ANGEL: Venrock’s Bryan Roberts on 25 years in VC, hitting wins early, avoiding bad habits | E1665
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Jason sits down with Bryan Roberts of Venrock for another episode of Angel Season 7! They discuss Bryan’s first bets (2:22) and his perception of the dot com bubble. (14:38) The two also dive into topics like creating optionality as a startup (21:24), bad habits in VC (28:49) and Theranos. (36:18) To wrap the show, Bryan and Jason discuss disagreeing with founders (39:07) and the psychology of placing bets! (44:33)
(0:00) Jason kicks off the show
(2:22) Bryan’s first investment: Illumina
(8:52) LinkedIn Jobs - Go to http://linkedin.com/angel and post your first job for free
(10:16) Bryan’s second investment: Athena Health
(14:38) Bryan’s experience during the dot-com bubble
(19:54) Merge - Get started by integrating up to 5 linked accounts for free today at merge.dev/twist
(21:24) Creating optionality in a startup
(25:30) Understanding your leaders
(28:49) Bad habits in venture
(34:55) Velocity Growth - Get $500 off your first growth audit or monthly package now with promo code TWIST at velocitygrowth.com/twist
(36:18) Bryan’s thoughts on Theranos
(39:07) Diligence and disagreements with founders
(44:33) The psychology of placing bets + advice for founders
FOLLOW Bryan: https://twitter.com/brobertsvc
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis
FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, everybody, welcome back to season seven of Angel. |
| 0:03.0 | Yes, this is the season where we're talking to what I call |
| 0:06.4 | three cycle investors. |
| 0:07.9 | This means they had to start their investing career |
| 0:10.3 | during the Dockham bubble and then go through |
| 0:13.2 | the 2000s web 2.0 period and this last boom bus cycle. |
| 0:18.2 | The longest one of my career, 14 years we were in an up market |
| 0:21.0 | and then obviously 2022, you know, |
| 0:24.4 | was a brutal year for all of us. |
| 0:26.6 | And we're trying to ask these individuals |
| 0:28.4 | who've been through three cycles. |
| 0:29.9 | What do you do as the cycle restarts? |
| 0:32.1 | What lessons do you take from it? |
| 0:33.3 | It's really hard to find these people. |
| 0:34.5 | There aren't that many of them available. |
| 0:36.8 | Because most BC's, they last one or two cycles. |
| 0:39.6 | They hit a home run or they don't and they quit |
| 0:41.8 | or they hit a home run or two and they quit |
| 0:44.7 | and they call it rich. |
| 0:46.0 | Very few of them will stick with it for three cycles |
| 0:48.2 | because that means you've been working for three decades or so. |
| 0:51.4 | So on today's episode, we have Brian Roberts. |
... |
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