This week on the Newcomer Podcast, we dive into three stories that reveal how tech, politics, and media are colliding in unexpected ways. First, we look at Andreessen Horowitz’s expanding media ambitions, exploring why A16z wants to shape the narrative around everything from defense tech to TikTok. Then, we turn to Trump’s feud with Jimmy Kimmel, which led to Kimmel’s suspension and re-hiring by Disney — a moment that highlights the uneasy dance between business leaders, politics, and late-night TV. Finally, we take a deep dive into the Klarna IPO, a $15B milestone that was more than 15 years in the making, unpacking the winners, the losers, and the lessons that investors and founders can learn from the journey.Hosted by Eric Newcomer with reporting from Madeline Renbarger, this episode offers sharp insights into how power and money are shaping the future of technology and media. Subscribe for weekly conversations at the intersection of Silicon Valley and society, and don’t miss more deep dives at newcomer.co
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Newcomers had a crazy week of stories.
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Madeline Rembarger took a look at the winners and losers and
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the Klarna IPO. This was not your traditional
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venture capital overnight success story.
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It had a $46 billion valuation. Would it be a good time to go
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public? Then?
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Sequoia Capital built in a major position, but there was a lot of
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money trading hands along the way.
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I'm sure Tom Duton, who's here on the podcast with us, will
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have a lot to say about Jimmy Kimmel's temporary ouster from
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ABC and the pressure from the FCC chair, quoting from his
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social media post. I can't believe ABC fake news
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gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. And then this week, I published
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a story on Andreessen Horowitz's financial performance.
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We're going to start the show with that.
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They've returned a ton of money secretly to limited partners,
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thanks in part to their savvy crypto investments.
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And so we'll have a lot of analysis on how Andreessen
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Horowitz has raised its many, many billions return, some to
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investors. Without further ado, this is the
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Newcomer podcast. All right, I, I, this was the
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white whale to pat myself on the back of venture capital
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journalism. I think lots of VCs over the
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years have been trying to figure out how well does Andreessen
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Horowitz perform? You know, it's a firm fantastic
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getting itself a lot of attention and controversy,
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certainly made a ton of Unicorn investments, but it, you know,
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spins out money like it's shooting out of a bazooka.
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And so really wanted to get an answer.
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How's it doing, Madeline? I mean, you followed Andreessen
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for a long time. What What was your reaction to
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our story? Yeah.
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Well, first up, congratulations, Eric.
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I think that's been our most requested, you know, look behind
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the hood. What's going on in Andreessen?
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What are they really doing? You know, and one thing that
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struck me from the piece, honestly, is I didn't expect
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them to be doing as well as they are.
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Does that kind of how you felt in your analysis too?
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I think everyone talks about how their their rounds are so
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inflated and they buy out everyone else and their whole
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game is just, you know, management fees.
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But seems like a lot of their investments, especially some of
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their 2010's vintages, are doing quite well.
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Yeah, just to tick through, you know, like the headline is the
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firm returned $25 billion net to its backers.
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So after Andreessen takes its cut 25 billion back, obviously
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this is a firm that's raised a lot of money.
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So it's like, OK, makes sense some of it would come, would
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come back to you. But they, you know, have
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returned a significant amount and it importantly a huge chunk
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of it, some $12 billion was in 2021.
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And if you're, you know, someone who follows tech stocks in 2021,
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that was madness. That was everybody's investing
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at terrible prices, at high watermarks.
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And it's like, what's going on? And I think part of what this
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story reveals is that in the background, investors were
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cashing in their winners. So it's like, oh, they were able
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to raise a bunch of money. A lot of stuff was happening
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because they're like, we're geniuses, we're rich.
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We're selling everything at such high prices.
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And Andreessen in particular was able to see a massive amount of
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liquidity to its limited partners to its backers in 2021.
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Right. I mean, I think you know,
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venture funds we are kind of roughly on a 10 year cycle,
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right? So 2021 for those vintages at
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least on per your deck, the 2011, 2012 vintages looked super
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high performing because about you know, 10 years exit during
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the boom. Amazing.
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And of course, they had, I'm sure they had, you know, the
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companies were good, but you know, it was also a timing game,
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you know? It's funny, actually, Eric, I
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remember the last time I think that Andreessen's returns were
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leaked or in a story was our buddy Rolf Winkler at the
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Journal had a story that showed that they were pretty good.
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And I think for some reason, initially, people were skeptical
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about it at the time. And maybe it wasn't as good as
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people had thought, but they were solid.
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And this one, I think, only reaffirms that point.
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But like, a lot of time has passed between then and now.
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What were like the big winners? We don't.
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We don't know all the specifics. Fun to fund.
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I mean, Coinbase is a key winner for Andreessen.
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Like flipping, I think crypto tokens has been very lucrative
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to that for them, like Uniswap and there are a lot of stuff.
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I mean, one of the things I revealed in this story, which
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you can read the full thing at newcomer.co, but Andreessen has
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made $422.7 million from like crypto staking.
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So like supporting these crypto projects along the way besides
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like flipping tokens and selling equity in crypto companies.
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So this is, this is a firm that's run a lot of creative
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ways to make money from crypto. They're, they're huge investors
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in data bricks. I think like data bricks is
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still private. My sense is they still own a lot
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of it. But like, I, I think when you
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think about why is Andreessen so successful?
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I do think like the success of data bricks is certainly one of
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the key companies that should come to the top of your mind.
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GitHub and Slack are two that they, they've sold out of.
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They did well for them as well. And what's interesting is that
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you look at the different trends like tech type cycles that have
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happened in the 10 years. Okay, data bricks, I get it.
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That's about the growth of databases.
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That's, you know, big data and and that whole industry.
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So you can see them capitalizing on that, you know, the the Uber
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for X and on demand world, I guess really Uber is the only
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big winner. They didn't get anything from
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that. They're they're in Airbnb and
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they're in Lyft. Lyft ended up not.
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Not Lyft wasn't great, that's right, they were the Lyft
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company but. Airbnb was good, yeah.
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Yes. So that that was that was a
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solid return. What what else though?
