How to Become a VC with Haseeb Qureshi | Layer Zero
Bankless
Bankless
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2022
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
First, Haseeb Qureshi was a Texas Hold’em poker player. Then Haseeb learned how to code and worked as a software engineer for Airbnb. He went down the crypto rabbithole and is now the managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, as well as an accomplished writer and coder.
When Haseeb has come on the podcast previously, we covered theses and mental models. Today on Layer Zero, we explore the dynamics of being a venture capitalist in Web3. How does one find a path to becoming a VC?
We dive into what to look for in an internal team and external portfolio companies, as well as proper form for selling investments in a credible and honorable way. Haseeb’s long term approach to Web3 is salient as always, and this episode is must-listen if you are interested in becoming a crypto VC.
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Topics Covered:
0:00 Intro
4:30 Extremely Bullish and Bearish
9:04 Play-to-Earn Gaming
14:00 Poker & Venture Capital
17:15 Positive Sum Games
20:20 How to Add Value
26:22 How to be a Good Investor
32:09 Haseeb’s Pitch to Founders
34:22 How to Sell Tokens
39:45 Fad or Generational Wealth?
45:08 Near Protocols and Alt-L1s
50:00 VCs vs Retail
57:30 How to Take Responsibility
1:02:44 Airdrops
1:09:04 Fulfilling Web3’s Promises
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Resources:
Haseeb on Twitter
https://twitter.com/hosseeb?s=20
Dragonfly Capital
https://www.dcp.capital/
Bankless Podcast 103 with Haseeb
https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/-103-blockchains-are-cities-haseeb
“Blockchains are Cities”
https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/blockchains-are-cities-564327013f86
“Why Decentralization Isn’t As Important As You Think”
https://haseebq.com/why-decentralization-isnt-as-important-as-you-think/
“I’m Worried No One Will Care About Rollups”
https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/im-worried-nobody-will-care-about-rollups-554bc743d4f1
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Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Layers0. Layers0 is a podcast of unscripted conversations with the people that |
| 0:11.6 | make up the Ethereum community. Crypto is built by code but is composed by people. An |
| 0:16.4 | Asian visual member of the crypto community has their own story to tell. CypherPunks understood |
| 0:21.4 | that the code they write impacts the people that use it, and Layers0 focuses on the people |
| 0:25.1 | behind the code because Ethereum is people all the way down and it always has been. Today |
| 0:29.6 | on Layers0 we're talking with Hiseeb Kureshi of Dragonfly Capital and Hiseeb we've |
| 0:34.1 | had him on the bankless podcast before but always to talk about some sort of a thesis or |
| 0:38.2 | mental model and instead in this particular episode we talk about just the dynamics of |
| 0:43.6 | being a venture capitalist in Web3. So if you are interested in learning what's it like |
| 0:49.5 | to be a VC and also what it might be like for you to find a path into becoming a VC this |
| 0:55.5 | might be the episode for you. I think everyone at least most people when they get into |
| 0:59.5 | the world of crypto always kind of daydream about like one day they'll be a part of a venture |
| 1:04.1 | capital fund and one day they'll be on the research desk and I certainly had that dream |
| 1:08.1 | myself and kind of growing through the industry I realized I wasn't necessary for me but if that |
| 1:12.6 | is what you are interested in this episode is going to be perfect. We talk about what it's |
| 1:16.5 | like to establish relationships with your portfolio companies we talk about what it's like to add |
| 1:21.5 | value to portfolio companies. We also talk about the timing on when it becomes time to actually |
| 1:27.0 | sell your investments and how you credibly and honorably actually find liquidity |
| 1:32.1 | on the projects that you've had relationships with and what that means and we also get into the |
| 1:36.4 | concept of airdrops whether airdrops are going to be here for the long term or maybe they were |
| 1:41.0 | just kind of a 2020 to 2021 thing and really what it means to have a long term thesis in Web3 |
| 1:47.2 | versus just kind of looking at what's going on in the present moment. So a really wide range |
... |
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