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David Tisch

Managing Partner, BoxGroup · 5 appearances on the record, plus 1 compilation re-air.

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

investorfounderexecutive@davetisch ↗LinkedIn ↗davidtisch.com ↗Wikipedia ↗Instagram ↗

David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, an early-stage venture capital firm that has backed hundreds of prominent startups including Plaid, Stripe, Warby Parker, Ro, Airtable, and Ramp. Beyond co-founding Techstars New York City and serving as Chairman of GoodDog, he previously led the Startup Studio at Cornell Tech.

121statements → 28claims → 14claims resolved → 79%fully supported → 3.96/5average certainty → 2.57/5average debate potential → 4.2/5argument clarity · the sources → 20said about them ↓

11 supported 2 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 12 not checkable as stated how the 28 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

10 predictions · 18 assertions · 19 opinions · 56 insights · 16 disclosures · 2 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 28 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 14 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 12 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

Assertion Supported
Tisch: Any BoxGroup team member can individually approve an investment
“So we're a team of nine. Everyone on our team can say yes in an individual meeting. We don't need, we don't vote. We don't try to find groupthink.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 38:49 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Tisch: Seed-to-Series A graduation rates hit 90-100% between 2018 and 2022
“And over that 19 or 18 to 22 period, you went to basically a hundred. Hundred percent of companies that raised the seed got an A. Maybe it was 90, 95.”
David Tisch Feb 27, 2023 ▶ 23:28 David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
67% certainty 3
88% 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? →

4.2 / 5 directness 4.4 · coherence 4.5 · precision 3.8 · compression 3.6

redirected or did not address 3 of 47 assessed questions (6%). 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? →

227 words/min while actually speaking · 17.3 um and uh per 1k words · 11.8 false starts per 1k · 34.8% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 22,931 words across 3 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 7 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 3.9/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2.9/10
setup questions received 48%

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

Insight
Tisch: Investors should pay any valuation for generational seed companies
“If you fund a generational company and the outcome is insanely enormous, you should say yes to whatever that number is at the seed stage.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 24:51 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Tisch: Second and third-tier venture capital firms suck and are harmful
“I think the second The third tier VCs are uninteresting, and I think the third tier VCs are harmful, but I think the best ex-firms at each stage are good enough to not need to overly rank them. But I think the second and third tier VCs suck.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 1:15:53 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Tisch: VC signaling is a fake concept that does not exist
“I don't believe in signaling. I think it's a fake word and I don't think it exists in this market.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 1:18:00 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Tisch: Outside the top 25 VCs, investors are commodities or net negatives
“I don't think outside of the top five to 25 VCs, individuals, that VCs can magically impact a company. I think most of those investors join your board at series A or B, and they, those five to 25, whatever the number is, and the rest of the investment Sort of …”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 1:23:47 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: VCs never cause startup success, only failure
“The company's either going to work or not work. And you are not the reason for either of those two things. If anything, you're the reason it's not going to work.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 1:30:36 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: VCs who overpaid deserve no sympathy; valuation is their problem
“The valuation to me is the investor's problem. And I just don't like, I don't believe that my sympathy sits for all the VCs that overpaid on things that they did. Like, everybody could, again, back to this, like, you could have said no. If you thought somethin…”
David Tisch Feb 27, 2023 ▶ 21:46 David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Tisch: Signaling risk is the single most overstated concept in startup financing
“The signaling risk, I feel like is the single most overstated part of the ecosystem.”
David Tisch Feb 27, 2023 ▶ 37:02 David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: A startup CEO's core job is becoming world-class at fundraising
“Telling founders, like, put your head down, build a product. Don't worry about fundraising. It's like distracting and annoying. The CEO specifically, their job is to become great at fundraising, and they need to be, like, view that as a core competency that th…”
David Tisch Feb 27, 2023 ▶ 41:06 David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tisch: A tier-three VC attempted to personally bankrupt a startup founder
“I saw a VC try to personally bankrupt a founder.”
David Tisch Feb 27, 2023 ▶ 1:03:59 David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: VC returns depend on outlier companies, not rigid ownership targets
“Every VC's math works if you fund great companies. And so it's not about this, like, ownership threshold.”
David Tisch May 4, 2021 ▶ 6:21 20VC: David Tisch on Why Ownership in Venture Does Not Matter, His Biggest Investing Misses and Hits and How His Investing Style Changed as a Result & 3 Core Reasons VCs Pass That Do Not Make Sense
Opinion
Tisch: Signaling risk from multi-stage seed investments is an overrated myth
“I think that the myth of sort of you take a seed check from a multi-stage firm, especially in this market, that you are going to struggle to raise your next round if that firm doesn't sort of write the term sheet. I think that's been proven to not be a materia…”
David Tisch May 4, 2021 ▶ 17:13 20VC: David Tisch on Why Ownership in Venture Does Not Matter, His Biggest Investing Misses and Hits and How His Investing Style Changed as a Result & 3 Core Reasons VCs Pass That Do Not Make Sense
Insight
Tisch: VCs cannot deploy 'company building' value at scale across portfolios
“And so the idea that a diverse portfolio is amongst the VC can deploy this value add and company building at scale. I just haven't seen that happen over my 10 years doing this.”
David Tisch Dec 2, 2019 ▶ 13:54 20VC: BoxGroup's David Tisch on Whether Concentrated Investing At Seed Works, Do Founders Really Want Direct Feedback and Is It Good For Them & Why Consumer Social Is Interesting Again
Opinion
Tisch: The market has too many companies, diluting top startup talent
“I think there are too many companies. So I think the idea that every company is going to succeed and every company deserves to be funded through a series C, that's a risk to me. So there's a massive dilution of talent in our industry in that when everybody sta…”
David Tisch Dec 2, 2019 ▶ 20:54 20VC: BoxGroup's David Tisch on Whether Concentrated Investing At Seed Works, Do Founders Really Want Direct Feedback and Is It Good For Them & Why Consumer Social Is Interesting Again
Opinion
Venture capital investors do not add value to startups
“When entrepreneurs in a meeting ask us, you know, what value do we add? My initial response is always, investors don't add value, and that's what we'll promise you.”
David Tisch Jan 11, 2016 ▶ 14:30 20 VC: David Tisch @ Box Group on The Future of Consumer Mobile, Developing Pattern Recognition and FOMO
Insight
Tisch: Small stakes in outlier companies outperform strict ownership targets
“Every VC's math works if you fund great companies. And so it's not about This, like, ownership threshold. If anybody owned one percent of Facebook, one percent of Uber.1% of Coinbase, your math works. Your math works really well, and it scales.”
David Tisch Feb 9, 2024 ▶ 22:53 20VC: Doug Leone, Bill Ackman, Bill Gurley and Orlando Bravo on "Does Price Matter"; When to Pay Up vs When to Stay Disciplined, The Biggest Lessons on Price Discipline from 8 of the World's Best Investors
Insight
Tisch: All VC firms offer the same commoditized product
“I think at the end of the day, for the most part, all VCs offer the same product. We are giving money and we are taking equity. What comes after that is obfuscated in a sales pitch.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 5:42 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: Seed investing cannot be indexed or made low-margin
“I don't think you can index seed, and I don't think you can aggregate seed into a low margin product.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 20:08 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: Pre-Series B investing is art, post-Series B is math
“I think venture is two different jobs. There's the pre-series B job, and there's the post-series B job, and I don't think they have any relation to each other. I think at pre-series B, you are doing more art, and at post-series B, you are doing more math.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 25:27 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Tisch: Any BoxGroup team member can individually approve an investment
“So we're a team of nine. Everyone on our team can say yes in an individual meeting. We don't need, we don't vote. We don't try to find groupthink.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 38:49 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Tisch: BoxGroup forbids team members from 'throwing grenades' on deals
“We structurally push our group to not allow that. We have vocabulary internally. We say, like, throwing a grenade. You're not allowed to throw a grenade on some deal. It doesn't help.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 43:47 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: Venture power law ensures top incumbent firms stay dominant
“The best firms in venture have the highest probability of being the best firms in the future, because brand matters, the quality of investors at that brand matter, and they're going to see and win better than the challengers are.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 56:38 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: Scaling $1B to $5B is more predictable than $0 to $1B
“The path from zero to one billion Is impossible. The path from one billion to five billion is more predictable, and it's more easy to see at a given moment”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 1:04:41 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Tisch: The seed investment market will never become efficient
“I think the space I have conviction that there will never be efficiency in is the seed market. Because starting something is not efficient. Starting something is messy.”
David Tisch Feb 5, 2024 ▶ 1:37:21 David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Tisch: Seed-to-Series A graduation rates hit 90-100% between 2018 and 2022
“And over that 19 or 18 to 22 period, you went to basically a hundred. Hundred percent of companies that raised the seed got an A. Maybe it was 90, 95.”
David Tisch Feb 27, 2023 ▶ 23:28 David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Show 24statements(97 left)

