Eric Feng

Partner, Kleiner Perkins · 1 appearance on the record.

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

He is a Partner at Kleiner Perkins, focusing on consumer technology and incubation. He is also the co-founder of Packagd, a mobile shopping app platform.

12statements → 4claims → 2claims resolved → 4.17/5average certainty → 2.25/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 12said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 assertions · 3 opinions · 4 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 2 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 Eric 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

OfferUp Matches Instagram With 22-Minute Daily User Engagement

“The startup offer up the mobile Craigslist company up in Seattle. They get 22 minute average daily session times. 22 minutes. That's as much as A news app. That's as much as Instagram. That's as much as a media service.”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 15:46 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

How they sound: speaking style how? →

252 words/min while actually speaking · 16.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Eric Feng: only 3 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 3 raw tape exchanges is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,511 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 ▾ 4/10

pushed back at the host 1/10

setup questions received 65%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 18:29“Does that iterative approach that you just outlined not diminish the need to be ahead of the curve?” ▶ 21:57“From an investment perspective, is it not harder for investors to return the capital in the timeframes allowed with such long feedback cycles for climate change tech though?” ▶ 11:31“Would you agree with me in asserting that their strengths lie where their predecessors may not have done in the M&A environment where Facebook acquired, you know, your Instagrams a…”

What they said12 What others said12 Episodes1

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

Opinion

Tech Incumbents Are the Most Nimble in History, Says Feng

“They're not afraid to directly compete with companies, copy companies, do whatever it takes because they have grown up in this next wave of innovation, and they are the savviest Strongest, most nimble, fast-moving group of incumbents that I think the world has…”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 12:05 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Opinion

Venture Timing Is Wrong for VR and Autonomous Vehicles

“And I think for a lot of those big categories, the timing is likely not now in terms of making smart investments that deliver meaningful returns or LPs.”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 15:12 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Insight

Consumer Tech Startups Are Binary; Entry Valuation Does Not Matter

“Consumer companies are binary. They work or they don't work. And when they work, it just really doesn't matter what your entry price is.”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 20:12 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Snapchat Was the Last Breakout Consumer Tech Company, Says Feng

“The last breakout iconic consumer company that's proven today is Snapchat, and that launched in 2011, so it's been almost six years since we had that level of success on the consumer side”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 9:42 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Opinion

Autonomous Tech Is Overhyped, Climate Tech Is Underhyped

“Most hyped, I would say autonomous. Autonomous everything. We've got autonomous chairs, we have autonomous water bottles, everything is autonomous these days. Under-hyped, climate change. I wish that we would pay more attention to the great things coming on ar…”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 21:39 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Assertion Partly supported

John Doerr Answered Flipboard Support Emails During Launch Crash

“I remember at Flipboard, for example, when the service first launched, The load was so tremendous that it actually took down the back end for a few weeks, and our board member John Doerr came by and actually answered customer support emails all night. He even …”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 8:56 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Insight

Consumer Distribution Channels Are Now Clogged and Pay-to-Play

“If you're social companies, you could grow off the backs of Facebook distribution and Twitter distribution, but all of those channels are now clogged down. They're now incredibly optimized and they're largely pay to play. So it's very difficult for a startup t…”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 10:35 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Insight

Solving Low-Hanging Mobile Problems Is No Longer Enough

“Most of those low hanging problems, they are solved. You're not walking around every day with a very broken experience. So the bar to actually create something that can provide meaningful value that consumers really appreciate and that's memorable and that's s…”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 12:50 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Assertion Supported

OfferUp Matches Instagram With 22-Minute Daily User Engagement

Insight

Ad-Supported Business Models Are Unsuitable for Early-Stage Startups

“Advertising just takes an immense amount of scale, and you get incredibly low ARPUs because It just requires hundreds of millions of users to actually build a meaningful ad business these days. So that's really hard for a startup to have to rely on that as the…”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 17:12 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Disclosure

Kleiner Perkins Builds Internal Tech Tools to Detect Venture Signal

“Here at Kleiner, we have a bunch of interesting tools that help us look for early signal in companies, look for inflection points, look for interesting derivative movements on the app store charts, look for signals in transaction data.”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 19:14 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Holler Browsing and Daily Engagement Rival Social Media Apps

“First is the percentage of orders that came from browse, not search. It was the vast majority. And that's amazing. It's people not going through with an intent to buy one item like you see on Amazon, but opening up the service just to discover what is going on…”

Eric Feng Jul 3, 2017 ▶ 24:00 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today

The other half of the tape: Eric Feng's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 12 times in 9 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 7 Kirsten Green 3 Shabih "Shabby" Rizvi 1 Hans Tung 1