StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Christian Hernandez

Co-Founder & Partner, White Star Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

Christian Hernandez is a Co-Founder and Partner at White Star Capital. Prior to White Star Capital, he led international business development expansion at Facebook and held leadership roles at Google and Microsoft.

21statements → 10claims → 8claims resolved → 38%fully supported → 3.67/5average certainty → 2.19/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 6said about them ↓

3 supported 4 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 1 not checkable as stated how the 10 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 9 assertions · 5 opinions · 5 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 10 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 8 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, 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 Christian argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
E-commerce continues to convert better on desktop screens than on mobile
“And e-commerce is increasing, but still converts better on, on a bigger screen.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 14:15 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
UK seed investments grew 10x between 2011 and 2016
“Seed investments in the UK have gone up 10 X in the last five years.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 5:14 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
83% 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

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.6 · precision 4.4 · compression 4

redirected or did not address 1 of 22 assessed questions (5%). Watch them ▸

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

271 words/min while actually speaking · 22.8 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,905 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 ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 55%

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

Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Europe had only 42 active Series A funds versus 140 out West
“Active Series A funds, which for us meant funds that have done at least five Series A investments in the last three years. And we looked at West Coast versus New York versus Europe. West Coast, I think that's something like a 140 active Series A funds. New Yor…”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 6:42 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Opinion
UK tax relief schemes distort the ecosystem by funding lifestyle businesses
“EIS and SEIS does mutate the UK ecosystem. Some of the guys that are getting seed funding from Goldman Sachs bankers, nothing wrong with Goldman Sachs bankers. Probably should not be getting Series A funding, right? It's not a VC fundable business, but it migh…”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 7:31 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Opinion
VC stage designations like Series A are meaningless across different geographies
“Yeah, and I think calling it C or series A or series B means nothing nowadays, because it really varies by geography.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 9:48 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Insight
Consumer startups cannot rely exclusively on mobile apps without a web presence
“Mobile will be a strong component of any consumer facing offering. I don't believe in mobile only. I actually think, and we saw it even at Facebook with Instagram, and we saw it with Path, we saw it with others. You do need to have a landing point on the web a…”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 12:18 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Insight
Day-one startup employees rarely scale into C-suite executive roles
“I think that one of the hardest decisions is the fact accepting that the guy that was with you or gal on day one is not likely to be that SVP of sales or even CTO that you might need to scale your company as you hit thirty million users.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 17:13 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Opinion
General Assembly courses will not produce elite head of product leaders
“I mean, you're not going to become a product man, a rockstar head of product by actually going to a general assembly product management course.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 18:28 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Venture capital cannot be disrupted without changing the 10-year fund model
“We're still seen in the same bucket as a private equity fund, 10 years capped, Return my money based on capital calls, minimum return, and until that change, some of the flexibility that might be needed to disrupt the asset class is not going to be there.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 19:55 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Insight
Junior VC roles rarely offer a direct career path to partner
“And then if you're coming in at an analyst or associate level, you have to accept that it might not be a career path.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 22:20 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Partly supported
UK Series A funding grew only 1.4x between 2011 and 2016
“Series A had actually only gone up, I believe, 1.4 X in that same period.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 5:24 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Opinion
Paris startup ecosystem is underrated for momentum and talent
“Paris is, I think, underrated for what it is in terms of momentum and talent.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 6:03 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Disclosure
White Star Capital has made zero investments on the US West Coast
“So we now with the fund, we do actually done zero investments in the West coast.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 8:52 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Supported
E-commerce continues to convert better on desktop screens than on mobile
“And e-commerce is increasing, but still converts better on, on a bigger screen.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 14:15 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Partly supported
Facebook generated $80 million in revenue within three years of its launch
“Three years after Launching in a dorm room, Facebook was making about eighty million dollars and quickly jumped to over three hundred million dollars and then took off.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 15:34 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Supported
Google achieved profitability within two or three years of its founding
“Google was actually profitable, I think, by year two or year three.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 15:42 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Insight
Head of product is the hardest startup role to hire in Europe
“So head of product is probably the hardest role to find in Europe.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 17:52 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Opinion
AngelList's platform and $400M fund could disrupt venture capital deal flow
“AngelList is a great example where AngelList builds a platform on top of which they prove success, on top of which they go raise a four hundred million dollar fund. That could have, that has the potential to be a disruptive new way of doing both deal flow and …”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 20:08 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Supported
Private equity and banking pathways into VC are more prevalent in Europe
“Or a third part path, which is more prevalent, I think, in Europe than in the US, you come in through the ranks of private equity or banking and then come in as an investment side.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 21:53 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Insight
Becoming a venture capital partner requires a multi-decade commitment
“If you're going to be a partner, you have to make a commitment for a decade, if not decades because if you're raising a fund and the promise that you are part of that story for the life of the fund, and by the way, in that fund, you will probably raise fund tw…”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 22:02 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Partly supported
MicroStrategy lost 72% of its $30B market cap in a single day
“We went public, had a thirty billion market cap valuation, And then lost 72% in one day.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 2:14 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Contradicted
UK seed investments grew 10x between 2011 and 2016
“Seed investments in the UK have gone up 10 X in the last five years.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 5:14 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue
Assertion Partly supported
Greycroft systematically maintains $150M fund sizes to maximize returns and fun
“They've been very systematic about staying at that hundred fifty million fund size, fun after fun after fun, because that's where they think, A, they can make the most money, but B, they have the most fun.”
Christian Hernandez Mar 9, 2016 ▶ 25:25 20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth vs Revenue

The other half of the tape: Christian Hernandez's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 5

Statements about Christian Hernandez, by other people (1)

Assertion Partly supported
Christian Hernandez advised Summly while serving as Head of Facebook EMEA
“That was through it was through a guy called Christian Hernandez, who ran Facebook for EMEA at the time, and he was an angel investor and advisor to the company.”
John Henderson Apr 6, 2015 ▶ 4:04 20 VC 025: Finding the Right VC and The Evolution of Summly with John Henderson of White Star Capital

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0031522016episodesmentions
0122016episodes it came up in
001.312.522016episodesmentions per episode
2016 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Christian Hernandez on The Importance of Mobile and The Relationship Between Growth Mar 9, 2016 20m
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