Naval Ravikant
Co-founder and Chairman, AngelList · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
founderinvestorauthorexecutive@naval ↗nav.al ↗Wikipedia ↗
Naval Ravikant co-founded AngelList in 2010 following earlier ventures Epinions and Vast.com, becoming an angel investor with early bets on Twitter and Uber. His aphorisms and essays on wealth creation and decision-making formed the basis of the compilation The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
20statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 3.7/5average certainty → 2.6/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 108said about them ↓
2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 2 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
2 predictions · 3 assertions · 4 opinions · 7 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 2 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 Naval 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
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? →
4.5 / 5
directness 4.7 · coherence 4.8 ·
precision 4.3 · compression 4.1
redirected or did not address 1 of 21 assessed questions (5%). 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? →
256 words/min while actually speaking · 12.8 um and uh per 1k words
Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,309 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
setup questions received 75%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 5:28“And he said that most seed funds aren't actually seed funds. They're Series A funds with a small allocation of capital for the seed financing to give them the optionality to do fol…” ▶ 17:37“Are there any elements of such a swift transition in terms of adoption rate that's probably never seen before in terms of technological adoption that concern you with the likes of …”
Everything Naval Ravikant said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Naval Ravikant: Sand Hill Road Series A firms actually invest at Series B/C
“And the Sand Hill Road investors stopped doing this, and even though they called themselves As being in a series A business, they really aren't probably in a series B or the series C.”
Naval Ravikant: Drones will replace every weapon system on the planet
“I think drones are going to replace every single weapon system on the planet. They're going to replace Everything from aircraft carriers to airplanes, to infantrymen, soldiers. Once drones get small enough and effective enough, no other form of character will …”
Naval Ravikant: Venture funds above $20M inevitably bleed into Series A
“The moment a fund is managing more than 10 or twenty million dollars in capital, it's unlikely that it's purely in the seed business. It's at least bleeding into the series A business.”
Naval Ravikant: Y Combinator is likely the most successful venture investor
“If you look at the, probably the single most successful venture investor in on the planet right now is Y Combinator, and they have an incredibly broad portfolio, thousands upon thousands of companies, but they're very, very early.”
Naval Ravikant: Good founders unbundle venture capital advice, control, and capital
“Venture is a bundle of advice, control, and money, and good entrepreneurs unbundle those things and kind of purchase what they need at market rates.”
Naval Ravikant: Founders should prioritize control over maximum valuation
“So I would rather take a low valuation and keep control in terms of board control and control of protective provisions, rather than vice versa, just maximize the valuation, but give up control.”
Naval Ravikant: VCs earn high fees because money is a commodity
“So VCs get paid really well because they're selling a commodity at its core, and that commodity is money. So they have to add on advice and brand, and those advice and brand become really important.”
Naval Ravikant: VC brands are unbundling from firms to individual partners
“And as part of that, what's happening is that brands are unbundling. They're unbundling from the firm level to the individual level.”
Naval Ravikant: Cryptocurrencies will replace extraneous financial infrastructure
“If you look at how Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are going to play out, they'll probably do away with a lot of the extraneous financial infrastructure that we have.”
Naval Ravikant rejects five-year strategic plans due to rapid tech changes
“I don't believe in five year plans or grand master strategic visions because I think the world just changes too quickly these days.”
Naval Ravikant: VCs should offer explicit SLAs and clear pricing online
“I'd love to see venture capitalists provide an SLA, a service level agreement, put their principles and values directly online, concretely, talk about control versus not control, what valuations that they offer, et cetera. I'd like them to sell and price their…”
Naval Ravikant: Protocol innovation is moving from VC startups to blockchains
“I think a lot of the protocol level innovation is moving away from venture backed startups and moving into blockchain based protocols.”
Naval Ravikant: VCs should not make a living arbitraging information
“And it seemed odd to me that in day and age of free information and the internet that you could still make a living by essentially arbitraging information. And that just didn't seem right to me.”
Naval Ravikant: Investors cannot make money on uncapped convertible notes
“So, for example, some entrepreneurs have gotten very good at raising uncapped notes, but you can't make money on that.”
