Kevin Ryan
Founder and CEO, AlleyCorp. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderinvestorexecutive@kevinryan ↗LinkedIn ↗alleycorp.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Kevin Ryan incubates and funds early-stage tech and healthcare startups through his venture studio and investment firm, AlleyCorp. He co-founded companies including MongoDB, Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, and Zola, and previously served as CEO of DoubleClick.
2shows
2appearances
121statements
29resolved
16supported
7contradicted
55%fully supported
20said about them ↓ Everything Kevin Ryan said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
No Net Value Has Been Created in E-Commerce Over Five Years
“E-commerce, there's been probably net, you know, no value created in five years.”
Ryan: NYC will be the top tech startup hub in 15 years
“New York is killing it and will be the number one company clearly 15 years.”
Kevin Ryan: Miami Lacks Tech Talent and Will Not Become a Major Hub
“But I'm not seeing the tech talent in Miami, and I don't think it's going to get there.”
Ryan: A Trump victory would result in Ukraine concessions and corruption
“The single thing that I'm concerned about is Trump winning on multiple dimensions, giving away Ukraine you know, Supreme Court justices, very, very, very poor execution of every aspect of government a level of corruption. That I think would follow.”
In media, a smart point of view beats long-term correctness
“It's more important that we have a smart point of view than that we're right in the long term.”
AlleyCorp Does Not Prioritize Target VC Ownership Percentages
“Here's the thing that I don't think about, which is our ownership. Sometimes we're paying a big price, and we're paying a big price because it's an incredible team and an incredible opportunity.”
Investors Will Only Fund Billion-Dollar Burn Rates in AI Today
“Today, I don't know that many companies outside of AI that where people will give you a billion dollars to lose. But today, you know, that exists in AI. It doesn't exist in a lot of other areas.”
Kevin Ryan: Psychedelic industry will be 20x larger in 10 years
“We're big investors, for example, in the psychedelic industry. Is the psychedelic industry gonna be 20 times larger 10 years from now than today? Absolutely.”
Almost No Media Venture Investments Have Succeeded Recently Except Podcasts
“Same with media you know, with the exception of actually podcasts, hardly anything has worked. In the last five years in media.”
30% of VCs Reject Pitch Decks Unseen Due to Prior Sector Losses
“I see it all the time when we have a company going out and we approach 10 VCs and three of them will say, I invested in this sector eight years ago and I lost all my money. They haven't even read the deck yet”
Most top consumer internet founders were industry outsiders from other startups
“I once looked through the top hundred consumer internet companies. And the one pattern was that most of the people Who are very successful, had actually not come from that vertical, but they had come from another startup.”
Ryan: AI disruption could displace Google as top search engine within 5 years
“We don't know five years from now if Google's gonna be the number one search engine. There's a chance that's a disruptive technology that allows it to change.”
Ryan: Pierpaolo Barbieri's Argentine neobank Ualá will become a $10B company
“Pierpolo, starting a mobile bank in Argentina, guess what? We didn't have as much competition, but there was geopolitical risk, you know, all kinds of risk. And he's been remarkably successful, but that's why it's going to be a ten billion dollar company, beca…”
Almost None of the Top 25 Consumer Tech Companies Had Serial Founders
“So in, again, if we look back at consumer businesses, you know, out of the top 25 companies, how many were serial entrepreneurs? Almost zero. Almost zero.”
AlleyCorp Retains 55% to 60% Equity in Its Incubated Startups
“It depends, but, you know, roughly the team and CEO are probably going to get around 40, 45% of the company, and then we will have the rest because we came up with the idea, put in the money, did all the work, ah, and everyone gets paid from day one.”
Ryan: Multi-Stage Seed Signaling Risk Kills Startups
“If a huge fund puts a million dollars into your initial round, and if they don't lead the next round, your company's dead.”
Kevin Ryan: Tech hub success depends on graduate preferences, not tax policy
“It has nothing to do with tax policy, has nothing to do with anything. I say people who went to the top 20 universities in your country, where do they want to live? Where are they going to move? That's going to be your tech center.”
Kevin Ryan: Biden administration and Fed economic management has been remarkable
“The combination of the stimulus, the fiscal stimulus, What the Biden administration has done, which doesn't get credit for combined with the Federal Reserve, has been remarkable management.”
Ryan: Biden's cabinet has zero examples of actual corruption
“I don't think there's a single example in the cabinet of Biden after four years that you can point to where we could point and say, I think that's actual corruption.”
Google's ad dominance stems from DoubleClick capturing early international market share
“And that is the reason today, 25 years later that, you know Google still has a commanding share because we got it early on and it's never been given up.”
Henry Blodget did nothing legally wrong during Wall Street research scandals
“And so legally, I don't think he did anything wrong. Everything he wrote was approved by his superiors and order.”
Core consumer problems in e-commerce have already been solved
“So one of the reasons I do almost nothing in e-commerce these days is because I don't see the problem. We solved, the industry solved the problem. Meaning if you name anything on the planet earth, just about, you know, you can find a site. They'll have 10,000 …”
Gilt Groupe Reached $1B Valuation Before Selling for $250M
“After four years, we're worth a billion dollars, and at the time, you know, everyone invested a billion because they thought it was worth two to three billion, and we ended up selling it for two hundred and fifty million dollars, despite having an incredible p…”
The other half of the tape: Kevin Ryan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 15 times in 5 episodes across the shows. 5 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Sam Parr 8Shaan Puri 7
Statements about Kevin Ryan, by other people (5)
Puri: QSBS Trusts Allow Stacking Multiple $10M Tax-Free Capital Gains
“And you're getting QSPS, you know, the ten million dollars tax free. For you times each of your kids, I can get to fifty million tax-free if I got, you know, three or four kids or whatever.”
Sam Parr: Ideas Matter Incredibly for Founders Who Have Mastered Execution
“I think that for a lot of people just starting out, ideas are unimportant, because it's just like, dude, just get into something and you'll figure it out. But I think that if you have a proven track record of like, I execute, so execution, or going forward is …”
Sam Parr: Birches Health raised $20M from General Catalyst and Kevin Ryan
“They just raised twenty million dollars from General Catalyst and Kevin Ryan from Alicorp.”
Meetup became a highly profitable investment after Kevin Ryan acquired it
“So he bought it. And then they put in a CEO, they turned it around. It's like profitable. And they just did a great job with it. They got a great, it turned out to be a great investment for them.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
My First Million 15
2025 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2024 4 mentions in 1 episode
2023 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Kevin's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | Founder and CEO, AlleyCorp | 1 | 75 | 55% 11/20 | full record on 20VC → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Founder and CEO, AlleyCorp | 1 | 46 | 56% 5/9 | full record on My First Million → |