The Exchanges

Q Final one for you, my friend. What's the most recent publicly announced investment, and why did you say yes and get so excited?

A Yeah, I mean, back to this notion of venture as a team sport, I mean, I do spend most of my time kind of working with other team members on deals as opposed to necessarily doing them myself. So the last one I actually led personally was almost 18 months ago at this point, but it was Refine in India. Which is an earned wage access player. It's a trend that we're big believers in, and we've made a few different investments around the world. We had already decided to enter India, and we were active in searching for a partner to lead that, which eventually led us to Sandeep, who's been great. But we had the chance to meet Chitrash and Apoorv and really believe that they were going to be a fantastic team to really take this product category to India, where we thought it would be hugely successful and couldn't be happier. I mean, they've made great progress. They've done a couple more funding rounds and really off to the races.

AI assessment note: “the last one I actually led personally was almost 18 months ago at this point, but it was Refine in India.”

Q Bill, what was your biggest miss, and how did it impact your investing style today?

A Yeah, look, I think as we look throughout QED, and this certainly applies to myself, Our biggest misses have been on this question of valuation. Love the team, love the business, love the opportunity, have a great relationship, feel like this is going to work, and then we just sort of balk at the price. A number of these, we never were able to get a second bite at the apple. We see the company succeed. Good for them. A little bit depressing for us. But just to talk about two tangible examples that actually had happier endings, we turned down both NewBank and Loft at their seed stage, right? So in both cases, We knew the CEO long before they had the idea for the company. We were involved in the creation for the idea for the company. I mean, Nigel had been advising Daveed for years. I had known Mate for a long time. We had spent time with Mate and Florian on PropTech and what the opportunities were. And in both cases, they had what at the time looked like offer sheets with really high valuations. We looked at it and said, oh, for a PowerPoint, you know, I don't know about that. Thankfully, we maintained those relationships and we had the chance to come back later and invest. Much less ownership than we'd like, maybe less investment than we'd like. Thankfully, kudos to them for letting us back in later. But it's just a good example of this is hard, and I think that's part of our l…

AI assessment note: “Our biggest misses have been on this question of valuation.”

Q hands-on. I do want to ask, QED has seen this fantastic expansion over the years, and so I want to jump into that, and especially, you know, we've seen it jump across stage and geo, as you call it, jumping geos. You did a lot of international expansion at Capital One, leading many of their efforts on international expansion. How has international expansion changed? Since the days of Capital One?

A Yeah, I think it's dramatically different now. I think when Capital One was going to new geos, it was incredibly difficult. And I think you really had to start over in every single country that you went in. So we may have learned some things in the US that helped us be successful in Canada, UK, France, South Africa, you name it. But at some level, the customers are different. The regulations are different. The data is different. The banks are different. The competitive environment's different. I think you've got many businesses in tech, Facebook and Google being two of them that are called default global. Yeah, maybe they have to be adjusted in different markets, maybe you have to translate them, but at the end of the day, they sort of work globally. I think most fintech businesses are default local, and that unless you sort of go through heroic efforts, they're probably not going to work in the next country unless you really adapt. I do think that has changed quite a bit. I think the advent of the banking as a service, insurance as a service, X as a service market Has made it much easier for companies to figure out what works in one country and take it to a new geography. We're seeing people jump orders at a rate way beyond anything, even that we saw five years ago. I think consumer tastes, I don't want to say they're harmonizing. I mean, they're definitely different in Brazil…

AI assessment note: “I think it's dramatically different now. I think when Capital One was going to new geos”

Q I bet you're very handy with the sand wedge by now though, so at least I can get around the golf course from time to time. It was an incredible journey into the hyper growth phase and beyond with Capital One. When you look back and reflect, what were some of the biggest takeaways for you from that journey first?

A It's corporate values includes a statement, hire the best people and create an environment where they can be great. And I think that phrase sort of really sticks with me. I think one of the other things Capital One really kind of pioneered back in the day is a relentless focus on unit economics. I think many people do that today, but I think Capital One really built its entire company around the management of the unit economics of a business. And it is one of the things I've learned now working with the 150 companies in our portfolio. It's really not easy. And if you don't do it from the start, it's much harder to add later. And I think that we found that that was just one of the key factors that allowed us to get through good times, get through bad times. Really focus on what are we investing money in and what's going to come out the other end.

