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Mehta: Passing on Elon Musk's SpaceX was Greenoaks' single biggest mistake

Neil Mehta · Finding the Next Figma, Wiz, & Stripe Before It's Obvious | Neil Mehta Interview · Invest Like The Best · Apr 15, 2025 · at 36:46

Neil Mehta is the founder of Greenoaks Capital. He discusses Greenoaks' early fund history and lessons learned from passing on Elon Musk.

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“It's actually the biggest mistake we've ever made at Green Oaks. It's a mistake I'm about to tell you. Which as we had heard, he fires people quickly. He's hyper aggressive. He's a, he's, he manages down to like the nth layer. You know, he micromanages people like crazy. He disappears for large swaths of time, comes back in and changes everything. And we're like, wow, this guy sounds like he's doing too much. And we had mentors and friends of ours are like, you know, he's not backable. And you'd be like, oh, well, I guess we can't back. And we didn't do The primary work ourselves. We actually outsource that work. This is why this is one of our big learnings.”

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