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Mo Koyfman

Founder & General Partner, Shine Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounderexecutive@mokoyfman ↗LinkedIn ↗shine.vc ↗Wikipedia ↗

Koyfman founded the early-stage venture firm Shine Capital in 2020 following an executive career at IAC and over seven years as a General Partner at Spark Capital. As an early-stage venture and angel investor, he is known for backing companies such as Plaid, Warby Parker, Skillshare, and Coinbase.

19statements → 7claims → 3claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 4.11/5average certainty → 2.26/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 1said about them ↓

1 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 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 Mo 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
Bijan Sabet's Twitter Series B Catapulted Spark Capital Into Top Tier
“As I was joining Spark, Bijan Sabat at Spark led Twitter series B and that investment catapulted us into the upper echelon of VC firms.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 6:25 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
75% certainty 4
50% 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? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.7 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.1 · compression 3.7

redirected or did not address 1 of 28 assessed questions (4%). Watch them ▸

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? →

227 words/min while actually speaking · 22.4 um and uh per 1k words · 11.1 false starts per 1k · 25.4% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 9,022 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 ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 70%

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

Opinion
VCs Who Claim to Always Exercise Pro-Rata Rights Are Lying
“Anybody that says they do pro rata always, I think, is lying. I just, I don't believe that to be the case, and I've seen enough, I've been in venture long enough to know that that's total bullshit.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 28:08 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Larger Early-Stage Venture Funds Consistently Yield Lower Returns Over Time
“Larger early stage funds always lead to lesser returns over time.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 18:11 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Investors Prefer Re-Backing Founders Who Shut Down Failing Startups Gracefully
“The investors are That are in your cap table today are infinitely more likely to back you again, watching you make that kind of mature decision as an entrepreneur, rather than watching you piss that money down the drain over the next two years, and actually, i…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 32:17 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
The VC Industry Faces a Reckoning With Many Firms Shutting Down
“I think there will be a lot of folks that go away in this cycle. I watched it in the last go round. You know, Spark and USV and all these firms didn't exist before the last cycle. And they really made their names coming out of the O eight crisis. And on the ot…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 58:52 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Bijan Sabet's Twitter Series B Catapulted Spark Capital Into Top Tier
“As I was joining Spark, Bijan Sabat at Spark led Twitter series B and that investment catapulted us into the upper echelon of VC firms.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 6:25 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Durable VC Firms Require Clear Leadership Rather Than Equal Partnerships
“And while both can certainly work and there are certain, and there are notable exceptions here, like union square ventures, for instance, which works very well as a partnership structure, the more durable firms in my experience often have very clear leadership…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 9:51 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Learning Lessons From Venture Successes Is Extremely Dangerous Due to Bias
“I've actually found that learning lessons from successes is extremely dangerous because of the risk of confirmation bias. We will convince ourselves Of whatever we want to convince ourselves is the proximal cause of the success, you know, because it was succes…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 48:54 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Five-Year Employee Retention at Giant Multi-Stage VC Firms Is Zero
“These are people, these are businesses with hundreds of people working there. The odds that all of those same people are going to be there in five years are zero.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 52:45 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Giant VC Funds Cannot Be Deeply Invested in Seed Startups
“When you take money from a very big firm, definitionally at the early stage, definitionally, they can only be so invested in your success because it is a tiny amount of overall capital for the firm.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 53:09 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Excess Venture Capital Creates Bad Habits and Dampens Returns
“I think we should have fewer investors and some less capital in the system. I think we've pumped too much capital into the system and it's created a lot of bad habits. And I think it's going to dampen returns, frankly.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 57:50 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Barry Diller Used Vivendi Cash to Roll Up Depressed Web 1.0 Assets
“We were flush with cash after the Vivendi universal entertainment transaction, and Barry decided to scoop up internet assets that had fallen out of favor. It was an incredibly prescient decision, and we ended up consolidating massive web one dot O categories t…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 4:47 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Mo Koyfman Led Plaid's Seed Round and Was First Outside Director
“I led the seed round in Plaid and joined the founders, William and Zach, as their first outside board member.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 6:48 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Barry Diller Ran Eight-Hour 'Dynamic Debate' Meetings at IAC
“And when I was at IAC, Barry used to call our Monday meetings, our office of the chairman meetings, the dynamic debate. And we would sometimes sit in there for eight hours yelling at each other and screaming at each other to get to the right answer.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 13:37 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Shine Capital Reserves Follow-On Capital per Fund, Not per Company
“We don't actually reserve per company when we do a deal at all. I actually reserve a bucket for the entire fund”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 25:57 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Shine Capital Targets 10% Ownership Rather Than the Traditional 20%
“We're always looking to be pigs. Like we are trying to get double digit ownership where we can, and we will do a little bit less here and there. Like we're, we will sometimes build our way into positions. We'll buy five or six percent and then buy a little mor…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 41:58 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Dara Khosrowshahi and Jeremy Liew Ran IAC's Strategy Team in 2001
“I joined the strategic planning team who, interestingly enough, we were just talking about this, was then being run by Dara Khosrowshahi, who's now the current CEO of Uber, who hired me into IAC, as well as a guy named Jeremy Liu, who you may also know who led…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 4:11 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Shine Capital Manages $435 Million Across Core and Opportunity Funds
“We manage about four hundred and thirty five million dollars or so. Our first fund was a hundred and twenty five million dollar early stage fund. Our second fund is a two hundred million dollar early stage fund, and we have a hundred million dollar opportuniti…”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 19:43 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Shine Capital Writes $1.5M-$3M Seed and $6M-$8M Series A Checks
“We're typically writing for a seed, call it one and a half to three million dollars to lead around and for an A, six to eight million dollars to lead around, and if we really push it, we could probably go up to 10.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 20:55 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Shine Capital Limits Portfolio Size to 25 Companies per Fund
“We're not investing in a hundred companies. We're investing in, you know, 25 per fund.”
Mo Koyfman Aug 8, 2022 ▶ 37:09 Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20VC #915 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

The other half of the tape: Mo Koyfman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Peter Rojas 1

Every mention by year

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2015 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Mo Koyfman: The Secret to Winning in Venture; Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds | 20V Aug 8, 2022 47m
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