Josh Stein

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Threshold Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounderexecutive@dfjjosh ↗LinkedIn ↗threshold.vc ↗Wikipedia ↗

Josh Stein is a venture capitalist best known for leading early-stage investments in enterprise software companies including Box, Twilio, and Doximity. He spent over a decade as a Managing Director at DFJ before co-founding Threshold Ventures in 2019.

5statements → 3claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.2/5average debate potential → 4.6/5argument clarity · the sources → 8said about them ↓

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

3 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 insight · every statement was checked. The predictions 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 Josh 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

SaaS startups now reach $1M ARR on just $1M to $2M capital

“A typical, back in my day, to get to a million dollars of ARR, you might have spent 10 or twenty million dollars. Now, companies are getting there on a million or two million dollars more typically.”

Josh Stein Jan 9, 2017 ▶ 17:54 20VC: DFJ's Josh Stein on Why VCs Must Adapt To Their Founders, The Major Transition Points For Aaron Levie @ Box & Why SaaS Startups Are Growing At A Rate Never Seen Before

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

100% certainty 4

100% 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? →

4.6 / 5 directness 4.9 · coherence 4.8 · precision 4.7 · compression 4.2

answered every one of 17 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? →

260 words/min while actually speaking · 12.9 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,787 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 ▾ 2/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10

setup questions received 75%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 18:20“How do you respond to that when you are, uh, investing as we say, seen so heavily in SaaS? And how do you kind of show the artistic and holistic approach to SaaS that there really …” ▶ 8:37“How do you react to that when there's kind of a clear, not disabeyance, but a clear refusal to accept an opinion?” ▶ 6:43“Do you have an example of an adaptation, say from your portfolio where you've really altered the way you would traditionally behave in, in return to the behavior of the CEO and the…”

when Josh pushed back ▶ 8:43“Well, I think disabeyance is a, is not the right word because it's not, I shouldn't, you know, it's really giving us a In order, um, or it shouldn't be.”

What they said5 What others said8 Episodes1

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

Assertion Not checkable as stated

DFJ replaces portfolio CEOs primarily for failing to learn from mistakes

“The number one reason where we do occasionally say, Hey, this is not the right leader for the company is when you see someone who's not able to learn from their mistakes, right. And adapt to them.”

Josh Stein Jan 9, 2017 ▶ 9:25 20VC: DFJ's Josh Stein on Why VCs Must Adapt To Their Founders, The Major Transition Points For Aaron Levie @ Box & Why SaaS Startups Are Growing At A Rate Never Seen Before

Opinion

Salesforce could double its prices without losing many customers

“Salesforce could double their prices. I don't think they would lose many customers.”

Josh Stein Jan 9, 2017 ▶ 20:09 20VC: DFJ's Josh Stein on Why VCs Must Adapt To Their Founders, The Major Transition Points For Aaron Levie @ Box & Why SaaS Startups Are Growing At A Rate Never Seen Before

Assertion Supported

SaaS startups now reach $1M ARR on just $1M to $2M capital

Insight

Founders must be forceful and willing to annoy people to succeed

“Hey, if you're not annoying people, you're not doing enough as an entrepreneur. I mean, you know, it's not a place for shrinking violence. Like you need to be forceful to get ahead.”

Josh Stein Jan 9, 2017 ▶ 11:09 20VC: DFJ's Josh Stein on Why VCs Must Adapt To Their Founders, The Major Transition Points For Aaron Levie @ Box & Why SaaS Startups Are Growing At A Rate Never Seen Before

Assertion Supported

Box's post-2008 revenue ramped from $5M to $125M

“They went rough revenue ramp was five, 10, 25, 55, one, 25, and so just, you know, exploding out of the gate on the heels of that.”

Josh Stein Jan 9, 2017 ▶ 14:10 20VC: DFJ's Josh Stein on Why VCs Must Adapt To Their Founders, The Major Transition Points For Aaron Levie @ Box & Why SaaS Startups Are Growing At A Rate Never Seen Before

The other half of the tape: Josh Stein's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 8 times in 4 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Jason Lemkin 4 Harry Stebbings 3 Rory O'Driscoll 1