Fred Wilson

Partner & Co-founder, Union Square Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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investorfounderauthor@fredwilson ↗avc.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Fred Wilson is a prominent early-stage venture capitalist who backed companies including Twitter, Coinbase, Etsy, Kickstarter, Tumblr, and MongoDB. He is also widely known for authoring AVC, a long-running daily blog about venture capital, technology, and crypto published since 2003.

20statements → 4claims → 3claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 4/5average certainty → 2.25/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 3 assertions · 3 opinions · 7 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Fred argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Fred Wilson: LendingClub operates at one-third the cost of traditional lenders

“Lending Club can do that at Maybe a third of the cost of what a traditional lender can do it at.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 30:11 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

Wilson: 5M teachers and 70M students use Edmodo in the US

“So today, four years later, five million teachers, seventy million students are using it in the K through 12 system here in the United States.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 9:48 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

50% certainty 4

50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

232 words/min while actually speaking · 42.5 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Fred Wilson: only 4 usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 4 raw tape exchanges is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 5,038 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

What they said20 What others said4 Episodes1

Everything Fred Wilson said on the MAD Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Wilson: Data is only defensible if it is proprietary first-party data

“The only defensibility that you can get with data is defensibility around your own data. If you're getting data from somebody else, it's not defensible, because they can give it to somebody else as well.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 3:32 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Opinion

Wilson: Google search holds an almost insurmountable data advantage

“I would even argue that Google benefits from network effects and the data that they have that, in their search business, I think, almost an insurmountable advantage because of the data asset that they have. And the network effects around that.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 5:08 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Insight

Wilson: Software alone lacks defensibility without proprietary data and networks

“Shows the problem of thinking that software is any kind of defensible advantage. I don't think it is. But if there was something about The data, ah, and the network around that software that made it so that it wouldn't be easy to leave the first company and go…”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 6:55 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Insight

Wilson: Startups should build platform services on data rather than sell raw data

“I don't think selling the data is the right thing to do. I think the right thing to do is to build services on your platform that take advantage of the data that let the people who might buy the data from you instead come and build businesses And transact on y…”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 13:11 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Insight

Wilson: Consumer internet startups should build simple products before data science

“In consumer internet, even if big data and machine learning is going to be the thing that ultimately locks in your value proposition for the long haul, I don't think you get into the market and get the scale position that allows you to access that data with da…”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 23:39 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Disclosure

Wilson: USV will not invest in porn, spying, or gambling

“I won't invest in porn. I won't invest in spying. I won't invest in gambling. Those would be three things I wouldn't do.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 25:14 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Insight

Wilson: Bootstrapping marketplaces with institutional users instead of grassroots is a mistake

“When entrepreneurs come in and say, We're gonna bootstrap you know, one side of our market, the demand side or the supply side, by going to institutions or going, you know, kind of bypassing the little guy and going to large chunks of supply or demand. That al…”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 32:31 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Opinion

Wilson in 2013: All mobile and micropayments should run on Bitcoin

“So that's what's interesting to me right now in payments and it's not like mobile payments or micropayments. Like, to my mind, all that should be running on, on bitcoin.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 38:05 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Disclosure

Wilson: User value and team quality matter more than early business models

“I don't care about the business model because we can tweak the business model. We can get the business model right. What I care about are do you have users and are they getting value out of your product and how much value they're getting out of your product an…”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 41:49 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Insight

Wilson: Machine learning hit a major inflection point around 2013

“I think that machine learning is, has hit an inflection point in the past few years artificial intelligence, machine learning, whatever we want to call it To the point where, ah, we're starting to see, ah, these, ah, dreams that we've had for 30 plus years in …”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 14:15 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Fred Wilson: Successful healthcare startups will bypass hospitals and insurance companies

“And I think what will work for us in healthcare is to service the doctors and the patients and ignore the hospitals and the, Insurance companies and all the big honkin' bureaucratic institutions in healthcare.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 34:41 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Assertion Partly supported

Wilson: USV invested $2.5M in Indeed before its $1.4B acquisition

“We put two and a half million dollars into the company. That's all the money that they ever needed and They sold for a 1,000,000,004, you know, so you know, that's as good as it gets, really, in the venture business.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 1:31 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Assertion Contradicted

Wilson: 5M teachers and 70M students use Edmodo in the US

“So today, four years later, five million teachers, seventy million students are using it in the K through 12 system here in the United States.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 9:48 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Opinion

Wilson: Bloomberg's main retention driver is native messaging, not market data

“The most important data which is the, Transactional and conversational messaging that goes on inside the platform is created natively for the platform and stays inside the platform. And I think that's the glue that keeps everybody on Bloomberg.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 11:21 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Disclosure

Wilson: USV avoids investing in 'pitchforks and shovels' big data infrastructure

“We are not investors in companies that are providing the pitchforks and shovels for the big data business.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 15:59 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Insight

Wilson: Three core differences define Twitter versus Facebook

“I think the important ones are default public versus default private follower versus friending. One-way follow model versus a two-way following model. And open fire hose versus closed fire hose. I think those three things tell you everything you need to know a…”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 16:55 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Assertion Supported

Fred Wilson: LendingClub operates at one-third the cost of traditional lenders

“Lending Club can do that at Maybe a third of the cost of what a traditional lender can do it at.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 30:11 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Disclosure

Wilson discloses USV's early investment in crypto exchange Coinbase

“We're invested in a company, Coinbase, that does that stuff, and they're great, and I love it”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 37:43 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Disclosure

Wilson: USV thesis targets developer platforms like Twilio and MongoDB

“We have started to have a thesis around platforms that developers build on top of. Twilio SIF Science Firebase, and MongoDB. So we do like to invest in platforms for developers.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 26:22 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

Disclosure

Wilson: USV studied education for three years before investing in Duolingo

“We looked at education for about three years before we made our first education investment, and then we quickly made about five or six. So we have Edmodo, Duolingo, Codecademy, Skillshare, Stack Exchange, if you want to call that education.”

Fred Wilson Dec 19, 2013 ▶ 18:02 Fred Wilson, USV // Data Driven NYC #18 // Sep 2013 (interviewed by Matt Turck)

The other half of the tape: Fred Wilson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 3 episodes on the MAD Podcast. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Zach Weinberg 2 Matt Turck 1 Anand Sanwal 1