Ryan Smith

Everything Ryan Smith said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.

20VC Assertion Not checkable as stated

Ryan Smith had two hours to decide on SAP's $8B offer

“I had two hours to decide whether we're selling to SAP for eight billion dollars cash.”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 17:56 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

20VC Insight

Qualtrics raised venture capital to de-risk after rejecting a buyout

“We actually raised venture capital because we turned down an offer, and we wanted to be able to live with ourselves.”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 20:34 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

20VC Opinion

Ryan Smith: Receiving SAP's $8B cash payout was underwhelming

“The day that the wires hit, I remember sitting, we were at a president's club, so we were at a sales retreat with all of our people, and you could kind of look around, and you could see everyone's phones, right? Like, people were, like, with their spouses, lik…”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 21:07 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

20VC Insight

Ryan Smith: Startups should recruit board members with past failures

“Oftentimes, we bring board members in who life's only gone good for, and it's one of our problems in tech, is like, we need to bring people in that, you know, have some battle wounds, and like, maybe there was some successes that happened, but also some things…”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 35:05 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

SAASTR What-if

Smith: Venture funding would have prevented Qualtrics from pivoting to XM

“If we would have just bought our way through, I don't think we would have had that confidence or DNA to pivot the whole company and create this new category of experience management, which is really what SAP wanted.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 15:24 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Opinion

Smith: Accel and Sequoia totally underestimated Qualtrics' TAM

“And I think Excel and Sequoia totally shorted our TAM.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 20:25 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Prediction Not checkable as stated

Smith: SAP will pause M&A after $8B Qualtrics deal

“SAP's not buying anything for a while. We took all their powder.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 28:38 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Insight

Smith: Acquirers will not move without a compelling event like an IPO

“If you're not building a company that can stand up and go public, Then you're probably going to be, no one's going to want it anyways. And you, there's going to be an outlier or two where you're going to point to and say that, but no one ever really, I mean, S…”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 29:40 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Ryan Smith: Qualtrics granted no equity until 2012

“We didn't give away stock till 2012.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 31:02 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

20VC Assertion Contradicted

Smith claims every higher education institution worldwide uses Qualtrics

“It's just not a good business model, but if you look at it now, every single academic higher ed institution in the world uses Qualtrics.”

Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 8:04 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel

20VC Insight

Smith: Capital constraints are a necessary forcing function for startup creativity

“And so I believe that creativity comes from resource construction. You know, you're never clipping coupons if you'got fifty million dollars in your bank account, and I think that that's the necessary forcing function to be able to actually do something great.”

Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 10:15 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel

20VC Disclosure

Qualtrics rejected Series A term sheets $100M-$150M higher in valuation

“We never optimized funding for economics. We had term sheets at a hundred and a hundred and fifty million dollars more than what we went with.”

Ryan Smith Dec 16, 2016 ▶ 14:39 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel

20VC Prediction Open · timeframe May 2056

Ryan Smith commits to running the Utah Jazz for 35 years

“I'm doing this for 35 years. The last person who ran the team had it for 35 years. I'm doing this for 35 years, and really, that's my thought. Like, we're doing it for that long.”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 10:28 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

20VC Disclosure

Qualtrics turned down a $500M cash acquisition offer in 2011

“In 2011, someone offered us five hundred million dollars cash to sell our business. And we were at this point where we turned it down.”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 19:12 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

20VC Opinion

Ryan Smith: Younger generations do not work or grind as hard

“One of the problems I see in part of our younger generation, they don't grind. They don't grind the way that we have.”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 28:08 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

20VC Opinion

Ryan Smith: The tech industry is currently not guided by strong principles

“I think one of the biggest fears I have a little bit with tech right now is we're not guided by great principles.”

Ryan Smith May 11, 2021 ▶ 36:50 20VC: Qualtrics Founder, Ryan Smith on The 2 Hour Decision Whether To Sell Qualtrics for $8Bn in Cash, Why Tying Your Identity To Your Company Will Never Make You Happy and His Relationship To Risk, Wealth and Responsibility as a Result

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Smith: Qualtrics reached $50M in sales with zero PR or media

“For the first 10 years we didn't do one media interview and we got to fifty million in sales. Think about that. Right? Not, not one media interview, not one press release.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 7:14 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Insight

Smith: Marketing and fundraising for brand recognition is futile

“There's this whole rationale of fundraising and marketing that you're going out there so people will know who you are. They're not gonna know who you are. So just go build a good business.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 8:08 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Insight

Smith: Spending equity on marketing campaigns is ineffective

“Brand and marketing are different where I see a lot of companies raising around and plugging their cap table into the marketing engine. Yeah, which is like, okay, that campaign was worth five percent of your company. When's that ever been effective?”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 9:21 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Insight

Smith: Targeting academia seeded Qualtrics across the enterprise workforce

“It was the most brilliant thing that we did, and everywhere I go, and we were on the road show and everything, it was, wow, that was the most brilliant model I've ever seen because, you know, millions of academics used Qualtrics and then took it with them into…”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 11:04 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Assertion Not checkable as stated

