E38: “Angel” Podcast: David Cowan, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners shares insights on owning up to his anti-portfolio, understanding sunk cost, top traits for becoming a VC & best Founders & CEOs he’s ever worked with

This Week in Startups

Jason Calacanis

Technology

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2020

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

0:53 Jason intros Bessemer's David Cowan
1:54 David explains how he got his start in Venture capital in 1992
4:22 What does Bessemer look for in a potential investor today? How has VC hiring and demographics have changed over time?
8:10 David gives an anecdote about understanding "sunk cost"
14:12 David explains how and why Bessemer started owning their anti-portfolio
16:03 Stories on passing on Facebook, Tesla, Google, PayPal, Napster & Youtube
19:13 What made Youtube standout from Napster from a regulatory perspective
24:05 David describes hearing the Twitch pitch for the first time
26:00 Consumer vs. Enterprise investing
29:42 Sales-driven culture
33:31 When is the right time to sell a company?
41:15 Anti-tech backlash... is it justified?
47:38 Who is the best Founder & CEO David has ever worked with?
52:10 Meeting Wade Foster and investing in Zapier
55:29 Are growth & product people making the best VCs today?
58:53 Thoughts on Quantum Computing
1:02:19 How is David investing in Robotics?
1:09:58 Jason ends the show by showing the trailer to David's Silicon Valley mockumentary "Bubbleproof"

Transcript

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0:49.0	business at Net Suite.com slash Angel.
0:52.0	Hey everybody welcome to another episode of Angel.
0:55.4	This is season four and we've had an amazing, amazing season.
0:59.7	Episode one, Sarah Cannon from Index Venture, she brought it. Dan Rose was on episode 2.
1:03.8	He's at Co2 and started their $700,800 million early stage
1:07.8	fund.
1:08.6	One of the only people I know, actually the only person
1:10.9	I've ever met, who worked both for Jeff Basesus and
1:13.5	Zuckerberg if you haven't seen that episode go ahead and check it out.
1:16.7	George Zachary my friend the low-key legend of Silicon
1:23.3	from CRV was on the pod for episode three and Sarah Tavil the latest partner over at
1:26.6	Benchmark which is a really hard firm to become a partner at they all have equal economics
1:30.6	and it's a very difficult seat to get is on episode four we were just
	...

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