YouSaid · the spoken record

Megan Quinn

lines on the record: 138
first: 2017-12-20
most recent: 2017-12-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, the business in the company today is extraordinary. I mean, even though we all don't talk about Pokemon, we don't talk about Pokemon Go every hour. It's still an incredible business. The team over there is extraordinary. It's a team I know really, really well. And we believe that they have the opportunity to build an iconic company at the intersection of AR, which is obviously white hot as a trend, and real world physical location. So they are not just trying to build AR experiences for your sitting on the couch or around the table or even ways to collaborate in the office. They want to tie AR to the real world and build at that intersection, at that seam. And today that's all been games, and that's great, but I don't think that that's the end all and be all for their opportunity ahead.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's an opportunity for them to sell. I think Stewart is really focused on building a really big business. And so the biggest risks right now are really just around execution. And that's around the nits and bolts of building a company and teams and building a product and closing customers, all things that they happen to be doing really well. I pause, not because I'm trying to think of something to hide, but because it's actually really hard every day that goes by, Slack seems more and more inevitable.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love Slack, so I've invested in Slack twice. I invested in Slack at Kleiner, and then I invested in Slack or Spark invested in Slack again. It's an amazing company. Spark, actually, we don't do any email internally. None. They're zero. All communication within the firm happens within Slack. All external emails get piped into Slack. It's truly the system of record for how we do business. And it's enabled us to build this firm, frankly, across multiple coasts and offices. So I'm obviously a huge fan of Stuart's and the team that they're building there and the opportunity ahead.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it stops being so volatile. It reaches a steady state. And then ideally, aspirationally, moves into being a method of payment.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you have a spare, what's today, $17,000? Let's call it $17,000. If you have a spare $17,000 that you are fine seeing go to zero, like, okay, fine, that's not the worst way to spend it. I don't think that cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin specifically is ever going to go to zero, but I think that if you're someone who's willing to have it go to zero, then you can ride out the stomach lurching of volatility that I think we're going to continue to see for a while. I think anyone who tells you if they know how long this is going to last is a false prophet. Right.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, and Coinbase has stuck to their knitting around safety and security and really not, you know, they haven't tripped over themselves to launch a bunch of different types of currencies, right? They've been really careful and thoughtful about every new currency they bring to the platform. They have been really thoughtful about being communicative with their customers. They've obviously had some performance issues due to all of the volatility and interest in the space. I mean, they are really trying to build that safe brand in crypto.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Beating that clean bank, essentially a bank to figure it out. And it is kind of it reminds me a little bit of early internet, actually, in a lot of ways. People are talking about there was a lot of con people and people got washed out pretty quickly and then the people that came in later were the ones that seemed to benefit most from it.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that started a few years ago on the early stage side. On the late stage side, we really feel like Coinbase is the bet from our perspective.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, today it's speculative, 100%. One of the folks on my team said he was liquidating his 401k to buy in, which made me pretty nervous. But I am optimistic that it will actually be a tool for transacting once we reach some sort of steady state. I mean, obviously in a world where it's going up by $1,000 every couple hours, you don't want to go on overstock.com and use that to buy mattress. But if we can get to a place where it's steady state, I think there is real opportunity there.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ah, there's actually not a lot that are doing pure play, what Coinbase is doing today. Not to say that there won't be, by the way. I'm sure, I mean, you've seen.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They've spent 18 months, two years. It's actually in a competitive advantage for them working with regulators and security firms to be able to provide the safety and security around that business. Right.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was up and down, but it wasn't up and down like it is now. No, and we've always kept an eye on the market. But again, from a growth stage perspective, we need there to be a little bit more market maturity. And then the company went out earlier this year to raise around a financing, and we ended up participating. And our thesis there was really simple. We think the toothpaste is out of the tube on cryptocurrencies, and we think the world needs a safe, well-lit place to transact. And that's what Coinbase offers.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And our friends at USV, frankly, even when I was at Kleiner, Fred Wood Ping and sort of Nudge, and for a while there, Bitcoin was just kind of sailing along.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you don't want to talk about many areas that you're interested in, but we should ask you about the blockchain because at this exact moment in time, it's blockchain mania. I read today that people are taking out mortgages to buy Bitcoin, so that feels like a healthy part of the cycle that we're in now. But you started with Coinbase”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're looking for definitely intellectual rigor, honesty, first and foremost, I should say. I look for self-awareness. I think it's really important as entrepreneurs mature up the cycle in terms of company building, that they have a good understanding of the things that they're really good at and the things where they need help, where they need to either leverage their board or bring in executives. We look for people who are intellectually curious. So yes, you're focused on building your business, you're obsessed with your customer, but you don't have blinders on. You're interested in how the world works so you can see around corners before others can. We're looking for people who are magnets for talent. Recruiting is one of the very most toughest parts of building a company. It's a long, long list.