Angel | hosted by Jason Calacanis

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Sarah Tavel, Partner at Benchmark shares insights on getting recruited by Peter Fenton, disrupting VC gender norms from the inside, transitioning from operator to investor & more | Angel S4 E4 Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

0:50 Jason intros Benchmark's Sarah Tavel 1:20 Aside from Slack, what other companies grew like consumer-facing but charge like enterprise? 3:19 How was Sarah recruited to Benchmark? How is Benchmark different from other major VC firms? 12:04 Limited upside of talking to the press in 2020 17:30 Growing up in NYC and going to Harvard 21:30 Jason on becoming a "Don't touch the thermostat" dad 23:58 How did the offer from Peter Fenton go down? What drew Sarah to Benchmark? 28:36 Sarah's thoughts on disrupting VC as a woman from the inside & from the outside 37:30 How going from operating to investing is trading stress for anxiety 40:51 Jason and Sarah discuss their most personal & significant investments: Calm & Pinterest 47:26 How Pinterest's business model was a mold of Facebook and Google 49:45 Jason tells regulators how to stop Google 58:14 Investing in Chainalysis & Crypto infrastructure 1:12:44 Are the best companies polarizing? 1:16:30 Investing in Hipcamp 1:29:43 Marc Andreessen asks Sarah a question

George Zachary, General Partner at CRV shares insights on cancer scare shifting his focus to investing in health-tech, passing on Google at MDV, CRISPR & "designer babies", coronavirus threat, origins of Sand Hill Road & more! | Angel S4 E3 Feb 19, 2020

Show notes

0:50 Jason intros CRV's George Zachary 2:20 Passing on Google at MDV and coming to peace with the anti-portfolio 5:51 Differences between leadership & management, where Steve Jobs, Larry & Sergey fell on that scale 10:27 Why 1990's VC was sales & marketing-driven instead of product-driven as it is now 12:52 What shifted the philosophy to product-driven businesses? 18:00 Meeting Elon Musk in the 1990's and backing Zip2 21:59 What were Seed investors like in the '90s? Origins of Sand Hill Road 25:48 Elon pitching Zip2 to a conglomerate of venture firms & selling Zip2 for cash 28:07 How VCs can be conceptually right and wrong in the outcome, how X.com merged with Confinity and became PayPal 33:27 Why is it harder to 3x the massive venture funds? How is age a limiting factor in VC? 40:28 "It doesn't make a difference what you pass on. It only takes 1 company to make your career." Positive & negative feedback cycles in VC. 42:54 Battling through multiple portfolio companies dying at once 44:15 What was George's biggest investment hit, both economically & personal fulfillment? 52:37 George describes his recent health scares and how they shifted his investment focus 1:04:06 Reasons the life-expectancy in the US has gone sideways in recent years 1:07:39 Potential health-tech advancements in the near future 1:21:58 Thoughts on CRISPR & "designer babies" 1:30:27 Cell-based fish & meat 1:37:32 Potential coronavirus repercussions - what's real and what's not? 1:55:13 Jason calls for eliminating handshakes

Dan Rose, Chairman at Coatue Management is leading a $700M early-stage fund, shares insights on working with Bezos & Zuckerberg during pivotal years at Amazon & Facebook, 100+ angel investments, standout founder traits & more | Angel S4 E2 Feb 11, 2020

Show notes

0:50 Jason intros Coatue Management's Dan Rose 1:52 Dan takes Jason through getting his internship at Amazon in 1999 and meeting Jeff Bezos 6:55 What was Amazon's core business in 1999? What was it like incubating the Kindle in the mid-2000s? 10:04 How did Bezos grow as a leader and businessman during Dan's tenure at Amazon? 18:21 How does Bezos' ability to turn Amazon around in the eyes of public investors relate to Uber, Lyft and other large & unprofitable companies? How does Bezos inspire so much loyalty? 23:27 What was Amazon's company culture during Dan's tenure? How was AWS developed? 26:08 How did Dan wind up at Facebook as employee ~130? What did he see in a young Mark Zuckerberg? 32:13 Who created the original Facebook News Feed? 35:34 How did they get the ad-network to work at scale? 42:50 Where do Elon, Bezos & Zuckerberg rank in the Pantheon of Entrepreneurs? 44:06 How did the billion-dollar acquisition offer from Yahoo! fall apart? 46:42 Why launching open registration led to the billion-dollar investment by Microsoft 48:30 Insights on the Instagram deal 51:00 How Facebook bounced back from the stock dropping from $31 to $17 shortly after IPO & how Dan's experience at Amazon helped him rally the troops? 58:44 Zuckerberg's response to mistakes 1:03:01 How did Dan wind up at Coatue Management leading a $700M early-stage fund? 1:08:01 What is Coatue's strategy around data science? 1:11:20 Dan had over 100 Angel investments before joining Coatue 1:13:18 What is Coatue's new fund strategy? 1:16:09 How does Dan think of diligence in regards to early-stage companies? 1:20:25 What does Dan want to see in an ideal founder?

