venture capital
Raising money and what it does to the product: the funnel that forces hard choices, and what happens without it.
FilterEveryone, all time34 from 20 people
- BC
Ben Carlson quoted
Director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz…
startupsdesigninvestingnetwork science
Their wordsVenture capital is a power law strategy by design. The hope is 1-2 big winners make up for all of the other losers.
↗Can You Be a Boglehead Tech Investor?awealthofcommonsense.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- 3 weeks earlier
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Co-founder of Y Combinator and Viaweb
Their wordsit's someone who gets what they want in any situation. And so, if you invest in them and you have stock in their company and they have stock in this company, your interests are aligned. If they get what they want, you get what you want, so that's why investors want people who are formidable.
↗Paul Graham On Startups, Ambition, and Great Foundersyoutube.com 9th of 16 in this recording
- 1 day earlier
- AD
Aswath Damodaran quoted
Professor of finance at NYU’s Stern School of Business
Their wordsVC success is measured based on price at entry and price at exit on an investment, rather than the quality of the business built
↗The Scaling and Profitability Trade off: Venture Capital’s Weakest Link!aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
- AD
Aswath Damodaran quoted
Their wordsthe median venture capitalist has not been much better at harvesting alpha than the median mutual fund manager or PE investor
↗The Scaling and Profitability Trade off: Venture Capital’s Weakest Link!aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Their wordsOne of the distinctive things about YC as compared to later stage investors is that you have to be prepared to give advice about practically everything.
- 1 day earlier
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Their wordsNo credential will get you more credibility with investors than growth.
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Their wordsAnd if you do it well enough, you won't need investors at all.
- 11 days earlier
- AD
Anil Dash quoted
Technologist and writer, a blogger since 1999
Their wordsIn short, the venture capitalists and CEOs of Silicon Valley have priced the costs of shame into their business plans.
↗Why shaming people about AI slop isn’t enough to stop Big AIanildash.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- MH
Max Hodak quoted
Co-founder and chief executive of Science
Their wordsYeah, I mean I think BCI is a category kind of like how pharma is a category. I think sometimes you I I'll talk to VCs and like, "Oh, we have a BCI bet." I'm like, "Do you have a drug bet? You made one bet on a drugs? Like that's that's how you think about the category?"
↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 5th of 18 in this recording
- 5 days earlier
- IT
Isaiah Taylor quoted
Founder and CEO of Valar Atomics
startupsAmericaphysicsinvesting
Their wordsAnd the type of risk that we are asking investors to take is um, we know the physics works. We know that there's infinite demand and how we go from here to there is technology execution. And guess what? Venture capital in the United States is the best at underwriting tech risk of anywhere in the world.
↗How Nuclear Will Unlock Energy Abundance with Valar Atomics Founder Isaiah Tayloryoutube.com 15th of 18 in this recording
- 8 days earlier
- MH
Max Hodak quoted
Their wordsthere are definitely some ideas that are worth funding with $50 million or zero dollars, but not $5 million. Um you won't run the experiment. It'll be really frustrating experience. You'll get an ambiguous outcome.
↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 19th of 22 in this recording
- MH
Max Hodak quoted
Their wordsWell, I mean, okay, even the whole basis of building Helix is contrarian. Like, I think that if you raise a series A and then you tell your investors that you're going to vibe code a purchasing system, I think that any reasonable board is going to like ask you what you're thinking.
↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 22nd of 22 in this recording
- 2 days earlier
- ZH
Zach Holman quoted
Web developer and writer; an early GitHub employee
Our readingVenture capital decision-making runs more on subjective feelings than on objective substance.
Their wordsA lot of venture capital is full of wishy-washy bullshit human feels over reals.
↗Probably Won’t Pass You on to Another Investorzachholman.com 1st of 3 in this piece
- ZH
Zach Holman quoted
Their wordsMost investors will side with doing that if they think the pitch is truly novel: even if they don't participate, they still want the aura of referring it to another investor who might.
↗Probably Won’t Pass You on to Another Investorzachholman.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 10 days earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Creator of Ruby on Rails, CTO of 37signals
Their wordsThis was one of the reasons why I was always so skeptical about venture capital when it came to software. Because I saw time and again people raise an enormous amount of money, hire hundreds of people, and produce crap software.
↗DHH: How to Build a Profitable Company Without Losing Controlyoutube.com 3rd of 15 in this recording
- JH
Jensen Huang quoted
Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA since 1993
Their wordsYou don't invest in companies, you invest in people.
↗Jensen Huang: The Mindset That Built NVIDIAyoutube.com 4th of 20 in this recording
- 8 days earlier
- PL
Pieter Levels quoted
Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs his internet startups alone
Their wordsYou think this is crazy low but ~5% ownership probably the most common final % most VC funded startups will have when they work out, especially when you have a co-founder
↗5% ownership is probably the most common final stake for VC funded startup founderslevels.io
- 4 weeks earlier
- LT
Lip-Bu Tan quoted
Chief executive of Intel since 2025
Their wordsAnd then frankly speaking, I look back nine of the 10 company I invest halfway they change their business plan because market have changed.
