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Kamal Ravikant

General Partner, Evolve VC · 2 appearances on the record.

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

authorinvestorfounder@kamalravikant ↗kamal.blog ↗

Kamal Ravikant is an author and venture capitalist who runs Evolve VC. He has written bestselling books including Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It and invested in companies such as Carta, Clearbit, and Poshmark.

17statements → 2claims → 0claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.47/5average debate potential → 3.9/5argument clarity · the sources → 3said about them ↓

2 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 assertions · 7 opinions · 6 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are 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 Kamal argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

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

3.9 / 5 directness 4.1 · coherence 3.7 · precision 3.7 · compression 2.8

redirected or did not address 1 of 14 assessed questions (7%). 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? →

295 words/min while actually speaking · 17.8 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 6,297 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 85%

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

Opinion
Kamal Ravikant: VCs shouldn't legally invest LP capital into social deals
“I don't think legally should be able to invest in that, because it's not my money. It's other people who trust it. I really feel very strongly. These people trusted me with their money.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 17:18 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Opinion
Kamal Ravikant: 90% of VCs add no value and 70% are dangerous
“He's like, 90% of VCs are not helpful, and 70% of VCs are actually dangerous. You know, it's actually, I think he was exaggerating a bit, but there's a strong element of truth in it.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 5:18 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Opinion
Kamal Ravikant: Entrepreneurs create startup value, not venture capitalists
“I think the entrepreneur is the one who needs to have the power. The entrepreneur is the one who creates the value, not the VCs.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 3:31 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Opinion
Kamal Ravikant prefers operator AngelList syndicates over traditional VCs
“I would take their money over a lot of VCs any day, in a heartbeat, because I've actually been”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 6:11 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Insight
Kamal Ravikant: Effective founders build product instead of attending conferences
“The doers are usually not at the meetups. Doers are not at a lot of the conferences. They're home coding.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 8:49 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Opinion
Kamal Ravikant: Venture capital is not real work compared to running startups
“And honestly, I don't think it's real work, because what is my work? It's meetings and research, and maybe once in a while fundraising, right, and helping companies, which I do anyway. Like, real work is making payroll, you know, having to go and put payroll o…”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 8:14 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Opinion
Kamal Ravikant: Hands-off 'dumb money' is often the best startup capital
“Honestly, sometimes the best money is dumb money. People give you cash and leave you alone. It's your job to pull this off, right? I genuinely believe it depends on the investor, the person, what they're known for. You know, some are known for being helpful, s…”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 10:59 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Insight
Kamal Ravikant: Founders unable to produce mock-ups or prototypes shouldn't build tech
“You gotta have product. A product can be mock-ups and like, you know, LOIs from customers. A product can be an actual, you know, working prototype. It's gotta be something. You gotta, if you're not capable of doing that, you're not capable of, you know, you sh…”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 18:51 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Insight
Kamal Ravikant: Founders bear single-bet risk while VCs diversify portfolios
“The entrepreneur is the one who makes, who loses big, because they're going all in on one thing for their life, right? For three, five years of their life. For a VC, you're just another company in their portfolio.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 4:03 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Insight
Kamal Ravikant: Treat every investor as an incentivized advisor
“Ultimately, anyone who puts money in your company, you should look at them as an advisor who's incentivized now, because their money's in it.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 7:51 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Insight
Kamal Ravikant: Startup success requires unglamorous weekend work, not media glamor
“If you're doing a real, like the real entrepreneurs, everyone I've known who's succeeded, especially people who succeeded multiple times, there was nothing sexy about what they're doing. You know, you watch their weekends, you watch their time. They're just si…”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 8:18 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Disclosure
Kamal Ravikant broke his rule against uncapped notes to back Bolt
“My most recent investment was a company called Bolt. And normally, funny enough, it was a uncapped note. I never signed on do uncapped notes, just on principle alone.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 14:44 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Insight
Kamal Ravikant: A VC's primary job is saying no to almost everything
“As an entrepreneur, my job was to say yes to everything and figure it out, right? My job as a VC, that this is the weird thing, is to say no to everything and to find that occasional yes.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 17:30 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kamal Ravikant: Cloud infrastructure lets two people build what once required thirty
“And to build, you know, currently, like what we built back in the late nineties with giant teams of 20, 30 engineers and product managers and all, and we have our own servers and our own hardware. You can do that now with one or two guys and Amazon services an…”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 13:06 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kamal Ravikant: My self-published book outsells most New York Times bestsellers
“That shit, that's what happened with me, and my book outsells most New York Times bestsellers, and it's only on Amazon, right?”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 13:38 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'
Opinion
Kamal Ravikant calls James Altucher the Oprah of the web
“Yeah, it does, James is, I call him the Oprah of the web.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 7, 2015 ▶ 12:35 20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital
Disclosure
Kamal Ravikant lost money after tax liabilities in the dot-com crash
“Watching my stock price crash, and by the end, actually, I think I didn't even break even out of the IRS money, you know, but it was a great experience.”
Kamal Ravikant Oct 5, 2015 ▶ 3:53 20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC'

The other half of the tape: Kamal Ravikant's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 3

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
001122201520162017episodesmentions
012201520162017episodes it came up in
000.5112201520162017episodesmentions per episode
2017 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2015 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC 077: Part 2: Kamal Ravikant: The Future Of Venture Capital Oct 7, 2015 11m
20 VC 077: PART 1: Kamal Ravikant: 'I'm Not Your Traditional VC' Oct 5, 2015 13m
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