20VC: a16z's David George on Leading a16z's Growth Fund Today, The Biggest Misconceptions of Growth Investing, How a16z Think Through Portfolio Construction, Investment Decision-Making and Scenario Planning & How The Entrance of New Players Has Changed Th
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David George is a General Partner @ Andreessen Horowitz where he leads their growth investing practice. Since joining in 2019 David has invested in the likes of Clubhouse, Coinbase, Databricks, Figma, Instacart, Robinhood and TripActions just to name a few. David also sits on the board of Current, Greenlight, and Workrise. Prior to a16z, David spent 7 years growth investing at General Atlantic where he invested in the likes of Airbnb, Crowdstrike, Opendoor, Slack and Uber.
In Today’s Episode with David George You Will Learn:
1.) How David made his way into the world of growth investing with General Atlantic and how that led to his leading the newest iteration of a16z growth funds? What were David's biggest takeaways from his time with General Atlantic? How did it impact his investing?
2.) Misconceptions of Growth Investing: Why does David believe that great business models are table stakes at growth today? What gives the best the edge? Why does David believe that people over-rotate on TAM? Why is it misleading in many ways? What is the right way to assess TAM at growth today? What does David look for when digging into unit economics? When is the right time to focus on unit economics?
3.) Portfolio Construction and Scenario Planning: How does David think about portfolio construction with the new a16z growth fund? What is the right level of diversification? How does David think about loss ratio today? How does David approach outcome scenario planning? What is an attractive level of upside for David to engage at growth? How has that expectation changed over time?
4.) Valuations and Crossover Funds: How does David assess the valuation landscape today? How does David determine whether he will pay up or sit out on an investment? How has the rise of crossover funds, PE funds and hedge funds entering growth impacted the valuations being paid and the investment process itself? What does David make of these new entrants? What challenges do they bring?
5.) Investment Decision-Making: How do a16z approach decision-making at growth? Who is on the core IC? Why does David strongly believe in the single trigger model in venture when it comes to decision-making? What are the biggest reasons for politics in venture firms today? What can be done to mitigate them?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with David George
David’s Favourite Book: Increasing Returns To Scale
David’s Most Recent Investment: Loom
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and what an episode we have in store for you today. |
| 0:04.0 | I just love doing this one. |
| 0:05.2 | It's one where the chat really completely went off-peased and we didn't stick to the schedule at all. |
| 0:09.3 | But always the sign of a great conversation, so I'm thrilled to welcome David George, |
| 0:12.8 | general partner at Andresen Horace, where he leads their growth investing practice. Since joining in 2019, David has invested in the lights of Clubhouse, Coinbase, Databricks, Figma, Instacart, Robin Hood, and Trip Actions, to name a few. |
| 0:26.0 | David also sits on the board of Current, Greenlight and Workrise. |
| 0:29.6 | And prior to Andreessen, David spent seven years growth investing at General Atlantic, where he invested in the likes of Airbnb, CrowdStrike, Open Door, Slack and Uber, again, just |
| 0:38.9 | naming a few. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Ariel at Trip Actions and Ali at |
| 0:43.2 | Databricks in particular, some amazing questions, suggestions from them, and I so appreciated that. |
| 0:48.0 | But before we move into the show today, I have to say I just love using Angelist Fund admin |
| 0:52.4 | platform to manage my investments. The team and the |
| 0:55.0 | platform with AngelList takes care of all my back office needs so that I can focus on working |
| 0:59.4 | with great founders. Leading fund managers have made over 10,000 investments into 6,000 |
| 1:04.3 | startups via AngelList, all online and all in one place. And with the recently announced rolling |
| 1:09.2 | funds, you can easily find and invest in |
| 1:11.6 | these top fund managers on angel list.com forward slash rolling. And let's face it, this new world |
| 1:16.8 | of remote work is here to stay. And so all of the new headaches that come with running a remote |
| 1:21.1 | team, though, which is a nightmare. Rippling, though, helps fast-growing startups automate their |
| 1:25.6 | HR and their IT. And now they're making it super easy |
| 1:28.8 | to manage employees and contractors anywhere. When you hire people in new states, Ripling can now |
| 1:33.6 | automatically register your startup with each state tax agency and keep you compliant with all the |
| 1:38.7 | different local labor laws. From there, Ripling lets you onboard new hires in literally 90 seconds. |
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