Aydin Senkut on Why Valuation Lags Traction by Years
Felicis targets companies capable of delivering at least 100x top-line growth from entry, a threshold required to outpace public equity returns before broad market discovery.
Theme
Venture capital: what the top podcasts are saying.
How venture investors pick, price, and back companies. 44 write-ups from 10 shows so far, the newest from November 2026.
44 write-ups10 shows
The short version
The ten-year venture capital fund structure is breaking under the weight of delayed public listings. Capital concentration is forcing mega-funds to chase rare decacorns while ignoring profitable software businesses, leaving founders to weigh the steep cost of taking early seed checks.
Top talking points
Ten-year venture funds are functionally obsolete
Private technology companies remain private for over 12 years, breaking traditional return timelines. Benjamin Black states that marketing a 10-year closed-end vehicle acts as structural misrepresentation, while the How I Invest show notes that managers missing the 2021 peak became fee-collecting zombie funds.
- Why the 10-Year Venture Capital Fund Model Is Broken How I Invest · Aug 23
- Jack Selby Says the Venture Capital Cull Is Only in Inning Two How I Invest · Nov 8
- Extended Private Horizon: AI's 'Cis-Apocalypse' for Non-AI SaaS How I Invest · Jul 26
Raising early seed capital traps founders
Accepting $1 million creates an obligation to return $10 million in value. Jason Lemkin warns that taking early money traps founders, since buying out an investor who owns 30% at a 6x cash flow multiple consumes two full years of total company profits.
- Taking $1M from Investors Means Giving $10M Back How I Built This · Oct 4
- Why Jason Lemkin Now Calls Seed Funding a Trap 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Oct 25
Venture sourcing now relies on empirical data
Venture firms increasingly track digital breadcrumbs and internal meeting logs to measure deal access. Nnamdi Okike treats early-stage investing as an empirical discipline, adopting outbound tracking playbooks to evaluate behavioral markers like founder resilience.
- Jerry Ye on Auditing VC Deal Access With CRM Data How I Invest · Nov 15
- Nnamdi Okike on Data-Driven Sourcing and Founder Metrics How I Invest · Oct 4
- Byron Ling on Why AI Replaces VC Sourcing but Not Judgment How I Invest · Sep 6
Most interesting insights
SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic hold roughly $5.2 trillion in private value, eclipsing the $4 trillion total generated across private markets over the previous twenty years.
From Why AngelList Built a 40-Act Fund for Private Venture, How I Invest · Oct 25
Passing on deals strictly due to round pricing produced the firm's costliest regrets, as both skipped investments eventually grew into multi-billion-dollar and ten-billion-dollar companies.
From Leo Polovets: Passing on Price Was Susa's Costliest Mistake, How I Invest · Oct 18
Specialized robotic arms beat general-purpose bipedal humanoids on unit cost and speed for repetitive industrial tasks like pallet packing and bolting nuts.
From Leo Polovets on Why Humanoid Robotics Traps Early Venture Capital, How I Invest · Oct 18
Managing partner Nnamdi Okike draws on five fund vintages at 645 Ventures to warn that raising $50M seed rounds ruins early-stage operating discipline.
From Why Mega Seed Rounds Damage Startups, How I Invest · Oct 4
People quoted on venture capital
Latest write-ups
Jerry Ye on Auditing VC Deal Access With CRM Data
Venture capital deal access can be audited by matching public fundraising announcements against internal CRM data, email logs, and calendar invites.
Venture Capital Is Eating Public Markets as Listings Fall to 4,000
Over the last three decades, the count of US publicly listed companies dropped by half, falling from more than 8,000 to roughly 4,000.
Jack Selby Says the Venture Capital Cull Is Only in Inning Two
Thirteen years of zero-interest-rate policy funneled excessive capital into venture investing, creating an oversupply of sub-par managers who failed to distribute cash.
Sequoia Killed Partner Meetings to Move Faster
Sequoia Capital closed its London outpost and combined its seed, venture, and growth investment teams into a single unit operating from the United States.
Jack Selby on Chasing 500 Million Dollar Exits Instead of Outliers
Jack Selby buys 10% to 20% equity in non-coastal Series A rounds for an average check of $3 million through Copper Sky.
Why Adams Street Ranks Track Record Last in VC
The institutional venture market exploded from roughly 500 firms to more than 4,000, diluting access and eroding baseline returns across the asset class.
Scott Kupor on Why a16z Ignored Venture Taboos
Venture capital treated self-promotion as a sign of weakness; Andreessen Horowitz broke that norm by applying enterprise software go-to-market strategies to venture capital.
Gavin Ezekowitz on Why Venture Indexing Destroys Convexity
Venture capital functions strictly as an asymmetric return engine, not a capital preservation vehicle like treasuries, real estate, or private equity buyouts.
Why Mega-Funds Ignore Profitable Non-AI SaaS
Harry Stebbings highlighted a software company generating $20 million in annual recurring revenue, growing 600% to 700% profitably, that received zero interest from venture capital firms because it lacked an AI narrative.
Sameer Dholakia: Why the $1 Billion VC Fund Is Dead
Bessemer raised a $5.75 billion capital pool, allocating $1.75 billion specifically to seed and early-stage investments to secure enough shots on goal against rising entry prices.
Erik Syvertsen: Early Venture Is an Access Game
Venture capital splits into two distinct asset classes at seed versus growth stage, requiring completely different investment playbooks.