Assertion Partly supported
Sri Batchu: Angel investing consistently underperforms index funds
“It's really important to know that it's a consistently underperforming asset class. Like you will make less money doing angel investing than putting your money in an index fund or almost any other kind of equity investment by and large.”
Opinion
Sri Batchu: Prominent angel investors likely have poor returns under fund-style accounting
“Angel investors often tend to like overestimate their performance because when you see people that are like great angel investors, they're very selective in their disclosure of what deals they've done right on their. LinkedIn or Twitter, they'll have like, oh,…”
Insight
Sri Batchu: Power law dynamics disincentivize VCs from helping struggling startups
“Because of the power law dynamic, unless you're
A winner, a clear winner. They're actually not incentivized to work with you, which is the irony is like, okay, the person that needs the most help, they're least incentivized to help.”
Insight
Batchu: Enterprise AI is sustaining innovation favoring incumbents with distribution
“The way we're seeing AI being incorporated into a lot of businesses is that it's more of a sustaining innovation and not a disruptive innovation, if you were to use kind of Clay Christensen's framework. In, for example, in BtoB, it hasn't become a big enough w…”
Insight
Batchu: Winning allocations, not finding top founders, differentiates VC firms
“It turns out that that's not the most differentiating element for investors. Like, you know, because of the parallel dynamics of the portfolio of VC investment, you just have to have a handful of really good companies. Right. And there's the founders, the 10, …”
Opinion
Batchu: People pursue VC for status and power, not helping founders
“It's a high status job. That's why they seek it. Right. And I think it's a lot of, Extrinsic motivation and reason as to why people want to be VCs not necessarily intrinsic motivation. I think they tell themselves, oh, like I want to help founders. But I think…”
Insight
Batchu: Investing requires a new skill set at each larger check size
“Investing is it's a completely different job at roughly each half order to order of magnitude. What I mean by that is you know, writing a 25,000 dollar check is a different job than a two 50 K check versus a 2.5 versus a twenty five million versus a two fifty …”
Opinion
Batchu: Top VC outperformance comes from deal selection, not founder molding
“Maybe there is something about these firms that are molding founders into better founders, and that's what's maybe generating better returns. There's maybe some component of that. I'm skeptical personally. I think if you'll permit me like an analogy, it's does…”
Insight
Batchu: Operators must be more risk-averse than VCs when picking startups
“An operator is actually a very undiversified investor, right? So your bar for selecting the company that you're going to spend a few years is very high. So you actually have to be a very good investor with a little bit more risk aversion than a typical investo…”
Insight
Batchu: Cap angel investments at 10 to 15% of liquid net worth
“You should just assume that you're probably going to lose most of your angel investment value and wouldn't put in, you know, more than 10 to 15% of your liquid net worth, right?”
Insight
Batchu: Institutional VC requires a different skill set than angel investing
“The skill set of being a successful VC in terms of like pricing and winning the allocation, and also honestly building really high conviction to drive to a smaller, you know number of deals that you really want to win is a completely different skill set than b…”
Insight
Batchu: Top VC firms create negative signaling risks if they skip follow-ons
“Most top tier firms are very ruthless when it comes to their own economics. They will not
Follow on or lead a subsequent round unless they really truly believe independently. That is a good decision for the company. And so a so it means just because you got th…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Batchu: Great VC firms diluted early-stage returns with late-stage ZIRP bets
“A lot of great firms have made the mistake of doubling down, especially during our zero interest rate environment in later rounds, and honestly diluted their excellent series A and, you know, series B returns by investing large pools of capital into later stag…”
Insight
Sri Batchu: Mid-career operators are the most helpful angels for founders
“I I've usually found, and this is consistent. If you talk to a lot of founders with that regularly use angels is the operators that are kind of more mid career actually are the ones that are most helpful to you on your cap table.”
Assertion Supported
Batchu: Consumer IPOs created more value than B2B over 20 years
“If you actually look at the data from the last 20 years of IPO exits, There's been more value created from consumer companies than B to B companies.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Batchu: Opendoor has produced at least 50 startup founders
“The Open Door community, we recently counted, we have at least 50 founders that came out of Opendoor and counting, right and growing.”
Assertion Contradicted
Batchu: Google and Meta boomerang policies preserve equity within six months
“Both Google and Facebook have boomerang policies. I don't know if you know about this, but basically if you come back within four to six months, To Facebook or Google, they will just restart the clock on your equity package. So you won't lose your vested equit…”
