The Exchanges

Q agreed with you there. The first point, though, that you mentioned was the picking the theme element. One theme that every investor actually seems to have written off now is mobile. The platform shift is the common wording I hear on the show. However, I know you have some different views. So why do you remain a believer in the next wave of investing in mobile? Let's start with that.

A Yeah, I think if you just look at global trends, so by 4.78 billion smartphone users in the world. The average American adult spends two hours and 51 minutes on their smartphone every day. And more importantly, consumer tastes change. So if you look at entertainment, any form of media, tastes just change over time. So if you click your phone and assume the applications that we use today will be used in five years or 10 years, I would think that you're just wrong. And, you know, I think it's hard to imagine beating the big players in the game. So, you know, the Facebooks of the world, Instagrams, but tastes will change. And Dante Entrepreneurs who are creative enough to identify where those gaps in the market will succeed.

AI assessment note: “tastes will change. And Dante Entrepreneurs who are creative enough to identify where those gaps”

Q Yeah, no, and I think actually also testament to the company behind you that kind of really inserts that risk-taking mindset. But much alignment and many mutual benefits, as you said there, are there any inherent challenges of being both product specialist as you are, but also investor at the same time?

A Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is knowing your priorities. So my day job is to work at Tinder, to grow our subscriptions, to grow our revenue, and really this is my core number one thing that I have to do when I wake up every morning. If you want to be an investor while you're operating, you have to find time. And so what I mean by that is I wake up at absurd hours and give up most of my weekends to invest, but you have to find those hours outside of work. And I think one thing that's been really helpful for me in terms of investing is just focus. So rather than being kind of a generalist, the only way I can have any edge in terms of competing with other venture capitalists is if I really go deep on one or two topics. And for me, that's been mobile and blockchain. And I think In terms of being competitive and having a point of view, really going deep on those topics. So when I'm going home at night, I'm pretty deep in Reddit forums on obscure topics related to the blockchain. And that's really how I have an edge is just through focus and making more time.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is knowing your priorities.”

Q Okay, so your favorite book and why? What must I be reading?

A I love reading, hence the name chapter one, so I might break rules and name two books. The first book's Catch on the Rise, so to me, Holman Caulfield is the ultimate outsider misfit. And that's a trait I look for in entrepreneurs. I read this book in high school and immediately started writing myself, and it really taught me how to write. The other book is called Google by Ken Oletta, and a funny story is I actually optioned the film into TV rights to this book a long time ago, and the reason I love this book so much is that it shows the impact of Bill Campbell on Google, Apple, and so many other companies. Bill was actually my middle school football coach, and he's, to me, one of the most legendary leaders in our entire industry and someone I really admire.

AI assessment note: “The first book's Catch on the Rise... The other book is called Google”

Q schedule, but one I'm too interested by is the element of loss ratio where I struggle to see the alignment. If you're looking at a product portfolio, having a high loss ratio is in my mind, it wouldn't be so tolerated by leadership. And then compared to maybe a small seed fund or seed investing practice, whereby high loss ratio is very much expected. How do you think about that?

A Yeah, again, I think it depends on the product. So when you're kind of an optimization experiment mode, Your loss ratio will be much higher, and that's actually encouraged. So if you're turning out products and it doesn't take that much time to build, you're learning a lot in a short period of time. You know, if you're going for a big kind of blockbuster product hit and you lose, at the end of the day, that's a big loss and a big hit to your company and your resources. So, you know, it just depends on the scale of the product and what you're looking to build. But I would say in terms of losing, if you're experimenting fast and you have a nimble team, it's ok.

AI assessment note: “it just depends on the scale of the product and what you're looking to build”

Q with Stripe, and how they think about, kind of, the evolution of payments is incredible, but we did speak about opinions and your thesis and theme-driven investing, so if we dig one layer deeper now into the art of investing itself, many people approach me wanting to Become that investor. I'm super interested to hear. What's your response to the very common question? Jeff, how do I become an investor?

