startup
also referred to as: start-ups · startup's · startups
295 statements across 233 episodes · 62 bullish · 87 bearish · 195 people on the record · first statement Jan 13, 2015 by Guy Kawasaki · said 4 times in 3 episodes since 2015 · across every show →
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (2), Ryan Hoover (1), Erin Glenn (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2016 1 mention in 1 episode
2015 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
Everything said about startup, oldest first
Jan 13, 2015
Kawasaki: A startup fundamentally requires only making and selling
“Well, it's kind of simple, you know, somebody's got to make it, and somebody's got to sell it. That's it in a nutshell. And so this is about the guy or gal who's selling it, and then we have to find, you know, something else for the guy who is making it. So th…”
Jan 18, 2015 negative
Jan 22, 2015 positive
Ahmed: Startup experience is the ultimate preparation for venture capital
“And if you are not able to get into a venture business, a venture capital firm, the next best thing is to either join a startup, or do a startup. You may fail but that doesn't matter. That would be the ultimate best preparation to get into this business.”
Jan 28, 2015 positive
May 14, 2015 positive
May 25, 2015 negative
Jul 10, 2015
Founders should budget 18 months of runway plus a cost buffer
“You really have to do your best to build out how much money you think you're going to need for about 18 months, and that should provide you enough time to get, to hit the goals you need, or the milestones you need to raise the next round, and then assume every…”
Aug 12, 2015 neutral
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 positive
Portfolio founder introductions are the most effective way to reach VCs
“Once you get those introductions, you actually get introductions from startups that these VCs have already invested in, and of course, for that reason, already trust and believe in. And I think it's one of the most relevant introductions you can get to our VC.”
Sep 16, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 negative
High startup valuations are occurring earlier on the West Coast
“The time in a company's life when they're getting a higher valuation is moving earlier and earlier on the west coast. And that's sort of leading to this dynamic where both as founders and as investors, you're sort of picking the winner in a space earlier. And …”
Oct 21, 2015
Nov 11, 2015 bullish
Zink: Momentum is the most critical metric for evaluating startups
“It's so different from startup to startup, but for me, it's all about momentum. If I don't sense there's momentum, and momentum can be In product development, if I don't sense things are happening, then I always push, because I think momentum is, when you have…”
Nov 13, 2015 negative
Dec 14, 2015 neutral
Startups require operational detail while VC requires macro trend analysis
“Working in startups you only get to see a few ideas get to any stage. So you're very into detail, and you're really into, like, growing that one company versus suddenly, you know, I'm exposed to, you know, thousands of ideas, and trying to think about longer-t…”
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 29, 2016
Seibert: Entrepreneurs shouldn't wait for a mind-blowing, perfect idea
“And I think that was the first big lesson I learned is not to sort of hold out for this perfect concept that's going to blow the world away. Very, very few businesses start out as this like mind blowing idea that no one's ever thought of.”
Mar 4, 2016 bullish
Hiten Shah predicts startup creation and competition will keep increasing
“There's going to be more and more companies in the future. There's going to be more and more competition, and the reason is, you know, it's easier than ever to start a company, and on top of that, Because it's easier than ever and it's cheaper than ever.”
Mar 4, 2016
Hiten Shah: Founders must track competitors as high market density impacts customers
“So number one, there's more companies out there than ever. Number two, competition is heavier than ever. They used to say, don't focus on your competition, focus on your customer. Now what I'm going to say is focus on your customer just like you used to, but d…”
Mar 4, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 neutral
The best startup ideas are highly polarizing, not consensus-driven
“The best ideas are highly polarizing, and so we've set up a model to try to harness their polarizing effect to make the best decision, which is to say we want to say yes when there is one person on our team who is very excited about it.”
Apr 13, 2016
Early-stage investing requires finding one reason a startup could be an outlier
“What we look for is, there are a bunch of things that are tick boxes. You know, do we trust the founders? Are the deal terms fair? You know, is it in scope for us? But then really what you're looking for is, one reason to believe the startup could potentially …”
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 27, 2016
Jun 8, 2016
Hyatt: Overcapitalization Destroys Early-Stage Startup Agility
“I do worry sometimes about a company raising too much capital and the team getting way too big and ostensibly getting so large so early and That they don't have the nimbleness of a startup, even though they're, you know, two years old, and they still are figur…”
Jun 8, 2016
Hyatt: The Startup CEO Role Is a Discipline, Not a Status Symbol
“We can often think about the CEO job as the top of the ladder and the glamour job. But I think everyone just needs to understand it's a job like any other. It's very much akin to, you know, the engineer who's the best engineer on the team, but might not make t…”
Jun 8, 2016
Hyatt: Disruptive innovation rarely recurs in the exact same industry
“The nature of startups is That you're looking for disruptive innovation, and it is very, very rare that you're going to have disruptive innovation in exactly the same market, exactly the same industry over and over and over again.”
Jul 8, 2016
Mycroft: Regulated startups should target innovative regulators first
“I also think that the regulators are people too, and some of them are late adopters, but some of them are early adopters or even innovators, and what you have to do as a startup in any regulatory complex environment is find those regulators that are the innova…”
Jul 22, 2016 positive
Helgason: Startup founders should strive for a monopoly every day
“You're striving for monopoly you know, and then afterwards you don't have one because, you know, there's rarely any, but, you know, along the way you, you've bumped up, bumped off a few competitors and you have some new ones and, you know, there's some theorie…”
Jul 29, 2016
A startup's first 10 hires dictate culture for all future employees
“The first 10 hires you make for your company, their strengths will be what the next 10 hires emulate. And that just keeps on propagating. And similarly, their weakness, their weaknesses will then be the same weaknesses that are generally emulated by, or things…”
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016
Top-of-funnel marketing is wasted without first optimizing retention and conversion metrics
“Before you dump everything at the top end of the funnel, there's a multiplier effect by increasing the retention by 20% or increasing the time for someone to do something by 20%. Like, those little things make the, before you dump everything at the top, whethe…”
Sep 7, 2016
DeMarrais: Startup Growth Parallels Fitness Gains, Requiring Exponential Effort Later
“The easiest gains are always at the beginning... The amount I could lift would increase rapidly up until a certain point. And then it was exponential effort to get, you know, a minuscule gain. And I think that's a lot like working at a startup.”
