StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Evan Burfield

Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Washington Office · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderinvestorexecutiveauthor@eburfield ↗

Evan Burfield is the co-founder and former co-CEO of 1776, a Washington, D.C.–based startup incubator and seed fund, and later served as CEO of Union. He authored the 2018 book Regulatory Hacking: A Playbook for Startups, which details strategies for startups navigating regulated industries.

15statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.13/5average debate potential →

1 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 2 assertions · 1 opinion · 8 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Evan argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Burfield: 80% of Sub-Saharan FMCG and Produce Flows Through Informal Markets
“80% of all fresh fruits and vegetables and fast-moving consumer goods in sub-Saharan Africa go through informal markets.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:35 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Kidde built the carbon monoxide detector market via pediatric health partnerships
“They ended up partnering with a lot of the pediatric nursing and pediatric groups and said, in fact, kids all across the country are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, and this is a public health issue, and they used that to ultimately get mandates in place…”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:26 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack

How they sound: speaking style how? →

266 words/min while actually speaking · 8 um and uh per 1k words · 18.6 false starts per 1k · 35% of pauses land inside a clause

No argument clarity score for Evan Burfield: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to 5,373 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Evan Burfield is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

Everything Evan Burfield said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Healthcare AI is blocked by missing decision layers on EMRs
“We're not really even at the point yet where we can start to apply all these amazing advances in AI and all this kind of stuff to healthcare, because we still haven't really created that, that decision layer on top of the billions that have been spent on EMRs.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:54 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Opinion
Every Elon Musk business is fundamentally based on regulatory hacking
“Every one of his businesses is based on a regulatory hack.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 15:27 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Next 20 years of venture won't be driven by consumer social
“Our number one thesis is that the giant investment opportunities of the next 20 years are not going to look at all like the last 20, right? It's not going to be as nearly as much lightweight social and”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:46 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Regulatory friction stems from policymaker ignorance, not regulatory capture
“There is some of that. There's regulatory capture, but in a lot of cases, it's like policymakers are trying to achieve an objective, and they have no idea.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:22 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Lobbying is exceptionally rarely a necessary part of startup regulatory hacking
“Part of your regulatory hacking strategy is maybe you need to go lobby, but that is exceptionally rare.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 31:08 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Burfield: Corporations quietly use regulatory changes to build competitive barriers
“If some large auto, you know, automobile manufacturer very carefully gets a rule change that helps them open up more markets at less cost and maybe even potentially erects a bit of a barrier for one of their competitors, They are never going to talk about that…”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:18 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Burfield: Energy and water startups require regulatory hacking for market entry
“In a lot of sectors like energy or water, you're not going to get market entry without some form of regulatory hacking.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 16:25 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Burfield: Ignorance of regulatory power dynamics puts startups at a strategic disadvantage
“If you are operating in one of these sectors, and you don't know that there's a chessboard and a game of chess being played, you are at a very significant strategic disadvantage.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 20:40 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Mayors offer startups the ideal mix of authority and citizen responsiveness
“Because actually, mayors, in our entire political system, in the U.S. Context, in our political system, mayors are pretty much the perfect blend of very, very powerful, and yet incredibly responsive, the very immediate citizen, yes.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 26:16 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Burfield: Municipal civic infrastructure is entering a 20-year radical reinvention
“I mean, all of that, that sort of civic infrastructure that, that is just in the early phases of going through a radical twenty-year reinvention.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 26:55 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Washington D.C. and Silicon Valley are inevitably smashing together
“And so we think very, very much about the fact that DC and Silicon Valley are inevitably smashing together. In a whole bunch of different ways, but one of them is actually methodologically.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 29:19 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Insight
Burfield: Silicon Valley and D.C. are both fundamentally relationship businesses
“As wonderfully collaborative as the Valley is, it still matters who you have a relationship with. And people still have, like, they're just, they're both relationship businesses. They're just different networks, and they're different languages.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 31:58 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Disclosure
Burfield: Healthcare delivery is 1776's most active startup sector
“The delivery of healthcare is, is massive and probably the most active sector we see.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:49 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Assertion Supported
Burfield: 80% of Sub-Saharan FMCG and Produce Flows Through Informal Markets
“80% of all fresh fruits and vegetables and fast-moving consumer goods in sub-Saharan Africa go through informal markets.”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:35 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack
Assertion Contradicted
Kidde built the carbon monoxide detector market via pediatric health partnerships
“They ended up partnering with a lot of the pediatric nursing and pediatric groups and said, in fact, kids all across the country are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning, and this is a public health issue, and they used that to ultimately get mandates in place…”
Evan Burfield Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:26 a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | The Art of the Regulatory Hack Jan 2, 2019 24m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,000 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more