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Justin Kan

General Partner, Goat Capital · 3 appearances on the record.

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

founderinvestorexecutivehost@justinkan ↗LinkedIn ↗justinkan.com ↗Wikipedia ↗YouTube ↗Instagram ↗

Justin Kan is best known as the co-founder of Justin.tv and live-streaming platform Twitch, and formerly served as a partner at Y Combinator. He has since founded companies including Atrium and actively invests in early-stage startups through Goat Capital.

26statements → 5claims → 4claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 4.04/5average certainty → 2.12/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources → 28said about them ↓

4 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 4 opinions · 11 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 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 Justin 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
YC Continuity Fund Was Designed to Compete With Public Market Investors
“The continuity fund originally was conceived of as a way to compete with more of the growth stage investors that were coming into the market in the later stage. So that's people who weren't actually classically VCs. I think as you've seen like tech companies, …”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 11:01 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% 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? →

4.3 / 5 directness 4.2 · coherence 4.6 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

redirected or did not address 2 of 12 assessed questions (17%). 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? →

272 words/min while actually speaking · 17.9 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,961 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 3 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1.7/10
setup questions received 75%

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

Opinion
Justin Kan Defends Zenefits Founder Parker Conrad as an Impressive Leader
“I always think that he is like a very impressive founder and someone who is like relentlessly bent on growing his company.”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 21:17 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Insight
Justin Kan: Venture Capital Is Easy Because VCs Do No Real Work
“Because you don't do any of the real work. You know, like, this is, I can, I talk to founders all day, and I give them my advice, and they either do it or they don't do it. But at the end of the day, you know, I, you don't have any control. And so you wait, se…”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 23:04 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Opinion
Kan: Y Combinator is so stable you "can't fuck it up"
“And the time at YC was nice because YC is very stable as an organization. It's a brand. People want to go there. You know, you kind of like can't fuck it up really. And so the kind of mental burden was like way off by comparison to startups.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 9:34 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Assertion Supported
YC Continuity Fund Was Designed to Compete With Public Market Investors
“The continuity fund originally was conceived of as a way to compete with more of the growth stage investors that were coming into the market in the later stage. So that's people who weren't actually classically VCs. I think as you've seen like tech companies, …”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 11:01 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Opinion
Kan: Incumbent law firms are heavily incentivized not to innovate
“Found a lot of things that I thought were like broken about the legal market and legal industry that created incentives for the incumbents themselves. Not to change.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 5:48 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Insight
Kan: Founders have a fiduciary duty to investors to avoid burnout
“And if you burn out, you are not doing yourself or your investors or your employees or your customers any favors. You need to like retain yourself. And so you need to create a situation inside your company where you are going to be retained for a long time. I …”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 13:31 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Disclosure
Kan: The happiness of selling Twitch for $1B lasted a week
“When we sold Twitch, Almost a billion dollars. Like I was very happy for one day, two days, even a week. But after that, I was just, I remember, you know, kind of just went, okay, that's the new normal. And now I'm back here at my baseline.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 14:51 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Insight
Kan: It is a myth that founders must suffer to build startups
“I think people feel like they have to suffer in order to do a startup, and I actually just disagree with that. I don't think you have to suffer. You're going to experience pain, definitely. Things aren't always going to go right, but you don't have to suffer.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 26:44 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Insight
Kan: Treating Atrium like an investor was my biggest early mistake
“I think I approached Atrium with a little bit too much of an investor attitude in the beginning, which was a little bit too much like hands off. Like I'm just going to build a team and the team is going to do everything without like really myself getting in th…”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 30:24 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Assertion Supported
Amazon's Twitch Acquisition Exceeded $1 Billion After Employee Retention Packages
“We ended up selling to Twitch To Amazon for nine or seventy million dollars. Does that annoy you that it's not a billion? I think they specifically did that, but you know, it's after retention, it was over a billion”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 6:48 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Opinion
Justin Kan: Snapchat Is the Most Compelling Product of the Past Decade
“Their product teams are like pretty good and they've Really built a, what I think is the most compelling product I've seen in the last 10 years.”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 19:35 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Insight
Justin Kan: Navigating nightlife sober forces you to build real confidence
