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Maynard Webb

Founder, Webb Investment Network · 1 appearance on the record.

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

executiveinvestorfounderauthor@maynard ↗LinkedIn ↗maynardwebb.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Maynard Webb is a veteran technology executive who previously served as Chief Operating Officer of eBay, CEO and Chairman of LiveOps, and Chairman of the Board of Yahoo! He is the founder of Webb Investment Network, co-founder of Everwise, and the author of Rebooting Work and Dear Founder.

17statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 3.88/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 6said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 1 opinion · 8 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 3 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 Maynard 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
Webb: Seed round valuation caps were around $5 million in 2010
“When I started in 2010 doing Web Investment Network, a cap on a seed around it was more like a five, and today that's higher than that.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 8:39 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise

How they sound: speaking style how? →

223 words/min while actually speaking · 1.7 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Maynard Webb: 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 23 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 4,163 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Maynard Webb 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 ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 60%

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

Insight
Webb: Founders should delay creating formal boards until required by investors
“I wouldn't have a board until I was required to have one, because I had to raise enough outside comfortable that they would not give it to me until it came with a board seat.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 20:43 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: Startups adding VC board members must also add independent directors
“Always if you add a VC partner. Make sure you have an independent with you, whether that's on top of the co-founder or not.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 21:01 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: Expecting strong work-life balance as a CEO is impractical
“The top jobs require lots of energy and time, and that doesn't mean you can't find moments and have a great family, and I want you to do that, but it's really hard. So I think people that dream about having the best jobs in the world and the best work-life bal…”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 29:55 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: External rockstars often make worse hires than internal stretch candidates
“Some of my worst hires were when I went outside to get the Rockstar that had done the job way before, but they didn't want to do it again. And some of my best hires were when I gave my internal team a chance, and they stepped up in a big way”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 14:50 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: eBay required opposing white and black hat deal presentations for boards
“One of the things we did at eBay is we would have, you know, one of the things you worry about is deals get momentum and get excitement, and everybody gets aligned around that. And sometimes you're not willing to actually do the parade of horribles about what …”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 19:30 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: A lack of market competition usually signals an unimportant problem
“If you don't have any competition, you're probably working on something that you actually, either you're so smart that no one else can figure out how to do and the world needs, or more likely, no one thinks they need it, and you might not be working on somethi…”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 25:12 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Webb: Mega-funds and angel capital allow VCs to wait for proven startups
“There's a lot more money in the market today, both at the low end, which frankly makes it even easier for the VCs who used to have to do more of their funding. They're able to see things that are more Proven out by the time they actually deploy big bucks, but …”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 5:37 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Webb: The 2018 venture capital market is less frothy than 2000
“I don't think it's nearly as frothy as what I saw in the 2000.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 6:48 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: High-quality startups take over ten years to reach an IPO
“The good ones all take generally over 10 years to get to a liquidity event if it's going public”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 7:44 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Disclosure
Webb: Maynard Webb invests $5M to $7M of personal capital annually
“I'm investing five to seven million a year, which is a lot of my personal money, and so I'm very selective in going deeper into later rounds.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 10:40 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Opinion
Webb: Marc Benioff is uniquely talented at executive recruitment and retention
“I think Mark Benioff is one of the best at finding and keeping talent. He knows everybody in the industry, and he knows for every slot he's got. Who are the three others if they're not? First of all, there's a lot of growth from within companies. But if they'r…”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 13:27 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Webb: Meg Whitman hired executive talent before eBay explicitly needed them
“Meg used to go hire people before we needed him, because she knew we were going to scale into needing them. By the way, I used to think that was crazy, and then I fell in love with it, because they all got gobbled up within three to six months, end of Meaningf…”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 13:52 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Insight
Webb: Board members should operate on an 80/20 listening-to-talking ratio
“As a board member, you probably need to be 2080, talk 20% of the time, and listen 80% of the time, but you need to make sure your talk percentage is impactful.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 23:47 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Assertion Supported
Webb: Seed round valuation caps were around $5 million in 2010
“When I started in 2010 doing Web Investment Network, a cap on a seed around it was more like a five, and today that's higher than that.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 8:39 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Assertion Partly supported
Webb: eBay grew from 300 to 14,000 employees during his tenure
“When I joined eBay, I think we had 300 people. When I left, we had 14,000.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 14:40 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Disclosure
Webb: eBay evaluated the Skype acquisition using a waterline risk framework
“When we were looking to buy Skype at eBay, we used that analogy to say, okay, if it doesn't work, is it going to hit us above the waterline where it's going to be ugly and we're going to have to fix it, but it's fixable? Or is it going to hit us below the wate…”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 18:52 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise
Disclosure
Webb: Everwise ran mock quarterly board meetings before forming an official board
“I did that at Everwise. We did our quarter board meetings, but we didn't actually have a board trying to teach how we would behave when we did have a formal board.”
Maynard Webb Sep 28, 2018 ▶ 22:14 20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to Work & How To Optimise Strategic Thinking on Boards with Maynard Webb, Founder @ Webb Investment Network & Everwise

The other half of the tape: Maynard Webb's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 6 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Eddy Lu 4Harry Stebbings 2

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: How The Best Founders Approach Bet The Company Decisions, How to Put Your Board to W Sep 28, 2018 19m
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