Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Ralston: Picking multi-billion dollar startups does not prove investor skill

Geoff Ralston · Michael Seibel - Startup Investor School Day 2 · Y Combinator · Mar 7, 2018 · at 27:40

Speaking at Y Combinator's Startup Investor School, YC partner Geoff Ralston highlights the major role luck plays in early-stage angel investing returns.

0:00 / 0:25exact quote · 25.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Just because you've made a lot of money investing, do not forget there's a significant component of luck. Involved. And it's great if you all are the lucky ones that pick the one or two or three companies in this batch or YC, for example, that become multi-billion dollar companies. But just because you do that doesn't mean you're an A-plus investor.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Geoff Ralston

What-if
Ralston: Y Combinator would not have funded a young Steve Jobs
“I don't think we'd fund a Steve Jobs at YC. Well, that's not good. Yeah. And the reason is, especially when Steve Jobs was starting off, he was an asshole.”
Geoff Ralston Sep 1, 2018 ▶ 39:09 A Conversation with Paul Graham - Moderated by Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator
Opinion
Ralston: Magic Leap raised $2.3B but seems to have almost nothing
“Magic Leap raised 2.3 billion dollars, and they seem to have almost nothing.”
Geoff Ralston Sep 1, 2018 ▶ 49:19 A Conversation with Paul Graham - Moderated by Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator
Insight
Ralston: Seed investors demanding five-year financial projections are inexperienced
“If you run into an investor who is asking for five-year projections at seed, you've run into what we colloquially call a noob. They don't know what they're doing. Who has five year predictions at this point?”
Geoff Ralston Oct 10, 2018 ▶ 43:51 Fundraising Fundamentals By Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator
Opinion
Ralston: Pitch decks are largely useless for raising seed funding
“For raising seed, I think decks are not that useful. As an angel investor myself, I almost never even look at the deck. I just want to look at the founder and hear their story and see how they tell it.”
Geoff Ralston Oct 10, 2018 ▶ 23:41 Fundraising Fundamentals By Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator
Opinion
Ralston: VCs are not all brilliant, but they easily detect founder dishonesty
“If there's one thing, VCs aren't all brilliant, they're not actually all that good at being a VC, but what they are good at is sniffing this stuff out.”
Geoff Ralston Oct 10, 2018 ▶ 29:01 Fundraising Fundamentals By Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator
Insight
Ralston: Unequal equity splits like 51/49 are better to maintain control
“It's usually better to have somewhat equal shares, not, not, but not completely equal, and if one person has 51% and the other person has 49%, then they can control.”
Geoff Ralston Sep 1, 2018 ▶ 47:04 A Conversation with Paul Graham - Moderated by Geoff Ralston · Y Combinator
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 300 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.