YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Hulme

lines on the record: 92
first: 2024-05-08
most recent: 2024-05-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Why something might go wrong, partly so you can inoculate yourself against it and evaluate whether something's a good idea.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, otherwise, you never actually invest it. Okay, so if you're surrounded by optimists and you create that culture, and I think we do a good job of creating that at GV, where anyone can bring forward an idea, we explore it, you have to also create space to look at the downside. And Daniel Kahneman, the behavioral economist, passed away, I think, just three or four weeks ago, incredibly interesting guy thinking fast and slow. He talked about a process of having pre-mortems when when you're making a decision, you think through how the decision might be wrong and you give people around you permission to actually say why something might be a bad idea. And I think the best VC firms actually create this space. So have optimists, have people default, former colleague who passed away, Tyson had a beautiful expression for this. He says, right, press the belief button. Tell me how this is going to be amazing. But then the flip side is occasionally you have to also describe actually.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Without doubt it is. I think it would be really unfair to say that actually everyone has even access. I think it's to some extent a meritocracy because when you get into the industry, you have a shot on goal and you can do something spectacular. It's one of those rare places the American Dream kind of can still happen. But I completely recognize that getting into the industry is really tough. And there's people that would not even have heard a venture capital, let alone know how to find their way into it.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, because your network is just off the charts. I can see why. So I'd write a piece for Wired, and I think I called it serendipity favors the connected. And the basic idea is I think it's really easy for other people to look at great investors, great founders and say, oh, they're just the right place at the right time. Or they've just been lucky. Actually, those people usually have an incredible network around them. And it's like Metcalfe's law, the value of a network. It increases to the square of the number of nodes. Networks are incredibly valuable, deep, sort of effective networks even more so. And I think so much good stuff comes from them. I would say so much of my career has come because I've been lucky enough to be in a network of amazing people. And then I stay kind of optimistic and excited and willing to grab any opportunity in front of me.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say I'm probably worst at supporting because I built companies. I have a lot of empathy and I want to roll my sleeves up and help. When a founder is hurting, I feel it. I mean, the best way I can describe venture capital, I've said this to you before. I think you looked at me like I was an idiot then. But the best way I can describe venture capital is it's like being a founder on antidepressants. You basically have to.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A great question. I would say sourcing. I'm an enthusiast. I'm enthusiastic about pretty much everything. The great thing about it being an enthusiast is you could sit me with a founder that has pretty much any idea and I will engage and pay attention and I will care about what they're saying. That means that I can cast my net wide in opportunities. And then over time, I think I've been lucky enough to build a network of people around me that I trust that actually will refer in opportunities. So I think I have more of an edge in sourcing today, certainly than I did when I started, but similar to Keith, I am paranoid about that as well.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To exec hires to go into portfolio companies. It's a lot of selling and I think it's more of a sort of people business that people give it credit for. I think it would be very difficult to be a VC and hate people.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you and I have often talked about what this should look like. So my version is the three S's. But actually, as I think about it, I think it should now be four S's. So my three S's were sourcing deals, selecting them and supporting them. Those are the three jobs of a VC. And actually, the world's best VCs are pretty good at all of those. And through their career, they move less sourcing and actually selecting and then supporting as they've got a big portfolio. That's one of the interesting traps of venture is you can just spend all your time supporting. I think it's really important to keep the muscle building. I think I read somewhere Alfred Lynn will meet 10 companies on a weekend just to keep the muscle going of sourcing and selecting. But those are the three buckets. The fourth S that I increasingly think is important is actually selling salesmanship. Like great VCs are selling to LPs. They're selling to founders to take their money. And then increasingly they're also selling.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The former, I think, is actually great for the portfolio companies they invest in because I think they're in our category of smart smart. Like they will be specialists at something and the founder will be able to ask them for advice and there's no better source of empathy as having been through something yourself. So that's good. Now when you start talking about raising funds, that worries me a lot because building a company is ridiculously hard. Like there's only a handful of people that have ever managed to kind of build multiple companies concurrently. And this idea of having a side fund is effectively building another company concurrently.