The Exchanges

Q You did indeed get there, but I'm really intrigued. Taking the more meta perspective, how have you kind of fundamentally seen the landscape evolve and develop over the last 20 years?

A Well, it's interesting because I've sort of looked closely at this and tried to develop my own thesis. So this is my thesis, not anyone else's, or Lightspeed's, but I sort of look at three phases of modern-day venture capital. If you start in 1980, starting 1980 to 1995, I like to call that the craftsman era of venture capital, and that was where venture investors Didn't make a lot of investments, but when they did, they got in very early, and they stayed all throughout the company's history, you know, through an IPO. They were very hands-on operational. They worked very closely with entrepreneurs. They probably held three, four, five board seats at a time, but they were craftsmen. They were company builders. Then in 1995, you know, we started to see a lot more money coming into venture. Funds got a lot bigger. We started to see the first billion dollar funds over time. And I like to call that phase the scale up phase. And what that was about is venture investors now had to take more board seats because the funds were bigger. Um, we started to see the advent of people using the press as a way to attract entrepreneurs and people writing about venture capital. And that phase is sort of 1995 through 2010. And with 2010, even more money has come into venture. And now we're seeing what I like to call a specialization phase. And so Nowadays, you have incubators, you have accelerators…

AI assessment note: “I sort of look at three phases of modern-day venture capital.”

Q Kind of latching onto that buying higher and selling higher, I do want to touch on some pretty big financial changes that we've seen in the ecosystem over the last couple of years, but especially on the first one, year, and it's SPACs. It's such an interesting financial instrument, but how do you think SPACs will fundamentally change, I guess, the venture landscape over the coming years?

A I mean, SPACs have all of a sudden become a really important factor in our portfolio company's liquidity options, right? So what are SPACs and why should we worry about them? There's actually, going back to Bill Burley, he wrote a blog in August on SPACs and different options for companies to I think it's worth reading for anybody. Great pros and cons of each of the different options, and I'll just walk through them real quickly. IPO is the traditional option, right? But some of the issues with IPO are the underpricing that happens. People believe we're leaving money on the table because we have to factor in a large increase on day one trading and also limited access, right? The average person doesn't get access to IPOs. It's spared for the best clients of a investment bank. So direct listings try to deal with that a little bit, right? And direct listings try to have better pricing mechanisms. So try to assimilate to market pricing. They try to provide better access to main street investors, and the problem with direct listings, though, is you typically, today, cannot do primary capital, right? The company can't raise additional capital through a direct listing, although that can change over time. So hence, you come up with SPACs, and SPACs are sort of like a hybrid between an acquisition and IPO, right? Because the SPAC is created, it's a vehicle, that vehicle then goes off an…

AI assessment note: “SPACs have all of a sudden become a really important factor in our portfolio company's liquidity options”

Q I do want to touch on another kind of financial evolution that we've seen over the last kind of year, again, especially, and that's the rise of solo capitalists from your Josh Barclays, your Lockie Grooms, your Oran Zeeves, Ray Thompson's even. I guess, what do you make of this rise of the solo capital?

A Well, again, I think it's an opportunity that was created by sort of structural issues within venture capital. As you said, there's lots of money in our industry, and a lot of funds are raising larger funds, and as they do that, they tend to move a little bit upstream. I know when we refer to seeds today within Lightspeed, they look a lot like what we used to call Series A's 10 years ago. We've just almost shifted everything to the right one. So Series A's now look like Series B's in some cases. So it creates an opportunity if these seeds start to get larger, and they start to account For a larger percentage of the cap table creates an opportunity for people to come in and swoop in below the institutional VCs and get meaningful share of ownership, and that's what's driven this. And we also have a lot of really good entrepreneurs out there that have become VCs or solo capitalists, and they can be really helpful to entrepreneurs. So I like the trend. I think it's something that we as a venture firm have to embrace and learn how to work with the solo capitalists. We have a really close relationship with Semel Shah. I think he's been on your show. He's a great dude. He's got a really nice track record and very thoughtful about early stage investing. He's an example of someone that We've got to embrace and learn how to work with. I like the trend, and I think it's also good for entr…

AI assessment note: “I think it's an opportunity that was created by sort of structural issues within venture”

Q Okay, so COVID is a time when I wanted to read more. I haven't quite succeeded in that, but what's your favorite book and why?

