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David Barrett

Founder & CEO, Expensify · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderexecutiveengineer@dbarrett ↗LinkedIn ↗expensify.com ↗

David Barrett is the founder and CEO of Expensify, a cloud-based expense management platform launched in 2008 that went public on the Nasdaq in 2021. Before creating Expensify, he led engineering at peer-to-peer file-sharing company Red Swoosh, which was acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2007.

16statements → 3claims → 2claims resolved → 4.12/5average certainty → 3.31/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 3said about them ↓

0 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 4 opinions · 7 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed. 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 David 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? →

271 words/min while actually speaking · 6.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for David Barrett: 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 21 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 4,669 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of David Barrett 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 7/10
setup questions received 42%

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

Opinion
Barrett: Silicon Valley mostly builds startups to flip and destroy them
“Silicon Valley, more often than not, and I would say vastly more often than not, is building something that gets flipped and destroyed.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 6:16 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Opinion
Barrett: Silicon Valley VCs act like gamblers, not real investors
“The difference is Silicon Valley investors aren't investors. They're gamblers. They're just throwing money at crazy ideas.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 8:20 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: Founders must follow a playbook for single-company success, not VC portfolios
“And I think that as an entrepreneur, we don't have a portfolio. We have one company. We need to make it work, and so I think we need to follow a playbook For how to make your company succeed, not how to make your VC's portfolio succeed.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 11:27 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Opinion
Barrett: Top Talent Doesn't Care Which VC Backs Your Startup
“I think that the best people out there just don't give a damn about your VC. They're probably not reading Hacker News. They probably don't care about TechCrunch.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 18:41 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: High Headcount Growth Signals Inability to Solve Problems Scalably
“Hiring is a solution to a problem. The more hiring you do means the bigger problems you have. And so it means you couldn't solve them in a more creative and scalable way.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 19:36 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Opinion
Barrett claims Travis Kalanick has an incredibly strong moral compass
“Travis has a complicated story, and I think he's sort of developed kind of this legend around him, which is perhaps surprising to the people who know him, because he's actually a really nice guy with, I would say, one of the most strong moral compasses I know,…”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 22:15 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Assertion Partly supported
Barrett: Venture capital as an asset class underperforms the S&P 500
“And I'd say like as an asset class, venture capital returns less than, you know, S and P 500.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 8:48 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: Profit is essential for startups to achieve scale and sustainability
“And I think the only way to achieve a broad scale and a long-term sustainability is profit.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 9:34 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: An IPO is just a state change to get capital, not an exit
“I think that an IPO for a truly successful company is just a state change. It actually doesn't really mean anything too much to the company overall. It's just a way to get money.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 13:39 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Prediction Not publicly verifiable
Expensify Caps Annual Hiring at 12 Employees
“This past year we put in a cap. We said this year, we're only going to hire 12 people.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 19:44 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Assertion Partly supported
Barrett claims Expensify has more customers than Concur
“We have more customers than Concur, and we're the fastest growing in our space”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 25:08 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Disclosure
Barrett: Expensify expense reporting was a Trojan horse for homeless aid card
“The expense reporting was entirely a ruse as a Trojan horse to build a product that just gave me the technology that I wanted for a completely different application.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 4:42 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: Great startup ideas must look terrible at first
“Everyone wants a good idea, but the challenge of good ideas is they have to look terrible. Like, if it didn't look terrible, it wouldn't be a good idea. It would just be the thing that everyone does. And so a good idea is something that no one else is doing.”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 11:55 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: Business complexity is mostly invented jargon to justify roles
“Business is not nearly as hard as people make it out to be. I think most of the complexity that people experience is sort of invented complexity. It's a bunch of jargon for people to sort of justify their roles”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 22:37 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Insight
Barrett: Founders should work in secret until success cannot be hidden
“I think work hard in secrets because it keeps your failures private, and they're hard enough in private, but they're really hard when they're public. And so just work hard. Don't say anything to anyone until you are such a success that you just can't hide it a…”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 23:52 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify
Disclosure
Expensify runs 100% inbound sales with zero advertising or outbound calling
“That's why we don't do any advertising. We don't do any outbound calling. It's a hundred percent inbound. We don't have any commission sales”
David Barrett Nov 17, 2017 ▶ 25:00 20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The Biggest Sucker Is Wrong & Why The Best Potential Hires Don't Care Who Your VC is with David Barrett, Founder & CEO @ Expensify

The other half of the tape: David Barrett's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 3

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Why Valley Investors Are Really Gamblers, Why The Business Model of Selling To The B Nov 17, 2017 18m
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