20VC: Data Collective's Matt Ocko on Why "All Fund Size Models Are Wrong" and The Lifecycle of Current Venture Funds Is Inefficient?
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Matt Ocko is the Co-Managing Partner and Co-Founder @ Data Collective and has over 3 decades of experience as a tech entrepreneur and VC and has made investments in the likes of Facebook, Zynga, Uber and AngelList just to name a few. If that was not enough he is also an inventor on over 40 granted or in process patents. A truly deep thinker and one of my fave ever shows to record.
In Today’s Episode with Matt You Will Learn:
- How Matt made his way into VC and came to co-found Data Collective?
- Why does Matt believe “All Fund Size Models are Wrong”. Does the current bifurcation of VC into angels/micro-VCs, small seed/A funds, big bruisers, and post-C/pre-IPO make for sub-optimal returns both on a societal and monetary perspective?
- What does the opportunity fund allow Data Collective? How do they use the initial fund to invest for insight in into companies at the earliest stages? How do they avoid the negative signalling risk that is normally ensued with an opportunity fund?
- How important is thesis driven venture firms? Does specialisation aid or hinder venture returns and why?
- How does Matt view the lifecycle of current venture? Matt has previously said it is inherently inefficient, why?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Matt’s Fave Blog and Newsletter: MIT Technology Review
Matt’s Fave Book: The Way Things Work
Matt’s Most Recent Investment: Tradeshift
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Matt on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to the 20-minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings. You can find me on Snapchat |
| 0:04.6 | at H. Stebbings. And today's show really is an immensely special one for me. So for this show, |
| 0:10.4 | we recorded the normal 20 minutes and then me and the guests got chatting afterwards and realized |
| 0:14.8 | that there was so much great stuff, I just had to keep recording. And that recording resulted |
| 0:18.7 | in an incredible discussion on the dark side of |
| 0:21.2 | AI, which will be released in the coming weeks as part of our special AI feature week, so this will not |
| 0:25.9 | be the last you hear from today's guest. Also, our guest today is an absolute machine. This was |
| 0:30.7 | recorded at 1am, his time. True dedication, so a big congratulations and thank you, Tim, on that one. |
| 0:36.7 | So joining me for this very special show, |
| 0:39.0 | I'm delighted to welcome Matt Occo. Matt is the co-managing partner and co-founder at Data Collective, |
| 0:44.8 | and he has over three decades of experience as a tech entrepreneur and VC, and has made investments in the |
| 0:50.1 | lights of Facebook, Zinger, Uber, and Angel List, just to name a few. And if that wasn't enough, |
| 0:55.6 | he's also an inventor on over 40 granted or in-process patents, a truly deep thinker, and as I said, |
| 1:02.4 | one of my favourite shows ever to record. But before we dive into the show with Matt today, |
| 1:06.9 | every great day starts the night before. Every smart move you make on Wednesday has its roots in |
| 1:12.1 | Tuesday. So leap out of bed with a can-do attitude and you've got a head start on the world. |
| 1:17.3 | Eve makes only one kind of mattress, the very best. With three-layer next generation memory foam |
| 1:22.9 | and open cell technology, they even give you 100 nights to trial it with free return pickup. |
| 1:28.2 | So go to eave mattress.co.uk and use the code 20 VC. That's the 20 numbers VC for 50 pounds off, |
| 1:36.6 | and they'll be with you next day delivery. Truly incredible. Everybody deserves a perfect start, |
| 1:41.4 | even after a heavy night of mehito drinking with me and speaking of |
| 1:44.4 | heavy nights is now time to turn to our one a m interview with the main man matt oco at data |
... |
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