Gurley observes venture markets rise slowly but crash immediately, based on experiencing three bubble cycles.
“Yeah. Look, I've lived through three different bubbles and bursts in this industry, and unfortunately, it's highly cyclical. And when you and and it tends to go up slowly, and it tends to crash immediately.”
Gurley says the venture industry is highly cyclical, rising slowly but crashing immediately across three bubbles.
“I've lived through three different bubbles and bursts in this industry, and unfortunately, it's highly cyclical. And when you and and it tends to go up slowly, and it tends to crash immediately.”
Gurley observes tech valuations rise slowly but crash immediately, and he has now seen this pattern three times.
“it tends to go up slowly, and it tends to crash immediately. And so this is the third time I've seen valuations crash,”
Gurley claims venture's outperformance depends entirely on tiny frothy windows; without peak years it's an uninteresting asset class.
“And if you don't, if you aren't around for that part, you know, you strip those years out a forty year assessment, it's actually not that interesting an asset class,”
Gurley says venture firms should exit at peaks but instead become most confident about holding forever at those exact moments.
“Yes, right when we are at the peak is when people get the most brazen, the most confident and they start talking about how we're going to hold forever.”
Gurley says during booms every firm started multiple funds, piling up money and slowly taking on unrecognized risk.
“So when things boom, everyone starts a venture firm. Right? And in this past boom, in addition to everyone starting a venture firm, every venture firm started multiple venture firms and growth firms, and all that money gets piled up and you're slowly taking on risk and you don't realize it.”
Gurley tells entrepreneurs the 2020-21 boom was a fantasy, not normal, and current conditions are reality.
“Then I'm not the only one, there's other VC's getting, this is normal dude. Like that was a fantasy you were in and you need to forget it fast, but you can't.”
Gurley describes venture cycles as sawtooth patterns rather than sine curves, with gradual risk-on and abrupt risk-off.
“it doesn't happen like a sine curve which is what we all imagine when we think of a cyclical business, it's more like a sawtooth.”
Gurley describes risk-on as slow and reflexive while risk-off happens abruptly, not like a sine curve.
“Risk on is a very slow process and it's reflexive so it grows and grows and grows and grows And then risk off tends to be very abrupt”
Gurley says venture capital returns are heavily dependent on performance during the hottest part of market cycles.
“what I realized was that the IRR numbers and the ROI numbers on the venture capital category were heavily dependent on performance in the hottest part of the cycle and so in the tip of that sawtooth”
Gurley coined the phrase that protecting against downside requires enjoying every bit of upside in venture cycles.
“that's where we came up with this phrase that the best way to protect yourself against the downside is to enjoy every last bit of the upside.”
Gurley finds the period after market corrections to be the calmest with least anxiety in his career.
“I found through my career, which wasn't four decades, okay. Over three That the window after the correction is the calmest, where there's least anxiety for me at least.”
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“And then risk off tends to be very abrupt and we've seen that here, right? This this cycle, risk on was from o nine. That's well said. To five months ago.”
Gurley explains venture firms must maximize upside because IRR depends on hot cycle performance, which may accelerate collapses.
“And that's where we came up with this phrase that the best way to protect yourself against the downside is to enjoy every last bit of the upside.”
Gurley finds post-correction windows the calmest period with least anxiety as people behave more rationally and pragmatically.
“The window after the correction is the calmest, where there's least anxiety for me at least. Like, everything slows down, people talk rationally, people aren't doing silly things.”
Gurley argues that during risk expansion periods, average entrepreneur quality declines as easy capital attracts people from banking and consulting.
“And I think you actually, that entire time that risk is increasing, the quality of your average entrepreneur that's getting funded is actually going down.”
Gurley argues that entrepreneur quality declines during boom times and improves when risk appetite falls.
“I think you actually, that entire time that risk is increasing, the quality of your average entrepreneur that's getting funded is actually going down.”