The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: a16z's $15BN Fundraise with Alex Rampell | The Best Companies Have Hostages Not Customers | The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers and Labour | Mid-Sized Funds with Die and The Future of Venture Capital
12 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: How did a16z raise $15 billion for their latest funds?
I think you want to invest in people that can materialize labor, capital, and customers. The way that I do it, just kind of to be pithy about it, is like we either want to buy any percent, any percent of something that is absolutely working or high ownership of something that could work. The best companies have hostages, not customers.
So probably of the unicorn class, I would bet that maybe 5% will ever be able to go public. We were buying out of the money call options and we hope they expire in the money. We don't necessarily think you could take it as a given that a small fund will outperform a large fund.
$15 billion. That is how much Andreessen Horowitz just raised. It is over 20% of the entire pool of capital raised by venture firms.
Chapter 2: What two groups of funds will dominate the next decade in venture capital?
Today, I'm joined by Alex Rampell. general partner at Andreessen, where he leads their $1.7 billion apps fund. He's also led deals in Mercury, Plaid, Opendoor, and many more. And this is one of the best shows that I've done in a long, long time. I actually think to one of Alex's statements every single day.
Chapter 3: What are the three essential skills of the best founders?
It's taught me so much. And it's very simple. Will the startup acquire distribution before the incumbent acquires innovation? I have Alex to thank for that, and it always sticks with me. But before we dive into the show today, over 80% of Fortune 100 companies are running their businesses with Airtable.
Chapter 4: Why does Alex Rampell believe the best companies have hostages, not customers?
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Chapter 5: What are the two types of deals you should pursue in venture capital?
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Chapter 6: Why is founder-capital fit crucial in venture investing?
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Chapter 7: What are the dangers of multiple successive funding rounds?
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dude it's been eight years i'm hoping that my question asking ability has gone up in terms of quality in those eight years now listen i want to start 15 billion dollars you raised today and i was just looking at that and i was wondering in an age of venture today do you have to go really big or go crafts and very small and boutique to win in venture today
Yeah, I mean, I think this sounds like a bad word when I say death, but there is this kind of death of the middle that happens to a lot of asset classes in general. In venture capital, it was a tiny, tiny asset class at the beginning. Right now, it's gotten bigger, but it's really more of the end state of a lot of these companies is huge.
I mean, Sequoia used to brag about, I think it was like 20% of the market cap of the NASDAQ was Sequoia companies, millions of, like, you know, Apple and Oracle and all of these amazing names. They're very, very big. And companies go public much, much later today.
So the ability to deploy more capital, more money into kind of venture capital, which is no longer kind of sidetrack here, Series D didn't exist in like 1992, right? It's like that was an IPO. Like companies would go public. I think Amazon went public at like a $600 million market cap or something. Like that was the norm. There was no Series I, Series K, Series W anymore.
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Chapter 8: What does the future of venture capital look like?
I got 120 times the capital that I get. DPI. How big was the fund? I think it was $8 million. But this is the thing. It's like, that's incredible. Your point is very valid. Like, can you get 120x on a $2 billion fund? Probably not. I'm willing to bet you that you can't get 120x on that. But you can return far more dollars if you're very, very good.
And this is the question that you originally asked was, and this is why I called it the death of the middle. Like, my view is most asset classes, you either have to be a large generalist or a small specialist. And the hard thing is to be a mid-sized generalist, because then you're largely going to lose to the big generalists or the small specialists.
So Ribbit, as an example, they really focus on fintech. That's how I know them well. That's a specialty. They're not trying to do everything. Or Kazakh in Latin America, they are focused on a specialty. And they can be small. They're not trying to do everything across the entire planet. The entire job of venture capital is to find, pick, and win investments.
If they're good investments, the winning is very, very hard. And the winning therefore goes to the person that is like the best. Like you have to sell. Like this is a sales job. You know this, right? You have an entrepreneur. They're amazing. They don't come along very often. This is the best entrepreneur you've ever met. You have to convince them to take your money. And how do you do that?
You have to say, I am the greatest person in the world to help you, which means I have this amazing specialty. And, or I have all these things that I can do for you. I'm connected to everybody on the planet, given the scope and scale of my kind of general generalization, right?
Like on the big side, if I'm just like, Hey, I kind of do a little bit of everything and I don't really know that much about your business and I'm not that big and can't help you that much. It's just, you're going to lose. That's why the death of the middle is what tends to happen for a lot of these asset classes. And then LPs, they want to chase returns. It's also sometimes hard to reach LPs.
So the big generalists kind of gobble them up, or the small specialists that generate very, very good returns will gobble them up as well.
I have so many things to say. The first thing I do just want to say is Mickey Malka, you mentioned. Mickey, when I was 18, helped me and agreed to be a mentor of mine 12 years ago when it was completely not obvious. I had no idea why he spent time with me and he's been incredible to me ever since. He always taught me, you're never won or lost. You're only ahead or behind. Keep playing.
And I love that. You mentioned that about kind of the scale of dollars. And actually, wouldn't you rather do 5x on 250 than, I don't know, 15x on 10 or whatever it is? Yes, but there's an opportunity cost of dollars. And for an endowment fund, they are able to put it into the smaller fund.
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