early-stage venture capital
also referred to as: early stage venture capital
20 statements across 17 episodes · 4 bullish · 7 bearish · 17 people on the record · first statement Jan 22, 2015 by Ifty Ahmed · across every show →
Everything said about early-stage venture capital, oldest first
Jan 22, 2015 neutral
Ifty Ahmed: Early-stage VC relies on evaluating passion, not financial analysis
“The truth of venture capital is that it's really all about the people. Unlike growth stage investing or private equity investing where there is a business, there are financial analysis to be done, there are stuff to be looked at. When it comes to startups and …”
Dec 9, 2015 neutral
Jan 11, 2016 positive
Jul 6, 2016 bullish
Feb 19, 2018
Jun 26, 2020
Toney: Early-stage VCs must maximize initial ownership since follow-on buy-ups are unfeasible
“The ability to be disciplined, have the right portfolio construction model, recognize that, you know, you need to get as much ownership on the front end as possible because you're not going to be able to buy up. Those are all the things that are most critical”
Apr 22, 2022 negative
Jun 29, 2022 positive
Dec 6, 2022 negative
Casado: Evaluating Early-Stage Startups in Isolation Is an Underdetermined Problem
“I used to have the hubris to believe that if a, of a company walked in, I could look at the company and I can determine if it's a good investment or not. And you think, well, of course you do. That's the job. And I've decided that's a totally underdetermined p…”
Dec 6, 2022 positive
Casado: Crossover model is right, but finance people struggle at early stage
“I think it was actually brilliant. I think that was a very, very smart model and it's the right one. You know, I think it's very hard for finance people to deploy money effectively at the early stage, but I think it's the right model if you can actually unders…”
Oct 18, 2023 negative
Clarkson: Growth equity mindset in early-stage funds fails long-term
“It's so clear in early stage, if you're not taking a big swing for the fence, which doesn't mean saying taking like ridiculous, I haven't thought about it risks, right? But you just have a lot of people that think that they can do sort of smaller investments, …”
Nov 3, 2023
Lemkin: By the Time Startup Exponential Growth Is Obvious, It Is Too Late
“I haven't found I can see it early enough to take action. You can see who the winners are. There's time to see who the winners are, right? No question. But that, that edge of the curve, right? The inflection, the exponential growth It's beyond, it's too late i…”
Mar 6, 2024 negative
Mar 6, 2024 negative
Wagner: Early-stage VCs miss key factors by over-relying on quantitative metrics
“I think over-reliance on quantitative metrics in investment decision-making. So the whole, and in early stage so the, I think the dependence upon this sort of suite of metrics as indicators of what, you know whether you should invest or not, you know, is it ha…”
Jul 8, 2024
May 5, 2025 bearish
May 5, 2025
Moore: Mega VC platforms must maintain early-stage investing to win mega-deals
“None of that matters if you don't maintain a lot of dedication to early stage investing. If you're Sam Altman or you're Dario and you're asking yourself, do I want to hitch my wagon to one of these firms by raising billions of dollars from one of them? You kno…”
Aug 11, 2025 bearish
Mignot: Mega funds distract VCs and hinder early-stage investing
“On the early stage you know, either seed or early venture or early growth, I don't think you need, you know, those mega assets, and I think they distract you, and they tend to pull you towards the later stage, and, you know, if you have so much capital to depl…”
Mar 28, 2026
Gili Raanan: Early-stage product and market analysis is mostly analyzing smoke
“We know very little when we get into investments. We, you know, we analyze, if we analyze product ideas and markets, mostly we analyze smoke cause, you know, the founders would change their mind In, in just a few weeks, and it would be a different product, dif…”