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Marvin Liao

Partner, Diaspora Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorexecutiveoperator@marvinliao ↗LinkedIn ↗marvinliao.com ↗

Marvin Liao is an early-stage investor who previously served as a Partner at 500 Startups, running its San Francisco accelerator program. Before entering venture capital, he spent over a decade as an executive at Yahoo! managing sales, business development, ad operations, and marketing.

16statements → 4claims → 3claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 3.44/5average certainty → 1.94/5average debate potential → 3.9/5argument clarity · the sources →

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

1 prediction · 3 assertions · 2 opinions · 4 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 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 Marvin 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

Prediction Held up
Former Yahoo executive Marvin Liao predicts the company is 'toast'
“If I'm honest, I think they're probably toast. It's a one point O company in a three point O world. I just, I'm very skeptical. And this isn't anything against Marissa, but I just think it's just, it was such a mess when I left and I probably take some credit …”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 21:32 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups

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

3.9 / 5 directness 4 · coherence 4 · precision 3.6 · compression 3

redirected or did not address 3 of 22 assessed questions (14%). 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? →

270 words/min while actually speaking · 33 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,571 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 ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 75%

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

Prediction Held up
Former Yahoo executive Marvin Liao predicts the company is 'toast'
“If I'm honest, I think they're probably toast. It's a one point O company in a three point O world. I just, I'm very skeptical. And this isn't anything against Marissa, but I just think it's just, it was such a mess when I left and I probably take some credit …”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 21:32 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Opinion
Founders should avoid mentors who advise startups as their primary income
“I worry about, sort of, like, mentors who do this as, like, as their job, where they're, like, advising, sort of, startups as, like, their, you know, like, their main, sort of, like, income. I do, sort of, worry about that, where I, kind of, like, you do it be…”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 9:39 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Opinion
Liao: Seed-stage startups are 'stupid' to form a board of directors
“And in this early stage, like, frankly speaking, like, I think you'd be kind of stupid to have a board at a company like this early, at least the stage that we're investing in.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 12:36 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Insight
Emerging startup markets lack investor sophistication, not entrepreneurial talent
“I think the big, sort of, gap in many, many markets now is really on the investor side, like, investor education and sophistication,”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 16:58 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Insight
Liao: Investors who dislike science fiction should not be in venture capital
“Like, any investor who doesn't like science fiction, I think, should not be in the investing game.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 19:57 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Insight
Liao: Using M&A as R&D fails for most large tech companies
“I mean M&A is hard in, in general. I think most big companies are not good at M&A. I think like Cisco used to have a good reputation for doing good M&A. Boy, Facebook I think has done a great job. I think in the last week they'll be done. But outside of that, …”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 22:11 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Insight
Silicon Valley's 'rule of 2-3' limits free mentor meetings before compensation
“There's this rule in Silicon Valley called the rule of two to three. ... You know, your first, like, two to three meetings, your first two to three introductions are free, but, sort of, if you, if they want more than that, there needs to be some type of, sort …”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 9:10 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Disclosure
Liao requires $10K-$50K MRR before investing in enterprise SaaS startups
“Like, I won't look at a pre-launch sort of like enterprise SaaS company. I want to see something in the range of 10 to sometimes 50,000 dollars a month in recurring revenue.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 13:23 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Assertion Supported
500 Startups employs 80-90 staff, including 14 growth and distribution experts
“We have almost close to, like, 80, 90 staff, and, you know, we have a team of almost 14 distribution, sort of, like, distribution in our terminologies, like, sort of, online marketing sales experts who help our companies and accelerator and, sort of, in the po…”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 6:48 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Assertion Supported
500 Startups has invested in over 1,200 companies across its funds
“1200, I think to be exact, the accelerator and the, and our sort of main fund and some of the micro funds. Yes, probably about 1200. I think it's a little bit over 1200 now.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 10:47 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Assertion Not checkable as stated
500 Startups evaluated 1,100 applicants to select 36 for Batch 14
“We looked at over close to 1100 companies to get down to 36 companies.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 11:33 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Disclosure
500 Startups increased its average initial check size to $75K–$100K
“It ranges between 50,000 to about a 100,000 dollars, so it, there's a range. But I would say, right now, you know, before, probably about two years ago, it was probably average of a fifty-k check. We're probably doing about 75 to about a hundred-k check sizes …”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 12:10 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Disclosure
500 Startups takes board observer rights rather than formal board seats
“No, we have board observer rights, but we don't take board seats.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 12:26 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Disclosure
Liao made seven or eight digital health investments in six months
“I've probably made about seven or eight digital health investments in the last probably six months now.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 14:36 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Disclosure
Liao volunteered 10-15 hours weekly before 500 Startups hired him
“I was spending almost close to, I think, like, almost 10 to 15 hours, like, a week over there, because it was fun, and they felt guilty, and I guess they gave me a job when they opened up the San Francisco office.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 3:26 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups
Disclosure
Liao admits he was a 'horrible' angel investor who lost money
“As an angel investor, I'll be frank, I was a horrible angel investor, so I've kind of, my wife is still kind of pissed off at me for all the money that I lost.”
Marvin Liao Oct 28, 2015 ▶ 3:47 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marv Oct 28, 2015 19m
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