YouSaid · the spoken record

Samir Kaul

lines on the record: 33
first: 2020-01-13
most recent: 2020-01-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I'd say probably the most recent one is a company called LightShip, which is doing direct-to-patient clinical trials. The biggest driver of cost in pharmaceutical companies and why drug prices are so high is that the trial process is so long and expensive. And if you can shorten the trial time every day you shorten clinical trials, it's a million dollars that is saved to the healthcare system. And this company is basically, instead of having you go to Stanford or Berkeley, go to the hospital, wait in line, figure out where to go to participate in a clinical trial, they'll do it all at your home. They'll find you online. They'll enroll you online in a really easy way, and they'll do everything at home. And we think that'll make clinical trials as much as 30 to 40 percent more efficient.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can only lose one time your money and that you can make an infinite amount. I would have taken even wilder bets earlier in my career.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's really, we get so emotionally attached to our companies is knowing when to shut them down and stop supporting them. It's heart wrenching. That's the toughest thing.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A book called Start Something That Matters by Blake McCofsky, who was the founder of Toms, which is just outstanding. I've mentioned eating animals and power of now, but I'd say that book talks about a guy who didn't mean to start a big enterprise like Tom's, who just wanted to make who lives in Argentina and saw shoes being made and thought he could make them in the United States. And contrary to everyone who he talked to said, nope, for every shoe I sell, I'm going to give one away. And people thought that was the dumbest business idea. And it turned out to be the best business idea. Start something that matters. If you have a mission, you'll create a movement. And that's really helped guide my thinking on the type of investing I want to do.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, being honest, it was obviously my wife's support is the most important thing on the planet to me. I started to see a therapist who I still see, and I recommend to everybody. It's a great thing to do. And I read a lot of books like Eckert Tole's Power of Now, which talks about living in the present and not thinking about the past and future and meditating and making time for myself, exercising more. And so there's not one answer, unfortunately, but there are answers. And I think those things collectively together. I have to remind myself, you still go into self-doubt a lot and keeping those things together and doing that on trying to be as regular as you can on those things that makes a big difference.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be cost neutral, but at least we'll give the company a chance to get to scale or they'll pay more for it. People will pay more for food. They'll pay more for what they put in their bodies. They'll certainly pay more for what they put in their kids' bodies. And if we address this, it also has this massive impact on the environment, which was something I was pretty much the main reason I left flagship to move out to California and start coastal ventures. And from that came Impossible Food started with patent in my office. All these food companies nine years ago. my friends were like, you're crazy. Most of my friends that were doing cleantech, God bless them all, have all moved on to do.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We learned that consumers won't pay more for power. Consumers won't pay more for fuel for their cars. And I'm like, I can't believe this. Are we really just going to let climate change go unabetted? And with all the money we've spent and technology can't make a difference there. And I read this book by Jonathan. And you learn in that book that animal farming is either equal or more bad for the environment than coal plants. And I was like, wow, that's pretty interesting. And then a Whole Foods opened up in our neighborhood in San Francisco and we'd shop there. And I noticed the clientel there, it wasn't just rich venture capitalists or rich entrepreneurs or bankers or doctors. It was a whole swath of society who were paying double or triple the price for an organic mango versus a regular mango or for some crazy kombucha thing paying eight bucks a model. And I was like, oh my goodness, I got it. Animal farming is as important a thing to address as coal and the consumer actually gives a shit about it and will pay more for it. We want everything.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, I've failed a lot. You could argue that the whole clean tech sector was a failure. I think I'm proud of our portfolio in there. We will end up positive, and there's a number of companies that are now worth north of a few billion dollars there that are making real impacts. But in the middle of that cleantech bust where companies were failing, there was no funding. It was just a mess. It was a dark point for me personally. And I had to really do some real soul searching. It was like, you know, am I even any good at this? Do I know what I'm doing? It's just a human emotion, right? It's easy to kind of brag about all your winners, but the reality where you learn more and where you get better is when you really evaluate where you're really bad at things and getting self-aware about that. And so it was actually in that time, this sounds funny, but I read a book called Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffron Foyer because I was pretty depressed. I was like, I can't believe that in San Francisco with all this venture backing, we can't do anything about climate change and that no one cares.