A Yeah, I think you have to have skin in the game. So, and it's so easy to do that now. If you're accredited, you can go on AngelList and invest a thousand dollars in a startup. If you're not accredited, you can go on Robinhood and start investing in the public markets. You can invest in crypto as an example, but you really need to practice that skill. I think investing just like product is an art. You know, we're all Kind of learning the game through actually playing it, and so if you want to become an investor, you really have to figure out a way to start playing, and once you kind of start to see more and more cycles, you'll start to identify what you're actually interested in, and more importantly, what you think you're good at.

AI assessment note: “I think you have to have skin in the game.”

Q How to forecast expected value of a product?

A Yeah, I think it really comes down to knowing the number of consumers in your target market, so sizing the market, and then you have to make some assumptions regarding the proportion of people you expect to buy your product, and sometimes these assumptions are very hard to make. I really recommend looking at market comps. It's something that are hard to find for A lot of entrepreneurs, especially building products in new industries, but as much as you can find comps, it's really valuable. And then, then you need to really make some judgment of what you think the patterns of repeat purchase behavior might be. And that will help you understand your LTV, which will inform your tax. So we can dive a lot deeper into this. I think it would probably be a full episode.

AI assessment note: “comes down to knowing the number of consumers in your target market”

Q actually is one of the themes you mentioned of particular interest for you, and we've seen over the last 12 months, is obviously the world of crypto. Now, we chatted before about investing in crypto, and you said, investors treat crypto teams as if they are superhuman. Too enticing for me not to ask, but you did leave me on a cliffhanger here, Jeff. So, what makes you think this?

A Yeah, I look at how investors treat crypto entrepreneurs and And it's like they're superhumans. And then you actually meet with those teams, you go to their offices, you sit in their product meetings, and they're having the same exact challenges as every other team. So I think, you know, in the last crypto wave, we saw just an absurd amount of money going to these teams. And then the question was, when will their product ship? Well, most of these products were being funded off of white papers. Many of them hadn't written a line of code, and suddenly you expect them to release products within a few months, and it just won't happen. So I think the thought there is, if you actually go and spend time with these entrepreneurs, they're having the same exact struggles as Every other part of the industry is tough to hire in the crypto world. They're having the same exact challenges that we have, and so to expect them to deliver products faster just isn't realistic, and we just need to be patient with industry and see how these projects develop over time.

AI assessment note: “they're having the same exact challenges as every other team”

Q I mean, that is such a good starting story. Tell me then, how did it come to be that you also formed this phenomenal portfolio that you now have in the investing world, and what was that entrance then from startup employee to startup investor?

A Yeah, sure. So I was sitting, obviously, in an operator's seat, and I was doing a lot of diligence on different products that we were thinking about using different SDKs, third-party applications, and And there was a couple of founders who I met who were so talented that I ended up asking them if I could actually invest in their companies. And it's funny when you start investing, like the moment you make your first investment and you actually sign that deal memo, you become an investor. So suddenly when I signed my first deal memo, immediately after that, people suddenly started referring to me as an investor. And after that, I just became addicted. I think investing is kind of like getting a tattoo. It's like you get one investment and you just want more. So from there really started to expand my expectations of myself and launched an AngelList syndicate about two years ago, which has become one of the most popular syndicates on AngelList. And again, from there just had more leverage with entrepreneurs. So instead of going to coffee shops and getting 25 K checks from angels, they can get one check for me for about 200 to 300 K. And so it just, for me, it's been a long kind of journey from being an operator and getting on one cap table and suddenly you're an investor. And now I'm on 35 plus cap tables and People refer to me as an investor.

AI assessment note: “a couple of founders who I met... asked them if I could actually invest”

Q Yeah, no, and I think actually also testament to the company behind you that kind of really inserts that risk-taking mindset. But much alignment and many mutual benefits, as you said there, are there any inherent challenges of being both product specialist as you are, but also investor at the same time?

A Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is knowing your priorities. So my day job is to work at Tinder, to grow our subscriptions, to grow our revenue, and really this is my core number one thing that I have to do when I wake up every morning. If you want to be an investor while you're operating, you have to find time. And so what I mean by that is I wake up at absurd hours and give up most of my weekends to invest, but you have to find those hours outside of work. And I think one thing that's been really helpful for me in terms of investing is just focus. So rather than being kind of a generalist, the only way I can have any edge in terms of competing with other venture capitalists is if I really go deep on one or two topics. And for me, that's been mobile and blockchain. And I think In terms of being competitive and having a point of view, really going deep on those topics. So when I'm going home at night, I'm pretty deep in Reddit forums on obscure topics related to the blockchain. And that's really how I have an edge is just through focus and making more time.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is knowing your priorities.”

Q that I have the joy of on the show often. So much to unpack there. So before we kind of really dive in, I want to start with something you've said to me before, which is I imply an investor's mindset to every product decision I make. How can I not start with this, Jeff? Can you unpack this for me? Um, what are the foundational alignments and questions involved?

A Yeah, sure. So I think, you know, as a product manager, you're kind of managing a portfolio of products and really you have a limited set of resources and there's only so much you can be doing at any given time. So in terms of looking at products, I do the same diligence process that I apply in investing to actually deciding what products get built. So it's really understanding the risk return profiles of every product you can be building and Doing forecasts, really kind of getting in the weeds on the impact relative to the cost to build. It's the same process with investing. You have a capital pool and you have to deploy it. And how do you want to spend that capital? So it's really actually the same process. I think people talk about product management as being, you need to be fluent in software engineering, stats, marketing, design. And one piece that I'd like to add to that list is, is portfolio theory. So I think every product manager should have some sense of the portfolio of products they want to build and really apply an investor's mindset to making those decisions.

AI assessment note: “I do the same diligence process that I apply in investing to actually deciding”

Q Yeah. No, absolutely. I think kind of design is an often misunderstood or undervalued element of the evaluation process, but I do want to finish on one final alignment between products and investing. We're both history nerds, and we've chatted before about history. So from your interactions with founders and investors alike, how does history play a role in their thinking and their approach?

A Yeah, I think the best product people I know have this really unique view on kind of Silicon Valley history, or more generally just software history. And so when I think about dating as a category, as an example, dating has been around since the 1800. Men used to take out ads in newspapers and they would pay 25 cents to advertise their profiles in newspapers, which is now about five dollars. But when I'm building products, I'm really digging deep into the history of the category that I'm in. You know, similarly, when I talk to investors who I really admire, they can just rattle off products from the late eighties, late nineties, and they know the history of our industry. So they have this reference. It almost feels like when you go to, like, a record store and you see someone talking about vinyl, like, it's that same level of detail in terms of knowing the history of each record, and it's the same way with companies. People who are great investors, I find, have that historical knowledge.

AI assessment note: “they know the history of our industry. So they have this reference.”

Q ask you again another off-schedule question, but being the biggest fanboy there is of you, I have the right. What does your kind of framework for diligence look like? I have friends who have very specific framework, be it five diligence calls, extensive time with the team. How do you think about the framework for diligence, and is it the same for all projects? How do you think about that?

A Yeah, it's much different for every project. I think whenever there's a working product, I become a customer of that product For at least a couple days and really dig into the product. The benefit of working at a place like Tinder is if there are companies that are doing something outside of my domain, I can normally pull in an expert. So a good example is when I'm looking at ML or AI companies, I have a data science team at Tinder and a machine learning team who I can pull in to help me. Um, and so there's someone on my team and Nick wheel, who's done buildings calls for me in that space. So really I'm, I'm trying to dig into the product, but also find people to help me and being an operator, you have a lot of support in that, in that realm.

AI assessment note: “it's much different for every project. I think whenever there's a working product”

Q I mean, that is such a good starting story. Tell me then, how did it come to be that you also formed this phenomenal portfolio that you now have in the investing world, and what was that entrance then from startup employee to startup investor?

