StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Paul Berberian

Chairman, Sphero · 1 appearance on the record.

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

executivefounderinvestor@pberberian ↗LinkedIn ↗sphero.com ↗

Paul Berberian is the Chairman and former longtime CEO of Sphero, which grew globally with smartphone-controlled robotics and toys like the Star Wars BB-8 droid. A former U.S. Air Force officer, he also co-founded Company Six, Market Force Information, and Raindance Communications.

15statements → 3claims → 1claims resolved → 4.2/5average certainty → 1.93/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 2said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 2 opinions · 6 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, 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 Paul 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
Berberian: Sphero completed six VC rounds culminating in a $52M round
“We raised our money a million dollars, and we had to get somewhere to show that we were worthy of getting another tranche of money, and that was our series B, which was five million, and then we had to do something with that to get our next Five million. Then …”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 15:41 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 4.8 · precision 4.3 · compression 3.8

redirected or did not address 1 of 12 assessed questions (8%). 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 · 8.2 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,907 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 ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 85%

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

Insight
Berberian: Direct-to-consumer hardware sales are primarily a US and UK phenomenon
“I mean, we're bullish on that because it's obviously better margin for us, but it's a U.S. Phenomenon primarily, and maybe a little bit in the U.K. In other markets, it's still very much brick and mortar, and so you have to take an omni-channel approach.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 11:03 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Insight
Berberian: Arguing during board meetings signals CEO pre-meeting communication failure
“If you are arguing with your board in the middle of the board meeting, you need a mental, you know, some little light needs to go off saying you're doing something wrong.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 12:14 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Opinion
Berberian: 70% of VCs hedge in 'maybe' category without answering
“Seven out of 10 of them won't give you a response. They'll always go into the maybe category and hedge their bets.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 17:58 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Opinion
Berberian: Most venture capitalists lack a real hardware thesis and are dabbling
“They're not really strong thesis around, you know, hardware being transformed. And it's, you know, it's now this software enabled experience and the economics of manufacturing are significantly different than they were 20 years ago. There's very few VCs that a…”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 19:18 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Insight
Berberian: Constantly adding features drives execution teams crazy before shipping
“As I look at my leadership style, that intense focus on trying to add more and more stuff to the product can drive your team crazy, because they're just trying to get the basic Thing out the door.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 6:04 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Insight
Berberian: Retail hardware deadlines force product focus better than software timelines
“When you launch software, you can kind of fudge your release date, because you're always updating it. When you sell into retail, they say, okay, we're going to launch you on You know, October, so you have to back everything up from that date, and having extern…”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 9:38 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Insight
Berberian: CEOs should never present surprising information during board meetings
“The way to keep a happy board is to never surprise them. Always get in front of them. When you go to the board meeting, there shouldn't be any information that's presented where they're going to look at and go, what the hell is this?”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 12:59 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Disclosure
Berberian: Sphero uses Voxer for asynchronous board communication between meetings
“Another thing is that I've been doing with this company is I've been using a tool called Voxer, and we're doing a bunch of asynchronous communications where we can leave like these walkie-talkie messages for each other. So that we can have an ongoing dialogue …”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 13:52 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Insight
Berberian: Broad 'shotgun' pitching to 20 VCs inevitably yields 20 rejections
“It's always better to use a rifle than a shotgun. Every time I've gone out and tried to meet with, you know, 20 investors, inevitably I will get 20 no's.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 17:07 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Berberian: Traditional plastic toys will evolve into robotic entertainment experiences
“And I think you're going to see toys really transform from the plastic by the pound into some really amazing robotic entertainment experiences.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 23:54 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Disclosure
Berberian: Sphero had only $1M in the bank ahead of CES 2011
“We only had about a million dollars in the bank.”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 7:42 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Disclosure
Berberian: Sphero expanded direct-to-consumer sales from 10% to 25%
“We started off maybe having 10%, you know, direct to consumer and that's, I'd consider sites like Amazon, More direct to consumer than a, you know, brick and mortar traditional retail. That's now shift to closer to 25% in the last couple of years, and last yea…”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 10:40 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Assertion Supported
Berberian: Sphero completed six VC rounds culminating in a $52M round
“We raised our money a million dollars, and we had to get somewhere to show that we were worthy of getting another tranche of money, and that was our series B, which was five million, and then we had to do something with that to get our next Five million. Then …”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 15:41 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Disclosure
Berberian: Contacted 20 VCs for Sphero without getting a face-to-face meeting
“I remember early on, like, it was our Series B or Series C. I couldn't even get a face-to-face meeting. We, I talked to 20 VCs. I have a spreadsheet. I could get a phone call, but I couldn't get a face-to-face meeting, and I remember Brad saying, says, you hav…”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 18:40 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Berberian: 2014 Disney Accelerator gave Sphero warp drive growth
“And then they ran a second program with Disney Accelerator in 2014. Going through that and the exposure we got into the Walt Disney Company has transformed the business. I mean, it, the accelerator doesn't, you know, put us, it gave us, you know, warp drive. T…”
Paul Berberian Aug 19, 2016 ▶ 21:08 20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Key To Progress with Paul Berberian @ Sphero

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

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 2

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011222016episodesmentions
0122016episodes it came up in
000.51122016episodesmentions per episode
2016 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: How Entrepreneurs Should Manage Their Board & Why Time Constraints Are Always The Ke Aug 19, 2016 17m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more