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The scientists and the professors. And I had enough business acumen where I could help them commercialize. And I said, this is where I want to do the rest of my life. And with helicose, we brought on Steve Chu as an early advisor, the Nobel laureate. When working with Vinodes, we did Jivo, which is a public company with Francis Arnold, who just won the Nobel Prize. We've done two or three companies with Shuji Nakamura, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics at UC Santa Barbara, Pat Brown and Impossible. And there's just many, many more examples of this ability to just partner with these world-class scientists right out of the university just based on a published paper and then build a company that goes public, build a company that sells burgers in every burger king in the country. Like it started in 2022 with Yulicos and I haven't looked back since. It's the most fun I have in this job is doing that.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's probably right when I started working with Nubar at Flagship was meeting Steve Quake, who at that time Steve is one of the legendary professors in biophysics. He's now co-head of Chan Zuckerberg, was a Howard Hughes tenured professor at Stanford. And when I met him, it was right after I left business school in 2002. And he was a professor, a junior professor at Caltech, and he had published a paper on single molecule sequencing, which would be ultimately what Illumina has done. At that point, Illumina was probably worth $300 million, and now they're worth $46 billion. And now everyone's getting their genome sequenced, et cetera, et cetera. And that wasn't particularly Steve's technology, but getting to meet someone like that. And Steve and I are still very close friends. We've done three companies since together. And I'm being like, wow, you can read a scientific paper, partner with a professor, and then start a company that we start a company called Helicose that went public. And I was like, this is what I want to do the rest of my life. I was technical enough where I could get the credibility.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think I look for regulated markets. I think in healthcare and food energy have just been regulated markets. I do think that the regulated markets tend to fit the thesis that we mentioned, which is they tend not to have had as much innovation because people are scared of them. And if you can enter those markets with a technology innovation, you can get in at a low valuation cost point. The markets tend to be pretty sticky because there's not a lot of competition. And you can have some of the great, great successes there. But they take a lot of guts. They take a lot of money and they take time. But some of the most successful companies in our portfolio have been in regulated markets, squares in the banking industry, garden and Oscar have been in the healthcare industry. Impossible foods of the food industry. These are very, very regulated markets and they've been some of our biggest wins. They also form a natural barrier to entry.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not naive at all. It's what really killed the clean tech industry. And there are a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons was that all my fellow brethren in the venture industry ran for the hills. And then you had all these companies, I think some that deserve to fail and some that deserve to live that unfortunately didn't get that chance because there was no more money. And on many of those companies, we were the funders of last resort. And that was quite a big burden. And we carried it for some and were unable to carry it for others. But we definitely now, when I think about some of the harder tech areas I invest in, I think about, okay, if there's a rainy day and we're delayed by two years and that two-year burn that I just calculated for you is beyond the means of us, who else should I bring in or who else would be there to invest? And in a lot of those companies, the answer is, well, it's not going to be another venture group. It's going to be a strategic. And for strategic, you have to carry the company longer to get it where it's appetizing for a strategic. And the strategic process also to them take a couple months. It could take a year to start.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Take two years longer. I know how much more money I have to put at risk in order to get to a point where it's going to fly off the shelf. The problem with going to market, small markets are just really tough. You don't know how big the market is. You have to do market discovery.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't want to take any market risk, so I want the market to be big, but I also really like to pride myself on finding market where technology has yet to innovate because I want to take large, large technical risk. That's what I love. I get up really excited, and that's why I've invested across so many different sectors. And the common thread is, oh, there's some massive technology risk or change that I'm investing in. And that's my favorite thing in the world to do. But I don't want to take market risk. I don't want to take tons of R&D, engineering, technical risk only to know that no one cares. So, for example, if there's a big market, and I think the current product is not great, and I can put a product in there that's 10x better, I'm pretty sure people will buy it, okay? And if it takes an extra two years of R&D to get 10x better, that's fine. I can model that. R&D is 250K fully loaded per scientist, per engineer per year. That's my cost. That's my burn. So if it's good.