Spark Capital

Nabeel Hyatt is a General Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the leading firms of the last decade with portfolio companies including Twitter, Anthropic, Coinbase, Affirm, Discord, Deel and more. In Todays Show with Nabeel Hyatt We Discuss: 1. The Rules of Investing: What have been Nabeel's biggest lessons on price sensitivity? When did he not pay up and with the benefit of hindsight, wish he had of paid up? How important is ownership to Nabeel and Spark? How does Nabeel think about reserve investing and doubling down? Why does Nabeel not engage in secondary markets? How does Nabeel think about when is the right time to sell? Why does Nabeel think the majority of market sizing is total BS? 2. The Venture Landscape: Run by Principles and Broken: Why does Nabeel believe this generation of AI investing will require a different mindset to the one that made VCs successful over the last decade? Why does Nabeel believe that venture is currently run by principals and associates? Why is that such a problem? Why does Nabeel believe that the majority of venture firms today are dead but do not know it yet? What does Nabeel believe happens to the mega multi-stage firms who have raised billions and billions? 3. How to Win the VC Game in a World of AI: Infrastructure, models, apps: where does Nabeel believe the most value will accrue in the next decade of AI investing? What does Nabeel mean when he says there are three categories of AI apps today? Where does Nabeel believe the most valuable will be built? Does Nabeel believe Deepseek hurt or helped the future for Anthropic? How could Anthropic be a $100BN company from this point? What does no one see about the next 10 years of AI that everyone should see?

Nabeel Hyatt

General Partner

Spark Capital

SaaStr 788: The Real Data on What it Takes to Go Big and Eventually IPO with Meritech Capital Join Alex Clayton and Kathy Choi from Meritech Capital as they delve into the path to IPO for SaaS companies. With 25 years of experience and over 60 IPOs, they explore the size, performance, qualitative factors, and post-IPO success metrics that matter. Learn essential considerations for going public, from creating a compelling story to demonstrating durable growth, operational excellence, and predictable business outcomes. They also provide case studies of successful companies like HubSpot and CrowdStrike, underscoring the importance of durable, long-term revenue growth and strategic multi-product approaches. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alright everybody in SaaS, this is it. The biggest, best, most action-packed SaaS + AI event of the year—SaaStr Annual 2025—is coming this May. Three full days. 10,000+ SaaS and AI leaders and more tactical, no-fluff content than you'll find anywhere else. If you want to scale faster—$10M, $50M, $100M ARR and beyond—you need the right playbooks, the right connections and the right people in your corner. And SaaStr Annual is where it all happens. We'll have 100's of Legendary speakers from companies like Snowflake, HubSpot, OpenAI, Canva, and more. More networking than you can handle—meet your next investor, co-founder, or biggest deal. A New AI Demo & Pitch Stage— with your chance to win up to $5M in funding! So don't wait—grab your tickets now at SaaStrAnnual.com with my code jason100 to save $100 on tickets before prices go up. That's jason 100 at saastrannual.com See you in May! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you know what would make your customer service helpdesk dramatically better? Dumping it and switching to Intercom. But, youʼre not quite ready to make that change. We get it! Thatʼs why Fin, the worldʼs leading AI customer service agent, is now available on every helpdesk. Fin can instantly resolve up to 80% of your tickets, Which makes your customers happier. And you can get off the customer service rep hiring treadmill. Fin by Intercom. Named the #1 AI Agent in G2ʼs Winter Report. Learn more at : inter.com/saastr --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alex Clayton

Partner

Spark CapitalMeritech Capital

Kathy Choi

Partner

Meritech Capital

(00:00) Intro (02:57) Introducing Shaun Maguire (09:52) DARPA to cyber security (15:41) Paying in Bitcoin (17:27) Wife’s family fleeing their country for safety (27:27) Crypto in autocratic nations (31:20) Middlemen (35:30) Investing in equity (36:28) Blockchain video games (37:36) Uniswap (40:33) Future use cases (42:56) Following where young people are excited (49:27) Introducing Andrew Parker (51:15) How Logan and Andrew met (55:12) Andrew’s background (57:30) Telehealth – MD Live (58:52) The idea for Papa (1:02:19) State of health insurance (1:04:12) Pals (1:07:17) Papa members (1:11:54) Size of Papa (1:13:40) Justifying Papa to health plans (1:16:41) Impacting outcomes (1:19:23) Market of Medicare vs Medicare Advantage (1:21:49) Family care (1:24:07) Employer healthcare plans (1:29:00) Fundraising (1:35:31) Miami tech (1:38:27) Papa.com (1:42:13) Closing   🎙 Listen to the show  Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb... Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...   Follow on Socials  📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/cartoonavatars 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/cartoonavatars 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@cartoonavatars   About the Show  A Saturday morning podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett (Partner and Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures) covering the tech news with his friends and other people with industry expertise. 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 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow 📱 X - 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 of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member. Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.

