perspectives on funding and venture capital (VC)

There are some phenomenal products in some of the companies that were overfunded and are haunted by past decisions. The valuations at which these companies raised capital set them on the wrong path - a path that fails to attract and reward critical talent, a path that incentivizes excess expenditure for growth at the expense of structuring a busine... See more

Venture capital should come with a warning label. In our experience, VC kills more startups than slow customer adoption, technical debt and co-founder infighting — combined. VC should be a catalyst for growing companies, but, more commonly, it’s a toxic substance that destroys them. VC often compels companies to prematurely scale, which is typicall

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I’ve been lucky to have started four software companies. Every time they end, whether it’s “a good outcome” or “a bad outcome”, it’s universally devastating.

I have a theory, which has not let me down so far, that there is an inverse relationship between imagination and money. Because the more money and technology that is available to [create] a work, the less imagination there will be in it. My favorite films are those that were made on a shoestring. And they weren’t adaptations of some other work, the

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This year, there will be two types of startups that get funding: 1) extremely difficult tech problems that require a lot of capital to get started and 2) one-and-done rounds. With the latter, teams will aim to raise one round, experiment with new profit-sharing, and maintain optionality to take a big swing if the company takes off.

I just think that most VCs don't have anything that they truly believe in. Which makes them hard to be indistinguishable from soloists. Because what do you care about? If you don't believe in anything, it means that you don't deeply truly care about something. To me, I mean, maybe this is harsh, I think that's like someone without a soul. Like they... See more

“This is my lifelong project now. I’m not building [Best Made] to sell it in 5 or 10 years. And so I have the luxury of time, in a sense. Everything will get done in its own good time.”