The Ledger
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Kupor: Only 7% of federal employees are under 30 years old
“Seven percent of government employees are under the age of 30. That compares with close to a quarter of the normal workforce outside of government.”
Cooper: Modern tech IPOs have $150M+ revenue versus $12M in 1999
“Coupled with four and a half year time to IPO for a company, so you've got kind of massive risk both on the public markets and the private markets, whereas now at least we have kind of much better distribution of funding, as you talked about, kind of only 20% …”
Kupor: Participating Liquidation Preferences Are Rare in Silicon Valley Deals
“Now, participating is slightly different, and it's actually much more advantageous to the venture capitalist, and quite frankly, deleterious for the entrepreneur. We generally do not see it very often, particularly in Silicon Valley, but it's good for you to u…”
Cooper: Startups will continue staying private 10 to 12 years before IPO
“I think the other phenomenon we've seen, which I think is going to continue, is this idea of companies staying private much longer. And so it used to be that companies would go public six, six and a half years after they were started. Now it's 1012 years. I do…”
1X non-participating liquidation preference predominates in Silicon Valley deals
“Yeah, the most entrepreneur-friendly, and the one that I think generally predominates, quite frankly, particularly in Silicon Valley, is what you would call a one X non-participating liquidation preference.”
Cooper: U.S. public companies dropped from 8,000 to 3,500 over two decades
“If you look at the numbers kind of over the last 20 years, the number of companies in the public markets is closer to 3500 to 4000 today versus 7500 to 8000 about 20 years ago.”
Cooper: Publicly listed companies create jobs faster than private companies
“When companies are public, they generate jobs at a much faster pace than when they stay private.”
Kupor: Eric Ries is collaborating with policymakers on Long Term Stock Exchange
“Eric is working with a lot of folks in DC to think about this concept of, he calls it the long-term stock exchange, but again, similar idea, which is how do we incent both management teams and employees, as well as incent shareholders to kind of think longer t…”
Cooper: Tesla grants smaller initial equity, favoring larger performance refreshers later
“And one of the things that Tesla does is, instead of the typical practice, which is most people get a very significant grant, you know, the day they join the company, and then over time, they might get some refresher grants, but those refresher grants are ofte…”
Square's IPO priced below its final private round and triggered investor ratchets
“You have an IPO that prices at a price that's below where the last private round. It also happened to have this, you know, feature that we've all talked about before, which is this concept of a ratchet, meaning, you know, in basic terms that the kind of invest…”
Kupor: Federal government started the year with 2.4 million civilian employees
“Just to kind of level set again for the organization, we've got about roughly, we started the year about 2.4 million civilian employees, so we don't have responsibility for uniformed military, but there's about 2.4 million civilian employees.”
Kupor: 1X Liquidation Preference Is Standard in VC Term Sheets
“It's very common to see one X. Sometimes in later stage financing rounds, you might see higher numbers, but most of the time, we're going to see one X.”
Scott Kupor: Broad-based weighted average is most common anti-dilution form
“The most common form of it is what's called broad-based weighted average anti-dilution, and the simple way to think about that, as I said, you can Google the actual math of it is, it's a partial adjustment.”
Cooper: 1970s Prudent Man Rule changes unlocked institutional venture capital
“Before the kind of mid-nineteen seventies, you know, institutional asset managers like Yale actually were prohibited from being able to invest in assets like venture capital that were considered too risky, and, you know, kind of, there were a lot of changes th…”
Cooper: General partner commitments in VC funds range from 1% to 5%
“The general partners typically do invest. It ranges anywhere from, you know, on the low end, one percent of the fund will come from general partners. Some funds, it will be as high as five percent, so it's meaningful.”
The median time to IPO has increased from six to 12 years
“It used to be not a big deal because companies about, you know, six years or so from founding was kind of the median time to going public. Now we're talking to 10, 12 years.”
Cooper: Canada lets companies deduct engineering hiring expenses from corporate taxes
“So for example, in Canada today, many companies when they hire engineers, they're able to deduct a lot of the expenses associated with those engineers from their taxes.”
Cooper: JOBS Act right-sized SEC filing regulations for early-stage companies
“One of the things that Job Act did was kind of modify the regulatory requirements around those filings to kind of right-size it for what is appropriate for an earlier stage company instead of what might be appropriate, for example, for a GM or a Goldman Sachs …”