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Matt Mochary

Founder & CEO Coach, Mochary Method · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderauthorinvestorentertainerother@mattmochary ↗LinkedIn ↗mocharymethod.org ↗Wikipedia ↗

Matt Mochary is a Silicon Valley executive coach who trains founders and venture partners, having worked with leaders at OpenAI, Coinbase, Reddit, Notion, and firms like Sequoia and Benchmark. He is the author of The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building and previously co-founded Totality Corporation.

14statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 3.93/5average certainty → 2.36/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 19said about them ↓

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

2 assertions · 1 opinion · 10 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is 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 Matt argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

273 words/min while actually speaking · 0 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Matt Mochary: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 24 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 5,247 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Matt Mochary is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. 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 50%

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

Opinion
Permanent board seats are the death of every great venture investor
“First of all, know that boards are the death of every great investor. So Be wary. If you sell to founders that when they take your money, you will join their board and be on their board forever. Know that you have just ended your career eventually.”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 24:01 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
De-escalate angry colleagues by voicing exaggerated, expletive-laden criticisms of yourself
“And one of the easiest ways is to simply have their anger named and their thoughts named. So I will simply say, hey, I sense that you're feeling a lot of anger right now, and my guess is that some of the thoughts you're having are blank, and then I'll really g…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 16:11 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Outsource immediate business decisions to uninvolved parties when experiencing fear or anger
“If I have to act immediately, I outsource my thinking to someone else. Someone who's not in fear or anger. So I share the situation with someone who's not part of the situation, and their brain, therefore, is not triggered because it doesn't matter to them, an…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 8:30 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Benchmark's Peter Fenton discloses a genuine personal weakness within five minutes
“The master of this is Peter Fenton at Benchmark. He, within five minutes of any conversation, he will tell you a weakness that he has, and it's not, he's not joking about it. He tells you a real weakness, and my God, it makes me love him, but I'm not unique in…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 11:33 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Startup CEOs need warm network introductions from investors, not strategic advice
“And usually it's not strategic thinking because you have very little information about the company. They're at the company, 30 days a month, 12 hours a day. They have so much more information than you do. But what you have that they don't is you have a network…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 25:15 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Mochary: Leaders Should Only Accept Feedback That Resonates With Them
“If the feedback is something that does not resonate with you, Then no, you do not need to accept it. I think you do need to say thank you, and you do need to reflect back what it is that they said so that they know that you've heard them, but you don't then ne…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 28:10 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Train a Chief of Staff by granting total email and calendar access
“The best way to train chief of staff is to give them full access. They have complete access to your email, to your calendar, to every meeting that you're in. So they literally sit beside you, listen in on every call and sit in every meeting. And that lasts for…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 31:28 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Assertion Partly supported
Y Combinator historically refused to accept enrolled Stanford students into its accelerator
“They were students, and YC wouldn't even accept them into their class.”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 5:20 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Mochary: Joy is a far greater motivator for founders than fear
“Fear is an incredible motivator, and I think that most people, including myself in my earlier days, that was my main motivation. Now, in my later years, I've learned to replace that with joy, which is an even greater motivator and certainly much more pleasant,…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 6:09 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Mochary: Never force transparent feedback on stressed employees without agreed timing
“There has to be, you can't force this upon someone in the middle of them being stressed about another situation or being in the middle of another task. So the key is to simply reach out and say, Hey, I'd like to clear something with you is now an okay time for…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 15:12 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Conducting monthly calendar energy audits dissipates executive fear within three months
“What you'll find is usually by month three, once you've done this three times, your calendar will be mostly green, mostly energy raising, and you will find yourself, I believe, feeling tremendous amounts of joy, and that fear will likely have dissipated a lot,…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 21:20 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Mochary: Poor performance stems from disliking tasks rather than lacking skill
“Now, typically, if they're bad at something, it's because they hate it, and therefore it They don't want to do it. They don't want to invest in studying how to do it. They don't want to practice it. So they do it just the bare minimum required, which of course…”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 22:08 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Insight
Mochary: Hire a chief of staff before getting organized
“If you wait till you get your shit together, it'll never happen. So no, you start with them, and they'll help you get your shit together.”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 32:16 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
Disclosure
Mochary solicits written feedback on a document after every single interaction
“In every single interaction that I have, whether it's one-on-one with someone or in a group at the end, I always ask for written feedback, not just verbal feedback, ask everyone to write down on a doc.”
Matt Mochary Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 26:31 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors

The other half of the tape: Matt Mochary's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 16 times in 4 episodes on 20VC. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Grant LaFontaine 11Harry Stebbings 3Alex MacCaw 2

Statements about Matt Mochary, by other people (3)

Insight
Openly Roasting the CEO Builds High-Trust Executive Leadership Teams
“He'll kick it off with me where it'd be like, all right, you can go and roast Grant on all of the bad things he's doing. Give him like the toughest feedback you can give him. I'll sit there and listen to it. And most of the time it's accurate. And so I'll ackn…”
Grant LaFontaine Mar 23, 2022 ▶ 32:02 20VC: Startups Fail Because They Do Not Take Enough Risk, Why A/B Testing is Inefficient and Slows You Down, Why It is Impossible To Hire Good PMs so Stop Trying & 3 Key Signals The Best Engineers Present with Grant LaFontaine, Founder & CEO @ Whatnot
Disclosure
Executive Coach Matt Mochary Coached Clearbit for Free in Its Early Days
“Matt Mashari helped us in the early days, and he didn't charge us a thing.”
Alex MacCaw Sep 13, 2019 ▶ 7:32 20VC: Clearbit Founder Alex MacCaw on How To Successfully Negotiate with Investors, What Value-Add Do VCs Really Bring & Why You Should Only Have Operators on Your Board
Assertion Supported
Matt Mochary's coaching client list includes partners at Benchmark, Sequoia, and Kleiner
“On the VC side, Matt has worked with the likes of Peter Fenton at Benchmark, Several Sequoia partners, Hemond at GC, and Mamoon at Kleiner, to name a few. As for founders, Matt's worked with the founders of Brex, Coinbase, Plaid, Reddit, Flexport, and many mor…”
Harry Stebbings Mar 9, 2020 ▶ 0:24 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with I Mar 9, 2020 21m
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