Sep 14, 2016
Nov 9, 2016 bullish
Nov 9, 2016 positive
Barriers to overcoming big tech data incumbencies are surprisingly low
“I do think that there are big data incumbencies, and I do think that they require, if you will, they're a challenge to overcome I do think that the barriers to overcome them are not so high. As previously mentioned, the incumbents oftentimes get in their own w…”
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 23, 2016
Paley says early-stage startups must triple their valuation every two years
“I think at the early stage, rough rule of thumb, there's no perfect definition here. You should at least be tripling every two years. Some people would argue you should be doubling every year, which would mean Forex in two years. But just to sort of put a more…”
Nov 28, 2016
O'Driscoll: Successful Startups Dominate Niche Markets Before Expanding
“You start off with a relatively small market because you need to be able to win in a market that you can dominate. And then what you find is that market expands as you see in more and more use cases for your product. And then you have the best of both worlds i…”
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 bullish
Jan 6, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 negative
Judging all startups by outlier growth forces premature capital risk
“I think that some of the trajectory of some of these amazing companies, which are truly outliers, that have had this, you know, up and to the right success, has forced all companies to be, you know, judged by that same curve, and that's not the way that, that …”
Jan 20, 2017 neutral
Taggar: Every Startup Faces Existential Threats Despite Positive External Optics
“And what I realized is that actually what happens is no matter how problematic or screwed your startup is, Everyone always presents externally that things are going fantastically. And so as a founder, you don't often realize this, that everyone starts up at pr…”
Jan 20, 2017
Taggar: Internal Execution Mistakes Kill Startups Far More Often Than Competitors
“You are just far more likely to not succeed because you make a mistake internally, right? Like either you know, you build the wrong product, you don't pay enough attention to your users, you hire the wrong people, or all of these things are far more likely to …”
Jan 25, 2017
Guo: Startup launch costs have dropped, but scaling costs have risen
“The cost to start one that really matters has come down dramatically in many areas, right? AWS increased seed capital, a cultural shift where it's okay to drop out of school and start a company, three D printing, a bigger sort of supportive ecosystem, you name…”
Jan 25, 2017 negative
Guo: Startups Using Public Internet Data Face Incumbent Risk From Big Tech
“If your plan as a company is to take internet accessible data sets and do something interesting with them on the machine learning side and productize them, if it's an area that Google and Facebook care deeply about, you're on dangerous ground, right? They, tho…”
Mar 31, 2017 negative
McCloskey: Leaking low runway to VCs severely damages fundraising terms
“When, I mean, the biggest challenge is when you are, let's say you're in the A stage of raising money, and you don't have a lot of runway, and as a startup, you need to try and keep as much of the power in that negotiation process as you can, while also, you k…”
May 17, 2017 negative
Raney: Applying past VC market cycles to present startups is dangerous
“I think that's overplayed a bit. I think that the times have changed and evolved. The nature of startups have evolved quite a bit, and so I think it's very, very, it's dangerous to try to apply too many lessons in the past to the market of today.”
May 17, 2017 positive
Raney: Starting a company costs far less today than ever before
“I think it costs far less to start a company and get it up and running today than it ever did before. And so, Some of the challenges associated with fundraising environments during downturns before are probably not quite as applicable as they once were.”
May 31, 2017 bearish
Ascher: Venture capital has become overly transactional and cap-table focused
“I'd like to see it be less transactional and more relationship oriented. I feel like it's become a bit of a, yeah, yeah, yeah, write me a check and join this long cap table list, but ultimately for me, again, it's about the long-term partnership relationship.”
Jul 21, 2017 negative
Jenna Brown: Non-operator VCs often give flawed tactical advice to startups
“What I think is not good is when you have someone who hasn't worked or run in a very small company, heavily giving you that practical advice, because there tends to be a lot of context that they miss. And so that advice can be wrong.”
Aug 9, 2017 negative
Aug 16, 2017 bullish
Beisel: Voice fragmentation creates opportunities for startups to build connective tissue
“A consumer in their bedroom or in their kitchen isn't going to want to talk to the different device differently, and so there's probably some area for startups to kind of be connective tissue around a cohesive experience.”
Sep 6, 2017
Sep 8, 2017
Wayne Chang: Time is the primary enemy of founders and startups
“My favorite thing I believe in is the enemy Of founders and startups is time. And so what does that mean? That means every day that goes by, you're becoming old news. Every day that goes by, your burn rate just goes up. No matter what happens, if you accomplis…”
Sep 22, 2017
Schlosser: Startups tackling complex industries need older, experienced industry veterans
“I think that as startups go more and more into a more complex world, parts of the world, and out of, hey, I've got a cool viral app, which I think is a path we need to continue to walk down, it's very important that we are able to pull in, I don't know, people…”
Oct 2, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 positive
Arbesman: Combining disparate ideas creates a defensible moat for startups
“So I think if a startup can bring together disparate ideas and carve out a niche and unique way of thinking and provide something of value to the world, that's something that is both differentiable and also a defensible moat because it's hard to jump across di…”
Oct 23, 2017 bearish
Nov 13, 2017
Feb 2, 2018 neutral
Startup success demands extraordinary commitment compared to corporate jobs
“You're rarely going to get extraordinary outcomes from ordinary type work, and I think in a lot of the big companies, you can do relatively ordinary work in terms of your effort and in terms of your contribution and the leverage that your contribution has. In …”
Feb 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018
Taussig: Product-channel fit never lasts, requiring backup channels early
“Even if you find that product channel fit, it's not going to last forever. And it's often the first thing you get right. And then you have to get a lot of other things, right? So it's almost always the case that when you hit product channel fit and you're scal…”
Mar 12, 2018
Taussig: Early startups should maintain an 80/20 marketing budget split
“So yes, you need to really lean into what's working because you only have a certain amount of resources. But you always also need to be testing. So it's somewhere in the middle. It's maybe something like an eighty-twenty split early on.”
