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Kleiner Perkins

also referred to as: kleiner · kp

includes Kleiner Perkins Growth

70 statements across 37 episodes · 31 bullish · 12 bearish · 30 people on the record · first statement Feb 15, 2016 by Arielle Zuckerberg · said 424 times in 157 episodes since 2015 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (238), Eric Feng (19), John Doerr (11), Rory O'Driscoll (10), Everett Randle (9), Anjney Midha (8), Trae Vassallo (7), Jason Lemkin (7)

tap a year for its mentions
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02040201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
002.520540201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 30 mentions in 14 episodes 2 per episode
2025 85 mentions in 38 episodes 2 per episode
2024 20 mentions in 13 episodes 2 per episode
2023 6 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
2022 19 mentions in 5 episodes 4 per episode
2021 15 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
2020 47 mentions in 17 episodes 3 per episode
2019 33 mentions in 10 episodes 3 per episode
2018 60 mentions in 13 episodes 5 per episode
2017 68 mentions in 16 episodes 4 per episode
2016 35 mentions in 15 episodes 2 per episode
2015 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Kleiner Perkins, oldest first

Feb 15, 2016 negative
Disclosure
Zuckerberg: Joining VC made me evaluate people transactionally based on intellectual capital
“I feel like this switch has gone off in my brain where I start to think of people Based on their intellectual capital way more so than I did before, which is very challenging for me because I feel like I'm losing myself a little in a weird way.”
Arielle Zuckerberg Feb 15, 2016 ▶ 7:24 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
Feb 15, 2016
Insight
Zuckerberg: Top founders demonstrate deep customer obsession and detailed market knowledge
“Another way to evaluate a team or a product is it kind of requires this obsession with the customer and understanding a complete understanding of the industry. So when I'm, you know, questioning a founder kind of like a detective and learning about the market,…”
Arielle Zuckerberg Feb 15, 2016 ▶ 5:53 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
Feb 15, 2016
Insight
Zuckerberg: Angel investors must size portfolios around the power law
“You really have to do a lot of investments based on the power law, which is that one company out of your portfolio will probably return your entire portfolio. And you have to think that every company you invest in is going to be that company that returns your …”
Arielle Zuckerberg Feb 15, 2016 ▶ 3:12 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
Feb 15, 2016 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Zuckerberg: Portfolio founders improved pitch deck by 20% between meetings
“They improved their deck by at least 20% every single, you know, consecutive meeting with them.”
Arielle Zuckerberg Feb 15, 2016 ▶ 27:21 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
Mar 2, 2016
Disclosure
Jim Scheinman passed on Waze because Kleiner Perkins drove the valuation too high
“In particular, one that I got there just a little bit too late was Waze. I love Waze. And you know, Kleiner put a bunch of money and it was too expensive for me at that point”
Jim Scheinman Mar 2, 2016 ▶ 21:01 20VC: Building a Game Changing Consumer Startup and Hunting His 4th Unicorn with Jim Scheinman @ Maven Ventures
Nov 28, 2016 positive
Assertion Partly supported
O'Driscoll: Kleiner and Sequoia paid nearly $100M post-money for pre-revenue Google
“The single most successful venture investment in the last probably 20 years was done in 1999, and it was done at an absurd valuation. That's Google. Kleiner and Sequoia paid almost a hundred posts for a pre-revenue company There was doing a search engine in 19…”
Rory O'Driscoll Nov 28, 2016 ▶ 8:35 20VC: Why Market Is More Important Than Team, The 4 Key Roles of A Board Member & Why Founders Get Market Sizing So Wrong with Rory O'Driscoll, Founding Partner @ Scale Venture Partners
Apr 28, 2017
Insight
Brown: Pitch Series A by isolating the key unproven deal assumptions
“When we raised our series a for my last company and client air funded us, the entire pitch was I walked in, I put it on a whiteboard, five assumptions. I said, These are the five assumptions you have to a hundred percent believe in in order for this to be an i…”
Jason Brown Apr 28, 2017 ▶ 19:26 20VC: Why Move Fast and Break Things Is Not Right, How To Instil Radical Candor In Your Organisation & What Founders Must Ask For From Their Investors with Jason Brown, Founder & CEO @ Tally
May 29, 2017 positive
Disclosure
Kleiner Perkins leverages dual venture and growth funds to defer risky deals
“We're very fortunate where we have two funds within one firm, and, you know, we invest across the stages, so If we, on the venture side, feel something's just not clicking here, and we think there's an, you know, excess, you know, there is some weird form of r…”
MZ Zaveri May 29, 2017 ▶ 10:50 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' MZ Zaveri on Why Success In Venture Is About The 3 F's, How VCs Can Manage Deal Heat & Is There Too Much Venture Dollars At Seed
Jul 3, 2017 positive
Disclosure
Kleiner Perkins Builds Internal Tech Tools to Detect Venture Signal
“Here at Kleiner, we have a bunch of interesting tools that help us look for early signal in companies, look for inflection points, look for interesting derivative movements on the app store charts, look for signals in transaction data.”
Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 19:14 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today
Jul 3, 2017 bearish
Opinion
Venture Timing Is Wrong for VR and Autonomous Vehicles
“And I think for a lot of those big categories, the timing is likely not now in terms of making smart investments that deliver meaningful returns or LPs.”
Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 15:12 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today
Jul 3, 2017 positive
Assertion Partly supported
John Doerr Answered Flipboard Support Emails During Launch Crash
“I remember at Flipboard, for example, when the service first launched, The load was so tremendous that it actually took down the back end for a few weeks, and our board member John Doerr came by and actually answered customer support emails all night. He even …”
Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 8:56 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today
Sep 18, 2017 positive
Opinion
Volpi: Benchmark proves VC success doesn't require heavy firm services
“I do think that firms like Andreessen and Kleiner and Greylock have done a phenomenal job building services organizations. And there is no question that there is value in doing that. And then there are other firms like say benchmark who have done a terrific jo…”
Mike Volpi Sep 18, 2017 ▶ 16:26 20VC: Index's Mike Volpi on Making The Move From Player To Coach, What It Takes To Build Generation Defining Brands & How Europe Really Stacks Up To The US Venture Market
Sep 29, 2017 bullish
Opinion
Roger Dickey compares LPing in Sequoia or Andreessen to a mutual fund
“Like if you can LP with Sequoia Greylock, Kleiner, Andreessen, you're probably going to get your money back. You know, that's almost like a mutual fund.”
Roger Dickey Sep 29, 2017 ▶ 19:19 20VC: If You Do Not Like VCs, You Have Not Worked With a Good One, How Andreesen Have Added The Same Level of Value As A Co-Founder, Why Market Is The First Thing To Consider When Angel Investing & Why Series A Is A Hiring Decision with Roger Dickey, Foun
Nov 27, 2017 positive
Insight
Gordon: Controversial startup deals are better VC investments than obvious ones
“The other thing that we've discovered is we go around the table and it's controversial. That's often a good thing. And at that point, we depend on one person being a fervent champion on behalf of the company. But if it's really obvious to us, it's probably obv…”
Bing Gordon Nov 27, 2017 ▶ 18:09 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon on Lessons From Serving On Amazon & Zynga's Board, Why The Best Investors Are Good Listeners and Sceptical Optimists & The Most Important Value Add A VC Can Provide
Nov 27, 2017
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gordon: Kleiner Perkins requires a single passionate partner to champion every deal
“And, you know, but for us, there's got to be one person who pounds the table.”
Bing Gordon Nov 27, 2017 ▶ 18:56 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon on Lessons From Serving On Amazon & Zynga's Board, Why The Best Investors Are Good Listeners and Sceptical Optimists & The Most Important Value Add A VC Can Provide
Jun 4, 2018 negative
Opinion
Venture Capital Decision-Making Does Not Scale Beyond Five Partners
“And so one of the learnings for myself was that I wasn't so sure that venture scaled well. Of making hard decisions. It's different when you have five people around a table versus 10 people around the table.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 9:49 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Jun 25, 2018 bearish
Opinion
Motschwiller: Consumer VC landscape in 2018 is harder with fewer upside opportunities
“Relative to other time periods, take when I joined Kleiner in 2012, this feels like a harder time to be investing in consumer and that there are fewer high quality and super high upside opportunities in consumer.”
Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 26:11 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital
Sep 21, 2018 positive
Insight
Deshpande: Building massive businesses requires prioritizing scale over equity dilution concerns
“Before Kleiner, I probably thought of it maybe a little more like a small business person, you know, where equity is obviously very precious and everything, but you're more worried about dilution. You're worried to raise some money and I, Take some dilution an…”
Amol Deshpande Sep 21, 2018 ▶ 21:27 20VC: How To Build Credibility with Investors, Employees and Customers, How To Determine When A Stretch VP is A Stretch Too Far and The Right Way For Founders To Think About Dilution with Amol Deshpande, Founder & CEO @ Farmers Business Network
Sep 21, 2018
Insight
Deshpande: A massive gap separates category leaders from the next five entrants
“There's a big gap between the best company in a sector and the best entrepreneur and the best team and really the next five. And any big business and any big idea is going to have multiple entrants, multiple people in and around it. But you really Need to bet …”
Amol Deshpande Sep 21, 2018 ▶ 6:05 20VC: How To Build Credibility with Investors, Employees and Customers, How To Determine When A Stretch VP is A Stretch Too Far and The Right Way For Founders To Think About Dilution with Amol Deshpande, Founder & CEO @ Farmers Business Network
Feb 8, 2019
Assertion Partly supported
Midha: Kleiner Perkins' highest IRR investment was Juniper Networks, not Google
“When I was actually studying Kleiner Perkins' returns history, when I was at the firm in the year, the nineties and the 2000, I think one of the highest IR investments that Kleiner ended up ever making was not Google. It was not Amazon. It was Juniper networks…”
Anjney Midha Feb 8, 2019 ▶ 14:31 20VC: What Makes The Best Venture Firms Today So Special, The 3 Structural Impediments That Face Venture Today and Why The Debate on AR vs VR is BS with Anjney Midha, Founder & CEO @ Ubiquity6
May 13, 2019
Insight
Hamid: VCs must build relationships with founders a year before Series A
“So you have to have known the founder to have a true relation prior to that and way prior to that, not just like a couple of weeks prior to that, maybe a year prior to that. So part of our job is to actually identify and meet with people way, way, way before t…”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 20:14 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
May 13, 2019 neutral
Assertion Supported
Hamid: Series A valuations jumped from $10M to $30M in ten years
“Valuations at the Series A are banded, and I remember doing investments 10 years ago when a Series A was 10 pre, and now a Series A is 30 pre, and you just have to write bigger checks now to get to the same level of ownership, and that has a, has had a true im…”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 12:22 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
May 13, 2019 bullish
Assertion Supported
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins' fund focuses primarily on enterprise and consumer
“Sector-wise, broadly speaking, our focus areas are Enterprise, consumer, fintech, and hard tech, and there's split across those sectors, enterprise being the biggest one, consumer being the second biggest”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 9:11 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
May 13, 2019 bullish
Prediction Held up
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins' $600M fund will strictly focus on Series A
“We want to focus on early stage, which is really truly series A and be the first partner to a great founder and then help them on that journey, which is typically a multi-year, if not a decade plus long journey.”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 8:24 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
May 13, 2019
Insight
Hamid: Organizational scaling is the biggest operational challenge post-product-market fit
“I'd say the biggest challenges that companies hit are along the organizational building. The people side of it is scaling of early employees, early leaders, To people who can help hyperscale and double down on what's working. It typically, that is where things…”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 22:04 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
May 13, 2019 neutral
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner allocates over half of $600M fund to initial checks
“But yeah, in that six hundred million, there is a substantial amount that is reserved for following rounds. But I would say more than half of the dollars are allocated to the first check that we write.”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 14:55 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
May 13, 2019
Assertion Partly supported
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins invested $10M for 10% in Google's Series A
“I think the Kleiner check was Ten million dollars for like 10% in the Google series A.”
Mamoon Hamid May 13, 2019 ▶ 11:52 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
Dec 20, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
UiPath has raised over $977M in venture funding
“To date, UiPath has raised over nine hundred and seventy seven million dollars in funding from some of the very best in the world, including Sequoia, Excel, Meritech, IVP, Capital G, Kleiner, CoTo, and more.”
