Words of Wisdom From Chris Sacca

by Scott Edward Walker on December 18th, 2016

sacca

To Our Clients & Friends: Welcome to our weekly series “Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed.”  Each week, we share a favorite video clip of a successful entrepreneur, investor or business leader on a variety of topics. This week, we present Chris Sacca, a very smart investor and the founder of Lowercase Capital.

In this solid interview from a few years back (via Pando), Chris talks bluntly about the world of startups and venture capital in the context of the firing of Ev Williams and Jack Dorsey from Twitter.  My favorite nuggets:

  • “It’s all fun and games until you raise a Series B.” (at 0:14)
  • “The betrayal that you will feel in Silicon Valley cuts deeper than any betrayal you’ll feel at the seventh-grade dance when your date runs-off.” (at 0:54)
  • “It’s not all love; it’s not all hugs all the time; it’s real business – the stakes are really [f-ing] high.” (at 1:23)
  • “I think you have to have the thickest skin in the world to play in the startup world… it’s [f-ing] grueling.” (at 3:53)

Indeed, the advice I always give founders when they’re raising VC funds is simple: “it’s all business.”  In other words, you need to take your emotions out of the equation and understand the motivation of the guys with whom you are dealing (regardless of what they say to you or that smile on their face).  Remember: VC’s have fiduciary obligations to their limited partners (i.e., their investors) and, of course, will be out of business if they don’t generate consistently strong returns.  Again, it’s all business.

Here’s an appropriate tweet from a couple of years ago:

hatching-twitter-tweet

Enjoy the interview. Cheers, Scott

 

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