The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 31 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Heitzmann: Thousands of startups needing capital will fail by late 2024
“There's thousands of companies that are going to need capital between now and the end of 24. The investors at almost every stage have generally been hurt by the macroeconomic environment. The purse strings are pretty tight. But the amount of companies that may…”
Heitzmann: The 2008 financial crisis was incredibly good for New York tech
“And in a very strange way, the financial crisis, which was very bad for New York, was incredibly good for New York Tech.”
Heitzmann: Most products people label as AI are not actually AI
“Most of what people call AI we consider not AI.”
Heitzmann: FirstMark has been generally unimpressed by recent consumer AI startups
“We're looking at some things in AI. We've been generally under impressed by some of those things recently.”
Heitzmann: Crypto games compounded risk by stacking tokens onto gameplay mechanics
“Axie famously worked until it stopped working. Some of that was tied to people's inherent tie-in with crypto. So they were compounding their bets by saying, hey, I'm going to have crypto, and therefore you have to get in with ETH, and then we're going to have …”
Heitzmann: Widespread public adoption of VR helmets is not happening anytime soon
“I don't see a world where everyone's going to walk around with a helmet that's telling you everything you need to know in a hyper-extended hyper-reality anytime soon.”
Heitzmann: Distressed investing is a knife fight over a shrinking pie
“At the same time, I realized distress was oftentimes a knife fight over a shrinking pie.”
Geographic focus and capital efficiency enable new venture capital firms to launch
“So if you get involved in the earliest stages in capital efficient businesses that you know really well in a geography that you think you could have some leadership in, that's a fine enough point and a focused enough strategy that you're able to raise some mon…”
Heitzmann: It is currently the best time ever to invest in NYC
“And it's probably been the best time to invest here that I've seen ever.”
Heitzmann: NYC engineers remain cheaper than SF as Bay Area costs surged
“So engineers, despite the challenge of Wall Street, were always at a discount to the Bay Area. The cost of living in San Francisco became much higher than New York in the last five to seven years.”
Heitzmann: Extreme venture returns require executing on multiple non-consensus theses simultaneously
“If you're doing multiple non-consensus things and you're able to execute, that's how you create the Grand Slam home runs, the Shopify's, the Pinterest's, the Riot Games of the world.”
Heitzmann: Top founders now seek hands-on investor help over pure capital
“The interesting part of this phase of the market, whereas maybe in the 2020 to 20 22 time, folks just wanted the money with the least amount of dilution. If you don't want to take a board seat, great. I don't really need it. I just want the money. I think the …”
Heitzmann: Two-thirds of global unicorns have FirstMark Guild members
“So I think two thirds of all unicorns in the world have a member of the guild and most companies in New York, but there's companies in China and there's companies in Europe.”
Heitzmann: VCs should treat pro-rata rights as options, not obligations
“We look at our pro rata as our option to fund. So we don't view it as an obligation and therefore There's a negative signaling around that or some obligation that we have that unfairly biases our opportunity fund.”
Heitzmann: Closeness to founders makes early directors poor growth-round arbiters
“Oftentimes a company that you've been involved with for years, that you're very close to the CEO, you're very close to the team, you're very proud of how far they've come, might not make you the best individual arbiter of how much do you invest in this growth …”
Heitzmann: Healthcare is the largest US GDP segment with the lowest ROI
“Healthcare is the biggest part of our GDP. It's the fast-growing part of our GDP, and probably as a country, It's the lowest ROI of our GDP. If you look at the amount the US spends on healthcare and the impacts and outcomes, it's not that great compared to alm…”
Heitzmann: Government and independent payers will shift heavily to value-based care
“I think there's going to be a huge shift either on the part of the government or independent payers to a value-based outcome”
Heitzmann: The gaming industry was twice the size of movies in 2005
“People didn't realize that gaming was twice the size of motion pictures, even in 2005”
Heitzmann: Discord will remain a massive company in chat and community formation
“Discord, which we think is going to continue to be a very large company in chat and community formation, originally around games, but now much broader.”
Riot Games brought League of Legends to market with just $6.7M
“Riot brought League of Legends, which again is a multi-billion dollar per year franchise today, to market with 6.7 million dollars of capital.”
Heitzmann: The next generation of seed startups will operate far more efficiently
“This next generation, including at the seed level are going to be born out of a time of higher capital efficiency, Higher cost of capital, and they'll count their pennies more, and they'll stretch those dollars more, and therefore, you're going to see people w…”
Heitzmann: Media appearances and branding primarily accelerate founder and investor matching
“And it's really just a way not to increase a personal brand or a firm brand, but accelerate the matching process in this grand scheme of things.”
Heitzmann: Prolonged discussion dilutes focus on a startup's single most critical factor
“The longer you talk about something, the more you dilute the most important thing.”
Heitzmann: Admitting 'I don't know' disarms pushback and improves decision-making
“I find saying, I don't know, an incredibly empowering thing to say, very disarming, where if people want your opinion or trying to push you for something, just saying, I don't know, gives them no way to really push anymore, and also invites them into a convers…”
US Search burned $70 million in nine months after its IPO
“Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns took them public. They raised about seventy million dollars and they burned through it in about nine months.”
Heitzmann: 9/11 drove US Search monthly sales down by 93%
“In addition to that, just the overall uncertainty and risk sent our sales down 93% in a month.”
FirstMark seeded Pinterest based on non-consensus mobile and social discovery theses
“Because we aligned with the way the entrepreneur was thinking, we decided to do a seed investment in Pinterest.”
FirstMark backed Riot Games on a non-consensus games-as-a-service thesis
“So all three of those things were non-consensus and why we decided to do the first round of Riot Games.”
FirstMark told all portfolio companies to scrap 2022 budgets in January 2022
“In the fourth quarter of 21, we were budgeting for 22, with still a consensus in the broader market that the top three things that matter for your company in twenty-twenty-two were going to be growth, growth, and growth. And we went back in January of 22 acros…”
John Doerr and Mike Moritz were always fully prepared for board meetings
“I sat on a board at a company called Elance, which became Upwork with John Doerr years ago. He was always the first person in his seat at board meetings. He was always on time, always read the materials. I also spent some time with Mike Moritz, who was also, n…”