“I would never have thought that I could have fun without being hammered at nightlife before, but it's kind of like having to actually just live your life in Normal mode instead of easy mode, you know, and figure out how you can have the confidence and be okay …”
Justin Kan Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 17:30 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Insight
Justin Kan: Quitting alcohol is tech's easiest performance optimization
“Yeah, I think it's becoming much more socially acceptable and in this, I guess, especially in Silicon Valley, you know, where people are looking for all these performance optimization things and they're intermittent fasting and eating keto and meditating and l…”
Justin Kan Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 24:49 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Insight
Kan: Learning as a startup founder is an inherently painful process
“When you're the founder of a startup, you are forced to learn things. The thing I forgot about that process is that when you're learning is actually mostly a painful process. And what I mean by that is it's mostly involves failing at things until you finally g…”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 5:02 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Disclosure
Kan wanted to quit Twitch and Justin.tv every single summer
“When I was in my first section of my entrepreneurial career, you know, building Justin TV and Twitch, I remember that every summer I would want to quit and go get a job or do something else.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 8:53 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Insight
Kan: Tying your entire identity to your startup guarantees burnout
“My entire identity was wrapped up in my company. And being an entrepreneur. And so the problem with that is that when things go badly, you feel badly about yourself. You transpose those feelings that you might have about what's happening in your company onto y…”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 17:02 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Insight
Kan: Naming emotions at work helps diagnose underlying operational issues
“Being able to name your emotions enables you to actually drive into the deeper issues for what might be triggering them in you”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 24:10 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Disclosure
Kan: Silicon Valley culture makes sharing negative company events nearly impossible
“And even I can't advertise like super things that might be perceived as super negative events. It's really tough to do in our society.”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 25:29 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Insight
Justin Kan: Successful Investors Need Platform, Selection Thesis, and Relentless Pursuit
“Well, I think investors have to have, you know, there's three qualities of investors that I, or of investors or firms that I think are important investing. I've thought about this a little bit. The first one is a platform that generates leads for them or reaso…”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 16:03 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Insight
Justin Kan: When Faced With Only Bad Choices, Doing Nothing Is Optimal
“One of them is that you don't actually necessarily have to do anything. When you don't have a good decision, when you're faced between multiple bad decisions, maybe you should just do nothing and wait and see what happens.”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 20:14 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Justin Kan quit drinking alcohol one year ago
“I quit about just over a year ago. Actually, I just hit a year, maybe a month ago, and I wasn't really drinking as much as I used to, but I was still drinking probably 15 to 20 drinks a week, and I just realized that it wasn't serving me anymore.”
Justin Kan Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 4:54 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Disclosure
Kan: Alcohol Cravings Diminished Significantly After Two Weeks of Sobriety
“After the first couple weeks, it became pretty automatic, and I wasn't craving it as much anymore.”
Justin Kan Jun 1, 2020 ▶ 18:47 20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight
Disclosure
Kan uses a therapist, two CEO coaches, and leadership groups
“So now, today, you know, I have a therapist, I have a CEO coach, I actually have two CEO coaches, I have different conscious leadership groups that I'm part of”
Justin Kan Jun 21, 2019 ▶ 20:16 20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attaching Happiness To Future Outcomes Will Only Lead To Suffering & Why It Is Total BS That You Have To "Suffer" When Doing A Startup
Assertion Supported
Justin Kan Sold Web Calendar Startup Kiko on eBay for $250,000
“Ended up selling on eBay. Decided startups weren't quite as bad as we'd thought because from the eBay sale, which was about a quarter of a million dollars, we made a little bit of money.”
Justin Kan Aug 1, 2016 ▶ 4:42 20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Really Do Any Real Work'?

Show 2statements(2 left)

The other half of the tape: Justin Kan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 27 times in 16 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 17Steve Huffman 3Mike Maples 2Emmett Shear 2Jon Dishotsky 1Eric Glyman 1Alex Bangash 1

Statements about Justin Kan, by other people (1)

Disclosure
Maples: Invested in Twitch When Justin Kan Wore Camera Cap
“Twitch.tv started out as justin.tv and literally I invested when Justin Kahn walked into a coffee shop with a camera on his baseball cap with wires going into a backpack.”
Mike Maples Oct 10, 2016 ▶ 8:37 20VC: Floodgate's Mike Maples on What Makes Category Kings, What Most Venture Funds Do Wrong When Hiring & 'The Dance Of Product Market Fit'

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
004385201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
035201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0022.545201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2019 8 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2016 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2015 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: It's Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes P Jun 1, 2020 5m
20VC: Justin Kan on Why We Have To Normalize Vulnerability in Startups Today, Why Attachin Jun 21, 2019 22m
20VC: YC's Justin Kan on The 3 Qualities All Successful Investors Have & Why 'VCs Don't Re Aug 1, 2016 17m
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