A I have a lot of favorite books, but let me talk about one of them I'm reading right now. It's called Channel Kindness. Written by the Born This Way Foundation. So Lady Gaga, her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, and the Born This Way group, and it's basically just a bunch of stories about random acts of kindness that have impacted people, and I don't know about you, but there's a lot of negativity in the world right now. You turn on the news, and all you see is negativity, and so I just needed a little bit of positivity, and when you pick up and read this book, it gives it to you, so I recommend it to anyone who's looking for some positivity in their life right now, and also look into the Born This Way Foundation. They're a fantastic group.

AI assessment note: “It's called Channel Kindness. Written by the Born This Way Foundation.”

Q For sure, there have been some pretty phenomenal distributions over the last years, but I would love to ask, Barry, I'm always fascinated by inflection points. What do you think have been the major inflection points for Lightspeed and the trajectory of Lightspeed over the last years, and what core impact have they really had, do you think?

A Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, we invest across now both enterprise and consumer. We really started as more of an enterprise focused firm. All four of the founders were investing in enterprise, and so that was sort of how we made our name, and I think with enterprise, it is you're judged by entrepreneurs by your body of work, your platform, and so the first big early stage outcome we had was Riverbed, where we were in the Series A with our friends at Excel, and that returned, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to our investors. Over time, you know, some of the more recent hits, the Nimble Storage, and Nutanix, and Nealsoft, and AppD have sort of added to that platform. On the consumer side, though, it's a little different. I think that the way that you build your platform and get the attention of the entrepreneur is more about a notable deal, and we really hadn't had that notable deal until we were fortunate to invest in the early stages of Snap, and that became sort of a nice, Notable deal for us, and has really helped elevate our consumer practice over time, and I give a lot of credit to Jeremy Liu, who's been really one of the key guys building our consumer practice and team, and now we have folks like Nicole and others on the team, so I'm really happy with the way that that side's developed, too, so we've always felt like to build a great firm, we had to b…

AI assessment note: “first big early stage outcome we had was Riverbed”

Q No, absolutely. But you mentioned the element of kind of gaining those very first LPs. I'd love to hear how you thought about LP composition. And how do you think about LP composition maybe today when one with Lightspeed's track can maybe be more selective?

A Well, that's really important. You know, first of all, when we got our first set of LPs, we really wanted to find people that one, you know, sort of had a steady supply of capital, and then two were long-term committed to the asset class because we knew that we were going to have ups and downs in this industry. We want LPs that are going to stay with us. Over time, we sort of look at our LP base, and we try not to be overbalanced in any one asset Class with an LP basis. That is fund to funds, university endowments, corporate endowments, sovereign wealth funds, individuals. We try to be balanced across those because those asset classes actually go in and out of favor, and they just, some of them decide that they want to exit venture capital while others are, you know, investing more. So we try to have balance across those. And then finally, the most important thing I think we did with our LPs, we really wanted to be transparent with them. We wanted to tell them what we were going to do. We wanted to do it, and then we wanted to tell them what we did. And I think over the years, they've developed a lot of trust that we're going to do what we say we're going to do, and when we screw up, we're going to tell them, and when we do good things, we're going to tell them, and hopefully we're putting a lot of distributions in their pockets over time.

AI assessment note: “we try not to be overbalanced in any one asset Class with an LP basis.”

Q daughter, but I do want to move. We spoke about kind of inflection points, and kind of the past building lightspeed. I do want to touch on some exciting elements of the future. We've mentioned Alex, Nicole, Adam. A common theme of great firms is the element of generational transition. What was your thinking on generational transition, and what do you think is really required to really do it successfully?

A Yeah, and that's a great question, and you know, you look around, and you know, I've been watching these firms, but look at who was a great firm in the eighties, and nineties, and 2000, and now, now, the names change a lot. It's almost like the Fortune 500, and so why is that? It's just really, really hard to do a generational transition, and one of the firms I think has done it really well is Sequoia, and so you gotta look and, and sort of understand what makes a good generational transition and what doesn't, but a lot of people have failed. I think there's three things that where a venture firm can fail. Number one, you got to have great performance. That's an obvious one. Number two is you got to make sure that the young people coming up get the opportunities to grow economically and sending them and motivating them and making sure that they have the right path to become really strong venture capitalists. And that includes mentoring. And number three, you got to make sure that the older partners don't hang around too long and take too much of the economics. You know, so all three of those are reasons why firms don't get through the generational transition. We're obviously focused on driving performance. I've also, you know, worked with some of my senior partners in putting together programs so that our younger folks can have a nice, strong path. People like Alex and Nikki ha…

AI assessment note: “I think there's three things that where a venture firm can fail.”

Q I love that as a story. That's awesome to hear. Penultimate one. Will cleantech come roaring back in the twenty-twenties?

A Yeah, I think it will, especially if we end up with a Biden administration. I think it will. Listen, I mean, we've talked about the issues, right? Climate change is a problem. And you sort of look at what happened in the mid-two thousands with clean tech investing. It wasn't very successful. That's because clean tech deals take a lot of capital to get off the ground before you even have a chance to take the product out to consumers. And usually you're going into markets that are filled with legacy commodity vendors. And so it's a very difficult set of markets. I do think that startups are going to need some help. From state and local governments, and federal government, in terms of dealing with some of that funding gap. So, I think there's big problems to solve. I think we'll see a resurgence of technology applied to those problems, and hopefully get to work hand in hand with the government to actually accelerate some of these solutions.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I think it will, especially if we end up with a Biden administration.”

Q people and the state of play today, I do want to start on the political environment. It's probably more interesting slash shocking than ever before, and so if we start on that, when we look at the current administration, tell me, what are the implications of a Biden administration on our industry, and I guess how does that compare to a Trump administration, diving straight in at the deep end?

A Yeah, it's a great question, and I get to look at this both through my light speed lens as well as my lens as I'm chairman, current chairman of the NBCA. And so I get a lot of exposure to politics and policy that affect both startups and BC. So we've done a lot of analysis on which way it could go and what the implications are. I think we know what we're going to get with the Trump presidency if he's reelected. One of the downsides of that, I think, has really been difficult on immigration policy, which I think has had some negative effect for sure on our industry. With a Biden administration, and assuming more of a democratic Washington, I think there's some pros and cons. From the pro side, I think he's going to invest a lot in infrastructure. Including high speed internet. So I think it's going to continue to enable our industry and also potentially create opportunities for our companies to make money. He's definitely more friendly towards immigration. And so things like the startup visa, and that is where someone comes to our country and they create jobs, a company that creates jobs. We let them stay for an extended period. And I think that should just be automatic, but it's something that was started with the Obama administration and it sort of got off track with the Trump administration. So hopefully if Biden wins, we can get that back on track. Climate change. I think th…

AI assessment note: “With a Biden administration, and assuming more of a democratic Washington, I think there's some pros and cons.”

Q I do want to touch on another kind of financial evolution that we've seen over the last kind of year, again, especially, and that's the rise of solo capitalists from your Josh Barclays, your Lockie Grooms, your Oran Zeeves, Ray Thompson's even. I guess, what do you make of this rise of the solo capital?

A Well, again, I think it's an opportunity that was created by sort of structural issues within venture capital. As you said, there's lots of money in our industry, and a lot of funds are raising larger funds, and as they do that, they tend to move a little bit upstream. I know when we refer to seeds today within Lightspeed, they look a lot like what we used to call Series A's 10 years ago. We've just almost shifted everything to the right one. So Series A's now look like Series B's in some cases. So it creates an opportunity if these seeds start to get larger, and they start to account For a larger percentage of the cap table creates an opportunity for people to come in and swoop in below the institutional VCs and get meaningful share of ownership, and that's what's driven this. And we also have a lot of really good entrepreneurs out there that have become VCs or solo capitalists, and they can be really helpful to entrepreneurs. So I like the trend. I think it's something that we as a venture firm have to embrace and learn how to work with the solo capitalists. We have a really close relationship with Semel Shah. I think he's been on your show. He's a great dude. He's got a really nice track record and very thoughtful about early stage investing. He's an example of someone that We've got to embrace and learn how to work with. I like the trend, and I think it's also good for entr…

AI assessment note: “I like the trend. I think it's something that we as a venture firm have to embrace”

Q Can I ask, when I went through the different kind of constituents in the kind of chain, so to For founders, it's additional sources of liquidity. For VCs, it's additional sources of liquidity. And for LPs, it's again, additional sources of liquidity. Is there anyone it's bad for?

