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Fred Destin

33 statements across 3 episodes · 9 bullish · 14 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Jan 18, 2016 by Fred Destin · said 103 times in 48 episodes since 2016 · across every show →

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

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (83), Jeff Fagnan (12), TJ Parker (3), David Frankel (2), Jules Maltz (1), Hunter Somerville (1)

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08152016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodes it came up in
0027.54152016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 2 mentions in 1 episode
2023 15 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2021 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2020 14 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
2019 14 mentions in 12 episodes 1 per episode
2018 44 mentions in 14 episodes 3 per episode
2017 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2016 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Fred Destin, oldest first

Jan 18, 2016 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fred Destin Invested $100M at Atlas, Expecting 3.5x to 4x Returns
“If you look at Atlas, I probably invested about a hundred million. You know, I think I'm going to end up being three and a half times my money, four times maybe, but it took forever for these numbers to come through.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 32:50 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 negative
Insight
Destin: VC is not intellectually hard; overly smart people make terrible investors
“There's nothing fundamentally difficult intellectually about being a venture capitalist. Like, it's not like you need to be a rocket scientist to do it. In fact, people sometimes who are too smart can be terrible investors.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 24:19 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016
Disclosure
Fred Destin Deliberately Engineers Conflict With Founders Before Investing
“So I will engineer disagreement, just so we see, like, what are we like in conflict, right? Because you never know about people until they go and get stuff.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 22:07 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016
Disclosure
Fred Destin Has Fired Only Two Startup Founders in His Career
“So one of the great failings for me is when we have to let a founder go, and I hate doing it, and it's only happened twice in my career, and I hope it doesn't happen again.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 16:03 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Deliveroo Is the Fastest-Growing Startup Fred Destin Has Ever Backed
“Deliveroo is the fastest growing startup I've been involved with.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 6:43 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 negative
Opinion
Destin: Finance Shifted From Hedging Risk to Aggressive Arbitrage
“And did that for about seven years, and then I guess I saw firsthand how the moved, the world of finance moved from hedging risks to arbitraging the shit out of everything.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 2:44 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 negative
Insight
Destin: VCs earn a bad reputation by abruptly pulling founder support
“The reason why VCs get a bad rap is because typically they'll be like, founder, supportive, founder, supportive, love the company, and then suddenly from one day to the next, they're like, actually we're not backing you. And entrepreneurs fucking hate that wit…”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 26:43 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 neutral
Disclosure
Fred Destin Writes Seed Checks Solely to Back Founders' Next Startups
“I have told a couple of founders, I'm putting some money in you because I believe in you, but I really want to back your next business. And in both cases, I haven't reinvested in either of them, but I can tell you in both cases I was probably right on the busi…”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 15:28 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Destin: Regretful VC investments correlate with rushed founder diligence
“The investments that I regret making Are systematically the ones where I didn't spend enough time getting to know the founders. So there's an almost perfect correlation with shit where I wish I hadn't invested, and the fact that I didn't have time to build a r…”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 20:53 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 negative
Insight
Destin: Detailed VC rejection emails systematically lead to founder arguments
“So I used to write these beautiful no emails that were very, very well grounded with a lot of feedback. You know what systematically happens is people come back and they're like, you didn't get this, you didn't get that. It's like, I'm actually not trying to b…”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 28:52 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 18, 2016 positive
Insight
Destin: Good VCs inform founders early when declining follow-on funding
“The difference between being an asshole and being someone who does their job well is you tell them early enough.”
Fred Destin Jan 18, 2016 ▶ 25:47 20VC: Fred Destin @ Accel on Why Startups Fail & Founders Get Fired?
Jan 15, 2019 bullish
Insight
Destin: Portfolio of 25 seed companies mitigates venture loss risk
“The reality is if you invest with a certain level of discipline across 25 companies, you own enough of them, you know, 10, 12, 15, 18%, you're actually really looking at a relatively spread risk and with odds of certainly returning a multiple of capital that a…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 5:06 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 negative
Insight
Destin: Non-Strategic Startups Force VCs Into 40% Secondary Discounts
“Because if you're not strategic, nobody has to buy you. If nobody has to buy you as a VC, I'm going to sit on that position for 12 years and end up selling it secondary to a horrible secondary buyer who's going to take a 40% discount on my book value.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 12:28 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 bullish
Prediction Held up
Destin: Stride VC Will Keep Fund Size Constrained by Design
“I'd much rather be on smaller funds that we keep constrained by design so that we can really hopefully deliver to our investors a return that are more attractive than I think what the larger funds are trying to do.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 4:17 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 negative
Insight
Destin: Dysfunctional boards focus on reporting over forward-looking decisions
“Dysfunctional boards tend to be reporting boards where there is distrust with the entrepreneur, usually because they don't spend enough time with the company and, or they forgot, they lost the empathy of understanding what the, what journey the company is on a…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 28:47 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 negative
Insight
Destin: Early Market Sizing Top-Down or Bottom-Up Is Unreliable
