The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Why Great Companies are Defined by How Many Things They Say No To, Why Being First Does Not Matter & Why Market Over Traction or Team is the Most Important Thing with Guillermo Rauch, Founder & CEO @ Vercel
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman.
If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.
Show Notes
Guillermo Rauch is the Founder and CEO @ Vercel, giving developers the frameworks, workflows, and infrastructure to build a faster, more personalized Web. To date, Guillermo has raised $312M from Accel, Bedrock, Greenoaks, GV and more. Prior to founding Vercel, Guillermo co-founded LearnBoost and Cloudup where he served the company as CTO through its acquisition by Automattic in 2013.
In Today's Episode with Guillermo Rauch We Discuss:
1. From Argentina to SF: The Boy Making Money Online:
How did Guillermo first get into computers and start making money online?
Does Guillermo still believe the US and SF offers the same opportunities it did when he came?
Did Guillermo feel the weight of responsibility of providing for his family at a young age?
2. Timing, Markets and Narrative Violations:
Why does Guillermo believe it does not matter being first but being right?
Why does Guillermo believe the most important thing for a company is market selection?
Why does Guillermo believe it is crucial that founders and companies have "narrative violations"?
3. The Future of AI:
What model will win in the future; open or closed?
Where does the value accrue; startups or incumbents?
How will the SaaS business model change in a world of AI?
4. Silicon Valley's Most Successful Angel You Did Not Know:
What are some of Guillermo's biggest lessons from angel investing?
What is his single biggest miss? How has it changed how he thinks?
What have been his biggest hits? How did they impact how he thinks about what it takes to win?
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