In this episode, Liz Zalman and Jerry Neumann (co-authors of Founder VS Investor) debate venture capital and startup dynamics. Liz is a 2x founder who’s raised over $100 million, and Jerry has over 25 years of experience as a venture capitalist with successful bets on companies like Datadog and The Trade Desk.
The authors banter on topics from fundraising, board meetings, the best role of VCs, and much more.
(0:00) Intro
(2:01) Founder vs Investor
(9:04) Two constituents that a VC is serving
(14:19) Structure of new book
(16:14) Balance between numbers and schmoozing
(21:11) Liz’s absolutes of fundraising
(28:31) Beyond the natural absorption of the market
(36:21) What is the purpose of a board?
(43:27) VCs as an asset class
(47:54) Feeling like a babysitter in board meetings
(59:34) Would you have bootstrapped it in retrospect?
(1:05:47) Should founders always remain CEOs?
(1:13:01) Absolutes of fundraising disagreements
(1:20:51) Talking to associates
(1:26:33) Capital as an effective means of scaling
(1:29:23) Sandy Lerner, founder of Cisco
(1:37:06) Did Logan learn anything from the founder's perspective?
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.