The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
01:08:34 · Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin
[01:08:34] S2: Rory, is there any other that you think I've missed? It it is a slight recycle, but I do just think it's worth saying. I'm sure you guys saw at the Twitter sphere. Keith Raboy, Joe Lonsdale, going for our Wallachs unbelievably again. [01:08:50] S0: I don't get this one. I I really don't get... Let's put aside the issue... Let's put aside the issues for a minute. Okay? Let's... My gut is that there's a little bit of racism here. There's a little bit of anti culturalism, but let's put all that aside. Let's just a ramp is obviously a big investment, right, for for them. So I get supporting the home team. Right? And I get pushing the envelope there and it's 2026. This just seems... Maybe if you're Keith, who's very experienced and very smart, maybe it's worth it because he doesn't have any bridges to burn or worry about, but it it just seems a lot. I guess if it works, if this destroys Airwallex, right? If the X and the house, whatever it is, the house review of it, if it destroys your competitor, Machiavelli and I get it, right? But I don't know. Maybe it's not too far. It just feels very aggressive, right? You know, it's like, what do we call them back in the day? Dipling and real deal back real, dipling and real, but on steroids, on steroids is dipling and real on steroids. And maybe it makes sense. It just, it just struck me. Maybe I'm too... Maybe I I just care too much, but it struck me as just aggressive. Just aggressive. Right?
01:09:50 · Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin
[01:09:50] S2: I'm always very careful because I I am an investor and I always be very clear. I'm also a friend of Keith's, and I like Keith a lot, and I respect him a lot. But the allegations have consistently changed from you are a CCP agent who is working for China to more than 20% of your cap table is in China and Chinese, which is not true, by the way. They have got more and more diminished over time as the arguments have weakened. When you look at the companies that have employees in China, it's basically every big company today has some form of their employee base in China from Microsoft to Zoom, you name it. Candidly, it's ridiculous. [01:10:25] S0: Well, know, I mean, I mean, Finn got rid of all of their open open weights models before they're acquired by Salesforce. I don't know that it's ridiculous. I don't agree with it. Like, I would not be making those tweets. This is a big deal. Finn to close its three point whatever bill now had to had to rip out all of open weights model out of its company before the deal would close. All gone. People care about this China stuff. We could argue both sides of it. And I don't like the I don't like the tweets, but I wouldn't say there's nothing nothing too concerned [01:10:50] S2: So so then we should put the same scrutiny on Zoom and Microsoft. [01:10:54] S0: I started this by saying I don't like it, I'm not on the side of it, but I am saying the Fin thing is interesting. Matters to businesses, not just Twitter.
01:10:54 · Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[01:10:54] S0: I started this by saying I don't like it, I'm not on the side of it, but I am saying the Fin thing is interesting. Matters to businesses, not just Twitter. [01:11:05] S2: Respectfully don't think there's a correlation, Because if you think then that it is interesting, we should talk about ownership. [01:11:12] S1: Hang on. What what what are you saying, [01:11:13] S2: Howard? They don't have the Chinese ownership. That's my point. I've... I know. I've got the cap table. [01:11:18] S0: I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm saying why there is sensitivity around Chinese ownership. If it's not true, it's not true. I'm not arguing the point. I'm making the point that in a more traditional world outside of X, a very large transaction had to rid itself of all Chinese IP to close. I just had another portfolio company last week. We had the same discussion. They had an M and A offer and they were being told they had to rid their company of all Chinese IP as well, rid all of it before the deal could close. And Airwallex isn't trying to sell itself to Salesforce and it I'll take take it on your faith. I trust you implicitly that it's not 20%. I'm just telling you that it is a real world issue, this Chinese ownership, even if I don't care about it or agree with it. It is impeding transactions. It is impeding commerce, and it is a concern.