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I mean, what other trends were there that Matt, well you
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mentioned crypto and and they kind of won it the biggest
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company there. Andreessen's first crypto fund
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is being held at 7.1 TVPI now after peaking at like 11 TVPI,
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which I mean, in the weeds of, you know, venture jargon, it's
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very good. Define the terms which are
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complicated even to us. So TVPI is total value to paid
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in capital. So that's like the value of you
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know, OK, how does venture work? We raise a venture capital firm,
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say it's a billion dollars. We deploy that money.
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We invest in startups. Those startups get marked up.
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We haven't actually exited the position.
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We still home own these illiquid shares, but the value goes way
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up. We invest in data bricks.
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Investors say those shares are now worth a bazillion dollars.
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We say, oh man, our TVPI has gone up by a ton because we've
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seen the value skyrocket. That is in contrast to another
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word that venture capitalists like to throw around, DPI
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distributed to paid in capital. And that's actual money.
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Your investors have gone back. DPI is the I feel like really
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the one of the most important metrics, right?
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Because that's actually money back in the bank.
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Money to LP is that is the cash DPITDPI.
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To deliver, you know, you gotta exit, you have to exit, you
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know, and, and so, you know, I, these are the numbers I got, you
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know, from source, They're from two different decks.
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It's clearly like 1 was, you know, a quarterly update to
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limited partners. So it seems like they are even
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to sort of the savvy insiders relying on this TVPI number,
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which again leans heavily on markups rather than exits alone.
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But you know, it's sort of paired with the fact that
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Andreessen has returned a lot of money to investors.
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So I think their strategy seems to be, hey, we've given you a
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lot of money. Therefore, like our sense of
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what these companies are worth is pretty reasonable.
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Like trust us that like you should pay attention to the
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total value rather than just the money you've gone back.
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Because like, why should we rush to get out of like good
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companies at high, high valuation?
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So, So yeah, the Andreessen skeptics and I've gotten some
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emails from them, we'll say DPI, DPI, like tell me what exits
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they've actually had. Not like what markups, you know,
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because you know, they mark up their own companies, all the VC
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firms, you know, want to sort of keep these valuations up to the
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extent possible, so. They can always double down on
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another investment, right? They can always, you know, do
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another follow up round at a crazy even higher valuation.
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And then it's like great, our numbers are doing so well
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because we keep back at the same company.
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So it is still all paper. Just to tick off, you know, some
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of the big takeaways. So I said 25 billion net
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tobaccers since the firm was founded in 2009.
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I think the second big take away is, yeah, their top fund, their
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third fund was at 9.4 X net total value to paid in capital.
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So it's been marked up sort of an enormous amount.
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So clearly they have some great funds.
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Crypto was really strong for them.
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Bio has been pretty weak and those funds keep getting marked
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down. Growth grows a little hard to
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assess. I mean, it seems good.
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I mean you sort of need to benchmark them to other ones.
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But yeah, I think pretty strong. But but overall, and then I
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think just this amazing. The other bullet that stood out
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to me is just how large crypto looms for entries and including
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making revenue from staking crypto currencies and that
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they're like telling investors like man are you know, I never
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even heard of SUI. Had you guys heard of this SUI
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thing? I don't even follow it, but like
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it's driving like they marked it down by a billion dollars and a
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quarter. Like Andreessen is swinging,
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like their assets are swinging dramatically on like obscure
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crypto products that people are are not tracking.
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The last thing I we won't tick through all of them.
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But you know, if you read the story I list, you know, they
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have companies that they think, you know, might go public, which
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is obviously interesting to a certain set of investors.
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So I don't know if you're that invested.
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Go go subscribe to Newcomer and read the story.
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OK, so you look at the partners that are responsible for some of
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their big victories. You've got data bricks, which is
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Ben Horowitz, and he made like a pretty impression and impressive
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early bet on a. And go see sort of navigate, I
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think. Yeah, Andreessen gets a lot of
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credit to me. For yeah, yeah.
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And I did a story at the Journal about, about Ali and, and, and
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data bricks. And Ben actually made their
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introduction to Microsoft, which was the the first moment where
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they kind of catapulted outside of just being another startup.
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And they had this huge Azure partnership and, and that was
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all Ben making that connection. So he totally deserves credit
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for a lot of their success. Airbnb from a a couple of years
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earlier. That's Jeff Jordan.
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Who's not? Who's there anymore?
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Yeah, at least if he's there, he's not like one of the, he's
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not one of the listed investors in their slide deck, so.
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Yeah, right. And then and then Coinbase,
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which is Chris Dixon. Chris Dixon, I think.
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Yeah, Yeah. So I mean, I know this is not
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uncommon, but for a firm that has like, I think at last count
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200 listed partners at Andreessen Horowitz, it really
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comes down to like 3 guys more or less that are like powering
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all their success. Yeah, I mean, Marc, Marc
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Andreessen, obviously it's like the brand and the vision and I'm
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I think he's, he's certainly close to some of these deals.
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And and I don't it's, there are like crypto tokens.
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There is a Slack deal early. Honestly, they had this whole
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Skype investment early on that was sort of important to them.
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So there have been others. But yeah, I mean, it's even at
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this scale where they're investing and they're raising,
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you know, $3 billion funds. It's it's home runs, but it's
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not just home runs where you lead the Series A.
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It's like you lead the Series A and you say, oh, man, this is
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the good one. Like back up the truck.
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And that's why I think with like General Catalysts and Stripe,
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you know, Andreessen and Coinbase and data bricks, you
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see these firms that are raising massive war chests.
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Like really you gobble up a lot of these companies.
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I mean, we published the returns of Lightspeed a couple months
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ago and like they were a little more diversified.
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Like I actually had the tables of like how each fund broke
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down. But you know, there were
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companies like Rubric where that that would be like a huge
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section of of the returns for the fund.
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Yeah. I mean, even in the decks,
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they'll like make the graphic just like this is the companies,
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you know, these are the companies that have built the
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big returns. They're upfront about that as
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well and when they're pitching their investors.