Mar 26, 2018 positive
May 11, 2018 neutral
Dudum: Startups should scale marketing and distribution, never headcount
“I don't know if I believe there's ever a time to pour fuel on people. I believe there's time to pour fuel on marketing or business development or partnerships or different distribution channels, but I actually think that's very different from people. So I thin…”
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 positive
Sep 10, 2018
Rocket ship startups face continuous unsolicited investment offers
“Once you sort of hit this special rocket ship status, I would say there's always suitors waiting to come and invest in your company, which of course can be somewhat jarring sometimes for the founders, because many of them want nothing but to build their compan…”
Oct 26, 2018 negative
Dec 7, 2018 negative
Sanwal: Modern startups are repeating Kozmo.com's flawed unit economics
“Our business model, if you were to boil it down, was essentially buying things for two dollars and selling them for one dollar and, you know, hoping somehow that that would work out in volumes. And, you know, I think interestingly enough, it's sort of a busine…”
Jan 7, 2019
Belsky: Overcapitalization prevents startups from building operational resilience and resourcefulness
“And those companies oftentimes fail and they fail because they never build the muscle memory, the instincts around how to mine difficult moments, how to run postmortems, not because you want to, but because you need to, because you can't screw this up again or…”
Jan 7, 2019
Belsky: Startups should raise war chests only after finding product-market fit
“I mean, there are certainly stages of certain businesses where they should raise a war chest. Because of the nature of the competitive climate, they've already found product market fit. You know, now it's a race for globalization, or it's a race for acquiring …”
Feb 8, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 positive
Tan: Founders with prior Initialized relationships perform three times better
“We actually ran the numbers recently and people who we worked very closely with previously, their startups outcomes are actually looking about three times better. Then the folks that we didn't have sort of that multi-year background and sort of process with.”
Apr 5, 2019 positive
Russakow: Pour Capital Only into Proven Unit Economics
“You know, once you get to a point where you've got the recipe right, and the demand is quite large, and now it's simply a matter of injecting capital into a working, working model, and a hungry market, that's the time to really turn on the afterburners.”
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 29, 2019 positive
Smith: Startups should raise capital to pay higher salaries instead of equity
“Why wouldn't we instead go raise some additional capital from people who adequately value it or value it at least at a higher rate and instead convert that money that we get from investors into higher salaries to make us more competitive? And so I'm surprised …”
May 27, 2019 negative
Jun 7, 2019
Perret: Fast-growing startups require ruthlessly prioritizing which broken things to ignore
“Everything's always broken. It's just a question of how broken and how important as to if we're going to focus on it. And when you're moving really quickly as a startup, you have to be willing to let certain things go, understand that there might be a fire smo…”
Jun 10, 2019 negative
Kupor: Distressed startups cannot sell themselves without pre-existing inbound interest
“At the end of the day, companies are bought, not sold, meaning that if you don't have that inherent interest already from other companies, it's very hard when you're facing a bridge situation to assume you're going to go out and market yourself to somebody els…”
Jun 21, 2019 negative
Kan: It is a myth that founders must suffer to build startups
“I think people feel like they have to suffer in order to do a startup, and I actually just disagree with that. I don't think you have to suffer. You're going to experience pain, definitely. Things aren't always going to go right, but you don't have to suffer.”
Jun 21, 2019
Kan: Learning as a startup founder is an inherently painful process
“When you're the founder of a startup, you are forced to learn things. The thing I forgot about that process is that when you're learning is actually mostly a painful process. And what I mean by that is it's mostly involves failing at things until you finally g…”
Aug 9, 2019
Aug 26, 2019 negative
Sep 2, 2019 neutral
Messerschmidt: Unprofitable startups must perpetually raise capital until profitable
“Unless you're running a profitable business, you're going to run out of money, typically one to two years after you raise. And so you're absolutely always going to have to raise more capital. So you're actually always raising until you're profitable.”
Sep 6, 2019 positive
Wang: People overweight the downside risk of joining or founding startups
“I adopt a very risk-seeking perspective, because the reality is that there's not actually that much risk. When you start a company, the worst case, obviously, is that it fails, but even in that case, it's not that bad, especially if you're young, because if yo…”
Nov 8, 2019
Nov 8, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 negative
Dec 6, 2019 negative
Schalit: Warehousing cash without fast growth puts equity underwater
“If you're not growing at an incredible rate, if you are not guaranteed to be worth way more money without using that capital, then you must deploy it because otherwise you will have raised your exit bar. You will have a lot of money in the bank, but you will n…”
Mar 6, 2020
Abuzeid: Unresolved startup hiring mistakes must be terminated within weeks
“Now, if after a certain period of time, and unfortunately in a startup, it cannot be very much time, because time is money here, and we got to move really fast. So within a matter of a few weeks, actually, if it's not resolved, then they likely need to leave t…”
May 11, 2020
Maples: Great startups rely on exponential technology improvement curves
“I generally believe that most great startups are born of these exponential improvement curves that are beneath them. They're like gathering waves in an ocean that you surf back to the beach. And I think it's really hard without a gathering wave to really be gr…”
May 11, 2020
May 15, 2020 bullish
Jun 29, 2020 neutral
Zeev: Early startups must build strong technical DNA before sales and marketing
“I think that if you start with very strong technical people, then you have the best DNA from a technology standpoint, an engineering standpoint. And again, it's something that you cannot fix after the fact. And sales and marketing, you can build it three years…”
Jul 3, 2020 positive
Jul 20, 2020 negative
Steve Blank: Incremental layoffs destroy employee morale and productivity
“The biggest mistake that I've seen time and again that people make is not making the cuts, but basically cutting a bit at a time, and while that seems well, we'll see how it's going, and we'll cut five percent, and then three weeks later, you realize, ah, we o…”
Jul 20, 2020 positive
Aug 3, 2020 positive
Aug 31, 2020 negative
Oct 16, 2020
Startups should ignore secondary problems because scaling unlocks resources
“The nature of startups is that if they start working, you unlock resources and talent, and so, so many problems that seem hard today get easier over time, and I think Opendoor was kind of ruthlessly focused on solving the most important problems at the time, k…”
Oct 19, 2020
Nov 2, 2020 positive
Eggers: Startups, not big corporations, will solve climate change
“I do think that climate change is going to be solved by technology, largely, and by people changing their daily routines, but technology is key, and I don't think it's going to be necessarily solved by the big companies. I think the solutions are going to come…”
Nov 9, 2020
Zanutto: Novel COVID-era startup services are significantly harder to underwrite
“But a whole host of other startups thriving now in the COVID economy where they're offering services that didn't really exist a whole lot pre-COVID. And in my mind, those are much more challenging to underwrite And assess as an investor today, because then you…”
Nov 30, 2020
Tenev: Successful startups must focus narrowly before bundling products
“So I think the most successful companies start by being very narrow and doing one thing very, very well, because it's just hard. You know, you have limited resources, few people, you can't spread yourself too thin and go in too many directions. So it will typi…”
Dec 7, 2020 positive
Dec 21, 2020 bullish
Dec 21, 2020 bullish
Jan 25, 2021 negative
Libin: Early-stage VC incentives force startups to take damaging shortcuts
“The incentives are when you're investing, especially if you're doing early stage investing, just like me, you're not looking for things that are likely to succeed, right? You're looking for things that have a plausible chance of succeeding, even if it's not a …”
Jan 25, 2021 negative
Libin: The biggest shortcut early-stage startups take is hiring personal friends
“One of the many things that are wrong with startups is startups are all about shortcuts. All of the incentives are to take as many shortcuts as you can. The biggest shortcut that you can take is just hiring your friends”
Mar 11, 2021
Sandell: Startups must maintain reserves because capital vanishes during market busts
“Not only do valuations come down, but in the busts, usually there just isn't capital at any price. So you have to make sure you always have a reserve on your balance sheet, and I think you also have to have a business plan that allows you to make rapid adjustm…”
Mar 24, 2021
Levine: Compounding 5-6% Monthly Growth Over 10 Years Creates Massive Startups
“It's not about growing really fast, really quickly. It's about building an engine that will compound over time and sustain. And so if you can grow at five or six percent a month, but for 10 years, you're going to be massive.”
