Latest / The Learning Corner by Precursor / Episode #40: Windsurf "Blitzhire", Demystifying Venture Speak, Founders Running "Fast and Loose"
Transcript
- 0:00Do this job long enough.
- 0:01It humbles you when you go, even if I think these people are not qualified, they still
- 0:04might succeed.
- 0:05So what's the benefit of saying, in very prescriptive terms, that people shouldn't do
- 0:09something or that they won't be successful?
- 0:11It's the week of July 14.
- 0:13Welcome to the Learning Corner, a Precursor Ventures podcast.
- 0:21Welcome to the Learning Corner by Precursor.
- 0:23I'm Mia Farnam, and I'm joined by RGP and managing partner Charles Hudson, where we will
- 0:28be talking through the articles and Goodreads that caught our team's attention over the past
- 0:33week.
- 0:34Our first topic is one that has been the talk of venture and tech all weekend through early
- 0:39this week.
- 0:39It's the Windsurf acquisition or whatever you wanna call it.
- 0:42Originally, in talks to be bought by OpenAI for $3,000,000,000, the deal fell through due
- 0:48mostly to Microsoft's deep entanglements and inability to carve out Windsurf's IP, Google
- 0:54quickly stepped in, structuring a $2,400,000,000 deal to license Windsurf's IP
- 1:00and hierarchy staff, including the CEO.
- 1:03This move follows a growing trend of blitz hires, a term coined by investor, Vily Itchev,
- 1:09in his recent piece, the BlitzHire Acquisition, to describe these unconventional deals where
- 1:14acquirers are sidestepping traditional m and a to optimize for speed in this lightning fast
- 1:20paced world of AI.
- 1:21These deals often involve a licensing IP, not exclusively to avoid HSR antitrust scrutiny,
- 1:27hiring the team, and leaving the original company with people incentivized to stay a
- 1:31little bit longer.
- 1:32While clunky and arguably inefficient, this method allows big tech to secure top AI talent
- 1:38without regulatory delay.
- 1:40It raises big questions about the future of m and a and AI and how long regulators will let
- 1:44this fly.
- 1:45We talked about this topic for the first time, I think, two months ago, and substantial blitz
- 1:51hires or accoliceance deals have been struck at massive scale.
- 1:56Any new thoughts, Charles, that you've had about this or insights on what the impact of
- 2:01these trends could be?
- 2:02I have a lot of thoughts.
- 2:04It was interesting reading a bunch of the commentary about people's thoughts about what
- 2:08happens to the employees.
- 2:10You know, obviously, senior management's getting something.
- 2:13The investors are getting something.
- 2:14And I think with the Cognition deal, it sounds like there's something there for the employees.
- 2:18I have friends who work at Character Google made that acquisition.
- 2:22So a lot of my questions are, what happens to the remnants of these companies when these
- 2:26deals happen?
- 2:27And I kept asking myself, what's gonna cause this?
- 2:29I also hesitate to call it a trend because it feels like there's a finite number of talented
- 2:34AI researchers that Google, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and others wanna fight over.
- 2:40And at some point, most of the known people will have found a home.
- 2:44I I wouldn't build an investment strategy around this unless you had proprietary access
- 2:49to these like AI genius people.
- 2:51Then maybe you could do it.
- 2:52I'm very curious about how investors are gonna feel about these deals long term.
- 2:55We we have not heard much about what the distributions look like for investors.
- 3:00We've heard speculation.
- 3:01And on the one hand, I'm like, well, if you're coming in at a series b and you're getting
- 3:05three times your money on a deal like this in relatively short period of time, that's
- 3:10actually not bad.
- 3:10Yeah.
- 3:11It's not gonna make your fund, but that's not bad.
- 3:13I kept thinking, what are the other structural things that would make these not work?
- 3:16One would be investors would stop chasing AI talent.
- 3:19I don't think that's gonna happen.
- 3:21So I think the only real thing that would put the brakes on these is some kind of regulatory
- 3:25action.
