20VC: How I Lost a $125M Deal with Yahoo by Being Too Honest, The M&A Meeting with Steve Jobs That Did Not Go Well and How U2's Bono Saved The Day For One Tech Startup with Ali Partovi, CEO @ Neo
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 01/21/2022
20VC: 50% of Funds Will Go Out of Business | Why Growth Expectations Today are BS and Will Not Last | Why Oren Zeev Takes $0 Management Fees But 30% Carry | Why GPs Should Not Tell LPs Their Strategy
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Oren Zeev is one of the most prominent solo capitalists in venture. He is one of the most no BS investors of our time. Oren manages over $1BN in AUM and is known for his "radical alignment" approach, often taking $0 in management fees. His track record includes massive successes like Navan, Audible, and Houzz. AGENDA: 03:11 – Why the Best Investments Always Look "Wrong" at the Start 05:58 – The AI Tsunami: How to Spot Beneficiaries vs. Victims 10:43 – The Death of Incumbents? Why Most AI Predictions Are Wrong 14:12 – Why Chasing Hyper-Growth is a "Disaster Waiting to Happen" 19:41 –...
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20Growth: How Wix Built a $100M Marketing Machine | Why LTV is BS and Why Time Return On Investment is the Most Important Metric | How to 10x Your Growth: What is the Next Great Channel with Omer Shai, CMO @ Wix
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Omer Shai serves as the CMO at Wix. Shai leads a team of over 400 people and is responsible for the company’s global online and offline marketing activity, which boasts an incredible growth of approximately 3 million new users every month. Under Shai, the marketing department has executed hundreds of worldwide campaigns for television and social including 5 Super Bowl commercials, creative videos, podcasts and more. AGENDA: 00:00 — The AI Agent Revolution: 93% Automation? 03:55 — Why I’m Buying TWO Super Bowl Ads This Year 08:58 — The $100M Marketing Secret: Brand vs. Performance...
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20VC: Brex Acquired for $5.15BN | a16z Companies are 2/3 AI Revenues | Anthropic Inference Costs Skyrocket | OpenEvidence Raises at $12BN Valuation | The IPO Market: EquipmentShare, Wealthfront and Ethos Insurance
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:36 Brex Acquisition by Capital One for $5.15BN 10:54 Does Brex’s Acquisition Help or Hurt Ramp? 16:28 TikTok Deal Completed: Who Won & Who Lost: Analysis 19:30 Anthropic Inference Costs Higher Than Expected 37:50 Open Evidence Raises at $12BN from Thrive and DST 53:56 Wealthront IPO Disaster: Is $1.5BN IPO Too Small? 01:07:27 Salesforce Wins $5BN Army Contract: The Last Laugh for SaaS
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20VC: From Only OpenAI to Die-Hard Anthropic: The Downfall of OpenAI in Enterprise | Harvey vs Legora: Legal AI is a Winner Take All | $7M ARR in a Single Day and Raising $200M Across 3 Rounds with No Deck with Max Junestrand, CEO @ Legora
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the legal AI company that has scaled to 750 of the world’s leading law firms as customers and over 300 employees in just 2 years. They have raised over $200M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Redpoint and ICONIQ. AGENDA: 04:16 Why Does Everyone Think Harvey When They Hear Legal AI? 07:35 Why OpenAI is Toast? Switching to Anthropic! 11:47 24 Months: Which Foundation Models Will Win? 23:53 Lessons Scaling from Europe into the US 28:53 Do Americans Work As Hard As They Say? 32:20 Why Seat...
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20VC: Raising $400M for 20VC: Fundraising Lessons | Getting Marc Benioff Through 53 Cold Emails: How to Master Cold Outbound | 7 Lessons from 101 Decacorn Founders with Harry Stebbings (Simon Squibb Edition)
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:03:00 – Harry's Wild Start: Making £1.75M at 19 in 36 Hours 00:06:00 – How Harry Got Marc Benioff on 20VC with Cold Emailing Alone 00:07:30 – Raising $70M on WhatsApp – Relationship Building Secrets 00:12:00 – Decision Framework: What Would Pat Grady (Sequoia) Do? 00:15:00 – Chase Your First Million – It Unlocks Everything 00:16:30 – Advice for 19-Year-Olds Today: Niche Down, Interview Leaders, Publish 00:18:00 – University Is a Waste for Most | Leverage Youth & Risk 00:22:30 – How Getting Kicked Out of School Changed Everything 00:30:00 – Why Should...
