Marcelo Claure
Founder & CEO, Claure Group. On 1 show, 2 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestoroperator@marceloclaure ↗LinkedIn ↗marceloclaure.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Claure founded Brightstar Corporation in 1997, later serving as CEO of Sprint and CEO of SoftBank Group International. Today, he deploys proprietary capital through Claure Group, runs Latin America-focused growth equity fund Bicycle Capital, and holds substantial leadership roles at SHEIN and Brightstar Capital Partners.
1shows
2appearances
52statements
12resolved
1supported
7contradicted
8%fully supported
7said about them ↓ Everything Marcelo Claure said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Claure: I Invested $150M Into FTX at SoftBank Due to FOMO
“So I invested hundred and fifty million dollars on FTX, which I mean, apologies to SoftBank, because I should have never made that investment, but it's probably one decision that has changed my life forever. I'm never going to invest in something that I don't …”
Claure: Pitching Steve Jobs Created the Mobile Phone Trade-In Model
“So back then, I used to own Brightstar. And I had an idea of how could Apple actually double their sales. And after many emails to Steve Jobs, which he wrote me back, no interest. One day he got tired of everybody pinging him that he had to meet me. So he agre…”
Claure: SoftBank disrupted venture capital just like Uber disrupted taxi drivers
“The same way Uber disrupted the taxi drivers, we disrupted the venture capital industry. While people used to write these small checks, we suddenly showed up with a hundred billion dollars, and we disrupted the way venture capital works today, and therefore, w…”
Claure: Tiger Global replicated SoftBank's model, forcing faster dealmaking
“Tiger basically has replicated the SoftBank model, and there's nothing magical about what they're doing, and it's great, because what Tiger does, it forces my teams to make quicker decisions now.”
Claure: The Era of Passive Dumb Capital Is Over
“And at the end, I believe that the new firms are going to be the ones that have the ability To help entrepreneurs alter the course of their business. I think the days of just dumb capital with access are long gone. Those were the days in which capital was free…”
Claure: Advice From Non-Operator VCs Is Cheap and Confuses Founders
“In many cases, I've seen so many board meetings, VCs who've never built businesses, or who've never been around great businesses. I'm just, everybody gives, advice is, is cheap, it's free, right? And many founders sometimes get confused.”
Claure: Bicycle Capital Raised $500M Fund With Just Five LP Calls
“It's a Mubarala, who, Mubarala wanted to make a bet in Latin America, and we've known Mubarala for a while, both you and myself, and then we called five other LPs. We made five phone calls, and the five of them said yes, and it was my family office, so we real…”
Claure: Nubank Is the World's Best Digital Bank
“You look at Nubank. Great example. To me, the world's best digital bank.”
Claure: Three of Uber's Top Five Global Cities Were in LatAm
“When we were investors in Uber, you know, we had to keep it a secret that after New York, three of the top five cities were Latin American cities.”
Claure: LatAm Is the Only Market Where Opportunities Exceed Capital
“Latin America is, to me, the land of opportunity, and I think Latin America is the only place where, which is great, because there are more opportunities than capital available. Everywhere else, There's more capital than opportunities available, which drives c…”
Claure: The Next Decade Will Be LatAm's Best Economic Period
“I am a huge believer in the macro story of Latin America, and I think the next 10 years are going to be the best 10 years of Latin America for two very, very simple reasons.”
Claure: General Atlantic's Best Investment Returns Come From Latin America
“If you look at the returns of GA, people often don't know, but if you truly study GA, the great returns have come from Latin America.”
Claure: SoftBank produced 22 Latin American unicorns in one year
“We have produced, I think, a total of 22 unicorns last year, where before that, there were like one, so it's been amazing what I'm seeing in Latin America.”
Claure: SoftBank tests founder execution, not business models, in LATAM
“And to be fair, we have a competitive advantage. And that's the fact that we have seen these business models being deployed in China and India and the US. So when companies shop in Latin America with a similar business model, we don't need to test whether the …”
Claure: SoftBank constructs Chinese walls when portfolio companies become direct competitors
“What we do at that point in time is we basically split the responsibilities within investment partners. We build these Chinese walls to make sure nobody except me can see what they're doing, and we're very careful in information sharing.”
Claure: VCs should provide full capital upfront to avoid continuous fundraising
“We're believers in you have to provide an entrepreneur the right amount of capital on day one. Entrepreneurs should not be focused half their time trying to raise money and half the time trying to run a business. So why not provide the right amount of capital …”
Claure: SoftBank Will Take 8 LATAM Fund Companies Public by 2022
“My expectation is that we take at least eight of our companies public between this year and next year of the Latin American fund.”
Claure: Non-Ivy League Black founders face extreme fundraising barriers
“We can say whatever we want, but it is hard as hell for black people to raise money if they didn't go to an Ivy League school.”
Claure: Passing on Nubank early due to valuation was a mistake
“I passed on Nubank because of the price at the beginning, when we started the fund and it was the wrong decision because the opportunity was huge.”
Claure: I Am a Good Operator, Not a Good Investor
“I don't think I'm a good investor. I think I can spot good businesses, I can spot good entrepreneurs, but there is a master to invest in, and what I can do is I can bring opportunities, and I can then pass them up to Shu, and Shu often analyzes them a lot bett…”
Claure: Nearly Every Startup Founder Has Faced Bankruptcy
“Every single founder has been in the verge of bankruptcy. Very few have not been.”
Claure: Great Founders Are 90% Right When Trusting Their Gut
“At the end, a great founder, well, you know what they'll do? They're gonna listen to all of us, but at the end, they're gonna trust their God. And their God is 90, or our founder is 90% right. And when you go back to them and say, look at the last 10 decisions…”
Claure: LatAm GDP Is Double India's With One-Third the Population
“And Latin America, if you add the GDP of Latin America, we happen to be two X India with one quarter of these people or one third of the people.”
The other half of the tape: Marcelo Claure's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 5 times in 3 episodes across the shows. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 5
Statements about Marcelo Claure, by other people (2)
Nyatta: Work and Play Are Integrated Components of a Single Life
“Work and play are not different things. They are the same thing, which is life. And that's a beautiful concept, because there's not this partition of what you do and who you are.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 5
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 3 mentions in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Marcelo'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 & CEO, Claure Group | 2 +2 | 52 | 8% 1/12 | full record on 20VC → |