Venture Capitalists Are Using Podcasts to Lure in Founders

The four of them are really quite unlikable, and I can confidently say that if any of them happen to read this comment then they would not care in the slightest that I said that.

throw3452away• 2 years ago

I have the same thought process. What do they think about current high level trends, the economy, but otherwise I don't think very highly of them. The one bio science guy is decent, somewhat grounded compared to the others.

I did get kind of tried of their non-stop AI hype train talk. Seems like for majority of the last 1-2 years that's all they've talked about most of the time.

timr• 2 years ago

For whatever it's worth, the bio science stuff is the equivalent of the AI hype, just in biology.

ch4s32• 2 years ago

They'd probably say that likability is orthogonal to picking and mentoring successful startups.

divbzero4• 2 years ago

But likability is correlated with convincing successful startups to accept their investments.

huevosabio• 2 years ago

Actually, I think I like them more as people that I would like to hangout with every now and then. They have a silly sense of humor that I like (though JCal tries too hard).

I find their commentary to be so incredibly biased that it is 99% useless. They are all peddling their investments, positions etc. Chamath, for example, claimed that he did not know what Waymo was: either he is an idiot (since knowing this shit is his job), or this is all a show to promote their positions. I believe the latter.

It does help for picking up certain topics if you were out of the loop. However, I find that my HN+Twitter addiction makes me more aware of recent news than what they provide.

Other VC podcasts I find more informative, but also less entertaining: Village Global, Cognitive Revolution, World of DaaS

neverokay3• 2 years ago

It’s just levels to how little you actually know. I don’t actually know too much more than what I knew when I only had 20k compared to more than that. They are rich, but they also don’t know too much more than their first million or so.

The only thing you’ll learn from this class of rich is how to stay rich. Most of us are stuck on step 1.

When Chamath explains the practical steps of his wealth it all sounds like psychopathy and luck. You can’t follow these game plans for shit, too much luck involved.

Marciplan• 2 years ago

well in the case of Chamath it also comes down to scamming folks with SPACs

boringg2• 2 years ago

Here's a solution: BG2 with Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner is imho superior in quality and depth and bonus points as you don't have to listen to those 4 people.

gnicholas• 2 years ago

I find it educational and entertaining. Even though I am not in the VC industry in the sense that I'm not raising money or currently VC-backed, I find their insights into financial markets to be very useful. That isn't to say that I think everything they say is true — it just means that it often provides insights into things that are happening or are about to happen.

This is partly because of who listens to the podcast, and what they do after hearing about things on the podcast. For example, they may help move markets a bit due to their insider (not in the sense of illegal) information regarding tech companies and trends.

Knowing that they have said XYZ can help explain why a certain stock popped or dropped, or was written about in a major media publication.

As for whether they would care what you said about them in an online forum...I would think that would apply to pretty much any podcaster — even ones with 1/1000th of their audience.

dphuang2• 2 years ago

Interesting read. Contrary to what HN thinks, I think its good that VCs feel a forcing function to differentiate themselves. Like any other market, competition is good.

divbzero4• 2 years ago

I don’t know what HN thinks, but you touch upon a good point that VCs do feel this need to differentiate. It reflects the broader shift where promising founders have more say and VCs aim to offer more than just money.

jedberg• 2 years ago

I feel like "lure" was used here to trigger people.

The smartest thing a VC ever said to me was, "I am in the business of selling money. I'm a salesman, money is my product, and I'm trying to convince you to buy it from me by telling you how my money is better than everyone else's".

VCs have to prove their value to startups, because good ones have choices. A podcast is a great marketing opportunity.

bradgessler• 2 years ago

There always seems to be this implication in anti-VC rhetoric that founders are somehow gullible to VC's (whatever that means). I've yet to meet a founder where this is true.

alephnerd2• 2 years ago

Most people on HN aren't even founders or experienced ICs anymore. It seems to be burnt out junior ICs with a chip on their back, as well as a lot of overlap with some of the more toxic parts of Reddit.

alephnerd2• 2 years ago

^^^ This.

