venture capital
also referred to as: vc · vcs · venture capital industry
32 statements across 23 episodes · 9 bullish · 9 bearish · 18 people on the record · first statement Aug 30, 2016 by Jessica Livingston · across every show →
Everything said about venture capital, oldest first
Aug 30, 2016 negative
Jun 21, 2017 negative
University Entrepreneurship Centers Accept Non-Technical Teams That VCs Would Reject
“Over the past two weeks, I've talked to a number of, kind of, directors of entrepreneur centers, and the constant thing that I'm surprised by is that they know these things that I'm talking about, but they still accept teams that don't abide by these rules. So…”
Jul 1, 2017 bearish
Benet: VC cannot fund deep tech needing over two years of development
“VC is not built for long-term investment in things that are
Extremely high risk and building some deep foundational technology.
VC is tuned for 10 year returns, which means that in two, three years you have to, like, show very strong you know, sign of, like, m…”
Aug 18, 2017 neutral
Identifying strictly as bootstrapped or VC-backed harms founder decision-making
“When you like start to put your own identity and like, well, I'm a bootstrap or I'm a VC thing like that starts to affect your decision-making in ways that are probably not Healthy for your company. And it's just better to look at money and fundraising general…”
Sep 25, 2017 neutral
Sep 25, 2017 neutral
Oct 4, 2017 bullish
Hoover: ICOs raise more capital with zero equity dilution
“People are launching an ICO instead of going to VCs and You know, the deals that they're getting, it's like it's unheard of. Like you basically are getting way more money and you don't have investors to pay back. Like you own everything. And I mean, there's ju…”
Dec 6, 2017 neutral
Slavin: Fundraising fundamentally requires telling a story of scale and growth
“People might argue with this, and I don't even know if I believe what I'm saying, but I think probably I would say that the essential story that you have to tell when you're fundraising is a story of scale, right? Like, because the premise of fundraising is, i…”
Feb 7, 2018 negative
Mar 9, 2018 neutral
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 bullish
Mar 21, 2018 positive
May 4, 2018 positive
Mitchell: Rezi uses structured debt rather than venture equity to fund receivables
“When we went to our VCs, we said, you know, pretty clearly we're, our intent is not to use the majority of the capital that we raise from you for funding these receivables. Our intent is to you know, create this financing solution that allows us to do it.”
Jul 11, 2018
Jul 11, 2018 positive
Y Combinator launched to fund many early-stage startups with small checks
“Instead of giving large amounts of money to small numbers of established companies, like traditional VCs did, we'd give small amounts of money to large numbers of earlier stage startups, and then we'd give them a lot of help.”
Aug 30, 2018 positive
Petersen: Founders rejected by investors should pivot to self-funding businesses
“Look, if no investors want to invest in your business, that's your fault. You should do a different business. Like, there's lots of businesses that don't need any investor money. Do that and then earn the credibility success compounds, like build up, you know,…”
Oct 10, 2018 neutral
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 neutral
Oct 18, 2018 positive
Gil: Zuckerberg hiring Sandberg shifted tech away from replacing founder-CEOs
“I think there was a real shift when, ah, Mark Zuckerberg hired Sheryl Sandberg as COO into people saying that founders can keep going. Because what happened in the nineties was Founders were quickly replaced by professional CEOs if they raised any venture capi…”
Feb 15, 2019 neutral
May 22, 2019 negative
Aatrey: First-time founders err by letting VCs dictate product direction
“It's the biggest mistake most first-time founders do, right? They think, hey, they are going to fund us. Like, if you just listen to them, things are not going to work out. But it's never the case. You have to believe in what you're doing.”
Feb 23, 2022 negative
Caldwell says junior VC associates push fundraising to show quick valuation markups
“Their KPI is that if you raise money and they can mark up their investment, it makes them look good. So they can go tell their colleagues or their investors, Hey, I invested in this company and it went on to raise more money at a better valuation than I invest…”
May 6, 2022
Caldwell: Portfolio math incentivizes VCs to push startups toward explosive outcomes
“It actually makes sense from a portfolio theory to advise people to do this because either way, either it works great or it dies and goes away and you get to spend your time on something else, but like either way it's explosive, right?”
May 6, 2022 negative
Oct 28, 2022 positive
Oct 28, 2022 negative
Caldwell: Starting a company by pitching VCs invites exploitation
“If your idea for how you start a startup is to first create a pitch deck and go pitch VCs, you're setting yourself up to get screwed. You're setting yourself up to get taken advantage of by people who are gonna have 20 different ways to rip you off, versus if …”
Oct 7, 2025 bearish
Fisher: VCs Investing in AI Are Already Two Years Behind
“And I think even today, like you talked to a bunch of VCs and they're like, oh yeah, like I'm ahead of the curve. Like I'm investing in AI. I'm like, no, like you're two years behind already. Right. Like, tell me about what you think needs to happen in two yea…”
Mar 16, 2026 bullish
Jul 24, 2026 neutral
Pomel: VCs Spend Far More Time Understanding Companies Than Public Investors
“The VCs you have as a private company, they spend so much more time on your company There's so much more concentrated than the public investors. Like public investors have, they're looking at, you know, 20, 30 different names. They come in and out of these nam…”