Apr 15, 2021 negative
Foster: Many startups raise large venture war chests without accretive plans
“And I see a lot of companies go out and just, like, taking these war chests and, like, selling all those parts of the company only just to sit on the cash and never do anything with it. Or to go spend it in ways that aren't accretive to the business.”
Aug 12, 2021
Sep 22, 2021
Nov 4, 2021 bearish
Nov 4, 2021 bearish
Nov 29, 2021
Foroughi: Early-stage startup execution is formulaic and standardized
“No, a hundred percent. I'm a believer startups are formulaic. Like, at every I mean, this one's gotten a lot bigger, obviously, than my past ones. You enter into uncharted territory, so it's the land unknown, but prior to that, everything's a formula. How do y…”
Dec 6, 2021 bearish
Jan 5, 2022 negative
Jan 5, 2022 negative
Will Ahmed: Telling Startup Founders to Be Realistic Stifles Ambition
“Well, realistically, 90% of startups fail. So the 10% that are successful just In their own right, you know, have achieved something that's unrealistic. And I think too often feedback loops that are given to founders are to be realistic as sort of a criticism …”
Feb 9, 2022
Belsky: Startups lack funnel reach while incumbents lack modern tech stacks
“You know, startups have the opposite problem. They are working on the most novel news Stacks of technology. They're all building, you know, web apps or AI natively, et cetera. However, they don't have any top of funnel, whereas Adobe has this massive top of fu…”
Feb 11, 2022 negative
Levie: Hedging strategic bets lowers a startup's likelihood of success
“As a startup, you have very limited resources. So you have to be as focused as possible in the bets you're going to make. Those bets might be wrong, but if you split your resources in an attempt to sort of try and optimize for any possible outcome, then there'…”
Mar 9, 2022
Grosser: Founders must diagnose root causes before replacing underperforming sales heads
“And then the sales team needs to run a diagnostic, you have to get to root cause analysis. I would think that in general, coming out of that, you're going to uncover places in your sales process that are not well tuned that you can fix. And the sales team is a…”
Mar 20, 2022
Mar 23, 2022
Apr 6, 2022 negative
Startups must not build dedicated growth teams before finding product-market fit
“In the very, very early days, the first thing you need to know about having a growth team, I feel really strongly about this, you should not have a growth team set up the way Facebook does or conceptualize it that way until you have product market fit.”
Apr 15, 2022 negative
Dubugras: Startups with $5M in funding couldn't get corporate cards in 2017
“Startups had to raise a lot of money and couldn't get a corporate credit card. And that was the first problem that we saw was like, how come you have raised five million dollars and you can't get a card to pay for your SAS and AWS bills?”
May 24, 2022 positive
Zeev: Founders should shut down failing startups before running completely dry
“If you decide to give up a month or two too late, the agony And the lack of dignity. And the pain is like 10 times, you know, when you decide to stop in time, you have enough time to do it in an organized fashion, to make sure that everyone is taken care of, t…”
Jun 8, 2022
Beykpour: Startups need a PM when teams become purely reactive to fixes
“Well, I think one signal is if the team is constantly reacting to what the product needs. Like if you're constantly underwater and the things you end up prioritizing are the things that you learn really late are broken. And you're not feeling like you can be p…”
Jun 13, 2022
Shah: Startups Face Three Core Risks: Product, Market, and Capitalization
“There are, like, three kinds of risk when you start a startup. Risk number one is the risk that you won't be able to build the product you envision. Like, you just can't create it, ok? That's risk number one. Risk number two is you're able to build it, but tha…”
Jul 15, 2022 bearish
Singlehurst: Uninformed investors will create hardship for startups in downturns
“I think the sad thing about that is the people that will suffer from that is, is the companies themselves, because they will have ended up with shareholders who don't fully understand what it is they've invested in. And that's kind of fine when everything's go…”
Sep 21, 2022
Lieb: Startups should ship early to learn, while big companies need polished launches
“For most startups, the answer is you should probably ship something and learn something from someone. And then you can make it better. If you're a big company, you might need to make something like quite good before you want to launch it.”
Sep 23, 2022
Vasconcellos: Winning multiple markets simultaneously is a recipe for startup disaster
“What I would tell founders is that you have to pick one market, right? And probably one market and one customer, and you really have to nail it and you really have to win that market before you move on to the next one. I think trying to fight a multi front war…”
Sep 28, 2022
Scale-stage companies need at most three predictable growth channels
“It startup that gets traction and really kicks off. They've got one predictable growth channel. It's often ads. Right. A startup that really scales and gets in like flirts with that 50, a hundred million dollar run rate. They have two predictable growth channe…”
Oct 21, 2022
Oct 25, 2022
Emil Michael: Hyper-growth startups must transition from tribes to governed civilizations
“Cause what I described companies when they're startups as tribes, And as your tribe gets bigger, you start to intersect with other tribes and you better become a civilization or the tribes are going to be at war. So you build these companies. They're actually …”
Nov 2, 2022 bearish
Unprofitable startups ignoring cash flow will fail within 18 months
“Any company in any space that's not thinking about profitability right now and is not focused on profitability, there's a higher chance they're not that the, these companies will probably not exist in the next year or year and a half.”
