EP 18: Parker Conrad, Sequoia’s Leaked Deck, a Different Kind of Crisis and VCs vs. Hedge Funds

The Logan Bartlett Show

Sigfig Um, O Tha Company

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I was there for about seven years of slow grinding failure. I've just constantly been, you know, months away from not being able to make pay roll. And so i had this view that like vises, it was impossible to build a company that would ever fit into the thing that investors wanted to invest in. So then after that, h benefits, what was the original idea, idea for benefits? Well, the idea sentifits for senifits was really, ‘i had all this trouble raising money from v cs, and when when we met with them to raise money, everyone there was always something that was sort of a a theme that they were investing in

(00:08) Welcome Zach Weinberg

(00:55) Andreessen Horowitz/Flow Carbon

(10:41) Crypto Litigation Risk

(16:27) Venture vs. Hedge Funds

(22:25) Sequoia’s Leaked Deck

(27:04) Different Kind of Crisis

(28:20) Tech Companies Had It Easy

(30:21) Uber vs. Lyft

(34:16) Down Rounds

(40:27) High Valuation Doesn’t Mean Good Employment

(45:31) 2008 Work Force

(49:50) Parker Conrad Intro

(50:13) Working on Harvard’s Crimson

(52:45) Left School for a Little Rock Newspaper

(55:13) Cancer Diagnosis

(57:16) Starting SigFig

(58:52) Raising Money Pre-2013

(1:05:29) Challenges in Automating

(1:08:36) The Public Narrative

(1:10:36) Forced Out of Zenefits

(1:19:50) VC’s Role in Narrative

(1:22:59) What Do Founders Want From VCs?

(1:25:46) Do VCs Increase Success?

(1:30:09) Discussing Rippling

(1:38:16) Building a Compound Company

(1:46:56) Hiring People With a Chip On Their Shoulder

(1:49:02) Most Important Job of a CEO

(1:51:05) Raised the Next Round

(1:54:47) Determining the Valuation

(1:58:09) San Francisco

Follow the show:

https://twitter.com/cartoonavatars

https://www.instagram.com/cartoonavatars/

https://www.tiktok.com/@cartoonavatars

Follow the host:

https://twitter.com/loganbartlett

Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky

Produced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad Assir

Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

Music: Griff Lawson

Links:

Sequoia’s Leaked Deck - https://fortune.com/2022/05/25/sequoia-capital-slide-dek-warning-to-founders-downturn/

Zack’s Twitter Battle - https://twitter.com/zachweinberg/status/1527107650911186944?s=20&t=DN_FdiP-WW6rDwmHNkJPTA

Parker Conrad Discussing Chip on Their Shoulder - https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/18/parker-conrad-i-like-working-with-people-who-have-a-chip-on-their-shoulder/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAqlH6GlRJ8EA-ptL8cD-XPUGeoXNRqKe9l_Qegi--qyyHZQrMTJ8bwlg47vSJ9rkc2eaJlUKyMvb3wA-Rw2PjFYJl5gUwZfO0WPMLF-tRT_lVDYq_uoEnC29d6L45AlVFRTnPJqbCPEJM0_ICBeqES_kZ8t5gUQkVg7BwMKsGs7

Chesa Boudin and San Francisco - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/chesa-boudin-recall-san-francisco-crime/629907/

Andreessen Horowitz/Flow Carbon - https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2022/05/25/a16z-crypto-record-4th-fund-doubles-down-on-web3-amid-market-crash/?sh=7f704b7f34ff

VCs Driving Down Valuation Narrative - https://twitter.com/bgurley/status/1528535418076995584

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

🎙 Listen to the show

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-logan-bartlett-show/id1606770839

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1

Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9zb0hJZkhWbg

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow

🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

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.