- 3:26And a lot of people said, well, is the natural outcome of a lot of the antitrust stuff that
- 3:31happened.
- 3:31I'm like, well, think Figma ended up better off, which is what I thought would happen all
- 3:34along.
- 3:34Figma's gonna end up better off.
- 3:36Yeah.
- 3:36It's gonna end up being a bigger, more substantial independent company.
- 3:39I think Facebook walking away from Yahoo, obviously, know how that turned out.
- 3:43And so it's unclear to me whether there will be regulatory action.
- 3:47There was at least mention that they were gonna look into the character deal.
- 3:50I think by the time the government figures these out, investigates one, and comes up with
- 3:56a remedy, people are like, that's fine.
- 3:58We got the talent.
- 3:59We got the benefit.
- 3:59If we have to pay some future penalty, that's a fine trade.
- 4:03Yeah.
- 4:03I was really interested to read how many, and maybe it's just the corner of LinkedIn that I
- 4:07hang out on.
- 4:08The amount of people who wrote up saying this seems like kind of a raw deal for employees,
- 4:13and should this change the way that employees think about joining hot AI startups?
- 4:17And that, like, so much of the consideration seems to go to both the founders and the
- 4:20investors.
- 4:21Yeah.
- 4:22It goes into my next question, which is more so around Cognition, which, again, was a last
- 4:27minute surprise that happened near to the end of the Windsurf saga.
- 4:31Cognition announced they would be acquiring basically the rest of the employees and and the
- 4:36company of of Windsurf.
- 4:37Certainly, this is a better outcome than setting the rest of the company out for the
- 4:41next few years, and hopefully, of efficiencies are gained by a company like Cognition.
- 4:45And I watched the interview between the new Windsurf CEO and the CEO of Cognition on
- 4:50Bloomberg, and they both acknowledged these types of acquisitions are disappointing because
- 4:55there's so much value left with all the employees who've worked their entire years.
- 4:58And I was talking with a friend about this yesterday to your exact point of, if we do
- 5:03enough of these, could this lead folks who are extremely talented who've been building their
- 5:07entire life to no longer see the the big upside and advantage of being the first group of
- 5:12engineers that join a startup?
- 5:14I mean, during the mobile era, we saw this wave of acqui hires because Facebook didn't
- 5:19understand mobile.
- 5:20And a lot of people didn't have mobile, particularly iOS development talent.
- 5:24The difference is those deals were literally one one hundredth of the size of these.
- 5:30Those were Yeah.
- 5:30In '20 But there was a period of time where I do remember this thinking kinda creeping into
- 5:36VC mindset for some, which is like, I'm gonna back this team that's doing this mobile thing,
- 5:40and if it doesn't work out, I'm pretty sure we can get the team acquihired to Facebook, Yahoo,
- 5:45Google, or Twitter.
- 5:46At a minimum, we'll get our money back.
- 5:48And that worked until it didn't.
- 5:51And then one day, Facebook and Google and Meta and all the other folks were just like, well,
- 5:55we have the talent.
- 5:56We know how to build out WhatsApps.
- 5:57Getting these people in the door is no longer so urgent.
- 6:00I wonder when that happens for AI because there are quite a few.
- 6:03I could think of just whole categories of AI teams, whether that's like the video
- 6:09generation, voice generation, other infrastructure companies where I wonder if
- 6:14there'll be VCs to say, hey, like, maybe the best thing we can do, given the changing
- 6:17landscape, is to try to get this company in front of OpenAI Corp Dev.
- 6:21And I'm really glad that Villy wrote the piece because Villy actually knows a thing or two
- 6:24about Corp Dev from his previous life.
- 6:26Yeah.
- 6:26And so he can talk, I think, in much greater depth about the nuances and specificity about
- 6:30how these deals are structured.
- 6:32I'll be very curious.
- 6:33But I think if you're a talented AI researcher, it's kind of like, why shouldn't I go start my
- 6:37own company?
- 6:38Yeah.
- 6:38For anyone who's listening, definitely give the full piece a read.
