Brian Chesky on Ron Conway
news.airbnb.com
news.airbnb.com
> A particularly memorable moment was one night I was in the office at 11pm with our then director of finance, Alfred Lin (now COO of Zappos).
> We were at wit’s end because we had just lost our biggest customer opportunity which was with a large US telecom company. Normally “losing” didn’t phase us as we even developed a motto: “losing is just a step on the path toward winning.” But this time, we were really in trouble because the customer was signing a long-term contract with our competitor later that week. We had already appealed to the President of the division; the only further escalation points were to the CEO or Chairman. We had already tapped out our VC contacts. If we lost this customer, as Alfred dryly pointed out, it was unlikely we’d be able to get our revenue over our fixed costs in any reasonable timeframe. I asked Alfred what about any of our angel investors, so we went through them and none seemed likely to be able to pull this off.
> Alfred said, “Well there is this one other investor, Ron Conway.” I didn’t know Ron at the time, and his investment was quite small. But we had nothing to lose by reaching out. So sometime after 11pm, I wrote Ron and essentially said: “hello, you don’t know me, I’m an executive at a company you’re an investor in, and we need a meeting—in person—with the CEO himself of this Fortune 50 company—this week—and if you can’t make this happen, hey that’s ok, but we may be going down—sorry.” Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.” The next morning, Ron had done it. Tellme went on to win an eight figure contract that led to a nine figure contract. That’s a lot o’ money from a desperate email from someone he’d never met at 11pm.
> Tellme was eventually acquired by Microsoft for about $800mm. My view of building startups is that it is somewhere between impossible and almost impossible, so you want all the help you can get. Tellme’s VCs (The Barksdale Group, Benchmark and Kleiner Perkins) were also extremely helpful, and I don’t think Tellme could have succeeded without them, including help with customer connections. But my personal opinion is that I’m not sure we would have made it without Ron either.
And yet he's a super nice guy. In fact, nice is not the word. Ronco is good. I know of zero instances in which he has behaved badly. It's hard even to imagine."
— Related PG article[0]
I'm not saying that isn't a good strategy, or that he hasn't used a more refined approach in reality — just that someone who invests so broadly would mathematically be expected to have the broadest exposure to winning (and losing) startups.
Ron was there and his one comment that had struck me was, I’m paraphrasing, that he only invests in young founder’s startups. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
BTW, this is not new. There is a well known bias in many Bay Area investors when it comes to founders above a certain age - where the exact age depends on the investor.
The post started of great as a gratitude filled thank you note to people who helped AirBnB succeed. But ended as a promotion for the award.
* https://www.google.com/search?q=ron+conway+sf+propositions
* https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/hes-back-ron-conw...
* https://missionlocal.org/2016/10/billionaires-back-bid-to-ba...
So while he maybe a great VC, that’s only one aspect of a person.
Def a weird article.
The "Progressive" camp (I use quotes because their policies are often about stopping progress, especially in growing business and housing) would often bring out Ron Conways name whenever they needed a boogyman for rich tech who is somehow pulling strings behind the scenes.
I've seen a little bit of behind the scenes where Ron would donate some money to a cause and then just be supportive. But I didn't get the sense that he was some political mastermind behind the scenes like the progressives often paint him as.
Another anecdote. I was at Square when Jack Dorsey announced that Square would no longer be allowed at gun shows or for any other kinds of gun sales. This was around the time of a mass shooting, I forget which one, there have sadly been so many.
Several years later, I was at an small event and panel about gun violence and what would be done about it. Ron Conway was there to introduce the panel and he talked about how, a few years prior, he had gotten very passionate about the issue after some mass shootings. He got a lot of Silicon Valley CEOs and leaders together to both raise money but also see how they could work to reduce gun violence.
At that moment I put it all together. Jack Dorsey had been at that Ron Conway event and that convinced him to shut down gun sales with Square.
These links are nothing sauce. All the players send out endorsements to their peeps. Fund raisers to pay off campaign debt is common. Billionaires buying ballot issues is direct democracy in action (aka Freedom Votes™).
Hate the game, not the player. Our campaign financing is payola meets bribery. Fix that. Like maybe public financing of campaigns. Or show these players the ROI is terrible. Or make the case that biz and politics don't mix. Whatever.
The ad hominem crap doesn't help.
In my time of living in SF (9 years till recently), his name has come up outside of the startup context multiple times, with less glowing reviews and the article.
While Airbnb benefited from his business and investor wisdom, outside of business, the outcomes he was able to sway is not as clear cut as being an overall good.
I’m just presenting other articles about him since HN seemed interested about this topic.
And what’s wrong with banning people from setting up tents on public sidewalks all over the city and claiming that public space as their own?
Because first you need an alternate place for them to go, which is the missing step in the bans on the Peninsula, which has also banned sleeping in vehicles.
For those who want to learn how not to do it, watch the Caifornia Insider - Epoch Times interview about LA spending $500,000 per person on emergency housing spaces and basically getting nothing in return. (The non-permanent homeless budget in SF is currently $180 million per year.)
How to Help the Homeless with Edward Ring | California Insider
"Ron is exercising his constitutional right - even responsibility - to participate in the political process of his hometown and have opinions about candidates and issues on the ballot. It’s no different from any other CEO or union or high profile individual making endorsements. Ron understands that ranked-choice voting does not allow for multiple votes for the same candidate, though his enthusiasm for some candidates seems to have been interpreted otherwise. The fact is a lot of people in the tech community look to Ron for recommendations and he is glad to share them and encourage others to share them as well," said Alex Tourk, Conway's political advisor in an email to Business Insider.
In the bay you're a Democrat or... There are no other options.
Either way the mentorship will be incredible, as will the ability to make connections in the industry. I imagine getting chosen for this program will have a large, measurable impact on the companies' valuations.
You are going to select one company from YC who is already selected from the cream of the crop, so that you could mentor them?
I mean this is something that you can just email YC about doesn't need to be blasted to everyone as a press release.
I mentor a lot at Techstars. We went through Techstars, had a great experience, and so I try to help other companies. I also mentor outside of Techstars, and generally just try to be as helpful as I can to anyone that reaches out, time permitting.
I'm not writing press releases about it.
The charitable/giving nature of this hyper large organizations is pale relative to their size.
I think this is a something fundamentally missing from the DNA of these companies.
Rich person does a thing
“No that’s not enough you must do more! This is crap”
Why would anyone choose to help us peasants if this is how we react?