Peter Wagner, founding partner of Wing Venture Capital, responds to the common industry claim that venture capital is a scale game.
Opinion
Wagner: SoftBank and mega-funds pollute good startup opportunities with excess capital
“There's certainly lots of otherwise good opportunities that have been polluted or dragged down by, you know, whatever soft bank showing up, and, you know, or any other number of people that, that we can name”
Opinion
Peter Wagner: VCs Funding Capital-Intensive Sectors Are Repeating Bubble Mistakes
“Yes. And you know, and you can get away with it sometimes, just like I got away with it, with that early deal. If you can find, you know, other people's money on advantageous terms to sort of fund you through you know, the valley of death there you know, like,…”
Insight
Wagner: VC partners are rarely punished for consensus mistakes
“There's this kind of safety in the herd thing, and I, a belief within, you know, firms and partners, and not incorrect, that if they're making the same mistake that everyone else in the industry is making, they probably won't be punished for it, because, you k…”
Disclosure
Wagner: Wing Avoids Investing in High-Priced LLM Development Shops
“Where we haven't been investing is the super capital intensive very, very high priced you know, sort of LLM development shops or other, you know, other sorts of similar projects.”
Insight
Wagner: Venture capital splits into AUM gathering vs return generation
“I think for an asset gatherer, you know, there's sort of two business models in venture, you know, you can be in the assets under management game, or you can be in the generate best possible returns game.”
Insight
Wagner: Investors emphasizing annual capital deployment are asset gatherers
“Anytime you meet an investor that talks about the amount of capital they deploy per year, right, you know you're talking to, you know, an asset gatherer”