20VC: Lessons from Investing in Uber and Airbnb, How To Think Through Bundling vs Unbundling, Late Stage Funds Moving Earlier, Early Stage Funds Moving Later& The Mechanics of Venture That Founders Should Know with Derek Zanutto, General Partner @ CapitalG
20VC
Nov 8, 2020
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Derek Zanutto is a General Partner @ CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund with investments in the likes of Stripe, UiPath, Looker, Robinhood and Lyft to name a few. At CapitalG, Derek has led investments in Collibra, Dataiku and Armis as well as sitting on numerous boards. Prior to CapitalG, Derek spent a decade investing in such companies as Uber, Airbnb, Lynda.com and CAA at investment firms TPG, Hellman & Friedman and GIC.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Derek made his way from the world of TPG and growth equity to being a GP with Alphabet’s independent growth fund, CapitalG?
2.) Does Derek agree with Bill Gurley, “the biggest challenge is the over-supply of capital”? How does Derek see this changing with interest rate changes or lackof? How do interest rate changes impact later stage pricing? How does Derek assess his own relationship to price?
3.) How does Derek approach investments thinking through the bundling vs unbundling lens? What have been some core examples of this over the last decade? How does Derek assess market timing risk? What risks is he willing to take? How does he build a thesis ahead of meeting companies?
4.) What does Derek make of large later stage firms moving earlier and doing Seeds and Series A’s? What do entrepreneurs need to know about these firms? What does Derek think about early-stage firms scaling into multi-stage firms? Why is stage specifity so important?
5.) What are the core economics of venture capital that all entrepreneurs need to understand? How do different GPs and funds have different motivations according to fund size? How do different funds approach carry allocation and fees? Why does this matter to founders?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Derek’s Favourite Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Derek’s Most Recent Investment: Armis
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