- 6:41Does a great job of creating context around traditional m and a, the lengthy process,
- 6:46etcetera.
- 6:47If I was somebody who I guess was on, I don't know, the Google team, to no fault, waiting
- 6:53weeks, you lose out on so much on this window of opportunity of time and AI changes every
- 6:59month.
- 6:59So in their brains, if you waited a year, perhaps it'd be the difference between outsized
- 7:04success and zero ROI.
- 7:06I talked to somebody who is one of the big AI companies on the research side and he's like,
- 7:11look, this field is evolving so fast.
- 7:12The people who are truly on the cutting edge are incredibly valuable because they can see
- 7:17around the corner that's coming because they know what's happening.
- 7:20To some extent, if you believe there's a finite pool of really talented AI researchers, it is
- 7:26actually rational.
- 7:27And you think that the delta between the really talented, cutting edge people and everybody
- 7:31else is massive, it actually is zero sum.
- 7:34You're like, hey, we need to get as many of these people as possible.
- 7:37At some point, that information will become more diffuse maybe, but it isn't right now.
- 7:41And I think it's interesting to see Facebook say, hey, we have this balance sheet and it's
- 7:44not just what we can pay you, it's the number of GPU.
- 7:47I saw the article.
- 7:47I don't if you saw the interview with Jessica Lesson from the information just talking about
- 7:52the package isn't just the money.
- 7:53It's the number of GPUs.
- 7:55It's the people you're gonna get to work with.
- 7:56It's the whole ecosystem of stuff you get by going to one of these hyperscalers.
- 8:00It's really hard to replicate that unless you're probably open AI or anthropic.
- 8:05There's so many questions left in my brain about the wreckage that's left behind after
- 8:08some of these happen and the people that have been so important to the journey the entire
- 8:11time and where they go next.
- 8:13This one was a good example of a new type of deal that was struck that perhaps the employees
- 8:17of Windsurf are welcomed into a new company and can continue on and add value.
- 8:20There's a great quote by Sonya Oja in a different piece that I read.
- 8:25She said, quote, Windsurf may go down as the first AI startup to be acquired twice in one
- 8:30week without ever being sold the first time.
- 8:33One company, two exits, zero precedent.
- 8:36I guess more to come.
- 8:37Our next topic is written actually by a founder within the precursor portfolio, Sergio
- 8:43Rodenzuela from Tanzu, who wrote a short but direct post on demystifying VC for new founders
- 8:49on LinkedIn.
- 8:50His points ranged from the fact that VCs are constantly fundraising to the unspoken but real
- 8:55reason investors pass and the importance of understanding ownership targets during these
- 9:00conversations between investors and founders.
- 9:02I personally have a favorite one of his points in my brain, but I wanted to ask you if this
- 9:07post made you think of any other knowledge imbalances that exist within the VC founder
- 9:13dynamic.
- 9:13It's really funny because I'm here in Boston, and I just gave a talk yesterday at TechCrunch
- 9:18Allstage about how pre seed investors are really evaluating your company when you're
- 9:23presenting.
- 9:23And I think I've probably mentioned this a few times before.
- 9:26I I'm very sympathetic to the plight of founders in this environment because when I
- 9:30started in venture, there were no blogs.
- 9:32There were basically no books.
- 9:34There were no online gurus, for better or for worse, who could help you with fundraising.
- 9:37There were no boot camps.
- 9:38There were no classes.
- 9:39And so it was very hard to find out what you're being evaluated on the first time we did this,
- 9:44which is why first time founders oftentimes got raked over the coals by investors.
- 9:47They literally didn't know what they were doing.
- 9:49Yep.
- 9:50And I gave this presentation yesterday, and a lot of people came up to me they're like, this
- 9:53was really helpful.
- 9:54And I was like, it's a good reminder to me, Mia, that you and I do this every day, all day.
- 9:58Yeah.
- 9:58We talk to thousands of founders every year.
- 10:00And there's still a lot of people who don't really know.
