20VC: Founders Fund's Brian Singerman on Why VC Is About Upside Maximisation Not Downside Minimisation, Why There Is No Right Way To Do Venture and Why They Do Not Have Monday Morning Partner Meetings At Founders Fund

Brian Singerman is a Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the world’s most prestigious and successful VC funds with prior investments in the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Spotify and many more incredible companies. Prior to Founders Fund, Brian spent 4 years at Google where, among other projects, Brian founded iGoogle. Whilst at Google, Brian also started his career as an investor, founding his own angel fund, XGYC Fund. Brian also currently sits on the board of Affirm, Oscar, AltSchool and Emerald Therapeutics. Due to Brian’s immense success he was named No 5 on Forbes Midas List for America’s Top VCs.

CLICK TO PLAY

CLICK TO LISTEN ON ITUNES

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Brian made the way from Google, to his own angel fund to being General Partner @ Founders Fund?

2.) How has Brian seen his investment mindset shift over the years from angel investing to his angel fund, XGYC to now being a partner at Founders Fund?

3.) Why does Brian believe that success in VC is purely about upside maximization? What does Brian think downside minimisation is unimportant?

4.) What does the investment decision-making process look like at Founders Fund? How does this change with the scaling cheque size? What are Brian’s views on conviction driven vs unanimous team voting structures?

5.) Why is Brian a staunch generalist when it comes to investing? For Brian, why does he believe that being a generalist will deliver outsized returns over being a specialist?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Brian’s Fave Book: Snow Crash

Brian’s Fave Blog: Dan Primack

Brian’s Most Recent Investment: Affirm

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Brian on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Zoom is the No 1 Video and WebConferencing Service, providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to engage in an array of activities including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms and business instant messaging. Plus, it is the easiest solution to use, buy and scale with the most straightforward pricing. Do not take our word for it, Zoom’s their partnership with Sequoia in their latest 100m funding round says it all. Zoom is a must for your business.

ViewedIt is a free video-recording tool that makes it easy for organizations to embrace the power of video for personalized communications. ViewedIt enables sales professionals, executive leaders and customer support teams to easily record personalized videos and add them to their email conversations. Plus, with built-in tracking powered by the Vidyard platform, video creators will know who is watching what, and which video messages resonate with viewers. They’ll receive immediate playback notifications that will eliminate the wondering of whether the recipient received or watched their content. Find out more and download ViewedIt for free at vidyard.com/viewedit.