Justin Fishner-Wolfson
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, 137 Ventures. On 3 shows, 3 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderLinkedIn ↗137ventures.com ↗
Justin Fishner-Wolfson is the co-founder and managing partner of 137 Ventures, a growth-stage venture firm providing secondary market investments and liquidity solutions. Previously, he served on the investment team at Founders Fund.
3shows
3appearances
58statements
16resolved
12supported
1contradicted
75%fully supported
9said about them ↓ Everything Justin Fishner-Wolfson said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Fishner-Wolfson claims OpenAI and Anthropic have confidentially filed S-1s
“SpaceX is the big one to kind of start this, but, I mean, as you mentioned, like, OpenAI and Anthropic are both valid. They're S-one's confidentially, so it's gonna be a pretty interesting, you know, few quarters in the public markets.”
Fishner-Wolfson claims SpaceX was the only good space investment in 20 years
“We looked at probably every SpaceX, or every space investment for, I don't know, 1520 years, and the good investment was SpaceX, and I think a lot of people thought, well, we should go invest in all these other things, and the answer is, you should invest in S…”
Facebook's early secondary policy inadvertently caused employees to quit to sell stock
“Facebook got big, and it turned out that the company kind of couldn't buy all their shares that were, that people were selling, because the dollar amount just got so big, and the volume got so high, and they basically started telling people, like, if you sell …”
Fishner-Wolfson: Valuation price only matters in VC when off by 5x
“I think this is an interesting question because my answer is oftentimes price doesn't matter unless you're off by five X, in which case then price is the only thing that matters.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Rigid target ownership blinds VCs to massive opportunities
“And so focusing strictly on ownership percentage really, I think, blinds people to opportunities that may be much larger, and they just can't get over the hump from a process perspective to make those investments.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Cost-plus incumbents had zero incentive to develop reusable rockets
“There are a lot of big players. They built their business on a cost plus strategy, and they had no interest in turning rockets into airplanes. And that's fundamentally what needed to happen in order to increase access to space.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Strict VC ownership targets blind investors to bigger absolute returns
“Focusing strictly on ownership percentage really, I think, blinds people to opportunities that may be much larger, and they just can't get over the hump from a process perspective to make those investments.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Applying 90% margin multiples to 40% margin companies causes losses
“You can't put the same revenue multiple on a 90% gross margin business with super high operating leverage as you would, you know, a company with 40% gross margins and less operating level. Like if you do that, you'll just never make any money. And eventually t…”
Fishner-Wolfson: Secondary liquidity leads founders to reject early acquisition offers
“And they will then, and I've watched entrepreneurs do this consistently, turn down acquisition offers that would put huge amounts of money in their bank account. And that's really ultimately To the benefit of the venture investors, because they really want to …”
Fishner-Wolfson: SPAC proliferation will lower deal quality and cause market bust
“So I think that's going to create an incredible amount of competition amongst the SPACs to get deals done. And then the quality of those deals will inevitably trend downward, which will then make SPACs, you know, look bad and they will then go away for a perio…”
Fishner-Wolfson notes SpaceX's launch business has been profitable for years
“Well, I mean, they were, I mean, they were profitable for a very long time, and the launch business was, I mean, they were doing things that no one in the industry had accomplished, right?”
Fishner-Wolfson says SpaceX equity creates life-changing wealth for shop-floor workers
“They've really shared equity across the entire company, which is incredible. And to your point, they have lots of people on the shop floor who literally make all of the stuff that matters. So the fact that this is life changing for so many people, I really thi…”
Fishner-Wolfson argues VC debates over ownership percentage targets are distracting
“Getting to an argument about ownership percentage is like sort of distracting.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Rigid VC ownership targets blind investors to massive opportunities
“Focusing strictly on ownership percentage really, I think, blinds people to opportunities that may be much larger, and they just can't get over the hump from a process perspective to make those investments.”
Fishner-Wolfson: 137 Ventures structures liquidity as loans to preserve 409A valuations
“We structure these things as loans, so we can avoid repricing the foreign day of the business. We can make it more tax efficient for folks. We can allow people to maintain voting control.”
Fishner-Wolfson: 137 Ventures offers non-recourse convertible loans against founder equity
“Most of what we do
Which are the loans that you're alluding to is basically a non-recourse loan. The person we're doing business with is going to put up some shares as collateral for that loan. The loan's non-recourse. And so they're not taking risk beyond the…”
Fishner-Wolfson: Rate normalization won't hurt companies growing 200% annually
“I still come back to the growth answer, which is that if you have companies that are growing 200% a year, that you can overcome changes in interest rates... A normalization of interest rates to being positive, I think won't matter for very high growth companie…”
Fishner-Wolfson: The final valuation double drives the vast majority of venture returns
“And I think one of the other pieces that I really think is important is that it's the last double on the investment that matters, right? The first double, it's good, but really when you look at the absolute returns on investing, specifically in venture investi…”
Fishner-Wolfson: Investors must evaluate startup quality independently of valuation
“Like valuation matters. Right. And you don't want to let things like valuation sort of influence your decision on whether or not you want to be in the company, because that will lead you to investing That may not meet your bar because it's a quote unquote grea…”
Fishner-Wolfson: Great founders expand their addressable market by entering adjacent markets
“At the end of the day, you can't be bigger than your market, but you might be able to expand Expand your market by redefining it, or you may be able to move into adjacent markets, and therefore, the ultimate opportunity is much bigger, right?”
Fishner-Wolfson: Entry price only matters in VC if overpriced by 5x
“Price doesn't matter unless you're off by five X, in which case then price is the only thing that matters.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Maximizing VC returns strictly favors investing in one winning company
“At the end of the day, the way to make the best returns is to invest in one company that does incredibly well. Everything else is basically pulling you down. That's clearly the correct answer if you're Only focused on returns.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Unreformed equity options will force engineers to hire lawyers
“I think if that continues to happen across the industry, we're going to break the social contract between, you know, companies and employees and end up with a situation where, you know, every engineer is hiring a lawyer to negotiate their employment agreement …”
The other half of the tape: Justin Fishner-Wolfson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 9 times in 4 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Shervin Pishevar 6Molly O'Shea 1Dan Wright 1Christian Garrett 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 6
Sourcery 3
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2025 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Justin'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-Founder & Managing Partner, 137 Ventures | 1 +2 | 28 | 71% 5/7 | full record on 20VC → |
| SOURCERYLEDGER | Co-Founder & Managing Partner, 137 Ventures | 1 | 20 | 78% 7/9 | full record on Sourcery → |
 CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Co-Founder & Managing Partner, 137 Ventures | 1 | 10 | — | full record on Capital Allocators → |