Sarah Cannon, Partner at Index Ventures, shares insights on the future of work, underrated emerging startup markets, going from Obama Administration to VC, increasing upward mobility in America | Angel S4 E1 Feb 05, 2020

Show notes

0:01 Jason intros Season 4 of Angel & Index Ventures' Sarah Cannon 3:22 How did working for the Obama administration lead Sarah into Venture Capital? 4:56 Picking a fight with Larry Summers as an intern 15:42 Choosing Harvard's MBA program over Stanford's 18:26 Getting into VC 20:27 Working at CapitalG 24:09 How was the foundation of Index built by Danny Rimer and what is Sarah's role? 31:42 What does Index focus on during a Series A and what is a partner meeting like at Index? 36:31 Thoughts on gig economy work and is there a better way to categorize freelancers and full-time workers in the gig economy? 44:54 Sarah's proposed solution for categorizing gig economy workers 46:36 Jason's thoughts on politicians evolving their views over time 50:15 Ideas to increase upward mobility in America 1:00:35 What was Sarah's first investment? How did it work out? 1:08:42 Founders getting distracted after raising large rounds of funding 1:11:05 Thoughts on emerging international startup markets like India & Australia 1:13:19 Is France an underrated startup market? 1:17:42 What is Sarah most passionate about investing in?

Samantha Wong, Partner at Blackbird Ventures (Canva, Culture Amp), on the growth of Australia's startup ecosystem, valuations outside of SV & benefits for investors, focusing on deep tech & "science nonfiction | Angel S3 E11 Jun 27, 2019

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Samantha Wong, Partner at Blackbird Ventures (Canva, Culture Amp), shares insights on the growth of Australia's startup ecosystem, valuations outside of SV & benefits for investors, focusing on deep tech & "science nonfiction," backing founders with an unstoppable force, & how immigration laws impact entrepreneurship

Part 2 Dave Morin of Slow Ventures (250+ investments inc. Slack, Pinterest, Twitter), shares insights on favorite business models & products, backing founders with a tangible sense of inevitability, the rise of two internets | Angel S3 E10 Jun 24, 2019

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Dave Morin of Slow Ventures shares insights from 250+ investments (Slack, Pinterest, Twitter), architecting Facebook & building Path, promoting mental health, combatting depression | Angel S3 E9 Jun 20, 2019

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Dave Morin of Slow Ventures shares insights from 250+ investments (Slack, Pinterest, Twitter), architecting Facebook & building Path, promoting mental health with Sunrise, combatting the internet's true tax of depression & how founders can get help - Part 1

Ryan Hoover, Founder of Weekend Fund & Product Hunt, shares lessons from building his early-stage fund, harnessing excitement for new markets, betting on founders with unique perspectives | Angel S3 E8 Jun 08, 2019

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Ryan Hoover, Founder of Weekend Fund & Product Hunt, shares lessons from building his early-stage fund, harnessing excitement for new markets, betting on founders with strong perspectives & unique qualities, & bringing his expertise & passion for creating communities to venture capital

Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins & expert early investor (Slack, Box, Intercom) on evolving from growth to venture, lessons from Social Capital, great founder qualities, complementary teams, & winning formulas | Angel S3 E7 Jun 01, 2019

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Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins & expert early investor (Slack, Box, Intercom) on evolving from growth to venture, lessons from founding & leaving Social Capital, great founder qualities, wisdom of complementary teams, & winning formulas

Ben Ling of Bling Capital (prev. Khosla Ventures), shares strategies from 100+ investments & 9 unicorns, qualities of great founders & teams, startup valuations, market opportunities, Google's early days, future of AR/VR | Angel S3 E6 May 27, 2019

Show notes

Ben Ling of Bling Capital (prev. Khosla Ventures), shares strategies from 100+ investments & 9 unicorns, qualities of great founders & teams, assessing market opportunities, the art of startup valuations, Google's early days, the future of AR/VR, & lessons from leading change in consumer behavior

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