AI assessment note: “a relentless focus on unit economics”

Q Speaking of the valuation changes, a lot of people want to invest in QED companies after you've invested. Preemptive rounds happen more and more often today. How do you advise founders when they get a fat Preemptive term sheet from a big incumbent. How do you advise them when that situation arises?

A I would say that by and large, our advice over the past several months is take the money because the market is so hot. You never know if that market's going to continue. You never know if you're going to be able to tap that again. I think we've been pretty aggressive over the last six months at encouraging our companies to sort of take the money if they have it. I would say if you rewind a couple of years, that was not the typical advice. I would say our advice was much more on, well, why would you raise more money than you need? Sometimes scarcity actually causes a lot better decision making. If you have too much money, burning your hole in the pocket may not cause you to, to make the right decisions. Our advice definitely depends on the environment that you're sitting in and feel really good that we've encouraged companies to take the extra money over the last six months. Whereas I think when we're moving into the environment that we see coming in the future, our advice has been much more cautious. Hey, maybe instead of trying to grow three X, you should grow two X and try to extend runway, have the cash last longer. And I think more and more of those conversations are happening. So I think it really depends on the environment.

AI assessment note: “our advice over the past several months is take the money because the market is so hot”

Q To what extent do you think it's the quality of entrepreneur of business versus the sheer influx of capital? Because I would argue that actually it's actually largely the sheer influx of capital. I agree with all of your statements, but it's not really that it's at 80% of the capital.

A I absolutely think it's both. I think because people can have been able to essentially get unlimited capital at incredibly cheap prices, it's enabled them to be aggressive in ways that they wouldn't have been able to before. But I also think the playbook at some level is out there. So if you're an entrepreneur now, and you're just getting started, there are so many people who have done it before. There's so many people you can talk to. I think if you rewind the clock, 10 years ago, a lot of people were pioneering what's out there and really didn't know the roadmap. So I think the success rates have been much higher, but we think there's a bunch of real reasons why it makes sense that valuations would be elevated from a few years ago. Do I think they got too much? Probably. And I do think as the later stage comes down, probably eventually that'll flow in, but I don't think there'll be the same level of crash at the early stage that there is later.

AI assessment note: “I absolutely think it's both.”

Q the three to five billion range. There's an upside if they add payments and transactions to hit the ten billion, but we can see a home at three to five. Okay, 200, so we're going to do a, say, a 14, 15 X, maybe a couple less with dilution. Do you find it effective to outcome scenario planning? And how do you think about attractive enough on outcome scenario plans?

A I would say we do quite a bit of that, but probably a little less valuation oriented and a little more sort of business economics oriented. So I think one of the things that you learn is that we spend a decent amount of time with our teams looking at what their financial plans are. I think the only thing we know for sure is nobody's ever going to hit the financial plan that they put together. But what I think we find it really useful is how do they think about the business in the future? What are the key assumptions that they're banking on? If they achieve what they think they're going to achieve, is this an exciting business? And is this a sustainable, profitable business in the long run? And one that we're confident that somebody wants to own. And so again, back to the focus on unit economics, you know, we're very much focused on, well, what do you need to believe for this thing to be a big, interesting, sustainable, profitable business? Do you generally believe in those assumptions? And if we do, that gives you a lot of confidence. We're probably a little less focused on, hey, what do I think the valuation of this thing is going to be a few years ago? Because I think as we've seen in the markets, those change so much. But if you have a sustainable, profitable business, somebody is going to want to own it, and somebody is going to value that well.

AI assessment note: “I would say we do quite a bit of that, but probably a little less valuation oriented”

Q I'm just too interested that when you think about kind of portfolio discussions with the next 1218 months markets in mind, how do you think about the conversations that you are having with your companies? And are there consistent messages that you're finding yourself say to them, whether it's on burn, Runway, you need econ. Are there consistent messages that you're having across the portfolio given the macro?

