20VC: OpenAI's Multi $BN Deal with AMD | Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds | Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Harvey vs Legora | Chamath is Back: The SPAC is Back

Jake Flomenberg is a Partner @ Accel, one of the top performing venture funds of the last decade with investments in the likes of Dropbox, Slack, Facebook, Deliveroo and Atlassian, just to name a few. As for Jake, at Accel he specializes on all things Big Data and has led investments in the likes of Demisto, Origami Logic, Sumo Logic, Trifacta, and Zoomdata.  Prior to Accel, Jake was director of product management at Splunk, where he was responsible for the product’s user interface and big data strategy. Before that, he worked at Cloudera where he helped the founding team tackle a broad array of sales, marketing and product issues. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jake made the transition from the world of operations with Cloudera and Splunk to the other side of the table, as Partner at Accel? 2.) Why does Jake believe a large element of his role is "how to make AI not BS"? How does he approach this from the three-legged stool of machine learning, data and workflow? How do each subsequently rank? 3.) To what extent is Jake concerned by the data incumbency advantages that are present in the market with Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA)? Where is the room for real opportunity and innovation? When should a startup be concerned about GAFA entering? 4.) How does Jake respond to Aaron Van Devender's suggestion that the value of large datasets is overplayed? Where are the inflection points in dataset value? How does David compare the value of initial data vs derivative data and the subsequent value? 5.) How does Jake assess the current state of the cybersecurity market? Is this increased investment period sustainable or due to more macro attention and events? Where does Jake feel the real opportunity is in cyber today? Where is it overplayed? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Jake’s Fave Book: Ready Player One Jake’s Fave Blog: The Morning Paper (Harry's Favourite also) Jake’s Most Recent Investment: Radar As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jake on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It’s as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today’s workforce. Namely’s mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world’s best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you’ll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

6 Des 201725min

Rich Wong is a General Partner @ Accel, one of the world's leading venture funds with investments in the likes of Dropbox, Slack, Facebook, Deliveroo and Atlassian, just to name a few. As for Rich, Rich has led investments in the likes of Rovio (IPO), SwiftKey, AdMob, MoPub and more incredible companies. Rich also sits on the boards of the likes of Checkr, Osmo, Rovio and Atlassian where he was first outside Board member and lead investor. Prior to joining Accel, Rich served as SVP of products for mobile pioneer, Openwave Systems and CMO of Covad Communications. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rich made his way into the world of VC with Accel from OpenWave and having been active in the mobile and broadband ecosystems? 2.) What does Rich mean when he states the rise of the "Globalisation of VC"? How does Accel both find and win deals in locations such as Australia, Finland? How do the founder's mentalities differ to Bay area founder mentality? 3.) How does Rich think about price sensitivity when assessing opportunities? What would be considered a good return multiple when investing from the early stage fund? How does this differ from the growth fund? 4.) What is the internal structure of investment decision making at Accel? How does Rich analyze reserve allocation? How does initial to reserve decision-making differ? How does the Accel partnership determine the 10% of portfolio that are "winners"? 5.) Question from Manu Kumar @ K9: How does Rich decide when is the right time for a company to scale? What is the balance of not too early and not too late? How should unit economics play a role in this decision? What characteristic must be inherent within multiple functions of the business, pre-scaling? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Rich’s Fave Book: The Big Short Rich’s Fave Blog: Wolf Street Rich’s Most Recent Investment: Instabug As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Rich on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It’s as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today’s workforce. Namely’s mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com. Eero is the world’s best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you’ll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!

4 Des 201726min

Debbie Sterling is the Founder & CEO @ Goldieblox, an award‐winning toy company on a mission to “disrupt the pink aisle.” An engineer and entrepreneur, Sterling has made it her mission in life to tackle the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Sterling was named TIME's “Person of the Moment” and Business Insider's “30 Women Who Are Changing the World” and is regarded as one of the leaders of the movement toward getting more girls interested in engineering and technology. In January 2014, GoldieBlox beat out more than 20,000 businesses in a contest run by Intuit to become the first‐ever small business to air a commercial during the Super Bowl. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Debbie overcame the "engineering boys club" at Stanford and the a-ha moment that led to the creation of Goldieblox? 2.) How does Debbie look to overcome those really tough times as an entrepreneur, from exclusion to the "engineering boys club" to a harsh reception at an accelerator, how did Debbie look to deal with that personally? 3.) Question from Kanyi Maqubela: Is the gender diversity issue primarily a pipeline problem? Where are the key cracks in the system? What does Debbie believe is the point of key leverage? 4.) Question from Harley Finkelstein @ Shopify: How does Debbie ensure that everyone of Goldieblox's videos go viral as it does? What is both the content creation strategy? How does Debbie look to optimise distribution of their content to attain that virality? 5.) Why does Debbie believe that VCs are missing a massive opportunity by not investing in CPG and hardware? What single value add would be most attractive to Debbie for an investor entering the space? What must hardware and CPG founders really look for in their investor base? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Debbie’s Fave Book: The Brothers Karamazov As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Debbie on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