A Yeah, sure. So I was sitting, obviously, in an operator's seat, and I was doing a lot of diligence on different products that we were thinking about using different SDKs, third-party applications, and And there was a couple of founders who I met who were so talented that I ended up asking them if I could actually invest in their companies. And it's funny when you start investing, like the moment you make your first investment and you actually sign that deal memo, you become an investor. So suddenly when I signed my first deal memo, immediately after that, people suddenly started referring to me as an investor. And after that, I just became addicted. I think investing is kind of like getting a tattoo. It's like you get one investment and you just want more. So from there really started to expand my expectations of myself and launched an AngelList syndicate about two years ago, which has become one of the most popular syndicates on AngelList. And again, from there just had more leverage with entrepreneurs. So instead of going to coffee shops and getting 25 K checks from angels, they can get one check for me for about 200 to 300 K. And so it just, for me, it's been a long kind of journey from being an operator and getting on one cap table and suddenly you're an investor. And now I'm on 35 plus cap tables and People refer to me as an investor.

AI assessment note: “I ended up asking them if I could actually invest in their companies.”

Q that I have the joy of on the show often. So much to unpack there. So before we kind of really dive in, I want to start with something you've said to me before, which is I imply an investor's mindset to every product decision I make. How can I not start with this, Jeff? Can you unpack this for me? Um, what are the foundational alignments and questions involved?

A Yeah, sure. So I think, you know, as a product manager, you're kind of managing a portfolio of products and really you have a limited set of resources and there's only so much you can be doing at any given time. So in terms of looking at products, I do the same diligence process that I apply in investing to actually deciding what products get built. So it's really understanding the risk return profiles of every product you can be building and Doing forecasts, really kind of getting in the weeds on the impact relative to the cost to build. It's the same process with investing. You have a capital pool and you have to deploy it. And how do you want to spend that capital? So it's really actually the same process. I think people talk about product management as being, you need to be fluent in software engineering, stats, marketing, design. And one piece that I'd like to add to that list is, is portfolio theory. So I think every product manager should have some sense of the portfolio of products they want to build and really apply an investor's mindset to making those decisions.

AI assessment note: “I do the same diligence process that I apply in investing”

Q Yeah. No, absolutely. I think kind of design is an often misunderstood or undervalued element of the evaluation process, but I do want to finish on one final alignment between products and investing. We're both history nerds, and we've chatted before about history. So from your interactions with founders and investors alike, how does history play a role in their thinking and their approach?

A Yeah, I think the best product people I know have this really unique view on kind of Silicon Valley history, or more generally just software history. And so when I think about dating as a category, as an example, dating has been around since the 1800. Men used to take out ads in newspapers and they would pay 25 cents to advertise their profiles in newspapers, which is now about five dollars. But when I'm building products, I'm really digging deep into the history of the category that I'm in. You know, similarly, when I talk to investors who I really admire, they can just rattle off products from the late eighties, late nineties, and they know the history of our industry. So they have this reference. It almost feels like when you go to, like, a record store and you see someone talking about vinyl, like, it's that same level of detail in terms of knowing the history of each record, and it's the same way with companies. People who are great investors, I find, have that historical knowledge.

AI assessment note: “best product people I know have this really unique view on kind of Silicon Valley history”

Q No, I couldn't agree with you more. Tell me, one other element that's often attributed to the most success Is contrarianism. So what does contrarian investing mean to you, Jeff? Let's start with that.

A Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with the fact that you think differently about the world than everybody else. That's the obvious answer. I think the practical way to become a contrarian is just, just to dive really deep on some topic. And so I talked about crypto as an example, and you know, if you go deep enough on the internet, you can become a contrarian just by digging more than other people. And so I think being a contrarian is this thing that people have Glorified throughout the past few years, and really what it means to me is you just wanted to become an expert, and you're so obsessed with some topic that you decided to learn more about it than everyone else, and that's really what it comes down to. I think everyone wants to claim they're contrarian, but really it's about developing a thesis that few other people have, and that's the thesis that gives you an edge.

