The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:20:01 · Dev Ittycheria, Jason Lemkin
[00:20:01] S1: Yeah, so what I would say is the following. It's very rare for me to see people go to a direct competitor. It has happened. And and and, Jason, you're right. In this age, there seems to be more of that happening than not, but it's still quite rare. And I think you also have to understand that these people have reputations. And if they're in a leadership position, they've recruited people who work for them, who believed in them, who believed the story, and then for this to get up and leave. And then, obviously, I dealt with this last week. It kinda leaves a bad taste in people's mouth in terms of how really committed were you to this, and did you sell me a a bill of goods? In the situation where a CRO or senior executive is leaving, the question I'd ask is like, okay, I understand there's lots of opportunities out there, but do you have to go to a direct competitor? There's no other company who wanted you. There's no other company that values your skills as much as this company. I think the reputational damage that you can do long term is going to come back and bite you. [00:20:58] S2: Do we even remember next week anymore in the age of AI?
00:20:58 · Jason Lemkin, Dev Ittycheria
[00:20:58] S2: Do we even remember next week anymore in the age of AI? [00:21:01] S1: I think you do. Jason, I would say the more things change, in many ways a lot of it stays the same around people, around relationships, how you work with them. People too often use the AI era as like, Oh, everything's changed. I disagree. I think how you manage people, how you recruit them, how you develop them, how you hold them accountable. In fact, lot of these young founders struggle with this all the time because some of them have never hired a go to market person. They've never hired a finance person. And so they're always asking for advice on what do I look for and how do I evaluate someone with skills very different than mine. And they're all the same issues I had when I started my first company in 1998. Like it's the same thing all over again. It's just obviously happening maybe more visibly than it ever happened before.
00:21:42 · Jason Lemkin, Dev Ittycheria, Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:21:42] S2: Until recently, my experience was there was always when you went somewhere else to another company, there was always the rule of two, kind of like the Sith, but different, right? Wasn't the Sith like the rule of two? Don't know. You could take two people with you. So when you left Mongo to go do your own company, you could bring one and Dev would get kind of pissed. Okay. And you'd talk about it. And then you'd ask permission for the second and there'd be a lot of friction. But if you cross two, the relationship was broken, right? Now I'm seeing folks take like eight or 10 with them the first week. And like, it's not a cultural issue anymore through people that I respect and think are high ethics, right? And Some of that I think is the pressure to move so quickly in the age of AI, but I do think related to this. I think it's a symptom of change that the rule of two seems to have died. Was that your rule with your team over the years? Did you informally enforce Yeah, the rule of [00:22:27] S1: people who left and then carpet bombed the rest of the organization to try and follow them. And obviously, that wasn't a great feeling. And, you know, and stern words [00:22:35] S3: for exchange. [00:22:35] S0: You ask an interesting question. Would you prefer someone to... A senior executive to leave and go to a direct competitor, but recruit no one or someone to leave and go to a totally different business, broadly in developer tools, but say, and recruit four or five of your top of his top execs? Which would you prefer to defend, the talent or the knowledge?
00:22:35 · Rory O'Driscoll, Dev Ittycheria, Harry Stebbings
[00:22:35] S0: You ask an interesting question. Would you prefer someone to... A senior executive to leave and go to a direct competitor, but recruit no one or someone to leave and go to a totally different business, broadly in developer tools, but say, and recruit four or five of your top of his top execs? Which would you prefer to defend, the talent or the knowledge? [00:22:55] S1: It's a tough one. I think it depends on who that competitor was, and it was, like, my mortal enemy. I'd be more upset about the former. If it was another company and four or five people left, it is what it is, and, I'd move on. [00:23:08] S3: I would just love to maybe slightly move the conversation along because we mentioned the word loyalty. And, you know, when we hear the word loyalty, I just think of Vinyl Khosla, who led Factory Series C, led their most recent round, and then goes on Twitter. The wording was like struggling second tier competitor. Absolute demolition job of Mattan. I don't know what to say. Was he asleep in the partnership decision? Like, was he aware that he led the last round? I'm genuinely not saying that stupidly. I don't know if he was.
00:23:08 · Harry Stebbings, Dev Ittycheria
[00:23:08] S3: I would just love to maybe slightly move the conversation along because we mentioned the word loyalty. And, you know, when we hear the word loyalty, I just think of Vinyl Khosla, who led Factory Series C, led their most recent round, and then goes on Twitter. The wording was like struggling second tier competitor. Absolute demolition job of Mattan. I don't know what to say. Was he asleep in the partnership decision? Like, was he aware that he led the last round? I'm genuinely not saying that stupidly. I don't know if he was. [00:23:42] S1: Candidly, was shocked when I saw that. I was just totally flummoxed by the... That tweet because it basically handed a weapon to every other firm competing with Kosla Ventures, and Kosla's got a great team with Keith and a bunch of other people there, and basically handed every other firm a weapon when they're competing on deals saying, is this the partner you want when things go bad? I was just totally flummoxed on why he would do that publicly.
00:23:42 · Dev Ittycheria, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:23:42] S1: Candidly, was shocked when I saw that. I was just totally flummoxed by the... That tweet because it basically handed a weapon to every other firm competing with Kosla Ventures, and Kosla's got a great team with Keith and a bunch of other people there, and basically handed every other firm a weapon when they're competing on deals saying, is this the partner you want when things go bad? I was just totally flummoxed on why he would do that publicly. [00:24:07] S0: Yeah. Some days you just make a... It was a mistake. He will probably look back and say, gosh, I wish I hadn't done that. It's weapon in the hands of everyone who competes with them. Wish it hadn't happened. A lot of what's going on here is what are the legal obligations versus what are the implied rules? And what are the consequences of breaking the implied rules? And what are the non legal, but nonetheless implied rules is it's really hard for venture firms when they do two directly competitive deals. And the only way you get around it is you make all this argument about you love your children equally, you don't say anything in public about one about the other, and then you have something like this that crashes through every wall. And it just shows that those situations of, you know, two directly competitive investments are very fraught, especially if you're actively involved in the companies. It was very unhelpful for Kohl's, very unhelpful for both companies. It's like, it was not venture's finest hour. Let's move on. You know?