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On the crypto side and to connect it to Marc Andreessen, I
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think I was debating this with another reporter a couple months
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back, but I think one of the impressive things that
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Andreessen has done in terms of like infiltrating the Trump
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administration is basically setting policy for crypto.
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And you look at, you know, what they managed to do with the SEC
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and and I don't know if any of their well, Coinbase, were they
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were they ever under SEC investigation?
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Yeah, yeah. In any event, like it's
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obviously a much friendlier administration to crypto than
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than Biden was. And policy wise, this was a huge
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victory for Andreessen and and probably drove some of the
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accumulation and in value of of their crypto holdings is the
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fact that like they seem to play a major role in setting policy.
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It was very crypto friendly and other stakes are worth a lot
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more. So like that to me is maybe the
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Marc Andreessen. And then if he doesn't get her
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playbook again on AI, which I guess I'm more supportive on the
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AI for. I mean, to me on crypto, the
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Biden administration, with the benefit of hindsight, clearly
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fumble by having their regulatory approach to crypto be
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like, we're going to make you afraid, but we're not going to
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actually tell you whether it's legal or not.
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And like, that just created this terrible situation where it felt
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like the lawbreakers almost performed better than the rule
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followers because you were sort of, if you were willing to
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ignore regulators, you survived. Have you followed the rules?
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You got hammered. So I think that was bad.
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And, you know, now it seems like we're in a world where like,
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crypto, OK. And like crypto is allowing like
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the biggest public corruption of all time with Trump like in his
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mean point like. It's like we've swung from like
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too strict. You don't have to swing from the
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from too strict to free for all right?
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There is a ground. Worst, like there's so many bad
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things going on in Trump. We're going to talk about more
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on them on this episode. But the public corruption of
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Trump's crypto holdings is egregious.
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And the crypto world's, you know, like regulatory work
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certainly laid the groundwork for what's happening with Trump
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coin. So I'm certainly frustrated
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about that, even if, you know, I think there's some valuable
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things to come out of crypto. If you look at their job as a VC
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firm, though, like they're about, you know, returning to
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their, you know, investors. They're all about VPI, Troy and
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like. Troy, the Honesty of the
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American government. Yeah, it means that Melania gets
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a meme coin like, great. Well, one piece also that I
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think we haven't touched on from your story is how much
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Andreessen's media ambitions loom in the future of the fund.
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I mean, they were kind of the classic, you know, fun that's
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gonna turn into a media company. And they've had so many
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different media arms that they've tried to do over time.
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But it does seem like that's a big focus for the firm right in
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what you were they literally? Calling in the Deck a media
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company that monetizes through venture capital, like, man,
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every media company should be jealous.
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That's one. And then they they talk about
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the compounding value of content.
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So at once it's very affirming to what we in the media classes
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do. On the other hand, clearly
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Andreessen Horowitz has a much Better Business model than any
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of us in the media business. So kudos to them.
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But yeah, what do you guys make of just how seriously they
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profess to take editorial content and and media?
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Well, look, like you said it in your initial piece on it, it
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didn't work. You know, they don't really have
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this Direct Line. They don't really have this
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Direct Line to the public, to the, the, the customers that
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obviates us. And I'm not even saying this
00:15:50
defensively. Like I would have, you know,
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that there are certain examples of, I think successful media
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arms within VC firms. Like I think pirate wires,
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they're getting a little weird these days.
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But like, I give them credit. I don't think a lot of the yeah.
00:16:03
Well, did you? They had some shit about like
00:16:04
donating blood, Like you have to donate all your blood.
00:16:08
Yeah, I, I'd love to talk about it with Mike, your buddy, but
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listen on on the Andreessen stuff.
00:16:14
Like it's one of those things where like if you were
00:16:17
successful, you can claim any rationale for the reason you
00:16:19
were successful. So but the numbers that you have
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proved they've returned money or they have prospective money they
00:16:25
can return to investors. They're a very successful firm.
00:16:27
Also, they have this media strategy.
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Whether the media strategy is responsible for their success is
00:16:33
very debatable. And I think like they can, they
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can dictate the terms of that because they they they are
00:16:37
successful. But I'm very skeptical.
00:16:39
So, so one of my early viral stories was in January 2021, and
00:16:44
it was about, it was the unauthorized story of Andreessen
00:16:46
Horowitz. And it was basically arguing
00:16:48
that Margaret Wen Mockers, their chief marketing officer, was
00:16:51
like sort of the third most important person at the firm,
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that she'd basically helped the Ben and Mark build up this
00:16:58
reputation in the media. You know, Mark famously penned
00:17:02
an op-ed that said software is eating the world in the Wall
00:17:05
Street Journal. Like that sort of using the
00:17:07
media both through like op eds and being quote machines and
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leaking and whispering like was key to Andreessen's strategy on
00:17:15
the way up. And then sort of during the
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pandemic and Trump won Andreessen, Marc Andreessen's
00:17:22
politics change, maybe Margit's politics change.
00:17:25
And the firm just sort of sours on the media class.
00:17:28
And all of a sudden they're like, they're not cooperative,
00:17:30
they're hostile and they're trying to build their own
00:17:33
apparatus. And I think that that's when I
00:17:36
write the story. Then they try to launch future,
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which is I think what Tom is referencing, which is their own
00:17:41
publication, like we're really gonna do it is gonna be a media
00:17:43
property. And that thing like fumble.
00:17:46
Almost immediately, it felt like they had no day 2 strategy.
00:17:49
They had a bunch of posts on day one.
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And then it's like, what's the plan, guys?
00:17:52
The problem with media is you have to keep doing it day after
00:17:54
day. So that failed.
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But like they were dominant in clubhouse when that was cool.
00:18:00
They have which has failed very successful podcast.
00:18:03
They you know. Not a top podcast though.