01:12:00 · Rory O'Driscoll
[01:12:00] S1: I think what's the frustrating thing on it, just observing from a distance, is I know no one elected me. I don't think anyone elected Keith, and I don't think anyone elected Harry. You know, you... This is this is why you have... You know, everyone should play their position. We should be doing what we do in our little venture business, but the the government is the person who has the role to decide, you know, what what risk we are willing to take in commerce with China, what will... Risk we're not. Because let's get real here. No matter what we exclude, we're still doing a huge amount of commerce with China. They're doing a lot of commerce with us. I think this very weekend, our two beloved leaders are meeting in DC to talk about doing more commerce. So there has to be rules. They have to come up by the US government. There has to be some restrictions on what kind of, you know, what kind of high-tech goods we're willing to trade, not trade, what kind of risk, you know, companies can have, especially removing money and things like that. But it feels very much like, come on, government. Step up. Do your job, so we're not trying to do it here on Twitter. Right? Because once there's clear rules, you can say either they abide by the rules or they don't. But it all feels very ad hoc at the moment, which is at one with the way we're currently making policy. Let's get rid across the board. You know, we we can sell chips to China. If Jensen checks in, it's all good. So it does feel very ad hoc at the moment. This is just a function of that.
01:13:10 · Jason Lemkin
[01:13:10] S0: I'll tell you my microlearning. Harry, you could chime in because you would know this better than anybody. I will tie JEV to Airwallex as we end it. Okay? So I think Jev was a masterclass in launch PR. It was everywhere. It was on Vercel. It was on OpenR. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone had a Twitter article and a tweet lined up and a video of how great it was, which was probably handed and made to them. I mean, they hired to do this launch, S tier. I think Jack, who I don't know, right? But I followed on social media. He seems like the kind of CEO that I would love. I wish I'd invested in him. I believe in it. I believe in the mission. I trust him implicitly. I might be wrong, but I would, based on what I know, would invest in period. Okay. Having said that, doesn't have, he's out there arguing with Keith himself. He needs, you need an army of people advocating you to do this kind of stuff. Okay. This is the Jeb lesson and he, and the poor guys out there, not poor. Mean, he's a billionaire, but he shouldn't be doing this. He should have his Keith and his, sorry, what's the guy from, the Palantir? He should have Joe and you need your own army of the, I do believe if you, if you're going to run a deck of corner bigger, you need an army of advocates for you. And I feel like Jack doesn't have enough. And I think it's just, if our jobs aren't hard enough as founders and CEOs, you need to build this bench of advocates out there for you. You can make fun of them, but they matter. Who the cares, who the cares what three F'n VCs on a podcast think? But between all of us, we've got a couple million followers. There could be worse things than us saying how great these companies are. And line up 20 of these guys so that poor Jack doesn't have to be defending himself. Jack should not have to defend himself to Keith and Joe. He should have an army of Jevers, of Jebsons out there saying, here is a screenshot of the cap table. This is not true. Here is the error. Here are the exact employees in China. Here's why it is less than Microsoft. He should have an army of folks disarming this, and Jack can just sit there and click like or heart. That should be his job. So I give his team and his... I'm gonna fire his comms team next week. Okay, I'm not a big fire, but... So I'm being conceptual rather than literal. I give them an F minus.
01:15:10 · Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
Where's your army of of influencers and and backers? Where are they? I give them an f. Come to the rescue. [01:15:16] S2: I think, candidly, you're absolutely right. He needs to build that. I also think it's challenging for him because where Ramp have very prominent social media backers like your Keiths and like your Joe Lonsdales of the world. You know, he's got DST. Do not do social. He's got Lee Fixel. Do not do social. The major... And you can laugh there. Doesn't matter. It does matter, actually. They just don't have any social presence at all. He has friends like me [01:15:40] S0: who have way. Crime your river. Find... You're right. But find your... Oh, it's a good analysis. But find your tribe. Find your tribe. It's the job. Like, the job's gone up here. Right? I mean, I didn't mean to interrupt. It's a good analysis. He doesn't have that in in in in inherently on the cap table. Right? But it's not the only place to find it. [01:15:54] S1: Always good to remind yourself that DST does not do social despite doing the 10,000,000,000 pre round at Facebook in 2008. That was a genius round. But, yeah, you're right. [01:16:04] S0: You can go buy Matthew McConaughey. He's, like, $14,000,000 a year. The guy will show up to anything. He's really good. [01:16:09] S1: He looks good too. [01:16:10] S0: Jack can afford a fort... Matthew McConaughey. He's got... How much is... Airwallex? Seriously. I mean, I'm just making a... You can go buy Matthew. Matthew McConaughey is for sale, and he's great. [01:16:19] S2: I did not expect this to go here.