Roger Ehrenberg
Founder & Managing Partner, Eberg Capital · 4 appearances on the record, plus 1 compilation re-air.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
investorfounderexecutive@infoarbitrage ↗LinkedIn ↗ebergcapital.com ↗
Roger Ehrenberg founded early-stage venture capital firm IA Ventures in 2009, leading seed investments in companies like The Trade Desk, Wise, Datadog, and DigitalOcean. Through Eberg Capital, he focuses on sports, media, and gaming investments, holding ownership stakes in franchises such as the Miami Marlins, Real Salt Lake, and Alpine F1 Team.
88statements → 34claims → 19claims resolved → 89%fully supported → 4.07/5average certainty → 2.4/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 49said about them ↓
17 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not yet assessed 11 not checkable as stated how the 34 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
26 predictions · 8 assertions · 14 opinions · 21 insights · 17 disclosures · 2 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 34 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 19 are resolved, 4 are not yet assessed, and 11 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 Roger 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
Ehrenberg: Tiger Global and Coatue face horrific portfolio markdowns ahead
“You know, their mark to market now, the next couple of years is going to be horrific. They're going to see huge markdowns on a huge swath of their companies, a bunch of stuff that they had counted on to go public isn't going to go public.”
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
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
How they sound: speaking style how? →
226 words/min while actually speaking · 2.7 um and uh per 1k words · 14.6 false starts per 1k · 32.8% of pauses land inside a clause
No argument clarity score for Roger Ehrenberg: 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 53 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 23,409 words across 4 episodes, but every recording we have of Roger Ehrenberg 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 4 rated episodes:
host pushback ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 45%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 0:16“How much longer does Venture have on the two and 20 model before there becomes real pressure on fee structure?” ▶ 7:14“As a boutique player, how can one compete when corporations Destroy seed in this way.” ▶ 29:41“Is there not a core conflict of interest being The pricing.” ▶ 11:27“How do you think today compares to the five others that you've seen that we mentioned?” ▶ 13:54“When we see interest rates increase, what happens then, Mark?” ▶ 16:31“What were your big lessons specifically on reserves management that you'd advise others when it comes to reserve allocations thinking with bust in mind?”
when Roger pushed back ▶ 29:49“You're not the price setter and the price giver.” ▶ 4:45“By the way, you're missing several more booms and busts that have been part of my career starting back in 87.” ▶ 22:45“Oh, it's all about you, right?” ▶ 4:42“So, it depends on which kind of firm you're talking about, Harry, because certainly you've got firms like the Excels and the Greylocks and, you know, even someone like Akosla Recli…”
Everything Roger Ehrenberg said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Ehrenberg: Polymarket and Kalshi Are Pure Regulatory Arbitrage Plays
“This is the purest regulatory arbitrage play of all time. Okay. If you can look at the cumulative market cap of regulated sports betting and look at how it has dropped in response to the rise of Polymarket and Calci, who are not subject to the same rules and r…”
Ehrenberg: I Would Spend Almost No Time Investing in Pure AI
“I'm not in pure tech anymore, but if I was, I would literally be spending almost no time in pure AI.”
Ehrenberg: Andreessen Horowitz and Insight Partners Are Corporations, Not Venture Firms
“Yes, you're going to have more of the Andreessen's and the insights and these platforms that they're not really venture firms. They're Corporations that are multi-stage investment firms. That have some venture, that have some growth, that have some pre-IPO, an…”
Ehrenberg: Traditional LP structures are completely broken
“So LP structures, traditional LP structures are completely broken.”
Ehrenberg: Underperforming VC Firms Face a Slow-Motion Train Wreck
“I think there is a whole swath of the industry that is going, it's like a slow motion train wreck. They are not going to be able to raise new funds.”
Ehrenberg: Tiger Global and Coatue face horrific portfolio markdowns ahead
“You know, their mark to market now, the next couple of years is going to be horrific. They're going to see huge markdowns on a huge swath of their companies, a bunch of stuff that they had counted on to go public isn't going to go public.”
