Rob Hayes
Partner, First Round Capital. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
Rob Hayes is a partner at First Round Capital, where he opened the firm's San Francisco office. He has led investments in companies such as Mint.com, Square, Uber, and Planet Labs.
1shows
1appearances
14statements
2resolved
1supported
0contradicted
50%fully supported
10said about them ↓ Everything Rob Hayes said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
No seed investor predicted Uber's ultimate scale except its founders
“Anybody that says that they did, other than, you know, Travis and Ryan, who actually did kind of have that vision early on would be lying to you.”
First Round will not declare Uber a win until cash is returned
“I mean, my ultimate goal is to, you know, take money from my investors and invest it in companies and return multiples on that one. I haven't done that. Right. And so until that happens, I don't think I don't even call it a success right now. Come on. It's a m…”
VCs should treat founders as customers and LPs as shareholders
“Now, listen, we think of, you know, our LPs are, you know, our investors are very important to us, obviously, but I think of them as our shareholders. And if I make my customers very happy and have the best product out there, Then my shareholders are going to …”
Benchmark is the best venture firm at managing generational transitions
“And so what it means is, and I think that, you know, right now there's probably, you know, no one that does this better than benchmark in this space where they're continually bringing in young people and growing them from, you know, from, you know, relatively …”
VCs passed on Uber due to a small market and unknown CEO
“A lot of the reasons that people didn't invest were one, at the time it was an unknown guy, Ryan Graves running the company and two, It was seen as not a very big market.”
Ryan Graves built Uber's operational core and expansion playbook
“In Ryan's case, it turned out to be true. I mean, he, he's an amazing guy. And, you know, if you look at You know, the impact that he's had on Uber and the culture there and, you know, how they, you know, kind of started, you know, going from city to city and …”
Standard VC market size analysis failed to predict Uber's potential
“The market analysis that, that a lot of people were using was the wrong market analysis, because even though there was an actual car and it was black and it pulled up and it picked you up, this was not the black car market. This was something very, very differ…”
Uber's 2010 seed funding round was not overly competitive
“It wasn't, no, it wasn't a terribly competitive round. I don't think, I mean, it was a real negotiation around it, and there were a few other people around the table. You know, I don't think that, you know, it wasn't one of these crazy, I mean, this was You kn…”
First Round lost the Dropbox deal over a small valuation gap
“Actually had a term sheet out to him. Ended up losing on valuation and a very, very small differential on ballot valuation, which was a massive lesson for me in that, you know, there are crazy valuations and there are not crazy valuations, but when you're talk…”
Early-stage founders should spend 95% of their time on tactics
“Especially when you're a super early stage, you know, spend 95% of your time trying to make things happen on a day-to-day basis, and five percent or less of your time on things strategic.”
Corporate VC funds tend to launch near venture market peaks
“I find a strong correlation with when corporate funds get started and with the top of the VC market”
Generational transition is a primary threat to venture capital firms
“Listen, I think that generational transition is one of the things that, you know, tears firms apart.”
Not enough venture capitalists provide tactical support to founders
“I think there are not enough venture capitalists who help really help with the tactical stuff as opposed to the very large strategic stuff.”
The other half of the tape: Rob Hayes's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 10 times in 8 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 4Phin Barnes 2Chris Sacca 2Leah Busque 1Josh Udashkin 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 10
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: First Round's Phin Barnes on How The Best Founders Optimize for Learning Per Dollar Spent, What Makes A Truly Special Founder/VC Relationship and Why Pattern Recognition is Another Term For Intellectual Laziness
- 20VC: Finding VC Partners That Look Beyond The Numbers, The Black Box of VC Secrets That Needs To Be Shared & The 1,000 Reasons A VC Won't Invest In You When It Has Nothing To Do With You with Leah Busque, General Partner @ Fuel Capital
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2016 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Rob's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Partner, First Round Capital | 1 | 14 | 50% 1/2 | full record on 20VC → |