Laela Sturdy
Managing Partner, CapitalG. On 1 show, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutiveoperator@lsturdy1 ↗LinkedIn ↗capitalg.com ↗
Laela Sturdy is the Managing Partner of Alphabet's growth fund, CapitalG, leading investments in growth-stage technology companies. She has led investments in companies including Stripe, UiPath, Duolingo, and Gusto.
1shows
3appearances
55statements
7resolved
5supported
1contradicted
71%fully supported
19said about them ↓ Everything Laela Sturdy said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Sturdy: Non-founder CEOs are often best suited to scale growth companies
“So I would like to invest in a non-founder led company. You point out Satya, I know dozens of incredible CEOs that were not founders and have same, but different mix of special sauce that makes them The right person to lead that company, and often to lead the …”
Sturdy: Growth startups fail by under-resourcing their second-act product bets
“The mistake I typically see companies doing at that stage, the growth stage is too much, not making concentrated enough bets in the second, third act. And they're not significant enough. They're not focused enough. They're not large enough to really, to make a…”
Sturdy: $100M revenue companies with execution discipline are viable IPO candidates
“But I don't actually think it's necessarily a scale thing. I've seen a hundred million dollar revenue companies that are operating with that level of precision have their story tight, have their execution plan really tight, and would be a good candidate to go …”
Sturdy: VCs passed on Stripe citing high valuation and commodity market
“When I did that deal, I remember talking to lots of other investors and the pushback would be it's in a commodity market. It's valued too high. There's not real differentiation.”
Sturdy: Hiring a diverse and exceptional tech workforce is not that hard
“One contrarian thought is that I don't think it's as hard as People think to hire a diverse and exceptional workforce. So I think some of the challenges around achieving that are overstated in my view.”
Sturdy: CapitalG only underwrites existing products in base-case scenarios
“Now when I look at an investment, almost always my base case is I'm only going to underwrite what exists today. I can get excited about the possibility of the future, and that's built into the upside case, but if there's not evidence of the launch of that prod…”
Sturdy: Public companies can still make major investments if accountable for results
“I think there's a bit of a myth that once you go public, you can't make the investments that you want. I don't believe that's true. I think you can make the investments you want, but you are accountable to delivering those results.”
Sturdy: CapitalG never underwrites deals dependent on M&A exits
“We would never underwrite something dependent on M&A.”
Sturdy: Outlier founder skills alone cannot sustain a company at scale
“It absolutely is a team sport. You can no longer just rely on one, that, that one outlier or that extreme outlier advantages or skills or gifts that, that founder has. Sure. Those continue to contribute in an outsized way to the company's success. But it will …”
Sturdy: Growth investment volume remains high when factoring in AI
“If you add in AI deals, the number, the volume and dollar amount actually looks quite high.”
Sturdy: UiPath faced investor skepticism over its 10-year history in Romania
“UiPath when, you know, made that investment in the series B, the numbers were extraordinary, but the pushback was this company's been around for 10 years based in Romania. Like, why is it all of a sudden exploding now?”
Sturdy: Early-stage VCs often lack understanding of public market dynamics
“There's a lot of private state private early stage investors that don't understand a lot of the dynamics of public markets and valuations and pricing and how and portfolio management at that scale.”
Sturdy: CapitalG shifted to earlier-stage AI investments over past 18 months
“So we believe that over the last 18 months, the best opportunities have been going earlier in these AI companies, and that is what we've done.”
Laela Sturdy Makes Six to Eight Major Decisions per Year at CapitalG
“Six to eight. And then a lot of small ones along the way, but probably six to eight.”
CapitalG's average investment entry multiples more than doubled from 2015 to 2021
“We look at the entry multiples we're paying on average, and they're, you know, more than double what we did five, six years ago.”
Growth-stage investors generally expect to avoid losing capital entirely
“Typically in growth stage, you don't expect to lose money. So sort of the downside, because you're typically investing post-product market fit, and there's usually a path even on the downside for other things really don't work out for some sort of exit that wo…”
Sturdy: Most tech companies fail to execute second and third product acts
“One of the early lessons I got in pattern recognition in investing was believing more in the second and third act than I think really would transpire for most companies.”
