when the music stops

Asking friends what would kill their firms, I heard; Performance. Succession planning. Politics. There was plenty of overlap in their answers. What stuck out to me the most was how a lot of these fears closely aligned with the revolutions already going on in venture that I've been writing about. The productization and improvement in a venture funds... See more

Overall, booms and busts in the economy, including in the stock market, have an impact both on the amounts invested by VC firms and on valuations, with later-stage startups getting hit harder. However, the impact is not catastrophic. While startups find it harder to raise capital and find themselves raising at more modest valuations during these ti

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One result of this past tech cycle was a view that companies needed to build hyper complex ponzi schemes of ambition in order to accumulate capital and be valued. This led to a variety of shooting stars that never realized their main goal.

Another view was an insane amount of value ascribed to hyper-narrow features masquerading as companies, leading... See more

I had a chat last night with a billion-dollar SaaS founder/CEO. He's raised $200M at a $2B valuation in 2021. Living the high life in SF with a crazy house and a Porsche 911. On the surface, it seems like he has it all and living the dream. But he called me out of the blue at 11p last night to vent. It’s been 9 years since he started the compan... See more