A It's really hard to say. I don't feel like it's bad for anybody. You could compare, I guess, the outcome to what an IPO outcome could be, and someone could argue, gee, you're going to get a lot more bump off an IPO initial trading than you will off a SPAC. And I don't know whether the data is there or not. And do people view IPOs as the higher quality companies versus SPACs as lower quality companies? So that's the only negative that I could see, but I'm not sure the data is there yet to support those positions. And I think over time, as we see more companies choose SPAC, more high quality companies choose SPACs as an option, that whole reputational issue will evolve.

AI assessment note: “I don't feel like it's bad for anybody.”

Q speed of that death. In terms of kind of the raising the funds, you raise multiple funds with the Lightspeed partnership, an incredible partnership it is. You've got this kind of unique perspective that having started and run your own firm and then having been part of the partnership. What are your biggest takeaways from experiencing both of these? And I guess associated to that, what are the biggest challenges?

A Well, I mean, starting and running a fund is like running a business. And so it's not just the investment piece. It's the people piece, as we talked about. It's the LPs piece. It's managing all the stuff around the business. It's making sure you have a long-term strategy. Where are you expanding to? How are you bringing in people? How are you building out your back office? How are you building out your front office? There's all sorts of elements of building a real business. We have a hundred employees at Lightspeed. You know, when we started, we had four. So it was definitely much simpler back then when we were just focused on investing, and it takes a lot more to really build a platform that moves forward. So, you know, they're just very different things. Being in a partnership and focused on investing versus building a business are two very different things. We're more like the entrepreneurs we work with in terms of building a firm is more like building a company.

AI assessment note: “Being in a partnership and focused on investing versus building a business are two very different things.”

Q That's exactly it. No, you just got a medal footing up in my terrible British accent. Perfect. But tell me, and let's start with, for those that missed the first episode, how did you make your way into the world of Venture, and how did you come to found Lightspeak?

A I'm sort of an unlikely VC. I didn't really know that I wanted to do VC until I was in my mid thirties. I went through college and business school, not thinking about VC. I didn't even take the VC class in business school because I just thought it was something I didn't want to do. I wanted to be an operating person, but one thing led to another. I was working at Cisco and I started doing acquisitions for Cisco and really enjoyed that and bought a few companies. And all of a sudden, one of the VCs that I had gone to school with business school reached out and said, Hey, have you thought about being a VC? And that's when I took a few months and really looked at the opportunity, and one thing led to another, and I joined BC Industry in January of 1997, which was a great time to join, because it was right in the beginning of the telecom boom. So I went through the initial boom of 97 to 2000, and then the bust, and that was a really quick cycle. And sort of in the early 2000, I looked around at my partners, and there was a subset of partners I felt like we could create a different firm with. We could take and create more of a firm that's based on more of an equal footing firm. We had some hierarchy in the current firm I was in. We felt like There's a subset of us that could sort of splinter off and start Lightspeed, and it's funny because many VC firms are started by groups splinte…

AI assessment note: “The four of us splintered off and started Lightspeed and started from scratch”

Q female partners and 10 incredible females to the team. You brought on the scout program, which is amazing to see that kind of take force. In terms of advising dominant white Male partnerships today in the venture ecosystem, just from a purely kind of nice and friendly perspective, like what would you advise them to do to really embrace this and move forward with it wholeheartedly? What can they do?

A Well, you got to understand the business reason for doing this, right? You shouldn't do it just because it feels good and it gives you good PR. You should do it because it was a business reason for doing it. And we believe the business reason is by having a more inclusive team, we reach a broader set of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs. And if you reach a broader set of entrepreneurs, you're going to see a higher quality set of deals. And if you see a higher quality set of deals, you're going to do better deals and you're going to have better performance. And so as you think about extending your network to underrepresented groups, ideally you reach everybody. And so we believe there's a huge business reason. It's going to result in better performance for us longer term. It's going to take some time to develop it. But as you see with the fact that we have 10 females on our team now, it can happen fast and it can make a huge difference in the near term for venture firms. I've talked to a lot of my peers, and a lot of my peers have different programs that they're putting in place internally, and I think generally the industry wants to collaborate, and we want to learn from each other as peers to accelerate the industry faster versus treating this as an area of competitive differentiation between firms. So I expect to see a lot more collaboration among peer firms on this.