- 10:03And in some cases, the information they're getting is guiding them towards some traction
- 10:07metric or some presentation tactic that may or may not work.
- 10:10And I told the audience yesterday a lot of it is about the team, especially at BC.
- 10:14And talking about people's teams is a delicate subject because you're oftentimes making
- 10:19subjective decisions about people you don't know very well and you also haven't spent a ton
- 10:23of time with.
- 10:24And not everybody wants to hear that you think they're co founder's week.
- 10:27Not everybody wants to hear that like, hey, don't think the two of you are the right people
- 10:31to go after this opportunity.
- 10:33And I think if you do this job long enough, it humbles you and you go, even if I think these
- 10:36people are not qualified, they still might succeed.
- 10:39Yeah.
- 10:39So what's the benefit of saying like, in very prescriptive terms, that people shouldn't do
- 10:43something or that they won't be successful?
- 10:45And I think it's also great that Sergio wrote this because, you know, he spends time in the
- 10:49Midwest with a lot of founders who are not immersed in the Bay Area New York VC scene
- 10:54where you could go find somebody in your network or on your block or in your coworking
- 10:58space who's actually raised VC money who can give you real world experience.
- 11:02And so I thought it was a great post.
- 11:04I'm glad he wrote it.
- 11:04Yeah.
- 11:05I agree.
- 11:05I think that was connected to one of his bullet points about when folks say the company is too
- 11:09early.
- 11:10It basically can mean 17 other things, including mostly the team.
- 11:14I even found I encounter this when I talk to my co investor friends who all say that they play
- 11:18in Pre seed.
- 11:19I'll pass them the deal.
- 11:20And they'll be like, too early.
- 11:21Love this space.
- 11:22Too early.
- 11:23And so even us, who we spend all of our days talking to investors, talking to founders,
- 11:28people sometimes don't even tell us on the investor side.
- 11:30But at least I know when they mean too early for us, I'm like, it's not interesting to you
- 11:34and that's totally fine.
- 11:35But if you were interested, no matter how early it is, I know you'd come in.
- 11:39And it's also interesting to me that there are people who will tell me things about companies
- 11:45that I've sent them, knowing full well that I plan to tell that founder exactly what they
- 11:49said, but somehow laundering it through another investor Yeah.
- 11:53Seems to be a preferred way to deliver.
- 11:55I'm like, you could also just tell them that you have reservations about the team or that
- 11:59you have reservations about the TAM or you really didn't like this thing about the
- 12:03company.
- 12:03I'm also happy to deliver the message on your behalf without attribution, but you could also
- 12:07do it.
- 12:07And I don't know, I've told people some harsh stuff.
- 12:10I've always asked for permission before I do it.
- 12:12And I've told a few people, hey, look, I sat in this meeting with you and your co founder for
- 12:15an hour.
- 12:16You seem way more committed to this than he or she does.
- 12:19Or hey, you seem to have a really relevant background and I don't know why this person I
- 12:24told someone last week, I don't know why that third person was in the room.
- 12:28They're like, what do you mean?
- 12:28I don't know why this person's a part of your company as a cofounder.
- 12:31I don't I don't understand what they're adding.
- 12:32They might have been there at the moment of inception, and if that's, like, why they're
- 12:35here, great.
- 12:36But I don't understand this person's contribution or role.
- 12:39Was that a portfolio company or a new net new investment?
- 12:41Was investment. A
- 12:42A Yeah.
- 12:43Yeah.
- 12:44Know you've been doing this for so long at Precursor.
- 12:47How do you actually balance what to share with existing portfolio companies when you're
- 12:51getting information direct the investor and you have to decide what should I pass through to
- 12:56our founders?
- 12:56What's useful to pass through?
- 12:57And then what's just arbitrary information that maybe doesn't change and could be more harmful
- 13:01than useful?
- 13:02Oh, that's really hard, Mia.
- 13:03There's two things I always think about.
- 13:05One, is this actionable and is it useful?
- 13:09Yeah.
