Trae Stephens, Partner at Founders Fund and Co-founder of Anduril, discusses his essay 'Choosing Good Quests' and argues against successful founders pursuing easy SaaS business models.
“If you're like a multi-time successful entrepreneur and you're starting like fairly simple, trivial enterprise SAS company, like shame on you. Shame on you. Like, you need to go big. Like, have some vision for how you can impact humanity.”
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More from Trae Stephens
Insight
Stephens: The Worst VC Deals Are Highly Competitive and Consensus-Driven
“The worst deals are the most competitive deals. They're the ones that are super consensus.”
Trae StephensApr 3, 2024▶ 0:12Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Stephens: Institutional Seed Money Risk Lies in Pro-Rata Signaling
“This is by the way, the biggest risk of taking seed money from an institutional fund is that like doing your prorata is super lazy, doing more than your prorata is actually a signal in If you're not going to have real signal, if you don't have high conviction,…”
Trae StephensApr 3, 2024▶ 32:21Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Stephens: Deal Memos Force VCs to Intentionally Underestimate Winners
“Having like pushing your team to do things like deal memos, for example, forces them to like put down a number that they're later going to be judged by. So the investment team is going to go back and they're going to look at that investment memo and they're go…”
Trae StephensApr 3, 2024▶ 35:08Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Stephens: Top Startups Excel at Every Stage Without Late Unlocks
“If you go back and you look at the best companies in any portfolio, they were kind of the best companies at every stage. Like they were incredibly awesome at A, they were incredibly awesome at B, they were incredibly awesome at C. Very rarely do you see a comp…”
Trae StephensApr 3, 2024▶ 41:19Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Stephens: Globalization Failed and Nuclear Deterrence Cannot Prevent Conflict
“I think like the writing has been on the wall for a while that globalization didn't really work and that traditional strategic deterrence with nuclear weapons was not going to be the only thing that drove reduction in conflict globally.”
Trae StephensApr 3, 2024▶ 56:15Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionOpen · timeframe Apr 2027
Stephens: Anduril Could Reach $100B With a Fraction of Lockheed's Revenue
“Andrew operates at higher margins, much faster growth rates. I think we could be worth Over a hundred billion dollars with a tiny fraction of Lockheed's revenue.”
Trae StephensApr 3, 2024▶ 1:13:11Trae Stephens: Why No Company is Successful Because of their VC | E1135 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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