20VC: Kevin Rose on Putting The Entire Fund Into Uber, The Future For Mobile & Whether Angels Should Have Super Pro-Rata Rights?
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2017
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kevin Rose is a Venture Partner @ True Ventures, one of the leading early stage funds on the West Coast with portfolio companies including the likes of Automattic, Blue Bottle Coffee, About.me and recent unicorn, Peloton. As for Kevin, he is a serial entrepreneur best known for founding Digg and Revision3. Following such success in the field of operations, Kevin made the move into VC becoming a General Partner and advisor @ Google Ventures. Kevin has also been a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Square, Facebook, Foursquare, and Zynga just to name a few incredible companies.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Kevin made his way from founding Digg to moving into VC with Google Ventures?
2.) How did Kevin alter his investment mindset when making the transition from angel to General Partner @ Google Ventures? How does the decision making process change? How does asset allocation change? How does portfolio theory change?
3.) Why is Kevin so bullish on the future of mobile? Why does Kevin believe that distribution channels are actually becoming more equal, allowing for greater startup access? Why does Kevin not believe in the future of VR?
4.) How does Kevin view the optimal relationship between VC and founder? Can a VC be a friend as well as an advisor and board member? What can the VC do to ensure their positioning alongside not above the founder?
5.) How does Kevin view the age old debate of work like balance? How does Kevin approach it? What does Kevin recommend to anyone looking to improve their worl life balance?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Kevin’s Fave Book: Essentialism
Kevin’s Most Recent Investment: Lead.rs
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kevin on Twitter here!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to the 20 minute VC for a very special episode with me, your host, Harry Stebbings, |
| 0:04.9 | found most frequently on Snapchat at H. Stebbings with 2Bs, it would be fantastic to see you there, |
| 0:10.4 | and all ads get a personal message from me. But for the show today, and this guest has been on |
| 0:14.1 | my target list for guests for many months now, having been inspired by many of his episodes |
| 0:18.2 | with the likes of Tim Ferriss. Therefore, I'm thrilled to welcome |
| 0:21.0 | Kevin Rose to the hot seat today. For those that don't know, Kevin is a venture partner at True |
| 0:25.5 | Ventures, one of the leading early stage funds on the West Coast, with portfolio companies |
| 0:29.7 | including the lights of Automatic, the company behind WordPress, Blue Bottle Coffee, About. |
| 0:34.3 | Dot Me, and recent Unicorn Peloton. As for Kevin, he's a serial entrepreneur, |
| 0:38.7 | best known for founding Dig and Revision 3. Following such success in the field of operations, |
| 0:43.6 | Kevin made the move into VC, becoming a general partner and advisor at Google Ventures. |
| 0:48.1 | Kevin's also been a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, |
| 0:52.4 | Square, Facebook, 4Square and Zinger, |
| 0:54.9 | just to name a few incredible companies. |
| 0:56.8 | I'd also like to say a big thank you to Kevin's partners, Phil Black and John Callahan, |
| 1:00.6 | for making the intro to stay to Kevin, without which this episode would not have been possible. |
| 1:04.6 | But before we head into the episode today, a lot of people ask me, |
| 1:07.4 | Harry, you do so many calls and interviews, but what do you use? |
| 1:11.6 | My response, |
| 1:17.0 | Zoom. The number one video and web conferencing service providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to an array of activities, including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration |
| 1:22.2 | enabled conference rooms, and business I am, just to name a few. And it's the easiest solution |
| 1:27.0 | to use, buy and scale, |
... |
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