Naval Ravikant: Talent platform is AngelList's largest business unit
“And then I think the final one is, which came out a little bit in some of your questions, is that Angelus is mainly about fundraising, but the reality is that our talent platform is probably the biggest piece of what we do today.”
Naval Ravikant: Hit Forge made 120 investments and produced multiple unicorns
“In my hit forge, which was the name of my little fund that I ran for a while, I did a lot of investments. I probably did about a 120 investments, but in that group, you know, I've got at least three, maybe five so-called unicorns.”
Naval Ravikant: AngelList processed 1,200 deals and raised hundreds of millions
“We have now run about 1200 deals through the AngelList platform, raised hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars for entrepreneurs”
Naval Ravikant: AngelList began as a free community service without a business model
“So Nivi and I basically decided to take venture hacks and use that as a launching platform and basically start distributing deal flow for free to all of our high quality investor friends. And there was no grand plan or business model in mind. It was more of a …”
The other half of the tape: Naval Ravikant's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 103 times in 43 episodes on 20VC. 5 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 43Matt Mochary 10Brian Norgard 8Sahil Lavingia 6Avlok Kohli 6Tyler Willis 4Shervin Pishevar 3Jude Gomila 3
Statements about Naval Ravikant, by other people (5)
Pishevar: Benchmark Hired Private Investigators Against Naval Ravikant
“There's a history of VCs who have done this type of thing and in Benchmark's case, they did it against Naval. They hired private investigators and Naval Ravikant. He had a company called eGroups, and he got thrown out of it.”
Marini: Angels must make 30 investments before they know what they're doing
“If you're serious about becoming an angel investor, you're going to need to do probably 30 investments before you really know what you're doing.”
Destin: Naval Ravikant Created AngelList to Decouple VC Capital From Advice
“AngelList, the original vision of AngelList, because Naval hates VCs, was why don't I separate the skill set here between people who are good at investing and people who would be good advisors, and I'll break it open through a network.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2025 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2023 4 mentions in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Breaking News: Ankur Nagpal Raises $70M for Vibe Capital, What The Next Decade For Venture Will Look Like, Do VCs Actually Add Any Value & Pre-Emptive Rounds, When To Take Them and When To Reject Them
- 20VC: Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg on The First Signs of an Impending Bust, What Happens with a Market Crash, How Do Public Markets Impact Private Valuations & The Biggest Lessons from 20 Years Investing in Venture
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 31 mentions in 7 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: Matt Mochary, Coach To Silicon Valley's Leading VCs & Founders on How To Deal with Imposter Syndrome and Self-Doubt, How To Manage Fear and Anger & Why Board Seats Are The Death of Investors
- 20VC: Sahil Lavingia on Rolling Funds and Their Impact on The Future of Venture, How To Evaluate Market, Team and Product, The Value of Party Rounds & The Pros and Cons of Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed
- 20VC: Lessons from 150 Angel Investments into the likes of Carta, Gusto, Airtable and Superhuman, Creating Algorithms and Models For Investing At Seed & Why Younger Investors Have An Advantage When It Comes To Finding Deals Early with Jude Gomila, Angel I
- 20VC: Why the Theory of Pro-Rata is Often False, How Rolling Funds Impact Both Pricing and Competition & The Biggest Lessons from Working with Jack Dorsey with Avlok Kohli, CEO @ AngelList Venture
- 20VC: Cyan Banister on Her Relationship To Money, Risk, Her Investment Decision-Making Process, Why We Will See A Reckoning in the Early Stage Market, Her Biggest Takeaways from HQ Trivia & The Future of Silicon Valley
- 20VC: Craft Ventures' David Sacks on How To Assess Founder Psychology, How To Accurately Evaluate CAC, Burn and Churn & What Makes The Very Best Startup Boards
- 20VC: Notion's Fundraise with Index: The Most Anticipated Deal in The Valley: How It Came To Be | The Future of Remote Work |How Notion Approach The Balance of Growth and Profitability