AI assessment note: “really what it means to me is you just wanted to become an expert”

Q schedule, but one I'm too interested by is the element of loss ratio where I struggle to see the alignment. If you're looking at a product portfolio, having a high loss ratio is in my mind, it wouldn't be so tolerated by leadership. And then compared to maybe a small seed fund or seed investing practice, whereby high loss ratio is very much expected. How do you think about that?

A Yeah, again, I think it depends on the product. So when you're kind of an optimization experiment mode, Your loss ratio will be much higher, and that's actually encouraged. So if you're turning out products and it doesn't take that much time to build, you're learning a lot in a short period of time. You know, if you're going for a big kind of blockbuster product hit and you lose, at the end of the day, that's a big loss and a big hit to your company and your resources. So, you know, it just depends on the scale of the product and what you're looking to build. But I would say in terms of losing, if you're experimenting fast and you have a nimble team, it's ok.

AI assessment note: “it depends on the product. So when you're kind of an optimization experiment mode”

Q with Stripe, and how they think about, kind of, the evolution of payments is incredible, but we did speak about opinions and your thesis and theme-driven investing, so if we dig one layer deeper now into the art of investing itself, many people approach me wanting to Become that investor. I'm super interested to hear. What's your response to the very common question? Jeff, how do I become an investor?

A Yeah, I think you have to have skin in the game. So, and it's so easy to do that now. If you're accredited, you can go on AngelList and invest a thousand dollars in a startup. If you're not accredited, you can go on Robinhood and start investing in the public markets. You can invest in crypto as an example, but you really need to practice that skill. I think investing just like product is an art. You know, we're all Kind of learning the game through actually playing it, and so if you want to become an investor, you really have to figure out a way to start playing, and once you kind of start to see more and more cycles, you'll start to identify what you're actually interested in, and more importantly, what you think you're good at.

AI assessment note: “I think you have to have skin in the game.”

Q actually is one of the themes you mentioned of particular interest for you, and we've seen over the last 12 months, is obviously the world of crypto. Now, we chatted before about investing in crypto, and you said, investors treat crypto teams as if they are superhuman. Too enticing for me not to ask, but you did leave me on a cliffhanger here, Jeff. So, what makes you think this?

A Yeah, I look at how investors treat crypto entrepreneurs and And it's like they're superhumans. And then you actually meet with those teams, you go to their offices, you sit in their product meetings, and they're having the same exact challenges as every other team. So I think, you know, in the last crypto wave, we saw just an absurd amount of money going to these teams. And then the question was, when will their product ship? Well, most of these products were being funded off of white papers. Many of them hadn't written a line of code, and suddenly you expect them to release products within a few months, and it just won't happen. So I think the thought there is, if you actually go and spend time with these entrepreneurs, they're having the same exact struggles as Every other part of the industry is tough to hire in the crypto world. They're having the same exact challenges that we have, and so to expect them to deliver products faster just isn't realistic, and we just need to be patient with industry and see how these projects develop over time.

AI assessment note: “they're having the same exact challenges as every other team”

Q No, absolutely. We mentioned the speed of rounds there for crypto projects. On rounds more generally in fundraising, as you know, often VCs ask the question, tell me, who else is involved in the round? Who's joining us? And founders often get quite uncomfortable and unsure at this point. So is there a right answer in your mind? And how do you often see founders go wrong here?

A Yeah, I think those initial calls are really about building trust and transparency. And so if you know an investor is actually interested in your company and is talking to you for the right reasons, being asked the question, who else is investing your round? I think it's a totally fair question. And on the investor side, like you really want to know the round dynamics. You want to know who's going to be co-investing with you because ideally you will build a relationship with those investors. And so I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs who kind of shy away from that question and honestly boggles my mind, especially on, on kind of The third or fourth call. At that point, you've established a relationship and you should just be totally transparent on both sides.

