20VC: USV's Brad Burnham on Co-Founding USV with Fred Wilson, What They Look For In Potential Partners & Whether We Are Entering a Period of Consolidation or Expansion

episode

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch not yet transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet Upvotes decide what gets transcribed next — 0 so far. Sign in to upvote

More from The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: $1BN ARR in 18 Months; The Untold Story of Higgsfield | Spending $4M Per Month on Models | Why Moats in AI are BS | Scaling a Content Team to 150 People with Alex Mashrabov 1h 9m · 28 Sep 2026

20VC: Five Predictions for a World of Agents | The Ads Business Model Will Die | Biggest Lessons from Working with Elon Musk at Twitter with Parag Agrawal, Parallel 56 min · 26 Sep 2026

20VC: Meta's Muse Hits No. 1. ChatGPT Finally Has a Rival | Menlo Sounds the AI Bubble Alarm | Factory Triples Its Valuation to $5 Billion | Keith Rabois vs Airwallex: Who is Right? | Crusoe's $3.9 Billion Round. Is the Data Centre Trade Overheating? 1h 20m · 24 Sep 2026

20VC: Why AI Cannot Replace Humans in Enterprise | Why Work Processes Not Models Will Be The Most Valuable Asset in AI | Why Europe Has Lost and Building in the US vs EU with Daniel Dines, UiPath 1h 11m · 21 Sep 2026

20VC: "Anti-Data Centres is a Chinese Psyop" | How Many Planned Data Centers Will Actually Get Built? | Is Energy AI's Biggest Bottleneck? With Thomas Sohmers, Co-Founder @ Positron 1h 11m · 19 Sep 2026

20VC: Why "Pacing the Frontier" is BS | Instinct Raising $1BN at $10BN & Meta Launches Muse | Miro Sells for $1.35BN After a $17.5BN Valuation | Mistral Raises €3BN & Could Sam Bankman-Fried Win His Freedom? 1h 15m · 17 Sep 2026

All episodes from The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch →

Report any issue

Source

Recorded13 Jul 2016

Publisherthetwentyminutevc.libsyn.com ↗

Handlerec:352258

Show notes

Brad Burnham is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ Union Square Ventures. I feel Brad is far better described by his partner Fred Wilson, than I ever could so this is Fred's words on Brad. "Brad and I founded USV together in 2003. We had both been in the venture business for more than a decade, had made a fair bit of money, but were still hungry to prove ourselves. Brad is the strategist and the most principled investor in our firm. It was Brad's idea to write a treatise on venture capital and the internet before we set off to raise our first fund and that exercise we did together continues to be our guiding light. Brad is the person behind phrases like "the application layer of the technology stack" and "large networks of engaged users" that I use all the time. He gives me most of my good stuff which I often get credit for." In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Brad made his way into VC? How did he come to co-found USV with Fred in 2003? 2.) How did Brad approach team building with USV? What does he look for in his partners? 3.) Brad has previously stated his belief that 'history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme. How does this affect Brad's view toward market cycles, the way tech is adopted and ultimately replaced? 4.) What does Brad make of the extension of the private market? Are we entering a period of consolidation? What makes Brad believe this? 5.) Looking back at the history of USV, what have been the inflection points in both the stature of the firm and then Brad's learnings as a VC? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Brad’s Fave Book: The Irrational Optimist Brad’s Most Recent Investment: OB1 As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Brad on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Snapchat here! This episode was brought to you by DesignCrowd, the online marketplace for custom graphic, logo and web design that helps startups, entrepreneurs, web developers and agencies outsource design projects to designers from around the world. How Does It Work? Once you have launched your brief, designers will begin submitting quality designs for you to review. With some constructive feedback, you can quickly generate a large gallery of designs that really do fit your needs. You can have exactly what you need within just three days. Once you have selected your favourite design, you will be sent all the files you require to update your branding. If you don’t like any of the submitted designs, then DesignCrowd offers a money back guarantee. So checkout designcrowd.com/VC and enter the promo code VC100 to get an astonishing $100 off your next project.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.