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every time I'm 25. Love that point. It's a similar point. Like, build a portfolio, take an amount of money that you can lose, and then actually it's amazing to me how many, I'm curious if you've seen it as you started recruiting investors. It's amazing how many potential investors, people that say that they really want to be an investor, but they've never done an angel check. How can you really be serious about something if you haven't even been willing to do that”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Still don't know if I'm any good at this job But the interesting thing is you just have to have a number and you start to see patterns. And I'd say five is the minimum. If your goal is to get into Angel Investing, one of the things that no one ever says is the amount you actually invest is almost irrelevant. If your job is to learn and to demonstrate you add value, then just write small five K checks. I see so many people that never start ancient investing because they think they have to invest two hundred K at a time. It's crazy if you believe you've got to learn you want to start early with small checks and prove you're valuable and then actually see if you're any good at it”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I'm going to push back on it being a dollar number. It's bananas. Like the 20 million is a pre-CD million is a precede in 2020. This is, you've just got to remember how much this stuff changes. Actually, what is the sort of learning cycle here? The learning cycle is number of deals and time to see how they do. And so for me, it looks more like five deals over five years to figure out actually if you're building the muscle and you're learning than it looks like an absolute quantum of cash. Five deals. The good news, I would say five deals is a good, I mean, look, it's not perfect. That's hence me saying I stay”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the beautiful thing about what he did, he hadn't raised a penny, he waited for the market to develop, and then it was an inflection point. And he said, now I add fuel to this fire. If he'd thrown ten million bucks in two years in when he was at fifty KR, he'd be dead. Yes.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Statistically, that's probably true. This is the challenge. If I sit back and look at the sort of ideas I've been most excited about, probably someone has tried to do it before. Being too early is tantamount to being wrong unless you can survive long enough for the market to come to you. We've seen some examples of this. I think VR is an interesting example. There are a lot of companies that were waiting for VR to come to them. That's market timing risk. In that case, you better have a kind of cockroach mode to be effective until the market comes and build the mustard.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's okay, but probably not enough. I mean, I would have the view that I have probably never had a unique insight or idea in my life. I think I'd have to be so arrogant to think I had. We can overtake that as the title for the show. Yeah, by all means. I mean, it's just true. I actually think ideas are cheap. Execution is everything. I cannot invest based on an idea. You have to tell me how you're going to execute.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I love that. I think usually you see some trait of entrepreneurship. I think the questions I like to ask actually revolve around their unfair advantage. I'm trying to understand what their unique insight is and why they are uniquely placed to solve it. So I'll ask what the unfair advantage is. I'll also ask the question of why now. Like, it's really interesting that we have our recency biases that something may have worked or may not have worked, but we need this difficult thing to happen now with a founder at the seed stage. So I asked the question of why now, and usually they should have a good point of view. The other one I really love to do is spend some time actually asking them how something might go wrong, what's keeping them up at night. And it's incredible how many founders will actually have nothing to share about their concerns. I mean, only the paranoid survive, as Andy Gray said. Some people have no paranoia.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, propping it up. Totally agree. Really risky. Another one I think a mistake I've made not spending enough time with the founders in the decision making. And again, it's usually a function of the fact that the deal's hot. But one of the paradoxes in Angel Investing is I'll spend a lot of time with founders and I'll ask them a lot about the product they're going to build. I know that that's probably not what they'll end up being successful with. In fact, empirically, the product often changes a lot. But I'm asking about that product to understand what makes them tick. How will they measure success? Have they actually researched the market? And I think founders will sometimes walk away and think, oh, he really cares about the product. I don't. I really care about the way they think and it's just an easy way or lens for me to understand that. So I think at times I made investments where as an angel I didn't really take the time to dig into the way the founders think and that probably trapped me as well.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a lot I got sucked into momentum and heat one of the best things I ever did was surround myself by other angels and there were only a handful in London at the time and learn from them. I think one of the worst things I did is I would occasionally kind of outsource discipline and due diligence to them. That's just too easy to do. I think too many people in our industry, particularly angels who have other jobs, full-time jobs, will take the view that probably someone else has done the work. I actually think often it's surprising how people haven't done the work. So that is a massive trap. It's a trap I've fallen into.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, look, I do as well. In those cases, I don't think there was a secondary market. There was just no liquidity available. I think now that's changed. We're starting to see it happen. And my recommendation often to founders often to VCs is to take some money off the table. It's a classic place I like to apply kind of regret minimization framework. Will you regret taking ten percent or 20% off the table in this round? Probably not. Will you regret not doing it? Perhaps if it doesn't pan out. It wasn't something available to me then. I think the market's changed so much as an angel. It's fantastic. I've seen people use platforms like Angel List, a sort of GV investment to enable them to sell their ability, their follow-on rights in secondary, in SPVs. I mean, the idea of being able to spin up low friction of SPV 10 years ago, absolutely not happening now is actually enabled you to do some amazing work.