Woody Marshall, General Partner at TCV, discusses the tradeoffs of taking companies public.
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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”
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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 …”
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…”
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.”
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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.”
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…”