Harry Stebbings Dec 20, 2019 ▶ 0:38 20VC: Inside UiPath, The World's Fastest Growing Startup, How The Best Leaders Approach Decision-Making & WhY Vulnerability Is Central To SuccessFul Leadership Today with Brandon Deer, VP of Operations & Strategy @ UiPath
Mar 9, 2020
Assertion Supported
Matt Mochary's coaching client list includes partners at Benchmark, Sequoia, and Kleiner
“On the VC side, Matt has worked with the likes of Peter Fenton at Benchmark, Several Sequoia partners, Hemond at GC, and Mamoon at Kleiner, to name a few. As for founders, Matt's worked with the founders of Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Reddit, Flexport, and many mor…”
Harry Stebbings Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 0:24 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Aug 7, 2020
Disclosure
Loom raised Series A from Kleiner after Index rejected their seed
“Now, we ended up fundraising from Ilya, who had moved over to Kleiner at that point from Index, but we were worried, even though he individually had a ton of conviction about Loom, we weren't able to get the seed round done with Index, and so there was no guar…”
Joe Thomas Aug 7, 2020 ▶ 25:38 20VC: Loom Founder Joe Thomas on Whether To Take Multi-Stage Money at Seed, How Early Stage Founders Should Select Their VC, How Sequoia Won The Loom Deal & The 3 Rules To Operate Remote Teams Successfully
Aug 24, 2020
Disclosure
Gumroad raised $10M from Kleiner Perkins, Levchin, Ravikant, and Sacca
“Raised ten million bucks from Kleiner Perkins, Max Lefgen, Naval, Chris Saka, the wonder kind of story, college dropout, everything like that.”
Sahil Lavingia Aug 24, 2020 ▶ 4:31 20VC: Sahil Lavingia on Rolling Funds and Their Impact on The Future of Venture, How To Evaluate Market, Team and Product, The Value of Party Rounds & The Pros and Cons of Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed
Aug 24, 2020 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Gumroad reached $10M revenue years after Kleiner Perkins wrote it off
“Gumroad, it took me seven, eight, nine years to get to a place where Gumroad kind of is considered, like, you know, we're at ten million in revenue doubling every year, but that's because of a macroeconomic shift, namely COVID, that just happened out of the bl…”
Sahil Lavingia Aug 24, 2020 ▶ 23:25 20VC: Sahil Lavingia on Rolling Funds and Their Impact on The Future of Venture, How To Evaluate Market, Team and Product, The Value of Party Rounds & The Pros and Cons of Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed
Oct 22, 2020 positive
Opinion
McCabe: Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman is his favorite board member
“I loved working with Ilya Fushman. He's with Kleiner Perkins these days. Ilya was always just real. I'm a stickler for integrity and authenticity, and Ilya was what he was and is what he is, and There was no games. It wasn't hard to figure out, and I admired t…”
Eoghan McCabe Oct 22, 2020 ▶ 26:55 20VC: Intercom Founder, Eoghan McCabe on How To Deal with the Weight of Expectation, Having Your Identity Tied To Your Company, How To Be Your Authentic Self Even with Stakeholders & Why There Are No Rules
Nov 8, 2021 positive
Assertion Supported
Patterson: Kleiner Perkins invested in Accel's $40M telecom fund in the 1980s
“Jim had made a really strategic move in about 83, 85, where we raised that XL-II was actually a focused telecom fund of a smaller size, but I think it was about forty million, and I think KP even invested in it.”
Arthur Patterson Nov 8, 2021 ▶ 13:27 20VC Special: Accel Founders Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz on Building Accel Into One of the Most Prominent Venture Firms Over Four Decades, How Today's Market Compares To The Dot Com Bubble, How To Do Generational Transition Well and Why Accel Will Nev
Feb 21, 2022 bullish
Disclosure
Doerr: Kleiner Perkins bought 12% of Google for $12 million
“Twelve million dollars bought 12% of Google, which is today as a company worth several trillion dollars.”
