Host: Jason Calacanis
Guest: Keith Rabois, Investor
Category: Biz & Tech | 📈 Investing
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[8:18] “[Post COVID-19,] I think there is reasons to believe that we could see some excitement, energy that resembles a bit of the Roaring Twenties [just like after the Spanish Flu].”
[16:10] “Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of remote only. I think there are cases where it can work and be successful. I would typically like to see early stage and mid stage innovative companies more co-located. I’d even be a bigger proponent of distributed hubs […], [for example] where all the designers are in New York, the marketing team and product team is […] in San Francisco […], and the engineering team is actually in Australia. So they have […] different hubs, but you’re basically tied to a location with colleagues that practice the same craft.”
[17:04] “Not all the centers of excellence are co-located in the same geographic region. There are areas where you can find depth of expertise way outside San Francisco or the Bay Area and you might as well take advantage of that.”
[18:30] “To some extent there has been a trend against the Bay Area and against San Francisco specifically for somewhere between 3-5 years. It’s not been pointed out publicly before, but when we look at our portfolio at Founders Fund, the most important companies - and I measure that by carrying value or dollars invested - more than half of [them] over the last 3-5 years […] are outside the San Francisco and the Bay Area.”
[19:19] “I think it was harder for people who are sitting [in the Bay Area], like myself, with strong networks here to imagine abandoning the network effect of being here, although we were making more and more investments outside the Bay Area and watching this exceed. […] And then obviously the pandemic caused a mental shift, if nothing else. People left voluntarily, sometimes on a temporary basis, for a substantial amount of time - 3, 6, 9+ months - and realized that actually there are better places to raise a family, […] to enjoy living. And they don’t necessarily want to come back. And if a reasonable number of these people don’t come back, then the argument for being in the Bay Area, which was always that network effect of talent, basically […] is completely eliminated.”
[30:04] “[In Miami,] being located in a different time zone, with closer proximity [to Europe or other markets] will allow us to be more successful, more competitive. […] You find greater work ethic often outside the Bay Area. [...] Definitely less entitlement.”
[47:35] “I think waiting [to IPO] was always terrible advice. It’s one of the worst piece of advice that one in Silicon Valley has given in the last 15 years. […] I believe strongly that companies who go public almost as fast as possible […] [do the best].”
[48:44] “The best feature of a SPAC […] is that legally, a hard core technology company that’s really innovating on a deeply technical solution […] can guide years into the future about the revenue potential of the business. Whereas through an S1 process or traditional IPO process, it’s extremely legally precarious/ virtually impossible to guide future years revenue. And so, as a result of that, if you have a breakthrough technology that will have a market, it’s much better in many ways to convince and articulate the market size to potential investors through a SPAC process than you’d be able to do in a traditional IPO.”
[1:25:07] “I think there is an art to be an early stage investor, which is, if you are not failing a certain amount, you’re probably not taking enough risk. You are not chasing ambitious enough things.”
[1:30:36] “Only disruptive people, create disruptive companies. […] To some extent, if you want to transform the world […], you need to have a different perspective than at least most normal people. Because most normal people don’t see things, can’t see things or are too rational in their own ways.”
Rating: 🍎🍎🍎🍎
🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify
🕰️ 1 hr 37 min | 🗓️ 12/15/2020
✅ Time saved: 1 hr 35 min
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