The Ledger
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Singerman: Founders Fund never plans or calculates capital reserves for follow-ons
“I don't think about reserves ever. Period. Like, I literally never think, I never think a second about reserves.”
Singerman: Loss ratios do not matter for multi-billion dollar venture funds
“Loss ratios don't matter. Losing, I can't, you know, you don't want to lose a five hundred million dollar check, right? Because it's going to be then ridiculously hard for you to return that, to return multiples on that fund. Whereas, like, if you lose, in a f…”
Singerman predicts Founders Fund's $200M Anduril check will turn into $2B
“Enduro is going to be an extremely valuable company. I am, there's, yes, quite sure of that. We are not going to lose that two hundred million dollar check. That two hundred million dollars will turn into, you know, two billion.”
Palmer Luckey is one of history's greatest tech innovators
“Palmer is just one of the greatest technology innovators in history, period.”
Silicon Valley, not the DOD, was the obstacle to defense innovation
“I think the government and the DOD want to work with Silicon Valley and innovative entrepreneurs. I think that the, it's ridiculous that, I don't think it is anymore, but it was so unpopular for a few years that people were like, oh, the government doesn't wan…”
Venture Capital Is Purely About Upside Maximization, Not Downside Minimization
“Venture capital to me is a Purely a game of upside maximization. And while this may be in trouble, you know, this may get me in trouble. I actually don't. Downside minimization is completely unimportant to me.”
Singerman: Even Peter Thiel cannot accurately predict macroeconomic trends
“My partner, Peter Thiel is. Brilliant macroeconomist and probably the best in the business at this, and he can't even predict this, right? Like predicting macro is extremely hard.”
Singerman: Venture capital is about backing top companies, not cheap deals
“With venture being about upside maximization, Are you really just looking for, like, a good deal, or do you just want to invest in the best companies? And I would argue it's all the latter.”
Founders Fund refuses to pay peak 2021 valuations for top startups
“If even the best companies want You know, end of 2021, beginning of 2022 prices where other comps in their market have gone down by 80%, then we're just, we're also just not going to play that game. Like, we don't have any pressure to invest capital.”
Singerman slows investment pace due to inflated startup valuations
“And right now, I've personally slowed down investing a ton simply because you cannot get a good price on the best companies.”
Singerman: No one can predict $100B companies at seed stage
“I don't think anybody can see that something is going to be, or they can say they've got their thesis and I, you know, whatever, but like, I don't think you can predict a hundred billion dollar companies at the seed stage. That's silly, but you can predict, He…”
Singerman: Deal sourcing grows harder as venture capitalists age and networks decay
“The part that's just harder and harder over the years as you do this longer and quite frankly get older is the seeing. You've got to keep your networks fresh. You've got to like make sure that you're somehow still connected, right? Cause your networks get stal…”
Singerman: Venture capitalists should optimize for upside, not downside protection structures
“You're trying to maximize your upside. You're not trying to minimize your downside. This is why I've never understood these like, oh, we're going to do a round with three X participating preferred and around with a whole bunch of structure. I mean, like I get …”
Singerman: Fund size should be 3-4x your maximum comfortable single check
“Raise whatever fund size you can in order to like be comfortable writing a 25 to 30% of fund size check, right? Like if you're not comfortable writing a more than a five million dollar check, do not raise more than a twenty-five million dollar fund.”
Defense startups must be orders of magnitude better than incumbents
“You have to actually be orders of magnitude better than the incumbents in order to win contracts legitimately, in order to really build a company in the space. It takes top-tier technologists to be able to do this, to be able to compete with the Lockheeds and …”
Brian Singerman has stopped investing in startup founders over Zoom
“I can't do it on Zoom, and I, therefore, I'm not really doing Zoom investing anymore, period.”
Generating Massive VC Returns Requires Non-Sector-Constrained Investing
“For my job at this fund is to generate massive returns. And for our funds, you simply have to invest in the world's most important companies in order to generate those returns. It doesn't need to be quick. It doesn't need to be overnight. But long-term, they n…”
Founders Fund Has Never Had and Will Never Have Monday Partner Meetings
“Now, Founders Fund doesn't have any Monday morning partner meeting. We never have, and we never will.”
Vertically Integrated Complex Coordination Companies Build Unclonable Moats
“These are the types of what we mean by complex coordination companies that once they've developed that the ability to operate in that complex way, it may, it's a huge moat. So that's a huge moat for us that other companies cannot simply clone. You can't just h…”
Singerman: Applying 'buy low, sell high' to venture capital makes no sense
“So this concept of buy low, sell high, like using regular stock market phrases in venture to me just doesn't make any sense.”
Founders Fund distributes shares immediately because they lack public market expertise
“Our strategy has always been to distribute shares slash capital right when we can in companies simply because we don't think we know the public markets better than anybody else.”
Singerman admits Founders Fund deployed capital too quickly in 2020 and 2021
“We've had so many discussions about this and about what the last couple of years means, and did we go too fast in 20, 21? And of course we did”
Singerman: Top venture funds back breakout companies across successive fund vehicles
“If we are good investors, we raise another fund, which we've done, and there's no reason the best companies can't go across multiple funds.”