Nov 26, 2022
Jaswa: 98% of struggling startups should strip to core and take moonshots
“So basically I think this will be true for what I might, again, I'm just making this up at 98% of these companies. Strip the business down to the core. So you generate whatever, you know, whatever that means. Don't waste more time on it if it's not working. An…”
Dec 6, 2022 negative
Dec 7, 2022
Dec 7, 2022
Startup failure stems from inferior solutions, not a lack of demand
“The issue is rarely demand. The issue normally is the solution that you've come up with is not significantly better than the alternatives that are out there. And if it's not significantly better than the alternatives, people won't switch to your product.”
Dec 16, 2022
Dec 21, 2022
Stebbings: Startups should raise for 24 months of runway
“Rule of thumb, never raise less than 18 months. You also do not... You also do not need to raise more than 36 months. If we plan for a six-month fundraise, and the fact that execution 99% of the time always takes longer than you anticipate, I always choose 24 …”
Jan 13, 2023 bullish
Lemkin: Startups over-cutting today will face severe pipeline shortages by year-end
“We're cutting too much and it's going to hurt everybody, not this week or even this quarter, but it's going to hurt. Everyone's going to not going to have enough pipeline at the end of the year when I think things will be better. I think things will be better …”
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Startups staying in a strategic retreat for a year never recover
“If you do a brief strategic retreat as a startup, it's fine. Take a quarter, get your house in order, right? Get rid of that terrible VP, cut your burn rate. But if you stay in strategic retreat for a year, you never pull out of it, right?”
Feb 13, 2023 neutral
Loverro: Startups will rush fundraising into July and August 2023
“I think a lot of firms or a lot of startups are going to be raising later this year. And that usually means like labor day and everybody wants to get in front of that. So my guess is July and August, we start seeing a lot more businesses come to market knowing…”
Feb 13, 2023 negative
Loverro: Late 2023 and 2024 startup fundraising wave will overwhelm VCs
“The way I back into the math says that there's a lot of companies that are going to be raising the end of this year and next year, and what's going to happen is there's only so many hours in a day for the investors who do, say, A, B, and C rounds that are goin…”
Feb 24, 2023 negative
Feb 27, 2023 bearish
Tisch: Startup location is overrated and geography does not matter
“I don't think geography matters for startups. And I think you know, we're based in New York because we live here and we want to live here. And just cause we're based in New York doesn't mean that we invest only in New York and Greg, our partner lives in San Fr…”
Mar 7, 2023
Schultz: Big Strategic Tech Bets Cannot Be Decided by Data Alone
“In startup mode, you actually have to take a lot more bets without certain data. As a mature company, there are some massive bets you should make. Reels, virtual reality, where it turns out you're going to take a big risk to do that bet, but it's the right thi…”
Mar 11, 2023 positive
Mar 11, 2023
Mar 20, 2023 negative
Apr 5, 2023 negative
Salguero: Early-stage startups cannot outperform century-old incumbents in distribution
“I think it takes a special kind of entrepreneur to think that you can get into distribution and do it better than somebody who's been in business for a 110 years, like right out of the gate. That's not gonna happen, right?”
Apr 21, 2023
Apr 25, 2023 bearish
Apr 25, 2023 bearish
AngelList data reveals a 33% drop in expected follow-on funding rounds
“And when you just take a look at that sample size of companies from today, sample size of companies in historical average, we're actually seeing a 33% drop in companies in terms of how many companies we expect would have raised by now, right?”
May 3, 2023 negative
Hankes: Resource-Constrained Startups Shouldn't Build Open-Source AI Infrastructure
“And some companies will choose that path, but by and large for the vast majority of companies, particularly ones that have scarce resources, which are many of the ones I work with, you know, I don't want you spending time building infrastructure and scaling op…”
May 3, 2023 bearish
May 3, 2023 bullish
Hankes: Bet on Startups Creating Novel User Experiences Over Incumbents
“Yes, if you're going toe to toe right now with an incumbent on their home turf and their shipping, I think it's a hard bet to take the opposite side of, you know, in our business. But if you're creating something that's totally a different user experience that…”
May 9, 2023 negative
May 9, 2023 bearish
Kohli: Distressed startup financings will surge in Q2 through Q4 2023
“And so what's happening is the cash out date was, has been pushed out for a lot of companies. And so our view is that these will start ticking up in Q two and then definitely Q three, Q four, because these startups, they have a brick wall, right?”
Jun 2, 2023 bullish
Jun 5, 2023
TJ Parker: Academic overachievers struggle to transition into startups
“I sort of have come to terms with the fact that I think it's very hard for like the classic overachiever that sat in the front row every, you know, in every class and always delivered papers on time and always got A's in every, every one of their classes. To g…”
Jun 5, 2023 neutral
Jun 7, 2023 negative
Jun 21, 2023
Jun 26, 2023
Early startups need room to diversify and pivot beyond one product
“So that judgment, it all comes down to basically judgment, right? That judgment of what are you focusing on? Are you focusing on the right thing? Or you need to have some breathing room To allow yourself to pivot. If the thing, you know, you talked about diver…”
Aug 2, 2023
Jiménez: Sales candidates focused solely on cash OTE lack startup staying power
“And if it comes down to just a dollars on OT, I'm always a little bit like, that's a little, it's not a full red flag depending on, you know, where the conversation goes, but it's something that I concerns me because that will come back You know, in the future…”
Aug 2, 2023
Jiménez: Inflated titles for early startup hires create future organizational problems
“It's a very individual conversation, but I also think it's important to keep in mind, and this is hard to do what you're setting up For will impact the future. So if you get too aggressive on title, then you're a couple of years down the road and your next per…”
Aug 9, 2023 bearish
Aug 11, 2023
Rotman: Doubling revenue at higher cost generates anti-proof for startups
“But if it was harder to get that doubling than you thought, or it costs you more to get that doubling than you thought, or your manufacturing costs went up, or the margins weren't there, you know, in that doubling, you're actually generating anti-proof of the …”
Aug 11, 2023 bearish
Sep 18, 2023 neutral
Sep 18, 2023 positive
Grimshaw: AI Startups Win by Building Business Models Orthogonal to Incumbents
“There's so much wrapped up in, in, in the arc fundamental business As in company architectures and all the systems internally and all their operatings around that, that it's really hard to just change, right? That's why it ends up being asymmetric competition.…”
Sep 18, 2023 bearish
Grimshaw: AI startups building co-pilots won't create massive value
“And so I think the opportunity offered up to a startup being a co-pilot for something else, like probably won't be that amazing. And there might be pockets of it where it can really work, but the opportunity to disrupt is to be orthogonal to the incumbents.”
