venture capital
also referred to as: vc · vcs · venture capital industry
76 statements across 46 episodes · 10 bullish · 37 bearish · 15 people on the record · first statement Mar 19, 2020 by Chamath Palihapitiya · across every show →
Everything said about venture capital, oldest first
Mar 19, 2020 bearish
Chamath: Forced VC markdowns in 6 months will kill follow-on funding
“When these markdowns are forced to happen, which will take another six months venture capitalists returns will look terrible. And so their propensity to be able to add bad dollars after good quote unquote, you know, to defend every company is going to go to ze…”
Mar 19, 2020 bearish
Mar 20, 2021 bullish
Apr 1, 2021
Apr 1, 2021 negative
Sacks: Chasing value leads VCs to invest in inferior companies
“And I think the more you, that you try to chase value. As a VC, I think the more you end up investing in companies that aren't really that great, like you're trying to find things that are mispriced as opposed to just investing in the best companies.”
Jul 23, 2021 bullish
Aug 6, 2021 positive
Palihapitiya: Annual venture capital inflows grew from $25B-$30B in 2011 to $120B in 2021
“When I started social capital, there was probably 25 to thirty billion dollars a year flowing into venture just in 2011. Fast forward a decade, we have like a hundred and twenty billion dollars a year going into tech and it's going up like crazy.”
Oct 23, 2021 bullish
Feb 19, 2022 negative
Friedberg argues board-seat VCs more often than not add negative value
“The problem is VCs, they join a board, and they think that they have to quote add value. So they come in and they make a bunch of suggestions and recommendations and push you to do a bunch of things. And as Vinod has said correctly many times, they more often …”
Apr 9, 2022 negative
Friedberg: Most venture capitalists add negative value to startups
“There are most VCs, as Vinod has said publicly, add negative value. And I totally agree with him on this. Because they, many VCs, particularly the ones who aren't, you know, valuable and don't really have much to add, try to add stuff, try to say stuff, and th…”
May 23, 2022 bearish
Gerstner: Tech valuations will not return to 2021 peaks without zero rates
“Pretend you never saw them, not in venture, not in the stock market, because that is a delusional place to think we're getting back there. We're not, unless we have another pandemic or a nuclear war and rates go to zero, and then we have bigger problems.”
May 23, 2022 bearish
May 23, 2022 bearish
Gerstner: Short everything if 10-year yield hits 7% and inflation stays at 5%
“If you told me you thought inflation was going to be five percent for the next decade and the tenure was going to seven percent, I would say short every tech company in the market. No, no, no. Short everything in the market and don't invest a dollar in venture…”
May 23, 2022
Gurley: VC market cycles resemble a sawtooth, not a sine curve
“It doesn't happen like a sine curve, which is what we all imagine when we think of a cyclical business. It's more like a sawtooth. Risk, risk on is a very slow process, and it, and it's reflexive, so it grows, and grows, and then risk off tends to be very abru…”
May 26, 2022
May 27, 2022 bearish
May 30, 2022 neutral
May 30, 2022 neutral
Silver: Probabilistic intuition matters more than formal mathematical modeling in VC
“In the VC field, I don't know if you're necessarily doing as much modeling as I might in election model, for example, but at the very least, people understand the intuition, and the intuition is, you need both, but I think the intuition is more important than …”
May 30, 2022
Silver: VC investing requires being six to twelve months ahead of the curve
“In VC, I mean, you might want to find a founder or a sector or a company that's undervalued by the market, but eventually you want that sector to grow. You want to attract more talent. You want to attract future fundraising rounds. So you kind of are more bein…”
Jul 22, 2022 neutral
Aug 13, 2022 neutral
Aug 13, 2022 negative
Aug 20, 2022 bullish
Friedberg: Inflation Reduction Act will drive VC influx into climate tech
“I personally think we are going to see a significant influx of venture capital and support for a lot of these climate tech and, you know, new energy material and manufacturing projects that otherwise may have been held back because the subsidy will kickstart.”
Oct 22, 2022 bearish
Nov 12, 2022 bearish
Chamath: $600B to $700B of tech VC capital will be destroyed
“About five hundred billion dollars of that trillion from 1819, 20, 21 and 22 is going to be destroyed. We haven't even started to see that yet, right? And then if you factor in another hundred billion or so from older vintages, we're talking about a 600 or 700…”
Nov 12, 2022 neutral
Nov 19, 2022 negative
Sacks: 5% risk-free rates elevate VC hurdle rates to 20%, crowding out capital
“When interest rates go up, more and more money flows into the risk-free rate of return, and then that crowds out investment capital. And we've talked about it on the last pod, where if the risk-free rate is five percent, and then, like, high-quality corporate …”
Dec 3, 2022
Sacks: VCs' search for 100x outcomes makes them predictable targets
“Investors tend to fall for this, not because investors are dumb, But because investors are so clear about what they're looking for and what they want. They're predictable. Yeah. Like we're, you know, VCs, especially we're looking for the hundred X outcome or w…”
Dec 16, 2022 bearish
Feb 4, 2023
Chamath: Zero $1B+ distribution VCs came from pure engineering or PM roles
“I went into pitch book and my team and I looked at all of the people, the humans in our business. That have generated more than a billion dollars in distributions on a given deal, and there's 20 that have done that in our industry. And if you look, not a singl…”
Feb 4, 2023
Feb 4, 2023
Feb 4, 2023 bullish
Friedberg: Record VC dry powder will force unprecedented deployment within three years
“The total VC capital raised last year, I think was a record high. That means there's a lot more cash that needs to kind of be deployed in the next 12 to 36 months than has ever been deployed in, in the history of venture.”
