Kris Jones

Founder & Managing Partner, KBJ Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderinvestorexecutiveauthor@krisjonescom ↗LinkedIn ↗krisjones.com ↗

Kris Jones is the founder and former CEO of Pepperjam, which was acquired by eBay Enterprise. He is also the founder of KBJ Capital and LSEO.com, and has authored books on search engine optimization.

3statements → 1claims → 0claims resolved → 4.33/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → 4.0/5argument clarity · the sources →

1 not checkable as stated how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 1 opinion · 1 insight · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 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 Kris 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? →

4.0 / 5 directness 4.2 · coherence 4 · precision 3.8 · compression 3.2

redirected or did not address 1 of 10 assessed questions (10%). 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? →

230 words/min while actually speaking · 41.3 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,290 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 ▾ 1/10

pushed back at the host 2/10

setup questions received 80%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 5:19“Do you agree with, um, guarding your own beliefs in these meetings with potential buyers, or do you think you should be quite open and honest?” ▶ 16:39“So for a potential graduate listening in, say a 23 year old university student, how could they add value to a VC?” ▶ 20:58“tech bubble. Is it happening? Is it not happening?”

What they said3 Episodes1

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

Opinion

Kris Jones argues 2015's high tech valuations reflect disruption, not a bubble

“I think the valuations right now are very, very high. But I don't believe so, and the reason I don't believe there's a tech bubble is because I believe that the period of time we're in right now is a period where you're going to see a lot of disruption, meanin…”

Kris Jones Jan 13, 2015 ▶ 21:03 20 VC 002: How to become a VC with Kris Jones

Insight

Kris Jones advises aspiring VCs to publish startup analysis on a blog

“It's as easy as going to WordPress and starting up your own blog and, You know, you could create a blog and start to express your thoughts on, on startup companies and, you know, that space so that when you do reach out to say a Gary Vaynerchuk or a Mark Cuban…”

Kris Jones Jan 13, 2015 ▶ 19:26 20 VC 002: How to become a VC with Kris Jones

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Kris Jones received his acquisition wire two minutes before the public announcement

“So when I reflect on that day on, just so happens I know the time, September first 2000 nine at about eight 58 AM, because again, they were publicly traded and the announcement went out at nine AM. That's when my wire transfer came about 60 seconds before it w…”

Kris Jones Jan 13, 2015 ▶ 9:01 20 VC 002: How to become a VC with Kris Jones

Appearances (1)