The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Zanutto: Hedge funds use early checks as loss leaders for pre-IPO allocation
“Frankly, a lot of these hedge funds manage such enormous pools of capital relative to the size of the traditional VC fund. That for them, you know, writing a 25 or fifty million dollar check into an A or a B round is a rounding error, right? So for them, they …”
Zanutto: High valuations and easy money create severe downstream financing risks
“One learning that I've come away with from those conversations and experiences is if you take the money and it's at a very high price and it's easy money, there is a risk to that because you, if you take it at too high of a price, you get over your skis and th…”
Zanutto: Established VC firms lose performance sensitivity due to stacked management fees
“A younger fund's partners will make nearly all of their money based on how well their underlying portfolio companies perform, while older funds will be less sensitive to underlying investment performance given the steady stream of stacked management fees that …”
Zanutto: Every enterprise will need Armis for unagentable devices alongside CrowdStrike
“As IoT devices continue to proliferate, you know, every enterprise will need a CrowdStrike for their agentable devices and an Armus for all unagentable devices.”
Derek Zanutto: Pursuing market breadth over depth in expensive markets fails
“What I worry most about, and I think what's most challenging is if in markets like this where prices are incredibly high, going for breadth and trying to chase everything, I think is a losing strategy because then you're going to, you know, not have enough, en…”
Derek Zanutto: Enterprise Data Stack Will Consolidate as CIOs Rationalize Vendors
“And I think there's a case to be made that you're likely to see a bit more consolidation down the road as CIOs and CDOs look to rationalize all the vendors are using to solve, you know, common pain points throughout the enterprise.”
Zanutto: Startup media overemphasizes individual founders over teams
“No one investor is the be all and end all for any given company's board. No one individual can build a world beating business all on their own. And I think the media around startups and venture often defaults to the story of the individual because it's frankly…”
TPG invested in Uber's Series D at a $3B valuation
“And one of the very first investments we did was an investment into Uber's series D round. When it was valued at, you know, at the time felt like a very rich price of three billion dollars.”
TPG backed Airbnb in 2014 at a $10B valuation
“We then followed that in 2014 with an investment into Airbnb when it was at a ten billion dollar valuation.”
Zanutto: Capital oversupply in venture has persisted for over 10 years
“I think there's been an oversupply Supply of capital for, you know, the better part of 10 years now, at least 10 years, really since the Fed took interest rates down to zero coming out of the GFC in 2008, 2009.”
Derek Zanutto: Investors must form sector theses before companies start fundraising
“And I think what that means in reality is that for investors to make informed judgments On underwriting risks and making investments, you really need to have been doing your research and your work and developing your thesis on a category well in advance of a c…”
Zanutto: Novel COVID-era startup services are significantly harder to underwrite
“But a whole host of other startups thriving now in the COVID economy where they're offering services that didn't really exist a whole lot pre-COVID. And in my mind, those are much more challenging to underwrite And assess as an investor today, because then you…”
Zanutto: Early-Stage VC Funds Moving Upstack Will Split or Reuse Teams
“I think you'll see some of those early stage funds will hire entirely separate teams, and some of them will use the exact same early stage team to prosecute those growth rounds.”
Zanutto: Test VC Deals by Risking Proportional Personal Net Worth
“Would you invest your own money in the deal proportionate to your own personal net worth? So if you are evaluating an investment for the fund that would account for five percent of the fund's capital, would you invest five percent of your own net worth in that…”
Zanutto: Tony Vinciquerra is the best board member in media and tech
“You know, the best board member I've come across in my career is this guy, Tony Vince Acquera.”
Zanutto: CapitalG's Collibra thesis originated from discussions with Google engineers
“So for Clibra as an example, that initial idea around data intelligence and data management came from spending time with a number of Google engineers who had regular conversations with folks throughout Google and outside Google who are combating these challeng…”