AI assessment note: “you've established a relationship and you should just be totally transparent”

Q No, I couldn't agree with you more. Tell me, one other element that's often attributed to the most success Is contrarianism. So what does contrarian investing mean to you, Jeff? Let's start with that.

A Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with the fact that you think differently about the world than everybody else. That's the obvious answer. I think the practical way to become a contrarian is just, just to dive really deep on some topic. And so I talked about crypto as an example, and you know, if you go deep enough on the internet, you can become a contrarian just by digging more than other people. And so I think being a contrarian is this thing that people have Glorified throughout the past few years, and really what it means to me is you just wanted to become an expert, and you're so obsessed with some topic that you decided to learn more about it than everyone else, and that's really what it comes down to. I think everyone wants to claim they're contrarian, but really it's about developing a thesis that few other people have, and that's the thesis that gives you an edge.

AI assessment note: “really what it means to me is you just wanted to become an expert”

Q Yeah, absolutely. And for you as an investor, how does it come into your mindset when evaluating deals?

A I think for an angel looking at companies, you can't be too price sensitive because Really the opportunities are fewer and harder to find. So when I see a dealer company that I love, I'm normally not as price sensitive just because I want to get in business with that entrepreneur and I want to go along for the ride. And so for me, it's less about being price sensitive because also you're not normally leading the round and kind of making the terms of that round. So I think when you find a great company, you have to back them. And if the price is a little high, you kind of have to accept that as being part of the risk you take.

AI assessment note: “I'm normally not as price sensitive just because I want to get in business”

Q No, absolutely. We mentioned the speed of rounds there for crypto projects. On rounds more generally in fundraising, as you know, often VCs ask the question, tell me, who else is involved in the round? Who's joining us? And founders often get quite uncomfortable and unsure at this point. So is there a right answer in your mind? And how do you often see founders go wrong here?

A Yeah, I think those initial calls are really about building trust and transparency. And so if you know an investor is actually interested in your company and is talking to you for the right reasons, being asked the question, who else is investing your round? I think it's a totally fair question. And on the investor side, like you really want to know the round dynamics. You want to know who's going to be co-investing with you because ideally you will build a relationship with those investors. And so I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs who kind of shy away from that question and honestly boggles my mind, especially on, on kind of The third or fourth call. At that point, you've established a relationship and you should just be totally transparent on both sides.

AI assessment note: “you should just be totally transparent on both sides.”

Q Absolutely. In terms of kind of frontier elements like five G AR VR, how do you think about those? And are they platform shifts that remove us away from mobile opportunity or are they actually kind of integrated into the opportunity that mobile has over the coming years?

A I think they'll, they'll integrate the question as always, it's just timing. So if you look at the first wave of VR, it's easy to see that most of those investments didn't do so well. We're obviously pushing AR to become a real thing. And the question just comes down to timing. You know, I look at folks who push markets to become a reality. So folks like Adam Draper, who are more market makers, and you saw what he did with crypto, and he's now trying to do it with AR and VR. You know, I think it's our role as investors to invest in the technologies we want to see in the world and to push them into existence. So rather than waiting for the markets to happen, I'd really challenge us to try and make those markets happen with our wallets.

AI assessment note: “I think they'll, they'll integrate the question as always, it's just timing.”

Q Well, I promised to pay you in crypto to thank you for that, but, uh, what can I say? I would love to kick off today with a little bit on you. So tell me, Jeff, how did you make your way into the world of startups, your position today with Tinder, and the fascinating element of coming to also found Chapter One Ventures?

A Yeah, sure. So startups has been kind of a crazy journey for me. So I actually went to USC film school, and I thought I was going to be a producer for a long time, and I was a graduate USC film school. It was about And that was right when the recession was happening. So all the studios were shutting down and decided, hey, I should probably actually move to San Francisco and start working in tech. And from there, I just started busy hopping on Twitter and trying to make connections. And one of the connections I made was with the founder at Zarley again named Bo Fishback. And so on March 11th, I still remember the day he tweeted out at around two AM that he was looking to make his first hire. And I immediately sent him my resume and he ended up moving me to Kansas city. The very next day, So I was suddenly working in tech, but it all started with Twitter for me.

