Much taller IRL
Salt Lake City, UT
Joined May 2007
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Bryce Roberts retweeted
people are misreading my tweet entirely
These are not investments that are bad/where you will lose money / these are investments where the likelihood of returning multiples on your fund (the goal of a true vc investment) - is extraordinarily unlikely.
You do them because the halo effect of being in them (if you can be in them) is extremely accretive to the investments you make or are trying to make that do have true vc potential - yes, through making them more legible to LPs in a bucket of assets when raising capital. Upstream investors thinking you’re ’in the mix’ and founders feeling they get more of a brand halo from taking your money as ‘hey you’re also in a bunch of stuff that benchmark/thrive/sequoia etc… are in’
As a basket these checks won’t lose money - but if you’re relying on the to 10x your fund you are fucked - have to go to the real risk for that.
Raging against the machine will only get you so far, you must also use the machine against itself if you want to truly win and by win I mean have significantly better performance than incumbents.
Always wild to see a big local breakout company with no local VCs involved.
Databento Raises $100 Million Series C at $1.1 Billion Valuation
utah.vc/p/databento-raises-1…
Bryce Roberts retweeted
I get frustrated with the false dichotomy between speed and quality.
@dbabbs, the CTO and cofounder of @profound, on the company value that gives @firstofkind E04, Part 2 its name:
“Fractal speed is awesome because every fast decision that you make then starts to compound.”
Are speed and quality really at odds?
Season 3, Episode 4, Part 2 is here:
Fractal Speed, a deeper sit-down with @dbabbs, the CTO and cofounder of @profound, following Tuesday’s live conversation at @SPC. Now available on 𝕏, YouTube, and Instagram
If you missed Part 1, LIVE from SPC: sole.io/S3E04Lxf
00:00 There’s No Moat
00:36 Back at South Park Commons
04:18 Fractal Speed: Fast and Good at Once
06:34 Taking a Year to Hire Design
11:47 The Marketing Harness
15:55 Two Weeks Down to Two Hours
21:38 Don’t Vibe Code Your Payroll
25:32 You Have to Be Different
31:10 Do More With More
33:22 Just Go Post
36:34 Union Square Domination
41:44 Growing Up in the Bay
46:50 Have Fun While Doing It
Powered by @framer @noondesign @bot @tryramp @vercel @meetgranola @profound
Hosted by @soleio and coproduced with @Room3NYC
This might be the most fun I'm having in my 25yrs of investing. Only took half my life to start figuring some stuff out.
"Venture fundraising has been shrinking: 2025’s total of $67 billion is down 34% from 2024 and about 70% from the 2022 peak of $223 billion. It seems to be rebounding this year, but more of it is going to fewer, larger firms."
You don't say...
Venture capital is dead (again).
More money is being raised by fewer investors. So far in 2026, funds over $1 billion have taken 72% of all venture money raised. Last year it was 34%. Ten years ago, it was 16%.
Even firms famous for staying small, like Benchmark and Union Square Ventures, have caved. Benchmark’s five partners raised $425 million in 2024. This June, they raised $2 billion.
When a fund has too much money per partner, they are forced to cope by either making bad deals or by taking on less uncertainty. The former is bad business, the latter is not venture capital.
The last time this happened was the 1980s. A decade when money per venture investor tripled, median returns fell from above 30% to 8%, and firms moved into buyouts and rollups. Even Sequoia dabbled in LBOs. By 1994, Marc Andreessen called Silicon Valley “dead in the water.”
In his latest essay, Colossus contributing editor @ganeumann explains what happened next, what’s likely to happen now, and which firms are best placed to win.
colossus.com/article/venture…
Bryce Roberts retweeted
My new company is taking on a lease starting Jan 1st near Bryant Park (37th and 5th).
We are going to have a bunch of empty desks that we'd love to sublease with a few small teams who want to co-work.
The space will also have podcast studios set up and ready to record.
DM me if you're interested.
Love seeing our early conversations continue as ongoing themes throughout the @firstofkind series.
An epic conversation between two of my favorites.
A key motivation behind @firstofkind is giving the next generation of creatives some working examples of the people who gave themselves permission to lead by example.
@bryce and I often talked about the risk-aversion that often afflicts the creatively minded. It was the genesis of Season 1.
I hope this project inspires a new breed of builder, and that down the road they’ll point back to these specific conversations as the source of unlock. It’ll make the effort all the worthwhile.
Enjoy E03 “How We Win” with @karrisaarinen the CEO @linear this weekend
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Bryce Roberts retweeted
the most successful people i know seemingly have endless energy to express raw effort in every aspect of their lives- they live intensely, joyfully, and equally effortlessly in all aspects of life and work.
bay area freaks have cargo culted this into souless automo-elon golems
Bryce Roberts retweeted
Larry Page reportedly has a number for how much computing will end up in space: five nines. As in 99.999%.
@patrick_oshag heard it secondhand: "Someone asked Larry Page how much of compute will be orbital, and he said five-nines."
@martin_casado's reason it might happen: "It's just basically regulatory." He thinks there are 500 proposed bills to stop data center building in the US, Texas included.
From @InvestLikeBest.
Bryce Roberts retweeted
US defense tech:
“We will spy on you from space.”
Chinese defense tech:
Hotties
Bryce Roberts retweeted
This should be a very simple fix to allow an already-existing private school campus to be a private school.
Alpha School parents all over the US are very excited for potential winter exchange sessions in Park City :)
Cc @SpencerJCox @owenfuller
Utah did a really smart thing and passed legislation making it easier for microschools to open without having to navigate all the usual red tape around local zoning and permitting.
So when @Alphaschool approached me last year about opening a school on a property I own in Park City, it seemed like a perfect fit. The property had been home to a 150-kid private school for years.
Ironically, despite the history of the property and a state law that explicitly makes microschools a permitted use in every county zoning district, Summit County has refused to issue @Alphaschool a business license without first requiring a conditional use permit. Which seems like the exact thing the law was intended to prevent.
So now we have a perfectly good six-acre school campus sitting empty while we figure out where else in Park City we're allowed to educate children.
Makes loads of sense.
@SpencerJCox little help 🙏
The future of Alpha School is already at risk in Utah. We should be scaling this instead we’re stifling it.
Seems like something worth fixing @SpencerJCox
Utah did a really smart thing and passed legislation making it easier for microschools to open without having to navigate all the usual red tape around local zoning and permitting.
So when @Alphaschool approached me last year about opening a school on a property I own in Park City, it seemed like a perfect fit. The property had been home to a 150-kid private school for years.
Ironically, despite the history of the property and a state law that explicitly makes microschools a permitted use in every county zoning district, Summit County has refused to issue @Alphaschool a business license without first requiring a conditional use permit. Which seems like the exact thing the law was intended to prevent.
So now we have a perfectly good six-acre school campus sitting empty while we figure out where else in Park City we're allowed to educate children.
Makes loads of sense.
@SpencerJCox little help 🙏
