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Eric Paley

Secretary, Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Development · 3 appearances on the record.

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

investorfounderexecutive@epaley ↗epaley.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Eric Paley is the Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Development and a co-founder of Founder Collective. He previously co-founded Brontes Technologies and led early-stage venture investments in companies such as Uber, The Trade Desk, and Airtable.

58statements → 18claims → 6claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.74/5average certainty → 2.71/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 102said about them ↓

4 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 11 not checkable as stated how the 18 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

6 predictions · 12 assertions · 9 opinions · 22 insights · 8 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 18 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 11 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
Paley: Most VCs Earn Money From Management Fees, Not Carry
“It's why most VCs get paid on management fees. They don't get paid on, on, on carried interest, because TVPI, TVPI in that case, doesn't actually translate to DPI.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 10:08 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
90% certainty 4
50% 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? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.8 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 32 assessed questions directly

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? →

246 words/min while actually speaking · 25.1 um and uh per 1k words · 11.9 false starts per 1k · 29.6% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 8,617 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 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 25%

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

Opinion
Paley: Conventional VC advice urging startups to go faster is dangerous
“Frankly, I think the advice is dangerous, and I'd go one step further, which is, it has become the conventional wisdom of the industry. Which is go faster.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 26:44 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: High seed valuations lower a startup's chances of ultimate success
“So I just think there's another problem outside of, it's a different form of risk, which is the likelihood of success, in my opinion, goes way down for those companies, which is super counterintuitive because you're like, well, but they have more money at a hi…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 36:16 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: VC obsession with ownership targets hurts founder alignment and returns
“We do not focus on ownership. We actually think that's a very problematic mindset. There's a whole bunch of downstream issues, including, first of all, our missions about alignment with the founder, and the whole ownership mentality. You can twist yourself in …”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 39:17 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Paley notes very few former-founder VCs achieved $250M exits themselves
“Very few of the VCs who were once entrepreneurs have had two hundred and fifty million dollar exits.”
Eric Paley Nov 23, 2016 ▶ 15:09 20VC: Venture Capital Is One Hell Of A Drug, What VCs Expect From Founders Once They Have Raised & Why Customers Validate Your Business Not Venture Capital with Eric Paley, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective
Disclosure
Founder Collective avoids pro rata rights due to founder misalignment
“We don't do a lot of Parada for a bunch of reasons, including we don't think In most cases, in many cases, Parada's aligned to the founder, because the problem with Parada is you're always a net buyer of the founder's company, and they're always a net seller.”
Eric Paley Nov 18, 2015 ▶ 10:50 20 VC 089: Eric Paley @ Founder Collective on Outliers, Inspirational Founders and Pro Rata
Insight
Exercising pro rata rights repeatedly dilutes seed fund returns
“The other thing you're doing when you're exercising parada over and over again is Is your dollar averaging down your returns, or otherwise you could say your dollar averaging up your cost basis?”
Eric Paley Nov 18, 2015 ▶ 11:35 20 VC 089: Eric Paley @ Founder Collective on Outliers, Inspirational Founders and Pro Rata
Insight
Paley: High seed valuations make Series A fundraising significantly harder
“I actually think being overpriced at seed is actually a bigger problem than most entrepreneurs realize, particularly as the market's adjusting, right? It's a very hard time To raise Series A in general, and it's a harder time if you're already priced where som…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 1:34 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Paley: Top Company Never Matched Its Founding Year's Hottest Theme
“Never, not the last 20 years, has the most valuable company born in any single year, right, valuable as of now, been this in the theme that was hot in that year. It has not happened.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 6:23 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Paley: Most VCs Earn Money From Management Fees, Not Carry
“It's why most VCs get paid on management fees. They don't get paid on, on, on carried interest, because TVPI, TVPI in that case, doesn't actually translate to DPI.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 10:08 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Paley: AI Startup Valuations Are in an 8 or 9 Out of 10 Bubble
“If you're describing bubble as the asset prices related to that general idea, I think we're in a very extreme bubble. I also want to throw out there, and I think this is very relevant to Oh, yeah, I mean, I think we're not quite at NFT level, but we're probabl…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 16:10 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: Easy access to early capital usually destroys startup value
“The easy access to money at a accelerated stage that the company is not ready for usually will destroy the company's value.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 17:49 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: Overcapitalization Is the Biggest Risk to Startups Beside Lacking PMF
“Besides product market fit, the biggest risk to a venture-backed company is bad capitalization. And we don't mean undercapitalization. We mean overcapitalization”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 22:13 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Paley: Blitzscaling is applied incorrectly in almost every startup context
“I think blitzscaling is this beautiful, beautiful idea of exactly what Mike said applied wrong in all, almost every context, right?”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 27:11 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: High valuations turn off good investors and increase next-round risk
“I don't think the founders often appreciate two things is how much they're turning off investors that might've been good investors for them, but even bigger, how much risk they're actually taking on their next round. What this round does in terms of creating r…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 41:38 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Eric Paley: Overvalued unicorns face one of three realistic fates
“One of three things are going to happen to those companies, right? They're either going to take the extraordinary amount of cash they got, cut their burn rates down and figure out how to build real companies. And by the way, many of those will still never rais…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 49:57 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: Investors won't recapitalize overvalued startups with low revenue
“If you're recapping a hundred million dollar revenue company at a billion dollar valuation, but it really should be recapped. People will do that work, but if you're recapping a three million dollar run rate revenue company with a billion dollar valuation, the…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 50:38 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: Struggling founders should return unspent capital to investors
“I actually think that if you want to maintain your integrity, you want to maintain your integrity, and you don't have product market fit, and you raise money at a crazy valuation, and you don't want to have this burden on your back for possibly years, and by t…”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 51:40 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Paley: 2021 Was an Incredible Time to Sell Venture Investments
“2021 was an incredible time to be a seller, and anyone who didn't see that was completely playing momentum.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 1:00:14 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: Private companies are actually more volatile than public companies
“Private companies are more volatile than public companies, in truth, we, like, pretend they're not at all volatile, and somehow their valuations are whatever happened in the last round some months ago.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 1:06:40 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Paley: True Startup Dilution Comes From Burn Rate, Not Financing
“Valuation is all the sideshow. The dilution isn't even your financing. The dilution is how you use your burn rate. That is where all the dilution lives.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 1:13:22 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2028
Paley: TVPI vs DPI disconnect will be among largest in VC history
“I would bet the last few years will be one of the biggest disconnects between TVPI and DPI for venture funds in venture history.”
Eric Paley Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 1:14:04 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Paley's study of 71 IPOs shows capital raised doesn't drive startup success
“We looked at 71 IPOs over the last five years, the 71 tech IPOs over the last five years. To study whether venture capital in the outlier cases could be argued to have really driven greater success. And it turned out there was effectively no correlation betwee…”
Eric Paley Nov 23, 2016 ▶ 10:42 20VC: Venture Capital Is One Hell Of A Drug, What VCs Expect From Founders Once They Have Raised & Why Customers Validate Your Business Not Venture Capital with Eric Paley, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Paley argues lightly capitalized startups outperform heavily funded competitors over time
“Over time, the lightly capitalized companies, the efficient entrepreneurs outperform.”
Eric Paley Nov 23, 2016 ▶ 11:03 20VC: Venture Capital Is One Hell Of A Drug, What VCs Expect From Founders Once They Have Raised & Why Customers Validate Your Business Not Venture Capital with Eric Paley, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Paley predicts many of 2016's unicorns will never justify $1B valuations
“There's over 200 Companies that are considered these unicorns, many of them will probably never live up to their billion dollar valuations, but they've redefined for venture capitalists what their expectations are.”
Eric Paley Nov 23, 2016 ▶ 13:39 20VC: Venture Capital Is One Hell Of A Drug, What VCs Expect From Founders Once They Have Raised & Why Customers Validate Your Business Not Venture Capital with Eric Paley, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Show 24statements(34 left)

