Rob Hayes, partner at First Round Capital, reflects on his experience managing Palm's corporate venture unit and analyzing structural trends in corporate venture capital.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
No seed investor predicted Uber's ultimate scale except its founders
“Anybody that says that they did, other than, you know, Travis and Ryan, who actually did kind of have that vision early on would be lying to you.”
Disclosure
First Round will not declare Uber a win until cash is returned
“I mean, my ultimate goal is to, you know, take money from my investors and invest it in companies and return multiples on that one. I haven't done that. Right. And so until that happens, I don't think I don't even call it a success right now. Come on. It's a m…”
Insight
VCs should treat founders as customers and LPs as shareholders
“Now, listen, we think of, you know, our LPs are, you know, our investors are very important to us, obviously, but I think of them as our shareholders. And if I make my customers very happy and have the best product out there, Then my shareholders are going to …”
Opinion
Benchmark is the best venture firm at managing generational transitions
“And so what it means is, and I think that, you know, right now there's probably, you know, no one that does this better than benchmark in this space where they're continually bringing in young people and growing them from, you know, from, you know, relatively …”
Insight
VCs passed on Uber due to a small market and unknown CEO
“A lot of the reasons that people didn't invest were one, at the time it was an unknown guy, Ryan Graves running the company and two, It was seen as not a very big market.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ryan Graves built Uber's operational core and expansion playbook
“In Ryan's case, it turned out to be true. I mean, he, he's an amazing guy. And, you know, if you look at You know, the impact that he's had on Uber and the culture there and, you know, how they, you know, kind of started, you know, going from city to city and …”