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Answer you actually. Those are all good. So at the growth stage, it's a little bit different than venture stage, right? Because there is a finite pool of companies for us to invest in. It's not just tons of people with a napkin idea or in academia working on some interesting piece of tech. The companies that we're investing in and looking at have by and large already raised some sort of capital have seen some sort of traction. So we tend to not be thematic driven. We tend to be entrepreneur driven. We see these entrepreneurs as the ones who have found success with a product, have taken it to market, are seeing product market love, and that's the opportunity for us to engage as late stage investors.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that you can totally have interesting businesses that are purely transactional, but I think that there's a cap on how big they can get. And therefore, from an investment perspective, it's a better investment for an early stage investor than a late stage investor who needs to see a 3 to 5 X on that return.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is a great example. So Emily built up a website into the gloss for seven, eight years focused on product reviews in the beauty space and skincare space, and then took that community and built the products that they were asking for. It's doing phenomenally well. They have a portfolio of products that they sell in the skincare space. And that community in turn gives back. They tell people it's part of the engine of their growth and also help them develop new products down the line.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Investment opportunities there. We have some caveats to that. We think price matters there more than most places of software investing. And we also think that in our unique perspective is that it's not enough just to have a brand. You actually have to have a community as well. And that community has to be organic. It has to be customer love that ends up manifesting itself in a conversation with a company that is authentic, which is to say, you know, if it's something if it's a website where you just go here, you input your credit card, and then you get some XYZ thing in the mail, even if it's an amazing, beautiful brand, we have a hard time believing that's a billion dollar company. But if you've organically built a community of people who tell their friends and act as sales representatives for you and are actually giving you product feedback and have this exchange and dialogue with that customer base, that has a tremendous opportunity to move into adjacent product lines and become a really, really big business.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think that where we've seen a lot of interesting things on the consumer side have been these fully integrated direct-to-consumer brands. So we have a thesis. It's not particularly unique to us. In fact, Kirsten has built a whole practice around it that the internet is green at Forerunner, that the internet has changed the game as it relates to building consumer products and accessing consumers. You no longer need to have enormous ad budgets. You don't have to do deals to get your product on the shelf. The internet has really leveled the playing field and that for the first time word of mouth is really a foundational customer acquisition channel. You can actually count on it and you can measure it. So we have met in the last year, I had someone on my team look at this, 57 different fully integrated direct-to-consumer brands. So everything, I'm not going to say the ones that we met with, but all of the ones you could think of. So of the pelotons and all birds and hubbles and so on and so forth. And we do think that there's really interesting.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And how much room is there to invest in the consumer space right now in particular? And I know you're looking sort of across all spaces, but I feel like conventional wisdom right now in venture capital is that consumer is really slow and boring. That's my perspective also as a reporter. But maybe you're seeing really interesting things recently that just haven't bubbled up yet.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I like to help more on setting up a product building organization. It's not going to be helpful if I'm going in and saying, hey, not that color blue, this color blue. Or like, have you thought about rounding the edge here versus keeping it? That's not useful to the company, but helping them think through how they can create an organization that builds products across engineering, design, and product. And that means everything from, let's talk about the cadence of product reviews, what is a roadmap look like, how do we measure our success. These things sound very fundamental, but there's a surprising lack of them, often in the earlier stage companies.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They do. It's a product experience platform for enterprise companies. So they do analytics, guides, walkthroughs, NPS for B2B software. And we put in our investment memo, we write a long memo that goes along with every investment, and there's a risk section. What do we think are the things that could really be a downfall here? And we put for PENDO recruiting because it's in Raleigh, North Carolina. We don't really know Raleigh. We don't have a network in Raleigh. And it felt like it could be hard to get really great people to go there. Of all of our portfolio companies, all 22, they have the easiest time recruiting. They are picking people out of the Bay Area, Chicago, New York, all folks that want to move down there, have some land, have a family. It's been interesting to watch.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It doesn't feel any more difficult now than any other time, but I will say as an anecdote, I'm on the board of a company in North Carolina called Pendo, and we put down an armed investment risk.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. You're looking for people who want to go someplace where they believe that they can change the trajectory of the company. So I actually completely disagree with the Cheryl Sandberg model of if you're offered a seed on a rocket ship, just get on, don't ask which seat. Like, I think that's a nice soundbite, and obviously it's worked well for some people. The counter I have to candidates when I'm talking to them is, wouldn't it be more interesting to go to a place that you know it's not going to do as well if you weren't there? Because that means you're going to have ability to add value. Exactly, exactly, have control, really, really feel like you're contributing.