Ann Miura-Ko
Co-Founding Partner, Floodgate. On 2 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderacademic@annimaniac ↗LinkedIn ↗floodgate.com ↗
Ann Miura-Ko co-founded the seed-stage venture firm Floodgate and is widely recognized for early investments in companies including Lyft, TaskRabbit, and Refinery29. She holds a PhD from Stanford in mathematical modeling of cybersecurity, previously served on Zoom's board of directors, and co-founded All Raise.
2shows
3appearances
36statements
12resolved
8supported
1contradicted
67%fully supported
34said about them ↓ Everything Ann Miura-Ko said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Ann Miura-Ko: Misdirected Startup Capital Is Like Weapons-Grade Plutonium
“I believe that capital is a very powerful weapon, but you actually have to really know it's like weapons grade plutonium, right? Like you have to know which way to direct it. Otherwise you can actually become the victim of that weapon.”
Lyft Originally Launched Using Suggested Donations to Bypass Regulations
“We also, there was no payment mechanism because there was sort of this regulatory gray area. And so there was a suggested donation. And so you could technically ride for free. Most people actually paid the suggested donation.”
Miura-Ko: Startups Never Win Competing on an Incumbent's Terms
“When you're put on the field and someone has a game that they're really good at, if you then try to engage in that battle on their basis, you're never gonna win. If you see that happening, You change the rules.”
Miura-Ko: Lyft had only a few months of cash left at times
“For a while there were moments where I think Lyft had just a few months of cash left.”
Floodgate's Initial Zimride Investment Thesis Incorrectly Relied on Facebook Connect
“The thing that we were betting on was the Facebook Connect, to be honest. We thought that that was going to create more trust in this network, even within Zimride. Now, that was the thing that we thought was the real change element. It turns out that wasn't, r…”
Miura-Ko: Independent board members help surface VCs' hidden agendas
“What's very valuable for the independent is they can actually help surface a lot of this sort of hidden assumptions in the boardroom. So if you have multiple investors and multiple cost spaces and multiple rounds, You know, maybe one investor wants the company…”
Miura-Ko: Zoom prioritized orthogonal thinking over domain expertise for board seats
“So it was the opposite of looking for industry domain recruiting, and it was much more driven to this I'd say orthogonal thinking, as well as people who shared a common core values.”
Miura-Ko: Only 25 IT startups reach $500M+ exits annually
“What we found is that at five hundred million dollars and greater, there is roughly somewhere around 25 companies Plus or minus five to 10 that exit every single year, and those are the companies that really actually move the needle for venture capital.”
Miura-Ko: Brand is an existence proof, not early-stage thesis
“Brand can be proprietary, but I think it's very hard to assess whether or not you have brand at the very, very early stages where we invest, and so brand is more of an existence proof in my mind rather than something theoretical that you can build over time.”
Miura-Ko: Autonomous Vehicles and Ridesharing Will Reshape Suburbs
“And now as we layer on top of that autonomous vehicles, the potential for what they do goes far beyond car ownership. I think it can also change where suburbs are actually created.”
Miura-Ko: Floodgate's best founders come from existing portfolio referrals
“Our best founders come through recommendations from our existing founders.”
Miura-Ko: No tech transportation innovation occurred between Zipcar and Zimride
“Literally there was nothing really, no innovation had really happened since that period of Zipcar in the transportation space.”
Miura-Ko: Startup Pivots Are Iterative Processes, Not Single Moments
“And so, if you think, like, a pivot in many people's minds is just like a moment. It's like the singular decision, and it's like a lightning strikes you, and you know. In reality, what happened with Lyft was that Zimride went through hundreds of iterations.”
Miura-Ko: Customer development is hand-to-hand combat, not an intellectual exercise
“So a lot of people think customer development is like intellectual process. And in fact, it's hand to hand combat, right? You're trying to uncover secrets that other people may not know.”
Ann Miura-Ko: Seed investing is about developing insights, not static companies
“At the seed stage, we often say we're not investing in a company because a startup isn't a company. It's a set of insights. It's a development of a set of secrets that you have.”
Ann Miura-Ko limits her seed investments to three to six per year
“I only make Somewhere between three and six investments every year.”
Miura-Ko ran month-long processes for her recent seed investments
“The last two investments that I've done, I had a month-long process through which we got to know each other, and it was a commitment to one another”
Lyft Founders Built the Original App in Three Weeks in 2012
“And like when I say we were experimenting, I think John and Logan emailed a bunch of Zimride users in the San Francisco area, and they built Lyft in like three weeks because they felt like this was an experiment that they wanted to run.”
Veeva Systems Raised Only $7 Million Before Reaching $40 Billion Valuation
“You have Viva Systems only raised seven million dollars ever and is now a forty billion dollar company.”
Qualtrics Hit $50 Million in Revenue Before Raising Venture Capital
“You have Qualtrics that the first time they raised, they already had fifty million dollars in revenues.”
Miura-Ko: Advisory roles serve as an effective audition for board seats
“Well, I think you just mentioned a way that could be a great avenue into auditioning for a board role. They gave a lot of free advice when they were looking at board roles. So I think one way in is start as a board advisor, get to know the CEO. I mean, you men…”
Miura-Ko: Most corporate boards completely neglect director onboarding processes
“What I have found is that most boards don't think about their onboarding process, because it really doesn't fall to it being any of the director's responsibility. You know, the nominating corporate governance Chair, like, my job is to go find the directors, bu…”
Miura-Ko: Zoom required new board directors to complete standard employee orientation
“There were a couple things we did on the Zoom board when we onboarded two directors that were just tips I'll pass along. One was we really wanted the new directors to go through orientation like a new, any employee would.”
Miura-Ko: Product-market fit requires market demand pulling product from founders
“Product market fit is not just about whether or not it sticks with any kind of market. That market has to be incredibly sizable, and that market also has to have such a powerful need that it literally pulls the product out of the hands and Of the company.”
The other half of the tape: Ann Miura-Ko's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 33 times in 10 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Mike Maples 13Harry Stebbings 10Leah Busque 5George Sivulka 2Charles Hudson 2Mitchell Green 1
Statements about Ann Miura-Ko, by other people (1)
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 33
2025 13 mentions in 3 episodes 4 per episode
- Mike Maples: Three Frameworks to Evaluate Startups and Founders | E1242 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- George Sivulka, Co-Founder & CEO @Hebbia: The Future of Foundation Models | E1250 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Mitchell Green, Founder @ Lead Edge Capital: Why Traditional VC is Broken · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
2023 6 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 6 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital
- 20VC: 2 Levers To Fundraising: FOMO & Leverage and How To Use Them, How To Implement "A Sustainable Growth Mindset" & How To Put VCs To Work For You with Leore Avidar @ Lob
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2016 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: Floodgate's Mike Maples on What Makes Category Kings, What Most Venture Funds Do Wrong When Hiring & 'The Dance Of Product Market Fit'
- 20VC: Raising A Solo GP Fund & Why They Are So Prominent Today with Charles Hudson, Managing Partner @ Precursor Ventures
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ann's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founding Partner, Floodgate | 2 | 31 | 67% 8/12 | full record on 20VC → |
 a16zLEDGER | Co-Founding Partner, Floodgate | 1 | 5 | — | full record on the a16z Podcast → |