Sturdy: Cross-industry insights outweigh pattern recognition in venture capital
“So I don't know if that's pattern recognition or an insight but I think some of the best investors, that's what they have. They have insights across industries that they bring together to make the right type of bets and lean into the right type of risk. So I t…”
Sturdy: Fantastic markets always turn out larger than expected
“The first lesson is the fantastic markets are always way bigger than you expect.”
Sturdy: Growth Companies Wait Too Long to Diversify Before IPO
“I would say in the growth stage, more often they wait too long, particularly as they're ramping up in, in the couple of years prior to IPO, because it's almost always Needed for a strong public company to have some sort of diversification.”
Sturdy: Outlier founder traits and data drive outsized venture returns
“That's one of my core investment theses is always look for outlier metrics and look for outlier personality traits in a founder. I believe that outlier data is really important to pay attention to, and that will end up having outsized impact and returns.”
Sturdy: $30M-$100M tech companies growing 15%-20% face decay to single digits
“So most of the time, if you're growing 15, 20%, you'll, you'll see that decay to single digits. And I do think that those companies, it's going to be hard to remain independent.”
Sturdy: CapitalG writes $100M-$150M checks for private equity buyout partnerships
“So in the context of working with a private equity partner, if they were to do a roll up or invest in more traditional profitable assets that either trade from the public markets to the private or have been private the entire time, then we're very open to part…”
Laela Sturdy: Stripe's 2017 Valuation Proved Fair Through Continuous Compounding
“2017 when we invested in them, nobody, or I would say lots of people didn't believe that they could compound and continue to grow at such a strong rate that actually the valuation multiple that we were paying into was more than fair because they would compound…”
The other half of the tape: Laela Sturdy's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 19 times in 11 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 19
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 19
2022 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make Hiring, The 2 Reasons Startups Fail and How to Avoid Them, Why Most Startup Equity Plans are F****** and Why You Should Scrap Titles From Your Company with Eddie Vivas, Founder & CEO @ Curated
- 20VC: Startups Fail Because They Do Not Take Enough Risk, Why A/B Testing is Inefficient and Slows You Down, Why It is Impossible To Hire Good PMs so Stop Trying & 3 Key Signals The Best Engineers Present with Grant LaFontaine, Founder & CEO @ Whatnot
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: a16z's David George on Leading a16z's Growth Fund Today, The Biggest Misconceptions of Growth Investing, How a16z Think Through Portfolio Construction, Investment Decision-Making and Scenario Planning & How The Entrance of New Players Has Changed Th
- 20VC: Twilio's Jeff Lawson on What It Takes To Create a Tribe, How To Create Anti-Fragile Organisations Through Decentralised Decision-Making and Why Values Are Nice But Principles Are Better
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Gusto Co-Founder, Tomer London on Why Most Founders Approach Fundraising With The Wrong Mindset Today, How To Construct A Values/Motivation Alignment Test To Determine The Right Investors For You & Why Delight Is So Crucial To The Success of Any Con
- 20VC: Lessons from Investing in Uber and Airbnb, How To Think Through Bundling vs Unbundling, Late Stage Funds Moving Earlier, Early Stage Funds Moving Later& The Mechanics of Venture That Founders Should Know with Derek Zanutto, General Partner @ Capital
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Duolingo's Luis von Ahn on How CEO's Can Scale With The Company, How VC Herd Mentality In The Valley Really Works and How Chatbots & AI Play A Role In The Future of EdTech
- 20VC: The Blurring of Early & Late Stage, Why Your Go To Market Strategy Is More Important Now Than Ever & Why Venture Is The Academia Of Tech with Roseanne Wincek @ IVP
- 20VC: VC of The Year: Forerunner's Kirsten Green on 2 $Bn+ Exits in 1 Year, Why We Are In The Very Early Innings For Commerce & How Brand Has Fundamentally Changed Over The Last Decade
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Laela's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Managing Partner, CapitalG | 3 | 55 | 71% 5/7 | full record on 20VC → |