Max Motschwiller

General Partner, Meritech Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

At Meritech Capital, which he joined in 2015, he helps lead the firm's consumer, fintech, and enterprise software investment practices. He previously spent three years at Kleiner Perkins working on investments in companies such as Duolingo, Dropcam, MyFitnessPal, and Uber.

15statements → 3claims → 2claims resolved → 3.8/5average certainty → 2.07/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 3said about them ↓

0 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 1 opinion · 10 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 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 Max 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? →

216 words/min while actually speaking · 0.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Max Motschwiller: 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 18 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 4,255 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Max Motschwiller 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 ▾ 4/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10

setup questions received 40%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 10:51“Can I be contrarian and say, in the growth world, and in the world of Silicon Valley, where kind of herd mentality exists, and kind of sometimes obvious winners are obvious at cert…” ▶ 20:33“Where do you sit on the value add of follow on funding and being able to provide that follow on funding? Some say it's crucial part of being a VC. Others say the best companies can…” ▶ 27:16“Is it that idea standpoint or is it as kind of Peter Fenton said on the show is this lack of free and open distribution in many cases, often with kind of distribution channels bein…”

when Max pushed back ▶ 27:36“It's a yes and a no.”

What they said15 What others said3 Episodes1

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

Insight

Motschwiller: Capital Gluttony Causes Startups to Lose Discipline and Focus

“There is a ton of capital in the system, and access to capital is a great thing in some respects, but to use a Rob Ward term, he frames it, there's capital gluttony. When there's too much capital, it can lead to deprioritization and defocus, Because you think …”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 31:23 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Operating experience can cause VCs to overestimate problem difficulty

“The flip side to that is you might understand that there's a problem that's so hard to solve, it was so hard for you to solve, that then you don't believe that This entrepreneur will solve it, and it might lead you to overestimate the difficult of that problem…”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 7:49 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Current Out-Execution Correlates Highest With Future VC Returns

“The highest correlation to a business that will be a great return and will continue to execute is one that is out executing in the current state.”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 14:08 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Opinion

Motschwiller: Consumer VC landscape in 2018 is harder with fewer upside opportunities

“Relative to other time periods, take when I joined Kleiner in 2012, this feels like a harder time to be investing in consumer and that there are fewer high quality and super high upside opportunities in consumer.”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 26:11 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Assertion Partly supported

Motschwiller: Series A rounds for top consumer decacorns occurred pre-2012

“You look at the series A Funding times of the consumer decacorns that are out there, the Ubers, the Lyfts, the Airbnbs, the Snaps, the Pinterest, the Spotifys, those series A's were all done pre-二零 12.”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 26:28 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Great VCs combine analytical rigor with thesis-driven art

“And so I think the marriage of both of those two is what makes a venture capitalist great.”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 4:55 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Disclosure

Motschwiller: Career VCs face limitations advising CEOs on managing large organizations

“There are certainly elements that are missed, and I feel most disadvantaged from when an operator is going through specific challenges, and they're mostly around people, right, where I haven't managed large organizations before, and so fully understanding the …”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 8:28 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Growth VC success depends on knowing when to pay up

“Often the brilliance of a growth investor is knowing where to really stretch and pay up on price. And when I say picking, that is really the element that I think is hard and unique.”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 11:39 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Junior VCs Fail by Neglecting Deep Co-Investor Relationships

“Where I think people get tripped up is they don't farm the bottom of the network and make sure that they develop what we call internally as best friends.”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 15:27 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Early conviction helps junior VCs win competitive deals

“Entrepreneurs want people who believe in their vision and have conviction around the same belief that they have. And if you To that entrepreneur. And instead of have them convince you go to them and you are already convinced and share that with them and offer …”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 19:04 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Executive recruitment and customer intros are VC's highest-leverage value-adds

“The two highest points of leverage that I find my entrepreneurs really love are, one, finding them great people, and that oftentimes means great Great executives as they're building out that team and scaling quickly and finding executives that can take them to…”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 19:55 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Max Motschwiller: Top founders need outside lead investors to validate market pricing

“They want, for the most part, want an outside lead to come and price the round, right? If they don't take this to market at all, they just have no sense for what market is. If all they do is listen to an offer from their insiders, they don't know if their insi…”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 23:46 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Prediction Partly held up

Max Motschwiller: Meritech Fund VI targeting $600M and 25 portfolio companies

“So we're in the process of raising our sixth fund, it'll be about six hundred million, and our view is to have roughly 25 portfolio companies in that fund, so not hugely concentrated, but we think the right balance is”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 24:49 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Max Motschwiller: Meritech reserves only 20-25% of funds for follow-on rounds

“Explicitly, we keep 20 to 25% of our fund captive for reserves, and that is definitely smaller than the average early stage venture firm, and because of what I mentioned before, we're just coming in at later stages such that there are fewer subsequent rounds a…”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 25:25 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

Insight

Motschwiller: Tracking Growth Startups Across Funding Rounds Builds Conviction

“One of the easiest ways to build conviction over time is to see the company in the round before. And as a later stage firm, oftentimes we'll see and look at an A round or B introduced. And it's very clearly around too early, but then they say, hey, our budget …”

Max Motschwiller Jun 25, 2018 ▶ 13:43 20VC: The 4 Key Skills All VCs Need To Be Successful, How To Build, Maintain and Scale Your Network in VC and What is The Process Through Which VCs Build Conviction in Opportunities with Max Motschwiller, General Partner @ Meritech Capital

The other half of the tape: Max Motschwiller'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 Phin Barnes 1 Miles Clements 1 Harry Stebbings 1