If you have a good track record of execution and have enough experience in your domain, you should be able to raise money (it's a slog but it is doable).

As such, we need to convince promising founders to come to us, convince prospects to become LPs in our funds, and convince other VCs to buy into our investment thesis (and thus build the pipeline to fund additional rounds)

Every job is basically a mix of sales, marketing, and domain experience.

P.S. love lambda ;)

mtillman• 2 years ago

I've heard this pitch too. My favorite is when a VC told me my expectations were "too high as 90% of us couldn't get a job at Goldman and that we are just content marketers" which I felt was wonderfully honest.

divbzero4• 2 years ago

The article doesn’t quite capture that a16z, in my memory, played a major role in popularizing podcasts as a direct media strategy. Fred Wilson, for example, was commenting on it way back in 2014 [1].

[1] https://avc.com/2014/03/the-a16z-podcast/

neverokay3• 2 years ago

I’ve talked a lot about propaganda as a war invention, like many great technological advancements, found its way into these civilian systems. Capturing mindshare with propaganda is basically what this is.

Marketing is the commercial term (brand ambassador, Orwell sleeps soundly). Propaganda has a lot more coercive connotations.

treyd• 2 years ago

This is very true. What so many large corporations (VC firms like in the article, but also firms like Nestle, Google, Exxon Mobil, etc) are doing here has many of the same features as what governments do by producing propaganda. They have some set of interests and they want to convince the public to see things from their perspective and get popular consent.

It's not necessarily nefarious, but if there's a need to do it in the first place then it often has self-serving end goals in mind.

strongpigeon• 2 years ago

I’ve tried some of them, but I was put off by some of the “I got all the answers” vibes most of them have. The only exception for me has been the Dalton & Michael videos/podcast where they just both seem to really, really care about helping out.

You can feel that what they’re saying comes not just from 1-2 successes, but also from hundreds of failures that they’ve seen. They also seem aware of (and are vocal about) the limits of their advice.

I don’t, know. Maybe I’m drinking the cool-aid, but they did convince me to apply to YC…

ca_tech• 2 years ago

I can say that Acquired at least has done some of the most interesting storytelling on the founding of companies. It's like taking 5 different books on the same topic and abridging the best parts together with some commentary sprinkled in.

If it is simply a platform for them, I'm okay with it because of the quality of content.

divbzero4• 2 years ago

I like how Acquired ventures beyond recent tech startups and discusses older and non-tech companies like Walmart [1] or Hermès [2]. Their interview with Charlie Munger [3] was a particular treat and ended up being one of his last interviews.

[1] https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/walmart

[2] https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/hermes

[3] https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/charlie-munger

iancmceachern• 2 years ago

Everyone is using podcasts to sell everything

processing• 2 years ago

they're actually fine-tuning anon remillio accounts on X for exit liquidity on their vested social/ai/meme coins.

dbcooper• 2 years ago

Can confirm, Cum Town lured me into a meeting and I signed away way too much of the company to an angel.

poochipie• 2 years ago

Vanity Fair is using Clickbait to Lure Readers

max_• 2 years ago

I think people under estimate how difficult it is to raise money from VCs.

I a currently trying to raise my first round but it is so difficult.

I sent close to 100 pitches & all of them have passed on the investment.

VCs normally say the only invest in business that are referred to them by people they already know.

I am starting to believe that may apply to all of them.

rKarpinski• 2 years ago

VCs normally say the only invest in business that are referred to them by people they already know.
I am starting to believe that may apply to all of them.

Maybe you should listen to their advice? Why not take a targeted approach and focus on getting referrals

Animats• 2 years ago

There's so much dumb VC money again that there's a shortage of startups?

Looks like the next big growth area is weapons. Big market for artillery ammunition. Lower-cost smart weapons are needed in quantity. Drones are needed in vast quantities. AI-powered murderbot drones that don't need a radio link have real market potential.

Venture Capitalists Are Using Podcasts to Lure in Founders

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