Sep 27, 2023 negative
Sep 27, 2023 negative
Lanng: VCs own most equity after six years for 99% of startups
“The first thing is, for 99% of startups, you know, I mean, No offense, but VCs is gonna own most of your company by the time you have worked for six or seven years, and your salary will probably be less than if you had worked anywhere else combined.”
Oct 6, 2023 positive
Rauch: Software startups defeat incumbents by offering radically simpler products
“The entry players can win because they do a lot less and because it's so disruptive, then the incumbent has to say, holy crap, we have to delete everything. I feel so invested. I crafted every icon. I crafted every menu. I crafted every piece of documentation …”
Oct 20, 2023 bullish
Incumbents Capture Short-Term AI Value, Startups Win Over 5-10 Years
“In the short term, incumbents will accrue the most value, leveraging existing distribution, To provide co-pilot products. Over the longer term, startups providing tools for new product paradigms will be best placed to win over the next five to 10 years.”
Oct 24, 2023
Prince: Modest growth without scale is the worst outcome for startups
“The worst outcome by far Is the slog. Where you have these companies that are growing just enough that it feels like success is just over the next hill. And they, and so they can't stop But there, nobody cares about them anymore, and their investors are tuned …”
Oct 24, 2023 negative
Prince: Starting in a narrow niche creates local minimums that hinder growth
“Where it runs a risk is if you start, start to say, you know, we've got to do X. First of all, you'll attract people that think X is, even though you say the journey is much longer that they'll think that that's the end state. And then secondly, it might be th…”
Oct 25, 2023 positive
Lerner: Fractional executives bridge the gap before startups justify full-time hires
“There tends to be a gap Period for most startups where they are not yet big enough. It doesn't yet make sense to hire a full head of growth, head of marketing, head of product, but it's getting big enough that it's taking too much of that founder's time, or it…”
Oct 25, 2023
Lerner: Match advisor hiring to playbook creation versus playbook scaling
“I think the things that matter most are one is like, did they develop the playbook or did they scale the playbook? I think you see a lot of split between somebody who scaled the playbook that was developed prior to them, or they developed the playbook from scr…”
Nov 3, 2023
Nov 15, 2023 positive
Nov 22, 2023 negative
Stebbings: Complete startup failures going to zero are rarer than believed
“Actually, I think this is a gross over exaggeration on the mortality rate of startups, which is like going to zero is actually rarer than people give credit for. It could be half your money back. It could be a one X, whatever it is, but it's actually rarer tha…”
Nov 22, 2023 bearish
Seibert: Cash-strapped startups will struggle to raise follow-on funding next year
“What'll be really interesting is the number of companies that raised and have sort of struggled through 20, 23, but now we're down to six months or so of cash. I think next year could be very tough because they're not all going to be able to raise follow on ro…”
Nov 27, 2023
Rabois: Startups must reset to zero-and-zero after every success
“You know, one metaphor I like to use for this is like, imagine you're playing in a like football, let's say in America, you win the Superbowl. But your own, you have to go back preseason, start all over in training camp, and your record's zero and zero again, …”
Nov 27, 2023 bearish
Rabois: There are currently very few great startups worth investing in
“Well, I'm optimistic. I just don't believe there's a lot of great startups to invest in as a VC. Those are two different things. Like generally you have to be a technology optimist is, you know, Mark adjacent pointed out to be a successful investor. You always…”
Nov 27, 2023 negative
Nov 29, 2023 positive
Cabane: Startups should double ad spend weekly to test channel limits
“I recommend companies to two X the budget every week until it's that lines. Just do it for like Four weeks, six weeks, it's not gonna, like, burn your budget, your entire, like, capital, right? But just, two x on week two, two x on week three, two x on week fo…”
Dec 8, 2023 positive
Biswas: AI infrastructure favors mega-incumbents, while AI applications favor startups
“So in that sense, AI infrastructure may be well suited for companies that can invest billions of dollars ahead of time in building big data centers. The applications on the other hand, I think that sort of rapid feedback loop and kind of creativity is really w…”
Jan 10, 2024 neutral
Jan 10, 2024 negative
Jan 31, 2024 negative
Kellogg: Startups blaming rising CAC on 'low-hanging fruit' underestimate market size
“I think most startups, when they make that argument to me, I think they're vastly underestimating the size of their market. That if you have a really, really big market, That, that you haven't picked all the low hanging fruit.”