Shaun Maguire

Partner

Sequoia Capital

Andrew Parker

General Partner

Spark CapitalPapa

Alex Clayton is a Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the leading firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Slack, Postmates, Oculus, Cruise, Twitter, the list goes on. As for Alex, he co-led Spark's investments in Pendo and Outreach and then led Spark's investments in Justworks, Braze (Appboy) and JFrog. Before Spark, Alex spent three years at Redpoint Ventures as a senior associate where he sourced or was actively involved in the firm's investments in Duo Security, JustWorks, RelateIQ (Salesforce.com), Infer, Lifesize and Sourcegraph. Prior to joining Redpoint, Alex was in the TMT investment-banking division of Goldman Sachs where he worked with Intuit, Yelp, SanDisk, and others. Fun fact, in the past Alex played on the ATP World Tennis Tour, competing in the U.S. Open and many other ATP events. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Alex made his way from the world of investment banking with Goldman Sachs to one of the valley rising stars in the world of enterprise investing? What were Alex's biggest takeaways from his time at Redpoint and working with Tom Tunguz? 2.) How does Alex think about and approach sourcing today? How does Alex find most of his deals? How does Alex breakdown both thesis and network driven sourcing? How does sourcing at growth differ to sourcing at the early stage? If Alex has to meet founders when they are not raising, what does Alex advise founders who are told that you should not "always be raising"? 3.) How does Alex think about market sizing and evaluation today? What does he mean when he says he closely examines "market depth"? How does Alex determine whether a company has the ability to scale from a niche into a much larger TAM? What are the risks Alex is willing vs not willing to take when it comes to market? 4.) How does Alex think about competitor analysis when evaluating an opportunity today? In a world of almost infinite capital, does Alex believe that cash alone is a significant moat for competition? In customer calls when they discuss competition, what excites Alex to hear? How does Alex structure those customer reference calls? 5.) Alex has studied some of the best in class when it comes to SaaS, what do the best in class look like when it comes to: 1.) Quota attainment. 2.) Payback period. 3.) Net dollar retention and churn? 4.) Capital efficiency? Growth rate? Ultimately, what does Alex believe that it takes to go public having studied so many S1s? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Alex's Fave Book: Zero to One by Peter Thiel Alex's Most Recent Investment: Braze As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Alex on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Alex Clayton

Partner

Spark CapitalMeritech Capital

Andrew Parker is a General Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Slack, Oculus, Medium, PostMates, Cruise (acq $1Bn) the list goes on. As for Andrew, he has led Spark's investments in Carta, Kik, PanoramaEducation, Socratic, Splash, Particle and Quantopian. Prior to joining Spark in 2010, Andrew was a member of the investment team at Union Square Ventures. Before becoming an investor, Andrew did UI design and user-experience testing at Homestead Technologies and was a web developer at Groupspace.org. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Andrew made his way from UI design and user-experience testing to joining the investment team @ USV and then joining Spark? 2.) Andrew credits USV with 2 big takeaways that influence how he invests today, what are they? What were his big lessons from working alongside Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham? How did this experience change and improve his thinking of developing and investing in a thesis?? 3.) Question from Henry Ward @ eShares: What is the most important quality in a CEO? How does Andrew balance between founder naivety and realism? What are the signs that although a vision is present, a founder is also realistic? 4.) What is the most important quality in being a board member to a CEO? How has Henry @ eShares constructed his board to allow them to have maximum impact in the internal operations of the company? How does this further improve board meeting? What does Andrew view as his biggest strengths and weaknesses as a board member? 5.) How does Andrew think about pricing and how the importance of pricing changes along the investing spectrum from seed to later stage? What does an investor's response to price reveal about the proposition? How does Andrew analyze capital allocation on reserve financing? What does this decision-making process look like? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Andrew's Fave Book: Snow Crash Andrew's Fave Blog: Money Stuff by Matt Levine Andrew's Most Recent Investment: Particle As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Andrew on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. NatureBox Unlimited snack plans offer all you can eat snacks for one fixed price per employee. Naturebox use simple ingredients you can trust to create bold flavors you can't find anywhere else. All NatureBox snacks are free from artificial junk and variety is endless with options from sweet or savory to vegan or gluten-free. Simply choose the plan that fits your team's unique snacking habits and select any of NatureBox's time-saving add-on's. And beyond Unlimited snacks, you'll receive perks such as free kitchen setup, no contracts, a dedicated account manager and more. Simply click here to and use the offer code VC20 to get 20% of your first Naturebox month. Leesa is the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Leesa have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10-inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com to start the New Year with better nights sleep!