- 13:09So the first thing I tell them all, I think it's a Jessica Livingston or Paul Graham quote.
- 13:13I'm not sure who said it, but like the gist of it is the most important information that you
- 13:17get in the no is the no.
- 13:19Like whatever context is wrapped around the no.
- 13:22I I swear it's a Jessica Livingston quote that I read one time, but maybe I'm mis attributing
- 13:25it to her.
- 13:26But I tell them all, first of all, they passed.
- 13:28So whatever metadata or meta context I tell you about why they passed, it may or may not be
- 13:33true, and it's actually not as important as the decision that they made.
- 13:36So that's like the useful thing.
- 13:38I'll give you an example.
- 13:38We had a portfolio company that went out to fundraise.
- 13:40Before they went out to fundraise, I was like, I think there's one really specific issue that
- 13:45we face with the business.
- 13:46We haven't proven this thing.
- 13:48It's reasonable for people to say, we haven't proven this thing, and to decide not to invest
- 13:52in the company because we have not proven this thing.
- 13:53So if we were to fail to fundraise because people don't see evidence of this thing, I
- 13:58would not be surprised.
- 13:59And the person was like, yeah, that's what happened.
- 14:02I get it.
- 14:02But if someone's just like, I don't like the founder, that's not actionable and it's
- 14:06actually not useful.
- 14:07So sometimes I will just take that and figure out, is there a way I can deliver this message
- 14:12that will get through to them?
- 14:13Because if it's, hey, the content of the presentation or the way you showed up for the
- 14:17meeting is different from, I just don't believe this person will succeed as the founder.
- 14:20And I've had some people be like, I don't see in that founder what you do.
- 14:23I'm unimpressed by them. Does
- 14:24Does that person want to do with that feedback?
- 14:25Very objective feedback.
- 14:27Mhmm.
- 14:27The most important thing is the no quote that you brought out reminds me of when I was I
- 14:33think it was my first year in Venture.
- 14:35It was the first deal that I led, and then it ended up falling apart in the end, but I had
- 14:39gotten really close to that founder.
- 14:40And I remember trying to, like, structure a good email to kind of follow-up on the news
- 14:44that we're not gonna actually come in.
- 14:45And I remember reaching out to my friend who's a founder and recently just raised their series
- 14:49a yesterday.
- 14:51So it's fun to see all of that come full circle.
- 14:53But I was like, what's the best way to communicate no?
- 14:56And should I add this and this?
- 14:57And she was like, listen, I just went through the worst pre seed seed fundraising period ever
- 15:02just saying no.
- 15:03It doesn't really matter what additional fluff you put around it.
- 15:05Make it sound genuine that you at least listened and you thought about me, but this
- 15:09additional paragraphs that you wanna add of you're cheering for me and you're rooting for
- 15:13me, just say that you'd wanna stay in touch with updates.
- 15:15And when I do actually reach out, please opt in for the call.
- 15:18But anything other than that, I've already moved on.
- 15:20Also, I always just tell people at the beginning of the email, I'm not investing.
- 15:24Almost all of my past emails have the same basic structure.
- 15:27Thank you for your time because they gave us their time.
- 15:29I made the decision not to invest, And you can stop reading there.
- 15:32Yes.
- 15:32Don't make them dig around for
- 15:34Don't them dig.
- 15:34So people are like, well, why do you put it up front?
- 15:36And like, because that's the answer.
- 15:38It's business writing one zero one.
- 15:39Right.
- 15:39You don't put the conclusion at the end.
- 15:41You put the conclusion at the top.
- 15:42And I'll tell them, like, here's what I liked about the business, and this is the thing I got
- 15:45stuck on.
- 15:45You might not think that was a good thing to get stuck on, but this is what I got stuck on.
- 15:50And I don't get it right every time.
- 15:52And if I wanna keep in touch, I'll say, let's stay in touch.
- 15:54Otherwise, I'll just tell people, hope you're successful.
- 15:56I don't
- 15:56Like, you don't owe me anything.
- 15:57Like You
- 15:57don't owe me anything.
