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.
why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Venture Capital Decision-Making Does Not Scale Beyond Five Partners
“And so one of the learnings for myself was that I wasn't so sure that venture scaled well. Of making hard decisions. It's different when you have five people around a table versus 10 people around the table.”
Billion-Dollar VC Funds Have Abandoned $3M-$4M Checks for $10M-$15M+
“A lot of the venture firms that used to be early stage focused venture firms have gone from, you know, having 304 hundred million dollar funds to billion dollar funds. And these billion dollar funds are not likely investing three to four million dollars at a t…”
VC Fee Structures Create Adverse Incentives to Outsource Back-Office Operations
“And I will add the reason why a lot of people end up outsourcing it is because it becomes a fund expense. When you outsource it to hire someone that comes out of the management fee pool. And so there's a weird adverse incentive to want to hire the right people…”
Vassallo: Tech diversity requires active participation from white male allies
“I mean, things aren't going to change unless middle class white guys are part of what's helping change what we're doing.”
Good Technology Was Sold to Motorola for $500 Million
“We ultimately sold that company to Motorola for five hundred million”
Vassallo: The venture capital industry is overfunded
“The venture industry is overfunded. I mean, I don't think anyone would argue that there's, you know, not too much capital in the venture industry.”
Defy.vc's First Series A Investment Was Pre-Revenue and Pre-Product
“In fact, our first investment was in a company that was absolutely pre-revenue. It was a Series A. They hadn't launched their product, but it was an investment in a different set of criteria.”
Vassallo: LPs' primary concern was founders' lack of shared history
“The biggest concern is you've got a new team coming together, so Neil and I didn't have this Story of, you know, yeah, we've worked together for the last 10 years, but at different firms, we really hadn't crossed paths.”
Vassallo: $150M+ funds should hire in-house CFOs instead of outsourcing
“If your fund is seed funder on the smaller side, then absolutely, you know, it doesn't make sense. But Once you start getting, you know, so our fund is a hundred and fifty one million dollars. And so, you know, we absolutely, it makes sense to bring that perso…”
Vassallo: Women played crucial roles in building Google's early business model
“You know, she talks about company like Google, you know, we only ever think of Larry and Sergey, but there were incredibly important and influential women who helped lead that company in the early days and helped build out the business model that made Google w…”
Vassallo: Intelligent in-car video will significantly impact driver insurance rates
“Uber Lyft drivers having something like this in their car, its impact on insurance rates is going to be important.”
Trae Vassallo Co-Engineered the Palm V With One Other IDEO Engineer
“Myself and one other engineer basically engineered the whole product.”
John Doerr Excels on Boards by Ignoring Minutiae for Core Drivers
“The thing that was so incredible about working with John is that he was really good at quickly identifying the big question, the big issue. He never got distracted by the small minutiae that so many folks can get distracted by. He was always laser focused on w…”
Trae Vassallo made Eero her first personal seed investment
“Eero was my first personal seed investment.”
Defy partners personally backed Owlcam before closing fund, then led Series A
“Timing-wise, we hadn't actually closed our fund yet, so we personally put some capital in. Some other firms led the seed round, but then we closed our first close and then led his Series A.”
Defy.vc Raised Its Debut Fund Cap to $151M for One Entrepreneur
“And so, in fact, our cap was one 50. And so it's actually a great story. And I think it was a really good example of How much we care about our entrepreneurs, but there was an entrepreneur who had been an incredible, it is an incredible reference for us. We've…”
Vassallo: LPs Demanded Deal Processing Examples During Defy.vc Fundraising
“We did a small personal seed investment that wouldn't really have been what we would have done had the firm been in existence, but LPs absolutely wanted to see how we process deals and how we work together as a team, and so it was definitely a great example th…”