E16: Lessons From Co-Founding First Round, Idea Lab, and B Capital with Howard Morgan
"Turpentine VC" | Venture Capital and Investing
Introduction
In this chapter, Howard Morgan shares his extensive experience in venture capital and offers advice on picking the right people to work with, navigating trade-offs, and making predictions for the future of venture capital.
Today we're joined by Howard Morgan to dive into his illustrious career in venture. He discusses the firms he helped start, Renaissance Technologies, Idealab, First Round Capital, and now at B Capital. Morgan also highlights the importance of global investing and the challenges it presents. They also discuss frontier areas including genomics, bioinformatics, longevity, and space technology. Morgan reflects on lessons learned and mistakes made throughout his career and offers advice for emerging managers. If you’re looking for an ERP platform, check out our sponsor, NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/turpentine
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Check out Erik's new show Request for Startups featuring a rotating cast of founders and investors (including Dan) sharing their requests for startups they want to exist in the world, and also their stories of navigating the idea maze in different sectors so founders don’t have to reinvent the wheel anymore. The first episode is out now - we over better dating apps, references as a service, and WeWork for productivity
- Watch and Subscribe on Substack: https://requestforstartups.substack.com/p/receipt-based-dating-reference-checks
- Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/request-for-startups-with-erik-torenberg/id1728659822
- Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/739L1LR32QI2XyoZlRh5nv
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We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.
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SPONSOR: HARMONIC | NETSUITE
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Join our free newsletter to get Erik's top 3 insights from each episode: https://turpentinevc.substack.com/
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RELATED SHOWS:
If you like Turpentine VC, check out our show The Limited Partner with David Weisburd, where David talks to the investors behind the investors: https://link.chtbl.com/thelimitedpartner
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X / TWITTER:
@HLMorgan (Howard)
@BCapitalGroup (B Capital)
@eriktorenberg (Erik)
@TurpentineVC
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Intro
(00:50) How Howard started his venture capital and investing career
(13:45) On building a global firm
(17:16) Angles of building a venture firm that Howard is excited about
(19:43) Sponsor - Turpentine
(20:46) AI is in everything
(22:57) What Howard would have done differently
(27:02) On not going multistage route
(30:35) Asset class: Is now a good time to invest or not?
(34:05) Venture capital in the next 5-10 years
(37:26) On not going accelerator route
(40:43) Starting small then going multistage
(43:38) Howard's approach if he were to start over an emerging fund - would he go for the same verticals or no?
(45:14) It's really tough to raise money right now
(46:12) Howard's thoughts on accelerators and incubators
(47:32) Trade offs between venture as it relates to the macro
(49:55) What inspires Howard to keep investing and working?
(51:08) Will venture change much in the next 30-40 years?
(52:52) On picking the right partners - what's Howard's superpower there?
(54:10) Wrap
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