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's probably the same point because in that case, it drives up the valuation. It probably changes the belief of the founder. So particularly if it's a first time founder that has that heat, that can be a complete distraction. And then suddenly there's a lot of money flying in after you. Instead, these businesses that I've loved over time have just got the fundamentals right, built value, been relatively conservative at times, and those founders can really make a difference when you just compound over a decade.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought that was going to be very valuable. Both of those businesses went to zero. So if I look at it, the ones that worked for me were the fundamentals where they just grew great businesses over time. The others were kind of momentum plays. And I wasn't smart enough, nor do I think I had the opportunity with hindsight to get out with secondary in the interim. There was no liquidity.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The biggest lessons from the winners that generally one of the paradoxes of our business is we need to invest in people that are doing difficult things. If it's easy, it's going to be commoditized. So if people are doing difficult things, it usually takes a long time to create real value. And so I think my biggest winners are ones that were fundamental investments where they have just continued to grow for the decade since. Look, go cardless would be an example where the business kind of nine figure ARR, they have just continued growing. It was never a super hot business, but I invested at the point they were at YC. And look, team of three taught themselves to code and hustled for years afterwards built a great business. You contrast that with others, which in very quick periods would have looked quite good. So I invested in a company that was acquired by fab.com, so I thought I had a lot of money in equity and fab at one point. I invested in a really brilliant team in California called Massive Health that acquired by Jawbone.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, sticking with the angel pat, because I think that's really important. I agree with you. It led me to draw the conclusion as an angel I shouldn't follow on. So I had examples of companies that would go up sort of 50x, my pro rata allocation in the next round would be a million dollars plus, and they went to zero. And not only that, you're then competing with VCs. It's a completely different game. So actually, if I take in a strategy of doing all”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, you could take a batch of my angel investments pre 2015 and I track this roughly 27 portfolio companies about 4.5 XDPI, about 25X or 24X TVPI. So the results look pretty good superficially. I'd look at that and say, oh, maybe I'm a good investor, but there's two problems to that logic. Number one is my results were pretty good in that period, but I actually think we've had a massive regime change since. That's what you'd call it in machine learning. At that time, I was investing in startups at 4 million pre. It's not going to happen now. I mean, a.ai domain name is worth more than 4 million pre. So that's problematic. The second thing, which is incredibly humbling, is if you'd asked me to stack rank that portfolio through that period, say in 2010, I would have got it all wrong. So I can't be that smart about predicting success when I would have actually stacked ranked my own portfolio badly.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I think again, one of the reasons second time founders do so well is they would be less affected. No one is unaffected, but they would be less affected.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly, Foigra's the Anage you and I have talked about before. The reason I think I wouldn't say just in absolute terms the amount of money going into a company influences success or failure. It's clearly what's done with it. And I think what you're talking about is when the money's used for premature scaling, it's really damaging because costs go up. When your costs go up, ironically, you actually become less adaptable. So your clock speed goes down. So if your primary job in a business, in a startup, is actually to iterate to find, let's say, product market fit. You're making it harder to get there.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I respect that you're as good or as bad as your options, so the job to be done is have options and then don't just select based on price. Look at the bigger picture. I mean, there's a great adage, isn't there in VC? We've talked about it before, that if you tell me the price, I'll tell you the structure. It's one of the things that your average VC will say. And so I think founders, and look, some of your work in talking about the pros and cons of this stuff, I think is really important to help people make decisions in the whole rather than just on one vanity metric, which is price.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're starting to see liquidation preferences creep in. It's interesting, where it won't just be a simple one times liquidation preference. There might be more. You start to see cases then where it might encourage a company to sell a small price in the eyes of the eyes of the investors. And actually a lot of the employees, the operators, won't see any return in those cases. You're also starting to see IPO ratchets come back, which I think are interesting, particularly since kind of the IPO window isn't open anytime soon.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To some extent, I think it's in the incentives of the businesses because eventually if you have too many stakeholders with misaligned incentives, then you start to get problematic decision making. And I think that happens. So I agree. I think actually if you want to maximize value for the business, you're much better off accepting the valuation that's closer to reality in the moment and building from there. But I agree with you. One of the things that surprised me about the industry, I didn't see it coming, is that I thought LPs would pressure GPs to mark their portfolios closer to market. Actually, what I didn't understand is a lot of those LPs are reporting to their own LPs. So you get this sort of propagation of the story, which is exactly what you're saying.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, there's a couple of reasons, but one of the main reasons I think is that VCs report TVPI and TVPI is marked on the most recent round often. And if it's a priced round, that sets it. And so if you've got public comps that are down 80%, instead of reducing the price by eighty percent, you kick down the road the decision to actually price and it enables you to kind of claim a value in the portfolio that might not be true. You're certainly seeing a lot more of that.