Bill Gurley

Another negative element of all the systems issues that we're talking about is the firms that beg their way onto the cap chart by writing a $300 million check or whatever don't

They differentiate themselves by being the best friend of the founder they possibly can be.

This is a lot easier for me to say since I'm not writing checks.

And if anyone doesn't like what I say, they're never going to compete with me to be a new board member.

So it's fine.

But they don't take a responsibility of being someone to help you make better decisions.

They're never going to tell you no.

A grand example of that is the SBF-FTX situation where no one took a board seat.

Everyone believed that he wasn't commingling and it ended poorly.

It's helpful to have someone along who will call bullshit when it needs to be done, who will push on unit economics.

And one fear I have about this world is there's less and less of that.

The very best CEOs, and I put people like Barton and Benioff in there, even Mark and Metta has said this, they believe being public makes them run sharper.

And one other negative of these companies staying private forever is they're not getting that feedback.

Now, let me try and answer your question.

I don't know, man.

What would I do?

It's a hard time for me to imagine starting on that journey because of everything that I just laid out.

So I really don't know.

I'm just going to have to take a pass.

Yeah.