(TWTR SPC) The AI Moment With @pt, @miguelisolano & @mignano
Talking this week's big week for AI, with Parker Thompson (@pt) plus@miguelisolano&@mignano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Appearances (3)
Is decentralization overhyped? And the future of voice tech.
Today I'm at AngelList HQ in San Francisco for a bit of a reunion with two friends and investors: Parker Thompson and Erik Torenberg. Parker Thompson is a partner at AngelList and early stage investor. Prior to joining the family here (Product Hunt is an AngelList company), he was a partner at 500 Startups where he invested in Erik's first company, among many others. Before that, Parker spent six years at Pivotal Labs. As you'll hear, he's also behind the popular Twitter account @StartupLJackson. Erik Torenberg is co-founder and partner at Village Global, a network-driven venture firm. He is also co-founder and chairman of crypto company TokenDaily and On Deck, a community of top talent looking to start or join their next company. Erik was actually the first full-time teammate to join me at Product Hunt and prior to that, he co-founded rapt.fm, an app for participating in live online rap battles. In this episode we talk about: How investors choose which companies to bet on, including how investors think about investing in companies with distributed teams. We also run through the lessons learned from the early stage investing Parker, Erik and I have done and discuss the strategies founders should use when pricing their initial fundraising rounds. The emergence of crypto and whether it will pose a threat to Facebook as well as the challenges Facebook faces in trying to regulate what can and can't be said on their platform. We also talk about when decentralization makes sense and why some of the benefits of centralization might be overlooked in the rush to decentralize. How new business opportunities emerge through platform shifts, including whether voice as a platform is finally seeing its often-forecasted and much-anticipated shift to the mainstream. Erik and Parker also run through some of their requests for products. Of course, we also talk about some of their favorite products, including a social network for books, an app to help freestyle rappers, and a device that lets you cook food to perfection by vacuum-sealing it and submerging it in hot water. We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to our sponsors, Airtable, GE Ventures, Intercom and Stripe for their support. 😸 Quotes from This Episode “Every time there's a platform shift you sort of have two different types of companies built on the new platform: new-old things — you take legacy products and add internet to it, like Casper, bed plus internet, or Coursera, education plus internet. Then you have the new-new thing — things that could only be created on the new platform, which for the internet is something like eBay or PayPal or Napster.” — Erik “I think just as a macro point, often we're too quick to extrapolate patterns like the new-new versus the new-old and with respect to crypto, I’m old enough to remember the lesson coming out of the 90s that open was always going to win. That’s how we built web 2.0… but then Facebook and Twitter came along… but now open/decentralized is coming back we're and saying actually we were right before and open is the future.” — Parker “You make choices in defaults — these algorithms are choices, and even when you try not to pick winners, you’re still picking winners.” — Parker “A lot of people criticize these incumbents, like Facebook or Amazon, saying these are the rent-seekers taking way too much and that we are going to build a decentralized version of them and pass on all the value to consumers. But what they don’t give enough credit to is that these products already pass along a lot of value to consumers... What I’m excited about with crypto networks is the ability to incentivize a lot more stakeholders, like the early users that contribute a lot to the platform. You have the ability to give upside to a lot more people than just early employees.” — Erik “A puzzle to me is, why is there not a billion dollar exercise video company? It just seems like something that should exist, and the way I think about investing is: you're just wandering through the world and encountering these puzzles and the answers are not obvious but then someone walks in the door with the answer because they’ve figured it out. That's when you get excited and do the deal.” — Parker Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode Anova — Connected temperature-controlled cooking device. Goodreads — Popular social network for book lovers. Rhymeo — Freestyle app that provides material for your shareable raps. STEEZY — Online dance classes at your own pace. Udemy — Learn anything, on your schedule.
20VC: AngelList's Parker Thompson on How He Evaluates Startup Founders & Why The Move To Series A Is Harder Than Ever?
Parker Thompson is a Partner @ AngelList and creator of popular parody Twitter Account, Startup L Jackson. At AngelList Parker has made investments in the likes of former guests, Algolia, Realty Shares and Keen IO. Prior to joining AngelList, Parker was a Partner at 500 Startups in SF and his illustrious path prior to investing includes Pivotal Labs, co-founding PlaceSite, preserving the interwebs at the Internet Archive, and working on digital copyright at UC Berkeley's iSchool. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Parker made his way into the world of early stage investing from the world of operations? 2.) How does Parker look to evaluate startup founders? What questions does he like to ask? What traits does he like to see in the core exec? 3.) Why does Parker think "not enough traction" is a BS VC excuse? How should VC's approach saying no to founders? What are the real reasons a VC is saying no in this case? 4.) Why does Parker believe the jump to Series A is bigger than ever? What has caused this? What metrics do startups have to achieve to make this move successfully? 5.) How should founders determine how much money to raise? If they can should they raise a 'warchest'? Why should founders not be concerned with dilution in the early days? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: Parker's Fave Blog: Stratechery, Nuzzel Parker's Fave Book: The Modernist Cuisine Parker's Most Recent Investment: Common Networks As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Parker on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pearl believes the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver – whether it's time for you to buy a new car or not. RearVision is our first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl RearVision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10minutes to install and is completely wireless because it's solar powered. Since RearVision is software based, we're able to push updates and new features over the Pearl App in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone. Pearl RearVision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes. Pearl RearVision is $499.99 and available at PearlAuto.com. It's also available on Amazon and through Crutchfield. Xero is beautiful, easy-to- use online accounting software for small businesses. With Xero, you can easily manage your accounting anytime, anywhere from your computer or mobile device.When you add Xero to your small business you are able to: Send online invoices and get paid faster. Get an instant view of your cash flow. Track your payroll and keep tabs on your inventory. Partner with your accountant and bookkeeper in real time whenever you like. You can also customize your Xero experience with over five hundred business apps, including advanced solutions for point-of- sale, time tracking, ecommerce and more. Sign up for a free thirty-day trial at xero.com/20vc