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David Pakman

Managing Partner & Head of Venture, CoinFund · 2 appearances on the record.

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

investorfounderexecutive@pakman ↗pakman.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Pakman directs venture investments in crypto, Web3, and emerging technologies at CoinFund after a 13-year tenure as a Partner at Venrock. Prior to his venture capital career, he co-founded Apple's Music Group, co-founded Myplay, and served as CEO of eMusic.

31statements → 14claims → 8claims resolved → 75%fully supported → 3.87/5average certainty → 2.29/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 10said about them ↓

6 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 6 not checkable as stated how the 14 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

6 predictions · 8 assertions · 3 opinions · 9 insights · 4 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 14 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 8 are resolved, and 6 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 David 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

Prediction Held up
Pakman: Apple Music will reach only 30-50M paid subscribers in 2 years
“I think there'll be a sustainable long-term digital music streaming service, but I don't think they'll get much more than, you know, I'm thinking sort of 30 to fifty million paying subscribers over the next two years, so I think my prediction is that they'll f…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 16:55 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Pakman: Jay-Z's Tidal is doomed to ultimate failure
“So, I think Tidal's notion of exclusive content was somewhat doomed from the beginning, and I think the numbers show the product has failed. The social receptivity was really negative. And I think it will it will ultimately completely fail.”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 15:27 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
80% certainty 3
75% certainty 4
100% 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? →

4.5 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.9 · precision 4.2 · compression 4

redirected or did not address 1 of 25 assessed questions (4%). 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? →

240 words/min while actually speaking · 28.7 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 6,682 words across 2 episodes 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 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2.5/10
setup questions received 70%