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 18 mentions in 9 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Former Tinder CPO Brian Norgard on His Biggest Product Takeaways from Launching the Top Grossing App in the World, The Top 10 Reasons Why Products Fail Today & How The Best Founders Assess Risk and Use It
- 20VC: Ash Fontana on The 5 Core Characteristics That Make Data Valuable, What VCs Can Learn From Italian Craftsmen and Howard Marks & The Importance of Vertical Integration In Scaling Today
- 20VC: Why Portfolio Construction Is Inefficient, Why The Only Thing That Matters In Venture Is Pricing & The Future of Venture; Bundled or Unbundled with Zach Coelius
- 20VC: Mercury Founder Immad Akhund on Why Angel Investing Makes Founders Better Operators, The Right Way For Founders To Discuss and Present Competition To Investors & How To Think About Your Initial Wedge Into The Market and How It Expands Over Time
- 20VC: Clearbit Founder Alex MacCaw on How To Successfully Negotiate with Investors, What Value-Add Do VCs Really Bring & Why You Should Only Have Operators on Your Board
- 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital
- 20VC: Why You Must Have A Customer Acquisition Strategy From Day 1, How To Test and Validate Ideas At Speed & Why You Should Speak To Investors Before Starting Work On Your Idea with Kulveer Taggar, Founder @ CEO @ Zeus Living
- 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2019 →
2018 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Phil Libin on Why The Concept of A Silicon Valley Style Startup Is Made To Benefit VCs, Why The Very Structure of Companies Is Outdated and Inefficient & What It Means To Build The Netflix of Product
- 20VC: The Commonalities In The Makings Of Truly Great People, How Silicon Valley Will Become The Home For Crypto and Frontier Tech Once Again & Why Games Are Such A Good Tool To Understand Human Motivation with Daniel Gross, Founder & Pioneer, Head of AI
- 20VC: Why Partners Are There To Save Each Other From Themselves, Why Effective Reserve Allocation Is The Hardest Question In Venture & What Makes The Truly Special Board Members with Jeff Fagnan, Founding Partner @ Accomplice
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 9 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: YC's Daniel Gross on How YC Can Democratise AI & Reduce Incumbency Advantages, Why ML Enabled Software Will Eat The Software That Ate The World & Whether AI Will Produce Independent Companies or Be Technology within Incumbents
- 20VC: Why We Will See A Big Series B Crunch? Why Proprietary Data Pools & AI Talent Will Be The New Limited Natural Resources? Why Now Is The Closest Thing To A New Normal with Tim Chang, Managing Director @ Mayfield Fund
- 20VC: If You Do Not Like VCs, You Have Not Worked With a Good One, How Andreesen Have Added The Same Level of Value As A Co-Founder, Why Market Is The First Thing To Consider When Angel Investing & Why Series A Is A Hiring Decision with Roger Dickey, Foun
- 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC"
- 20VC: Elad Gil on Becoming One of Silicon Valleys Top Angels, Why Most People Get Market Sizing Wrong & Should VC Services Always Be Bundled Together?
- 20VC: Kevin Rose on Putting The Entire Fund Into Uber, The Future For Mobile & Whether Angels Should Have Super Pro-Rata Rights?
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 26 mentions in 10 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
- 20VC: Investing Lessons From Fred Wilson & Brad Feld and Why Fundraising Is An Art & Not Everyone Can Be An Artist with Howard Lindzon Founder @ Stocktwits & Managing Partner @ Social Leverage
- 20VC: Tyler Willis on How To Be Innovative With Customer Acquisition and The Future Of Innovation
- 20VC: 500 Startups' Dave McClure on Whether Unicorns Are Necessary For Venture Returns & Why Ownership Is Not The Math To Think About When Investing
- 20VC: Why The Whole Industry Is Backward Looking, The Best Funds Are Entrepreneur Led and Venture Is All About Access with Alex Bangash, Founder @ Trusted Insight
- Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies
- 20VC: AngelList's Parker Thompson on How He Evaluates Startup Founders & Why The Move To Series A Is Harder Than Ever?
- 20VC: a16z's Balaji Srinivasan on Why There Is A Financial Incentive For Truth In VC & Why The Best VCs Invest In Founder To Make Them Richer Than Themselves
- 2 more episodes that year, every mention in 2016 →
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 20VC: AngelList's Naval Ravikant on The Secrets To Success At Seed, Why Micro VC Is The Re | Apr 10, 2017 | 18m |