A Yeah, look, I think the types of conversations vary quite a lot depending on the stage, but certainly related to the growth stage companies, I think very similar conversations are happening across geographies, across business types, and it's almost all of the flavor of, look, you shouldn't be planning on needing to raise money in the next 12 to 18 months. We don't know what the world's going to look like. There's a chance that the world looks better than we all think, and if so, great, we'll adjust to it. But if you sort of assume the worst and hope for the best, you'll position your business to be able to withstand problems. I think the good news is so many of the later stage companies, both in our portfolio and around the world, have raised a ton of money over the last three to six months. And so many businesses are sitting on very impressive war chests that they were assuming they would use to grow really fast, to do a bunch of M&A, to do a bunch of that. And I think now we're very much in a situation where we should be using some of that war Much of that war chest to really extend runway and make sure that we can withstand any kind of disruption the markets see.

AI assessment note: “you shouldn't be planning on needing to raise money in the next 12 to 18 months”

Q Can I ask, Bill, you seem very level. What worries you today investing?

A Yeah, I mean, look, we've talked a lot about the valuation environment, maybe a little leaning into the trend. Relative to your question, that still is one of the things that worries me greatly. By far, number one is this notion of the funding environment, and where is that going in the future? So I guess what gets me comfortable with those is just, I do believe that fintech is a mega trend. I do believe that we are still only very early innings in that trend, and this has decades longer to go. I think the idea of building businesses that can withstand boom cycles, bust cycles, can succeed across multiple environments is important, and so there's a piece of this which actually has me excited, that if the market's more challenging, businesses will get better for it, they'll learn how to deal with it, and they'll be even stronger coming out of it.

AI assessment note: “By far, number one is this notion of the funding environment”

Q Does that work in, sorry, I love Nico, intensity at Kazak, what a fucking hero. Does that actually work? And what I mean by that is they have their ownership targets, You have your ownership targets. We have founders who want less dilution than ever. Help me out, Bill. How do I make that work? Because I want to partner with them too.

A Look, I think partnering has gotten much harder. I think the phenomenon you mentioned, successful firms are growing a lot. We need to deploy more capital. We want to have higher ownership. So I think the partnering has gotten more challenging. Venture firms used to share rounds. I think it's much more common for one of them to lead than the next one to do the next round. I think we've all kind of moved in the direction of being multi-stage. Both going earlier and going later, and I think that's become one of the ways in which we kind of play together. I think one of the things QED, though, has realized is something does get lost if you can't partner on individual deals, and so we've come up with a handful of programs really targeted at kind of the pre-seed and seed stage, where we're intended to be smaller investment size, maybe we don't join the board, we're trying to join coalition rounds, trying to be a good partner, but maybe a little bit less dominant, so we can maintain great relationships with seed funds, See a much broader array of founders, and then be ready for the ones that are breaking out, having an inside ticket to try in and build the partnership over time.

AI assessment note: “we've come up with a handful of programs really targeted at kind of the pre-seed”

Q bluntly runway needs to be preserved, and sustainable businesses obviously need to be much more front and center. When you look back at the time that you had with Capital One and the macro environments that you went through, what were some of your biggest takeaways from seeing the booms and busts that you did, and how did Seeing them impact your mindset to invest in today, do you think?

A Something I think we really always tried to do at Capital One is make decisions assuming that the future looks worse than the past. We were on the cutting edge of really building advanced statistical models. This is sort of before machine learning and AI really sort of hit the levels they are today. But I think my biggest learning about that is that no matter how good your modeling technology is, it's only so good as the inputs. And the inputs are only so good as the environment in which they're created. If you're building a business in boom times, and then you hit challenging times, all of your assumptions of what might happen in the future are going to be biased by the environment that you built the business in. And so we always tried the best we could at assume the future looks worse than the past. And if the decisions you're making, we think are still going to look good, then it gives you a lot of confidence really to step on the gas and grow aggressively.

AI assessment note: “make decisions assuming that the future looks worse than the past”

Q To what extent do you think it's the quality of entrepreneur of business versus the sheer influx of capital? Because I would argue that actually it's actually largely the sheer influx of capital. I agree with all of your statements, but it's not really that it's at 80% of the capital.