The other half of the tape: David Tisch's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 18 times in 12 episodes on 20VC. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 14TJ Parker 2Mark Mullen 1Deven Parekh 1

Statements about David Tisch, by other people (2)

Assertion Supported
BoxGroup raised over $160 million across two first external vehicles
“Recently, they raised their first external capital with two separate vehicles totaling over a hundred and sixty million dollars.”
Harry Stebbings Dec 2, 2019 ▶ 0:37 20VC: BoxGroup's David Tisch on Whether Concentrated Investing At Seed Works, Do Founders Really Want Direct Feedback and Is It Good For Them & Why Consumer Social Is Interesting Again
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: David Tisch made early angel investments in Vine and Warby Parker
“Prior to smashing the world of seed with Box, David was managing director of Techstars New York, and was a prolific angel investor alongside it, making early angel investments in the likes of Vine and Warby Parker, to name a few.”
Harry Stebbings May 4, 2021 ▶ 0:36 20VC: David Tisch on Why Ownership in Venture Does Not Matter, His Biggest Investing Misses and Hits and How His Investing Style Changed as a Result & 3 Core Reasons VCs Pass That Do Not Make Sense

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0042842016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions
0242016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodes it came up in
0012242016201720182019202020212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 7 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2016 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (6)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Doug Leone, Bill Ackman, Bill Gurley and Orlando Bravo on "Does Price Matter"; When compilation Feb 9, 2024 1m
David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing Feb 5, 2024 51m
David Tisch: The 3 Most Important Variables When Raising Your Seed Round | 20VC #983 · 20V Feb 27, 2023 50m
20VC: David Tisch on Why Ownership in Venture Does Not Matter, His Biggest Investing Misse May 4, 2021 24m
20VC: BoxGroup's David Tisch on Whether Concentrated Investing At Seed Works, Do Founders Dec 2, 2019 26m
20 VC: David Tisch @ Box Group on The Future of Consumer Mobile, Developing Pattern Recogn Jan 11, 2016 24m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of David Tisch was played rather than David taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
20VC: 13 of the Great Investing Minds on When to Pay Up vs When To Remain Disciplined and Aug 12, 2022 36s clip played
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