StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Auren Hoffman

General Partner, Flex Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderinvestorexecutivehost@auren ↗blog.summation.net ↗Wikipedia ↗

Auren Hoffman is an entrepreneur and investor who co-founded and served as CEO of LiveRamp and SafeGraph. Through Flex Capital and angel investments, he has backed companies including Coinbase, Vercel, and Flexport, and hosts the Summation podcast.

18statements → 10claims → 4claims resolved → 0%fully supported → 3.72/5average certainty → 2.89/5average debate potential → 2said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 3 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 5 not checkable as stated how the 10 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 7 assertions · 2 opinions · 6 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 10 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 5 name 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 Auren argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Hoffman: Founder CEOs are paid 5x less than external CEO hires
“Founder CEOs are very undercompensated. Like the go forward comp for a founder CEO today, once you, let's say you're there for over four years, your go forward comp is probably five X lower than if they hired an outside CEO.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 7:51 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
50% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

262 words/min while actually speaking · 15.1 um and uh per 1k words · 24.3 false starts per 1k · 25.8% of pauses land inside a clause

No argument clarity score for Auren Hoffman: only 2 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.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,304 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 7/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 4/10
setup questions received 20%

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

Insight
Hoffman: Founders who exited 10 years ago lack modern tactical execution skills
“Almost everything in running a company has changed over the last seven years. So if you sold your company 10 years ago, you don't know anything about how customer success works, how new types of sales works, how product led growth works, how even like all the …”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 3:02 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hoffman: Most successful startup founders have low emotional intelligence
“Well, most good founders have low EQ.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 7:22 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Hoffman: Founder CEOs are paid 5x less than external CEO hires
“Founder CEOs are very undercompensated. Like the go forward comp for a founder CEO today, once you, let's say you're there for over four years, your go forward comp is probably five X lower than if they hired an outside CEO.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 7:51 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Hoffman: Any time a CEO spends outside of work hurts the business
“I would say really any time a CEO is not spending on their company, it's bad for the business. But that's true. If you're dating, it's true. If you're being a spouse, if you're parenting kids, if you're working out, You're spending time with friends. If you're…”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 27:41 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2028
Hoffman: LPs will cease re-upping with non-performing VC fund managers
“Well, I do think there were a lot of VCs with subpar returns that were still raising their third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh funds. That is very unlikely going to happen in the future. So I think you're the, sorry, VCs that were doing that from LPs. And so …”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 33:01 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Hoffman: Venture capital firms will increasingly specialize team roles
“You're going to start to see different firms start splitting the stack a bit, and they're going to have certain people who are going to be good... You're going to start to see that much more so with investing, where if you're going to have a team anyway, and i…”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 19:10 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Hoffman: LPs should prefer venture funds led by active CEOs
“It is actually, they're generally not happy when someone in the fund is like also a CEO, but they should be because that fund's going to end up doing so much better. You're going to get into better deals, et cetera.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 29:10 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Auren Hoffman: High employee impact strongly correlates with working the most hours
“The people I've worked with who have been the most impactful people, it is extremely high, highly correlated that they also put in the most hours.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 38:57 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Auren Hoffman: Most companies get far less than 40 weekly productive hours per employee
“Most companies are not getting anywhere close to 40.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 39:53 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Auren Hoffman: Employee Retention Rates Do Not Reflect Company Performance
“Just because everyone's leaving, like in Facebook's case, where so many of the first 25 people left early doesn't mean that's a bad company. It turned out to be an amazing company. Just because everyone's staying doesn't mean it's a good company.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 43:08 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hoffman: Venture capital is more competitive than any SaaS business
“Venture is just like, is incredibly competitive. It's way more competitive than any type of SAS business that's out there. It's one of the most competitive, you're basically selling a commodity. You're selling money.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 44:08 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Hoffman: Board Oversight Matters Little Compared to Securing 10x VC Winners
“I also don't, I don't know how much oversight matters in the, if it's really power law driven, like the bad ones are bad. And, you know, so yeah, maybe you could have got a one X and you get a .5 X or something out of this thing. If you, if you're really in it…”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 52:00 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Hoffman: VCs should focus their time on mid-tier portfolio companies
“The winners don't really need you. So spending time with them doesn't really change the outcome. The losers don't really need you either. Cause they're going to lose. So it's actually kind of the people in the middle that probably need you the most”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 53:24 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Auren Hoffman: Fully committed founders never lose investor capital
“If you ever see a scenario where a founder is putting more than a hundred percent in, I have never seen that company do less than a one X ever. That company has always been successful.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 55:04 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hoffman: Firing founder CEOs was commonplace in the 80s/90s but rare today
“Every VC today is founder friendly, right? It's pretty rare nowadays for a founder to get fired. Whereas like in the eighties and nineties, that was commonplace for a founder to get fired.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 7:39 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Hoffman: 22 of Facebook's first 25 employees left within four years
“I think 22 out of the first 25 people at Facebook left after, within the first three or four years.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 42:20 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Hoffman: Insight Partners deploys a 20-person team to evaluate deals
“If you think of like an insight which is one of the more successful late stage. Like they have like a 20 person team evaluate a deal. They don't just have like one person do the whole thing.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 44:40 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Hoffman: Recent tech IPOs will not hold IPO prices by Halloween 2024
“If you're saying, are they all up? I would say, I will say no. I say the chance that they're all up would be very, very would be very low.”
Auren Hoffman Nov 3, 2023 ▶ 56:15 Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

The other half of the tape: Auren Hoffman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Will Quist 2

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011212022episodesmentions
0112022episodes it came up in
0010.5212022episodesmentions per episode
2022 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Roundtable #5 with Jack Altman, Auren Hoffman, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings | E1077 · 20V Nov 3, 2023 14m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more