HN user

ataussig

70 karma

Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. We are early investors in consumer internet leaders like Affirm, Blockchain, Bonobos, Giphy, Luxe, Mic, Nest, Stitch Fix, Snapchat, TaskRabbit, Honest Company, and Whisper. Enterprise investments include AppDynamics, Clever (YC), MuleSoft, Nicira, Nimble Storage, and Nutanix.

I led Lightspeed's investments in Daily Harvest, Vector, Zola and several other unannounced startups. Prior to joining Lightspeed, I was a partner at Highland Capital, where I led early rounds at Jaunt, thredUP, RentJuice/Zillow, RethinkDB (YC), Filepicker (YC), & others.

Blog at medium.com/@ataussig. Tweet as @ataussig.

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/ataussig; my proof: https://keybase.io/ataussig/sigs/BrdZE88_7xw09zS2zzZs8hBMwBaraxfTP1ffoNlvPyk ]

Posts34
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medium.com 8y ago

How do VCs internalize startup risk?

ataussig
1pts0
medium.com 8y ago

Are cohorts the future of public company analysis?

ataussig
2pts0
medium.com 8y ago

Finding product/channel fit at Zola

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

What startups can learn from Amazon's cash machine

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

Launching Zola Weddings

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

Spaghetti graphs – a better solution for measuring customer engagement

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

How to land an Associate job in VC

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

How to stand out from your competition

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

The existential crisis of peak car ownership

ataussig
11pts1
medium.com 9y ago

Silicon Valley shouldn't underestimate Sony's potential in VR

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

To solve your marketing woes, focus on the heavy buyers

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

3 rules every board member should follow

ataussig
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medium.com 9y ago

How to stop being a wallflower and start working the room

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

Many small markets do not make a big market

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

Dear Snapchat, Thanks for the Memories

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

The fanatics of online video are growing the pie

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

Repeat rate is a vanity metric

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

Online apparel has reached a turning point

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

Pitching your business is the easy part

ataussig
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medium.com 10y ago

What happens when private equity buys your competitor?

ataussig
62pts38
medium.com 10y ago

What will humans do when cars drive themselves?

ataussig
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medium.com 12y ago

High baud rate founders

ataussig
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medium.com 12y ago

Drones...in 30 minutes or less.

ataussig
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summer.hcp.com 13y ago

Calling all student founders: SummerHighland '13 applications are open

ataussig
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ataussig.com 13y ago

What irks me about Avis-Zipcar

ataussig
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ataussig.com 13y ago

Building a biodiverse startup team

ataussig
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ataussig.com 13y ago

Rebuilding my RSS feed

ataussig
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ataussig.com 14y ago

Crank turners

ataussig
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ataussig.com 14y ago

CEO = Chief Triage Officer

ataussig
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ataussig.com 14y ago

When startups compete, no one wins

ataussig
22pts14

Appreciate a lot of the comments here. Let me add a few of my own.

To start, I'm as big a capitalist as anyone. Competition is generally good, especially from the customer's standpoint. Startups should compete hard to create and distribute the right product.

My point here is that I've seen a few startups waste a lot of time and energy beating the crap out of each other, often to no avail. I don't expect these guys to get together and hold hands. I do expect them to take the high road and welcome others into an industry they are also trying to change, especially when you are going against an incumbent who really can beat the crap out of you.

I'm not advocating calling up your buddy at a competitor and saying, "Hey let's band together." That's probably a bit much. I'm referring to the situations like the following:

Say you are RelayRides. A reporter asks you, "Don't you think Getaround does X, Y, or Z better than you?" A great answer to that question is, "We love what Getaround is doing and support anyone getting car sharing into the masses. We hope you choose to use RelayRides because we think it's the best service in the industry, but as long as you're choosing to car share instead of buying a new car we think you are making a step in the right direction."

Hope that clarifies a bit of the discussion here. Thanks for the enthusiastic response.