
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Frankel: Failed repeat founders who retain their team make exceptional investments
“Entrepreneurs who tried their asses off, raised money, and for some reason or another, it didn't work out. They come back hungrier. They come back, they want that prize. They want to prove. Chip on the shoulder. And if they can bring back the team somehow, so …”
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 positive
Oct 14, 2024 bearish
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 neutral
Frankel: I returned millions in secondary payouts after discovering startup fraud
“I'd been paid out a couple of million dollars. The first thing Lou said to me is, you're gonna give back every last cent. You're gonna be the first person who gives back all the money, and in the end, and all the other investors are gonna hate you for it, but …”
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 negative
Aug 7, 2026 neutral
Aug 7, 2026 positive
Frankel: Moderately Successful Second-Time Founders Outperform Prior Massive Winners
“And I think overall we've done a little better on second time founders who didn't do that great up front. They didn't, they did okay, right? It's life changing. Like the first million dollars is so life changing. But they're really hungry. They've learned some…”
Aug 7, 2026 negative
Aug 7, 2026 neutral
Aug 7, 2026 bullish
Aug 7, 2026 positive
Aug 7, 2026 bullish
Aug 7, 2026 positive
Aug 7, 2026 negative
Frankel: Mega-Fund Seed Checks Are "Call Options" Bad for 95% of Founders
“Well, the problem is the mega platforms are taking call options. So is this good for the mega platforms? Is this good for the LPs or is this good for the entrepreneurs? Well, probably for 95% of the entrepreneurs, it's not good.”
Aug 7, 2026 negative
Aug 7, 2026 positive
Frankel: Founders raised inside specific verticals possess unmatched operational edge
“There are folks who have been in these verticals since they were kids. He watched his uncle in this vertical. It's like, there was nothing else he was going to do. And I go, like, they have more edge, and they know what to do with.”
Aug 7, 2026 negative
Frankel: Junior champions leaving mega-funds leaves portfolio startups orphaned
“And the more junior, the principal at that big fund moves on. They start their own fund, they move to another fund, happens all the time, right? So the person who invested doesn't have mandate. They can't sit around with a partnership and say, look, let's just…”
Aug 7, 2026 bearish
Frankel: Heavily Funded AI Startups Are Not Capital Efficient
“There's very little evidence yet that These hot, hot AI companies that are raising huge amounts of money are capital efficient, right? They're anything but capital efficient. There's, like, the jury's out on whether that's going to work still.”
Aug 7, 2026 neutral
Aug 7, 2026 neutral
Aug 7, 2026 bearish
Frankel: OpenAI and Anthropic Will Eventually Be Disrupted by Chinese Competitors
“That anthropic and open AI are going to be disrupted. It's like unequivocal. Like our whole careers are about disruption. Those platforms never, ever stay forever. Where is it going to come from? Excellent chance it comes from China. It's coming.”
Aug 7, 2026 positive
Frankel: Founders Use Founder Collective as Insurance in Mega Seed Rounds
“I think we're being seen and I'm, I could be over extrapolating the last 20 deals that we've been involved in almost as an insurance policy. Where we're side by side, we're putting in 500 K or a million. There's been eight, nine million dollars going in, and T…”
Aug 7, 2026
Aug 7, 2026
Frankel: Suno experienced far lower dilution than Whoop due to rapid momentum
“Like we're so proud to be in both, but sooner, you know, sooner has been a very quick journey. So if you look at like how lower, how much lower the dilution is, part of it is just how quick the momentum of that has been versus a whoop, which is hardware took a…”
Aug 7, 2026
Frankel: Founder Collective sold some Uber early near $10B valuation
“You know, in retrospect, we probably sold a little too early, so this was early on, you know, this is a business that's getting close to ten billion dollars in valuation, and there's an opportunity to take some off the table, and you're very new.”
Aug 7, 2026 bullish
Frankel: Embedded, Mission-Critical SaaS Workflows Will Survive AI Disruption
“The more embedded you are, like the more difficult you are to dispense because real time, Thousands, billions of orders are being run in your system, or like mission critical biotech research is being run in your system. The more embedded you are, I think the …”