"Having such high valuations at such an early stage can repel VCs from investing in a start-up, he said."
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
The enormous multiples generated by successful startups mean there is no "value investing" in the startup business. There are no successful investors who systematically seek out underpriced startups. The successful investors are simply the ones that pick the winners, regardless of price.
You're saying value investing for startups is a suboptimal strategy. (I understand your point and read swan farming and found it highly interesting.)
I'm saying that may be true but that doesn't stop investors from trying.
Khosla is one of these people. He appears to have just stated he was.
Now maybe there are ulterior motives at play, and Khosla is lying about his aversion to superhyped startups.
Basically I'm saying investors have a distribution of frugality coefficients, and was asking: what does it look like if you plot "frugality" versus "investor quality". I would guess there might be a small relationship. Even if frugality is strongly negatively associated with quality, it is still true that high valuations will turn-off some quality investors. However, the important question is not whether you turn off some good investors, but, how many good investors do you attract, period. Thus hype may still be good.
Likewise, it's normally considered a positive thing for a company to get a high valuation from investors. This suggests that investors think the business is very valuable. But Vinod has described high valuations as a negative. PG is using a famous quote to point out that it's not something one would normally view as a negative.