Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Szekasy: Board members must de-escalate panic during founder crises

Nicolas Szekasy · 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures · Aug 16, 2021 · at 24:01

Nicolas Szekasy, co-founder of Kaszek Ventures and former MercadoLibre CFO, discusses effective board conduct when startup founders face high-stress crisis situations.

0:00 / 0:29exact quote · 29.1s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“If you're the board member and the team is about to collapse because there's a catastrophe, the last thing that they want is a nervous board member that is adding fuel to the fire. What they need is someone that, that is going to be there to try to calm things down and to help everybody get out of the mess. So even if it's not who you are, I think you should try to behave like this in these types of situations, because that is the way that a board member can really help a nervous team get out of a tough spot.”

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 Nicolas Szekasy

Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2026
Nubank Will Eventually Become the Largest Bank in the World
“Nubank is not only the largest challenger bank in the world. We think one day it could become the largest bank without the challenger. They will become an incumbent bank, the number one in the world”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 18:03 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Disclosure
Kaszek Ventures Refuses to Back Startups Using Capital as a Moat
“We don't back businesses that claim that they have capital as a source of moat. We don't believe in that.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 6:26 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Insight
Founder References Are Never Stellar Because Founders Make Bad Employees
“And on the specific question about the references, we've got a bunch of cases, some of our best companies, we did references and they are Never stellar. They tend to be very good on some dimensions, but in most cases, if they were employees or managers in larg…”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 27:53 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Opinion
LatAm Founders Handled Dot-Com Crash Better Than US Counterparts
“I'm sure that we were better suited than most of the founders from more developed countries, that they were not aware that something like this could happen.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 5:48 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Assertion Not checkable as stated
LatAm Graduate Tech Ambitions Flipped From 10% to 90% in a Decade
“If you were to go to a graduating class in university in 2011, 90% of the students would aspire to join an investment bank or a consulting firm. That has fully reversed, and today 90% want to become a founder or join a startup.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 11:04 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Insight
Copycat Startups Often Evolve to Surpass Their Original US Inspirations
“Over time, they diverge from the company that inspired them, and sometimes they end up being not only quite different, but also much better than the source.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 17:36 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.