It's dangerous to do non-consensus investing.

Like that's a dangerous idea.

If you're alone in your view, you may just be missing something.

Eventually you have to get to consensus.

If you're dependent on capital markets, it's very hard to keep the company alive if nobody wants to fund it.

Peter Till once had a line which was like the faster and higher the upround, the more you should invest because it's very hard to keep the company alive if nobody wants to fund it. Peter Till once had a line, which was like, the faster and higher the upround, the more

you should invest because it's working.

Most companies fail from indigestion, not starvation.

Is non-consensus investing overrated, or is it still the secret to venture returns?

Today on the podcast, I'm joined by A16Z general partner Martine

Casado and Leo Polovitz from Humba Ventures to unpack a debate that lit up Venture X.

Should founders and VCs chase consensus or run from it? They explore with consensus even means

and practice, how market efficiencies shape venture outcomes, the dangers for founders for being too far outside of consensus,

and why some of the biggest winners in tech history look non-consensus at first.

Let's get into it.

So, Martine, it looks like you've helped spark a little bit of an existential crisis on venture Twitter.

And I thought we'd all come here to talk about it.

Great. Super. I'm still excited to be here. Why don't we recap, Martin, from your perspective. What were you saying in that tweet? What were you trying to say in that tweet? Then we can get into the great back and forth that you and Leo had and get into the conversation. So let me paraphrase the tweet. the paraphrased version of the tweet is it's dangerous to do non-consensus investing.

Like, that's a dangerous idea.

The impetus of the tweet, which by the way, wasn't well thought out, which I think a lot of the viral treats happen to be not well-thought-out is, you know, I've been an investor for 10 years.

I've done almost 200 investments,

either as like running the fund or being directly involved. And it seems being blinkered to

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