Rohan Paul

In this 2014 video, Sam Altman asks Marc Andreessen what venture capitalists are really looking for when judging startups. “The conventional statistics are that about 200 of the 4,000 venture-fundable companies per year will be funded by a top-tier VC. About 15 of those will someday get to $100MM of revenue, and those 15 will generate something on the order of 97% of all of the returns for the entire category of venture capital in that year. Venture capital is such an extreme feast or famine business. You’re either in one of the 15 or you’re not.” That is the real logic behind VC, and it is harsher than most founders want to admit. Investors are not mainly asking whether your company is solid, credible, or broadly impressive. They are asking whether it has the kind of asymmetry that could put it in the tiny set of companies that matter disproportionately. In a power-law business, “good across the board” is often less interesting than “exceptional in one decisive way.” Venture returns come from companies with an extreme advantage, a product that spreads unnaturally fast, a market opening at exactly the right moment, a founder with unusual force, or some other quality that compounds harder than competitors can match. For founders, the implication is uncomfortable but useful. Do not pitch yourself as merely well-rounded. Show the one thing that is so strong it changes the odds, because in venture, weakness can sometimes be survived, but ordinariness almost never can. --- From @ycombinator YT channel from 2014 (link in comment)