Jan 2, 2019 · 25m · a16z
a16z Podcast | Hall of Fame Football Meets Venture Capital
Jeff Jordan · 9m spoken Joe Montana · 9m spoken Michael Copeland · 3m spoken Ben Horowitz · 1m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this a16z podcast episode, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana joins Andreessen Horowitz partners Jeff Jordan and Ben Horowitz to explore the intersection of professional athletics and venture capital. The discussion covers transition strategies for athlete investors, startup evaluation frameworks, risk management, and the core founder qualities required for long-term tech success.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 1.7 Guest teaching 5.2 Guest disagreement 1.5 The host pushing back 0.8
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 12:30 Jeff Jordan on bad solo deal flow
Jeff Jordan bluntly cautions athletes that standalone deals directly presented to them are typically low-quality projects rejected by traditional VC firms.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 8:59 Host questioning how Montana spotted bad dealsMichael Copeland directly pushes back on Joe Montana's statement about avoiding bad deals by asking specifically how Montana knew they were bad.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 11:59 Jordan explaining VC portfolio failure ratesJeff Jordan educates the audience on venture statistics, revealing that top-tier historical funds lose 100% of capital on half their deals to demonstrate why single bets are dangerous.
The host holds their own ▶ 17:50 Host comparing VC loss rates to baseball statsMichael Copeland smartly reframes Joe Montana's discussion of a 40% loss rate by connecting high failure rates to acceptable averages in baseball.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Technology's Impact on the Sports Industry | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Host Michael Copeland sets up open-ended questions about the intersection of sports and technology. Guests Jeff Jordan and Joe Montana explain digital disruption in sports and how athletes build venture knowledge through mentors and network leverage. | |
| Jeff Jordan's Framework for Evaluating Startups | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Host asks Jeff Jordan how he evaluates entrepreneurs, prompting a monologue on Jordan's evaluation criteria focusing on founder courage, product-market fit, and market creation rather than initial market size. | |
| Deal Selection and Building Value-Add Seed Teams | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Host presses Joe Montana on how he recognized bad early investments. Montana candidly admits learning through early losses and explains his strategy of building a specialized seed team to provide hands-on value. | |
| Advice for Athletes on Risk and Personal Leverage | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Jeff Jordan provides a sobering reality check on venture risk, noting that top funds lose money on half their portfolio companies and strongly advising athletes to seek diversification rather than single-deal picks. | |
| Protecting Personal Brand and Handling VC Failures | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Joe Montana shares personal experiences with agent dishonesty and contract vigilance, while discussing the difficulty athletes face in accepting 40-50% loss rates common in venture capital. | |
| Regional Deal Flow and Silicon Valley Network Effects | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Host inquires about regional investing outside Silicon Valley, allowing Jeff Jordan to outline how network effects and engineering talent density make Silicon Valley deal flow superior. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Jordan: Cord-cutting is eroding ESPN's subscriber base
“There's enormous disruption in, ah, in the TV business, and the cutting of the cord, the unplugging of the bundles, ESPN's subscribers have started to go down, but people are still consuming sports, so they're consuming them different ways”
Montana: Sequoia's Doug Leone is a better investor than baseball coach
“Doug Leone, who obviously from Sequoia Capital was, coached my kids in baseball, and, ah, Better investor than coach, I'll say that.”
Montana: Seeing a crowd of startups means you're late
“There are a lot of them out there in the same parts of the world, and sometimes when you see it, and there's so many of them there, you're already probably too late in that industry.”
Jordan: Consumers will spend $10 billion on Airbnb in 2016
“Consumers are gonna spend ten billion dollars this year on Airbnb for, you know, that couch and room in the, in your house.”
Jordan: Deep user passion beats broad, moderate startup appeal
“And we'd rather have it resonate with a small number of people incredibly well, Than a large number of people modestly well, because you want that passion and engagement in the community.”
Jordan: Market size should be ignored when evaluating great startups
“The last thing, one we kind of ignore, is market, because almost all of the really great new technology companies created their own market, or they started with a trivial idea and made it big.”
Jordan: Beanie Babies made up 8-9% of eBay trades at IPO
“Eight or nine percent of All the items on, trading on eBay when we went public were Beanie Babies, you know, Beanie Babies.”
Montana: Seed investors step back once Series A VCs invest larger capital
“Usually when guys like You guys come in, it's, our hands are kind of off of it anymore after that because, ah, they come in with a lot more money, and they have a lot more power behind it, but we're able to disperse and try to help that, that process”
Jeff Jordan: Half of portfolio companies in top VC funds lose all capital
“It's about the best performing funds in the history of venture capital, about half the companies lost all the money.”
Jordan: Unsolicited direct startup pitches are usually poor investments
“Be really careful, because when they, when the one deal comes to you, it's usually the shitty deal that couldn't get money elsewhere.”
Montana: A well-known agent once stole money from me
“I went through three, and you know, I had, like everyone else, I had one steal from me, and, ah, I never thought it would happen, and it was a well-known one.”
Montana: Ron Conway loses on roughly 40% of his angel investments
“Even Ron Conway, who's probably, if not the top angel investor, one of them there, He's at 60%. I mean, so he loses about 40% of his deals, and that's considered great”
Jeff Jordan: Scaling startups move to Silicon Valley for executive talent
“A lot of them find as they, as they're growing, they scale out of their cities. So, you know, Chicago had Groupon, and, you know Foursquare had, it was in New York, and they can only hire so many engineers, particularly engineers, but also the senior executive…”
Jeff Jordan: Seeing high deal volume is critical for VC calibration
“And the deal flow, as Ben and Joe both said, is, is critical. You, Want to see as many deals as you can, because that's, you know, that's how you calibrate, that's how you get to, you know, some of them are going to be good, and so, you know, be really careful…”