TWIST VC Roundtable: Startup Valuations, Secondary Markets & the YC Revenue Illusion | E2137
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2025
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today’s show: Alex moderates a TWIST VC Roundtable with Jason, Paige Doherty (Behind Genius), and Altimeter’s Megan Reynolds about the state of early-stage venture capital. They break down the rise of secondary markets as a key liquidity path for VCs, analyze the resurgence in M&A activity from major players like Meta, Databricks, and OpenAI, and question whether inflated ARR figures from YC startups are distorting valuations. Jason shares his year-zero investment thesis and offers tactical advice on secondary structuring and identifying high-quality revenue. Whether you're raising, investing, or building, this episode delivers essential insights into the evolving early-stage landscape.
Timestamps:
(0:00) Episode Teaser(1:28) Meet our panelists!(2:37) Will secondaries replace traditional M&A?(10:10) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups(14:28) Has M&A actually bounced back?(20:06) Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.(25:35) Secondary market advice, just for founders(30:10) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out today.(32:49) Why is it so hard for emerging managers to raise funds?
(38:28) Seed funds: the math is not mathing(52:07) Why early investors become “collateral damage”(56:31) The importance of revenue quality in early-stage startups(1:06:43) Quick Fire Question Round!
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Links from episode:
Altimeter: https://www.altimeter.com/homeBehind Genius: https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/
Follow Meghan:
X: https://x.com/MeghanKReynolds
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghankreynolds/
Follow Paige:X: https://x.com/paigefinnn
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigedoherty/
Follow Alex:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm
Follow Jason:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis
Thank you to our partners:
(10:10) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups
(20:06) Pilot - Visit https://www.pilot.com/twist and get $1,200 off your first year.
(30:10) Retool - Visit https://www.retool.com/twist and try it out today.
Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland
Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin
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Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com
Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Y Combinator strategy. |
| 0:02.3 | Sell to other Y Combinator companies. |
| 0:04.2 | Now, in some cases, startups are the best customer because startups will take a chance |
| 0:07.5 | on that. |
| 0:07.8 | That is actually really good advice. |
| 0:09.7 | But then the gamesmanship that happened was, you buy my product, I buy yours. |
| 0:14.1 | Can I get five people to buy mine and people kind of created these little round robins |
| 0:18.8 | that I don't want to say it's unethical, |
| 0:22.2 | but it's unethical. |
| 0:23.9 | Payed. |
| 0:24.7 | Thoughts. |
| 0:26.5 | I'm going to throw bombs. |
| 0:27.5 | I don't care. |
| 0:28.2 | You know, |
| 0:28.7 | throw bombs. |
| 0:29.5 | I don't care. |
| 0:30.1 | I'm already rich. |
| 0:31.2 | I'm already on my fourth fund. |
| 0:33.1 | If I can't raise another fund, I can just use my own money. |
| 0:35.9 | I don't raise another fund, I can just use my own money. I don't care. I'm going to be Bill Gurley after dark. |
| 0:38.7 | I know, but I want to give Paige a chance here to stand up and get and get whacked. |
| 0:42.8 | Paige, you want to incinerate your career and relationships go. |
... |
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