Singerman: A strong VC brand creates noise and hinders deal sourcing
“Brand can be noise and detrimental for the seeing part for the diligence, you know, for the you know, seeing companies part, but the for the sourcing”
Singerman: Founders Fund Refuses to Hire 'Clones' or Generic VC Talent
“If it's a unique strategy that is differentiated from the current partners that are here, we are interested in hiring that person, and that's really paid off. Like our focus on not hiring clones, our focus on not hiring just people who are generically good, ou…”
Brian Singerman Dislikes Startup Board Meetings and Prefers Strategy Dinners
“I can't stand boards. Private company boards, like, I would much rather do strategy dinners with founders, and they know that.”
Singerman: I am terrible at venture capital without in-person founder meetings
“Meeting a founder in person is just critical. I was terrible at this job during COVID, right? Like when you couldn't meet founders in person. I'm just terrible at this job without being able to meet founders in person.”
Singerman: I am comfortable writing single venture checks up to $500 million
“Where I'm best is at writing these two, three, four hundred million dollar checks. And so, you know, if I'm using my own, practicing what I preach, it's like, if I'm comfortable writing a, let's say the most, the biggest check I'm comfortable writing is a five…”
Singerman regrets not putting $500M into Airbnb's $1.5 billion valuation round
“I wish I had written 500, I wish we had written a five hundred million dollar check into Airbnb at the, you know, one and a half billion dollar round instead of a, whatever, a hundred and fifty million dollar check.”
Singerman: Investors Who Demand Perfect Information Will Fail in Venture Capital
“If you are the type of person that is going to do work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and make sure it's perfect before you invest or make sure it's perfect before you hire, you are just not going to do well in this business. Period.”
Founders Fund Distributed Holdings to LPs at Late 2021 Peak
“We don't have hubris about knowing the public markets better than anybody else with the fact that we were able to distribute. You know, end of 2021, when a lot of people kind of held was worked out in our favor this time.”
Singerman: Best board members are sector door-openers, not strategists
“Usually the best board members, not, not necessarily investors, right, but the best board members are ones who, Really know the sector that the company is, and know people in that sector really well, such that they can easily connect said company with other pe…”
Brian Singerman refuses to do low-level operational work for portfolio companies
“I don't know how to operate companies. I'm not going to seed your top of funnel. I'm not going to Do a bunch of like low level operations work for the company. But what I am pretty good at is, is strategy.”
Anduril won major government defense contracts within two years
“I think it took Andrel two years. The speed at which these guys were able to break in to these large government contracts was astounding.”
Prior founder experience matters less than raw talent and ruthlessness
“I actually put almost no weight on did they do it before and put all the weight on are they super unique, insanely talented, ruthless in a way that they understand how business is and can actually really get things done. I just invest in the founder regardless…”
High startup valuations will drive down VC return multiples
“The valuation inflation is extremely real, and you will make less multiples because of that.”
The media prefers virtue signaling over authentic founders like Palmer Luckey
“The media likes people who virtue signal, not necessarily people who speak their minds. Palmer has always been good about speaking his mind.”
No other Silicon Valley company was innovating in defense before Anduril
“At the time when we did this, there was no other company in Silicon Valley innovating in defense.”
Maximizing VC Returns Requires Horizons Longer Than Standard 10-Year Funds
“I think if we're going to maximize returns, it would be over an even longer period of time.”
Singerman Bases His Venture Investing on Gut Feel and Reaction
“I am a reaction, a reactive VC, a gut feel based VC”
Eliminating Monday Partner Meetings Accelerates Founders Fund's Investment Decisions
“One thing that that gives us an advantage of is let's say somebody meets a company on a Wednesday. They don't have to wait till the next Monday morning partner meeting that has time to schedule for that team to come meet. We can do it much quicker than that.”
Singerman: Private startup valuations lag public market corrections
“There's such a huge price mismatch between, let's say a company's last round of financing and what the macro Is that it's really difficult to invest right now simply because private companies lag public markets in terms of pricing by quite a bit.”
Singerman: I never buy public stocks
“This is why I don't do public. I don't buy any public stocks ever.”
Singerman: Founder quality accounts for 80% to 90% of investment thesis
“Founder quality is still 80 to 90% of my investment thesis, right?”
Singerman: Founders Fund clearly saw Airbnb's huge network effect early on
“We definitely saw at the time that the network effect on Airbnb was, at the time, was huge, and yeah, the market was it was clear that they could penetrate into the travel market, or even the lodging market, which I guarantee you, Harry, is huge.”
Singerman: VC fund returns earn complete freedom from LP interference
“When we've made money for people, you have a lot of more latitude on how you can invest money. So you've got. The freedom to do whatever you want without people breathing down your neck.”
Singerman: Founders Fund partners each execute distinct individual strategies
“The way that we do things at Founders Fund is everybody runs their own strategy based on what they are the best at.”
Singerman: 3x returns on $10M checks are meaningless for multi-billion dollar funds
“Our funds are multi-billion dollars, right? Like if we have a. Ten million dollar check, there's no real difference between that going to zero or that going to. Thirty million. I mean, there's just no difference between those numbers.”