Ramtin Naimi

But typically when one of those three firms extends an offer to a company, they tend to win.

unless they're competing with one of the two other ones.

And then they tend to only lose to one of the other two.

If you eliminate those firms, then it's a free for all.

And there are certain people who are more qualified to win certain deals than other deals.

If you eliminate the dynamic, there's plenty of companies that could have absolutely raised a series A from one of those firms that somebody else ends up winning, but they preempt the deal and they just are very good at sniping deals.

And I think those three individual firms have built brand weight that's so strong that founders really just want to be affiliated with them.

And there are certain partners at those firms that have such amazing reputations as board directors that a series A is the first time you're giving up a board director seat.

Not to say there aren't phenomenal board directors at a bunch of firms because there really are, but the density of high quality board members that have storied reputations of being great board members at those three particular firms, I think outweighs the number of high quality board members that exist at pretty much any other venture capital firm.

And the founders, the advice they get from their seed investor is in addition to optimizing for, you know, a good deal for yourself at the series A, you really should be optimizing for who's going to be the best board director to have on this journey with you for the next 10 years.

The early days, Andreessen, who were the founding partners, every single one of them were operators who had sold companies for hundreds of millions of dollars.

It was hard to compete with.

This guy's going to be on your company who knows exactly what it takes to build a successful outcome in venture capital.

And then the benchmark and Sequoia alternative, they have some individuals like that, but they also have individuals who have been on the boards of the most incredible outcomes in Silicon Valley history.

So they have a much better sense of what exceptional looks like, more so than other people.

They know things that work and they know things that don't work.

And there's great board members at every venture capital firm, and they're all very public.

And there's a lot of those venture capital firms that don't have those experiences, that haven't sold a company and haven't yet been affiliated with a great company.

And those guys will do great, and some of them will join boards and become one of those people individually.

But when a founder is choosing, they're more likely to choose the person with that experience than the person without.