StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Puneet Agarwal

Managing Partner, True Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investoroperator@puneet324 ↗trueventures.com/team/puneet-agarwal ↗

Puneet Agarwal joined True Ventures in 2008, where he focuses on early-stage investments in enterprise infrastructure, SaaS, and artificial intelligence. He has led or participated in backing tech companies including Duo Security, Puppet, Tray.io, Solo.io, and Gradle.

17statements → 8claims → 3claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 3.88/5average certainty → 1.94/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

3 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 4 not checkable as stated how the 8 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 6 assertions · 1 opinion · 4 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 8 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, 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 Puneet 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
Agarwal: Warranties generate 2% of Best Buy's revenue but 60% of profits
“Best Buy charges, gets two percent of its revenue from the warranties it sells against its electronics, but it's 60% of its profit.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 38:12 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership

How they sound: speaking style how? →

273 words/min while actually speaking · 1.6 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Puneet Agarwal: 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 28 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 6,989 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Puneet Agarwal 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 ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host 2/10
setup questions received 55%

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

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Agarwal: EQ will separate top VC firms over the next decade
“I do think it's what's going to separate the best firms in the next decades to come. I think IQ, if you want to call it, just Being smart, understanding industries. I do believe that's table stakes in a lot of ways. There's a lot of smart people around. A lot …”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 7:27 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Insight
Agarwal: True's Best Investments Spark Dissension and Maximize Initial Risk
“There's some dissension in the room, and those are the best investments that tend to go forward, and that, that we make, at least on that first check. We're trying to, as I said before, really maximize risk on that first check.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 19:57 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Agarwal: 40% to 50% of True Ventures investments will fail
“We are very open about the fact that 40 to 50% of the companies we invest in will probably lose or go to zero.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 12:14 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Assertion Not checkable as stated
True Ventures Operates Without Consensus or Individual Deal Attribution
“So we don't have a consensus driven approach. We actually encourage dissension and we want dissension. We don't have attribution.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 18:50 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Opinion
Agarwal: Venture capital is becoming risk averse by shifting later stage
“I think one of the challenges that we have in the venture industry is we don't take enough risk. It's becoming a little more risk averse because just people are inherently moving more later stage, which means you in fact, just look at more spreadsheets and num…”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 23:40 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Disclosure
True Ventures let founder keep $5M investment following cancer diagnosis
“There was a company and I've been a little bit open about this, but there was a company that we put five million dollars into the company on the day of wiring. The CEO called me and said that he was diagnosed with colon cancer. And that he didn't have a long t…”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 27:01 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Insight
Agarwal: VC board members can and should be true friends with founders
“No, I do think they can. I know there's colleagues of mine who vehemently disagree with me on that, but I do think you can be friends. I mean, if you unpack what friendship means, it means respect. It means love for another individual. It also means honesty an…”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 28:12 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Insight
Agarwal: Spending time mainly with winning portfolio companies is flawed advice
“Some of the time allocation statements that people make about, Hey, you need to spend more time with the winners are maybe a little bit off base because maybe you actually don't need to spend as much time because they're doing just fine.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 30:10 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Assertion Supported
Agarwal: Warranties generate 2% of Best Buy's revenue but 60% of profits
“Best Buy charges, gets two percent of its revenue from the warranties it sells against its electronics, but it's 60% of its profit.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 38:12 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Insight
Agarwal: Venture investors without portfolio failures are taking insufficient risk
“If you're not pushing the envelope, and you're not failing, you're probably not doing it right.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 12:59 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Disclosure
Agarwal: True Ventures targets 20% ownership with $1M–$3M initial checks
“So when we make that one to three million initial check, we target around 20% ownership, and we have a big enough fund, so our latest fund's around three hundred fifty million, and we have an opportunity fund, which is about two hundred eighty million. That's …”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 14:34 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Agarwal: Maximizing risk is the third bullet in True Ventures' LP deck
“Maximizing risk is such a core tenant tenet to what we do. It was the third bullet point on the first page of our investment deck that we've been pitching to LPs”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 34:52 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Mayfield Completed Around 50 Deals in 1999
“So when I got there in 99, you know, Mayfield had done, I believe they had done 50 deals in 99, you know, one deal a week.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 5:41 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Assertion Supported
Dot-Com Era Companies Went Public With Sub-$10M Revenue at $1B+ Valuations
“I mean, companies were going public at that time with sub-ten million in revenue at billion-dollar market caps.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 5:50 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Disclosure
Agarwal: True Ventures' initial checks are around $2M
“For example, we invest a very small portion of our fund to begin with. It's, you know, two million bucks, for example, maybe that's one half or one percent of the fund.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 11:07 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Disclosure
Agarwal: True Ventures makes 45 to 50 investments per fund
“We do about 45 to 50 investments per fund. That tends to be around the right number. It's higher than what you typically see in some of the later stage funds, obviously. But we think, you know, having, it's sort of the right number for us in terms of failure r…”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 16:04 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
Assertion Supported
Agarwal: Tray.io founder Rich Waldron sold shoes to keep company alive
“He actually had to sell shoes given the team just ends meet to kind of get the business off the ground.”
Puneet Agarwal Aug 12, 2019 ▶ 34:10 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership

The other half of the tape: Puneet Agarwal's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 3 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 3Adam D'Augelli 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Ventu Aug 12, 2019 27m
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