John Doerr Feb 21, 2022 ▶ 5:03 How I Bought 12% of Google for $12M; How VC is Fixing Climate Change | John Doerr Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 21, 2022 neutral
Disclosure
Doerr: Enphase gains covered Kleiner's losses across six failed solar investments
“We invested in seven solar companies. The Chinese crushed six of them, all six of which made solar panels. The seventh one made microinverters. It's name is Enphase, and the gains from Enphase made up for the losses across all the rest of the solar investments”
John Doerr Feb 21, 2022 ▶ 3:44 How I Bought 12% of Google for $12M; How VC is Fixing Climate Change | John Doerr Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 21, 2022 positive
Disclosure
Doerr: Kleiner Perkins turned $1B in climate investments into $3B
“Over the course of three or four funds, we invested about a billion dollars in 70 or so climate-related investments. Those investments On an as-of-held basis today are worth about three billion dollars.”
John Doerr Feb 21, 2022 ▶ 1:26 How I Bought 12% of Google for $12M; How VC is Fixing Climate Change | John Doerr Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 21, 2022 bullish
Disclosure
Doerr: Kleiner Perkins turned a $29M Enphase investment into $1B
“We invested, Kleiner did, twenty-nine million dollars in Enphase. Ben Cordlang led the investment for our partnership. That 29 million dollar investment Today is worth a billion dollars, and it is the leading maker of microinverters.”
John Doerr Feb 21, 2022 ▶ 27:01 How I Bought 12% of Google for $12M; How VC is Fixing Climate Change | John Doerr Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 5, 2022
Disclosure
Bedrock accumulated Rippling secondary shares leading up to catalyzing its Series D
“And after that screw up, we opportunistically bought secondary. Predominantly preferred secondary, because part of our thesis is this is going to be a relatively small preferred stack for the scale of the company that they're building at several junctures, and…”
Geoff Lewis Oct 5, 2022 ▶ 28:33 Geoff Lewis: Why I Put $200M into Rippling; Uncapped Notes; "Compound Startups" | 20VC #933 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 3, 2023 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins historically demanded 20% valuation discounts
“When I started in the old, old days, there were only two brands in venture. I knew of there was Sequoia and Kleiner, right? And you had to take a discount for both of them, right? You'd go out and you'd get your term sheet from somebody else, and then Kleiner …”
Jason Lemkin Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 3:59 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 29, 2024 positive
Disclosure
MITIMCo backs Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Green Oaks, Y Combinator, and Initialized Capital
“So we're lucky to be in a lot of the big names you would expect, you know, Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen, et cetera. And then, you know, there's some newer things as well that we've done in the past 10 or 15 years, like say, Green Oaks or Y Combinator i…”
Ryan Akkina Jan 29, 2024 ▶ 8:19 Ryan Akkina: How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio & How MIT Approach Direct Investing | E1109 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 22, 2024 negative
Disclosure
Daniel Dines Rejected Sequoia Capital's Investment Offer for UiPath's Series B
“So I said basically no to Sequoia to our Series B, and we, Series B was led by Excel US, and Capital G, Kleiner Perkins, and some other people participated in, but I said no to Sequoia.”
Daniel Dines Apr 22, 2024 ▶ 1:19:22 Daniel Dines: From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man| Happiness, Wealth, Risk and more | E1143 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 8, 2024 positive
Opinion
Grady: Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid is an exceptional deal picker
“Somebody who I really admire is Mamoon at Kleiner. I think Mamoon has an exceptional track record of investing in companies that are not at all obvious at the time. And I think about the series B in Figma, which is a round that we looked at and passed on. I th…”
Pat Grady Jul 8, 2024 ▶ 24:59 Pat Grady: Sequoia Partner on Investing Lessons from Doug Leone, Roelof Botha and Alfred Lin | E1174 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 negative
Disclosure
Hamid discloses $30 million loss on shutdown startup Tally
“Thirty million or so, and that's multiples of the largest loss prior to that, so you know, I don't wear this badge of honor of, like, losing a lot.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 54:50 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hamid: Every major enterprise CIO is funding AI proofs of concept
“We're in this era of doing a bunch of proof of concepts. You're just trying out all this cool stuff that's come into existence in the last two years and seeing, what can I do with it? And every CIO at every large company is spending real money doing POCs.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 11:04 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024
Disclosure
Hamid: KP's Figma deal was contentious at $500k ARR and $110M valuation
“You know, actually Figma was quite contentious. Yeah, it was, yeah. Because to your point, around like half a million of AR at a 110, 15 post, whatever it was at the time it was really like the same thing. There's Envision, there's Sketch. This company's been …”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 51:24 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins needs 15-20% ownership on $5M-$10M early-stage checks