00:18:05
Compared compared to the venture industry, they are the noisiest
00:18:09
and most paid attention to, compared to like Mr. Beast,
00:18:13
they're smaller, but you know, their podcast is bigger than
00:18:15
this one. So like we are a media business
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smaller than theirs. So they, it depends how you
00:18:22
measure their success. And then the latest is they've
00:18:25
hired Eric Tornberg, the founder of Turpentine Media, to be a
00:18:29
true general partner and try and again make them successful
00:18:34
influencers. To to me, the only thing that I
00:18:37
think they deserve credit for as a media entity is crypto policy.
00:18:42
I just think like they spun their brand into a way that got
00:18:45
influence in the Trump administration, which is very
00:18:47
responsive to podcasts, to, you know, to apparently, you know,
00:18:51
scammy crypto, you know, schemes.
00:18:55
But if you again, like going back to the things that drove
00:18:58
most of their success, Martine Casado, sorry, you know, Ben
00:19:01
Horowitz with OK, he's somewhat of a figure though, although,
00:19:04
you know, he's a little bit more like middle of the road, I think
00:19:07
than some of the extremer takes coming from people like Marc
00:19:10
Andreessen, Chris Dixon, not out there all that much, not a very
00:19:13
aggressive, you know, a media attacking figure.
00:19:17
And then Jeff Jordan, who again, is not really in the picture all
00:19:19
that much. So I just really want to push
00:19:22
back on this idea that it drove their success.
00:19:24
Like they made a lot of savvy bets.
00:19:28
A key, yes, but a key insight of Andreessen Horowitz to me was
00:19:32
that the real constituency is the founder.
00:19:35
And that normally in like finance and old school venture
00:19:39
capital, the people you're trying to communicate to are
00:19:42
limited partners and limited partners are sort of
00:19:44
conservative. They're the investors of venture
00:19:46
capital firms. So you have this sort of like
00:19:48
austere, like reserved brand that sort of says like we're the
00:19:52
gatekeepers. And I think Andreessen realized,
00:19:55
no, like founders are the customers because if we can get
00:19:57
great founders to care about Andreessen Horowitz.
00:20:00
Then they'll take our money, we'll have great returns, LP's
00:20:03
will be happy. Like forget LP's.
00:20:04
Like obviously we do some, you know, they do some to make LP's
00:20:07
happy. But like, the customer is the
00:20:09
founder and they hammer that message.
00:20:11
And so while it's not like competitive with The New York
00:20:14
Times in terms of reach, I think founders heard I need to go to
00:20:18
Andreessen Horowitz if I want credibility, if I want all these
00:20:20
platform tools. And I think that message was
00:20:23
received. And that's part of why
00:20:24
Andreessen's been able to get sort of the exits and the
00:20:27
investment level that they wanted.
00:20:29
I don't know, Madeline. What do you think?
00:20:31
Yeah, I think I think you're on to something there.
00:20:33
I do think that by focusing on founders first as sort of their
00:20:38
audience rather than the LP's they have attracted, you know,
00:20:42
people view them as the funds that you want to get to help
00:20:46
build your cap table, even if of course there's equal amounts of
00:20:48
skeptics that say Andreessen will fund anyone.
00:20:51
Like clearly based on these returns, they've done quite
00:20:53
well. So founders know that founders
00:20:56
want to check from injuries and even if it's, you know, it's
00:20:58
some inflated valuation because it adds the So they're clearly
00:21:02
conscious of the brand. I will say though, kind of to
00:21:05
Tom's side, I just think it's tough given like how
00:21:10
unsuccessful their media adventures have been.
00:21:13
I mean, obviously our podcast is smaller.
00:21:15
I get that, but like it just to me seems like they they they
00:21:19
shut it down like the clubhouses didn't work.
00:21:21
I don't know. I think they but they do try
00:21:23
things. I'll give them that.
00:21:24
They, yeah, they jump. They're not widely, you know,
00:21:27
they're somewhere in the middle. They're their media efforts.
00:21:29
But their middle, they're gonna get ribs to middle of the road.
00:21:31
But their branding efforts and their marketing and brand is
00:21:34
very successful. Yeah, and that has been huge for
00:21:37
them. Of course BC firms are brands,
00:21:39
but I think more than anyone and recent has perfected that as a
00:21:43
business model. Yeah.
00:21:44
All right. For our second story, so we
00:21:46
wanted to talk about Jimmy Kimmel.
00:21:48
It's an irresistible topic, you know, Newcomer.
00:21:52
Here at Newcomer, we're obviously very focused on how
00:21:55
our business is doing. We try not to think about the
00:21:58
government too much. But then sometimes, especially
00:22:02
in a strongman democracy that we seem to be living in right now,
00:22:06
the government looms too large. So we we felt compelled to call
00:22:11
out the meddling from the FCC and the Trump administration in
00:22:17
the case of 1 Jimmy Kimmel. So we we said business leaders
00:22:22
dance to Trump's tune. The Trump trade is ethically
00:22:25
bankrupt and riskier than it seems.
00:22:28
It's time to sell. This is sort of a team effort
00:22:32
piece. So this this is not my line.
00:22:35
I think Jonathan Weber, our editor, pulled this, he said.
00:22:40
As a matter of personal and professional ethics, we're quite
00:22:42
surprised that people with plenty of means who have climbed
00:22:45
to the summit of corporate power have opted to grovel at Trump's
00:22:49
feet. He's obviously talking about,
00:22:51
you know, Disney basically capitulating here.
00:22:53
And Bob Iger, like, why'd you roll over?
00:22:56
And we write, we understand that Trump represents a real threat
00:22:59
to their business interests. But as the prices line from
00:23:02
billions goes, what's the point of having fuck you money if you
00:23:06
never say fuck you? And that that was the piece.
00:23:09
And like, I do think enough people sort of shouting like man
00:23:13
Eiger, etcetera. Why are you guys so weak here
00:23:17
and spineless? Got ABC to sort of like reverse
00:23:21
course, bring back Jimmy Kimmel and hopefully hold the line.
00:23:24
I don't know. Yeah.
00:23:26
Tom, I mean, you follow media so closely.
00:23:28
Obviously you lived in LA for a long time, wrote about
00:23:31
Hollywood. What?
00:23:32
Where? Where do you see?
00:23:34
You know, we made this sort of a business story, but it's really
00:23:36
a Hollywood story. What do you make about it?
