Mark Goldberg
Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Chemistry. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderoperator@Mark_Goldberg_ ↗LinkedIn ↗chemistry.vc ↗
Mark Goldberg is an early-stage software and fintech investor who co-founded the venture capital firm Chemistry. Prior to Chemistry, he spent nearly a decade as a partner at Index Ventures—backing companies such as Plaid, Bridge, and Pilot—following an early business operations role at Dropbox.
1shows
2appearances
57statements
2resolved
1supported
0contradicted
50%fully supported
4said about them ↓ Everything Mark Goldberg said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Goldberg: VC portfolio services teams benefit investors, not founders
“I think one of the dirty secrets of multi-stage investing is that portfolio services teams are not for founders. They're for the VCs. They are a way to make something unscalable scale.”
Goldberg: Andreessen Horowitz's platform model has become a crutch for VCs
“If you go back to the innovation from 1015 years ago, when Andreessen Horowitz started, it was a great idea. It was this sense of, you know, excitement and innovation for venture. But I think where we are now is it's become more of a crutch to these organizati…”
Goldberg: Angel investors have worse odds of making money than playing roulette
“I think what most people fail to understand is that it's extremely risky. I mean, you probably have a better shot at going to a casino and winning roulette than making money angel investing.”
Goldberg: Early-stage consensus decision-making creates mediocre consensus funds
“The biggest mistake is when you try to make consensus decisions at the early stage, I think you end up with consensus funds.”
Goldberg: Growth founders should only prioritize price and non-interference
“The other thing I would agree with is that the later stages, that's all that matters. When you're doing it, when you're picking what growth investor you want to work with what you should care about is the price and them staying out of your way.”
Goldberg: Knowing too much domain information can ruin Series A investing
“If you know too much, because the crazy ideas are crazy, right? Like they, You can out think yourself from any good series A by overthink. I've done it myself. I've seen other people do it. And I think knowing too much can actually be dangerous.”
Goldberg: Founders should meet VC associates if they can lead rounds
“I strongly disagree with the notion that it's a waste of time for a founder to meet with a non-partner, though I do think the important question to ask an investor is, are you someone who can lead a round? So irrespective of title, and titles have become so me…”
Goldberg: Founder-led late-stage financing rounds like Front's Series C are aberrations
“At the same time, I think that's a bit of an aberration and many companies will decide to continue working with institutional leads where they get just a little bit more than you could handle from a single individual.”
Goldberg: Product-driven neobanks will win while performance-marketing reliant ones fail
“Oh, there's going to be a massive consolidation in this industry. So my belief is that this will be a tale of haves and have-nots, which the haves are the companies that use Product driven growth to get to massive scale and continue to find ways of just growin…”
Goldberg: Automatically exercising pro rata reserves harms founders
“Peanut buttering all of your reserves and every pro rata round that gets done is not a good thing for a founder.”
Goldberg: Experienced VCs at large firms have the least time for new deals
“And I think there's a paradox at a lot of the larger legacy institutions where the most experienced VCs have the least amount of time to spend on new deals. And I think that's a problem for founders.”
Goldberg: Large multinational VC funds suffer from heavy administrative tax
“When you're running, I think when you're running an organization that is That is hundreds of people, that is multinational, like many of the large funds are today. I think there's a lot of time spent on people management, on administrative work, and that, that…”
Goldberg: VC has shifted from boutique partnerships to high-AUM platforms
“The direction of the industry, and I'm sure everybody who observes the industry would say the same thing, has been one of industrialization in the last decade. And when I say industrialization, what I mean is the boutique experience of, hey, there's going to b…”
Goldberg: Investors should pay up for category winners over #2 or #3 players
“Yeah, so I think one of the lessons I learned from Index Ventures, and certainly two of my mentors, Mike Volpe, Ilya Fushman, was you want to be in the category winner, and when you need to pay up to be in a category winner, that's something that I think a lot…”
Goldberg: OKRs do not work well for early-stage software companies
“He was saying, why were they lifted from the manufacturing industry and plopped down into the software world? And I would very much agree with that.”
Goldberg: First-time founders' hunger outweighs serial founders' experience
“First time founders. I think the ability to think from a clean slate to do foolish, potentially foolish, but on the other side, potentially visionary and transformative things, the hunger and the naivety that you described and a first time founder, I think out…”
Goldberg: Less excited to invest in financially independent repeat founders
“A founder who has done so well that, you know, they are financially independent, or they might not have the same level of hunger that they brought to their first business. I I'm less excited about that.”
Goldberg: LPs are frustrated legacy VC funds became asset managers
“Some of the venture funds that they had invested in 10 years ago, 20 years ago, they felt like had become asset managers. And the idea of being able to invest in a pure play venture fund that had experience, but also a lot of hustle was something that we think…”
Goldberg: Every VC should be required to fundraise to build founder empathy
“First off, I feel like every VC should have to fundraise just to be like table stakes as a VC.”
Goldberg: Chemistry mandates in-office work five days a week
“In office every day is a really important tenant of how we think about building. You know, we're a new team. We're a startup, right? Like we need to be shoulder to shoulder.”
Goldberg: 2020-2021 VC vintages will be challenged but exceed 1x
“What I would say is I don't think those funds will do very well. I mean, the vintage is going to be very, very challenged. Will it be a one X? I don't know. I think it'll be better than a one X. Maybe. You know, but it's, they're gonna be tough funds.”
Goldberg: Branding as '.ai' no longer commands previous valuation premiums
“Just calling yourself a dot AI company is no longer tacking the same premium onto your business as it would have a year and a half ago.”
Goldberg: Knowledgeable East Coast funds missed the biggest fintech wins
“In fintech, the most knowledgeable people were a bunch of the east coast funds that knew that had come, had spent two decades inside of financial institutions and knew the market way better than the west coast funds. And they outsmarted themselves from every m…”
Goldberg: Multi-stage VC optionality dilutes focus and conviction
“Because it focuses you in a way that I had not done before where the date, the danger of the optionality of being able to do every stage at every time is you have to keep so many doors open. There is something that, that focuses the mind by saying, this is the…”
The other half of the tape: Mark Goldberg's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 3 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Wasim Daher 1Harry Stebbings 1Danny Rimer 1
Statements about Mark Goldberg, by other people (1)
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 3
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Mark'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 & Co-Founder, Chemistry | 2 | 57 | 50% 1/2 | full record on 20VC → |