1 Des 201729min

David Waxman is the Founding Partner @ TenOneTen Ventures, one of the leading new venture firms in the rising tide of LA tech. Their portfolio companies have enjoyed exits from the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon Cisco, AirBnB and including companies like eCommerce pioneer and unicorn, Wish and the world’s leading airspace services platform, AirMap. As for David, prior to TenOneTen, David enjoyed an incredible career in operations starting with the founding of his first company, Firefly in 1995, an early pioneer in personalization and privacy technology which he sold to Microsoft in 1998. David then co-founded PeoplePC, a company dedicated to simplifying the process of joining the online world. The company went public in 2001 and was acquired by EarthLink in 2002. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David made his way from selling a company to Microsoft and taking the next public to being one of the leading new managers in LA's tech scene? 2.) Why does David believe that market sizing is a futile effort, or as he calls it "Tamfoolery"? What is the right way that founders should present the market to investors, both in discussion and visually? Why is it impossible for investors to foresee market magnitude? 3.) Why does David strongly dislike convertible notes? Why does he believe that they are worse for not only investor but founders too? In what rare cases do they make sense? Why are they completely ridiculous in multi-million $ deals? 4.) Why does David believe that pro-rata rights have become such a mess? How can founders honour the agreements with their early investors and satiate the ownership appetite of A funds? How would David navigate this if he were a founder today? 5.) Why does David believe the biggest asymettry in VC is the DD that founders engage with, in comparison to that of VC on Founder DD? How should founders structure this DD on investors? What is the right framework? What is the crucial question to ask? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: David’s Fave Book: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm David's Fave Blog: Strictly VC, Nuzzel David’s Most Recent Investment: Velocity As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and David on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

29 Nov 201726min

Bing Gordon is a Partner and Chief Product Officer @ Kleiner Perkins, one of the world’s most prestigious venture funds with prior investments in the likes of Google, Amazon, Twitter, Square and Airbnb just to name a few. At Kleiner Bing has either worked with or invested in the likes of Spotify, Zynga, Amazon, Twitter and Magic Leap, just to name a few. Bing also serves on the boards of Zynga, Zazzle, N3twork and until March this year, Amazon. Prior to Kleiner, Bing had been a long-time executive at Electronic Arts, beginning with EA’s founding in 1982 with initial funding from Kleiner Perkins. He was chief creative officer at EA from 1998 to 2008 and previously headed EA marketing and product development. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Bing made the move from Chief Creative Officer at EA to Partner @ Kleiner Perkins? 2.) What were Bing's biggest lessons from sitting on the boards of Amazon and Zynga and working with Jeff Bezos and Mark Pincus? What is the most important value-add that a VC should bring? What question must all new board members ask themselves? 3.) Why does Bing believe there are two types of investors in VC? How does Bing determine whether it is right to fix losers or ride winners? How does Bing look to balance between being the cheerleader or critical analyst to the CEO? 4.) What are the signs of truly great and productive board meetings? From Bing's vast experience, which VCs does Bing most like to sit on a board with and why? Which board meeting sticks out in Bing's memory as being of particular significance and why? 5.) What mentality do all great investors have when entering deals? What are the two commonalities of people that are largely right in their choices? How important a role does valuation play for Bing when evaluation potential opportunities? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Bing’s Fave Book: Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking) Bing’s Most Recent Investment: N3twork As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Bing on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