A I absolutely think it's both. I think because people can have been able to essentially get unlimited capital at incredibly cheap prices, it's enabled them to be aggressive in ways that they wouldn't have been able to before. But I also think the playbook at some level is out there. So if you're an entrepreneur now, and you're just getting started, there are so many people who have done it before. There's so many people you can talk to. I think if you rewind the clock, 10 years ago, a lot of people were pioneering what's out there and really didn't know the roadmap. So I think the success rates have been much higher, but we think there's a bunch of real reasons why it makes sense that valuations would be elevated from a few years ago. Do I think they got too much? Probably. And I do think as the later stage comes down, probably eventually that'll flow in, but I don't think there'll be the same level of crash at the early stage that there is later.

AI assessment note: “I absolutely think it's both.”

Q Speaking of the valuation changes, a lot of people want to invest in QED companies after you've invested. Preemptive rounds happen more and more often today. How do you advise founders when they get a fat Preemptive term sheet from a big incumbent. How do you advise them when that situation arises?

A I would say that by and large, our advice over the past several months is take the money because the market is so hot. You never know if that market's going to continue. You never know if you're going to be able to tap that again. I think we've been pretty aggressive over the last six months at encouraging our companies to sort of take the money if they have it. I would say if you rewind a couple of years, that was not the typical advice. I would say our advice was much more on, well, why would you raise more money than you need? Sometimes scarcity actually causes a lot better decision making. If you have too much money, burning your hole in the pocket may not cause you to, to make the right decisions. Our advice definitely depends on the environment that you're sitting in and feel really good that we've encouraged companies to take the extra money over the last six months. Whereas I think when we're moving into the environment that we see coming in the future, our advice has been much more cautious. Hey, maybe instead of trying to grow three X, you should grow two X and try to extend runway, have the cash last longer. And I think more and more of those conversations are happening. So I think it really depends on the environment.

AI assessment note: “our advice over the past several months is take the money”

Q In terms of rate hikes, everyone says, like, impending rate hikes, and when rate hikes happen, we see a flight away from venture, fundraising becomes more difficult for managers. How do you think impending rate hikes impact our business?

A Yeah, look, it certainly is going to have an impact, and I would say a lot of the impact that we're already seeing is because of people assuming there will be rate hikes. I mean, if you're building a business that says Hey, I'm gonna spend a ton of money, and seven years from now, I'm gonna make a bunch of money. The interest rate matters a lot. Inflation matters a lot. And so, when interest rates were basically zero, when inflation was basically zero, a dollar that you create in twenty-twenty-nine is just as good as the dollar that you create today. Obviously, if interest rates and inflation go up, that's no longer the case. So I think a lot of the disruption we're seeing in the market has to do with that very fact that you're talking about.

AI assessment note: “if interest rates and inflation go up, that's no longer the case.”

Q I bet you're very handy with the sand wedge by now though, so at least I can get around the golf course from time to time. It was an incredible journey into the hyper growth phase and beyond with Capital One. When you look back and reflect, what were some of the biggest takeaways for you from that journey first?

A It's corporate values includes a statement, hire the best people and create an environment where they can be great. And I think that phrase sort of really sticks with me. I think one of the other things Capital One really kind of pioneered back in the day is a relentless focus on unit economics. I think many people do that today, but I think Capital One really built its entire company around the management of the unit economics of a business. And it is one of the things I've learned now working with the 150 companies in our portfolio. It's really not easy. And if you don't do it from the start, it's much harder to add later. And I think that we found that that was just one of the key factors that allowed us to get through good times, get through bad times. Really focus on what are we investing money in and what's going to come out the other end.

AI assessment note: “hire the best people and create an environment where they can be great”

Q the three to five billion range. There's an upside if they add payments and transactions to hit the ten billion, but we can see a home at three to five. Okay, 200, so we're going to do a, say, a 14, 15 X, maybe a couple less with dilution. Do you find it effective to outcome scenario planning? And how do you think about attractive enough on outcome scenario plans?

