Every argument clarity score on this site is built from rows on this page. Each
question and answer was assessed with names hidden, the host's own answers included, on
four things from 1 to 5:
directness (does it answer the question asked), coherence (do the ideas follow),
precision (concrete details and clear references), compression (says a lot per word). The weighted
mix (30/30/25/15) is the exchange score. A person's published score averages their exchange
scores on raw tape only, at least 8 of them, shrunk toward the cohort mean.
Full method →
Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q The sign of a great investor there, but I do want to start today by talking about a topic that you mentioned yourself is focusing on Mark Kleiner being consumer, and I want to talk about the last consumer breakout, arguably being Snapchat, and so with that in mind, I want to ask you, are we in a bit of a consumer lull in your eyes?
A I actually do think we are. When you look at the data trends, I completely agree with you that the last breakout iconic consumer company that's proven today is Snapchat, and that launched in 2011, so it's been almost six years since we had that level of success on the consumer side, whereas one Quick generation before they were happening every year. You know, we were having WhatsApp followed by Pinterest and Uber and Airbnb and Snapchat, just bang, bang, bang right after another. And we we've had a bit of a lull here. And I think that they're actually, when you look at it, a couple of very clear reasons why that makes sense. The first is that distribution is just so hard. A lot of the great consumer companies were built off of free or unoptimized distribution, whether it was, you know, Facebook grew a lot off of email. Back in the early days. And you had Amazon and other sites going off of SEO in the early days. And then on the early days of mobile, the app store, app store promotions, it was very effective in terms of getting free distribution. And, or, uh, if you're social companies, you could grow off the backs of Facebook distribution and Twitter distribution, but all of those channels are now clogged down. They're now incredibly optimized and they're largely pay to play. So it's very difficult for a startup to actually find an arbitrage opportunity. And you need those dist…
AI assessment note: “I actually do think we are.”
Answered raw tape
D 4 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 3 4.15
Q I'm super intrigued, though, on, on returning to the dark What were the big takeaways from your time in operations that you've now taken with you and applied to your role returning to investing?
A Yeah, you know, a couple of things, which is people have kind of two completely different views on venture capitalists. There's those that think that, you know, all money's the same, just write a check, get out of my way, don't really, can't really be that helpful. And then there's others that actually are, you know, more selecting about the investors they choose to work with. They consider it as, it's almost like hiring a member of the team. It's a part of the family. Because there's a lot of influence and there's a lot of benefits that the right firm can, can provide. And to be perfectly candid, I was, I started out more in the second camp. I was just like, you know, how much can you really know about this business? You know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm doing this day in and day out. You parachute in for board meetings. How much can you really be helpful? Ah, you know, it's, it's better if you just give me the money, go away. I'll come back to you if I ever need your help. And I was more dismissive of the process, but actually being a In the, uh, the sausage making factory in Silicon Valley next to the, uh, the VC community, next to the investor community, and also spending time still back at Kleiner, because when I was at Footboard and I was at other companies in the portfolio, I would still get called in to help out occasionally back at Kleiner, but kind of seeing both sides o…
AI assessment note: “I have a tremendous now appreciation for the great work that investors can really do”
Answered raw tape
D 4 · C 5 · P 4 · Cm 3 4.15
Q I'm super intrigued, though, on, on returning to the dark What were the big takeaways from your time in operations that you've now taken with you and applied to your role returning to investing?
A Yeah, you know, a couple of things, which is people have kind of two completely different views on venture capitalists. There's those that think that, you know, all money's the same, just write a check, get out of my way, don't really, can't really be that helpful. And then there's others that actually are, you know, more selecting about the investors they choose to work with. They consider it as, it's almost like hiring a member of the team. It's a part of the family. Because there's a lot of influence and there's a lot of benefits that the right firm can, can provide. And to be perfectly candid, I was, I started out more in the second camp. I was just like, you know, how much can you really know about this business? You know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm doing this day in and day out. You parachute in for board meetings. How much can you really be helpful? Ah, you know, it's, it's better if you just give me the money, go away. I'll come back to you if I ever need your help. And I was more dismissive of the process, but actually being a In the, uh, the sausage making factory in Silicon Valley next to the, uh, the VC community, next to the investor community, and also spending time still back at Kleiner, because when I was at Footboard and I was at other companies in the portfolio, I would still get called in to help out occasionally back at Kleiner, but kind of seeing both sides o…
AI assessment note: “I have a tremendous now appreciation for the great work that investors can really do”
