Resources
If you are interested in expanding your knowledge of the world of venture capital and technology, below we have a curated list of books, articles, videos and podcasts to help you on your way.
Introduction to Venture Capital
Joe Hadzima, MIT
A short introductory powerpoint presentation on venture capital from Joe Hadzima at MIT.
Scott Kupor, a16z
An article covering the basic mechanics of how the VC industry works.
Jeff Jordan, a16z
There are all kinds of numbers, measures, and metrics that illustrate the promise and health of a particular company. A16z has helpfully compiled a list of the most common or confusing ones.
Newsletters
Dan Primack, Axios
Insider views on deals and dealmakers in venture capital, private equity and M&A, by Dan Primack. Weekday mornings.
Benedict Evans, a16z
News links and commentary on the tech industry from a mobile expert and Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
Interviews with VCs and Entrepreneurs
Investor’s Field Guide
A conversation covering how technology is changing the world from an Industrial Age to a knowledge age. The talk explores how cryptocurrencies, low cost computing, and regulation will impact our future and why the transition may require delicate care.
Origins by Notation Capital
Naval Ravikant discusses sources of capital from the founder’s perspective. Naval is also a prolific angel investor himself, has run a venture fund, and has been an LP in venture funds, so he brings deep knowledge of the entire stack.
Origins by Notation Capital
Interview with Hunter Walk about his experiences building product as one of the first hires at Second Life and then at YouTube after the Google acquisition. The talk also covers what it took to get Homebrew off the ground in 2013 with his partner Satya Patel.
Investor’s Field Guide
A conversation with Chris Dixon, which focuses on major trends in technology, including cryptocurrencies and the future of autonomous vehicles and drones.
Recode
Hoffman explains why LinkedIn sold itself to Microsoft, why Airbnb hasn’t gone public yet and why he believes everyone in politics and business should adopt the “Spider-Man” motto: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Recode
Benchmark’s Bill Gurley says he’s still worried about a bubble. There’s too much money in the startup ecosystem, and “there will be consequences of that,” he says.
Books
Clayton M. Christensen
The Innovator’s Dilemma
A Wall Street Journal and Businessweek bestseller. Named by Fast Company as one of the most influential leadership books in its Leadership Hall of Fame. An innovation classic. From Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos, Clay Christensen’s work continues to underpin today’s most innovative leaders and organizations.
Geoffrey Moore
Crossing The Chasm
In the Technology Adoption Life Cycle there is a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. While early adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, the early majority waits until they know that the technology actually offers improvements in productivity. The challenge for innovators and marketers is to narrow this chasm and ultimately accelerate adoption across every segment.
Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson
Venture Deals
The book dives deeply into how deals are constructed, why certain terms matter, and more importantly, what motivates venture capitalists to propose certain outcomes. You will see the process of negotiating from the eyes of two seasoned venture capitalists who have over 40 years of investing experience as VCs, LPs, angels, and founders.
Carlota Perez
Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital
This book presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way. Carlota Perez draws upon Schumpeter’s theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a “New Economy” and how these “opportunity explosions”, focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises.
Peter Thiel
Zero to One
The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there.
Eric Ries
The Lean Startup
This book teaches a new approach to business that’s being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It’s about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late.
Angela Duckworth
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
In this must-read for anyone seeking to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth takes us on an eye-opening journey to discover the true qualities that lead to outstanding achievement. Winningly personal, insightful and powerful, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that – not talent or luck – makes all the difference.
Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar
Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor’s Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond
Bitcoin was the first cryptoasset, but today there are over 800 and counting, including ether, ripple, litecoin, monero, and more. This clear, concise, and accessible guide from two industry insiders shows you how to navigate this brave new blockchain world.
Blogs
Fred Wilson
A daily blog with an enormous following from a long-time venture capitalist.
Paul Graham
In 2005 Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell started Y Combinator, the first of a new type of startup incubator. Since 2005 Y Combinator has funded over 1000 startups, including Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit.
Tomasz Tunguz
Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner at Redpoint Ventures, shares advice and learnings for entrepreneurs.
Chris Dixon
Previously, Chris was the cofounder and CEO of two startups, SiteAdvisor and Hunch. For the past five years, Chris has been an active seed and venture-stage investor at Andreessen Horowitz.
Bill Gurley
Bill Gurley has spent over 15 years as a General Partner at Benchmark Capital. Prior to Benchmark, Bill was a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
Mark Suster
Perspectives of a 2x entrepreneur turned VC at @UpfrontVC, the largest and most active early-stage fund in Southern California.
Academics Papers
Vinay Pande
Computers today are roughly 1000x more powerful, at the same price, than those a decade ago. And they are roughly a million times more powerful than twenty years ago. This dramatic period of growth from the 1970’s through today has led to software eating the world. Tech is powerful because it rides Moore’s law—the decades-long ability for the tech industry to exponentially decrease cost and improve capabilities.
Marc Andreessen
The era of Artificial Intelligence is here, and boy are people freaking out. Fortunately, I am here to bring the good news: AI will not destroy the world, and in fact may save it.
Robert Harris, Tim Jenkinson, Steven N. Kaplan and Ruediger Stucke
The conventional wisdom for investors in private equity funds is to invest in partnerships that have performed well in the past. This paper presents new evidence on the persistence of U.S. private equity (buyout and venture capital) funds using a research-quality dataset from Burgiss, sourced from over 200 institutional investors.
Paul Gompers, Anna Kovner, Josh Lerner and David Scharfstein
This paper shows that entrepreneurs with a track record of success are much more likely to succeed than first-time entrepreneurs and those who have previously failed. In particular, they exhibit persistence in selecting the right industry and time to start new ventures.