The other half of the tape: Eric Paley's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 97 times in 18 episodes on 20VC. 5 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most David Frankel 58Harry Stebbings 29Micah Rosenbloom 4Chris Dixon 4Roger Ehrenberg 1Beezer Clarkson 1

Statements about Eric Paley, by other people (5)

Prediction Held up
Clarkson: Absolute TVPI-to-DPI gap is likely largest since dot-com crash
“The only other time that would be equivalent would be about 99 and 2000, and I don't know if there is the volume of funds in the market then, so, and absolute numbers, he's probably right.”
Beezer Clarkson Oct 18, 2023 ▶ 33:00 Beezer Clarkson: Are LPs Open for Business & Why Do LP Incentive Mechanisms Need to Change? | E1073 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Frankel: Founder Collective funded The Trade Desk when nobody else would
“Eric invests in Trade Desk as a follow on because nobody else was going to give them money.”
David Frankel Oct 14, 2024 ▶ 10:45 David Frankel, MP @Founder Collective: Investing Lessons from Seeding Coupang, Pillpack & Suno|E1214 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Maples: Seed venture capital is about micro 'bird spotting' for novel startups
“Yeah, for me, the job is sort of like, you know, when you're in the Galapagos Islands and you spot some, Finch with a weird looking beak that nobody's ever seen before. Like, I think that's kind of what Eric and I try to do, right? We're trying to, but like, i…”
Mike Maples Sep 20, 2023 ▶ 1:16:39 Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Frankel: Nobody could have predicted Uber's market size at seed stage
“Uber, which Eric participated in at the get-go, looked like a better way of calling limos. No one in their mind could have known how big that was going to be.”
David Frankel Sep 17, 2018 ▶ 14:01 20VC: Lessons Learned Scaling PillPack from Seed to Amazon Acquisition, Why Investors Should Spend More Time Assessing Human Capital Risk Taken by Founders & The Right Way To Think About Capital Efficiency in Scaling with David Frankel, Managing Partner @
Insight
Investing and founder support are the only top priorities in VC
“In venture, investing in helping companies is the only A activity. Everything else is a B activity.”
Micah Rosenbloom Feb 15, 2017 ▶ 21:15 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00132254201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
024201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0052104201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 5 mentions in 1 episode
2024 23 mentions in 3 episodes 8 per episode
2023 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 19 mentions in 2 episodes 10 per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 15 mentions in 4 episodes 4 per episode
2017 14 mentions in 2 episodes 7 per episode
2016 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2015 15 mentions in 2 episodes 8 per episode

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E Sep 20, 2023 39m
20VC: Venture Capital Is One Hell Of A Drug, What VCs Expect From Founders Once They Have Nov 23, 2016 15m
20 VC 089: Eric Paley @ Founder Collective on Outliers, Inspirational Founders and Pro Rat Nov 18, 2015 25m
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