- 15:58That's funny.
- 15:59And and sometimes with our interns, I'm like, that's too many to
- 16:02say, though.
- 16:02We need to, like, compress the stock.
- 16:04And even I find myself, I'm like, that is it's too much.
- 16:07Because, like, if you add too much pros about it in the beginning, I think everyone wants to
- 16:10do pro con, pro sandwich when they send an email.
- 16:13I'm like Yeah.
- 16:14Okay.
- 16:14If you had that many pros about it, you would have just Why do invest?
- 16:16The investment.
- 16:17Tell them what they need to hear and let them go on with their Our last topic is a really
- 16:22entertaining read by Jared Hecht, one of the founders of GroupMe who is now at USB, who
- 16:27walks through the realities of what happens when young founders play it fast and loose
- 16:31during their fundraising process.
- 16:33He reflected on doing it himself while building GroupMe, assuming every big name VC was foaming
- 16:39at the mouth to join their cap table early on in the journey.
- 16:43That approach created momentum in some ways, but also led to some hilariously unfortunate
- 16:48blunders, which he shares about in his post.
- 16:51The two main takeaways for readers were one, all founders mess up, and that's okay.
- 16:57And two, reclaiming a bit of intentionality even while moving fast can perhaps save you a
- 17:03lot of headaches down the road.
- 17:05I think similar to our last topic by Sergio, there is this unspoken balance of pace and
- 17:12mystery that most, not all, but most investors want founders to strike to build that right
- 17:17level of excitement about a deal.
- 17:20Where do you think being fast and loose works well as early founders?
- 17:25And where do you think it crosses the line and does more of a disservice?
- 17:29I think it does a disservice if the things that you say are gonna happen don't come to pass.
- 17:35So obviously the worst thing you can do is lie and say somebody is in.
- 17:38And I saw that happen one time maybe ten years ago.
- 17:41And the firm that they said was in made that founder write an email to everybody who they
- 17:46had told and copy them on it saying, I misrepresented the firm's interest.
- 17:51They are not investing in our round.
- 17:53And it was a first time founder and I don't know whether he misunderstood or if he was
- 17:57trying to, like I can just give you some recent examples.
- 18:00There's a bunch of AI related companies that I've met that are day one companies, and I've
- 18:04gotten introduced to them.
- 18:05The person's like, well, they're meeting with Benchmark Sequoia and Andreessen week.
- 18:10So if you wanna get to the front of line, you gotta do it now.
- 18:12I'm like, okay.
- 18:12So they have a meeting.
- 18:13Okay.
- 18:14That's useful information.
- 18:15I'm glad they got those meetings.
- 18:16I don't know anything about what that means.
- 18:19But, okay, that's a plus one on the FOMO scale.
- 18:22And then see what, oh, they're going to partner meeting with this firm.
- 18:24And I'm like, yeah, but that firm doesn't take seed investing seriously.
- 18:28And so yes, it is possible that they're gonna get three on 30 from some big firm that doesn't
- 18:32take seed seriously.
- 18:33So I don't know.
- 18:34I I feel like if you have real interest, I think at this point in my career, I'm pretty
- 18:38good at sniffing out when a deal is hot and why.
- 18:42So sometimes I meet a founder, I'm like, oh, I get it.
- 18:44This person's super compelling, and I think everybody who meets him or her is gonna see in
- 18:49him or her what I see in them.
- 18:50And so whether there's FOMO or not, this feels like one I have to move quickly on.
- 18:54And there's others where I feel like the person's constantly telling me that they're on
- 18:56the cusp of something and I'm like, if you were really meeting with Sequoia, you wouldn't be
- 19:00reminding me that you have another meeting with Sequoia.
- 19:02You'd be focused on your
- 19:03You'd spending time with them.
- 19:04Yeah.
- 19:04You actually wouldn't probably even respond to my email.
- 19:06So I think there is the art of, I tell our companies all the time when they're
- 19:11fundraising, at most firms, if you wanna get your deal done, have to be the number one or
- 19:15number two priority for that person at that point in time.