Ryan Smith: Two competitors sunsetted their tech and migrated to Qualtrics

“We've had two of our competitors sunset all of their technology and move everything over to Qualtrics”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 17:23 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Disclosure

Ryan Smith: Qualtrics was fully committed to an IPO, not dual-tracking

“I was not running a dual track. I invited 300 of my closest friends to take mortgages on their house to go buy into the friends and family, and then I was like, oh, J slash K, it was like a pump fake, and everyone went flying by, and then we laid it.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 25:34 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Assertion Not checkable as stated

Ryan Smith: Only $30M of $8B acquisition went to former employees

“There's eight billion dollars, and only Thirty million dollars of it went to people who weren't in the building at the time of the transaction.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 31:21 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

SAASTR Disclosure

Ryan Smith: Won't invest in Series A where founder owns under 20%

“I wouldn't even invest in a company if a founder didn't own, if we're raising a series A, if they didn't own 20% or more.”

Ryan Smith Feb 17, 2019 ▶ 32:06 The Things Nobody Tells You About An $8B Acquisition with Ryan Smith from Qualtrics

Show 24statements(65 left)

The other half of the tape: Ryan Smith's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 67 times in 32 episodes across the shows. 6 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 12Frank Quattrone 10Harry Stebbings 8Jason Lemkin 6Alfonso de la Nuez 5Rob Nelson 4Stewart Butterfield 3Matt Turck 3

Statements about Ryan Smith, by other people (6)

SAASTR Assertion Partly supported

Cummings: Qualtrics scaled to $500M ARR without primary balance sheet capital

“Ryan Smith from Qualtrics, and he told the amazing story of going from zero to five hundred million of revenue And not requiring any primary capital. Five hundred million in recurring revenue, and they never raised any money that went to the balance sheet.”

David Cummings Nov 11, 2019 ▶ 10:21 7 Lessons Helping Start Pardot, SalesLoft, and Calendly

TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated

Latka: The most successful SaaS companies originated out of agencies

“And the most successful SAS companies I've ever seen all came out of agencies. Qualtrics with Ryan Smith Ryan Holmes at Hootsuite. I mean, the most successful SaaS company started as agencies.”

Nathan Latka Aug 1, 2018 ▶ 19:46 1103 When should he quit his agency and go all in on software?

20VC Assertion Partly supported

Lemkin: Ryan Smith's Utah Jazz investment quadrupled, outpacing software returns

“When Ryan Smith sold Qualtrics, I think he made about a billion dollars. After 20 years or so and I believe that billion, most of it went back into the jazz, and it has quadrupled... He's up three billion on the jazz or something like that versus the 20 years …”

Jason Lemkin Apr 30, 2026 ▶ 1:15:38 Anthropic Raises $45B but Falls Short on Compute & Thoma Bravo Hand Back Medallia Keys to Creditors · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

TOP FOUNDERS Assertion Not checkable as stated

Latka: Early-stage interviews get 3x more downloads than pre-IPO founders

“The interviews I do with people that are at your level get almost three times the downloads as when I have Ryan on from Qualtrics and they're about to IPO.”

Nathan Latka Nov 8, 2018 ▶ 8:27 1202 He Raised $20m+ in First Company, Now Bootstrapping in B2B Sales Tech Space, $1m in ARR

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Lemkin: SaaS founders led Front's $600M valuation round

“The last round in front, which I think was at six or seven hundred million, was all founders. Okay, it was Ryan Smith from Qualtrics, I forget who else, the other billion, our friends, the billionaires of SaaS, but they all, I think, led that round instead of …”

Jason Lemkin Nov 17, 2021 ▶ 36:10 The Highs and Lows of Fundraising from Founders That Have Raised $1B w/ Calendly, Coda, LaunchDarkly

20VC Disclosure

Accel sourced Qualtrics early by building relationships in Salt Lake City

“Qualtrics, is a good example of that. Hiding in Salt Lake, you didn't think that there was going to be a multi-billion dollar company in the area of market research surveys, but we were lucky enough to find that company relatively early on and spend the time b…”

Rich Wong Dec 4, 2017 ▶ 6:40 20VC: Accel GP, Rich Wong on When Is The Right Time To Scale A Startup, Optimising Initial vs Follow-On Investment Decision-Making & The Globalisation of VC In Recent Years

Every mention by year

One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ryan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.

Show	Role there	Eps	Statements	Record
20VCLEDGER	Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Qualtrics	2	31	38% 3/8	full record on 20VC →
SAASTRLEDGER	Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Qualtrics	1	24	80% 4/5	full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast →
MADLEDGER	Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Qualtrics	1	12	—	full record on the MAD Podcast →
MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER	Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Qualtrics	1	12	75% 3/4	full record on My First Million →
TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER	Executive Chairman & Co-Founder, Qualtrics	1	10	100% 4/4	full record on Top Founders →