AI assessment note: “Well, you got to understand the business reason for doing this, right?”

Q people and the state of play today, I do want to start on the political environment. It's probably more interesting slash shocking than ever before, and so if we start on that, when we look at the current administration, tell me, what are the implications of a Biden administration on our industry, and I guess how does that compare to a Trump administration, diving straight in at the deep end?

A Yeah, it's a great question, and I get to look at this both through my light speed lens as well as my lens as I'm chairman, current chairman of the NBCA. And so I get a lot of exposure to politics and policy that affect both startups and BC. So we've done a lot of analysis on which way it could go and what the implications are. I think we know what we're going to get with the Trump presidency if he's reelected. One of the downsides of that, I think, has really been difficult on immigration policy, which I think has had some negative effect for sure on our industry. With a Biden administration, and assuming more of a democratic Washington, I think there's some pros and cons. From the pro side, I think he's going to invest a lot in infrastructure. Including high speed internet. So I think it's going to continue to enable our industry and also potentially create opportunities for our companies to make money. He's definitely more friendly towards immigration. And so things like the startup visa, and that is where someone comes to our country and they create jobs, a company that creates jobs. We let them stay for an extended period. And I think that should just be automatic, but it's something that was started with the Obama administration and it sort of got off track with the Trump administration. So hopefully if Biden wins, we can get that back on track. Climate change. I think th…

AI assessment note: “With a Biden administration, and assuming more of a democratic Washington, I think there's some pros and cons.”

Q Can I ask, when you started Lightspeed, did you always envision it to be the multi-stage, multi-geography, international firm that it is today, or did that really kind of evolve and scale over time?

A Yeah, that sort of evolved over time. You know, you have to go back to the late nineties. And when we were doing venture capital, late nineties, there was a lot of people doing early stage investing. There was probably 20 or 30 firms that would compete for the best deals in early stage. And then when we went through the 2002 1001 crash, um, a lot of those firms either disbanded or changed their strategy or just decided to retire or went through a generational transition. And so You know, around 2002 or three, we sort of looked around and we said, wow, there's not as many people doing this early stage stuff. We had been doing sort of B rounds in the late nineties. And we said, well, you know, let's go establish ourselves as preeminent early stage venture investor. And so we'd set out to do that, did a lot of seed and series A's in the early 2000. And, you know, one thing led to another. And we thought this was the most important real estate and ventures early stage. Let's stake it out. And we were able to do that. Took us 17 years, but we got there.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that sort of evolved over time.”

Q It's interesting. You said that about ownership. We have Peter Fenton on the show recently, and he said that when it comes to ownership, the thinking that you can get a It's simply not possible anymore. How would you think about that?

A Yeah, I think that it depends on some of these projects that require a ton of capital. It's really hard to get 15 or 20% of them over time. You look at the Ubers of the world, and some of the guys who are, you know, the electric bike companies and scooter companies, and anything that requires so much capital is just hard to get into that kind of a position. There's certainly a lot of other companies that maybe are raising 50 to a hundred million over their life, And so you can get to that position. But having said that, if you own 10%, 15% in one of those iconic, highly valued companies, that's a great return for your investors.

AI assessment note: “it depends on some of these projects that require a ton of capital”

Q Do you find it challenging to wind down when you have built the institution and you're so proud of all you've built and you still love the space so much? Do you think you will find it challenging to wind down?

A I don't think so. You know, I think that think about venture capital, it's really a graceful wind down because when you do an early stage investment, you probably are going to work with that company for another 10 years. So I did three investments last year. So Found seven or eight boards now is if you slow down your new investments, then you have a long tail of working with those companies. And so it is a nice, graceful way to stay involved and stay fresh with the companies. I also spend time working with Lightspeed on some other initiatives, like some of our inclusion initiatives and some of our crypto initiatives. So, you know, and I think that's the right way. I think what happens in some firms, if you say you're either in a hundred percent or you're out, that's when you have the issues.

AI assessment note: “I don't think so. You know, I think that think about venture capital, it's”

Q ask it. In terms of that, you mentioned kind of the excess amount of capital in the ecosystem. Do you think that now we're in a stage where, again, that impending bust is coming with the likes of the SoftBank, Sequoia's new seven and a half billion fund, GC's new billion plus fund? Do you think there is an excess supply, and do you think there is that bust coming?

