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Peter Pham

Co-Founder, Science · 1 appearance on the record.

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

Peter Pham is a Co-Founder at Science, a startup studio that incubates companies. Previously, he helped portfolio companies raise over $350 million in funding.

15statements → 4claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 4.07/5average certainty → 2.27/5average debate potential → 4.1/5argument clarity · the sources → 14said about them ↓

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

4 assertions · 2 opinions · 8 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 1 names 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 Peter 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
Series A and B venture capitalists complete only two to three deals yearly
“If you think about an A round investor or B round investor, right, they're doing three deals a year, tops, maybe four, but really two or three.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 11:20 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
100% certainty 4
75% 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? →

4.1 / 5 directness 4.6 · coherence 3.9 · precision 3.9 · compression 3.4

answered every one of 10 assessed questions directly

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? →

264 words/min while actually speaking · 13.4 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 5,215 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 Peter Pham said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
When a VC says they couldn't convince their partners, it is a lie
“The cop-out of every GP and every partner is always the, well, I love the deal, but I couldn't get my partners. No, that's actually a lie. They didn't have the conviction. They, they're using that for optionality for later, right?”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 13:05 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
If a VC doesn't engage within 24 hours, they aren't genuinely interested
“I have a general rule I call the 24 hour rule which is in any, is there any engagement with you inside of 24 hours? And I might expand that to like 36, but generally 24 hours. And I'd even consider a favorite of a tweet an engagement. Right? It's something. Di…”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 12:14 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Opinion
Fundraising is structurally stacked against founders because VCs default to no
“I think it's unfair, I think, in the battle of entrepreneurs, the VCs to get money in the sense that a VC has been doing this for years, right? They're getting a couple pitches a day, years, and so their default answer is a no.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 6:57 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Disclosure
Science Inc. endured 3,000 rejections to raise $350M and build Dollar Shave Club
“At this point, I think I'm at 3000 plus no's. Right. And you know, what counts is the 83 yeses that we've had, and three hundred and fifty million raised against the portfolio, and now, of course, the Dollar Shave Club billion-dollar exit.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 7:49 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
VCs judge startups in hours, while studios evaluate founders over months
“If you look at venture, in a lot of ways, they're just kind of judging you inside of 30 minutes, and wow, I have data of thousands of hours with the CEO. In this company, and they're judging it in, in a 30 minute moment, whether it's just, they want to continu…”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 14:37 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Opinion
Most venture capitalists do not actively think about their portfolio founders
“The reality is most VCs don't actually think about you all the time”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 17:54 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Assertion Not checkable as stated
VC general partners expect Science Inc. co-founders to shadow portfolio pitches
“I think it's normal. All the GPs and partnerships of all the firms expect me to be there and are okay with it.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 9:26 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
VCs expect founders to answer pitch questions using standardized mental frameworks
“I think there's always a miscommunication a lot of times when, you know, a VCO asks a type of question, like competition, where you see growth, what does this mean? I think in their mind, they want to hear it An answer in, in a framework that they're going to …”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 10:26 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
Most founders misunderstand what a VC rejection means and waste time
“The process of honestly understanding what a no means, which is, I think most entrepreneurs just have no idea and they waste their time, right?”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 10:47 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Assertion Supported
Series A and B venture capitalists complete only two to three deals yearly
“If you think about an A round investor or B round investor, right, they're doing three deals a year, tops, maybe four, but really two or three.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 11:20 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Assertion Supported
Science Inc. operates as an LLC that co-builds startups for equity
“We co-build companies for equity. We're not, I don't have a fund. Mike and I, we, Our team, we don't not have a fund. We are an operating company. We're an LLC similar to beta works, but we don't have a fund.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 18:44 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
Startup customer acquisition costs never scale linearly as customer bases expand
“Whereas everybody's assumption is, I've acquired this many customers for the X. People believe that's linear. That's never true. Never, ever, ever true.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 21:36 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
Consumer startups must use broad advertising to achieve mass adoption after saturation
“At scale, Dollar Shave Club has to buy podcasts, television ads, because there is a saturation point on all places, and the only way you can reach mass adoption is kind of advertising.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 21:56 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Insight
Top-of-funnel marketing is wasted without first optimizing retention and conversion metrics
“Before you dump everything at the top end of the funnel, there's a multiplier effect by increasing the retention by 20% or increasing the time for someone to do something by 20%. Like, those little things make the, before you dump everything at the top, whethe…”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 22:20 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested
Assertion Partly supported
Science Inc. houses all portfolio CEOs in a 26,000-square-foot office
“We have a 26,000 square foot office. All of our CEOs start in our offices, take a desk, and work with us side by side.”
Peter Pham Aug 29, 2016 ▶ 5:23 20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, How To Even The Playing Field & How To Tell When A VC Really Is Interested

The other half of the tape: Peter Pham's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 14 times in 5 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 6David Pakman 5Aaron Hirschhorn 2Kyle Hill 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Science Inc's Peter Pham on Why The Battle Between Entrepreneurs & VCs Is Unfair, Ho Aug 29, 2016 23m
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