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Roy Bahat

Head, Bloomberg Beta · 2 appearances on the record.

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

investorexecutivefounderacademichost@roybahat ↗LinkedIn ↗roybahat.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Roy Bahat leads Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage venture capital firm backed by Bloomberg L.P. that invests in the future of work and artificial intelligence. He previously served as President of IGN Entertainment, co-founded video game console maker OUYA, and taught at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

41statements → 8claims → 2claims resolved → 4.12/5average certainty → 2.61/5average debate potential → 4.5/5argument clarity · the sources → 13said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 6 not checkable as stated how the 8 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 5 assertions · 6 opinions · 15 insights · 12 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 8 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 6 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 Roy 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
Bahat: Very few multi-stage VCs historically produce top seed-stage winners
“We did an analysis looking at the top company performers. And what you see is that since the era that seed funds have existed and who funded them at the seed. And what you see is that some of them were funded by seed funds, first round true others funded some …”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 18:52 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

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

4.5 / 5 directness 4.7 · coherence 4.7 · precision 4.3 · compression 4.1

redirected or did not address 1 of 15 assessed questions (7%). 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? →

273 words/min while actually speaking · 11.5 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,859 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 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2.5/10
setup questions received 50%

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

Opinion
Bahat: Venture capital's greater fool dynamic will not survive a market downturn
“We do have this greater fool dynamic happening in our industry. And one of the challenges is if your strategy, nobody's explicit strategy is this, but if your actions reveal that actually your approach is making money on the greater fool, which is to say the l…”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 25:17 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Opinion
Bahat: Many financially successful tech industry icons are awful role models
“I think many of the heroes that we have set up in the technology industry are... Awful role models in that the heroes that we have set up are often the people who have been the most financially successful.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 31:11 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Opinion
Bahat: Dollar-for-dollar, angel investors are more valuable to startups than VCs
“Angels dollar per dollar are the most valuable investors in the ecosystem, even more valuable than VCs, more valuable than us, especially angels who are themselves founders of venture backed companies.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 34:34 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Opinion
Roy Bahat argues the typical venture capitalist is disastrous for startups
“I think there are many wonderful VCs. I just think it's that the typical VC is disastrous.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 24:19 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Insight
Bahat: VCs requesting early customer calls is a bad sign for founders
“VCs who ask founders to talk to their customers right off the bat, I tell the founder like, whoa, slow that down a minute. Like that's a bad sign about the VC that they want to go for the sanctum sanctum. Before they've even had a chance to build trust.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 8:52 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Assertion Supported
Bahat: Very few multi-stage VCs historically produce top seed-stage winners
“We did an analysis looking at the top company performers. And what you see is that since the era that seed funds have existed and who funded them at the seed. And what you see is that some of them were funded by seed funds, first round true others funded some …”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 18:52 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Insight
Bahat: Startup valuation is primarily a mathematical function of VC fund size
“The way it works is your fund has a strategy and you say to yourself, do I want to invest in this company? And if I want to invest in this company, then I have a check size. And the check size is usually determined by the fund size, because again, back to our …”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 20:02 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Disclosure
Bahat: Bloomberg Beta requires one partner for initial checks, unanimity for follow-ons
“In our first check, We invest where anybody can say yes, and that's designed to produce good accountability and independent decision-making and avoid groupthink. But the issue with the follow-on checks is then you're serving that company, you become emotionall…”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 24:11 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Insight
Bahat: A founder's personal financial situation heavily drives startup decision-making
“The founder financial situation is one of the most personal financial situation is one of the most important and under discussed aspects of the life of a company, because it's going to drive so much decision making.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 29:58 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Insight
Bahat: Revenue is a better startup co-investor than traditional venture capital funds
“My favorite co-investor is revenue. My second favorite co-investor is the founder of a venture-backed company in which we invest, and then you get to VCs.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 36:21 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bloomberg Beta invests if a single partner says yes, ignoring consensus
