20VC: Ribbit Capital's Nick Shalek on How To Think Through Ownership and Price Sensitivity, When More Money and Pre-Emptive Rounds are Good vs Bad & Investing Lessons from Yale's David Swensen
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 26 July 2021
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nick Shalek is a General Partner @ Ribbit Capital, specializing in fintech they are one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Robinhood, Coinbase, Revolut, Nubank and more. As for Nick, he started his career as a Senior Analyst @ Yale Investments Office before moving to the world of operations as Director of Business Operations @ Verne Global, a provider of 100% carbon neutral data centers.
In Today’s Episode with Nick Shalek You Will Learn:
1.) How Nick made his way from Senior Analyst at Yale's Investment Office to be one of the leading fintech investors in the world with Ribbit? What were Nick's biggest lessons from his time working with David Swenson @ Yale? How would Nick summarise Yale's investment algorithm?
2.) Entering Venture and Advice: Why does Nick tell many friends entering venture, to not join a new fund? What does Nick believe is takes to build an enduring firm in venture? What were the core reasons and inflection points in the success of Ribbit? What have been some of the biggest challenges in the professionalisation of Ribbit over the years?
3.) Pricing and Ownership: Is Nick concerned by the levels of pricing we are seeing in fintech today? How does Nick analyze his own relationship to price? How does Nick view the importance of ownership? Is it possible to build ownership across rounds? How does Nick advise founders now receiving very fast offers to pre-empt their rounds?
4.) Investment Decision-Making: How does Ribbit structure its investment decision-making process for initial investments? In what way does this process change for re-investments? Why does Nick believe in the benefits of not having attribution within venture partnerships?
5.) AMA: What has been Nick's biggest miss? How did it change his investment decision-making process as a result? What does Nick know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture? What have been Nick's biggest lessons from his working with Micky?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Nick Shalek
Nick’s Favourite Book: A Piece of the Action: When the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
Nick’s Most Recent Investment: Kavak
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today I'm so excited to be joined by a guest who traditionally doesn't do much press and very much stays behind the scenes and out of the media. |
| 0:09.1 | And so this was a really special one for me and I'm thrilled to welcome Nick Shallick, general partner at Ribbitt Capital, specialising in fintech. |
| 0:15.6 | They are one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade, with a portfolio including the lights of Robin Hood, |
| 0:21.1 | Coinbase, Revolut, New Bank and more. As for Nick, he started his career as a senior analyst |
| 0:26.3 | at Yale Investments Office before moving to the world of operations as director of business |
| 0:30.6 | operations at Vern Global, a provider of 100% carbon neutral data centres. I'd also want to |
| 0:36.1 | a huge thank you to Mickey Malker at |
| 0:37.8 | Ribbitt and Frank Rotman at QED. Some amazing question suggestions today. I really did so appreciate |
| 0:43.0 | that. But before we move into the show today, I have to say I just love using Angelist Fund |
| 0:47.8 | admin platform to manage my investments. The team and the platform at Angelist takes care of all |
| 0:52.7 | my back office needs so that I can focus on working with great founders. |
| 0:56.4 | Leading fund managers have made over 10,000 investments into 6,000 startups via AngelList, all online and all in one place. |
| 1:03.5 | And with the recently announced rolling funds, you can easily find and invest in these top fund managers on angellist.com forward slash rolling. And let's face it, |
| 1:11.9 | this new world of remote work is here to stay. And so all of the new headaches that come |
| 1:16.1 | with running a remote team though, which is a nightmare. Ripling, though, helps fast-growing |
| 1:20.2 | startups automate their HR and their IT. And now they're making it super easy to manage |
| 1:25.0 | employees and contractors anywhere. When you hire people in |
| 1:27.9 | new states, Ripling can now automatically register your startup with each state tax agency and |
| 1:33.2 | keep you compliant with all the different local labor laws. From there, Ripling lets you on board new |
| 1:38.0 | hires in literally 90 seconds. You can instantly set up people's payrolls, benefits and all their |
| 1:43.3 | apps like Slack and GitHub. |
| 1:45.1 | So if you're looking for an easier way to run your startup remotely, or just a better way to manage your HR and IT, visit rippling.com forward slash 20VC. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.