Jan 31, 2024 negative
Kellogg: Stuffing Startups Full of Cash Encourages Unhealthy Wasteful Spending
“I honestly don't believe that floggrowing startups, as they say, stuffing them full of cash is a healthy behavior. Some are actually good. I know a few that seem good at raising money and not spending it and saving it to grow later, right? But most people, whe…”
Feb 28, 2024
Inkinen: Founder-Driven Startups Only Fail When Founders Give Up
“Startups and companies, founder driven startups, companies only fail when founders stop trying. Startups only fail when founders stop trying. And I think that's a hundred percent true. But obviously, there is a point when stubbornness goes too far, and you're …”
Mar 6, 2024
Wagner: Relying on a startup's second act is highly risky
“It's incredibly difficult for a startup to do a second thing, you know, so, so any sort of notion about Oh, well, I'll do this first thing, and it's not that big an opportunity, but I'll be, then I'll be able to do this second thing. It's like, oh boy, you kno…”
Mar 8, 2024
Mar 20, 2024
Lemieux: Early startups die from indigestion of ideas, not starvation
“I think in your first couple of years, absolutely. And I think whoever said this, I'm not sure where this comes from, but you know, companies are going to die from indigestion before they die of starvation. Which means that we all have way too many ideas in ou…”
Apr 12, 2024
Sam Blond: Startups Should Target Outbound in Concentric Circles
“I think the way that startups should be approaching this, first is on who you are targeting, and then how you target them. So who you are targeting, think about the universe in terms of concentric circles. And you want to start with the sort of like closest co…”
Apr 12, 2024
Apr 12, 2024
Sam Blond: Generating demand, not conversion rate, is almost always the startup bottleneck
“And I just believe that demand masks a lot of other potential problems and almost all startups. The bottleneck to growing faster is demand. We are constrained by the number of opportunities that we are creating. We are misdiagnosing this as a conversion rate p…”
Apr 15, 2024 positive
Apr 24, 2024
May 8, 2024
May 13, 2024 negative
Blomfield: Sarcastic British culture makes for terrible startups
“And it's the British culture, you know, it's so easy to trash an idea and be kind of sarcastic, and it's great, makes for great comedy, makes for terrible startups. You need that, like, boundless energy and optimism, and it's not a natural British state, but i…”
May 15, 2024 bullish
Siroker: Sales reps should expand organic product pull, not do cold outbound
“I would say when you feel market pull, when you feel the market, like I gave the example of Starbucks, you know, they're going past all of the processes, they're going past all, like they're seeking forgiveness, not permission to use your product. You're seein…”
May 22, 2024 bullish
May 24, 2024
Brad Lightcap: 100x model improvement is the key test for startup defensibility
“Ask the company whether a hundred X improvement in the model is something they're excited about. It's actually, we can tell pretty well because we know the companies that come to us saying, we want the next model. When is it coming out? When is it coming out? …”
May 24, 2024 bearish
May 31, 2024 positive
May 31, 2024
May 31, 2024
Lerner: Asking functional heads for revenue ideas fragments startup strategy
“If you take, you know, your six functional heads in your business, engineering, product sales, whatever, and say, give me your best ideas for making money. They're going to give you six different strategies with six different resource So that's moving in six d…”
May 31, 2024 positive
Lerner: Scientists excel in startups due to intellectual humility and curiosity
“Scientists are always aware of what they don't know. Unlike, you know, most people in most jobs, you're just always, you're wrong all the time. You're at these, you see these big gaps in humanity's understanding of whatever your discipline is. And you've got t…”
May 31, 2024
Lerner: Hubris leads startups to overinvest in unproven growth playbooks
“The hardest thing about figuring stuff out Is, honestly, I think it's hubris. I think it's that people come in and they don't realize they need to figure stuff out. They have their best practices, they have what worked in their last job, they have what they he…”
May 31, 2024
Lerner: Micro-optimization is premature until startups establish major growth levers
“So in the beginning, you, it's premature to start optimizing. You need to figure out the big stuff first. Once you've got one lever working, two levers working, then you can start devoting resources to optimizing and trying to squeeze more juice out of that le…”
May 31, 2024 neutral
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Jun 7, 2024 positive
Jun 10, 2024 bullish
Jun 10, 2024 bearish
Startups Cannot Finance Pre-Revenue Billion-Dollar AI Compute Runs
“Look, if you're saying what really matters is, like, the driving function here will be the billion dollar compute run to make this model, it'll be very difficult for startups to do that, right? I mean, even in this more modern global venture capital where star…”
Jun 12, 2024 positive
Alex Wang: Startups win because small teams care 10x more than corporate employees
“That's how startups work fundamentally, is that you have these small teams of people who each care 10 times more than the average employee, 10 or a hundred times more than the average employee inside a big company, and so they end up, you know, you end up just…”
Jun 28, 2024 negative
Jul 1, 2024 bearish
Jul 10, 2024
Jul 17, 2024
Jul 19, 2024 negative
Adams: Single-feature AI microservices are failing due to low underlying value
“I think we're seeing, particularly in the AI space, we're seeing a lot of hype and churn and real microservices, and you're also seeing a lot of those startups kind of fall by the wayside as well as the real, you know, value of them comes to light, and it's no…”
Jul 31, 2024 bearish
Mollick: No current startup will survive in an AGI world
“The real problem right now is every startup in the world is betting against AGI. Which I find really funny because all the funders are like, yeah, AGI is coming in the next five years. If it is, why are you funding these startup companies? Like none of them ar…”
Aug 5, 2024 positive
Cahn: Big Tech's Overproduction of Compute Directly Boosts Startup Gross Margins
“These big tech companies are producers of compute. Startups are consumers of compute. So if you believe there is an overproduction of compute and that compute prices go down, startups win because they are buying those compute. Lower cost of compute directly tr…”
Aug 23, 2024
Sep 6, 2024 negative
Sep 11, 2024 negative
Sep 13, 2024
Sep 18, 2024
Oct 16, 2024 negative
Oct 25, 2024
Oct 25, 2024 negative
Dec 4, 2024 negative
Dec 6, 2024 neutral
Jan 6, 2025 bullish
Jan 6, 2025 negative
Maples: Raising Big Rounds Before PMF Culturally Breaks Startups
“What usually happens that's even worse, is these companies raise a lot of money before they have legitimate product market fit, and they hire ahead of achieving it, and now all of a sudden they're doing a bunch of wacky nonsense that's not contributing to prod…”
Jan 13, 2025
Feb 3, 2025 negative
Feb 5, 2025
Feb 5, 2025
Levchin: Every decade-old startup constantly refactors code and manages tech debt
“You will always have a team cleaning up or refactoring code or dealing with tech debt like that. That's a property of every startup that's been a startup for a decade. You have someone undoubtedly who's refactoring some part of your code because it's grown eno…”
Feb 20, 2025 positive
Feb 28, 2025
Mar 3, 2025 bullish
Krieger: Startups have an AI alignment advantage over large incumbents
“It's why I'm really bullish on at least startups being able to explore the space because, you know, I remember this from my, both Instagram and artifact days, like when it's just a couple of you, like alignment is a coffee conversation in an afternoon rather t…”
Mar 19, 2025 negative
Singlehurst compares overcapitalizing startups to force-feeding foie gras
“Because it leads to overcapitalization of businesses, and it leads to companies being, I sort of have this, like, sometimes this mental model in my head, and it's not a very nice sort of mental image, but you know how they make foie gras.”
Apr 17, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Most reported ARR in modern startups is neither annual nor recurring
“Yeah, most of the A and the R and the R aren't real. Yeah, it's not really annual. The third one revenue. Yeah, there may not be revenue definitely doesn't recur and no way it's annual if everyone can get out after a month or two. So it's neither a nor.”
May 16, 2025
Jun 2, 2025
Mohan: Obvious startup ideas yield no alpha against incumbents
“Like if you pick an idea that is like obvious to everyone, there's probably no alpha, right? A big company is going to go out and already beat you to the market, right? Because they have more distribution resources and capital than you.”
