The Ledger, every show

“On balance, I don't think reserves and follow ons, I think it actually hurts seed investing and it hurts seed investing in two ways. One is it depresses DPI.”

“I tend to agree with David on this, that a lot of this value add is commoditized, and it's also, also often when you talk to founders, it might be like a couple quick motions to try to win the check, and then people kind of fade into the background.”

“So I think in, like, two years, like, you mush that all together, it's, yeah, it's ripe for incredible disruption, or I'd say there's a lot of opportunity there for funds and managers to really take leadership positions because it's, there's just so much chang…”

“One undisputable law, empirical law of a venture is the power law, right? And so the rare thing is not price. The rare thing is conviction and the company. And so if you've got conviction and you found the company, you write that check, 10,000,020 million, a h…”

“I think a lot of the things that plays put out on VC Twitter, it is content marketing to make the person seem smart, but if you really get them, whatever, two beers deep, they're going to be like, I don't know.”

“Everything and what you're really having is like, I think the founders went from, or the VCs kind of went from the customers to now the founders of the customers.”

“I think, I believe actually a group decision is the wrong way to make a seed investment.”

“Most founders are just investing in people they know or in things they know. And then I, that I do think that because they're either investing in their networks. Or they are being sought out by someone building an analogous company, or that's someone in their …”

“Post series B, these things become not only like, they become painfully obvious and it's picking is not the thing. It's just access, right?”

“I think the seed round is like, if there's one round, and I think this is like an interesting topic, like how funding dynamics and whether you need BC, but I think if there's one round that is Will be essential for forever. It is that first round, right? And i…”

“I actually believe like the best investors, like for a company to truly be incredible, the founder actually, it has to come from the founder. It really does. It's like a real creative process, like analogy I've been kind of playing around recently. It's like y…”

“I don't think it's valuable. I think it's a strike. I mean, I, first of all, I think founders have such an awareness of the market. Like you might get to them like, 12 hours, maybe a few days before, but they're gonna see it, right?”

“A great, not, not a bad, but a great cold email is a form of hustle. Absolutely. One that's like, Human. Snaps your attention. Personable. Boom. That a hundred percent is a form of.”

“Yes. I put certain provisions around them that they, if they don't raise at a certain point, that, that, that, that it would, like, convert at something at some point, but I generally, generally would do it.”

“When David and I started, like, this ecosystem was so small, like, the seed deals would almost pass through everyone's inbox, like, almost everyone, it was like, you almost had, like, 50 to 75% coverage of any given deal.”

“I do believe the secondaries are going to be a really robust option.”

“I think it's the right way to look at venture is like, you know, raise, raise that initial capital. And if you get to the point where venture capital is optional and you can dip in and dip out, that's the ultimate. And you've, you know, you choose your own des…”

“And if AI will do anything, I think it'll just make companies that much more capital efficient in the longterm.”

“Realize that fundraising, especially fun ones, can take time, and you have to be patient. 12 to 18 months is fine. People not meeting with you for a couple months is fine. People taking, you know, months if not sometimes a half a year to reach a decision is fi…”

“I think the more interesting point as opposed to naming names is, I think brand is a very interesting, like not well discussed, not well understood, but probably the most potent currency in venture.”

“Very, very, very asymmetrical knowledge of this of like, Hey, listen, this one raised or this one raised this much. And that's like not general knowledge, but it's known because of what you do. That's helpful.”

“But the core of what we do is this very human, very personal thing. And I don't think that's going to be replaced by AI in terms of like the core thing.”