00:23:38
Make of it sort of from inside Hollywood.
00:23:41
It's so. Funny how in the midst of a
00:23:43
crisis everyone becomes experts on the topic that just popped
00:23:47
up. So remember when everyone was
00:23:48
like experts on NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine and we
00:23:52
became extremely knowledgeable about like the insurance and
00:23:54
outs of like membership countries in NATO and COVID,
00:23:57
everyone became. Virologists.
00:24:00
We were epidemiologists. And virologists.
00:24:02
So now we're all ratings experts and you know, the, the smart
00:24:06
conservative take after Jimmy Kimmel was like, ah, this was
00:24:08
them of cutting bait. This was ABC cutting bait on a
00:24:11
low rated show, which is just like I understand that that was
00:24:14
the spin that Paramount gave when they cut when they
00:24:18
announced they were going to be shutting down Stephen Colbert's
00:24:21
show and getting rid of the late night franchise entirely.
00:24:24
This was completely like wrong headed and just goes to show
00:24:26
that like, you know, you know, kind of self professed experts
00:24:30
and, you know, quick studies on a business that they otherwise
00:24:33
have no fucking clue about really leads people to very,
00:24:36
very dumb ideas, which is like ABC has been dying to get rid of
00:24:39
Jimmy Kimmel all of these years. And because of a controversy,
00:24:41
they cut bait mid epis, you know, just before the recording.
00:24:44
So they it was just like, it doesn't like you think it was
00:24:46
like a. Well positioned show for ABC.
00:24:49
No, I mean it was. Yes I don't even know where to
00:24:53
start with these things like late night as a genre has been
00:24:56
in decline. If you look at the ratings, no
00:24:57
one really watches broadcast television anymore and these
00:24:59
shows that air at 11:30 on local affiliates are not enticing to
00:25:04
most people that watch TV. The rating the views on YouTube
00:25:07
far outstrip what what the the live ratings are.
00:25:10
So anyone who's trying to make a, you know, what the reach of
00:25:13
these shows is, is based on its TV ratings, doesn't take into
00:25:17
account that these are basically web shows at this point.
00:25:19
And I was listening to Bill Simmons.
00:25:20
He's making the point Jimmy Kimmel leads ABC up front.
00:25:23
He's like a big part of the ABC brand.
00:25:24
Like they use him for a lot of stuff.
00:25:26
They like him. They.
00:25:27
Like him, he is a huge bonding you're.
00:25:29
Responding to the disingenuous like, you know, like argument
00:25:34
about smart take like that was the thing.
00:25:35
That annoyed me, right? Like that became the like.
00:25:37
Yeah. Oh, I really know how the
00:25:39
business works. Some of the publications that we
00:25:43
like. A Dylan Byers take but.
00:25:45
I'm maybe he didn't write no Dylan as much as I.
00:25:47
Really despise the guy and I don't mind saying that on the
00:25:49
podcast as much as I truly dislike him and what he does as
00:25:53
a journalist. Like he understands how media
00:25:54
works, so he wasn't dumb enough to really think that that's
00:25:57
what. But also his classic Trump that
00:25:59
Trump. Keeps me like even after Jimmy
00:26:01
Kimmel came back, he's like, no, I'm trying to get rid of like
00:26:04
Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, literally like tweets
00:26:06
out like, oh, I got ABCI basically extorted ABC for like
00:26:10
$19 million or whatever. Maybe I need to do that again.
00:26:13
You know, it's just like all these conservatives like, you
00:26:15
know, try to come up with the most like, you know, Fairmont
00:26:17
intellectual. Speech like.
00:26:19
Business rationalist. Reason.
00:26:21
For this. And then it's just like, no, I
00:26:23
did exactly what I said and I'll do.
00:26:25
Yeah, it's. This is why Trump is like maybe
00:26:29
a uniting figure in other ways, because he just fucking says the
00:26:33
thing that is the most basic and like uninformed, not informed,
00:26:37
like unenlightened version of what's going on.
00:26:38
Like you have all these people trying to create the
00:26:41
intellectual framework for Trumpism and it's like, Nah,
00:26:43
it's just this guy's peak and ego.
00:26:45
And you know, he has no interest in standards and and checks and
00:26:50
balances and all that shit. So I mean the FCC.
00:26:53
Chair literally said this can go the easy way or the hard way,
00:26:55
you know, it's just like it's yeah, it's literally like a
00:26:58
mafia like behavior. Yeah, I I saw some.
00:27:02
People trying to say that like, it was unfortunate that he said
00:27:04
that because it, it was somewhat coincidental to, you know, the,
00:27:08
the, the effect. Like, had he not said that, it's
00:27:09
possible that Sinclair and and Nexstar might still.
00:27:14
Right, right. Well, they wouldn't.
00:27:15
Have had like this sort of smoking gun of, of, you know,
00:27:18
First Amendment violation on a fucking podcast, right?
00:27:21
Where so, so it ended up kind of being counter to the, to the
00:27:24
truth, which was really that ABC has just been dying to offload
00:27:26
Jimmy Kimmel, which is so dumb. But I mean, look back to the
00:27:30
tech angle of it. If we can try to like keep this
00:27:32
somewhat grounded and what we're supposedly experts on.
00:27:36
I mean, like one of the biggest things that you saw coming out
00:27:39
of like tech support for, for the Trump administration was the
00:27:44
bridging of a bridging of free speech on the platforms, right?
00:27:47
That that, you know, the Biden administration leaned on
00:27:49
Facebook and and leaned on well, any Twitter, obviously with the
00:27:54
whole Twitter Files things to get ideas that were not publicly
00:27:58
acceptable. I don't even know which were the
00:27:59
ones because a lot of the stuff happened during Trump, you know,
00:28:01
like maybe lab leak theory. I guess the Hunter Biden laptop
00:28:06
was was the number one thing that they point to.
00:28:08
But this became like a core animating philosophy for.
00:28:14
Trump. Supporting tech people that like
00:28:16
Biden was anti free speech. We believe as our first
00:28:18
principle that free speech is the most important thing and
00:28:21
platforms and everyone should be allowed to it.