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It depends on stage in terms of how involved we are, but it's everything from recruiting. So I am an active recruiter for the portfolio companies that want and need my recruiting assistance. I close candidates. I'm actually going right from here to close a VP, a product candidate for a company. And I'm sourcing candidates. And I'm an active customer closer. So I joke with a couple of the companies that we work with that I'm their best performing AE account executive in terms of sourcing different business opportunities for them. Because again, I get to interact with a lot of different people in a lot of different companies and there's interesting synergies all across the place, even if they're in different markets and so on and so forth.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In any case. So the venture capital is in charge, but you said you're not thinking like that. You're thinking entrepreneur based, correct? Right. Right. So they're at the center of the thing. So, what do you contribute? And then I want to talk about some specific companies.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I've been doing this for, let's call it five years. I don't know if that's exactly the amount of time. And that's still considered pretty early to the industry. So the other folks who've been doing this longer like to remind me there used to be a time when VCs had the power and they were the ones selecting the entrepreneurs and it was this summer and glory of VC opportunity and now it's the entrepreneurs have all the power we're all competing desperately to show them how much”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it seems like even just in the five or six years that you've been actively investing, there has been this flood of money, particularly into the early stages. And I've read a lot about how the venture capital industry seems to be changing. There are a lot of questions about its future. Do you feel like you've seen a lot of change in VC since you joined, at least as far as the amount of money available and the levers that might give you?”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a winter at the earlier stage in the seed stage. That's where the data has come out more recently. It does not feel like winter. It feels like the surface of Mars right now on the late stage. Mars is high, right?”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we'll make anywhere between five and eight investments a year. It just depends on those check sizes. And we have a portfolio of about 22 companies right now. Half of them where we've led and half of them where we'd followed. So we like working with other growth funds. We work really closely with a number of growth funds that you would know, General Catalyst, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, so on and so forth. And as these round sizes get bigger and bigger, this is a group that you would have thought was actually more competitive than not is tending to collaborate more because there's so much capital that's going into these companies.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're going to only talk to this one person and never anybody else at the firm, and you're that one person's guy or gal, we really have a very collaborative approach.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think Spark benefits, Spark growth benefits from having Spark Venture have this really warm, well-received reputation in the market. People like Spark. In fact, I always said about Spark before I joined is, oh, it's those nice guys back east. And now we're trying to change it to be those nice guys and some women. And also we're out here in San Francisco and New York, but people have a good halo, a good feeling around Spark as a firm. We always say and we tell entrepreneurs, we're not going to hurt your business. And by the way, that sounds like a low bar, but it turns out a lot of VCs can do more harm than good by injecting themselves at different times or places when not needed. So we tend to be founder driven based on where and how much we help. And it really does depend on the stage. We're obviously spending more time with the companies that are earlier in their life cycle than ones that are going to go public in the next year. And we work super collaboratively. So people do see Spark, specifically Jeremy and I, as a unit that they are getting access to across the board versus”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, we are looking for amazing entrepreneurs, first and foremost. That's true across all stages. We're looking for compelling differentiated products. That's a little bit higher of a priority for Spark, I think, than most venture firms. We are looking for massive markets, if not massive today, the opportunity ahead, a perspective that we have about the world where the market will be huge. And we're looking for business fundamentals. So even if the company's an early Series B, we want to have an understanding of what that business model is and whether it can scale with cash as opposed to just adding more bodies.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Small compared to It's not as ownership focused as early stage investors tend to be because we're at the growth stage, but it's really important to us that we're not taking product market risk. So our venture partners are the ones who are investing in entrepreneurs who have an idea on a napkin or a prototype. We are willing to take on some type of risk, but it can't be product market risk.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and we look at consumer, we look at enterprise, we look at companies in South America and Europe, and we're really looking forwarders. And that's how we talk about it.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. So, our current fund is $600 million, and we invest checks of $15 to $50 million. So we're not actually focusing on specific ownership. It's more about these dollars and at work and the subsequent valuation. And we look at companies that are Series B all the way up to pre-IPO. So it's a very broad swath of the overall startup in the CAP.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think a lot of venture firms talk as if they do that, but they absolutely do not practice. Exactly right. Yeah, I've been in so many rooms, and I made this joke just a second ago, but I literally was in a room where someone goes, We eat what we kill. I'm like, what? And then get served by a butler. I'm sure entrepreneurs love being referred to. No, I know, I know. So anyway, this is interesting. When we get back, we're here with Megan Quinn. She's a general partner at Spark Capital. She previously worked at Google, Square, and Kleiner Perkins. At Spark, her investments have included Coinbase, Slack, Nantic, and we're going to talk about those investments and where Venture is going next on Rico Dico with my co-host, Casey Newton.