“Because as you know, Harry, you know, we have to get our ownership at the early stages where you're investing five to ten million dollars for 15 to 20% for the math to work for our funds.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 7:02 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins deployed its 2019 venture fund in 15 months
“So there's a period of time in 2000 19, so we just raised our first fund as a team together, where we deployed that fund, like, within, like, 15 months.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 52:25 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 bullish
Disclosure
Kleiner Perkins focuses AI investments on co-pilots for top-earning professions
“We've invested in a lot of application layer companies, and that are solving very specific pain points. And the way we've looked at it pretty simply is, if you think about, we took actually the top 20 jobs in the US, and who makes the most? Simple. And it's do…”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 3:26 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 neutral
Disclosure
Hamid: Half of Kleiner Perkins' growth fund backs its early-stage winners
“Because our growth fund, even, half of the dollars are allocated towards, not allocated, but half those dollars are invested in our best companies from our early stage funds.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 21:46 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins backed Aleph at a $35M post-money valuation
“Or another example is Syed Ali at Aleph. You know, I think we did that also at, like, 35 post. And Syed had come off of a company just sold for six billion dollars.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 42:46 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins will not expand into a massive capital accumulator
“I don't think we want that at all. I think we love where we are today. We really do, and I don't try to, I'm not BSing you. You're a long time friend, and I believe in venture, early stage venture being a beautiful asset class, especially if you can follow the…”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 58:46 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins spent millions building and maintaining an internal CRM
“We built an internal CRM at Kleiner Perkins, and I think it sort of cost us many millions of dollars, and then ongoing millions of dollars a year to just upkeep.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 9:39 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Hamid: AI SaaS startups command $300 to $500 monthly per seat
“What we're seeing right now is that you have seat-based pricing that was like, 30 dollars a month, 40 dollars a month, and now you're getting 300 dollars a month, 400 dollars a month, even 500 dollars a month for the software.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 8:43 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 negative
Insight
Hamid: Early-stage VC firms should not use voting structures
“Yeah, I don't believe in voting structures for early stage venture capital. I think you have to have, allow every partner to put themselves on the line with their conviction that they've built up over a year sometimes weeks sometimes, but you have to give into…”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 48:22 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 negative
Opinion
Hamid: Data-driven VC sourcing platforms are mostly BS
“I think it's mostly BS. Yeah. Yeah. I think many have tried and failed at using the very data oriented approach to investing in startups, when at the end of the day it's about the founders and-”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 46:40 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins reserves a 'YOLO bucket' for rule-breaking deals
“And in some ways we have a, what we call like a Yolo bucket in our funds and where you just have this extreme conviction around the founder and the company where you're sort of willing to break the rules.”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 7:34 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 21, 2024 positive
Disclosure
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins co-led Glean's early round at $35M post-money
“We'll be back to Arvind Glean. We did it as a co-led it with Lightspeed at 35 post. And Arvind is a G. You know, he started Rubrik. He's like one of the, you know, Google fellow type of person. He raised a lot. He's like fifteen million at 35 post, so gave up …”
Mamoon Hamid Oct 21, 2024 ▶ 41:44 Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 5, 2025
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Moore: Kleiner Perkins treated investing in competitors as a strict red line
“When we were at Kleiner Perkins, it was something that we, it was kind of a red line that we wouldn't cross. And the reason for that is because we invested in so few companies and we go so deep with each of those companies that In our mind, it was just too har…”
Bucky Moore May 5, 2025 ▶ 9:23 Bucky Moore @ Lightspeed Venture Partners: Why You Cannot Do VC If You Do Not Do Pre-Seed · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 16, 2025 negative
Opinion
Kleiner Perkins sold G Squared terrible early cleantech deals
“And there were some dogs in there, some cleantech shit that Kleiner Perkins sold me that was just a flaming bag of turds on your front porch.”
