20VC: Vinod Khosla on What Venture Assistance Really Means, Why Many VCs Are Not Qualified To Advise Founders & Why Startups Can Innovate So Much Faster Than Incumbents
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2020
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Vinod Khosla is the Founder @ Khosla Ventures, one of the valley’s most renowned firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Square, Affirm, DoorDash, Impossible Foods and OpenDoor just to name a few. As for Vinod, he started his career as a Founder, founding Daisy Systems, a company that went on to IPO. Then in 1982, Vinod founded Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. In 1986, Vinod joined his longtime friend, John Doerr and became a General Partner @ KPCB where he helped incubate Juniper Networks and helped transform the telecommunications business with Cerent Corporation, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1999 for $7.2 billion.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Vinod made his way into the world of startups with the founding of Daisy and Sun Microsystems and how that led to his entry into the world of venture with KPCB and ultimately founding Khosla Ventures?
2.) How does Vinod feel about the term "venture assistance" today? Where does Vinod believe VCs can really drive value? How does Vinod allocate his time to drive as much value for the portfolio as possible? How does Vinod get involved when it comes to talent acquisition for the portfolio?
3.) Why does Vinod believe that most board members are not qualified to advise entrepreneurs today? Why does Vinod believe that most value is driven outside of the board? What can founders to do make their boards as efficient as possible? How does Vinod advise founders to determine which advice to take vs which to disregard?
4.) How does Vinod assess his own approach and attitude to risk today? What does Vinod believe are acceptable vs unacceptable risks in startups? How does Vinod believe the very best founders think about risk management? Does Vinod agree time is the biggest killer of startups? Why does Vinod believe startups are so much quicker to innovate than incumbents?
5.) Why does Vinod believe that tolerance for failure has gone down in Silicon Valley? How does Vinod determine between the realism of when something is not work and to give up vs the visionary persistence to see a project through to the very end? What experience of his own have really led his thinking here?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Vinod’s Fave Book: Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology, The Third Pillar
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Vinod on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and if you'd like to see all things behind the scenes here, you can on Instagram at H. |
| 0:05.8 | Stebbing's 1996 with 2Bs. We have some big travels this week, and so there'll be some fun content there. |
| 0:11.2 | But to the episode today, and my word, I've wanted to welcome Vinod Kostler to the show today. Vinod is the founder at Kosla Ventures, one of the Valley's most |
| 0:25.1 | renowned firms of the last decade, with a portfolio including the likes of Square, a firm, DoorDash, |
| 0:30.8 | Impossible Foods and Open Door, just to name a few. As for Vinod, he started his career as a founder, |
| 0:36.0 | founding Daisy Systems, a company that went on to IPO. |
| 0:39.2 | Then in 1982, Vinod founded Sun Microsystems, where he pioneered open systems and commercial risk processes. |
| 0:45.8 | In 1986, Vinod then joined his longtime friend John Doer and became a general partner at Kleiner Perkins, or KPCB, |
| 0:52.5 | where he helped incubate juniper Networks and helped transform |
| 0:55.2 | the telecommunications business with Surrent Corporation, which was ultimately acquired by Cisco Systems |
| 1:00.2 | in 1999 for $7.2 billion. I'd also want to say huge thank you to his wonderful partner, Sam here, |
| 1:06.2 | for providing some fantastic questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. |
| 1:10.8 | Before we move into the show |
| 1:11.8 | today, though, I wanted to take a moment to mention HelloSign, a great example of a company that |
| 1:16.1 | found success in building a product focused on user experience. HelloSign is an effortless e-signature |
| 1:21.4 | solution used by millions to securely send and request legally valid digital signatures and agreements. |
| 1:29.0 | I have to say, I absolutely love their design and workflow. It's just so intuitive. And they've raised a total of $16 million in funding |
| 1:33.7 | and recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million. Check out hellosign.com |
| 1:39.6 | forward slash 20VC to join thousands of companies and founders who value fast, secure and simple e-signatures. |
| 1:47.0 | And if HelloSign saves the day for signatures, him saves the day for wellness as the wellness |
| 1:51.3 | brand for men. Did you know that by the age of 50, 85% of men have significantly thinning hair? |
| 1:57.0 | And don't think I'm immune to this with my youth as approximately 25% of men begin experiencing effects of male pattern baldness before they turn 25. So we need to get our |
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