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably a lot of ego people coming Probably a lot of ego and ownership around deals in companies because that's how general partners have historically been compensated. What did you source? What did you close? What was your exit? And we could have gone down that path. I mean, that's the path of least resistance in many ways. But we kind of made this deal together that we were going to do things differently and every loss was going to be our loss and every win was going to be our win. And it's an experiment. It may totally backfire, but for now for us, it's really working.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so we're trying to really invert that model completely. So all the companies that you've listed, I'm an investor in, and Jeremy's an investor in as well. They're on both of our bios. We do work with both after the investment. It's a great little model.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's a wonderful character. And so I think the fact that we have two people who, by and large, have been operators from the majority of their career and are new to investing gives us the opportunity to try and evaluate how we would build our own practice from scratch, not having done this before, which is a once in a lifetime opportunity. So we look at every deal together. If anybody on the team, we have four more junior folks on the team meets a company they think is interesting, we all meet on the second meeting. We all spend time, we all do diligence, we all call customers, and we come to a shared point of view. And all the way down to the term sheet, we don't put a name on the term sheet for board seat. And this is different. This doesn't sound revolutionary, I know, but this is different than how firms typically operate more often than not. It's individuals coming together on Monday morning, pounding the table for a deal that they want to do and then going off their own separate ways for the rest of the week.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, so Jeremy Phillips and I oversee Sparks growth funds. So we have two funds. We have a billion dollars under management. And we're trying to build something a little bit different, which is to say we are trying to build the most collaborative fund possible. Jeremy originally started the fund three years ago after Spark having a long history in early stage venture investing. But he comes off of an entire career of operating. So he's never been an investor before. He was Rupert Murdoch's right-hand guy newscourt. He started a company and took it public in Australia.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Group, right, because it's off putting in some way. And since then, you've been investing in, we'll talk more about that issue in a little bit, but you've been investing in Coinbase, Slack, and also Niantic where you work. Can you talk about your theories? And then in the next section, we're going to talk about where things are going.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's not a lot of women general partners. I think the number is something like 6 to 7 percent of all GPs are women. So it's a very, very small group. I think that there's a lot of reasons. The one that sort of speaks to me most intimately is that you can't be what you can't see meme because that's truly why I got into venture capital is I saw Mary and she was awesome and she was helpful and I loved working with her both as a board member and as a partner and that was really the inspiration for making the jump for me so to the extent that there's more women there more women will see women who could you know potentially be them in a few years and I think it's already sort of in the in the proof we've just recently hired another woman on my team I'm not saying that my partners wouldn't have hired her if I hadn't been there but I don't know that she would want to join on all middle group right”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. And a lot of firms are looking for experienced women entrepreneurs to bring in, which is harder. Do you have any idea why that is? I don't want to focus too much on the one thing, but it's true. You're one of the few women venture capitalists of any. High profile”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just slowly but surely more of the Spark partners kept reaching out and we spent more time and then after 15 months I actually decided to join them. But it was a very long process for me to get there because I had not been thinking about going to another firm. I'd actually told Kleiner I wasn't going to another firm.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, so my husband and I moved to London for a year. I was with Kleiner when we moved to London. He moved so that he could get GV's investing efforts off the ground there. This is Google Ventures, that's right. And halfway through the year, I just decided that when I moved back was going to be a really clean time to do something new. And so I told the Kleiner team that I was thinking about doing something different. I had an idea for something that I wanted to do that I still at some point want to do. A company. Not a company, actually, a different type of funding vehicle. But I had met my now partner, Jeremy Phillips, on Sparks Growth Fund six months before that, and we had been chatting and he just kept calling and ringing. He was very persistent. And then I had known Bijon for some period of time.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was one of the partners that was split between the venture and the growth fund. So Mary runs Kleiner's growth efforts. And I was sort of three quarters early stage, one quarter late stage.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a never ending list of interesting people to chat with, but it's also quick calls for recruiting, trying to close a candidate for a portfolio company. I mean, it can be any different things, doing a diligence call with someone in some obscure industry because the company you're looking at happens to provide their SaaS solution. So just depends.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it depends on the person. And the anecdote I give is my husband is also a venture capitalist, but he's an introvert. So every meeting for him is extremely taxing. And so he probably does max three a day. And the rest of the time he is reading and then synthesizing a point of view by writing, which ends up being top of funnel for deal flow for him. I'm the opposite. I'm probably doing 12 to 14 meetings a day. And it's because I love meeting people and talking to people and I'm a social animal. And that's how I learn about new things versus all of the reading and writing that he's doing. So I actually think it depends on the individual.”
2017-12-20 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Megan Quinn, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT