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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Lindzon: Angel investing boom driven by passive market flows, not bubble
“This whole angel investing phenomenon is partly due to this Vanguard S&P 500 and the way the public markets are working. So people that call this a bubble I don't really understand the full scope of money and money flows and the whole ecosystem of investing, b…”
Lindzon: Investors should write the check if price is the only objection
“If you like the CEO, and you like the opportunity, and you like the market, and every single thing about this says yes, and the only reason you say no in a private, this is private stuff, not public check, and the only reason you say no is the price, well, you…”
Lindzon: Passive index investing will trigger massive corporate fallout
“And so it's destroying creativity and it's also you're going to start to see some massive fallout i can't predict when but you're starting to see cracks companies misbehaving again because you know it's okay for wells Wells Fargo as part of the S&P 500 to misb…”
Lindzon: Public market investors only need around 12 core brand stocks
“Where startups versus the stock market differ is that in the stock market, I don't think you need 500 stocks, the S&P 500. I think an average person can own 12 companies. I call them eight to 80 brands that you use from eight years old to 80 years old have a d…”
Lindzon: Early-stage venture investors should hold roughly 100 startup investments
“In the private markets, I totally believe that the more the merrier, and not so much spray and pray, but having a hundred startups is not bad.”
Lindzon: VCs like Fred Wilson would have sold before 2001 crash
“In 99, 2000, I'm sure Fred Wilson and Brad Feld and a lot of the VCs wish they understood the stock markets because they would have sold, because they could have sold. Instead, they wrote everything to zero in 2001.”
Howard Lindzon passed on early-stage Zynga over a post-commitment price hike
“And so I really had committed to Zynga, passed a month later based on the price that was set. A big mistake.”
Lindzon: Fundraising is an art rather than a teachable skill
“So there's just so many subtleties to the whole, I would call it more of an art than a skill. I think, everybody's trying to teach people how to raise money, and I would say, hey, listen, not everybody can be an artist.”
Lindzon: Angel investors should draft behind smarter co-investors
“First rule of thumb, follow smart people, right? Because just like in sports, in the Tour de France, if you can keep up with the smart people, then you can just draft behind them.”
Lindzon: Investors cannot understand down cycles without personally losing money
“People need to lose money to really understand how the markets work, and you can lose that money in a private deal or in the public markets, but until you're cut and bleed and see how co-investors behave with you and how the entrepreneur feels, I don't think y…”
Howard Lindzon says public markets taught him never to experience FOMO
“I never have fear of missing out. The stock market's taught me never to chase.”
Lindzon: High entry valuations severely penalize angels without follow-on capital
“The difference between, between paying two pre and 20 pre can be massive, especially if you're not going to have the capital to follow on.”
Howard Lindzon backed AngelList in 2010 as an early investor
“We were actually, Tom and I, my partner, were one of the first checks into AngelList in 2010.”
Lindzon: 50% of his 2006-2008 angel portfolio succeeded fantastically
“Luckily for me, I probably lost on my first four back in 99 when everybody lost money in the bubble. But when I really started investing after I sold Wallstrip I caught a great crop of entrepreneurs in 2006, 2007, 2008, and I would say 50% of the companies wor…”