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David Sacks

18 statements across 5 episodes · 2 bullish · 8 bearish · 4 people on the record · first statement Jun 15, 2020 by David Sacks · said 102 times in 46 episodes since 2015 · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: David Sacks's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (43), Jason Lemkin (26), Shervin Pishevar (2), Parker Conrad (2), Keith Rabois (2), Justin Fishner-Wolfson (2), Jason Calacanis (2), Delian Asparouhov (2)

tap a year for its mentions
001382515201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
0815201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0037.5615201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
2025 22 mentions in 12 episodes 2 per episode
2024 12 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
2023 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2022 16 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
2021 3 mentions in 1 episode
2020 21 mentions in 4 episodes 5 per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 8 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
2016 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2015 2 mentions in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about David Sacks, oldest first

Jun 15, 2020
Insight
David Sacks: A 3x LTV to CAC Ratio Implies Unacceptably High Churn
“Another good one is that the long-term value of a customer should be at least three X the CAC. And I would agree with that, but say that it's got to be even higher than that because a three X LTV to CAC ratio implies that the customer is churning after about t…”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 12:10 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
David Sacks: Economic Downturn Will Expose Non-Mission-Critical B2B Software
“Well, there's going to be air pockets ahead. So I think nobody is going to be immune from the economic downturn. What we're really going to see, I think, over the next several months is who is truly mission critical and who's not.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 10:34 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 negative
Opinion
David Sacks Rejects Silicon Valley's Culture of Celebrating Failure
“Frankly, I hate it. I don't believe in celebrating failure. I think that being a founder is so hard and running a startup is so hard and I've never seen a case. Where a successful startup didn't almost die multiple times.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 29:54 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 negative
Insight
David Sacks: B2C Startups Cannot Scale CAC Without New Distribution Platforms
“So I would agree that in the absence of new consumer distribution platforms, it's very hard to get a CAC to pencil for a new consumer company.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 10:06 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020
Insight
David Sacks: Blended CAC Misleads Founders Into Over-Investing in Bad Outbound Channels
“And if you average the CAC across that sort of organic or inbound growth with other types of programs, it will give you an exaggerated sense of the efficiency of outbound channels, and you'll end up over-investing in those channels.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 14:09 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 negative
Insight
David Sacks: A Startup Burn Multiple Over 3.0 Is Bad and Suspect
“The flip side of it is, if you're burning more than three times your net new ARR, I would define that as being suspect or bad. And that's the case where burn needs to be very closely scrutinized.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 24:32 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 negative
Insight
David Sacks: Glorifying 'Doing Things That Don't Scale' Leads to Unscalable Startups
“I strongly disagree with that mantra, and I think it's one of the chivalests that gets startups in trouble. The whole point of technology is to find the elegant, scalable approach and the sooner you do that, the better off you're going to be. When you start to…”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 33:38 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
David Sacks: Hot SaaS Startup Valuations Dropped From 20x to 10x ARR
“During the frothy times, you would see a sort of hot SaaS startup, the deal being priced at something like 20 times forward ARR, and now deals have returned to a slightly more normal 10 times ARR, which was the rule of thumb up to the last couple of years.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 6:39 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020
Insight
David Sacks: 100% Net Revenue Retention Is Minimum, 130% Is Industry Leading
“You really want to start with at least a hundred percent retention on a revenue basis. And then certainly if you can get up to something like a 130%, that would be industry leading.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 15:51 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 positive
Insight
David Sacks: A Startup Burn Multiple Under 1.0 Is Amazingly Efficient
“If the burn multiple is less than one, which means, like, let's say you've got an early stage startup, and we've seen a few like this, where they're able to burn a million dollars or less to achieve a million dollars or more of net new ARR, I would qualify tha…”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 24:13 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 bearish
Prediction Didn’t hold up
David Sacks Predicts Venture Capital Investment Pace Will Slow Post-COVID
“We're still very much open for business, and I think a lot of other VCs are too, but I do think that the pace of investing will slow down.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 6:12 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020
Insight
David Sacks: Selling to Startups Is Easier Than Targeting Fortune 500s
“Startups are so much easier to sell to. And so therefore they can provide a great entry point into the market for other startups. Which may find that the difficulty level of trying to sell to a fortune 500 company is just too high.”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 13:24 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020 positive
Insight
David Sacks: Top Startup Outcomes End Up 10x Larger Than Founders Expect
“Probably just that the outcomes are going to be 10 X or bigger than you think. When we were doing PayPal, it was hard to envision that it would be a hundred billion dollar plus company in 20 years. We thought a one and a half billion dollar outcome was great. …”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 34:21 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Jun 15, 2020
Assertion Supported
David Sacks: Startups Need Two Years Runway Because Recessions Last 18 Months
“Well, I do think at least two years is a good starting point for thinking about it, because we're in a highly disrupted period right now. We could see tremendous economic disruption for two or three quarters, and just the average recession takes about 18 month…”
David Sacks Jun 15, 2020 ▶ 25:58 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
Oct 3, 2022 negative
Opinion
Conrad: David Sacks made wrong decisions across product and strategy at Zenefits
“I got to this point where I was convinced that you know, David was not really interested in making Zenefits successful. And, you know, almost every decision he made at the company was wrong. You know, he the decisions he made from a product perspective, from a…”
Parker Conrad Oct 3, 2022 ▶ 5:14 Parker Conrad: How I Got Ousted from Zenefits and Came Back with a Vengence | 20VC #932 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 9, 2023 negative
Opinion
Parker Conrad: David Sacks made wrong decisions across the board at Zenefits
“David was not really interested in making Zenefits successful. You know, almost every decision he made at the company was wrong. The decisions he made from a product perspective, from a strategy perspective, the people he. Fired the people he promoted, like al…”
Parker Conrad Jun 9, 2023 ▶ 12:07 20VC: What are the World's Tech Leaders Running From? Fear? Insecurity? Poverty? What Drives the Best with Orlando Bravo, Bill Ackman, Dara Khosrowshahi, Parker Conrad, Tobi Luttke, Brian Armstrong and more..
Jan 4, 2024
Assertion Open
Lemkin: David Sacks has raised nearly $4B for Craft Ventures
“I mean, David Sachs, who I have a ton of respect for, you know, I, you know, he's raised almost four billion for Kraft since I started investing, right?”
Jason Lemkin Jan 4, 2024 ▶ 10:00 Jason Lemkin: Predictions for 2024 - What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups? | E1099 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 31, 2026
Assertion Open · timeframe Aug 2027
Katz: ClickHouse extended its financing despite having $1B on its balance sheet
“And so we did a financing earlier this year, and then we extended it and brought in some strategic investors like yourself and David Sachs and Michael Dell and JP Morgan. We didn't need the capital. We had a billion dollars on the balance sheet.”
Aaron Katz Aug 31, 2026 ▶ 32:34 ClickHouse CEO: AI Margins Need to Improve | Revenue Concentration Should be a Concern
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