20VC: Founders Fund's Brian Singerman on Why VC Is About Upside Maximisation Not Downside Minimisation, Why There Is No Right Way To Do Venture and Why They Do Not Have Monday Morning Partner Meetings At Founders Fund
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2017
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brian Singerman is a Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the world’s most prestigious and successful VC funds with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Spotify and many more incredible companies. Prior to Founders Fund, Brian spent 4 years at Google where, among other projects, Brian founded iGoogle. Whilst at Google, Brian also started his career as an investor, founding his own angel fund, XGYC Fund. Brian also currently sits on the board of Affirm, Oscar, AltSchool and Emerald Therapeutics. Due to Brian's immense success he was named No 5 on Forbes Midas List for America's Top VCs.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Brian made the way from Google, to his own angel fund to being General Partner @ Founders Fund?
2.) How has Brian seen his investment mindset shift over the years from angel investing to his angel fund, XGYC to now being a partner at Founders Fund?
3.) Why does Brian believe that success in VC is purely about upside maximization? What does Brian think downside minimisation is unimportant?
4.) What does the investment decision-making process look like at Founders Fund? How does this change with the scaling cheque size? What are Brian's views on conviction driven vs unanimous team voting structures?
5.) Why is Brian a staunch generalist when it comes to investing? For Brian, why does he believe that being a generalist will deliver outsized returns over being a specialist?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Brian’s Fave Book: Snow Crash
Brian’s Fave Blog: Dan Primack
Brian’s Most Recent Investment: Affirm
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brian on Twitter here!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to another week in the world of VC with the 20 minute VC and your host Harry Stebbings and you can add me on Snapchat at H Stebbings with 2Bs. |
| 0:07.8 | All ads get a personal message from me and it would be fantastic to see you there. |
| 0:11.2 | However, to the show today and my word, I'm really excited to release this one. |
| 0:14.7 | This is one I would really define a truly special episode with an individual that's always shaped my thinking and opinions. |
| 0:20.3 | So I'm delighted to welcome Brian |
| 0:21.7 | Singerman to the show today. Now, Brian is a partner at Founders Fund, one of the world's most prestigious and |
| 0:26.4 | successful VC funds, with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Spotify, |
| 0:32.5 | and many more incredible game-changing companies. Prior to Founders Fund, Brian spent four years at Google, |
| 0:37.6 | where among other projects, Brian founded I-Google. Whilst at Google, Brian also started his career as an |
| 0:42.6 | investor, founding his own Angel Fund, XGYC Fund. Brian also currently sits on the board of Max Levchin's |
| 0:48.5 | Affirm, Oscar, Alt School and Emerald Therapeutics. Due to Brian's immense success, he was also |
| 0:53.6 | named number five on Forbes Midas list for America Brian's immense success, he was also named number five |
| 0:54.4 | on Forbes Midas list for America's top VCs. And I also want to say a big thank you to Kevin Hart's at |
| 0:59.5 | Founders Fund and Eric Torrenberg for the intro to Brian today, without which this episode would not |
| 1:04.0 | have been possible. But before we head into the episode today, a lot of people ask me, |
| 1:07.7 | Harry, you do so many calls and interviews, but what do you use? |
| 1:11.2 | My response? |
| 1:12.2 | Zoom. |
| 1:12.8 | The number one video and web conferencing service providing one consistent enterprise experience |
| 1:17.4 | that allows you to an array of activities, including online meetings, video webinars, |
| 1:22.1 | collaboration enabled conference rooms and business I am, just to name a few. |
| 1:26.3 | And it's the easiest solution to use, |
... |
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