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Ryan Smith

Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Qualtrics · 2 appearances on the record.

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

founderexecutiveinvestor@RyanQualtrics ↗LinkedIn ↗qualtrics.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Ryan Smith is the co-founder and executive chairman of Qualtrics, which he bootstrapped and later sold to SAP for $8 billion. He also serves as chairman and CEO of Smith Entertainment Group, through which he owns the Utah Jazz.

31statements → 13claims → 8claims resolved → 38%fully supported → 4/5average certainty → 2.1/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 36said about them ↓

3 supported 4 partly supported 1 contradicted 2 not yet assessed 3 not checkable as stated how the 13 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 11 assertions · 4 opinions · 11 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 13 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 8 are resolved, 2 are not yet assessed, and 3 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 Ryan 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
Qualtrics' 2012 Series A was the largest first-time VC investment since 2008
“And it was the largest series a or first time investment since 2008.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 14:26 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Smith claims every higher education institution worldwide uses Qualtrics
“It's just not a good business model, but if you look at it now, every single academic higher ed institution in the world uses Qualtrics.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 8:04 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
67% certainty 4
50% 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

How they sound: speaking style how? →

246 words/min while actually speaking · 0.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Ryan Smith: 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 30 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.0/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 10,983 words across 2 episodes, but every recording we have of Ryan Smith 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 2 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 1.5/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 75%

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

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ryan Smith had two hours to decide on SAP's $8B offer
“I had two hours to decide whether we're selling to SAP for eight billion dollars cash.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 17:56 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Insight
Qualtrics raised venture capital to de-risk after rejecting a buyout
“We actually raised venture capital because we turned down an offer, and we wanted to be able to live with ourselves.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 20:34 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Opinion
Ryan Smith: Receiving SAP's $8B cash payout was underwhelming
“The day that the wires hit, I remember sitting, we were at a president's club, so we were at a sales retreat with all of our people, and you could kind of look around, and you could see everyone's phones, right? Like, people were, like, with their spouses, lik…”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 21:07 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Insight
Ryan Smith: Startups should recruit board members with past failures
“Oftentimes, we bring board members in who life's only gone good for, and it's one of our problems in tech, is like, we need to bring people in that, you know, have some battle wounds, and like, maybe there was some successes that happened, but also some things…”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 35:05 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Assertion Contradicted
Smith claims every higher education institution worldwide uses Qualtrics
“It's just not a good business model, but if you look at it now, every single academic higher ed institution in the world uses Qualtrics.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 8:04 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Insight
Smith: Capital constraints are a necessary forcing function for startup creativity
“And so I believe that creativity comes from resource construction. You know, you're never clipping coupons if you'got fifty million dollars in your bank account, and I think that that's the necessary forcing function to be able to actually do something great.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 10:15 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Disclosure
Qualtrics rejected Series A term sheets $100M-$150M higher in valuation
“We never optimized funding for economics. We had term sheets at a hundred and a hundred and fifty million dollars more than what we went with.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 14:39 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2056
Ryan Smith commits to running the Utah Jazz for 35 years
“I'm doing this for 35 years. The last person who ran the team had it for 35 years. I'm doing this for 35 years, and really, that's my thought. Like, we're doing it for that long.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 10:28 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Disclosure
Qualtrics turned down a $500M cash acquisition offer in 2011
“In 2011, someone offered us five hundred million dollars cash to sell our business. And we were at this point where we turned it down.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 19:12 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Opinion
Ryan Smith: Younger generations do not work or grind as hard
“One of the problems I see in part of our younger generation, they don't grind. They don't grind the way that we have.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 28:08 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Opinion
Ryan Smith: The tech industry is currently not guided by strong principles
“I think one of the biggest fears I have a little bit with tech right now is we're not guided by great principles.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 36:50 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Insight
Smith: Building a great enterprise software company takes 10 to 13 years
“I think that You know, most people think to do something great, it's going to take a couple years. And I think those are such outliers. I think for the rest of the world, especially in the enterprise, you know, 10, 1213 years are really what it takes. And I'm …”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 6:04 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Assertion Partly supported
Qualtrics adds one million trained academic users each year
“We have a million academic users that are popping out annually, and throughout the course of time, everyone's getting trained on our product and our platform.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 8:10 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Insight
Smith: Companies fail from internal politics or scattered external focus
“Companies fail for two reasons. They either get internally focused on each other, Or they get externally focused in a million different directions and can't execute.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 16:50 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Insight
Smith: Workplace conflicts must be discussed with all parties in the room
“One of the things that I believe in is, is, is complete escalation where if someone's talking to me about someone else, we're doing it in the room together.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 22:28 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smith: Qualtrics never had a singular 'aha moment' or tipping point
“With Qualtrics, I don't think there's ever really been an aha moment. There hasn't been this tipping point where it like all worked. It's been what I would call probably more push than pull the whole way.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 3:37 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Disclosure
Smith: Early basement days of Qualtrics were his worst business experience
“Because the basement sucked. It was like the worst time I've ever had, like, running a business”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 5:07 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Insight
Ryan Smith: Tying happiness to company performance makes founders miserable
“If your happiness is tied up in your business, you're never going to be happy because it's nothing but problems, whether it's customer problems, whether it's Employee problems, whether it's just frustration, like, you've got to find happiness outside, and it's…”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 5:50 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smith: 20% of Qualtrics staff voiced objections after SAP acquisition
“We had 20% of our employees come in and be like, hey, I didn't sign up for this.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 12:45 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Insight
Ryan Smith: Giving away equity is irreversible, whereas hiring is reversible
“So if you're giving out equity of your company, it's a one way door. You can't get it back. You know, oftentimes if you're hiring someone, it can be a two way door. If it doesn't work out, you part ways.”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 16:14 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Insight
Ryan Smith: Stack family and work commitments into single time blocks
“You'll always see me doubling up everything I do. Like, if I have a meeting that I need to go do, I'll just bring them with me to the next meeting. If I've got to go to a game, I've always got people with me that I was supposed to meet with, and we just do it …”
Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 33:20 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2056
Smith: Qualtrics is being built to last 40 to 50 years
“We're trying to build something that's going to be around for the next 40 years, 50 years, and if you're building that way, it's actually a totally different playbook than if you're building something that it's got to work for you.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 7:13 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Opinion
Smith: Accel's Ryan Sweeney has set an unprecedented standard in late-stage investing
“Ryan Sweeney's in Excel, they put on a clinic in late stage investing that I don't think anyone in tech has ever seen before.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 11:28 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
Assertion Partly supported
Qualtrics reached nearly $50M revenue with 50% profit margins while bootstrapped
“We were close to coming up on fifty million dollars in, in sales and, you know, 50% profit margins, a hundred percent bootstrap.”
Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 12:40 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel

Show 7statements(7 left)

The other half of the tape: Ryan Smith's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 34 times in 14 episodes on 20VC. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Frank Quattrone 10Harry Stebbings 8Jason Lemkin 4Stewart Butterfield 3Pat Grady 2Sameer Gandhi 1Rich Wong 1Clay Wilkes 1

Statements about Ryan Smith, by other people (2)

Assertion Partly supported
Lemkin: Ryan Smith's Utah Jazz investment quadrupled, outpacing software returns
“When Ryan Smith sold Qualtrics, I think he made about a billion dollars. After 20 years or so and I believe that billion, most of it went back into the jazz, and it has quadrupled... He's up three billion on the jazz or something like that versus the 20 years …”
Jason Lemkin Apr 30, 2026 ▶ 1:15:38 Anthropic Raises $45B but Falls Short on Compute & Thoma Bravo Hand Back Medallia Keys to Creditors · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Accel sourced Qualtrics early by building relationships in Salt Lake City
“Qualtrics, is a good example of that. Hiding in Salt Lake, you didn't think that there was going to be a multi-billion dollar company in the area of market research surveys, but we were lucky enough to find that company relatively early on and spend the time b…”
Rich Wong Dec 4, 2017 ▶ 6:40 20VC: Accel GP, Rich Wong on When Is The Right Time To Scale A Startup, Optimising Initial vs Follow-On Investment Decision-Making & The Globalisation of VC In Recent Years

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
008215320162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
02320162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0031.56320162017201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 8 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
2024 11 mentions in 2 episodes 6 per episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2020 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2019 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
2016 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $ May 11, 2021 28m
20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since Dec 16, 2016 20m
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