Pivot
topic on 11 shows · 11 statements across 9 episodes · said 9 times in 7 episodes since 2021
Big Technology 4 
Acquired 1 
the Pitch 1 
BigDeal 1 
Catalyst 1 
All-In 1 
Masters of Scale 
Lenny's Podcast 
Capital Allocators 
the a16z Podcast 
20VC
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
Big Technology 4All-In 1Acquired 1Catalyst 1the Pitch 1BigDeal 1
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
11 statements about Pivot, every show
Mohan: Founders Must Go Cold Turkey When Pivoting
“When you do a pivot, I think the right answer is you should just give up what you were doing in the past, because the thing you were doing in the past probably will have no sort of relevance to your business going forward, right? The revenue multiple on that b…”
Ego and fear of admitting failure prevent founders from pivoting
“Half the time with pivots, it's ego, right, that you don't do the pivot. So you have founders who sit there and go, well, wait,
I raise money on the first idea.
I can't go back to the board and tell them that this isn't working.
I can't go back to my family a…”
Maples: 80% to 85% of Floodgate exit profits came from pivots
“80 to 85% of our exit profits had come from pivots.”
Ries: A pivot means changing strategy while preserving the vision
“That is what it's called when you change the strategy, but try to have Fidelity to the vision that we, it needs a name because we do it all the time.”
Ries: Real pivots retain a critical insight, not a complete restart
“If it was truly a complete shutdown, start over again, nobody and nothing in common. I was like, that is not a pivot. But that's just actually quite rare. Usually there's some critical insight or element of the first thing that is carried over into the second …”
Hoffman: Founders owe it to split teams to force a single decision
“When your team is split, it might seem smart to hedge your bets and pursue both ideas at once. It may seem to keep the peace with your team, but as a founder, you never want to say, We're working on X, and we're also working on Y, because my team likes both id…”
Hoffman: Startup pivots shouldn't be democratic, but must feel democratic
“I believe that, as CEO, you always have to bring the core team along during a pivot. You have to make them feel like it was a joint decision. It doesn't have to be completely democratic. In fact, it shouldn't be democratic. But it has to feel democratic.”
Gerstner: Funding Startup Pivots Requires Entirely New Underwriting
“Will you support me in the pivot of this business or not? But that's a totally new underwriting. That's a different question.”
Rosenthal: Virtually every successful tech startup undergoes a pivot
“Really actually every startup is a pivot and it's along this big spectrum from tiny pivots that, that happened at the beginning to much harder times. Bigger ones. If we take most, if not all of the biggest, most successful tech companies that we think about to…”
Ries: A pivot is a strategy change without changing the core vision
“The right definition of a pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision.”