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Rishi Garg

CFO, Underdog · 1 appearance on the record.

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

executiveinvestorfounderoperator@rishigarg ↗underdogfantasy.com ↗

Rishi Garg is an executive and investor who led M&A and corporate development at Twitter and Square, and co-founded ticket search engine FanSnap. After spending nearly nine years as a Partner at Mayfield Fund, he joined sports gaming startup Underdog as its Chief Financial Officer.

8statements → 4claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.12/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 4said about them ↓

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

4 assertions · 2 opinions · 1 insight · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, 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 Rishi 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
Twitter completed about 14 acquisitions in 14 months under Rishi Garg
“After that, we did a bunch of different projects, about 14 or so acquisitions in about 14 months.”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 8:37 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund

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

4.4 / 5 directness 4.9 · coherence 4.8 · precision 4 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 12 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? →

273 words/min while actually speaking · 9.9 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 5,455 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 1/10
setup questions received 85%

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

Disclosure
Square Wallet failed because Square backed it too long without 10x value
“We tried Square Wallet. It was unsuccessful. We backed it for too long. We kept it going for too long. I think there wasn't enough focus on creating the same kind of 10 X value proposition in that product that Square's core product originally had.”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 25:24 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Opinion
Garg: VCs fail to systematically evaluate co-founder dynamics during diligence
“What VCs generally do is they rely on their systemic ability to sort of perceive these things in meetings or reference checks. One of the things they don't do is systematically evaluate and try to dig into what are the relationships between co-founders look an…”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 12:54 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Assertion Partly supported
Discussing equity splits at length correlates with higher long-term enterprise value
“There's a guy named Noam Wasserman who has found that whenever founders discuss equity splits at length, even if they end up just dividing it 50 50, okay, the fact that they've had the conversation is a higher indicator of long-term company success based on en…”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 14:22 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Very few of the most successful tech startups raised huge Series A rounds
“If you look at the data, look back at all the companies that have been founded, and ask yourself, how many of the best companies that we're most proud of started out with a really huge Series A's? Very few of them have that dynamic. That doesn't mean it's not …”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 20:35 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
MTV Networks offered Facebook a Series A term sheet at $45M valuation
“We put a term sheet on Facebook series eight, a forty five million dollar post.”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 5:10 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Insight
Garg: Seed startups should raise twice their estimated testing cost
“At the series seed, I always say, like, you want to basically double your money, so it's going to take you 600 grand to answer three or four top hypotheses, try to raise a million to.”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 22:36 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Opinion
Garg: Series A startups should target 20 to 24 months runway
“It's going to take me nine months to figure out or 12 months to figure out the key hypotheses I need right now. So let me add another, you know, nine to 12 months of runway onto that. So that puts you kind of into the range you mentioned, that kind of 20 to 24…”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 22:52 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund
Assertion Supported
Twitter completed about 14 acquisitions in 14 months under Rishi Garg
“After that, we did a bunch of different projects, about 14 or so acquisitions in about 14 months.”
Rishi Garg Jan 18, 2017 ▶ 8:37 20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Series A & Why The Biggest Challenge For Consumer Companies Is Finding The Second Big Hit with Rishi Garg, Partner @ Mayfield Fund

The other half of the tape: Rishi Garg'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 Harry Stebbings 4

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: How To Test The Strength Of Co-Founder Relations, The Dangers Of Raising A Large Ser Jan 18, 2017 22m
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