“Any one person says yes on our team we do a deal.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 6:04 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Machine intelligence will eat software while software eats the world
“Yes, I think machine intelligence will eat software. While software is eating the world.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 8:50 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Big data produced valuable technologies but very few valuable standalone businesses
“The, you know, the quote-unquote big data thing Turns out to have produced a number of very valuable technologies, not that many valuable businesses and part of it is because the data on its own, as everybody knows, is, you know, it's just information.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 9:17 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Proprietary data access is the primary bottleneck in machine intelligence development
“At least today, access to the data is the limiting factor. Which means, by the way, not only do companies like Facebook and Google have an advantage, but pretty much every old industrial incumbent, if it has a way of getting at its data and making use of it, a…”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 10:57 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Insight
Horizontal black-box AI startups face severe go-to-market challenges without consulting
“The warning is, if you're startup is, hey, I've got a black box that does machine intelligence. Let me try to apply it to a bunch of different situations. Then I think the going is very hard. You know, you probably have to start with some consulting services. …”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 11:27 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Insight
Future human employment will be defined by demand for handmade goods
“What jobs will human beings do? Well, they'll do the jobs when other people want to buy something specifically because it was made by a person. And we have a word for this, which is handmade.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 22:33 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Disclosure
Bloomberg Beta backs founders who reject advice to step down
“If we thought that there was a better alternative than the founder for the business, we'd tell the person that. And then if they said, no, no, no, thanks. That's nice. That's your opinion, but I'm going to keep going. Generally, we would back them to keep goin…”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 26:20 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Disclosure
Bloomberg Beta encourages founders to shop term sheets without exploding deadlines
“When I give people a term sheet, I say, go shop it. It's not going to explode. I only want you to work with us because we're the best choice for you, not because I've put you under some time pressure.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 27:12 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta
Insight
Bahat: Startup valuation does not reflect how highly VCs rate companies
“A lot of founders believe mistakenly, in part because VCs lead them on, that company valuation is some kind of a marker of how highly the VC rates your company.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 5:50 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Disclosure
Bahat: Bloomberg Beta never issues exploding offers and encourages shopping term sheets
“Our offers never explode, and we encourage founders to go shop our offers.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 17:16 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bahat: Bloomberg Beta loses seed deals to multi-stage VCs at 2-3x valuations
“And when we lose on a two or three X price difference often because again, valuation is a function of fund size.”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 18:06 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Insight
Bahat: Asking VCs about pro rata is useless; ask about underperformance instead
“Founders often ask their investors, will you do your pro rata at the next round? It's, I think that's a dumb question because if there's a next round that's led by an outside investor, generally people are clamoring for their pro rata. To me, the better questi…”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 23:47 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Opinion
Bahat: Formal seed-stage board meetings are ludicrous and distract founders
“And it's turned into this advice-giving, checking-in governance body, and at the stage at which we invest, where founders are making critical decisions daily, the idea of meeting once every month, or two months, or three months, and doing a PowerPoint presenta…”
Roy Bahat Oct 18, 2019 ▶ 26:58 20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Very Few VCs Will Tell You & Why Founders of Venture Backed Startups Make The Best Angels
Insight
The best startup ideas are highly polarizing, not consensus-driven
“The best ideas are highly polarizing, and so we've set up a model to try to harness their polarizing effect to make the best decision, which is to say we want to say yes when there is one person on our team who is very excited about it.”
Roy Bahat Apr 13, 2016 ▶ 6:38 20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloomberg Beta

Show 17statements(17 left)

The other half of the tape: Roy Bahat's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 13 times in 6 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 11Matt Turck 1Brianne Kimmel 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00418220162017201820192020episodesmentions
01220162017201820192020episodes it came up in
00214220162017201820192020episodesmentions per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2017 2 mentions in 1 episode
2016 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC Exclusive: Roy Bahat on Bloomberg Beta's New Fund, The Truth About Valuation That Ver Oct 18, 2019 28m
20VC: Why Machine Intelligence Will Eat The World Of Software with Roy Bahat, Head of Bloo Apr 13, 2016 22m
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