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Max Simkoff

Founder & CEO, Doma · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveinvestor

Max Simkoff is the founder and CEO of Doma, formerly States Title, an insurtech and proptech company automating title insurance and escrow closings. He took the company public via SPAC in 2021 prior to its acquisition by TRG.

6statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.17/5average certainty → 2.5/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 3said about them ↓

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

1 prediction · 1 assertion · 3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion 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 Max 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

Assertion Supported
Simkoff: States Title became the eighth-largest US title business in five years
“We're only four or five years old now, but have already become the eighth largest title in closing business in the United States, and well on our way to becoming number one.”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 4:15 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World

How they sound: speaking style how? →

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

No argument clarity score for Max Simkoff: 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 8 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 2,151 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Max Simkoff 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 ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host 3/10
setup questions received 80%

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

Insight
Max Simkoff: Admitting Uncertainty to Staff is Comforting During Crises
“In times of crisis, people like to assume that leaders Have a very specific strategy and they've mapped everything out and they know what to do. And the reality is like, we're just winging it. And sometimes when you tell people that that's what you're doing, t…”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 22:39 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World
Assertion Supported
Simkoff: States Title became the eighth-largest US title business in five years
“We're only four or five years old now, but have already become the eighth largest title in closing business in the United States, and well on our way to becoming number one.”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 4:15 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World
Insight
Simkoff: Naivete is a founder's most dangerously powerful skill
“The more you know about an industry, the more reasons you have not to start a company or grow a business, right? It's too hard. Did you like understand the competitive landscape? I don't know if you remember this conversation, but we talked about how like naiv…”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 6:11 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World
Insight
Simkoff: VCs resist specialization because they hate extinguishing option value
“The one thing VCs hate is extinguishing option value. So, like, when you're in a meeting with them, you're like, what's your typical investment size? Well, we do Series B and C. You're like, oh, we're looking for And they're like, oh, we do seed investments to…”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 6:51 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Simkoff: The Bay Area will grow stronger despite recent tech exodus
“This area is going to only get stronger as a result of the dynamic change that's going through.”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 12:31 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World
Disclosure
Simkoff: Lennar became States Title's largest shareholder after selling them a business
“Our largest single shareholder, still a minority shareholder, but the largest shareholder on our cap table is Lenar, who Fifth Wall introduced us to, and they became our largest shareholder because we bought their legacy title business, which gave us a ton of …”
Max Simkoff Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 29:32 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World

The other half of the tape: Max Simkoff's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Roy Bahat 2

Statements about Max Simkoff, by other people (1)

Disclosure
Wallace: States Title bought an entire business unit from a corporate LP
“Our idea was our corporates would just buy the products of the tech companies we were investing in. We didn't contemplate that our startups would be buying entire businesses from our corporates, which is precisely what Max did.”
Brendan Wallace Feb 18, 2021 ▶ 8:33 20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and What Can Be Done To Solve It, The Pros and Cons of Working with Corporate Investors and How Leading Their Teams Has Fundamentally Changed in a COVID World

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0112019episodes it came up in
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2019 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC Special: The Real Estate Fintech OGs on Why This Is Not The End For The Bay Area and Feb 18, 2021 8m
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