Opinion
Boyle: Healthcare, housing, and education costs rose because tech hasn't touched them
“Everything has come down the cost curve, like televisions are less expensive, everything is less expensive in consumer land, except for healthcare, except for housing, and except for education. And it's really because technology has not touched those sectors, …”
Opinion
Boyle: VC creates jobs while private equity fires people
“Private equity and venture capital as a category could not be more different from what they are doing. Venture capital is creating new things from nothing, and it is creating more jobs, it is Pouring money into companies so that they can grow, expand, and solv…”
Insight
Boyle: Aerospace and defense startups consolidate finite talent into early holding companies
“These companies usually become holding companies pretty quickly and attract all of the talent. There's finite talent around things like aerospace. There's finite talent around things like defense. So you don't see as many competitors. And as I said, they are h…”
Insight
Boyle: Silicon Valley is positive-sum, while Washington D.C. is zero-sum
“Silicon Valley is the most peculiar place in the world, because it's the only place where incentives are aligned with that sort of positive sum mentality. Whereas in places like DC, no one ever turns down talking to the press because it's information trading. …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Boyle: Every venture capital firm will have an American Dynamism practice
“I think if we do our jobs right and we invest in the companies that we're intending to invest in and we tell the story, right? I think every venture capital firm will have an American dynamism practice.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boyle: The best software builders do not go into government
“Software is a revolution that is completely touching every aspect of society, but the people who are building the best forms of software are not going into government.”
Insight
Boyle: Venture capitalists and journalists both hunt fringe internet shifts
“The sort of similarity of what I saw in my colleagues and what I did is it's like trying to get at the forefront of cultural shifts, even if you don't know what they mean, just trying to see, okay, are these like these weird movements that are happening in soc…”
Insight
Boyle: Individual journalists are more powerful than legacy media institutions
“The kind of biggest trend in media, and I can talk about another one of our investments, Substack, which I think has sort of benefited from this trend, is that people are now brands. They are identities. And the individual journalist is ultimately more powerfu…”
Assertion Supported
Boyle: VC has funded healthcare far more than education and housing
“Education and housing are, you know, two areas that I think venture capital hasn't touched as much as say healthcare. Like if you look at like the last 10 years, digital health has just grown tremendously and we have, you know, we have a separate bio and healt…”
Insight
Boyle: Physical-world startups have a deeper J-curve and struggle at Series A
“And I think these companies are just harder to build. As we like to say, like these companies go deeper down the J curve. They often don't look that good at series A.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boyle: VC consensus for decades was to avoid dealing with government
“And so there has been sort of, I think this sort of 20, 30 year sort of do not engage Kind of modern wisdom from venture capital firms has been, it's just too hard. There's so much other stuff to do. There's so much other stuff to build. Let's make sure that w…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boyle: Non-traditional profiles like teachers and DoD officers are founding startups
“I've talked to founders recently who are former teachers. I've talked to founders recently who, you know, have worked in the department of defense as procurement officers. And it's like, they're not the normal people we would say are the founders of, 10 years …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Boyle: Founders will build American Dynamism companies to solve local civic problems
“And so I'm incredibly bullish that American dynamism Will not only be companies that are built around the country, but it will also be just different types of problems because founders who wouldn't have gone to San Francisco are now building for their hometown…”
Opinion
Boyle: American Dynamism is not ESG or concessionary impact investing
“And it's not impact investing. It's not ESG. It's not just like, oh, well, we're going to see incremental returns. Like it is going to be the source of American innovation and it is a great place for the top venture firms to be investing.”
Assertion Supported
Boyle: Hadrian founder returned PE capital before building automated factories
“So he raised a small private equity fund and talked to a bunch of different shops... Cause even if you are to try to bring software into these existing shops, it's almost impossible from a technical perspective. Like there's not much that can be done unless yo…”
Assertion Supported
Boyle: Roughly 50% of US unicorn founders are foreign-born
“Something like 50% of unicorn founders in this country are foreign born.”
Katherine Boyle