Andrew Parker

General Partner

Spark CapitalPapa

Kevin Thau is a General Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Slack, Oculus, Medium, PostMates, Cruise (acq $1Bn) the list goes on. As for Kevin, he has led investments in Medium, LOLA, CTRL Labs, Aura and Haven. Prior to Spark, Kevin enjoyed an incredible 7 years at Twitter, when he joined they had less than 20 employees and 1m users and he carried roles such as Director of Mobile Products and VP of Business & Corporate Development. Before Twitter, Kevin was employee number 7 at Software.com (which became Openwave) where he helped ship the first mobile browser, mobile messaging services and mobile websites. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kevin made his way into VC with Spark having spent years in operations with Twitter and Silicon Graphics? 2.) What were Kevin's biggest lessons from watching the hyper-scaling of Twitter? What are the most prominent challenges companies face at this stage? What were his takeaways from working with product visionaries like Jack Dorsey & Sonos' John MacFarlane? 3.) As an operator turned investor, how does Kevin characterise his approach to working with portfolio companies? What were Kevin's early VC learnings from his discussions with Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet on VC profile and psychology? 4.) Why does Kevin believe that VC is a game of "maximizing serendipity"? How does Kevin assess personal time allocation, today as a VC? What has Kevin found most challenging since making the move to VC from operations? 5.) How does Kevin assess the consumer landscape at present? Does Kevin agree with Kirsten Green that "Amazon does more to make the market than crush it"? Why does Kevin find Instagram such a special tool for evaluating brands? What does he look for in the Instagram profiles of these emerging brands that really excites him? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Kevin's Fave Book: Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game Kevin's Most Recent Investment: CTRL-Labs As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kevin on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. NatureBox Unlimited snack plans offer all you can eat snacks for one fixed price per employee. Naturebox use simple ingredients you can trust to create bold flavors you can't find anywhere else. All NatureBox snacks are free from artificial junk and variety is endless with options from sweet or savory to vegan or gluten-free. Simply choose the plan that fits your team's unique snacking habits and select any of NatureBox's time-saving add-on's. And beyond Unlimited snacks, you'll receive perks such as free kitchen setup, no contracts, a dedicated account manager and more. Simply click here to and use the offer code VC20 to get 20% of your first Naturebox month. Leesa is the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Leesa have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10-inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com to start the New Year with better nights sleep!

Kevin Thau

General Partner

Spark Capital

Spark Capital General Partner Megan Quinn talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Casey Newton about the evolving balance between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Quinn, an investor in the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, explains why she believes digital currencies like bitcoin are here to stay and what needs to happen before we start treating them like real money. She recounts how she got promoted to become Square's director of product two weeks after joining the company in a different role and how Kleiner Perkins investor Mary Meeker inspired her to become a venture capitalist. Plus: Why HR is "one of the most critical and difficult roles to hire at any company." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Megan Quinn

General Partner

Spark Capital

Spark Capital General Partner Bijan Sabet talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about being a venture capitalist based on the East Coast, and how he became an early investor in companies like Twitter, Tumblr and Cruise. Sabet also discusses why he has become more politically vocal under President Trump, and urges tech CEOs to follow the lead of their employees in speaking out; the answer on all sides, he says, is to let more voices be heard. Sabet also talks about the failure of the personal-drone company he backed, Lily; and the blunt truth about venture capital — even good VCs are wrong most of the time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bijan Sabet

General Partner

Spark Capital

Nabeel Hyatt is a venture partner at Spark Capital where he invests in entrepreneurs using that rare combination of design and technology to transform markets. He is currently on the board of Spark Capital's investments in Cruise (acquired by General Motors), Fig, Harmonix, Postmates, Proletariat, and Thalmic Labs. Nabeel was previously cofounder and CEO of Conduit Labs, which was sold to Zynga in 2010, where he then became General Manager up through the IPO. Prior to that he was variously cofounder, head of product, and CEO at a variety of hardware and software companies including MIT Media Lab spin-out Ambient Devices, Teamtalk (BSkyB), and Interphase. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Nabeel make his way into the world of VC? 2.) What are the biggest lessons Nabeel can apply from his time in the trenches to being a VC at Spark? How has his investment strategy and decision making changed over time? 3.) What were the biggest takeaways for Nabeel as an observer and investor in Oculus? 4.) What is the story behind Spark's investment in Cruise (recently acquired by GM)? How did Nabeel come to meet Kyle and the team? What was the product like? How did it evolve? 5.) What does Cruise's acquisition mean for the autonomous car industry? What are the inherent challenges for the industry as a whole? How will they be overcome and what timeline are you placing on the industry to come into fruition? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Nabeel's Fave Blog: AVC Nabeel's Most Recent Investment: Fig As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Nabeel on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Nabeel Hyatt

General Partner

Spark Capital

Bijan Sabet is General Partner @ Spark Capital where he primarily invests in digital canvases and online communities for people at work and at play. Bijan led early investments for Spark in the likes of Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, OMGPOP and Runkeeper just to name a few. Before becoming an investor, Bijan led product management and business development at GameLogic (acquired by Scientific Games), Moxi Digital (acquired by Digeo) and WebTV Networks (acquired by Microsoft Corporation). In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Bijan make his way into the world of VC? 2.) How did the Twitter and Tumblr deals come about? What made you say yes? 3.) Looking at Bijan's thesis, is it true that Bijan has a preference for first time founders? What are the commonalities of all great first time founders? 4.) Often first time founders nail product market fit but struggle to scale the operations to suit the growth of the product. How does Bijan as a VC lend to this situation? 5.) Does Bijan agree with Fred Wilson's assessment of the consumer downturn? Why does Bijan think that David must beat Goliath in the end? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Bijan's Fave Blog: Ready Player One Bijan's Fave Blog: AVC Bijan's Most Recent Investment: Lily: Your Throw and Go Camera As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Bijan on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Bijan Sabet

General Partner

Spark Capital