MZ Zaveri, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, responds to questions about the expansion of micro-VC funds and seed capital availability.
Insight
Zaveri: Deal heat is often manufactured by early investors over-socializing rounds
“In many ways, actually, I've seen that if you kind of peel back the onion, you can kind of find The root node or sort of the creator, there's sort of individuals that, you know, may have feel sort of have put some early dollars into a financing and have a stro…”
Insight
Zaveri: Value in AI comes from vertical applications, not infrastructure
“I look at it from a vertical application standpoint, not from just Hey, we want to have the best models, the best sort of, you know, technology, and we're just going to sell enabling technology, you know. No one buys programming languages. And in the same way,…”
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Zaveri: Outbound sourcing is how venture works, not inbound deal flow
“I fundamentally learned that outbound is the way venture works and inbound is rarely the way it should work.”
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Zaveri: Out-raising competitors starves rivals and yields a distribution advantage
“Particularly sort of in sort of markets where there might be four or five competitors, if one can raise more than the others, you can suck out, suck the oxygen out of the room and have an advantage on customer acquisition and distribution in general.”
Insight
Zaveri: Dismissing founders or ideas as just a feature is dangerous
“I'd say, like, huge market, and then the other pet, you know, pet peeve is, oh, this is a feature or something like that, right? It's like, you know, companies evolve and change, and I'd say there might be sort of folks that may sort of poorly phrase things, a…”
Insight
Zaveri: Capital is commoditized, making early relationship-building essential for VCs
“Capital is pretty commoditized today , and so, in essence, if you are selling something that's, like, partially a commodity, you should get to know, sort of, the founders, or the founders should get to know you also, particularly, sort of, if they have multipl…”