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Trae Vassallo

Worldwide Operations, Apple · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorengineerexecutivefounder@trae ↗defy.vc ↗

Trae Vassallo co-founded Good Technology and spent over a decade as a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins, leading investments in Nest Labs, Dropcam, and eero. She subsequently co-founded venture firm Defy Partners and co-authored the 2016 Elephant in the Valley study.

17statements → 5claims → 4claims resolved → 75%fully supported → 4.29/5average certainty → 1.76/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 9said about them ↓

3 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 4 assertions · 3 opinions · 3 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, 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 Trae 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
Billion-Dollar VC Funds Have Abandoned $3M-$4M Checks for $10M-$15M+
“A lot of the venture firms that used to be early stage focused venture firms have gone from, you know, having 304 hundred million dollar funds to billion dollar funds. And these billion dollar funds are not likely investing three to four million dollars at a t…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 13:23 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
100% certainty 4
75% 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? →

218 words/min while actually speaking · 3.1 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Trae Vassallo: 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 24 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 4,559 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Trae Vassallo 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 ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 45%

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

Opinion
Venture Capital Decision-Making Does Not Scale Beyond Five Partners
“And so one of the learnings for myself was that I wasn't so sure that venture scaled well. Of making hard decisions. It's different when you have five people around a table versus 10 people around the table.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 9:49 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Assertion Supported
Billion-Dollar VC Funds Have Abandoned $3M-$4M Checks for $10M-$15M+
“A lot of the venture firms that used to be early stage focused venture firms have gone from, you know, having 304 hundred million dollar funds to billion dollar funds. And these billion dollar funds are not likely investing three to four million dollars at a t…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 13:23 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Insight
VC Fee Structures Create Adverse Incentives to Outsource Back-Office Operations
“And I will add the reason why a lot of people end up outsourcing it is because it becomes a fund expense. When you outsource it to hire someone that comes out of the management fee pool. And so there's a weird adverse incentive to want to hire the right people…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 21:51 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Insight
Vassallo: Tech diversity requires active participation from white male allies
“I mean, things aren't going to change unless middle class white guys are part of what's helping change what we're doing.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 25:31 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Assertion Supported
Good Technology Was Sold to Motorola for $500 Million
“We ultimately sold that company to Motorola for five hundred million”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 7:15 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Opinion
Vassallo: The venture capital industry is overfunded
“The venture industry is overfunded. I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that there's, you know, not too much capital in the venture industry.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 12:21 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Disclosure
Defy.vc's First Series A Investment Was Pre-Revenue and Pre-Product
“In fact, our first investment was in a company that was absolutely pre-revenue. It was a Series A. They hadn't launched their product, but it was an investment in a different set of criteria.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 14:17 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Disclosure
Vassallo: LPs' primary concern was founders' lack of shared history
“The biggest concern is you've got a new team coming together, so Neil and I didn't have this Story of, you know, yeah, we've worked together for the last 10 years, but at different firms, we really hadn't crossed paths.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 19:47 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Insight
Vassallo: $150M+ funds should hire in-house CFOs instead of outsourcing
“If your fund is seed funder on the smaller side, then absolutely, you know, it doesn't make sense. But Once you start getting, you know, so our fund is a hundred and fifty one million dollars. And so, you know, we absolutely, it makes sense to bring that perso…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 22:30 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Assertion Supported
Vassallo: Women played crucial roles in building Google's early business model
“You know, she talks about company like Google, you know, we only ever think of Larry and Sergey, but there were incredibly important and influential women who helped lead that company in the early days and helped build out the business model that made Google w…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 24:45 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Vassallo: Intelligent in-car video will significantly impact driver insurance rates
“Uber Lyft drivers having something like this in their car, its impact on insurance rates is going to be important.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 29:39 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Assertion Partly supported
Trae Vassallo Co-Engineered the Palm V With One Other IDEO Engineer
“Myself and one other engineer basically engineered the whole product.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 5:55 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Opinion
John Doerr Excels on Boards by Ignoring Minutiae for Core Drivers
“The thing that was so incredible about working with John is that he was really good at quickly identifying the big question, the big issue. He never got distracted by the small minutiae that so many folks can get distracted by. He was always laser focused on w…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 7:55 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Disclosure
Trae Vassallo made Eero her first personal seed investment
“Eero was my first personal seed investment.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 15:20 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Disclosure
Defy partners personally backed Owlcam before closing fund, then led Series A
“Timing-wise, we hadn't actually closed our fund yet, so we personally put some capital in. Some other firms led the seed round, but then we closed our first close and then led his Series A.”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 16:42 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Disclosure
Defy.vc Raised Its Debut Fund Cap to $151M for One Entrepreneur
“And so, in fact, our cap was one 50. And so it's actually a great story. And I think it was a really good example of How much we care about our entrepreneurs, but there was an entrepreneur who had been an incredible, it is an incredible reference for us. We've…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 23:00 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Disclosure
Vassallo: LPs Demanded Deal Processing Examples During Defy.vc Fundraising
“We did a small personal seed investment that wouldn't really have been what we would have done had the firm been in existence, but LPs absolutely wanted to see how we process deals and how we work together as a team, and so it was definitely a great example th…”
Trae Vassallo Jun 4, 2018 ▶ 17:07 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc

The other half of the tape: Trae Vassallo's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 9 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 9

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Tract Jun 4, 2018 22m
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