- 19:18And if you're not, they'll still work on the deal.
- 19:21It's just you're not gonna feel momentum.
- 19:23And a couple times I've misread it.
- 19:25I've been like, this thing doesn't feel like it's got heat around it.
- 19:27And it turns out that like it did.
- 19:29I just misread the signal.
- 19:30In other cases, I've had people who told me they're on the cusp of getting a term sheet and
- 19:34six months later they're still in market.
- 19:35And I'm like, either you misread it or you were trying to deceive me.
- 19:38Either way, I'm glad I didn't invest in the company.
- 19:40I've had one of those cases where I think maybe from an investor standpoint, I just should have
- 19:44leaned into my gut a lot more and just had conviction areas.
- 19:47I waffled a little bit more on a deal that I was like, I really like this person.
- 19:50I like their idea.
- 19:51Maybe I'll take another week to just make sure I understand the market enough.
- 19:54And at that time that I talked to them, no one was interested.
- 19:56Yep.
- 19:56Like, no one really was really talking to them.
- 19:58So in my brain, I've got time.
- 19:59And then lo and behold, two weeks later, when I come back, I'm like, love to kick off this
- 20:03diligence process.
- 20:04They're like, well, it's done now.
- 20:05Good.
- 20:05I was the first of the line here, and then this is where we've ended.
- 20:09And most of it was not really even due to the founder's behavior.
- 20:11It was due to me just not just executing on conviction, and that's just something you have
- 20:15to build over time.
- 20:16I told one of our LPs, I have good news and bad news for you.
- 20:19I said, many of our best investments are companies I committed to essentially at the end
- 20:24of our first meeting.
- 20:25In my mind, was like, we're definitely gonna make this investment.
- 20:27And in those cases, speed was part of the reason we got into the deal.
- 20:31Also, some of our worst performing investments are also companies I committed to at the end.
- 20:35And so my view is that speed is an input to the process.
- 20:40And I think particularly if you're doing early stage AI stuff.
- 20:43I lost something recently because I thought I had communicated to the founders that we were
- 20:47in and they closed the round.
- 20:49They're like, well, we didn't understand that that's what you meant.
- 20:51Either I wasn't clear enough or you decided there was somebody else you'd rather work with.
- 20:54In either case, I didn't apply the right amount of attention to that opportunity and I didn't
- 20:58get it.
- 20:59My one piece of advice, because I recently saw it last week and I did tell the founder after,
- 21:02try not to put the names of the investors on a slide of who you're talking to because I will
- 21:09always have a record of that moving forward.
- 21:11And then I also had finished the call, Charles, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna be on this slide
- 21:16in a week now even though, like, I don't even know.
- 21:19We're gonna continue on.
- 21:20I'll also say I'm also sympathetic to people who make mistakes.
- 21:24I had somebody who was like, oh, I heard precursor's really digging on this company.
- 21:28I'm like, I haven't met with them.
- 21:29Let me look in Affinity.
- 21:30And was like, one of us had had one meeting with the company.
- 21:32No one had ever mentioned it to me, and I'm thinking, did the founder misrepresent it?
- 21:36Or did something get lost in the game of telephone where the person said, oh, I've had a
- 21:40meeting with them, and, like, they're gonna get back to me.
- 21:42And for all intents and purposes, that's what VCs say at the end of every meeting is I'm
- 21:45gonna take a closer look.
- 21:46So that's also what I would think as a founder too, until you tell me you've passed, is that
- 21:50you are digging in when the reality is mostly they're probably not if they haven't come back
- 21:54to you with tons of questions Yeah.
- 21:56It's not top priority.
- 21:57It could take them longer to dig in the way that they've promised you.
- 22:01Well, we are all out of time today.
- 22:02Thank you so much, Charles, for jumping in.
- 22:05Thank you to our listeners for listening well.
- 22:07Please like and subscribe, and we will talk with you all next week.
- 22:10Thank you.
- 22:11Bye.