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Matthew McCall

Founding Partner, FORGE Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorauthoracademicsomethingventured.com ↗

Over a venture capital career at DFJ Portage and Pritzker Group Venture Capital, McCall backed startups including FeedBurner, Playdom, EverDream, Dollar Shave Club, and The Honest Company. He also authored the publication Something Ventured and lectured on entrepreneurship at Northwestern's Kellogg School and CU Boulder.

21statements → 6claims → 2claims resolved → 4.1/5average certainty → 1.76/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources →

0 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 predictions · 2 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 9 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 4 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 Matthew argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
50% certainty 3
50% certainty 4
none yet 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 4.5 · coherence 4.4 · precision 4.3 · compression 3.7

answered every one of 10 assessed questions directly

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? →

222 words/min while actually speaking · 48.7 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,065 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 ▾ 0/10
pushed back at the host 0/10
setup questions received 90%

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

Prediction Partly held up
McCall: Impending market downturn will result in a wave of dead unicorns
“And you're going to see that happen when the market downturns coming up here you're going to see a bunch of I think, what was it? Bill Gurley said, you're going to see a lot of dead unicorns floating around.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 8:50 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Insight
McCall: Mutual funds writing $400M tech checks signals late-stage market excess
“Mutual funds coming in and paying outrageous prices and putting four hundred million into companies. These are all signs that were late on the stage.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 15:07 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Insight
McCall: Capital-efficient startups historically outperform momentum-investing bets
“Right now we're in the middle of momentum investing, which is about pumping enormous amounts of money into companies with the hopes that someone else would pump even more money later on. But the strategy that has worked historically the best are those companie…”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 8:25 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Insight
McCall: Continuous random acts of kindness drive VC success and deal flow
“There's only one rule that I found and we've tried over 20 years, I've been in the business 20 years, we've tried everything under the sun to try and figure out what drives success and what doesn't you know, in terms of predicting, and it's, it really comes do…”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 9:40 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Opinion
McCall: Uber was evolutionary mobile-meets-taxis rather than revolutionary
“Uber is not revolutionary. It's evolutionary, right? It's mobile meets, you know, taxis at the end of the day, but it's how it was done.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 12:57 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Pritzker Group held one company for 14 years
“So we've got one deal, we're 14 years in, and we're still the only person, we're the only investor writing checks still to support the company.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 6:19 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Insight
McCall: Applying tech to ugly industries creates strong competitive barriers
“One is an ugly industry where someone is bringing technology in. It's a huge competitive advantage and barrier to entry because in those industries, you either have the domain expertise or you're a technologist, right? But very few people have both.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 11:29 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Insight
McCall: Most innovations combine evolutionary ideas rather than revolutionary breakthroughs
“Very few things are revolutionary Most things are two evolutionary things coming together.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 12:43 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCall: Venture capital is among the first asset classes to lose liquidity
“Venture being a very high risk asset class will be one of the first to lose liquidity.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 15:56 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCall: Millennial and female entrepreneurship will define the next 15 years
“So if there's one thing that in my life I want to do from this point forward is is, you know, to talk about the hero's journey, to talk about whatever wisdoms I have, but more importantly is to encourage this incredible batch of entrepreneurs coming through ri…”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 19:28 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Assertion Partly supported
McCall: Only 4% to 6% of venture-funded deals have female founders
“I think it's something like four to six percent, which, you know, pretty small.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 20:20 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: The Honest Company grew from zero to several hundred million in three years
“Jessica Alba at the honest company, right? Which has gone from zero to several hundred million in three years.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 20:45 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Pritzker Group invested in next-generation AI assistant Viv
“The other, another deal that we recently did it's coming called Viv, V-I-V. And it's next generation Siri. It's Dag and his team who were the founders of Siri.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 28:07 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Pritzker Group manages a $7 billion evergreen capital pool
“So we have, the advantage we have is with the Pritzke Group, we have a seven billion dollar evergreen pool of capital to invest off of.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 4:37 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Pritzker Group invested $60 million into SMS Assist
“So we've written up to sixty million dollars into a deal. One of my companies, SMS Assist we put fifteen million in. The company was doing well, needed another forty-five million, and we wrote the check.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 5:10 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McCall: Every reference during FeedBurner diligence praised Dick Costolo
“And when we were doing our diligence on on FeedBurner with Dick Koslow, what was interesting is every single person I talked to used the same quote. I'm in the Dick Koslow fan club.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 10:38 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Pritzker Group reduced check sizes to prepare for market correction
“So we've been actually kind of holding our dry powder. We've done some smaller checks in the last 18 months. We've done quite a number of deals, but smaller check sizes, but we're holding our dry powder because it's, it'll, there'll be some really exciting opp…”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 16:12 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Half of Pritzker Group's SoCal portfolio has female leadership
“I was looking at our Southern California portfolio. We opened up our West Coast office about three years ago. Half are deals. Half are either co-founded or led by female founders.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 20:26 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: HelloGiggles reached 15 million unique visitors with zero capital
“On no money, literally no money, they've gone from zero to fifteen million uniques.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 21:23 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Disclosure
McCall: Pritzker Group focuses on $4M–$10M Series A and B checks
“So our core investment focus is series A and B, and that's, you know, four to ten million dollars on the downstroke, but we have a very active seed program we use strategically. It you know, so that can be as little as two 50 or a 100,000, but really our core …”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 4:46 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall
Prediction Not checkable as stated
McCall: Pritzker Group targets a three-to-five-year holding period
“But our real target is, you know, kind of traditionally a three to five year old.”
Matthew McCall Mar 26, 2015 ▶ 6:27 20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Matthew McCall

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC 022: Letting go of the life we planned and the Power of the Female Narrative with Ma Mar 26, 2015 22m
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