The Ledger, every show

“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.”

“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…”

“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.”

“The biggest mistake is when you try to make consensus decisions at the early stage, I think you end up with consensus funds.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“Peanut buttering all of your reserves and every pro rata round that gets done is not a good thing for a founder.”

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“First off, I feel like every VC should have to fundraise just to be like table stakes as a VC.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“We had some LPs say exactly the same advice, which was one of our more surprising moments from our fundraise where some of the LP said, you know, listen, it's that important that you're in some of these brand deals to be able to establish yourselves and don't …”

“I'd take the Series A fund. I think it's the best risk return on the market.”

“My gut reaction is to say the opposite, which is that, you know, The wealth level correlates with a lack of hustle and therefore, but it's, that's actually not in practice what I'seen. I think there is a correlation less about the money and more about the peop…”

“I think what people get wrong about VC is it's a highly commoditized product. It's money. And there's more of it now than ever.”

“I think fintech is booming. I don't think we're in a bubble. I think we're on the precipice of an explosion in activity in the space, and I'm all in.”

“10 years into a bull market, I think it's pretty hard to get excited about lending companies. Or companies that have large balance sheet exposure.”

“The advice that I hear is for enterprise software founders, you need to get to one million dollars in ARR to raise a Series A. I think an enterprise software company that has a great product is going to have no Capital before certain financial milestones.”

“Our view with chemistry is that the idea of having a small team, clean slates, this playing offense at a moment where many people are distracted is a really interesting idea for founders that want that, that kind of relationship.”

“There were years that, you know, in 20, 21, I did far more and, you know, which was the wrong decision at that point.”

“You know, I think I'm seeing deals in the market that are 30 to forty million dollars Series A's, and I think one thing you have seen or I've observed in the industry Is that A's that would have been fifteen million, you know, five years ago could be 30 to for…”

“And the folks that I've seen take longer to get from that one to 10, 10 to a hundred, Are the folks that tend to make the wrong decisions around hiring in their leadership teams.”

“So a founder who feels like they gave it a shot, but ended in a place that they weren't happy with, and they have a chip on their shoulder, I think is a great profile.”

“I don't think it helps with customers. I think it helps with funding. You know, when Sequoia does a deal, there's going to be money that follows it. And that's great. That's a feature of, The brand equity they've built over a long period of time.”

“The biggest reason we heard was the three of you haven't worked together. And there's a lot of teamwork, team risk and a new fund at this size with three people.”

“One of the best piece of advice we got was build a diverse set of LPs and not in terms of the institutions you just described Fund to fund family office you know endowments and foundations, but people that, you know, think differently and think independently.”

“First off, I think products will evolve to create liquidity for those late stage private companies that give liquidity options to early stage investors. So I think the market will evolve. So just because companies are staying private longer, doesn't mean I thi…”

“Even when I started fundraising, I thought the duration of a fund was 10 years, and I was surprised to learn that many of the LPs said, we rarely see closed funds before 15 years.”

“When the employees know that the valuation isn't realistic, I think really hurts the morale and hurts the ability of the company to kind of do its best work.”

“I think it at least changes the tone of the conversation from one of, this is a zero sum game where the valuation is a reflection of my self-worth and kind of a scoreboard win to one of, let's put this in the perspective of a long-term journey.”

“So we are a single trigger model, which means that any one of the three of us can make a decision on an investment and go with it.”

“Chime.”

“Revolut's product velocity is, is just unparalleled in really any market at this point, including new bank.”

“Actually, the last time I was on your show, I think I predicted a hundred billion dollar in Neobank coming out of, you know, somewhere. And I think we're a lot closer. I think Revolut's the closest we're gonna see to that.”

“I mean, if you look at, you know, I was very fortunate to see some amazing companies from index from the early days, whether it was a Figma, whether it was a whiz, whether it was a data dog companies that, you know, have been able to build TAM by just increasi…”