Howard Lindzon

Co-Founder & General Partner, Social Leverage · 1 appearance on the record.

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Howard Lindzon co-founded Stocktwits, the social network for investors that popularized the cashtag, and founded Wallstrip, which was acquired by CBS. Through Social Leverage and early angel investments, he has backed companies including Robinhood, eToro, Rent.com, and TweetDeck.

15statements → 3claims → 1claims resolved → 3.87/5average certainty → 2.33/5average debate potential → 4.0/5argument clarity · the sources → 7said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 8 insights · 3 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is 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 Howard 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

Lindzon: Early angel investment LifeLock grew into a multi-billion dollar company

“Back in 2006, one of my first angel investments was a company called LifeLock, which is now a couple billion dollar company, and they're out of Phoenix.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 26:32 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

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

4.0 / 5 directness 4.3 · coherence 4 · precision 3.8 · compression 3.4

redirected or did not address 3 of 22 assessed questions (14%). 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? →

255 words/min while actually speaking · 15.4 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,545 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 ▾ 3/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10

setup questions received 47%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 13:17“Can I ask a potentially conflicting question here to you, and it's, is it possible to be a trend follower and to be, uh, conviction driven?” ▶ 14:47“Do you think the knowledge of the public markets is sufficient enough in this ecosystem?”

when Howard pushed back ▶ 8:12“Naval's, you know, talking his own book when he says you're going to lose on your first 30 investments.” ▶ 16:58“I never have fear of missing out.”

What they said15 What others said7 Episodes1

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

Insight

Lindzon: Angel investing boom driven by passive market flows, not bubble

“This whole angel investing phenomenon is partly due to this Vanguard S&P 500 and the way the public markets are working. So people that call this a bubble I don't really understand the full scope of money and money flows and the whole ecosystem of investing, b…”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 5:05 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: Investors should write the check if price is the only objection

“If you like the CEO, and you like the opportunity, and you like the market, and every single thing about this says yes, and the only reason you say no in a private, this is private stuff, not public check, and the only reason you say no is the price, well, you…”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 19:08 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Lindzon: Passive index investing will trigger massive corporate fallout

“And so it's destroying creativity and it's also you're going to start to see some massive fallout i can't predict when but you're starting to see cracks companies misbehaving again because you know it's okay for wells Wells Fargo as part of the S&P 500 to misb…”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 4:08 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: Public market investors only need around 12 core brand stocks

“Where startups versus the stock market differ is that in the stock market, I don't think you need 500 stocks, the S&P 500. I think an average person can own 12 companies. I call them eight to 80 brands that you use from eight years old to 80 years old have a d…”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 9:04 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: Early-stage venture investors should hold roughly 100 startup investments

“In the private markets, I totally believe that the more the merrier, and not so much spray and pray, but having a hundred startups is not bad.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 9:20 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

What-if

Lindzon: VCs like Fred Wilson would have sold before 2001 crash

“In 99, 2000, I'm sure Fred Wilson and Brad Feld and a lot of the VCs wish they understood the stock markets because they would have sold, because they could have sold. Instead, they wrote everything to zero in 2001.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 15:03 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Disclosure

Howard Lindzon passed on early-stage Zynga over a post-commitment price hike

“And so I really had committed to Zynga, passed a month later based on the price that was set. A big mistake.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 18:25 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: Fundraising is an art rather than a teachable skill

“So there's just so many subtleties to the whole, I would call it more of an art than a skill. I think, everybody's trying to teach people how to raise money, and I would say, hey, listen, not everybody can be an artist.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 25:53 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: Angel investors should draft behind smarter co-investors

“First rule of thumb, follow smart people, right? Because just like in sports, in the Tour de France, if you can keep up with the smart people, then you can just draft behind them.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 6:19 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: Investors cannot understand down cycles without personally losing money

“People need to lose money to really understand how the markets work, and you can lose that money in a private deal or in the public markets, but until you're cut and bleed and see how co-investors behave with you and how the entrepreneur feels, I don't think y…”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 15:30 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Disclosure

Howard Lindzon says public markets taught him never to experience FOMO

“I never have fear of missing out. The stock market's taught me never to chase.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 16:59 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Insight

Lindzon: High entry valuations severely penalize angels without follow-on capital

“The difference between, between paying two pre and 20 pre can be massive, especially if you're not going to have the capital to follow on.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 19:44 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Disclosure

Howard Lindzon backed AngelList in 2010 as an early investor

“We were actually, Tom and I, my partner, were one of the first checks into AngelList in 2010.”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 7:47 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Lindzon: 50% of his 2006-2008 angel portfolio succeeded fantastically

“Luckily for me, I probably lost on my first four back in 99 when everybody lost money in the bubble. But when I really started investing after I sold Wallstrip I caught a great crop of entrepreneurs in 2006, 2007, 2008, and I would say 50% of the companies wor…”

Howard Lindzon Oct 17, 2016 ▶ 8:17 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage

Assertion Supported

Lindzon: Early angel investment LifeLock grew into a multi-billion dollar company

“Back in 2006, one of my first angel investments was a company called LifeLock, which is now a couple billion dollar company, and they're out of Phoenix.”

The other half of the tape: Howard Lindzon's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 5 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 5 Mike Lazerow 1 John Borthwick 1