AI assessment note: “I was suddenly working in tech, but it all started with Twitter for me.”

Q Well, I promised to pay you in crypto to thank you for that, but, uh, what can I say? I would love to kick off today with a little bit on you. So tell me, Jeff, how did you make your way into the world of startups, your position today with Tinder, and the fascinating element of coming to also found Chapter One Ventures?

A Yeah, sure. So startups has been kind of a crazy journey for me. So I actually went to USC film school, and I thought I was going to be a producer for a long time, and I was a graduate USC film school. It was about And that was right when the recession was happening. So all the studios were shutting down and decided, hey, I should probably actually move to San Francisco and start working in tech. And from there, I just started busy hopping on Twitter and trying to make connections. And one of the connections I made was with the founder at Zarley again named Bo Fishback. And so on March 11th, I still remember the day he tweeted out at around two AM that he was looking to make his first hire. And I immediately sent him my resume and he ended up moving me to Kansas city. The very next day, So I was suddenly working in tech, but it all started with Twitter for me.

AI assessment note: “he ended up moving me to Kansas city. The very next day, So I was suddenly working in tech”

Q Absolutely. In terms of kind of frontier elements like five G AR VR, how do you think about those? And are they platform shifts that remove us away from mobile opportunity or are they actually kind of integrated into the opportunity that mobile has over the coming years?

A I think they'll, they'll integrate the question as always, it's just timing. So if you look at the first wave of VR, it's easy to see that most of those investments didn't do so well. We're obviously pushing AR to become a real thing. And the question just comes down to timing. You know, I look at folks who push markets to become a reality. So folks like Adam Draper, who are more market makers, and you saw what he did with crypto, and he's now trying to do it with AR and VR. You know, I think it's our role as investors to invest in the technologies we want to see in the world and to push them into existence. So rather than waiting for the markets to happen, I'd really challenge us to try and make those markets happen with our wallets.

AI assessment note: “I think they'll, they'll integrate the question as always, it's just timing.”

Q I mean, the nice thing is with some of the amounts they've raised, at least they have some pretty decent runway ahead of them, but you did also say to me before that these expectations from the investors are dangerous for both valuations and products. If we take it one by one, how do these expectations hinder first valuations?

A Yeah, I mean, I think when you see projects raising at 60 caps in seed rounds, it starts to make you question what's going on, and what it does in terms of the employees is it puts, I think, a lot of undue pressure on individual employees to ship products faster than they probably should be shipping. You see quality suffer. I think over time, we'll see how these valuations play out, but anytime you raise rounds, especially your seed rounds at absurd valuations, it just Creates pressure within companies that is really tough for employees to grapple with, especially as they start to release products and they don't necessarily hit the market in the way they want them to. So we'll see as these projects kind of struggle to find product market fit, it'll be interesting to see what that does to the psychology of the teams.

AI assessment note: “what it does in terms of the employees is it puts... undue pressure”

Q I mean, the nice thing is with some of the amounts they've raised, at least they have some pretty decent runway ahead of them, but you did also say to me before that these expectations from the investors are dangerous for both valuations and products. If we take it one by one, how do these expectations hinder first valuations?

A Yeah, I mean, I think when you see projects raising at 60 caps in seed rounds, it starts to make you question what's going on, and what it does in terms of the employees is it puts, I think, a lot of undue pressure on individual employees to ship products faster than they probably should be shipping. You see quality suffer. I think over time, we'll see how these valuations play out, but anytime you raise rounds, especially your seed rounds at absurd valuations, it just Creates pressure within companies that is really tough for employees to grapple with, especially as they start to release products and they don't necessarily hit the market in the way they want them to. So we'll see as these projects kind of struggle to find product market fit, it'll be interesting to see what that does to the psychology of the teams.

AI assessment note: “what it does in terms of the employees is it puts”