↗Re-engineering the Semiconductor Supply Chain with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tanyoutube.com 12th of 16 in this recording
- LT
Lip-Bu Tan quoted
Their wordsAnd then in terms of the capital intensive like AI in a factory and also the foundry and then you really need to tap either government funding or some sovereign fund
↗Re-engineering the Semiconductor Supply Chain with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tanyoutube.com 14th of 16 in this recording
- 4 days earlier
- MP
Mark Pincus quoted
Founder and former CEO of Zynga
Their wordsit almost gives a new founder an advantage over a multi-time successful founder because we have too much rope to hang ourselves. It's too easy to raise money and recruit teams against a big vision before we've gotten to product market fit.
↗The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more)youtube.com 9th of 22 in this recording
- 4 days earlier
- RT
Ruxandra Teslo quoted
Geneticist by training and writer on science
Their wordsUntil manufacturing and regulatory risks become easier to underwrite, capital will keep drifting away from one of the most promising technologies of the last century.
↗Manufacturing requirements are killing cell and gene therapywritingruxandrabio.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- BG
Bill Gurley quoted
General partner at Benchmark Capital for over two decades
Their wordsLook, first of all, if a company's successful, someone will knock on your door and try and give you more money. So, like almost every round is preemptive for successful companies. And when you take that much money, $300 million, the only way to spend it is to take your burn rate up. And I always thought of burn rate as a measure of risk.
↗Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurleyyoutube.com 9th of 16 in this recording
- BG
Bill Gurley quoted
Their wordsI think the the whole industry bends towards youth for that reason and because it's a hustle business like there there's there's always a rock you haven't looked under and you know age brings children and homes and and and other requirements you get tied to and responsibilities and you're just not able to go spend 80 hours a week studying YouTube like you just can't.
↗Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurleyyoutube.com 16th of 16 in this recording
- 7 days earlier
- MP
Mark Pincus quoted
Their wordsyou've gone through so much to be here. You owe it to yourself to bet on your instinct. You owe it to yourself to lose because of yourself. It's your right to be wrong. You, as a founder, owe it to yourself to control your own destiny and take half the valuation if it's all of the control. And it means you have the right to do it your way.
↗FarmVille Creator: The Hidden Path to Successful Productsyoutube.com 10th of 16 in this recording
- 3 weeks earlier
- ER
Eric Ries quoted
Author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible
Their wordsAccording to Harvard Law School, among venturebacked companies that have the standard best practices set up that you got from your lawyer, okay, only 20% of founders are still the CEO 3 years after going public.
↗How Anthropic, Costco, and Patagonia all build incorruptible companies | Eric Riesyoutube.com 4th of 24 in this recording
- ER
Eric Ries quoted
Their wordsdid you know that according to the legal documents you yourself signed, your company's literal charter that you have right now, and this is not some hypothetical future thing, you've already put in motion, a rule that says you have a fiduciary duty to say yes in this situation.
↗How Anthropic, Costco, and Patagonia all build incorruptible companies | Eric Riesyoutube.com 8th of 24 in this recording
- 4 weeks earlier
- EN
Elizabeth Van Nostrand quoted
Freelance research analyst and writer of the blog Aceso Under Glass
Their wordsThe link between venture capital and evangelical Christianity was closer than I thought. They're not just analogous; they deliberately cross-pollinate.
↗Church Planting: Lessons from the Commentsacesounderglass.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- JH
Jensen Huang quoted
Anthropicstartupssemiconductorsinvesting
Their wordsNor nor did I I would say my mistake is I didn't deeply internalize that they they really had no other options that that that a VC would never put in 510 billion of investment into an AI lab with the with the hopes of it turning out to be anthropic. And so that was my miss.
↗Jensen Huang – Will Nvidia’s moat persist?youtube.com 14th of 24 in this recording
- 3 months earlier
- DW
Dan Wang quoted
Writer and analyst of Chinese technology and industry
Their wordsStartups don't need dissent; they want workers who can grind until the network effects kick in. VCs don't like dissent, showing again and again that many have thin skins. That contributes to a culture I think of as Silicon Valley's soft Leninism.
- 6 months earlier
- DH
David Heinemeier Hansson quoted
Their wordsBecause the problem isn't just venture capital, it's other people's money. Once you take other people's money, completely understandably, they want a return and they would prefer to have the largest return possible.
↗DHH: Future of Programming, AI, Ruby on Rails, Productivity & Parenting | Lex Fridman Podcast #474youtube.com 22nd of 36 in this recording