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Woody Marshall

General Partner, TCV · 2 appearances on the record.

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investorexecutiveLinkedIn ↗tcv.com ↗

Woody Marshall is a General Partner at TCV, where he has focused on fintech, internet, and digital media since 2008. He has backed companies including Spotify and Airbnb, and serves as the lead independent director on Spotify's board.

26statements → 7claims → 2claims resolved → 3.88/5average certainty → 2.35/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 8said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 6 assertions · 3 opinions · 12 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 5 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 Woody 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
Woody Marshall: Different venture capitalists often hold the same startup at different valuations
“You can have many different investors in the same company, you know, holding, holding a particular security or a particular company at different, different prices.”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 19:01 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

How they sound: speaking style how? →

266 words/min while actually speaking · 12.9 um and uh per 1k words · 31 false starts per 1k · 38.1% of pauses land inside a clause

No argument clarity score for Woody Marshall: only 6 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 31 exchanges across raw tape and 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 the audio itself: 3,634 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 Woody Marshall said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Woody Marshall: There are no downsides to going public
“So I actually don't think there are cons. I think it's a positive. It causes a company to be crisp in your execution. You have to tell your story thoughtfully. You have to deliver. You are accountable. And I think all of those over the long term for great comp…”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 27:08 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Woody Marshall: Large venture firms face strict auditing on portfolio valuations
“If you're a firm as big as mine or as Devon's, there's a very sophisticated process that gets reviewed by auditors, which is a little different than, you know, with a lot of the early stage guys, so it's hard for us to play around with valuation”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 19:45 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Woody Marshall: The tech IPO market is open for companies resetting valuations
“So to me, I actually think the markets are open. But people have to, you have to rip the bandaid off and not be wed to, you know, oh, but in 2021 I was valued at X. It doesn't matter. If you're a public company today, that's in the rearview mirror. The public …”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 34:47 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Woody Marshall: Entry valuation matters less if competitive durability is high
“Getting that durability of the value proposition, and whether that's competitive modes, whether that's management execution, those are the important things to get right. But if you get those right, I do agree, valuation in hindsight can be a little less releva…”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 13:11 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Woody Marshall: Refusing to reset inflated valuations causes suboptimal business decisions
“The smart companies are, you know, resetting the deck. They're ripping bandaid off because the problem with companies that hold on to some of those valuations is they're going to make decisions that are suboptimal.”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 12:08 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Woody Marshall: TCV's 2021 investments will take longer to yield returns
“If you look at the things we invested in, in 21, we like those companies a lot. It may take, it's gonna take us longer. To get our returns. It just is, because multiples have come down.”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 12:21 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Woody Marshall: Penalizing venture partner mistakes creates risk-aversion and mediocre fund returns
“If all of a sudden you start smacking people on the hand for, if they make a mistake in a risk business, what are you going to end up with? You're going to end up with a risk averse set of, You know, investors and you're guaranteed your next fund is going to b…”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 38:57 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Marshall: Market size is the last concern when evaluating tech companies
“And I think if we're interested in a business and it's leveraging technology in an interesting way for either an enterprise or for a consumer, the last concern that you have is, is it a really big market?”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 8:30 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Marshall: TCV underwrites expecting half of hold periods post-IPO
“A lot of times we will underwrite an investment understanding that maybe half or more of the hold period could be as a public company.”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 10:31 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Woody Marshall: Secondary markets provide adequate liquidity without company approval
“I think now with all of the secondary liquidity options that are out there, if you want to sell as a private company, even if The company doesn't want to sell, but you want to sell your shares. I think there's adequate liquidity sources”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 11:08 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Marshall: Subscription startups with unit economics should aggressively front-load CAC
“If you have this durable relationship with customers, and it's something we see a lot having invested in many subscription businesses, and if the economics works, you'd be crazy not to front end load as much of the customer acquisition as you can.”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 21:27 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Woody Marshall: Near-death experiences benefit companies in the long term
“Near-death experiences are actually good over the long term.”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 27:01 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Assertion Supported
Woody Marshall: Different venture capitalists often hold the same startup at different valuations
“You can have many different investors in the same company, you know, holding, holding a particular security or a particular company at different, different prices.”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 19:01 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Woody Marshall: Public markets shifted Rule of 40 expectations toward balanced margins
“Two years ago, if you had talked to the public market... It used to be 60 to 70% growth with the -20 to -30% EBITDA. Today, depending on who you talk to, it's like 30 and 10, 20 and 20. Like they want to see both.”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 23:46 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Woody Marshall: TCV has made no direct AI investments as of late 2023
“We have not made any AI specific investments, although I would say. 100% of our companies are leveraging AI in lots of different ways, whether it's, you know, how you touch the end customer or how you make some of your processes more efficient.”
Woody Marshall Oct 11, 2023 ▶ 46:32 Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Marshall: Only high-quality businesses survive major economic downturns
“Well, I think that the way that we think about it is the way that I think about it is that only quality is durable, and if you look at 2000 and then the 2008, you had some folks that just came into the market talk about bubbles. Only the true quality businesse…”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 4:34 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Disclosure
Woody Marshall: Less than 20% of TCV's investments are in the Bay Area
“Less than 20% of the investments that we make are in the Bay Area.”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 6:17 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Opinion
Marshall: Expanding market value of tech companies justifies venture capital mega-funds
“The first thing I would say is if you look at the size of the global technology pie, it's bigger than ever before. You know, look at the top 10 highest market cap public companies today. You know, Apple's over a trillion dollars. I think five years ago was pro…”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 13:40 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Marshall: Deploying larger VC checks is harder due to fewer scalable opportunities
“It's always more challenging to find places for larger and larger checks. There's just fewer opportunities that are out there, but”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 14:15 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Marshall: Delaying executive changes is the biggest mistake boards make
“The biggest mistake that boards and CEOs can make is waiting too long sometimes to make changes.”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 18:16 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Disclosure
Marshall: TCV avoids market risk and invests only after commercial acceptance
“With us at TCV, we're looking for commercial acceptance. So we're not taking the risk of whether there's a market or the answer in the question, will the dogs eat the dog food?”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 20:53 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Marshall: Startup CAC is most efficient early on before market competition increases
“There's sometimes, like, we look back at companies and say, God, we should have spent twice as much on customer acquisition because customer acquisition was remarkably efficient in the early days, and over time, it gets more and more competitive.”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 21:38 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Woody Marshall: Effective board members prioritize listening over airtime
“I think to me, the most important thing is to really understand the core drivers of the business. And there's a lot of people that like airtime. In board meetings, and I'm sure I talk too much in board meetings at some point, but I think it's about listening, …”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 23:52 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV
Insight
Woody Marshall: Board meetings should engage on strategy, not report on numbers
“Keep the board informed with up-to-date data, and then your discussion should focus on strategic questions, or maybe it's an operational problem. But you don't want to spend a board going through like, okay, here's the quarterly results. Let's go through 35 pa…”
Woody Marshall Oct 8, 2018 ▶ 24:39 20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV

Show 2statements(2 left)

The other half of the tape: Woody Marshall's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 8 times in 6 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4David Pakman 3Jason Lemkin 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
002132201620172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions
012201620172018201920202021202220232024episodes it came up in
001.5132201620172018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2018 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2016 3 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Roundtable #4 with Jason Lemkin, Woody Marshall, Deven Parekh, Harry Stebbings | E1071 Oct 11, 2023 17m
20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investin Oct 8, 2018 18m
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