A I would say we do quite a bit of that, but probably a little less valuation oriented and a little more sort of business economics oriented. So I think one of the things that you learn is that we spend a decent amount of time with our teams looking at what their financial plans are. I think the only thing we know for sure is nobody's ever going to hit the financial plan that they put together. But what I think we find it really useful is how do they think about the business in the future? What are the key assumptions that they're banking on? If they achieve what they think they're going to achieve, is this an exciting business? And is this a sustainable, profitable business in the long run? And one that we're confident that somebody wants to own. And so again, back to the focus on unit economics, you know, we're very much focused on, well, what do you need to believe for this thing to be a big, interesting, sustainable, profitable business? Do you generally believe in those assumptions? And if we do, that gives you a lot of confidence. We're probably a little less focused on, hey, what do I think the valuation of this thing is going to be a few years ago? Because I think as we've seen in the markets, those change so much. But if you have a sustainable, profitable business, somebody is going to want to own it, and somebody is going to value that well.

AI assessment note: “we do quite a bit of that, but probably a little less valuation oriented”

Q Can I ask, Bill, you seem very level. What worries you today investing?

A Yeah, I mean, look, we've talked a lot about the valuation environment, maybe a little leaning into the trend. Relative to your question, that still is one of the things that worries me greatly. By far, number one is this notion of the funding environment, and where is that going in the future? So I guess what gets me comfortable with those is just, I do believe that fintech is a mega trend. I do believe that we are still only very early innings in that trend, and this has decades longer to go. I think the idea of building businesses that can withstand boom cycles, bust cycles, can succeed across multiple environments is important, and so there's a piece of this which actually has me excited, that if the market's more challenging, businesses will get better for it, they'll learn how to deal with it, and they'll be even stronger coming out of it.

AI assessment note: “By far, number one is this notion of the funding environment”

Q Does that work in, sorry, I love Nico, intensity at Kazak, what a fucking hero. Does that actually work? And what I mean by that is they have their ownership targets, You have your ownership targets. We have founders who want less dilution than ever. Help me out, Bill. How do I make that work? Because I want to partner with them too.

A Look, I think partnering has gotten much harder. I think the phenomenon you mentioned, successful firms are growing a lot. We need to deploy more capital. We want to have higher ownership. So I think the partnering has gotten more challenging. Venture firms used to share rounds. I think it's much more common for one of them to lead than the next one to do the next round. I think we've all kind of moved in the direction of being multi-stage. Both going earlier and going later, and I think that's become one of the ways in which we kind of play together. I think one of the things QED, though, has realized is something does get lost if you can't partner on individual deals, and so we've come up with a handful of programs really targeted at kind of the pre-seed and seed stage, where we're intended to be smaller investment size, maybe we don't join the board, we're trying to join coalition rounds, trying to be a good partner, but maybe a little bit less dominant, so we can maintain great relationships with seed funds, See a much broader array of founders, and then be ready for the ones that are breaking out, having an inside ticket to try in and build the partnership over time.

AI assessment note: “we've come up with a handful of programs really targeted at kind of the pre-seed”

Q What do you know now that you wish you'd known seven years ago when you started in venture and at QED?

A So I've found over the years that conventional wisdom is an interesting thing. I mean, on one hand, challenging conventional wisdom is at the root of innovation, but I also have found that conventional wisdom is there for a reason. You've probably had every single venture capitalist on your show tell you the most important thing is people, and the most important thing is founding team. So I kind of knew that coming in. It was Okay, that's obvious. Yeah, everyone knows that, whatever. I way underestimated that point, and it is impossible to underestimate the most important thing by far is how talented and how creative, how much able to hire the founding teams are, and it's one of those where I kind of knew it in my brain, but I didn't really feel it in my bones, and I think seven years has definitely reinforced that conventional wisdom, which again, I think is there for a reason.

AI assessment note: “I way underestimated that point, and it is impossible to underestimate”

Q bluntly runway needs to be preserved, and sustainable businesses obviously need to be much more front and center. When you look back at the time that you had with Capital One and the macro environments that you went through, what were some of your biggest takeaways from seeing the booms and busts that you did, and how did Seeing them impact your mindset to invest in today, do you think?