A Well, there's probably two things that work. Certainly that we've expanded the amount of capital in a big way, That's come into venture with the advent of people like SoftBank and Sequoia and larger funds, even Lightspeed funds are getting larger, and so we're putting more money into private companies. Having said that, we are sort of shifting some of the money that used to go into IPOs into private investments, and so that's expanding the market for venture. So we've extended the market a bit. I do think, though, that we've got too much money coming in, and so I do think returns are going to suffer a bit. For these vintages, and that we probably need some kind of a correction to decrease the amount of capital that's coming into venture.

AI assessment note: “I do think, though, that we've got too much money coming in”

Q Who's the best board member you've sat on a board with, Barry?

A I think from a venture perspective, I really appreciate the style of someone like Jim Getz. And he's obviously done quite well for himself as a venture investor of one of the best, but for nimble storage, I sat with him on the board and I got a chance to sort of see him. What makes him really good is he was great at encouraging the company at times and challenging the company, but always with a tone that was very constructive. And I think it motivated the company a lot based on his comments. And so, you know, he would go deep when he needed to, he would stay high when he needed to, but it seemed like just the right amount of comment and help. I'm a board member. Obviously, you don't want to have a board member that tries to help too much, and you don't want to have a board member that doesn't help at all, and I think Jim provided a pretty good balance in that.

AI assessment note: “I really appreciate the style of someone like Jim Getz”

Q Can I ask, when it is the boom times, and there is an excess amount of capital, as we said about its effect on pricing, how do you think about price sensitivity, given your many years of experience with Lightspeed? Are there any kind of major learnings on price that have really stood out to you?

A I think a lot of people would say, you know, if you're in the right deal, the price doesn't matter too much. What's the difference between a hundred X and an ADX? And that's generally true, but I think that Also, if you have a higher price as an early stage investor, you know, let's say the difference between a single digit pre money and a double digit pre money or in the teens or even the twenties, then you're, you're talking about putting less companies into a fund because you want to get your same ownership. And so you got to put more money into each company to get that ownership. And so instead of having 50 plus companies in a fund, you might have 40 or 45. And so that can be okay as long as those five that you cut out aren't the ones that are really driving the fund. And as we know, it's usually a handful or less of companies that really drive the performance of a single fund. And so we're having less shots on goal when prices are higher, but ultimately for the great companies, the price doesn't matter as much.

AI assessment note: “if you have a higher price as an early stage investor... putting less companies into a fund”

Q Can I ask, when you started Lightspeed, did you always envision it to be the multi-stage, multi-geography, international firm that it is today, or did that really kind of evolve and scale over time?

A Yeah, that sort of evolved over time. You know, you have to go back to the late nineties. And when we were doing venture capital, late nineties, there was a lot of people doing early stage investing. There was probably 20 or 30 firms that would compete for the best deals in early stage. And then when we went through the 2002 1001 crash, um, a lot of those firms either disbanded or changed their strategy or just decided to retire or went through a generational transition. And so You know, around 2002 or three, we sort of looked around and we said, wow, there's not as many people doing this early stage stuff. We had been doing sort of B rounds in the late nineties. And we said, well, you know, let's go establish ourselves as preeminent early stage venture investor. And so we'd set out to do that, did a lot of seed and series A's in the early 2000. And, you know, one thing led to another. And we thought this was the most important real estate and ventures early stage. Let's stake it out. And we were able to do that. Took us 17 years, but we got there.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that sort of evolved over time.”

Q It's interesting. You said that about ownership. We have Peter Fenton on the show recently, and he said that when it comes to ownership, the thinking that you can get a It's simply not possible anymore. How would you think about that?

A Yeah, I think that it depends on some of these projects that require a ton of capital. It's really hard to get 15 or 20% of them over time. You look at the Ubers of the world, and some of the guys who are, you know, the electric bike companies and scooter companies, and anything that requires so much capital is just hard to get into that kind of a position. There's certainly a lot of other companies that maybe are raising 50 to a hundred million over their life, And so you can get to that position. But having said that, if you own 10%, 15% in one of those iconic, highly valued companies, that's a great return for your investors.

AI assessment note: “I think that it depends on some of these projects that require a ton of capital.”

Q Do you find it challenging to wind down when you have built the institution and you're so proud of all you've built and you still love the space so much? Do you think you will find it challenging to wind down?

A I don't think so. You know, I think that think about venture capital, it's really a graceful wind down because when you do an early stage investment, you probably are going to work with that company for another 10 years. So I did three investments last year. So Found seven or eight boards now is if you slow down your new investments, then you have a long tail of working with those companies. And so it is a nice, graceful way to stay involved and stay fresh with the companies. I also spend time working with Lightspeed on some other initiatives, like some of our inclusion initiatives and some of our crypto initiatives. So, you know, and I think that's the right way. I think what happens in some firms, if you say you're either in a hundred percent or you're out, that's when you have the issues.

AI assessment note: “I don't think so. You know, I think that think about venture capital”

Q Got to ask, Brian, before we dive in, what's the hardest thing about building the firm?

A So many elements of building a successful firm, but I think the people element is the one that people often overlook, and that is bringing in great people, retaining and motivating great people, and creating a culture, and sort of working through all the people dynamics. That you get in a firm, and it's not something that anyone teaches you in any school, and so you have to learn it on the job. Partnerships are way different than corporations. Corporations at least have some formal hierarchy. Partnerships are supposed to be flat, and so there's sort of this unusual element of sort of lack of hierarchy, and it sort of finds its way over time, but the people element is really hard, and obviously you have good people situations and bad people situations that you have to manage through, but the best VC firms have great people, and they work together well as a team.

AI assessment note: “the people element is the one that people often overlook”

Q I'm so pleased you touched on crypto there. I had your wonderful colleague Adam Goldberg on the show recently, and we discussed crypto. So how do you view the crypto investing landscape at present? Let's start with that.

A I'm really excited about crypto. A lot of people, you know, sort of look at it and think it's just, it's sort of a joke, but I think if you really understand what crypto is all about, um, the power of the network and, and how disruptive it can be to venture capital. I mean, a lot of these companies, and I'm talking about the ones that, you know, have Credible founders and have credible strategies, and there's a growing number of those, by the way. You know, these companies have a way to get funding from all over the world. They have a way to crowdfund, if you will, the product and their network. There's sort of a fairness doctrine that comes along with these crypto networks, and, you know, we found that some of the best companies, you know, in venture over the last 15 or 20 years have been network effects companies. Well, crypto is a lot about network effects. So I think as a venture firm, you can't just dismiss crypto as a fad. I think you have to understand it and embrace it. Um, and we're doing that. We got people like Adam that are, you know, working on a lot of stuff now. And Jeremy's been involved in crypto for a long time with companies like blockchain and et cetera. And now we're doing a lot more with that. We're seeing companies that, you know, look a lot closer to the traditional venture investments that we've been making over the last 25 years. So I think it's an are…

AI assessment note: “I'm really excited about crypto. A lot of people... look at it and think it's just a joke”

Q Board members that I've worked with because of his long-term views and his calmness. One that I'd love to touch on is the word calmness. Bluntly, it's something that I, uh, not struggle with, but often have to think very carefully on. How do you keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs in a portfolio company, in a board meeting? How do you retain that calm barrier?

A Maybe it comes with age, but I think when I first started in VC, you get into your board meetings and you hear good and bad news, and you get super excited for the good news, and you get super depressed about the bad news, and I was a lot more excitable when I first started in VC, and I think you learn over time that every company is a journey. You have a lot of ups and downs with companies. You have to take a long-term view, not a short-term view, and the more you can work with entrepreneurs to work through the difficult times and have a plan, the better the partnership's going to be when things are good, and so there's no reason to overreact with short-term news because all of these investments are long-term journeys.

AI assessment note: “there's no reason to overreact with short-term news because all of these investments are long-term journeys”

Q Can I ask a really tough one, and it is off schedule. It's like, how does one think about voting with their wallet versus voting with their heart? And one's heart would probably go to Biden, and one's wallet, in some cases, would maybe go to Trump. How does one think about voting with each?

A Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think we all have different answers for that. I like to think about voting for the person that's going to be the best for our country, but each person has to make that individual decision. I think there are a lot of pros and cons to each candidate, but generally, I think that there can be some real positives that come out of a Biden administration, and there's been some positives out of the The current administration, but not as many as we had in the past. And so I ask people to sort of think about the long-term impact of the presidency on the country versus your own individual short-term impact.

AI assessment note: “think about the long-term impact of the presidency on the country versus your own”