All Things VC

About All Things VC

Every week, I devote several hours of research scouring through books, podcast transcripts, YouTube transcripts, archaic S-1s, many frustrating paywalls, and more just to provide you, the curious-minded listener, with an incredibly in depth podcast that investigates, for example, in my first ever episode, “Why Sequoia invested in Apple, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Whatsapp, how they won the deals, what Sequoia’s general investment thesis is, how you as a founder can position yourself to get funding from Sequoia, and discuss some regrettable passes they have in their anti-portfolio."

Publisher

Justin Pryor

Category

technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

29 Nov 2023

Latest episode

22 May 2024

Latest episodes

25 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   22 May 2024

   Mori: The Company Making Food Stay Fresher for Longer

   Mori is a biotech startup that makes food last twice as long. Whether it’s fruits, vegetables, meat, or seafood, Mori extends the consumption timeframe for nearly all foods. How do they do it? Well, here’s how they describe it on their website, which I encourage you to check out: “Our simple ingredients unravel the power of silk protein. From the farm to the shelf, our water-based protective layer is easily integrated at any wash step or station. Mori Silk is food protection technology that slows the natural spoiling process from many points in the supply chain.” Tune in to hear all the social, climate, and economic impacts of a technological breakthrough like this and why landing a $300 million contract from Whole Foods isn't crazy. More All Things VC: If you want to read along this podcast, you can check out All Things VC on Substack (https://allthingsvc.substack.com/) If you want to watch clips of this episode and many others, you can check out All Things VC on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_bS1W9O8jpTE6gG9wss1rg/)

2. 

   8 May 2024

   #023 Founders Fund

   Founders Fund is likely the most non-consensus VC firm in the industry. Sequoia founder Don Valentine said to target big markets; Peter Thiel said to target small markets. Jeff Jordan says he likes competitive deals as a signal of future success; Brian Singerman says if a deal is competitive, then it’s too late to invest in that industry. The list goes on and on, but in this essay, I’m going to elaborate on some of the truly unique principles of Founders Fund that, truthfully, I find to be the way venture capital and startup investing should be. Today, we’ll cover: Why to Target Small Markets Why Competition is for Losers Why Invest in Market Creators Why all Investments need Supreme Conviction Why Founders Fund’s Firm Building Thesis is How Venture Capital Should be I have several quotes from key partners at the firm that emphasize why Founders Fund is drastically different than any VC firm you’ve studied, but one you probably will learn the most from. But first, who is Founders Fund? Founders Fund was founded in 2005 by Peter Thiel of PayPal fame, Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame (Justin Timberlake), Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, both also of PayPal fame. Founders Fund essentially pioneered the “VCs as former founders” movement that is so prevalent today. Their guiding principle was to treat founders with the respect they deserve by ensuring them that they were in charge and never felt threatened by the VCs at Founders Fund, backed by a vow never to oust a founder. In 2005, these principles were very contrarian to the industry. Their remarkable portfolio consists of SpaceX, Palantir, Stripe, Anduril, Facebook, Airbnb, Nubank, Rippling, Affirm, Ramp, Flexport, Spotify, and many more multi-billion-dollar companies. Therefore, I encourage you to pay attention when reading about their investment theses because, clearly, they’ve had some remarkable success in practice. More All Things VC: If you want to read along this podcast, you can check out All Things VC on Substack (https://allthingsvc.substack.com/) If you want to watch clips of this episode and many others, you can check out All Things VC on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_bS1W9O8jpTE6gG9wss1rg/)

3. 

   1 May 2024

   #022 Why Construction-Oriented AI Robotics Are One of the Best Use Cases for AI

   Last week, I talked about how an investor would analyze a startup building something completely new with high technical risk and low market risk. (https://open.spotify.com/episode/43km7sopOLDL561f08oBHX) That company was Loyal, which makes dog life-longevity drugs. From a market perspective, it is one of the most no-brainer investments if they can pull off the tech, which obviously is a huge challenge. It got me thinking: what are some potential startups where a company can create something new that may be very technically challenging but with minimal risk from a market standpoint that makes a current process either much better or much cheaper? I closed the essay by saying I’m not sure Figure AI qualifies as a low-market risk company since many other startups and large companies are going after humanoid robots. I do, however, think intelligent robots will be highly prevalent in our world in the coming decades, so I thought about where intelligent robots could best be applied to enhance our world while being financially worthwhile for an investor. For some reason, perhaps due to my Pittsburgh upbringing or the fact that I just read (and loved) Last Train to Paradise, my mind went right to automated bridge inspection and repair robots. Exciting right?! I’ll get more into why I chose bridges later. For context, the government currently spends nearly $3b every two years on bridge inspection, despite the push for annual or semi-annual inspections, so there’s a need for greater efficiency there. Additionally, the government spends almost $15 billion a year on bridge repair, while estimates say there is currently about $125 billion in bridge repair spending needed to repair all of America’s bridges currently in poor condition. So there’s certainly a market, and the current solution, human labor, is not getting the job done. Perfect equation for disruption! I’m talking about companies that create robots that don’t just inspect the physical object but repair the object as well. Sell the work. Construction and AI seem to be one of the best applications for selling the work, and bridge repair is a good place to start. Is that easy to build? I have no idea, but probably not! Can someone build it? Probably eventually! Is it worth building if you can? Definitely! More All Things VC: If you want to read along this podcast, you can check out All Things VC on Substack (https://allthingsvc.substack.com/) If you want to watch clips of this episode and many others, you can check out All Things VC on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_bS1W9O8jpTE6gG9wss1rg/)

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Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

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