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20VC: Sam Altman vs Elon Musk: The $100BN Battle | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Market Pricing Today? | ClickHouse and Replit's New Rounds: Analysed
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:30 Can VC Survive With Public Market Prices Today 15:20 The Implosion of Thinking Machines 21:13 Elon Musk vs. OpenAI: The Legal Battle 40:50 Can OpenAI Win Ads? 55:50 ClickHouse’s $15BN Deal: Analysed 58:55 Replit’s $9BN Deal: Analysed 01:08:35 There Are Only Two Types of Deals VCs Want To Do Today
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20VC: How Model Performance is Plateauing | Two Key Rules for Effective Deal-Making | Company Building Lessons from Keith Rabois, Brian Halligan and Pat Grady | Why Enterprise AI Adoption is Years Off with Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Winston Weinberg is the CEO and Co-Founder of Harvey, the leading professional services platform engineered with AI for law, tax, and finance. Winston has raised over $980M for Harvey from Sequoia, a16z, GV, Elad Gil and more with a last round price of $9.2BN post-money. Before founding Harvey in August 2022, Winston was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, specializing in antitrust and securities litigation. AGENDA: 04:10 #1 Thing Every Founder Needs to Do Everyday 05:33 Must Do Daily Routines and Productivity Tips for CEOs 12:45 How to Get Sequoia and a16z Term Sheets 15:06 Why...
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20Product: Is the Design Phase Dead in a World of AI | Has Claude Code Crushed Anthropic Already | What Roles of a PM Are Less and More Important with AI | How the Best Product Leaders Tell Stories with Noam Lovinsky, CPO @ Superhuman
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Noam Lovinsky is the CPO @ Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Prior to Superhuman he was a Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook. In his earlier years, he was CPO @ Thumbtack and spent 5 years as a Director of Product Management at Google where he was responsible for all of Youtube’s applications. AGENDA: 03:43 What is Great Product Leadership in a World of AI 07:45 Does the Design Phase Die in a World of Vibe Coding 12:21 How AI Changes Product Development Most 22:23 Accelerating Product Development 29:32 AI's Impact on Product Building 34:19 Predictions for 2026 34:45 Quick...
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20VC: Anthropic's $10BN Fundraise: Have They Beaten Cursor Already | a16z's $15BN Fundraise: Is the Middle Dead in VC Today? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero and ElevenLabs at $11BN: Buy or Not?
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 05:02 Anthropic's $10 Billion Fundraise 07:54 Has Claude Code Beaten Cursor Already 15:54 OpenAI Could Still Go to Zero 26:33 Andreessen Horowitz's $15 Billion Fundraise 45:16 The Middle is Dead: Boutique vs. Large Platforms in Venture 50:01 The Future of Venture Capital 01:08:06 The Impact of Wealth Taxes on the Industry
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20VC: a16z's $15BN Fundraise with Alex Rampell | The Best Companies Have Hostages Not Customers | The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers and Labour | Mid-Sized Funds with Die and The Future of Venture Capital
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andressen Horowitz, where he leads their $1.7BN apps fund. Just last week, a16z announced they had raised $15BN for their latest funds, over 20% of all capital raised by venture firms. At a16z, Alex has led deals into Plaid, Mercury and OpenDoor to name a few. AGENDA: 04:55 How to Do 5x on a $15BN Fund Pool? 09:21 What Two Groups of Funds Will Win the Next Decade in VC? 14:39 What Three Things Are the Best Founders Able to Do? 19:22 The Best Companies Have Hostages, Not Customers 31:37 The Two Types of Deals You Want To Do In VC 38:52 The...
info_outlineAli Partovi is the CEO @ Neo, a mentorship community and communal VC fund that announced their new $150M fund last year on the back of early hits from Fund I including Vanta and Kalshi. As an angel, Ali has made personal investments in Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Convoy and many more. Prior to investing, Ali founded 2 companies, the first; LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1998 and the second, iLike which was acquired by Microsoft in 2009.
In Today’s Episode with Ali Partovi You Will Learn:
1.) How Ali made his way into the world of startups with the founding of his first company? How Ali made his way into angel investing and then starting and raising Neo, as a fund?
2.) How To Kill a $125M By Being Too Honest:
- How did Ali lose this $125M with Jerry Yang and Yahoo?
- What led Ali to believe that Paul Graham was so special in 1995? What would Ali have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?
- How does Ali feel about investment misses today? What are his biggest misses? How has it impacted his mindset and approach to investing?
3.) The Meeting with Steve Jobs Did Not Go Well:
- Why did the meeting with Steve Jobs not go well?
- What was wrong with the way Ali phrased his final statement? What did this teach Ali about how founders should communicate the difference between hype and reality?
- What did this experience teach Ali about how founders should run both fundraising and M&A processes? How does Ali build trust with every touchpoint?
4.) U2, Airbnb and Google at Seed:
- How did Bono come to save the day for Ali for his startup in 2009?
- What did this teach Ali about how to frame risk and when to go all in vs hold back?
- How did Ali miss investing in the seed for Airbnb? How did he make up for it with a later investment?
- How did Ali come to miss investing in the Google seed round? Does FOMO haunt Ali today?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Ali Partovi
Ali’s Favourite Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind