Andy Weissman

Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderexecutive@aweissman ↗blog.aweissman.com ↗

Andy Weissman is a managing partner at the New York-based venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, which he joined in 2011 to lead investments across digital technology and internet networks. Prior to USV, he co-founded the startup studio Betaworks in 2007, where he served as Chief Operating Officer.

15statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.33/5average certainty → 2.07/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 24said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 7 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Andy argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

235 words/min while actually speaking · 1.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Andy Weissman: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 18 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.0/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,280 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Andy Weissman is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 5/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 3/10

setup questions received 55%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 9:28“Would you agree with this, especially given that mistake?” ▶ 11:26“Do you think that's an industry-wide applicable voting structure, or do you think it's very unique to the partnership you have?” ▶ 23:35“What if the, what if the VC and the brand that they bring gives such social validity to a startup that it's actually an advantage?”

when Andy pushed back ▶ 4:05“So, I'm going to ask you some questions in a few minutes, but you've done thousands of these, right?” ▶ 25:44“No, I can't because they don't know.”

What they said15 What others said24 Episodes1

Everything Andy Weissman said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Weissman: Venture capital is a service business and VCs should be invisible

“By the way, I don't believe at a fundamental matter, I'm old fashioned in the way that I believe actually VCs should be invisible, you know, and so I know you ask this question to a lot of people, what would you like most like to change in the world of VC? I'v…”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 23:03 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

USV does not vote on investment decisions, relying on consensus

“Well, as a firm, we do not vote. We have a conversation, and that conversation leads to a point where everyone is comfortable with the parameters of an investment”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 10:41 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Insight

Andy Weissman: Venture Capital Success Stems From Process, Not Foresight

“And so, I believe that a large, if not the largest part of that, is about the process you create to make those decisions, and if you have a process, and you perfect that process, and you stick with that process, sometimes it works, and that's luck, right? Whet…”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 4:31 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Insight

Weissman: Traditional VC works near-perfectly for software, but nothing else

“I believe on one point that early stage software technology based venture capital is a near perfect craft for what it does. And by that, I mean, it is a near perfect allocation of a certain type of capital, risk capital, into endeavors that are focused on retu…”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 16:17 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Insight

Weissman: ICOs act as an external catalyst for financing innovation

“Part of what is exciting about ICOs, if one believes in what's happening, and there are lots of Reasons to be skeptical is that they are resulting in an external stimulus for change in financing structures for a certain type of sector”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 17:19 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Assertion Partly supported

USV publishes a public blog post as its investment memo for every deal

“We're public about every investment we make. In fact, our investment memos are our blog posts. You know, when we make an investment every single time we write a blog post explaining why we made that investment, that acts as our internal and external investment…”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 23:52 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Insight

Weissman: VC funds only need a few right decisions per fund

“Well, that's okay because with this business, we actually don't have to be right every time we have to make a decision just a couple times each fund.”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 8:47 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

Andy Weissman: USV's fund structure has not changed in 30 years

“Because what we do is, in a way, we're very conservative in the structure, and we look like this, we look like the same VC, way VC firms looked 30 or 40 years ago. Our structure has not changed at all.”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 17:53 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

USV has invested in quantitative funding models like CircleUp and Numerai

“We have made investments in other sectors where we believe the answer to that question may be yes. We've done that in consumer products with CircleUp. We've done it in quantitative hedge type financing with Numeri.”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 20:48 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Assertion Not checkable as stated

USV repeatedly rejected Betaworks before making co-founder Andy Weissman a partner

“And as a New York company, we wanted what we thought the best and smartest and most empathetic venture investors in New York to invest in our company, which was USV, so we kept pitching them, and they kept saying no. They rejected my company as a business”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 3:06 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

Andy Weissman: USV operates from one office to keep partners together

“So for example, I believe this is a methodology that works best when everyone is in the same room, so therefore we only have one office.”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 11:46 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

Andy Weissman: USV invests in 8 to 10 companies annually

“So we view ourselves, and we don't invest a lot, you know, maybe eight or 10 times a year, so we're long-term, very engaged partners, so that means we reserve full amounts for our companies, and we generally keep investing in them.”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 13:47 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Insight

Andy Weissman: Capital recycling reduces effective management fee ratios for LPs

“Everyone wins with recycling. It's so good for your LPs. It's additional investment dollars that they're not paying management fees on, and so over the course of a fund, if you take gains and you reinvest it, that's more money that you're investing that lowers…”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 14:37 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

Andy Weissman: USV recycled capital in each of its last three funds

“I think every one of our last three funds, I don't, can't recall a situation where we haven't recycled in the early stages of the fund”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 15:34 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

Disclosure

Andy Weissman lost a major deal by over-indexing on valuation

“I made a mistake by losing the deal, and I got stuck on price is probably why I lost it.”

Andy Weissman Sep 11, 2017 ▶ 8:33 20VC: USV's Andy Weissman on The Future of The VC Industry, Why USV Does Not Vote On Investment Decisions & Why VCs Should Be Invisible

The other half of the tape: Andy Weissman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 21 times in 11 episodes on 20VC. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 10 Adam D'Augelli 3 Peter Rojas 2 Nicholas Chirls 2 Jonathan Libov 2 Fred Destin 1 David Tisch 1

Statements about Andy Weissman, by other people (3)

Opinion

Chirls: Andy Weissman and Bryce Roberts represent top independent VC alternatives

“This has changed over time, but right now probably Andy Weissman and Bryce Roberts. I think they represent many of the things that I just described about being the alternative to the big AUM firms. They think independently, and they have the guts to be themsel…”

Nicholas Chirls Sep 6, 2024 ▶ 1:04:45 Nicholas Chirls: Why Big VCs Ruin Startups, VC is a Ponzi Scheme Today & Most VCs are Bankers |E1198 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Assertion Supported

Stebbings: YouNow has raised over $25M from USV and Venrock

“And to fund this immense growth, they've raised over twenty five million dollars in funding from some of the greats of the investing world, including Andy Weissman at USV, David Patman at Venrock, and a future guest on the show, I'm very excited to say, in the…”

Harry Stebbings Oct 27, 2017 ▶ 0:36 20VC: Why Decentralisation is Key For Digital Media Distribution, Why Gradual Decentralisation Is The Most Practical Approach and Why Incumbents Are The Biggest Barrier To The Rise of Crypto with Adi Sideman, Founder & CEO @ YouNow

Disclosure

USV partner Andy Weissman helped Notation Capital raise its first fund

“These folks were not just mentors in the sense that they helped me learn the business, but actually they helped us raise Notations First Fund in many ways, and so Andy Weissman has been has been a mentor to us, who's a partner at Union Square Ventures.”

Nicholas Chirls Sep 14, 2015 ▶ 5:33 20 VC 071: Pre-Seed Investing, Why Now Is The Best Time with Nicholas Chirls @ Notation Capital