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Neil Young

CEO & Managing Partner, edenic · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderexecutiveinvestor@ncyoung ↗n3twork.com ↗

Neil Young is a veteran game industry executive who oversaw major franchises including The Sims 2 and Medal of Honor at Electronic Arts. He later co-founded early iOS mobile games company ngmoco and established gaming company N3TWORK.

16statements → 3claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.88/5average certainty → 2.31/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

2 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 assertions · 4 opinions · 8 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved. 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 Neil 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
Neil Young: Japanese mobile gaming led Western markets in LTV metrics
“The way the Japanese mobile market had developed, it really led the Western market in terms of audience engagement and monetization. And these ideas of LTV versus CAC, Were particularly mature in that market”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 19:13 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork

How they sound: speaking style how? →

205 words/min while actually speaking · 5.8 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Neil Young: 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 13 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 3,969 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Neil Young 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 ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 55%

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

Opinion
Neil Young: VCs who slow roll founders waste time and lose deals
“I would most like to see VCs respecting the time of entrepreneurs. I can tell you that when I go spend time talking to a VC, there's three types of interaction I have. There's one interaction, which is like very exciting. Holy shit. We have to work together. T…”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 25:36 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Opinion
Neil Young: Mike Maples provides pragmatic 'lizard brain' clarity on boards
“If Bing is the wizard brain, Mike is the lizard brain, or as probably he would like to be the thunder lizard brain, but the lizard brain in that Mike very expertly states the obvious. His instincts about what you should do at any given point in time are not pa…”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 21:29 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Opinion
Neil Young: Consumer VR suffered from overhyped short-term expectations
“I think early stage consumer VR has been suffering from that now for the last couple of years, and in the long run, VR may be a very, very powerful platform, but it may not quite fulfill the potential that those early stage Contributors and developers thought …”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 8:19 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: Lack of open distribution stifles long-term platform innovation
“I think the fact that we don't have free and open distribution in the long term stifles the rate of change.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 9:46 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: Relying solely on organic virality cannot yield a predictable business
“It's very difficult for me to imagine building a business with any predictability that relies on, as its sort of core premise, the idea of making things that are popular and viral solely.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 11:19 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: Paid user acquisition is mandatory for crowded app marketplaces
“My sense is that today, paid is the number one thing that you need to think about, especially if you're operating in a very dense or crowded marketplace like the app stores.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 12:16 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Disclosure
Neil Young: ngmoco sold after hitting a peak valuation multiple
“We reached a point where we felt like the valuation that we could get for the company at that particular moment was at its peak, at least for the short term. This apex evaluation that it would be difficult for us to get back up to again on a multiple basis for…”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 17:29 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: CEOs are likely wrong when trusted board members disagree
“If you've got a group of people that you believe in, and that you trust, and they're giving you advice in a vector that is different than the vector you're pursuing, you're actually more likely to be wrong than you are to be right.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 23:42 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: Mass market adoption requires capturing a hardcore audience first
“The path to the mass market goes through the hardcore, and so every audience that Has a hardcore, and it's something that you need to find and understand and cultivate and deliver a product to, because it gives you this sort of authentic foundation upon which …”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 6:16 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: IP natural audience size dictates product performance ceilings
“Everything ultimately has a natural audience. So if you had two teams or two game teams, one game team is working on a game based on Star Wars, and another is working on a game based on Babylon five. They're both exactly the same team, exactly the same game. T…”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 6:52 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: Evaluating platform shifts requires assessing timing and changed user behavior
“And so with each shift in platform, you need to ask yourself a couple of Really simple questions is, one, when will it be real? And two, what user behavior has changed, and how do I leverage that?”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 8:58 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Assertion Supported
Neil Young: Japanese mobile gaming led Western markets in LTV metrics
“The way the Japanese mobile market had developed, it really led the Western market in terms of audience engagement and monetization. And these ideas of LTV versus CAC, Were particularly mature in that market”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 19:13 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Insight
Neil Young: Boards should consist of complementary intelligences without overlap
“When you're assembling a board, the thing that you want around the table are a set of complementary intelligences. So what you'd want to try to avoid is too much overlap in terms of their ability to help, help guide you.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 20:35 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Assertion Supported
Retail video games cost $5M to $100M to develop at EA
“Those games cost anywhere from five to a hundred million dollars to make.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 14:05 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Assertion Partly supported
Neil Young: 55% of Tencent's revenues come from games
“People often forget that 55% of Tencent's revenues come from games.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 27:12 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork
Opinion
Neil Young names Churchill's World War II as his top leadership book
“World War II by Winston Churchill. Best book I've ever read. It gives you intimate insight into how leaders make decisions at points of great stress.”
Neil Young Jan 26, 2018 ▶ 24:15 20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Distribution & The Right Way To Think About Board Composition with Neil Young, Founder & CEO @ N3twork

The other half of the tape: Neil Young's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Bing Gordon 3Harry Stebbings 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: How To Analyse Platform Shifts Effectively, The Effects Of Not Having Free and Open Jan 26, 2018 20m
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