Feb 4, 2023 bearish
Sacks: VC capital will be deployed much slower over 3-4 years
“Yes, there's a record amount of money venture capital has raised over the last, you know, couple of years, but it's going to be deployed much more slowly and carefully. Over the next, say, three or four years than it was over the previous few years.”
Feb 4, 2023 negative
Feb 24, 2023 bearish
Apr 21, 2023 neutral
Apr 21, 2023 neutral
Apr 21, 2023 negative
May 19, 2023 neutral
Jun 16, 2023
Jun 16, 2023
Brad Gerstner outlines three requirements for an incredible venture capital vintage
“You know, listen, in venture, you got to find three things. You got to find, you know, you don't want to invest all your money at the top. So you got to get the bottom, you know, bottom third. None of us can call the bottom, but you know, last year at the end …”
Aug 11, 2023
Aug 11, 2023 neutral
Gurley: VC outperformance depends on rare speculative market peaks
“A vast majority of the reason venture outperforms other asset classes has to do with these tiny windows when you have a super probably market, and if you don't, if you aren't around for that part, you know, if you strip those years out of a forty-year assessme…”
Aug 11, 2023
Aug 11, 2023 bearish
Aug 26, 2023 neutral
Sep 16, 2023 negative
Sep 22, 2023 bearish
Friedberg: LP capital and startup funding will fall significantly in aggregate
“On a day to day basis, it means there's gonna be less companies that are going to get funded, but more importantly, it's gonna be less LP money going into venture. And there's going to be less capital available to fund startups in aggregate by a significant am…”
Sep 22, 2023 bearish
Chamath: Weak VC alpha will reduce limited partners' fund allocations
“When people do the calculations on what the true alpha of venture capital is, they're going to come back with answers like this, which is, it's not that great. And I do think it will impact how limited partners have an appetite To give all of us, or you guys, …”
Sep 26, 2023
Sep 26, 2023 negative
Oct 27, 2023 bullish
Nov 11, 2023 bearish
Dec 23, 2023 bearish
Dec 23, 2023 bearish
Feb 17, 2024
Sep 26, 2024 bearish
Laffont: Venture industry faces LP backlash if startups fail to IPO
“If we don't get these companies to go public in my opinion, we are as an industry gonna have to face really hard questions with the ultimate funders of our industry, who, by the way, are not our funds, but are the investors in our funds, right? And eventually,…”
Sep 26, 2024 bearish
Dec 13, 2024 neutral
Raboy: Early-stage metrics confuse investors; founder capability is the only data point
“At the end of the day, the only data point is, is this founder capable of building an iconic company? Period. And I prefer to compete when there's no metrics, because all the metrics you're gonna do is confuse you.”
Dec 13, 2024
Raboy: Taking 2 to 5 years off venture capital makes returning impossible
“What I realized about where I am in my career in tech is if I stop doing what I do, I'm never going to come back. Like technology is rapidly emerging. We're going to talk about all the latest developments this week. Like you can't take your foot off the gas in…”
Dec 13, 2024 positive
Dec 13, 2024
Raboy: Personal move into politics is a decade away
“I'm in like the prime of my venture career. I'm only 12 years in actually, Chamath. So figure five, 10 more years, like is the sweet spot. And so I'd like to see the companies that I was involved in grow up, become public companies, et cetera. And I didn't fee…”
Mar 22, 2025
May 9, 2025 bearish
May 31, 2025 bullish
Aug 15, 2025 bullish
Sacks predicts AI will restock startup opportunities and boost venture returns
“My guess is that we're in a pretty good time for VC because of AI and the disruption is causing. And the potential for value creation it's creating. It's sort of restocking the pond with opportunities for many more big companies to be created. And I think ulti…”
Aug 15, 2025 bearish
Sacks: Average venture funds underperformed the NASDAQ over the past decade
“If you look at the data, the recent data, say over the last decade or so, you don't want to be the average venture fund. You'd be a lot better off just being in the NASDAQ or in some other public stock market index, because A, your returns would be higher, and…”
Aug 15, 2025 negative
Aug 27, 2025 negative
Aug 27, 2025 neutral
Oct 3, 2025 bearish
Chamath: Private equity returns will drop to zero due to overcapitalization
“And when you see that kind of graph, it doesn't matter what asset class it is, the returns go to zero. And so we've seen this in venture capital. We've seen this in hedge funds. And we're now going to see this in private equity.”
Oct 9, 2025 bearish
Mar 11, 2026 negative
Jun 9, 2026 negative
Bill Maris: Large fund asset accumulation is not true venture capital
“If you're an RIA and you're, you know, collecting assets, that is not venture. You know, venture, as I practice it at least, is a different craft where you are Making concentrated bets of your time and capital on entrepreneurs and helping them build a business…”
Jul 21, 2026 bearish