Ehrenberg: Broad VC platform services are useless at the seed stage
“And the bottom line is at the very early seed stage where you're just trying to prove out the experiments. None of this crap matters, right? Conversely, once you've proven the experiments and you've got a real company and you've got a company that is worthy, t…”
Ehrenberg: State Gaming Tax Hikes Drive Consumers to Offshore Markets
“And the more that, you know, Illinois jacks up rates, In state, A, those, the regulated sports, the sports books that are subject to these rates reduce investment in the state, handle those down, tax revenue goes down, and those customers that are now getting …”
Ehrenberg: Top VC Firms Will Maintain Premium Fees Due to Outperformance
“It's going to be just like hedge funds. You know, look at Sequoia. The best firms charge premium fees and will be able to get it because on an after fee basis, they still outperform.”
Ehrenberg: Very early stage artisanal venture capital will never be scalable
“That's the thing is very early artisanal VC is not scalable and it never will be. People have tried and they have failed.”
Ehrenberg: Inflow of sovereign and family office capital into VC is permanent
“If there's no going back because there are now these much larger firms that are institutionally investable that can take sovereign money and, you know, massive family office money in that trend, that wave is just going to continue.”
Ehrenberg: Late-Stage Venture Capital Will Face Hedge Fund-Style Fee Compression
“So what I would expect is a normalization that would look a lot like the hedge fund industry where smaller Longer dated, higher returns, differentiated managers will still command premium fees, and then more mature strategies, late-stage growth, pre-IPO, massi…”
Ehrenberg: Mid- and late-stage venture will face greatest disruption
“The greatest disruption in a way is going to be in the mid and late stage venture scene where managers are going to want to and need to gather enormous amounts of assets.”
Roger Ehrenberg: Continuation Funds Will Be the Primary VC Liquidity Source
“I think probably the greatest source of liquidity now is going to be continuation files, and it's going to be existing portfolios, raising money from net new investors, yet it reflects today's valuations, and you basically get fresh capital to join the partner…”
Ehrenberg: Continuation Funds Exploit Venture Capitalists' Desperation for LP Liquidity
“Because there has been so little liquidity for so long, some managers are desperate because they're under tremendous heat from their LPs. To get blood from a stone, right? And then you've got continuation fund managers that are deeply aware of the phenomenon I…”
Ehrenberg: Selling Trade Desk Early Was Undeniably The Right Decision
“Let me tell you, the downside regret versus the upside opportunity cost. Like, we made the right trade. It's not even a question.”
Ehrenberg: Sports Team Prices Will Keep Rising as Institutional Capital Enters
“No. Because of something we talked about earlier, which is with this tremendous influx of institutional capital and with pro teams, pretty soon the NFL, I would guess, becoming PE investable, return expectations are going to come down and prices are going to g…”
Ehrenberg: Peak market fear will cut seed valuation caps under $10M
“When the fear really hits, the really smart seed stage investors are going to go in hard. Because that's when you get the best opportunities. You get great founders, and you get great businesses at prices that are a half. Of what companies were getting, you kn…”
Ehrenberg: Series B startups growing under 100% will not get good terms
“If you're a series B company and you're not growing a hundred percent year on year, are new investors going to be throwing term sheets at you in this environment? I don't think so. Certainly not at the prices that those founders would want.”
Ehrenberg: Seed investors should almost never join pay-to-play rounds
“What the data shows is that, and this is a hard thing to stomach, it almost never makes sense to participate in a pay-to-play as a very early investor. Almost never.”
