20VC: Cyan Banister on Her Relationship To Money, Risk, Her Investment Decision-Making Process, Why We Will See A Reckoning in the Early Stage Market, Her Biggest Takeaways from HQ Trivia & The Future of Silicon Valley

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2020

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors of the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Today Cyan is a Partner @ Long Journey Ventures, joining the team there following a 4-year stint @ Founders Fund where she led deals in both Niantic and HQ Trivia. Prior to Founders Fund, Cyan was a super successful operator and angel, co-founding Zivity and before that being an early employee at Ironport, leading to their acquisition by Oracle.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Cyan made her way into the world of startups? How SpaceX came to be her 1st angel investment? How that led to her joining the world of VC?

2.) How does Cyan think about and assess her relationship to money? Why does someone believe she had a fear or loathing of money? What made Cyan the capitalist she is today? How does Cyan analyse her relationship to risk? Has Cyan always trusted her own convictions?

3.) How does Cyan think about her own investment decision-making process? What were Cyan's biggest lessons from her experience with HQ Trivia? How did she change how she interacts with founders pre-investment? Why does Cyan never Google someone before meeting?

4.) How does Cyan think about price sensitivity today? Why does she believe there will be a reckoning? How will this shake out in terms of who succeeds and who fails? Why is Cyan in favour of party rounds? How does she think about VCs with sharp elbows?

5.) Why does Cyan believe SF is eating itself? What can be done to reinvigorate the city positively? What can be done to solve much of the homelessness problem? Why does Chesa Boudin never convict anyone? Why does Cyan believe her "BLM tweet is not spicy"? Why is Cyan fundamentally sad and worried for the current state of the world?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Cyan’s Fave Book: Snow Crash

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Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the 20-minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I always get in so much trouble for my
0:03.7	intros on Twitter, and I sound too excited to have someone on the show, apparently. I hope you
0:07.9	forgive or at least understand my excitement for this episode, but my word, I really have wanted
0:12.3	to have this incredible individual on the show for a long, long time. And so with that,
0:16.3	I'm thrilled to welcome Cyan Bannister, one of the most successful and renowned early stage investors of the last decade.
0:21.9	Her portfolio includes the likes of check this out.
0:24.2	SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Open Door, Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack, to name a few.
0:30.2	Today, Sion is a partner at Long Journey Ventures, joining the team there following a four-year stint at Founders Fund,
0:35.7	where she led deals in both Nyantic and
0:37.6	HQ trivia. Prior to Founders Fund, Sam was a super successful early operator and Angel,
0:42.5	co-founding Zivety, and before that being an early employee at Ironport, leading to their
0:46.7	acquisition by Oracle. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Kevin Hartz, to Brian
0:50.5	Singerman and Catherine Boyle. Some amazing questions suggestions today really did so help me there.
0:55.4	But before we move into the show today, I'm sure you've heard about it, but my word, I love a product
0:59.2	called Carter. Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables and get
1:04.8	valuations. Go to Carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. more than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carter to
1:13.7	manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carter now offers fund administration so you can
1:18.4	see real-time data in the Carter platform and work with Carter's team of experienced fund accountants
1:23.6	go to Carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. And if you've been listening to our show,
1:29.0	you've probably heard of Brex, the first corporate card for startups with no personal guarantee
1:33.4	or credit check, up to 20 times higher credit limits than traditional cards, plus rewards like
1:38.7	3x on eligible Apple products and 7x points on tools like Zoom and Slack. Brex has helped thousands of companies scale faster to reach their potential.
	...

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