News Summary

• How do you gain the confidence to back someone like that, especially if that someone is a new founder?The way I think about very early-stage investing is you’re kind of looking at three axes of risk: There’s market risk, people risk, and then technology risk.
• I do think that long-term, there’s going to be a contraction at seed, and that a lot of seed firms are going to go away as fundraising is a lot more difficult.
• Companies that probably should have been fundraising this year are going to try to go out in 2024 or 2025 [to avoid a down round], but there’s going to be more businesses raising than there is cash to go around.
• We need to see [distribution to paid-in capital] before we can recommit.”A lot of operator VCs are probably going to get pressure from their companies and their board members to be focused on their [own] businesses.I think Series A firms will continue to move down.
• If it’s something that maybe all of a sudden isn’t in vogue anymore, it’s a lot harder.A lot of deals get done and aren’t announced, but it seems like Uncork has been quiet aside for some deals announced earlier this year.
• Have you been investing more quietly, or have you become more cautious in this market?There was certainly a period where everybody was in price discovery mode, but I kind of feel that was kind of maybe last March until last September.