StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Jonathan Hsu

Co-Founder and Managing Director, Tribe Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounderscientist@jonathanhsu ↗tribecap.co ↗

Jonathan Hsu is a co-founder and partner at Tribe Capital, where he pioneered quantitative, data-driven frameworks for startup diligence. He previously led data science and quantitative investing at Social Capital and worked as an early data scientist at Facebook.

16statements → 3claims → 2claims resolved → 3.62/5average certainty → 2.56/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →

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

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 3 opinions · 10 insights · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are 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 Jonathan 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
Hsu: Slack and Carta didn't build dedicated data teams until Series C
“I just want to think back to Slack and Carter, two companies that we've worked with, you know, in the last couple of years, you know, both of them didn't really start investing in this Full bore, you know, well into about the series C, if I remember correctly.…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 16:34 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet 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

How they sound: speaking style how? →

279 words/min while actually speaking · 5.6 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Jonathan Hsu: no 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 24 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,842 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Jonathan Hsu is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. 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 60%

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

Insight
Hsu: Valuation variances up to 50% do not alter early-stage venture returns
“The probability distributions that we're dealing with at the very earliest stage are such that if you're plus or -20, 30, even 40, 50%, it's not going to make or break the result. Either you're going to lose all your money, or you're going to make multiple tim…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 17:52 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Hsu: Tribe Capital will sacrifice ownership percentage to recruit top growth co-investors
“We don't necessarily think that we're the best growth investors out there. So part of our job is to help our portfolios get the best possible growth investors in their later rounds. So even if that means that we have to give up some ownership for it, because, …”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 20:41 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Data science is no silver bullet for venture sourcing
“By and large, that there's no one silver bullet in sourcing, right? Sourcing is one of these things where good old ground game, just raw networking and being out there is a really important piece of it. Building brand is an important piece of it and having an …”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 6:24 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Jonathan Hsu: Data is unbiased; humans introduce bias through inference
“Data is actually totally unbiased. When you infer something from data, then you do something biased, right? That's where you introduce bias.”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 11:15 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Assertion Supported
Hsu: Slack and Carta didn't build dedicated data teams until Series C
“I just want to think back to Slack and Carter, two companies that we've worked with, you know, in the last couple of years, you know, both of them didn't really start investing in this Full bore, you know, well into about the series C, if I remember correctly.…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 16:34 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Opinion
Hsu: Historical Loss Ratios in Venture Capital Are Too High
“We believe that historical loss ratios are too high in venture to some extent.”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 18:33 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Data becomes the primary evaluation factor as startups mature beyond Series A
“When you're in the earliest stage, Data is one of many things. You know, the interesting thing about a Series A is that there is no one most important thing. There are many, many important things. And then the further and further you get along, the more and mo…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 20:23 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Jonathan Hsu: Tech giants dominate by creating superior products, not choking supply
“These companies are dominant, not because they choke off supply, but because they actually provide the best product for customers. That's true of Google. It's true for Facebook.”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 22:34 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Opinion
Hsu: Nothing in tech is defensible in the long term
“I think in the long term, you're absolutely right. Nothing is defensible in the long term, right? The question is like, are you in an era where you can defend it for a while and give yourself enough breathing room to possibly innovate something else, build som…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 23:15 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Opinion
Hsu: A PhD in string theory is the most useless degree
“It's really sort of the most useless topic you can probably get your PhD in.”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 3:50 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Seed stage focuses on founders, while late stage focuses on business metrics
“If you think about the seed stage, right, they're really buying the founder when the investor invests. And when you think about the late stage, they're buying mostly a business, right? And then it's definitely some founder, but mostly a business.”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 9:38 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Growth is fast, data-informed iteration, not growth hacking
“And when you use the word growth, we don't really mean growth hacking, but it's more like product development through the philosophy of growth, which is really about being fast, being very data, being highly data informed. You know, it's not necessarily data d…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 13:16 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Startups need quantitative data once reaching hundreds of users
“I think anecdote works really well, you know, when you're dealing with the first couple of customers, when you're dealing with only maybe a dozen users, maybe two dozen users. But once things start pushing into dozens of customers, possibly hundreds of users, …”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 15:24 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Assertion Supported
Hsu: Industry Venture Capital Loss Ratios Sit at 30% to 40%
“So historical loss ratios for venture at large tends to be in this 30 to 40% range”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 18:37 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Network effects are the primary source of medium-term defensibility
“You know, when we think about defensibility right now, the most obvious pattern that we've seen in the last 15 years now is really the concept of a network effect, right? The concept of a network effect seems to really be able to put in a chunk of defensibilit…”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 23:31 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital
Insight
Hsu: Accounting was the original form of data science
“I think the biggest misconception here is that the only way to use data is like the way that machine learning or AI works. You know, people overlook things like good old-fashioned accounting. You know, accounting was sort of the very first data science.”
Jonathan Hsu Jun 17, 2019 ▶ 26:05 20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Piece When Evaluating Effective Reserve Allocation & Why Nothing Is Truly Defensible Today with Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder and General Partner @ Tribe Capital

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Why Historical Loss Ratios Are Simply Too High, Why Data Is The #1 Most Important Pi Jun 17, 2019 18m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more