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

Opinion
Gillette failed to react competently to Dollar Shave Club's rise
“Gillette had not still to this day has not reacted in a competent way that put any pressure on Dollar Shave Club.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 11:35 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Pakman: Jay-Z's Tidal is doomed to ultimate failure
“So, I think Tidal's notion of exclusive content was somewhat doomed from the beginning, and I think the numbers show the product has failed. The social receptivity was really negative. And I think it will it will ultimately completely fail.”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 15:27 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Insight
Pakman: Media Brands Cannot Rely on Exclusive Content in Age of Abundance
“I think media is in a, you know, a complete fundamental platform shift from an age of scarcity to an age of abundance, where you can't depend on exclusive content as a way for you to build your media brand. You have to build platforms on which other people cre…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 14:03 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Insight
Independent Music Streaming Services Are Unviable Because Digital Music Is Commoditized
“I think, unfortunately, it's not a good time To be a independent provider of digital music, you know, to be a music service, because as I said, they're largely commoditized. Almost no one can make money in them. None of them are profitable. So the, you know, t…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 16:26 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Prediction Held up
Pakman: Apple Music will reach only 30-50M paid subscribers in 2 years
“I think there'll be a sustainable long-term digital music streaming service, but I don't think they'll get much more than, you know, I'm thinking sort of 30 to fifty million paying subscribers over the next two years, so I think my prediction is that they'll f…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 16:55 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Multiple Dollar Shave Club seed investors passed on the Series A
“A number of the firms Who were already seed investors either did not engage with the company around its series egg or took a look and passed. It wasn't terribly competitive around for me to win.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 5:21 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Insight
Low margins and Amazon competition make giant e-commerce exits rare
“A lot of investors don't love e-commerce for a number of reasons. It's, it tends, it can be a low margin business. It tends to have low multiples. Amazon is ever present and can compete with you in many, many categories on price and convenience, so it's pretty…”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 5:44 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Assertion Supported
Over a dozen VCs declined to lead Dollar Shave Club's Series B
“Michael pitched, I don't know, probably at least a dozen firms in the series B where there was some investor interest, but no one who would catalyze around no one who would lead around.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 7:54 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
What-if
Dollar Shave Club was headed for an IPO before the Unilever buyout
“We were likely to become a public company really as a financing opportunity to add, you know, many more hundreds of millions of dollars to the company so we could expand internationally into more products and into more territories.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 15:34 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Disclosure
Dollar Shave Club sold to Unilever to accelerate global scaling
“Michael and the management team were ultimately convinced that Hey, we can get so much bigger, so much more quickly by working with these guys, then continuing on the independent path, and we like them. So that was really what led to the decision to undertake …”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 16:19 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Legacy CPG brands lack direct-to-consumer capabilities
“Almost all of these hundred-year-old companies do not have any capability to sell direct, and when they try, they aren't very successful. Look at Gillette and their incredibly originally named Gillette Shave Club. You know, not very successful.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 17:37 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Opinion
Incumbent car companies lack competence in software and data
“Autonomous vehicles need Really good software and lots of data. Two things that income and car companies aren't very good at.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 20:02 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Prediction Held up
Automobiles will increasingly be sold direct-to-consumer, following Tesla's model
“We think cars will be sold direct to consumer the way Tesla is doing it.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 20:10 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Insight
Pakman: Venture capital is too efficient at funding obvious winners
“Right now venture capital is super competitive, and it's a very efficient market at funding things that are working right now. So if you're a VC and your goal is to look for things that are exploding at this moment, that's a very competitive space, and it's go…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 10:50 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Disclosure
Pakman: Venrock backed Dollar Shave Club when VCs doubted it could scale
“You know, I did that with Dollar Shave Club, where very few people believed that that company could become as large as they have and could disrupt, you know, a traditional legacy shaving market, men's grooming market.”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 11:30 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Venture Capital Will Be Disrupted and Practiced Differently in Five Years
“Venture will be disrupted. It's being disrupted today. It's being practiced actually today differently than it was 15 or 20 years ago, and it'll probably be practiced five or seven years from now differently than it is today. So I do believe that venture is no…”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 12:40 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Pakman: Direct-to-Consumer Is the Only Retail Model That Will Work
“I'm confident that the only model that will really work in the future, or the model that will work best in the future, are brands that have direct relationship with customers.”
David Pakman Jul 15, 2015 ▶ 13:43 20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry
Insight
Churn rate is the most critical metric for subscription businesses
“The key metric in all SaaS or subscription businesses is churn rate. The lower the churn rate, the easier it is for the company to grow.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 3:14 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Insight
Massive subscription businesses require broad market demand over niches
“The only way to build really big subscription businesses, Netflix or internet internet access companies is to have very large market demand. So you have to sell into very large markets as opposed to niches.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 3:22 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dollar Shave Club showed extraordinarily low early cohort churn
“I flew to LA quickly and sat down with Michael and his team and started to go through the numbers. And I was very specifically focused on, let me see churn. Let me look, let me see what the early cohort churns are. And they were extraordinarily low.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 4:17 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Assertion Supported
Dollar Shave Club generated $7M in revenue in its first year
“You know, they did about seven million in revenue in their first year, and they were on track to do twenty million in their second year.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 7:35 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Assertion Supported
Dollar Shave Club revenue tripled from $20M to $60M in year three
“So we went from twenty million in year two to sixty million in revenue in year three.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 10:40 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Insight
Venrock screens consumer startups against Amazon Basics commoditization risk
“One of the areas of that investment thesis is will Amazon Amazon you by effectively commoditizing the category by launching an Amazon basics or, you know, an Amazon branded commodity version.”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 12:25 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer
Opinion
Unilever's acquisition model allows acquired companies to operate independently
“In fact, it's really brilliant at what they do. They buy a company and they say, congratulations, you just acquired Unilever. What they mean by that is, you know, you will continue to remain an independent company and operating, but you now have all of the res…”
David Pakman Aug 10, 2016 ▶ 16:00 20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer

Show 7statements(7 left)

The other half of the tape: David Pakman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 9 times in 5 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 7Peter Pham 2

Statements about David Pakman, by other people (1)

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

Every mention by year

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For Aug 10, 2016 18m
20 VC 055: David Pakman @ Venrock on The Future Of The Music Industry Jul 15, 2015 13m
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