20VC: CRV's George Zachary on His Relationship To Money and How it has Changed Over Time, Why The Best Founders Have Often Experienced Parental or Home Instability and The Stories Behind Investing in Unicorns; PillPack, Yammer and Udacity
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2020
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
George Zachary is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, DoorDash, Dropbox, Niantic and many more. As for George, today at the firm he focuses on advancing health through revolutionary computer science, centred around bio-engineering. During his incredible 16 year tenure at CRV, he has led deals in the likes of PillPack, Udacity, Scribd and HealthIQ. Before joining CRV, George was a General Partner @ Mohr Davidow Ventures for over 6 years.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How George made his way into the world of venture over 21 years ago and how he came to be a General Partner @ CRV 16 years ago?
2.) How did seeing the booms and busts of the dot com and 08 impacts George's investment mindset? What is the right way to voice concerns in an internal investment discussion? How does George now view capital intensity? How does it impact his conviction and check size?
3.) Why does George believe one should invest in founders who do not need their investors help? Why does George believe the best founders have experienced some form of parental instability? How does George detect the psychological need to win when he meets founders? What are the signs?
4.) How would George describe his own philosophy of board membership? How has it changed over time? What are the 2 control functions that a board member has? What advice does George give to new board members today? Where do many young board members make mistakes?
5.) How does George analyse his own personal relationship to money? How has it changed over the years? How did his relationship to money change his relationship with people? Was that challenging? How did he cope with it? How does he advise others who experience the same?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
George's Favourite Book: Foundation Trilogy
George’s Most Recent Investment: Glympse Bio
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20-minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today we have a very special guest on the show, |
| 0:04.2 | one that I've always looked up to given his incredible 21-year career in the venture industry, |
| 0:08.7 | so I'm very excited to welcome George Zachary, General Partner at CRV, one of the nation's oldest and |
| 0:13.7 | most successful early-stage venture firms, with a portfolio including the lights of air table, |
| 0:18.3 | DoorDash, Dropbox, Neantic, and many more. As for George, |
| 0:21.8 | today at the firm he focuses on advancing health through revolutionary computer science, |
| 0:26.0 | centered around bioengineering, and during his extremely successful 16-year tenure at CRV, |
| 0:31.1 | he's led deals in the lights of pill pack, udacity, scribed, and health IQ, to name a few. |
| 0:36.3 | Before joining CRV, George was a general partner |
| 0:38.6 | at Moore Davidau Ventures for over six years. And I'd also want to say a huge thank you to David |
| 0:43.0 | Sachs, Ev Williams, Sarkur, Max Gazzor, Anna Khan, some amazing questions today, a real team |
| 0:49.2 | effort here on the schedule. But before we move into the show today, I'm sure you've heard about it, but my word, I love a product called Carter. Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, |
| 0:58.7 | track cap tables and get valuations. Go to carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. More than |
| 1:05.6 | 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity, |
| 1:11.0 | and Carter now offers fund administration. So you can see real-time data in the Carter platform |
| 1:15.8 | and work with Carter's team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carter.com forward slash |
| 1:20.5 | 20 VC to get 10% off. And if you've been listening to our show, you've probably heard of Brex, |
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| 1:32.1 | cards, plus rewards like 3x on eligible Apple products and 7x points on tools like Zoom and Slack. |
| 1:38.9 | Brax has helped thousands of companies scale faster to reach their potential. |
| 1:42.6 | This month, they are extending their special |
| 1:44.1 | offer to our listeners, apply for the Brex card by November the 30th, with the code 20 VC, all spelled |
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