00:28:24
They were not as outspoken as they probably should have, but
00:28:26
there were some, there were definitely some I saw out there
00:28:29
saying like this is this is mildly concerning.
00:28:31
You know the content moderation stuff is a.
00:28:33
Minefield that like, Oh my God, it's almost like a whole nother
00:28:36
can of worms. But your your your point here is
00:28:39
just, you know, if the she was on the other.
00:28:42
Foot animated during the Biden. Administration about the
00:28:44
influence on social media and the impact on free speech.
00:28:46
Their rallying cry was free speech.
00:28:48
And here we were in the media class being like, well, it's not
00:28:50
really free speech. Quibble, quibble, quibble.
00:28:52
And now you have like, what feels like very direct speech
00:28:56
and like, a lot of people are silent.
00:28:57
I mean, Ted Cruz and others did did speak up.
00:29:00
I think Mitch McConnell, you know, Jimmy Kimmel in his
00:29:03
monologue on the comeback, thanked, you know, Ted Cruz for
00:29:08
for defending him, basically. So there were a couple.
00:29:11
But yeah, it's it's always disappointing that people can
00:29:14
have free speeches or rallying cry when they're in the
00:29:16
opposition and then not stand by it.
00:29:20
Yeah. And if it truly is?
00:29:21
Like your first principle that that is the most important thing
00:29:23
to you, then like you really should have been a little bit
00:29:27
like sure there was support for him.
00:29:28
They should have been madder about it 'cause if the shoe was
00:29:30
on the other foot, they would be apoplectic.
00:29:32
You know, if this was, you know, Biden in charge and he got, I
00:29:36
don't even know who the, the allegory would be on the left,
00:29:39
but you know, whatever. Like centrist right wing version
00:29:41
that was like. Yeah, well, but he's on cable.
00:29:44
I mean, that's the problem. Like it's such a specific issue
00:29:47
with with with because it's, you know, the FCC overseas
00:29:51
affiliates, they don't oversee cable.
00:29:53
So you can just say whatever the hell you want on cable.
00:29:55
So anyway, I don't have the perfect analogy here, but the
00:29:57
fact is, if this was, and I think I was complaining about
00:30:00
this Eric in a group chat that we're in, like, you know, if
00:30:02
this was about like, because the initial claim about why it was
00:30:05
OK for Brendan Carr to like threaten Jimmy, was that like,
00:30:08
well, implying that, you know, Tyler Robinson was MAGA is just
00:30:11
false. Like you're spreading
00:30:12
misinformation and you know, you there should be consequences for
00:30:16
spreading misinformation. No one really knows what his
00:30:19
beliefs are. This guy, you know, we have like
00:30:22
Joe Rogan. 'S like, oh, you really offended
00:30:24
people by going against the narrative.
00:30:25
Not did I really accept the narrative?
00:30:27
You know, it's like this is like they're all mad, but they're
00:30:30
also all conspiracy theorists. So at once it's like, OK, we're
00:30:33
holding we're going to get really angry that you're defying
00:30:36
like the government narrative on what happened at the same time,
00:30:39
we're the conspiracy people who don't believe it.
00:30:41
You know, it's just like, why you guys so mad at Jimmy Kimmel?
00:30:43
Besides, like you've all I don't even I don't think there was
00:30:46
that. There was some organic
00:30:48
groundswell, but this was clearly like top down.
00:30:50
You didn't feel like the anger at Jimmy Kimmel, Like I don't I
00:30:54
don't know. I did not feel well.
00:30:55
I didn't. I mean, you know, and a lot of
00:30:57
the reporting on it was just like this viral clip of Jimmy
00:31:00
Kimmel saying this. I had never heard this monologue
00:31:02
thing until the Brendan Carr incident.
00:31:04
Like, I don't remember everyone kind of being extremely mad.
00:31:06
And you know who had a great column about this?
00:31:09
Yeah. From the ropes was was Nate
00:31:11
Silver wrote a piece that was kind of comparing it to like the
00:31:16
post 911 environment where everybody was just so uneasy
00:31:21
about what you were allowed to say on air and if you could kind
00:31:24
of cross the administration. And hilariously, the analogy
00:31:27
that he brought up was, you know, Bill Maher hosted this
00:31:30
show politically incorrect. And he got into hot water at the
00:31:32
time because he very bizarrely said that the 9/11 hijackers
00:31:37
were brave, more brave than the Americans who were like raining
00:31:40
missiles on Afghanistan. And that really pissed off the
00:31:44
Bush administration. And he ends up getting cancelled
00:31:46
and replaced with Jimmy Kimmel. And that's kind of the
00:31:49
beginnings of his show was was after they cancelled politically
00:31:52
incorrect. But his point was like, you
00:31:55
know, the environment we're in is so similar to, you know, the
00:31:58
post 911 moment where there's just so much apprehension and
00:32:02
and and warring factions over what is allowable speech.
00:32:07
Mark Elias, the. Democratic lawyer who rightfully
00:32:11
feels very dismayed that all these law firms and media
00:32:15
companies are capitulating to Trump.
00:32:17
Mark Elias argued you should build anti fragile institutions.
00:32:20
And you know, I, I am proud that like a newcomer we can it's it's
00:32:24
easier for us easier. It's like we can hold the line
00:32:27
seemingly more comfortably than ABC and CBS partially because
00:32:32
it's like, who the hell are these guys?
00:32:33
But also just like we're not dependent on, you know, Trump to
00:32:37
approve random mergers. And so there's something nice
00:32:41
about just being independent. Most, you know, you know,
00:32:44
obviously we have different revenue streams, but none that
00:32:48
see pressure points from the Trump administration at the
00:32:50
moment. We we should talk about.
00:32:52
That for a bit actually, because like, I don't want to be too
00:32:54
self aggrandizing and congratulatory about like, you
00:32:57
know, us making our money from independent media.
00:33:00
But like, if anything, I think it is, if there's anything to be
00:33:03
learned from this ridiculous episode, is that like corporate
00:33:06
media as an as an entity is increasingly useless.
