On this episode, we speak with Ted Maidenberg, co-founding partner of Tribe Capital, which he launched with his partners Arjun Sethi and Jonathan Hsu. I’m especially excited to bring this episode to you as Ted draws from experiences working within a Corporate VC (Time Warner), a traditional VC (USVP), and now has co-founded two firms known for their innovative approaches to investing —- Social Capital in 2011 with Chamath Palihapitiya and Mamoon Hamid, and most recently Tribe.

Ted has also been part of investing teams that count investments such as Slack, Carta, and Survey Monkey.

In this episode, Ted and I discuss the following topics:

* Starting Social Capital after the global financial crisis

* Starting and fundraising for a new firm (Tribe) in a very noisy market.

* The importance of trust in venture teams, the role of partnership dynamics, and maintaining culture.

* Their use of a data driven quantitative framework to evaluate companies through Cohort behavior and how this gives them an edge relative to heuristic only methods.

* The importance of getting ownership of a company early, and how it impacts reserve strategy.

* Their productized use of SPV’s in driving portfolio construction strategy, adding value to companies, and providing a unique return model for SPV and Fund LP’s.

* Are there any other innovations that can/should happen in VC?

* Ted’s advice for those that are just launching firms today.

Mentioned in this episode:

* The Magic Eight Ball

* Social Capital and Tribe Capital

I’d love to know what you took away from my conversations with Ted Maidenberg; Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com