A Something I think we really always tried to do at Capital One is make decisions assuming that the future looks worse than the past. We were on the cutting edge of really building advanced statistical models. This is sort of before machine learning and AI really sort of hit the levels they are today. But I think my biggest learning about that is that no matter how good your modeling technology is, it's only so good as the inputs. And the inputs are only so good as the environment in which they're created. If you're building a business in boom times, and then you hit challenging times, all of your assumptions of what might happen in the future are going to be biased by the environment that you built the business in. And so we always tried the best we could at assume the future looks worse than the past. And if the decisions you're making, we think are still going to look good, then it gives you a lot of confidence really to step on the gas and grow aggressively.

AI assessment note: “my biggest learning about that is that no matter how good your modeling technology”

Q the Pricing. We're in this kind of strange time now, I find. We have this impending potential recession, and impending rate hikes, and then we have the crash in public markets, but actually early stage valuations haven't really changed. Growth seems to have been a hit. How do you think about your price sensitivity today, given to me it feels like we're in the chasm between crash and between boom?

A Yeah, I mean, look, there's probably no other topic that gets discussed as much, either internally or externally, as that one. And I think you have a great observation, right? The publics have crashed. The growth stage is choppy. The early stage really hasn't changed very much. If I had to predict the future, my guess is the early stage will eventually get affected. Do I think it'll crash as much as some of the later stage? Probably not. And I think there's some really good reasons why valuations at the early stage have been quite high. Talent that we see coming into fintech is better than it's ever been. Growth rates among early stage fintechs have been faster than they've ever been. I mean, The number of companies that we've invested in the last couple years that have literally doubled between when we submitted a term sheet and when we closed the deal, it's stunning. And it probably five, seven years ago, if a company grew two X in a year, that was incredible. Now we're seeing three X, four X, five X, seven X absolutely being possible. I think the evolution of the banking as a service insurance as a service X as a service market has just allowed companies to move way faster, innovate way faster, offer new services and grow to places we never really thought possible.

AI assessment note: “my guess is the early stage will eventually get affected.”

Q So how do you think about that reinvestment process for you?

A Yeah, look, I think the same principle probably applies. I mean, we do actively look to make new decisions. We know many investors sort of make an investment and reserve and just kind of automatically do their next, uh, several investments. We do try to do some level of re-underwriting, but I think the same principle applies. I mean, if you get to know the company, the company is doing incredibly well. They're growing well. We're confident in the economics. Maybe the valuation's a little ahead of the progress. Our objective is still to kind of lean into those companies. How do you draw the line? How do you know exactly how to approach it in any individual situation? So sometimes we've leaned in fully. Sometimes we've leaned in partially. Sometimes if the situation dictates it, we haven't always But it's challenging, but I think at the end of the day, the best companies, the best founders, the best ideas, you know, have rarely disappointed in the long run.

AI assessment note: “We do try to do some level of re-underwriting”

Q What do you do when you think the founders world class, but you hate the idea?

A I would say historically we have either tried to convince them to do something else, and in some cases we've actually succeeded, and in some cases kind of walked away. I would say the inverse of that has been a place where we have learned a lot. And one of the terms we use is operators masquerading as investors. A lot of us have experience either at Capital One or at startups or other places operating businesses. And I do think at times we've fallen in love with an idea. We may not have been totally sold on all of the team, but sort of said, look, we have skills that can complement the team and we can really help. And I think while that's true, I think at the end of the day, there's no substitute for just a truly world-class team. And If we can help them be even better, well, that's wonderful. The idea of using skills that we might have to help fill in some gaps is a little bit scary.

AI assessment note: “we have either tried to convince them to do something else”

Q How do you make decisions at QED? Is it consensus? How do you think about effective decision making on the investing side?