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's two types of disregard there's some portion of that 90 that you disregard because you've already thought of it, tried it, and you know that it doesn't work. And then there's the other part where you haven't thought of, where you go and you think about it and then you come back with reasons why it won't. If someone disregards something just on a whim without any real logic or data behind it, I lose as much respect for them as I would if they just did everything I said.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A great question. And I think I often tell some of my CEOs that say, look, for God's sake, don't listen to everything I say. And certainly don't do everything that I say because I don't have the context you do. I'm spending some time with you on a weekly or monthly basis. You're living this 24-7. But listen and see what you can apply or what you agree with to make your business better. If a CEO, if he or she just listens to everything I say, then they're definitely not the right entrepreneur. They're definitely not the right CEO. And they can't whipsaw because one person tells them something. So I'm very clear with them before we get into the relationship. But look, I'm going to have strong opinions. I'm going to be your biggest supporter and your toughest critic. And you have to figure out of the things I tell you what are worth listening to and what aren't correct. And that's going to be your job. But do not whipsaw based on what I tell you because I don't have the context, the expertise. You need to use that information the best you can.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you need to develop trust with the entrepreneur that I like to think I have. I'm sure I don't with all of mine, but with many of my entrepreneurs, they know that I have their back, but I'll also be the toughest on them and tell them like it is, at least from my purview. Doesn't mean I'm always right. And I think the very good entrepreneurs really appreciate that, that you don't throw them under the bus. You're very direct and honest with them. When you need them, you're there. I think my entrepreneurs will tell you that, hey, if they need someone, a board member to interview somebody, go recruit someone, go make an introduction, they can count on me to do that. They also know that if they mess up or if they're missing something, I'll be very, very tough on them. And there's ways to do it. You don't humiliate people. You don't do it in a public setting. You don't yell at them. You don't use unnecessary language. But you drive the point home. And I think the good entrepreneurs appreciate that and want that.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Present at every board meeting is let's pick, you obviously need the CFO and things like that to present, but let's pick one thing that we're really going to drive deep on. Is it research? Is it sales and marketing? Is it HR? Is it regulatory? Whatever it is, let's really do one focus area per board meeting where whoever the leader he or she of that particular organization can come and present and meet the board and give us an impression of one of those areas.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a good question. My entrepreneurs will probably answer that better. I think I'm understanding where and when to push and where are the parts of the company that the board can add the most value. And I help my entrepreneurs with that as well. So I tell them, hey, look, make sure at least 48 hours before the board meeting you've sent a preread. And for goodness sake, please don't just read us those slides. You've got three to four hours with six or eight busy, intelligent people, hopefully, and you've got us in a room together now for four hours. Do you really just want to read us slides? Is that what you want to get out of that? Or do you want to assume, which you should, that we all do the preread and start this board meeting with one slide where you say, here are the two or three things that are keeping you up at night? And then we can use the board deck as a way to kind of talk about it. But I think that's really, really important. And I think the other thing is rather than having the entire management team.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They just aren't going to drive a return. We do that because we are emotionally attached to the company. We're loyal to the entrepreneurs. Sometimes there is an outcome, like an acquisition or something that would provide some return. But again, it's not the return, but it provides a home for the technology and a home for all the employees. If there's a soft landing, that's definitely worth spending a lot of time on. There's companies I spend a lot of time on where we've gotten zero dollars back, but we've landed the company with a good home and where dozens and dozens of employees that we've helped recruit and have steady jobs and good jobs. And that's great. And that's meaningful and definitely worth the time.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I look at it as an XY axis of which of the companies are going to drive returns for our fund because again, we don't get a scorecard in terms of percentage of successful companies. Our scorecard is cash on patch return and IRR. So I look at which investments are going to potentially drive returns for the fund on one axis. And on the other axis is my time involvement going to make a difference. So there are plenty of successful companies where I could spend all the time in the world on it. It's not going to change the trajectory of the outcome. And those are ones that you shouldn't spend a ton of time on because all you'll probably end up doing is bothering the entrepreneur. But for many companies and the ones I take the biggest pride in, there's a large potential return and our time actually helps drive that. And those are the ones that are the most fun to work on. On the strugglers, you know, it's really tough. We get so emotionally involved in our companies. It's hard to just abandon them. And that's probably one of the things that we all could do better is knowing when to cut off companies sooner, not spending as much time with companies.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a great point. I think it also depends on what stage. So if you're looking at a company that's valued at $15 or $20 billion, of course you have to think about valuation, right? And it also depends on your return threshold. But at that stage that Peter looks at companies or I look at companies, the company is going to be a success or not, it doesn't matter. I don't remember, I think when we invested in the Series A of Square, I think it was around a $30 million valuation. It was Jack and Jim and a PowerPoint seemed incredibly expensive back in 2008 or 9 when we did this investment. It seemed incredibly expensive at that time to pay 30 pre for a PowerPoint. And obviously now, like, who cares? Companies worth $25 billion. If it was $30 pre, 90 pre, it wouldn't have made a difference. And so I think I do agree with Peter on that. If the upside is a billion dollar company and you're in early, you just have to have the conviction that you want to do the investment and go do it. But when we come to writing the series aid like checks,”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't think we stack rank them, but we definitely look at our companies every quarter and say, you know, where are the ones where we think we can make a very good return? Not only can we make a very good return, but our involvement would help drive that to a better outcome. Because there's some companies look that are just doing great and our involvement isn't going to be that consequential. Now, we can help recruit or stuff like that, but it doesn't make sense for us to allocate more time to them. But there are companies, you always discover it, that if we spent more time, whether it's helping recruit or helping make introductions or helping strategize, that we could have a mark different and something that could go from a moderate to a high investment, a high return of investment if we spend more time, we should be doing that. And we evaluate that. And those companies change. Sometimes those companies you spend a lot of time on a year, and either they graduate to, they don't need our time as much, or it doesn't matter how much time we spend on it. It's not going to be a big return. And those companies come in and out of that. So I think we.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Greater than the hand you're going to win. So if you get something where you can double down or split, you've got to push all your chips to the table. Because if you just make the same bet on every hand, you're going to lose. It's just math. And it's the same thing in venture. The odds of one of our initial investments being successful is lower than 50%. Sometimes it's 10%. And so when you get a signal that it might be better, you got to really push your chips to the table and have the courage to do that.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's what I was going to get to. Look, I think of it as hey, if you and I made a bet at the beginning of the Super Bowl and I said, hey, you can change your bet, Harry, at halftime. Of course you would do that. You have more information. So to me, I think pro rata is a total cop-out. I think when a company comes for a reinvestment, we need to have a strong opinion on it. We should be redoing all of our diligence and seeing if the key risks have been addressed and what we think of the team and what we think of the prospects and what we think of the competition. But we should then make a decision. I mean, the only time we should do pro rata is if that's the maximum allocation we can get or we think that the company is worth continuing and we don't want more exposure. But if we don't do our pro rata, the roundfalls apart. Other than that, we should either do more than pro rata or much less to zero of prorata because we get to change our bet. And if you don't change your bet and the house is against, right in blackjack, every hand you have, the odds you're going to lose are”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm getting about a couple hours of exposure to it versus one of my partners is getting dozens and dozens of hours. If I don't trust my partner's judgment, they shouldn't be my partner. And I think when you don't veto, you actually have more of a license to give really tough critical feedback. And so that the partner in question can go home and sleep on it and then look at the mirror and decide whether he or she really wants to do the investment. But they know that they can and there's nowhere to hide like, oh, well, Samir vetoed that and guess what that company was. It was Airbnb. They have to really look at themselves and be like, okay, here's the feedback I got. Do I really want to do this? But in the end, it's your responsibility and your decision. And it allows for much more honest dialogue. And other places where you have a veto, you see a lot of politicking, hey, vote for my deal. I'll vote for yours. People don't want to say what they say because they don't want to make someone feel bad and veto their company. This kind of transcends our firm, this notion of people get a lot.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the founder that's less for them. And so that's how we treat the seed company investments it's really option value investing. We want to be in a position to really lead the next round. And with that seed money, some of the key risks which will help us decide whether or not this is a multi-billion dollar potential opportunity are addressed. For the traditional venture investing, the way I look at it is at our firm, we have four managing directors. We rate the companies as a one to a four. And a one means absolutely, this is awesome. We should absolutely pile in money and do it. And a four is, well, I wouldn't do it. I don't think you should do it. But, you know, in the end, it's your call. In my 17 years being here, I can't remember a veto. We don't even have a number for a veto. And the reason is it's so hard to tell when you make these early investments at seed, series A, series B, sometimes even Series C, what the outcome is going to be. And if you present at a partner meeting and it's not the company that I'm sponsoring,”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it depends on the size. So if it's a seed fund kind of investment, a million or two million bucks, then what we look to do invest in, we call it option value investing, is that we make that investment because we have a thesis that this could be a billion dollar opportunity, but we need to see something. Can they recruit the right team? Can they address some binary technical risk or something along those lines? Will the market develop the way that we think we do? But we want to then be in a position where we have an informed and early opinion on that company when it comes for its Series A or Series B. At that point, if it's not going to be a billion dollar company, it probably doesn't make sense to put a lot more money and time into it. If we think it's going to be a big, big kind of win, then we want to leave the next round. So then we'll come in and do a lot of diligence and we should have a front row seat to lead the round because we're already in the company and we already own some of the company. So in terms of total”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Returns. And I think you also limit the volatility, and as such, you won't get the outsized returns and you won't get the kind of returns that people invest in our asset class to get. The other thing I'd say is that, you know, you get these booms and busts. I've lived through two. I've lived through the dot-com boom and the 08 boom and bust. And what tends to happen is the companies and the investors that get hurt most are usually the ones that are in these like overheated areas where some of these valuations just got out of control. And I think one of the things I really love about our”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Josh is an excellent investor, and I'm a big fan of his. I tend to disagree. I think in this business, being conservative is a real problem because we're in the business of returning 20% or greater net IRR to our investors. And we don't get judged by how many companies succeed out of the number of companies we invest in. We get judged by what is our return. And these are all things I've learned really from Vinod. The other thing is you never want to sell your winners too soon because you just don't know which one's going to be a winner. And when you get one, you got to ride it to the highest possible number. And you can only lose one times your money, but the upside is completely uncapped. And we've seen that, you know, across our funds as well. We've seen some really super successes. So I think if you start to become more conservative, you really start to not take the type of risk and the radical technical risks, especially in our shop, that you need to to get the outside.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he gave me an internship, and that was it. So I got to work with Newbar at flagship for four years. And while I was at flagship, I learned a lot, Nubar is still a very close friend and was a mentor to me. And I helped start four companies, of which Vinodes had invested in three of them. And when Vinod left Kleiner Perkins and decided after some time off to start Closed La Ventures, he asked me and my other partner, David Wyden, to join him in starting the firm together. And this was in towards the end of 2005.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he had moved on to Solera, which was a public company that was a private effort to sequence the human genome. And my goal was to go to a business school, and I chose Harvard, come back, and work for Craig again at Solera and one day maybe run the company. Instead, soon after I started business school, Craig got fired, so that option didn't exist anymore. And I had to figure out what I wanted to do. I thought that I would maybe then from HBS go work at an Amgen or Genentech and work for 20 years, probably make it to a vice president level. And if I was lucky they would tap me to go a little bit more senior than that. And at that time at Harvard Gordon Binder was CEO of Amgen and Regio Martin was CEO of Merck. And so I had the fortune because they were HBS alums to meet with both of them. And they were super impressive, big jobs, important companies, but not my thing. They were just too big. They were too disconnected from the day to day. And I heard Newbar Fan, who's a founder of flagship, give a talk, and I approached him after.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A complete accident. So I was working on the genome projects with Craig Venter in the late 90s. So at this point, I was in graduate school. I heard Craig talk and I was still doing DNA sequencing the old-fashioned way with radioactive isotopes and developing my own film. And he was talking about these magical machines that could sequence a whole human genome. And I ended up leaving with a master as I went to go work for him. And I soon moved up to actually running probably the largest group at the genomic research without a PhD, which was super fun. And we sequenced the first plant to ever be sequenced, which was Arabidopsis Paliana. And the way to think about why is that even relevant, this little mustard seed plant, is to think about it as the reason we study mice and rats is because they are somewhat of a proxy for human and Arabidopsis is similarly somewhat of a proxy for corn, wheat, soybeans, and other higher level crops. So I was doing that and at some point, Craig and I both thought the right thing to do would be go to business school.”
2020-01-13 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source