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Firstly, price rounds are less common because people aren't willing to accept the new and fair valuation, so you get convertible notes.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that might be true, but in a time where more companies are under more stress, don't you think the insertion of structure into so many of the deals in these companies is an example of that? And actually it's making it harder, it's misaligning incentives. I think a lot of structure in a deal can actually damage a business.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, agreed. And then in those cases, when they work before, they know one another's skills. And so it's just additive. You don't get any of this interference.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree. Actually, if you look at second time founders, I mean, that's an interesting framework. Think first time founders are looking for investors that add a lot of value. Those that are second time around understand it, bias and skew wildly towards the passive.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think I'd say smart often investors that are making the fundamentals, the core of the decision principle. I think a lot of the franchises that have been around for decades, there's a fair amount of them, but it's probably only 25%. And then during the sort of low interest rate environment when cost of capital has been low, you have seen a lot of the passive, passive money flying into the industry. In 2020, I think that was more like 60%. And then I think that the remaining 10% gets cleared out over.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I set myself, am I going to be kind of Smart smart or passive passive and am I going to enjoy it? Over time, I think I added some value to those founders, particularly on strategy and design, because I would slowly work my way onto their kind of what we called in the UK a 999 list, a list of people they called if something's going wrong. In the US, it would be a 911 list, probably. And I realized very quickly I absolutely loved that. I loved supporting founders. So that was a tick. Next question became Am I any good at this? And I still don't really know the answer to that. I think. The returns were pretty good over time, but the feedback loop inventure is so long, it's incredibly difficult to figure out if you're actually good at it.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, look, I was lucky enough to sell a company. I decided Angel Investing looked fun and I thought, right, I'm going to run an experiment. I'm pretty entrepreneurial, so I thought I'm going to try and answer a couple of questions. And the questions I wanted to answer, first question is, what kind of investor and am I going to be? And actually do I enjoy it? Second question was, am I any good at it? So first question, actually, one of my early investors said something I think is really smart to me. They said there are basically three types of investors. You've got smart investors that know they're smart and they're going to add value. Then you've got passive investors that are going to stay passive and they're not going to get in the way. Both of those are absolutely fine. You need to avoid investors that are passive or sometimes even dumb but think they're smart and actually going to kind of interfere.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's interesting, but that's, I mean, if you're talking about founders specifically, I think that's a lovely example. I think the best founders are actually very attuned to feedback. They're attuned to what the market's telling them. So there's two things I'd question in that. Number one is maybe it's just your feedback. And secondly, maybe they're actually just overly rightly tuned on the market and the customers and they will adapt to that. The best founders absolutely have that in common.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think so. I think I've had that feedback before because I want others to be happy. I want to be liked in the same way, but I think over time I've learned actually the best thing for others if you truly are empathic towards them, you kind of want to give them honest direct feedback, help them grow. And interestingly, they are very grateful for it in the long run. No, they're not”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, look, overall, it was a brilliant childhood. But I think the thing you and I have spoken about before is I had a few years where I was bullied at school. It was utterly miserable. It took all my kind of grit and perseverance to actually make it into school each day. So it taught me that, I think maybe some would say it gave me a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. But it also taught me empathy. I will never assume anything about how someone feels. I will never expect others to do something that I wouldn't do myself. So look, I'm a post-rationalizer in this industry. most of us are optimists so I can tell you why it was probably good for me but it was a really rough few years that actually I wouldn't wish on anyone”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a total pleasure. I feel like we've probably been for close to 100 walks together and you told me this would be just like another walk. Now I have a microphone thrust in my face.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Venture capital is its light being a founder on antidepressants. You basically have all of the highs just not as high, all of the lows just not as low. There are basically three types of investors. You've got smart investors that know they're smart and are going to add value. Then you've got passive investors that are going to stay passive and they're not going to get in the way. Both of those are absolutely fine. You need to avoid investors that are passive or sometimes even dumb but think they're smart and actually going to interfere.”
2024-05-08 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: GV's Tom Hulme on Why Investing in Foundation Models is like Investing in "Power Stations", The Conventional Wisdom in VC that is BS & Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 255x on Robinhood and Making Billions on Uber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source