Ehrenberg: FTC regulatory scrutiny will block FAANG M&A acquisitions
“I'm not sure the FTC is going to let those deals happen. So that adds a curveball in M&A that we have not had easily in a generation, which is this very, very restrictive regulatory environment where a bunch of the logical buyers, the FAANGs, for instance, are…”
Ehrenberg: Tech PE will fill M&A void but pay lower valuations
“And maybe what that speaks to, Harry, is a further rise of firms like Vista and Insight. So you have tech PE start to step into the shoes of M&A. The issue there, though, is they don't pay as much. Somebody like Vista, you know, they have accumulated a bunch o…”
Ehrenberg: Concentrated seed portfolios best deliver 3x to 5x net returns
“What that really led me to believe when I looked at modeling portfolio construction around the time that I started IA was that a much more concentrated strategy than a more traditional strategy. 40, 50, 60 portfolio constituent approach was what I felt had the…”
Ehrenberg: IA Ventures limits portfolios to 25 companies per fund
“Our adaptation of that is, you know, we're a very small firm taking an artisanal approach to venture investing where, you know, Brad, Jesse, and I, we have no junior people. We each do our own work. That by going deep in two to three companies a year each over…”
The other half of the tape: Roger Ehrenberg's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 46 times in 23 episodes on 20VC. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 28Mike Maples 3Gokul Rajaram 3Rick Zullo 2Jesse Beyroutey 2Jerry Neumann 2Zach Weinberg 1Semil Shah 1
Statements about Roger Ehrenberg, by other people (3)
Stebbings: Hopin, BeReal, and Clubhouse failed to be 20VC's top returners
“With my first fund, after 18 months, I predicted my top five fund returners, and you had your hop-ins, you had your B-reels, you had your clubhouse, and none of the five outperformers ended up being the outperformers, and the five outperformers I always had in…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 3 mentions in 1 episode
2025 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- How Do All Providers Deal with Anthropic Dependency Risk & Figma IPO Breakdown: Where Does it Price? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Figma’s IPO: The Full Breakdown & Why Melio’s $2.5BN Acquisition is “Discouraging” · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Elon’s Empire: SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink After the Storm & Anduril’s $2.6BN Power Move · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
2024 10 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- Peter Wagner: 27 Years of Investing Lessons of Picking Founders, Price Discipline & Reserve | E1123 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Tisch & Terrence Rohan: Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing | E1112 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Kevin Hartz: "How I Lost Airbnb at Seed Because of an Exploding Term Sheet" | E1180 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Clark: Lessons from 32 Years of Fund Investing - Why Exits Will Be Larger | E1131 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- Jason Lemkin & Rick Zullo: How "Mark to Market" Corrupted Venture Capital | E1052 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Beezer Clarkson: Are LPs Open for Business & Why Do LP Incentive Mechanisms Need to Change? | E1073 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Nikhil Basu Trivedi: Why 99% of AI Investments Will Go Bust | E1057 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- DEBATE: State of Seed Investing w/ Jason Lemkin, Sam Lessin, Frank Rotman & Harry Stebbings | E1047 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
- Semil Shah: Lessons Learned Scaling from a $1M to a $50M Fund | 20VC #951 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: Biggest Lessons and Challenges Building One of the Most Successful Seed Funds, How To Manage Investor Psychology, Self-Doubt and Insecurity & The Secret to Truly Successful Venture Partnerships with David Frankel, Co-Founder @ Founder Collective
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 2 mentions in 1 episode
2020 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Floodgate's Mike Maples on 3 Key Breakthroughs Startups Experience in Success, The Rise of Angel and Operator Funds, Multi-Stage Funds Re-Entering Seed Investing and The Insight Development Framework
- 20VC: Zach Weinberg on Whether A Company is a Democracy, The Importance of Ownership, The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds, Multi-Stage Funds Entering Seed and How he Approaches Both Risk and Personal Capital Allocation
- 20VC: Ashton Kutcher on Early Lessons From Investing in Airbnb and Spotify, Why VC Ownership Requirements Are Becoming More and More Egregious & What Being Good At Product Truly Means
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 9 mentions in 1 episode
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 2 mentions in 1 episode
Appearances (5)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Thinking Machines Co-Founder Joins Meta for $3.5BN, Industry Venture's $665M Acquisition · | Oct 16, 2025 | 21m |
| Roger Ehrenberg: Why VC Returns Will Get Worse & Why LP Incentive Structures are so Broken | Feb 19, 2024 | 56m |
| 20VC: The Memo: Bill Gurley, Doug Leone, Keith Rabois; Investing Lessons from Prior Busts, compilation | Jun 29, 2022 | 2m |
| 20VC: How Startup Valuations, Fund Deployment Cycles, M&A and IPO Markets Will All Change | Jan 31, 2022 | 31m |
| 20VC: The Power Of A Concentrated Seed Portfolio, Why Operational Value Add Models At Seed | Mar 1, 2017 | 18m |