“I think your ability to assess markets Either bottom up or top down at the beginning of a life of a new company or a new, new segment is extremely hard to do. And very often because the legacy industries are unattractive.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 11:51 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 positive
Insight
Destin: Founder-Friendly Investors Prioritize Companies Over Their Fund Partners
“Founder friendly means I will leave my fear at the door of the boardroom because I will come in and do the right thing by the company. Not by my partners, you know, not whatever. I get roasted at the fund level because the company isn't doing well. Well, I wil…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 22:58 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 positive
Disclosure
Destin: Stride VC skips pitch presentations by the second meeting
“What I do now, which is, it's not a trick, but I start the work of building the company, like in the second meeting. So instead of sitting back and listening to a pitch and formatted information, it's like, let's map out the organization. Let's think about you…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 10:39 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Destin: Benchmark Gets Discounted Deal Pricing Due to Brand Prestige
“In fact, I bet you benchmark gets discounted pricing on most of what it does because they're benchmarked.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 24:09 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 negative
Insight
Destin: Founders Should Never Take Investment From Toxic Investors
“My only recommendation, which I always tell entrepreneurs, is please don't ever take money from assholes. You cannot fire your board members. It is probably not worth it in your life in general. I'd rather not get funded than take money from people who are tox…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 21:56 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019
Disclosure
Destin Spends Half His VC Board Time Telling Founders What Not to Do
“I'd say I spend half my time telling people what not to do, so they're more efficient at the stuff that actually matters.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 26:27 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 negative
Insight
Destin: Board members must fully back the CEO or fire them
“If you're backing the CEO and he's running the company, It is your job to be behind the CEO. If at some point you make a decision to remove the CEO, make a decision to remove the CEO. What you're not allowed to do is be like a fucking carpenter ant that's like…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 30:05 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 positive
Insight
Destin: The best entrepreneurs require no VC help
“The best entrepreneur, like Alex Chesterman at Zoopla, for example, the best entrepreneur is someone you don't really need to help.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 25:22 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019
Insight
Destin: Venture capital risk lies in exit duration, not investing
“I think we do have a risk is on duration. You know, when are the returns going to be realized? Because it's as we know, it's easy to invest. It's extremely hard to exit.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 5:39 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 negative
Insight
Destin: Founders picking investors over small valuation gains are short-term optimizers
“But if they're trying to get you to climb up a tree and kind of make their ultimate selection based on a couple of million bucks of pre-money, that to me is usually a signal that you're a short-term optimizer and not somebody who's going to build an amazing bu…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 24:53 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 bearish
Disclosure
Destin: Avoided VR Investments Due to Unpredictable Market Timing
“I haven't done a ton in VR because I find it insanely difficult to predict when that market's really going to take off at scale.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 9:23 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019
What-if
Destin: Requiring Proven Unit Economics Would Have Killed Deliveroo and PillPack
“We would never have funded Deliveroo. We would never have funded PillPack. You know, in fact, Kareem probably would never have taken in any capital because you have to project yourself into sometimes a three or four year cycle before these unit economics reall…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 7:50 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 positive
Insight
Destin: Walking away from top deals over minor valuation differences is foolish
“Now, if you say no to a world-class deal because the pre-money is three million off what you thought it should be, you're an idiot. Because world-class deals don't come through your door every day.”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 23:54 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Jan 15, 2019 bearish
Disclosure
Destin: Stride does not compete on price or match inflated valuation bids
“And, you know, I've definitely gone into negotiations saying we are, in fact, deliver is a good example. We are not going to match the other prices. I'm sorry. I'm not going to go up to the level of people who are desperate to get in and are competing based on…”
Fred Destin Jan 15, 2019 ▶ 24:15 20VC: Stride's Fred Destin on The Acceptable vs Non-Acceptable Risks When Investing, How Startup Founders Can Improve The Quality of Their Decision-Making and Must Play for Batting Average & Why Plans Do Not Matter and No Board Member Should Bash An Entre
Apr 8, 2020
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Destin: I worked at Goldman Sachs hiding the Greek deficit
“One day I was actually working at Goldman Sachs on hiding the Greek deficit through long dated swaps, and I decided I had enough of it, and I jumped into the world of entrepreneurship”
Fred Destin Apr 8, 2020 ▶ 1:35 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
Apr 8, 2020
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Harry Stebbings: Fred Destin's portfolio exceeds $10B enterprise value
“His portfolio has a total enterprise value of more than ten billion dollars, and he generated in excess of seven hundred million dollars in exit value to his investment.”
Harry Stebbings Apr 8, 2020 ▶ 0:46 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
Apr 8, 2020
Insight
Destin: No one in venture capital will train or mentor you
“Nobody will train you, nobody will mentor you in a way that's really meaningful, and that from day one, what you have to do as a young person in venture capital is learn every aspect of the trade.”
Fred Destin Apr 8, 2020 ▶ 29:05 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
Apr 8, 2020 negative
Opinion
Destin: VCs claiming 'business as usual' in crisis are unhelpful to founders
“It's, I believe, extremely unhelpful for founders to go out there with a message that says, we are open for business as usual, because nothing about this is usual.”
Fred Destin Apr 8, 2020 ▶ 3:13 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
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