Max Altman says Hydrazine Capital generated approximately 17 unicorn companies
Max Altman · 20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and a16z | Leaving $2BN on the Table with Reddit | Lessons from Backing Rippling at $25M Post | Why Climate Tech is a Mirage and Disaster · Nov 21, 2025 · at 12:35
Max Altman reflects on the performance and portfolio density of Hydrazine Capital, an early fund he ran alongside Sam Altman.
0:00 / 0:13exact quote · 13.1s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“You know, I think we had about 17 unicorns across the fund, because it's just a small world, and everyone's coming by, so I'm like, oh, these are the founders of Instacart, or Reddit, or Rippling, or Boom, and it's like, this is the bar.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Max Altman
Parker Conrad unfairly took the fall for non-ethical Zenefits mistakes
“I think there were some small mistakes made, but they were company-wide. They were under all departments, not just his. Everyone knew about it. They weren't ethical mistakes, and he sort of, you know, took the fall.”
Max Altman predicts climate tech startups will not produce great VC returns
“Yeah, I think we wanted to be somewhat involved with it, and there were a lot of amazing founders building in it, and they're gonna build great things, but they're not gonna get us great VC returns.”
A seed lead only taking pro rata in Series A signals failure
“I fully believe if they're like, hey, Sequoia led our seed, and I'm like, hey, are they doing your A, and they're like, Well, they're doing their pro rata. I'm like, this is not a good company. Like, objectively is not a good company.”
Tech workers should ignore mission and join the fastest-growing company
“Don't care about the product, don't care about anything, just go work at the fastest growing company because winning feels great.”
Altman: Traditional VC firm hierarchies distort associate incentives away from fund returns
“I don't know if they're fucked up cultures, but I don't think they're incentivized to have the best returns. If you're an associate at a firm, and you're maybe there for five or six years, your job is to get a deal done that's gonna get marked up quickly so yo…”