Jun 2, 2025
Varun Mohan: Founders need irrational optimism paired with uncompromising realism
“It requires these two almost counter beliefs in your head, right? Irrational optimism, because if you don't have any optimism at all, you won't do anything and you won't get out of bed, right? And uncompromising realism. Every single day you need to be asking …”
Sep 19, 2025 negative
Zhang: Maximizing valuation risks turning healthy startups into zombie companies
“When you think about people that raised that huge valuations, I, I've known folks that have done this. You get to a point where you maybe are still doing well as a business, but the markets change and you're just not able to raise at that price with some healt…”
Oct 10, 2025
Oct 17, 2025 negative
Stebbings: Startups cannot simultaneously fix margins, maintain growth, and move upmarket
“There is a world of trade-offs, which is like, I cannot sustain growth, focus on margins and improve them, move into enterprise, or sustain it and make it super happy. Oh, and continue to focus on beautiful product quality all at once.”
Oct 27, 2025 bullish
Cahn: AI gives junior startup hires near-parity with senior peers
“Maybe 10 years ago, if you joined a startup and people didn't join startups that often, 10 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, if you joined a startup, like there's this whole experience curve, you're the junior engineer. There's a lot of people who are smarter tha…”
Nov 7, 2025
Customizing Product Roadmaps for Single Enterprise Deals Kills Startups
“You've just taken the company and diverted all resources to go build a list of things for a company that may or may not buy, but even if they buy, you've killed the company. Right, because you've taken all the resources to focus on one account, even if you get…”
Nov 13, 2025
O'Driscoll: Fearing Incumbent Competitors Signals Startup Market Leadership
“My experience is, when you go to the first board meeting where you suddenly realize you're scared of the big company adjacent competition, it probably means you've graduated from the baby class. You're one of the two or three winners in the startup land, and n…”
Nov 14, 2025 bearish
Rivera: Foundation models will replace niche AI startup products
“I worry perhaps for startups that a lot of the things that they offer that are these sort of like niche carve out experiences for a category will be replaced by the broad based foundation models. And that many of these companies that I've seen a very rapid ris…”
Nov 14, 2025 bullish
Rivera: AI favors incumbents over startups due to distribution and data
“Because I believe that distribution matters a great deal. We're all building on largely the same models. The areas where you actually can have like true network effects is access to unavailable data or consumer network effects. Both of these typically sit insi…”
Nov 14, 2025 positive
Rivera: Crafting a beautiful end-to-end user journey is a competitive advantage
“In that world where startups are trying so hard to narrow in on this, like, really tiny slice of what's going to set them apart, building a product where the journey is really considered, where you have a beautiful end-to-end flow, where every interaction is d…”
Nov 27, 2025
Rory O'Driscoll: Undifferentiated startups must differentiate or exit before growth slows
“The earlier you are with The more hyper growth you have ahead of you, the easier it is to be undifferentiated. And by the time the growth slows down, you better either be differentiated or as Jason was, you better be exited.”
Dec 4, 2025 neutral
Dec 18, 2025 negative
Calacanis: One-year equity cliffs hinder poaching talent in competitive markets
“And so on the one hand, it seems like a dumb idea, like you're creating mercenaries and perhaps you are, but in the age and you're asking someone that's 18 months into somebody else to leave and wait 12 months to make a dollar. That can be a tough sell in, in,…”
Jan 12, 2026
Feb 2, 2026
Zeev: Weird-looking startup ideas gain 2-3 years without real competition
“Look, I think if they're long, if they look weird and they look wrong, then probably there aren't gonna be 15 or 20 or a hundred other startups doing it. So you're probably gonna have two or three years without real competition.”
Feb 5, 2026
Feb 9, 2026
Acharya: Incumbents improve legacy categories while startups own new AI categories
“When you have this product cycle and you have a capable incumbent, what happens is they usually make their product better for their existing categories. So Microsoft will make a better word processor than they've ever made. Google will make a better search eng…”
Feb 9, 2026
Feb 21, 2026 bullish
Feb 28, 2026 bullish
Mar 16, 2026 positive
Rajaram: University grads should work two to three years before founding startups
“My strong advice is to first get two to three years of work experience at a company, at a good company. You won't regret it. You learn a lot. Both the experience and the network of people will be invaluable for you. So just two or three years, don't be impatie…”
Mar 16, 2026 neutral
Rajaram: Startups must avoid competing directly on Google's primary roadmap
“If you're a startup, which is directly in Google's roadmap, like directly, you should not be building it because Google is very good when something is directly in order. They're like a tank. It will just roll over you even slowly, slowly, but it doesn't matter…”
May 18, 2026 negative
Jun 11, 2026 bullish
Jun 25, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Will only invest in startups working in-office six days weekly
“I want small high paid teams that work in the office over six days a week. That's I'm not interested in investing in anything else. I'm just not interested. And it's not because I don't have empathy. It's because they're gonna fail.”
Jun 29, 2026 negative
Shridhar: Government Equity Stakes in AI Companies Stifle Startup Competition
“The only thing regulation can do, in my opinion, is stop that innovative culture. So if the government took Major equity shares in a company, and because of that provided unfair access for those companies to its products and its people. By definition, they're …”
Jul 6, 2026 bullish
Jul 9, 2026
Jul 9, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Selling 5% Equity to Corporate Partners Creates Disproportionate Alignment
“What I've learned from my portfolio and I think you guys will agree is it creates an out an unexpectedly large amount of alignment. You get, you sell five percent of your company to a hundred billion dollar partner. It don't matter to Rory's point. It just don…”
Jul 11, 2026 negative
Jul 11, 2026 positive
Jul 16, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Startups with talent momentum shouldn't announce hot funding rounds
“The most in my career today, there are the most reasons to not announce, if you can get away with it, to not announce a hot round. Right. If you've already got enough, if you've already got enough going on to attract talent, right, for recruiting especially if…”
Aug 7, 2026 neutral
Sep 7, 2026
Sep 10, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: Public company CEOs say legal teams block them from competing
“I I've talked with multiple public company CEOs who say they're hamstrung, their hands are tied behind their backs. They can't compete with startups, not because they can't do it. Okay. Rory O'Driscoll: That's true. Jason Lemkin: But because their legal teams …”