The Ledger
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Banister: Peter Thiel is exceptionally tolerant, open-minded, and widely misunderstood
“I've never met anyone more tolerant, more open-minded. He gets such a bad rep for a lot of things, but he's just probably one of the most poorly understood people.”
Singerman never read a financial report during his venture capital career
“I didn't read a financial report ever. I still don't know how to read financial reports, right? The one time I ever had to do a spreadsheet, my wife had to do it for me, right?”
The defense tech market will support only one or two next-generation primes
“There's not going to be, like, five Andrels. Like, there's probably going to be an Andrel. There may be, like, a number two. That's probably about it, you know, in that sphere of, like, next generation Defense Prime.”
Aerospace venture opportunity window may be closed for five to seven years
“There's a world now where we don't necessarily invest in aerospace for another, you know, sort of 10 years. And so, you know, sometimes, you know, some of these movements, I think, you know, can sometimes be a bit mistimed where, you know, I think the, you kno…”
Singerman admits Founders Fund would not exist if SpaceX had failed
“If SpaceX didn't work, Founders Fund would not exist. Like, we bet our careers, essentially, on SpaceX”
Singerman calls Peter Thiel the greatest venture capitalist in history
“There's a reason why Peter Thiel is the greatest venture capitalist in history, right?”
Singerman argues venture capital should ignore portfolio management and reserve calculations
“Venture capital to me has put the most money into the best companies possible at the best price possible. Nowhere in that is like portfolio management and reserve calculations and ownership percentages and all that nonsense.”
Singerman reveals Founders Fund invested over 30% of a fund into Palantir
“You know, we put a lot of money into it. I think we put like 30 something percent of.”
Stephens: Heavy portfolio concentration drives superior venture fund returns
“Concentration and venture is a really important one. This is like the idea that you don't want to have a thousand investments in a billion dollar fund. You want to have like a massive amount of concentration in the top few positions in that fund. That's someth…”
Ramp and Sword Health drive virtually all of Asparouhov's venture capital returns
“Basically, you know, ramp plus sword drive everything and, you know, the rest of everything that I've worked on is effectively a rounding error in comparison.”
Asparouhov: Goal is to meet only 30 founders annually
“My goal is ideally only meet with, you know, 30 founders per year, but make sure that one of those 30 is that, you know, sort of
.1%, you know, sort of founder.”
Coogan: Category-specific VC funds launch too late after power law winners emerge
“Trey Stevens partner at Founders Fund and co-founder Vanderell just posted this good essay in Pirate Wires about how, like by the time that there's a market trend that you can like build a VC fund around, like it might be too late because the power law company…”
Power: Defense tech ecosystem would not exist without Founders Fund and a16z
“Without founders fund Andreessen, like leading that charge from a narrative and capital perspective, the ecosystem just simply wouldn't be here.”
Thiel told Founders Fund to halt investing for six months during COVID
“COVID hits, you know, Peter at Founders Fund basically tells us, you know, go on a six month vacation. We're not going to be deploying any capital.”
Senra Systems Closes $65M Series B Led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos
“Senra Systems officially closed our Series B fundraising for sixty-five million dollars. We had Lower Carbon, Interlagos leading the round with a lot of our existing investors coming into the mix, such as Sequoia, Founders Fund, General Catalyst Andreessen Hor…”
Singerman calls Peter Thiel the best global macro thinker he knows
“Peter's usually pretty right on the macro things at the end of the day. Timing, timing does come into this stuff, and he's not always exactly right on timing, but at the end of the day, he's pretty good at being correct on, especially on, on macro Global macro…”
Singerman backs emerging managers only if they could beat him
“What I'm actually looking for is, hey, is there some chance this person could have beaten me in my prime? Right, as a game, like playing their game. Their game is not going to be the same as mine. You're not going to beat me at my game, but playing their game,…”
Stephens: Founders Fund Culture Supports Partners Co-Founding Companies
“We have no build program, there's no incubation policy or anything like that at Founders Fund, but, you know, Peter started Palantir. I started Anderil. Scott Nolan started General Matter. Delia and Esperohov started Varda, and it's just kind of part of the cu…”
Power: Hadrian raises $260M in equity and factory financing
“We just raised another two hundred sixty million dollars equity and factory financing. So Founders Fund and Lux led the round. So a hundred and ten million in new equity dollars as well as new investors like Altimeter.”
Asparouhov: Founders Fund actively discourages startup incubations
“Where, if that's to say we encourage incubations or anything, if anything, we, like, actively discourage them, because, you know, typically you should just stick to investing.”
Asparouhov: Khosla excels at investor training; Founders Fund enables autonomous execution
“KV is a really great place to, you know, sort of learn you know, venture in that you just get so much, you know, sort of exposure to the team because of those eight hour line partner meetings, there's very rigorous discussions, a memo writing culture, usually …”
Weisburd: Founders Fund invests up to 25% of a fund in single positions
“He puts in every fund founders fund, I think puts up to 25%. Somebody could correct me, but up to 25%, a single position, they've done that with SpaceX, Airbnb, all these, you know, iconic companies.”
Fishner-Wolfson: Founders Fund was SpaceX's first outside institutional investor
“Back at Founders Fund, we did the deal in, in, in, in that was sort of the beginning because at that point, Elon had mostly funded it himself. And we were really the first outside institutional capital.”
Stephens: Founders Fund holds a large position in Cognition
“Cognition, the AI coding company is a large position for us.”
Asparouhov: Led Sword Health Series A at $5M on $25M post-money
“Originally led the Series A from Coastal Ventures, five on 25 post and then doubled down and joined the board, and then doubled down from Founders Fund when I shifted over to there.”