00:33:10
If, if, if they're not going to stand up to the administration
00:33:14
in a, in a, in a serious way, then what value do they have?
00:33:17
Their their business has been under attack for, for years.
00:33:19
Like just as a financially, you know, their audiences are
00:33:24
shrinking. Their hold on the culture is
00:33:26
still there, but I think increasingly tenuous because of
00:33:29
like non, you know, mainstream distribution platforms and, and
00:33:32
the video that comes out of that.
00:33:33
So, like, and you look at these people that end up kind of
00:33:36
getting kicked off of mainstream television, like Stephen
00:33:38
Colbert, what's he going to end up doing after he leaves CBS?
00:33:41
Probably he'll do a podcast. You know, like, like, like Jimmy
00:33:44
Kimmel might be more influential.
00:33:45
I mean, that was the thing with Jimmy Kimmel.
00:33:46
He would probably be bigger. Yeah.
00:33:49
Well, I don't know. Do you believe that would be
00:33:51
bigger on his own? Well, I mean.
00:33:52
You could look at the Conan example, right?
00:33:54
Like Conan's podcast is wildly successful after he cancelled
00:33:57
TBS, Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so I mean
00:34:00
obviously. TBS is smaller, but but you
00:34:03
could make the argument that he could, you know, have built
00:34:05
something quite successfully independently after this, you
00:34:08
know, we'll have he's back on the air.
00:34:10
So we don't know, but other people have done this before.
00:34:12
Yeah. So like.
00:34:13
Like the culture wars may still gravitate towards things that
00:34:17
are coming out of mainstream media because it's closer to a
00:34:20
monoculture than anything else we have.
00:34:22
But like, the trends are so clear right now.
00:34:25
And I, you know, like, there's this sports podcaster, Dan
00:34:30
Levittard, who's like ESPN, former ESPN, and he was making
00:34:33
this point pretty, pretty smartly that I guess I said
00:34:36
earlier, which is like, what's the value of, of, of corporate
00:34:39
media anymore? If if they're if they're not
00:34:41
going to do anything substantial, you know, use what,
00:34:45
what remaining pieces of power that they have to push back on
00:34:48
this stuff. And I don't know, like it makes
00:34:51
me feel good about where I'm at. Like I was at the Wall Street
00:34:53
Journal for. Yeah, I mean like I was.
00:34:56
At the Wall Street Journal for a couple of years, they, by the
00:34:57
way, like did a really bad job covering the, the, the shooting
00:35:02
and, and put out a story with a completely inaccurate headline
00:35:05
about, about, you know, transgender ideology being, you
00:35:08
know, a key part and why this guy killed Charlie Kirk.
00:35:11
And they've not done a very good job because there was something
00:35:14
written like. Notices bulge owo on the bullet
00:35:17
like some meme reference. Like it's not even.
00:35:19
How could you even There's a law.
00:35:20
Enforcement brief that you know, they accurately reported that
00:35:24
there was some law enforcement brief, but it's like you need
00:35:27
the underlying thing to be true and it was weaponized.
00:35:29
You need to. See what the brief says, right?
00:35:32
Yeah. So I, I guess like, you know,
00:35:36
we'll see what happens, but I wouldn't be surprised if we five
00:35:39
years from now and look, look at the growth of independent media
00:35:43
and see, you know, the Jimmy Kimmel moment is at least very
00:35:47
indicative of where the power balances are.
00:35:50
And, and like where, where the momentum is, is, is headed.
00:35:53
And what it means for like a united society is a whole other
00:35:56
thing. If, if everybody is like, you
00:35:59
know, reading the, the various sub stacks and, and podcasts and
00:36:02
whatever that they agree with, but it just seems like there's
00:36:06
no turning back from it. And if corporate media doesn't
00:36:08
have any, anything, you know, foundational to what they do
00:36:12
that gets people interested in them and, and, and finding that
00:36:16
they have value, then like it's not, it's not going to go, it's
00:36:18
not going to go well for them with that.
00:36:22
Inspiring point for independent media and sad point for
00:36:26
corporate media. We can brag about one story
00:36:29
we're proud of. Madeline had a great story on
00:36:31
the Buy now pay later company Klarna which went public a
00:36:35
couple weeks ago. Stock price is down marginally
00:36:39
but still way up from the depths of the post 21 heyday.
00:36:45
So yeah, way. Up from it's 2022 mega dollars
00:36:49
and lows for Klarna. You want to give us who are, who
00:36:51
are the winners and losers in terms of the investors and the
00:36:54
Klarna IPO? Yeah, absolutely.
00:36:56
I would say Sequoia is a very big winner.
00:37:00
Sequoia got in at the Series A and got about 1/4 of the company
00:37:05
there. I think it was Chris Holton at
00:37:10
the time was the principal who made the introduction of the
00:37:13
Klarna founders to Michael Moritz.
00:37:15
They liked the idea. They bought on back in, I think
00:37:19
it was 2010, but the company had been founded in, you know, 2005.
00:37:23
So you know, it had been working along in Europe.
00:37:26
But this was the first big BC I was very proud by.
00:37:29
The way somebody, somebody DM me like Chris Olson really found
00:37:32
that company for Sequoia and I went and checked.
00:37:34
I was like, yeah, that's in our story.
00:37:36
Like, I'm glad. I'm glad.
00:37:38
You had that in there because it's like it's easy for the
00:37:40
junior part. I I always like that in the
00:37:42
story of the cap table, like who's the, you know, the big
00:37:44
famous partner or, you know, on these good deals, like Mike
00:37:47
Moritz takes the deal. And obviously they do a lot
00:37:50
along the way help the company succeed.
00:37:51
And then, you know, founders are often loyal to that person.
00:37:54
But yeah, Chris Olson who's still an investor, I think it
00:37:56
drive capital source deal for Sequoia, yes.
00:38:01
So important credit where credit is due, but Sequoia I think
00:38:04
followed. I would say the Savvy Venture
00:38:06
model, the closest with the corner story over the 20 years,
00:38:09
it was private, you know, they were coming in when it made
00:38:13
sense and then, you know, advising the company along the
00:38:16
way. But they sabbily held out of the
00:38:20
crazy super high inflated valuations and the just
00:38:23
everything's online shopping post pandemic interest rate
00:38:25
02021 rounds. So Sequoia did not invest in
00:38:29
either of the two really big SoftBank rounds that were led
00:38:31
then that happened then and then they came back in and bought
00:38:34
another huge bulk of shares when the valuation was down to I
00:38:37
think 6.7 billion in 2022. And then of course, first
00:38:42
segment. In this story, actually first
00:38:44
first segment in this podcast 2021, do you want to make money?
00:38:48
You needed to play that the right way, right?
00:38:51
You needed to sell and so or sell or at least not buy.
00:38:55
And in the case of Sequoia, they did not buy Klarna shares at
00:38:59
what like a 31 billion valuations, I think it got
00:39:03
above. 40 at it got above 40 at one point too.
00:39:05
Oh wow, and now it's for. The second one. 16 yes.
00:39:10
So you could not. You should.
00:39:11
Not have been buying like SoftBank in 2021, correct?
00:39:16
But another player to your point again about buying smart and
00:39:20
selling high, the private equity firm Premiera came in which I
00:39:24
think had been under covered at this point around kind of 2017
00:39:28
in the middle of the sort of rapid growth phase for Karna and
00:39:32
then exited pretty much half of their holdings in 2021 at the
00:39:37
peak. So they are no longer they're
00:39:38
not on the they're not on the S1 or the F1 because it's a
00:39:41
European company, but they're not on the F1.
00:39:43
Their name isn't mentioned, you know, in the current large
00:39:46
stockholders, but they exited in 2021.
00:39:48
So it was an incredible deal for them versus, you know, Guy was a
00:39:51
principal. At the time, what's his name?
00:39:53
We need to give the partner who did the.
00:39:55
Deal was Andrew Young at Premier who's still there.
00:39:59
But yeah, Congrats to Andrew, seriously.
00:40:02
I mean, it was we, we have to do our little TV stand they have.
00:40:04
Gongs and shit when people are doing.
00:40:06
We're not quite that. Yeah.
00:40:07
Shameless winner Andrew. Young, you know.
00:40:11
The Ding Ding, Ding. DST in.
00:40:13
General Atlantic, they did OK, but not great.
00:40:16
They did OK, yeah. They came in.
00:40:18
So that's another point I would list them in sort of the mid
00:40:20
tier because they came in, you know, in 2011 right after
00:40:24
Sequoia did. But then they exited to in that
00:40:27
round that Premier bought in. So Premier bought some of their
00:40:29
shares as well when they came in in the middle and it was a solid
00:40:32
exit, but it was, you know, kind of like a 2.5 X ish when you
00:40:37
could have had something a lot bigger if you had held in both
00:40:40
Sequoia kind of doing the classic way, you know, get in
00:40:43
early, advise the company venture model, biggest steward,
00:40:46
largest shareholder outside of the founders, you know, like
00:40:50
they can claim that they can be the best venture firm.
00:40:53
But Karna, I think shows that you could have won big on this
00:40:57
without doing the venture playbook, frankly, because it
00:41:00
was private for so long. And now we have all these
00:41:01
unicorns that have been private for so long too, that I feel
00:41:04
like we'll see more of these wins in the middle than we used
00:41:07
to to to step. Back.
00:41:09
OK, So whether you're a venture capitalist or an investor, like
00:41:14
what, what lessons can you learn from this story?
00:41:18
I think there are a couple and you guys are welcome to jump in
00:41:22
with some. I mean, I think one lesson is if
00:41:25
you invest in a good company and hold for a long time, you'll do
00:41:29
pretty well. I mean, Sequoia bought early.
00:41:32
The company had lots of up and downs.
00:41:34
They believed in the company. Now they're up at the IPO.
00:41:38
So I think that's one. The other is sort of the the
00:41:42
opposite, which is if you're going to trade things along the
00:41:45
way, you really need to be smart about where you are in the
00:41:49
market. Because there were people who
00:41:51
came into a good company in 2021 and that was a terrible deal.
00:41:55
And they're people who came in before that and sold out.
00:41:58
You could come in after 2021 when there were all these
00:42:01
markdowns and you would have done well.
00:42:03
So you, you do sort of need to get the timing right, yeah.
00:42:07
Except to your point, yeah, if you would have come in at 2022,
00:42:10
you would have been up at IPO and that you have only been in
00:42:13
the company for a couple years before they went public versus,
00:42:16
you know, holding the whole way through.
00:42:18
Sequoia does have the largest gain on capital of any of the
00:42:22
firms to be fair though. So I will give points to the
00:42:24
venture model there. They made the most raw money,
00:42:28
but the case against. Sequoia is the time value of
00:42:32
money, right? They had to wait a long time to
00:42:35
see these returns. So I would rather be Premiera in
00:42:41
this case. I, well, I'd rather build the
00:42:43
institution of Sequoia, supporting founders like going
00:42:45
along, being sort of reliable, like I think a lot of credit to
00:42:49
them and just like standing by a good company, a good founder.
00:42:51
So I think that's admirable if you were optimizing purely for
00:42:55
let's make some money, the do a good deal at the right time in
00:42:59
the company's history, exit when everybody's losing their fucking
00:43:02
minds and be like, this is too much money to like stay in this
00:43:05
company forever. Like Premier as a financial
00:43:08
institution played it really well.
00:43:11
All right, well, great story. We'll have more, We'll have more
00:43:13
stories as the captive. It seems like IPO activity is
00:43:16
picking up a little bit. So I think we're gonna try to
00:43:18
revive this format and track who the winners, mostly winners, I
00:43:24
guess, when you're going public, but sometimes losers like
00:43:27
SoftBank. No offense.
00:43:29
Yeah, thank you for tuning in to this weeks episode of the
00:43:33
podcast. Listen to new episodes every
00:43:35
week wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to The
00:43:37
Sub Stack at newcomer.co.