The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:39:53 · Rory O'Driscoll, Harry Stebbings
[00:39:53] S1: I mean, my comment would be this, I think that's almost certainly true. The multiples are disconnected. And the only thing that kind of makes that plausible is the growth rate. Look, if you're a mature defense contractor doing 2,000,000,000 in revenue, you're worth $8,000,000,000 best case. If you're a $2,000,000,000 revenue defense contractor and you've doubled for the last couple of years, and you think you've got a line to the administration for the next five or the Pentagon for the next five years, then maybe you go two, four, eight, 20, and you justify the valuation. So it's not impossible. But to your point, Jason, it's leaning in a lot into the future, but a lot. And all these valuations, you you could wake up one day inside amazing companies just priced wrong. Because it's, you know, of all the things that are likely to bail you out, because you mentioned one other in passing, it's highly unlikely that The US market, you know, which is trading at enough, you're not gonna get huge multiple expansion from here that saves you, I would guess. [00:40:47] S2: Does it not go back to the point that Jason made earlier about the need to move large amounts of money? And, actually, if you need to move a billion or 2,000,000,000, I agree with you totally on the multiple compression you're gonna get from here. But, you know, is there a chance it's a $200,000,000,000 company? Yeah. Not not impossible. So it's a 2.2, 2.5 x. And and you moved a billion to 3,000,000,000.
00:41:07 · Jason Lemkin
[00:41:07] S0: I just wonder... And listen. Whoever's doing this tender, these are very sophisticated investors, of course. Right? Let's not be... Let's not make fun of it. But I do wonder if some, we are just taking revenue multiples too far today. I'll give you a different example. Was like, like profound or Harry's and peak. Right. These are interesting companies. Right. But when you, my God, when you look at the CA the public comps are trading at two times revenue. And you can say, no, no, these are agentic guys. These are agentic players on high growth. But when the growth even just slows to 70 or 60, will it trade at a Cloudflare revenue or will it trade at a better than Braze revenue, right? Which until today was trading at three times revenue. It's not, I'm not, I get the growth side, it's the job we're in. But I do wonder if the AI versions of low multiple companies will settle too early into the multiples of their of their peers. I just don't know. Right. Because I think they're being punished. I think the whole marketing category is the worst public category without question. Right. They're not dying. HubSpot and and friends are not dying. Klaviyo is not dying. They're trading below three times revenue. I would have a hard time getting the IC excited about it.
00:42:14 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:42:14] S2: Jason, speaking about multiples and how public markets think about multiples where they're appreciated, where they're not, A fascinating one for me was actually Berkshire doubling down on Bending Spoons. Obviously, bought $330,000,000 of new shares, caused a massive bump in the stock price. And the assets that these... That Bending Spoons is buying are traditionally slightly challenged assets, slowing growth rates, not the darlings. And then the price premium that's being placed on Bending Spoons, the holding company right now in public markets is enormous. I'm just intrigued, boys. How did we think about this? [00:42:48] S1: Did not expect us.
00:42:48 · Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin
[00:42:48] S1: Did not expect us. [00:42:49] S0: I think it makes sense. I think I think Bending Spoons is like the Berkshire version of software, right? It's like C's candy or Coke. Like they're trusting that the boys have... This is not... They're not flipping them. These are holding companies. Warren Buffett wanted to hold C's forever, right? And Bending Spoons is saying, listen, we're going to be diligent. We look at a thousand deals a year or whatever you have. What is it Harry? 5,000 deals a year. We're to do five or six. And we're going to find enduring software assets that we're going to hold for as long as we can hold them. And if you actually step back for a minute, the quality assets is improving. Vimeo, kind of a dog that they kept. I mean, Evernote, kind of a dog. Now they made them work with price increases, right? They're gonna make money off both those deals, right? Eventbrite, kind of a dog. Like Mira on Airtable, I'm gonna argue better. And so I think Berkshire is saying, listen, you're gonna make these into a bunch of C's candies and Coca Colas, and folks think you can't make them enduring, but you're gonna make these endure for a decade or longer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they ultimately probably see some similar attributes that they can make these long lasting assets. [00:43:49] S1: Yes. It's [00:43:49] S0: just like See's candy.
00:43:49 · Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll, Harry Stebbings
[00:43:49] S0: just like See's candy. [00:43:50] S1: Get a See's candy from the 1960s and get a See's candy from today and you look at them side by side, they pretty much look like the same thing. I don't think that'll be the case for the Evernote product of 2080. [00:44:02] S0: No, but my point is it may be as close as you get in software, the bending spoons model, because they're going to keep these and keep these assets, and invest them. I'm not saying it's the same as a Seas candy. [00:44:11] S1: I describe it as it's conceptually the same idea as Berkshire Hathaway, but perhaps in an industry where the idea doesn't apply. [00:44:18] S0: Or maybe you let... It's like Jane Street putting all the money into whatever his his name, Leo Apuchol. Like Berkshire's like this is close to what we're doing it's not our core we're going to let the Italian guys do it and we'll take a meaningful position and we think they have something that we think that they're going to be able to maintain this incredible growth level because they will have a thousand assets to look at it a year, and we'll be able to maintain them in a way Vista can't. [00:44:42] S2: Guys, you can also guide. We we can do General Atlantic set to IPO. We can do Tesla, the new Roadster, Unbelievable videos of cars that literally elevate themselves with thrusters. We can do benchmark on stage conceding that competition. It's a bit of a flimsy term in Venture these days. Any predilection as to where you wanna go? [00:45:03] S0: You know, I wanted to do the 37 signals one, but We
00:45:03 · Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:45:03] S0: You know, I wanted to do the 37 signals one, but We [00:45:06] S2: can do 37 signals. David Harnema Hansen, who is an incredible race car driver, has the most extensive library of race cars. 37 signals made 370,000,000 in profit since 2020. Bootstrapping ain't all that bad. Hey? [00:45:22] S1: I was... Yeah. I was gonna say all... I mean, you know, going back to the conversation at the start, all these software companies, none of the VCs cares. Well, if you hold onto it yourself and pull out $370,000,000 I think you'll be fine. That was a great result. I did not... I knew it was good. [00:45:35] S0: I don't think... I think that was wrong for what it's worth. I think it's directionally correct. I think the point that was making, which is interesting is they say they do 10% profit sharing. Right? So if you do 37,000,000 of profit sharing, it's 10%. Rory can help me with the math. I think that would suggest overall profits for $3.70. I don't think it could make that much money. I'm guessing it does 60 to $70.60 ish million a year. Right. And even if it's, even if 40,000,000 can go to the bottom line, [00:45:58] S1: it's times six. You are two