Larry Aschebrook Jun 16, 2025 ▶ 14:05 Larry Aschebrook, Founder & MP @GSquared: How We Lost Money on Uber and Made Millions on Lyft · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 17, 2025 positive
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
O'Driscoll: Kleiner Perkins made ~4x return on initial Windsurf round
“The round, the first round that Kleiner did was at four 50, probably 500 post, so four X plus or minus.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jul 17, 2025 ▶ 14:50 Windsurf x Google x Cognition: Full Breakdown: Who Made Money, Who Did Not · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 11, 2025 negative
Opinion
Lemkin: Kleiner Perkins' $100M Anthropic check is just a logo deal
“You got, you can't walk into the partners and not have anthropic or open AI on the website. It's not enough. Yeah. It's a low, I think it's a logo deal.”
Jason Lemkin Sep 11, 2025 ▶ 30:57 OpenAI’s $10BN Secondary Sale, Ramp Hits $1BN ARR & Brex Hits $700M · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 23, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Everett Randle joins Benchmark as GP from Founders Fund
“Topic number one, Everett Randall joins Benchmark. Benchmark don't add partners very often. It's a big news announcement that he's joining. Joins Benchmark as their latest GP. He was with Kleiner and he was with Founders Fund before.”
Harry Stebbings Oct 23, 2025 ▶ 0:53 Why VC Today is Worse than 2021 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 10, 2025 positive
Disclosure
Randle: First deal back at Kleiner Perkins was SpaceX at $150B
“One of like the first investment that that I did at Kleiner Perkins when I came back in, was SpaceX at a hundred and fifty billion dollars.”
Everett Randle Nov 10, 2025 ▶ 50:52 Benchmark's GP, Everett Randle on Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 10, 2025 positive
Opinion
Randle: Mary Meeker is the most qualitative investor I've worked with
“Everyone thinks of her as this quantitative investor. You know, she had the, her time as an equity researcher at Morgan Stanley during the.com. Bubble. And then she came to Kleiner Perkins, obviously, and everyone talks about these DCF models she creates and a…”
Everett Randle Nov 10, 2025 ▶ 2:36 Benchmark's GP, Everett Randle on Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 10, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Randle: Passed on OpenAI at $32B valuation over structural concerns
“And then the thirty-two billion dollar round of OpenAI came around when I was at Kleiner Perkins, and all of a sudden I was like, oh man, this structure seems really gnarly. You know, they're gonna have to convert this somehow, it's a non-profit, they're selli…”
Everett Randle Nov 10, 2025 ▶ 12:17 Benchmark's GP, Everett Randle on Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 21, 2025 negative
Insight
Altman: Mid-sized $700M VC funds face severe structural challenges
“I think it's really challenging to be like a seven hundred million dollar fund. Now I think you're either a really massive, powerful platform like an Andreessen or a GC Or you just have the legacy cachet, like a Sequoia or a Kleiner, or you have to be a boutiq…”
Max Altman Nov 21, 2025 ▶ 1:01:59 20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and a16z | Leaving $2BN on the Table with Reddit | Lessons from Backing Rippling at $25M Post | Why Climate Tech is a Mirage and Disaster
Jun 29, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
Bloom Energy's 2001 Kleiner Perkins Pitch Proposed Off-Grid Data Centers
“So if you look at my 2001 PowerPoint presentation, which was the pitch to Kleiner Perkins, who was my first investor, John Doerr, the summary page puts out a data center, it puts out a bloom box, powering the data center, the waste heat providing the cooling f…”
K.R. Shridhar Jun 29, 2026 ▶ 4:26 Bloom Energy CEO: Why We Aren’t in an AI Capex Bubble | Energy Sovereignty & The Future of Power · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 16, 2026
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Chai Discovery raised $400M at $3.8B valuation
“Four hundred million at a 3.8 billion dollar valuation led by Index, Kleiner, Sequoia, Dimension.”
Harry Stebbings Jul 16, 2026 ▶ 1:07:24 Zuckerberg Back on X Challenging Codex & Claude Code | SK Hynix’s $26BN IPO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 20, 2026 bullish
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Etched Raised $700M at a $21B Valuation
“Speaking of high IP businesses, literally, like, three weeks ago, Etched raised at ten billion. Today, they've announced they've raised seven hundred million at twenty-one billion from Jane Street, Kleiner, Sequoia, Andreessen.”
Harry Stebbings Aug 20, 2026 ▶ 1:09:34 Stripe's $8B OpenRouter Bet | Anthropic's First Profit & The Math Behind Reaching $600B in Revenue?
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