27 Nov 201725min

Chad Richard is the Senior Vice President of Business & Corporate Development @ Yelp, where he leads acquisition and investment activity. Yelp is one of the most active in the space having acquired both NoWait and Turnstyle Analytics, plus selling Eat24 to GrubHub for $287.5m, all in the past year. Prior to Yelp, Chad spent six years at Apple as Senior Director of Worldwide Product Marketing focused on Apple’s operating systems and internet services. Prior to Apple, he cofounded and was CEO of Simple Star, a photo and video software and services company that was acquired by Roxio. If that was not enough, Chad has also advised the likes of Flipboard, MoveWith and Curbside, just to name a few. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Chad make his way from startup founder to leading Apple's M&A charge to today, running M&A with Yelp? 2.) What did the Apple M&A strategy look like when Chad was with the company? Why was Apple so keen to pursue a product focussed M&A strategy? What were Chad's big learnings from that experience with Apple? 3.) How does Chad look to build potential startup pipe with Yelp? What attracts Chad to one startup over another? What does Chad wish that startup founders did and knew more about in the initial relationship building phase? 4.) Yelp also makes strategic investments, how does Chad ease founder and VC concern that a strategic investment is not an acquisition? Does a strategic investment prevent a startup from partnering with other firms? What should founders be aware of when accepting strategic investment? 5.) How does Chad analyse the compensation element? Why does Chad believe that valuing potential acquisitions is the hardest element of the process? How do acquirers determine whether to present a cash vs stock deal? What should founders consider with stock deals between private and public company stock? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Chad’s Fave Book: Disneywar Chad’s Most Recent Investment: Turnstyle Analytics As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Chad on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. After purchase, you will receive $25 credit to Uber this Holiday season. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridges.com and/or Selfridges on Oxford St. and farfetch.com to shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

22 Nov 201726min

Mark Pincus is a serial entrepreneur and investor, best known for founding Zynga, the first company to introduce the mass market to social gaming. To date, more than one billion people around the world have played Zynga’s games, which include hits like FarmVille and Words with Friends. Mark is also known for his investments in some of the internet’s largest and most successful companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Snapchat and Xiaomi. One of the earliest pioneers in social networking, Mark founded multiple startups including support.com and tribe.net, before going on to create Zynga. A fun fact - recognizing the importance of social networking, in 2003 Mark teamed up with his friend Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, to purchase the fundamental Six Degrees patent –  which broadly covers social networks – in order to keep it out of the hands of patent trolls and guarantee that all players could innovate on this technology. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Having founded one of the first social networks, Tribe and seed invested in Facebook, what convinced you that 2007 was the right time to start a social games company, Zynga? 2.) Having mastered distribution with Zynga, does Mark believe we are in a "fallow" period for consumer with a lack of distribution channel availability? If distribution is not the core problem, what does Mark believe is the fundamental issue? 3.) What have been Mark's biggest lessons when it comes to assembling truly great teams? What does Mark mean when he says that he looks for people with "broken resumes"? Why is that so beneficial to potential candidates? 4.) When investing, how does Mark determine timing on when to ride winner and cut losers? What does Mark really mean when he says, ''you have to instill a mindset of expected value over loss avoidance"? 5.) What are the 2 biggest lies in Silicon Valley told by founders and VCs? How can founders truly test the alignment with their VC? How did Mark do this in pitches with Zynga? What were Mark's learnings on optimising board composition and performance? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mark’s Fave Book: Ready Player One As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mark on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. With purchase, receive credit towards Tablet Hotels for the next year. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridge’s and shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

20 Nov 201724min

David Barrett is the Founder & CEO @ Expensify, the startup relieving the world’s frustrations, one expense report at a time. With 35,000 companies and more than 5 million users, David has raised close to $30m from the likes of Redpoint, OpenView, Travis Kalanick, Baseline and SV Angel. However, David certainly does not have traditional views on funding, something we very much touch on in the interview today! Prior to Expensify, David built a peer-to-peer file transfer technology called Red Swoosh with Uber's Travis Kalanick, which was acquired by Akamai in 2007. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How David went from founding Red Swoosh with Travis Kalanick to changing the sexy world of expense reporting with Expensify? 2.) Why does David want to change the cult of the second time entrepreneur? Why does David believe that Silicon Valley fundamentally changes exits in the wrong way? How does David define true operational success? 3.) Why does David believe that Silicon Valley investors are not investors but gamblers? Why does David believe that the business model VCs have created is not only not optimal for founders but poor business practice with "profit" being a dirty word? 4.) What does David believe are the fundamental benefits of capital constraints? How does having financial independence influence your stance when speaking with investors? When does the decision of financially lean or VC backed need to be taken? 5.) Why does David believe the more hiring you do, the more problems you have? What are the core issues of revenue being tied to headcount growth? Why does David believe Silicon Valley is poor for hiring and you must look further afield?  Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: David’s Fave Book: Guns, Germs, and Steel, Enders Game As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and David on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. With purchase, receive credit towards Tablet Hotels for the next year. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridge’s and shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com

17 Nov 201727min