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Emily Melton

Partner, DFJ · 1 appearance on the record.

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

She is a Partner at DFJ, focusing on consumer, mobile, healthcare technologies, and marketplaces. Her investments include BetterUp, Livongo, Redfin, and early-stage sourcing in Box and Meebo.

16statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.31/5average debate potential → 4.1/5argument clarity · the sources → 5said about them ↓

0 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 1 assertion · 2 opinions · 9 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, 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 Emily argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

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

4.1 / 5 directness 4.1 · coherence 4.3 · precision 3.9 · compression 3.6

redirected or did not address 3 of 18 assessed questions (17%). 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? →

258 words/min while actually speaking · 10.3 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 6,321 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 ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 70%

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

Opinion
VCs rely on simplistic thinking by backing YC and Harvard dropouts
“This is where I do think people and in my industry can be simplistic in their thinking. And they, in some ways it's like being safe. No one's going to look at you funny for investing in a company. That's a young guy out of YC with a hoodie that dropped out of …”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 12:42 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
No substantial business was ever built as an analogy to another
“No wonderful business, no substantial business was built because it was an analogy off of something else.”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 8:22 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Judging all startups by outlier growth forces premature capital risk
“I think that some of the trajectory of some of these amazing companies, which are truly outliers, that have had this, you know, up and to the right success, has forced all companies to be, you know, judged by that same curve, and that's not the way that, that …”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 29:28 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Disclosure
DFJ succeeded in Tesla and SpaceX by staging early capital
“And that's why, you know, we were able to be successful with entities like Tesla or SpaceX. Companies that most people would find as not working well for venture, but the way that we thought about it and how we, you know, got involved in the companies at early…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 15:08 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Early-stage VCs must evaluate upside potential over downside protection
“What you really want to think through, it's not the downside scenarios, because we're investing early, and we're not writing large, large What we really need to understand and what we're evaluating new opportunities is how much could this be worth if everythin…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 16:25 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Opinion
The rise of celebrity VCs and personal branding is disturbing
“One of the things I have found a little bit disturbing is this rise of kind of the celebrity investors or all of this need to do personal branding, particularly for venture capitalists early on in their career, because I think what really demonstrates if we're…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 20:12 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Vulnerability and honesty about challenges are critical for long-term success
“I view showing what you're excited about and what you're scared about and your weaknesses allows you to build authentic relationships. And I think a lot of people, both on the VC side and on the entrepreneurship side, what they're always constantly having to s…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 28:17 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
VC career trajectories mirror the Gartner hype cycle
“You go through a process as a VC, which is, you know, it's almost like the Gartner hype cycle, right? Everything is great, and then you go through the trough of disillusionment where you hate everything, right?”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 6:43 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Disclosure
DFJ made three search engine investments before Google was even funded
“DFJ had already made three investments in search companies prior to Google even being funded. One of those was GoTo, which ended up was Overture, which was acquired by Yahoo, which was, at the time, viewed as an amazing success.”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 8:47 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Conflating investment fads with pattern recognition causes venture capital failures
“And where you get into a lot of trouble is where you conflate a fad with pattern recognition.”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 11:14 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Prediction Not checkable as stated
The next breakout tech giant will not resemble past winners
“What I know for sure is that whatever the next big business is that is going to be built, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to look like the last, you know, big company that's these five year cycles. Like there's always some new entity that emerges t…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 12:04 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Building an early-stage startup is statistically irrational
“What you have to recognize is building a company, an early-stage company, is insanely risky. It is It's extremely challenging. You know, statistically, this is not something that a rational person wants to do. You, there are a lot of easier ways to go and make…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 18:17 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Founder motivation determines whether a startup survives hardship or gives up
“I think you need to really spend that time to delve down and understand what is motivating them, because that's what's going to actually mean the difference between success and failure. Because there's going to be so many times in the course of a company where…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 19:23 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Insight
Learning from failure predicts founder success better than early perfection
“Tell me everything that's gone wrong and what you've learned from that and how you changed, because that's going to be, that's, I think, a more important indicator of long-term success than just getting all the things right.”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 25:21 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Disclosure
Tim Draper hired Emily Melton at DFJ after a 10-minute interview
“I actually emailed a number of VCs. There were investors in a couple of the companies that I was thinking about joining, and one of those was Tim Draper, and he agreed to meet me, and I walked into a meeting. He was late, too, and I was extremely nervous. I ha…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 3:20 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ
Assertion Partly supported
VC transformed from small partnerships into corporate financial services
“Subsequently, the industry has become a lot more professionalized, so you see a lot of associates and analysts, and, you know, people have hired up, and it becomes much more like a traditional financial services firm, but at the time, it was still, you know, l…”
Emily Melton Jan 11, 2017 ▶ 4:07 20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analogy Of Another & Why The Rise Of The 'Celebrity Investor' Is Concerning with Emily Melton, Partner @ DFJ

The other half of the tape: Emily Melton's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Akshay Kothari 3Harry Stebbings 2

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00213220172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions
01220172018201920202021202220232024episodes it came up in
001.513220172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions per episode
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2017 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Why You Should Not Invest From Patterns, Why No Good Business Was Built As An Analog Jan 11, 2017 26m
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