venture capital
also referred to as: vc industry · vcs · venture capital industry
32 statements across 18 episodes · 6 bullish · 9 bearish · 16 people on the record · first statement Nov 13, 2015 by Chris Dixon · across every show →
Everything said about venture capital, oldest first
Nov 13, 2015
Dixon: Venture capital operates on a manager schedule instead of maker flow states
“And VC is very much a manager, so it's sort of one hour scheduled meetings as opposed to kind of, you know, eight hours of getting into a flow state and thinking about a topic. So the good, the bad part is it's sort of a lot of state switching and kind of jump…”
Nov 13, 2015 positive
Nov 13, 2015 negative
Dixon: Using data science to predict startup success yields poor results
“People have tried many, many times to use data science and other things to try to quantify these kinds of questions you're asking and the results have been pretty, pretty poor. It's very, it's been very hard to predict these things.”
Nov 13, 2015 neutral
Dixon: VC invests only $10B–$20B yearly, smaller than big tech R&D budgets
“This industry is actually, you know, it gets a lot of attention in the press venture capital, but it's actually a very small industry. So, you know, they're probably, there are a few dozen kind of firms that most people, you know, that, that, that constitute t…”
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015
Dixon: VC calendar is split roughly 50-50 between new deals and portfolio support
“I think, I guess I would divide my calendar somewhat between, I guess, two broad categories of things. One would be meeting with entrepreneurs who are starting companies and raising money. And coming to us to talk about potentially investing and then the other…”
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018
Mega-round growth investing resembles traditional equity markets, not venture capital
“No one is investing at Uber at a seventy-five billion dollar valuation hoping to get a Tenex return. It is much more akin to, I think, traditional sort of equity investing, but obviously with a higher risk profile, a chance, which is Implies a chance for a hig…”
Sep 18, 2018
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019 positive
Jan 22, 2019 bearish
Jan 22, 2019 neutral
Wolfe: Venture capital is highly inefficient because the universe is unknown
“In venture capital, it's a really inefficient market because there is no known universe. You and I could be talking in a private room, and we could decide that we're going to start up a company tomorrow, and nobody else knows that information.”
Jan 22, 2019
Wolfe: VCs must privately anticipate failure while publicly cheerleading their startups
“Venture, by definition, is a cheerleader business. You're optimist. You're promoting the future. You're supporting companies who, against all odds, are likely to fail, and you know, you're cheering them on. But I think internally and privately, you have to ant…”
Apr 14, 2020 positive
Calacanis: Investing in underrepresented founders provides an edge due to lower competition
“The reason we're doing it is it's actually good business. A lot of these founders have incredible insights, and there, there's not competition for these deals because People are not making space for them to come to them and say, here's my idea, here's my busin…”
Apr 28, 2020 negative
Ackman: Complex Venture Preference Structures Hide Inaccurate Late-Stage Startup Valuations
“And so the incentive on the part of many of these sort of earlier stage funds is to have markups in the portfolio, because it's a way of showing to your investors that you're making business progress. And I think it does encourage, you know, certain kinds of b…”
Oct 13, 2020 negative
Oct 27, 2020 negative
Cubitt: VCs Taking Excessive Equity Destroy Founder Alignment
“At the same time, the founding team needs to have enough equity to make it worth their while. And I think some VCs have it upside down where they say, well, we're going to own all this business, but then you've lost alignment of your founder. And if you lose y…”
Dec 8, 2020
Lavingia: Venture-backed startups need 10-20% MoM growth by Series A/B
“You need to be growing in the article, I say, 20% month over a month, but it can be 10%. It just needs to be sort of exponential or so. Or polynomial or whatever the correct math term is. And if you're doing that, you can stay on this path. If you're not doing…”
Dec 8, 2020 neutral
Lavingia: VC Portfolio Theory Leaves Struggling Founders Completely Ignored
“The nice thing about the portfolio theory that VCs have is they don't care that much about you if it doesn't work either, right? So they're all, they're sort of focused on, on other things. They're kind of content to let you Figure it out. At least the good on…”
Dec 8, 2020 negative
Lavingia: Startups must constantly project growth to retain venture capitalist backing
“Startups, like you have to signal that you're growing. You can't say, Hey guys, we're going to take a break, figure this thing out. Cause everyone's going to look at that and say, Oh, these like, as a venture capitalist, you don't want those people. You don't …”
Jan 25, 2022 negative
Andreessen: Senior VCs Reach an 'Idea Event Horizon' and Reject New Paradigms
“There's a point a lot of people reach where they're just done with new ideas. It's like the general version of the problem. It's just like, okay, like I got through the PC. I got through the internet. I got Facebook. All right. I got, okay. Food delivery works…”
Jan 25, 2022
Jan 25, 2022 positive
Sep 20, 2022 neutral
Hoffman: Board governance is an apprenticeship requiring extensive practice
“Boards are more of a kind of an apprenticeship kind of professional gig versus anything else. And understanding how to do a board well only comes with a lot of repeat practice, which mostly, you know, very few professions. Vendor capital is one of the few that…”
Oct 25, 2022 neutral
Oct 29, 2024 negative
VCs are 'hitchhikers with credit cards' focused purely on exits
“I call the VCs I call them hitchhikers with credit cards, and, but what I mean by that is that they're getting into your car, And as long as you take them where they want to get to, which is an exit which either has to be a sale or an IPO... They're not there …”
Mar 4, 2025 bearish
Sep 9, 2025 positive
Jan 1, 2026 neutral
Feb 3, 2026 positive
Ovitz: Packaging tech startups is functionally identical to packaging entertainment projects
“But other than that, the packaging of a film or a television show or a record or a book is no different than the packaging of an idea for a digital company, for a company in technology. It's all the same. The founder's the creator. The VCs, the money in tech, …”
Jun 9, 2026 neutral
Gurley: The venture capital industry structurally bends towards youth
“I think
The whole industry bends towards youth for that reason and because it's a hustle business.
Like, there, there's always a rock you haven't looked under.
And, you know, age brings children and homes and other requirements you get tied to and responsibili…”