A Yeah, I mean, look, I very much believe in a notion that venture should be a team sport. I think so often in venture, it's viewed as a very much individual sport. Joe Smith is some genius that goes and invests in company X, Y, and Z, and they build this track record. Or some firms may have a number of talented partners that honestly exist as a loose Confederation of individual people doing their thing. And look, that can work. That's been really successful for lots of people. I very much believe, though, that if you can make venture a team sport, you're going to be better for it. You know, both Frank and I, we couldn't be more opposite in terms of what our skill sets are, but when we're both able to look at a problem, we're probably much more likely to come up with a better answer than either of us independently. I think the thing we struggle with is honestly wanting so much input into what we do that we also need to realize speed matters. And sometimes speed is easier when it's just an individual person, but Something I really try to work hard on is this notion of venture as a team sport. It's not always easy, and the market doesn't really work that way usually, but I think it's a big advantage when you can pull it off.

AI assessment note: “I very much believe in a notion that venture should be a team sport.”

Q How do you make decisions at QED? Is it consensus? How do you think about effective decision making on the investing side?

A Yeah, I mean, look, I very much believe in a notion that venture should be a team sport. I think so often in venture, it's viewed as a very much individual sport. Joe Smith is some genius that goes and invests in company X, Y, and Z, and they build this track record. Or some firms may have a number of talented partners that honestly exist as a loose Confederation of individual people doing their thing. And look, that can work. That's been really successful for lots of people. I very much believe, though, that if you can make venture a team sport, you're going to be better for it. You know, both Frank and I, we couldn't be more opposite in terms of what our skill sets are, but when we're both able to look at a problem, we're probably much more likely to come up with a better answer than either of us independently. I think the thing we struggle with is honestly wanting so much input into what we do that we also need to realize speed matters. And sometimes speed is easier when it's just an individual person, but Something I really try to work hard on is this notion of venture as a team sport. It's not always easy, and the market doesn't really work that way usually, but I think it's a big advantage when you can pull it off.

AI assessment note: “if you can make venture a team sport, you're going to be better for it”

Q Do you ever get that wrong? And how long is enough time to determine whether you were right or wrong on the AT-TV?

A Back to my biggest weakness, it's getting that wrong. I think that oftentimes people's biggest weakness are kind of a mirror reflection of their biggest strength. And so when I've made mistakes in the past, it often comes in the territory of, hey, I missed something. I should have gone really deep. I should have delivered to a hundred percent. And because I didn't, I missed something. And so I think ways of dealing with that are partly experience, trying to understand, okay, where might that tool serve you wrong? Where have I made mistakes in the past? Where might I need to change? I think the other difference is how do you surround yourself with people that have strengths in opposite areas? And I think we've got certainly some at QED that are just wonderful at going super deep, ripping apart industries, understanding everything there is to know. And sometimes I can add differential value by kind of really trying to focus a Back on what are the key, true, important points, and I think that's a really healthy, uh, dialogue.

AI assessment note: “Back to my biggest weakness, it's getting that wrong.”

Q If we have the mindset that the future is worse than the past in many respects when we do modeling, how does that impact how you think about reserve allocations and the reinvestment decision-making process?

A Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question in venture, and I think so much of venture in the last couple years has been in an environment where capital is abundant. I do think that we've always... Tried to be thoughtful and apply some of these mindsets of, look, let's assume that things are a little more challenging in the future. If we think that even in a more challenging environment, the decisions we're making are likely to be successful, and we're likely to be happy with them, then it gives us even more confidence to be aggressive. If we think that there's decisions that we're trying to make that if the world turns, and if the world doesn't look as rosy, we probably wouldn't be happy with those decisions, then I think we try to be a little bit more cautious.

AI assessment note: “let's assume that things are a little more challenging in the future.”

Q If we have the mindset that the future is worse than the past in many respects when we do modeling, how does that impact how you think about reserve allocations and the reinvestment decision-making process?

A Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question in venture, and I think so much of venture in the last couple years has been in an environment where capital is abundant. I do think that we've always... Tried to be thoughtful and apply some of these mindsets of, look, let's assume that things are a little more challenging in the future. If we think that even in a more challenging environment, the decisions we're making are likely to be successful, and we're likely to be happy with them, then it gives us even more confidence to be aggressive. If we think that there's decisions that we're trying to make that if the world turns, and if the world doesn't look as rosy, we probably wouldn't be happy with those decisions, then I think we try to be a little bit more cautious.

AI assessment note: “let's assume that things are a little more challenging in the future”