Who is on this subjectordered by the date of their first quote here
6 of 8 lanes rest on fewer than 5 quotes and are marked thin. Offsets are days from the middle first-quote date, 16 Jun 2022 — a date, and nothing else. It is not a claim about who reached a view first.
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Bill Gurley
28
11 Jun 2011 – 4 Aug 2026
-4023 d
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Brad Gerstner
11
23 Jun 2020 – 6 Jan 2026
-723 d
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Gavin Baker
2
thin
25 Jan 2022 – 25 Jan 2022
-142 d
- Stanley Druckenmiller 1 thin 16 Jun 2022 – 16 Jun 2022 +0 d
- Dylan Patel 2 thin 5 Dec 2023 – 14 Aug 2025 +537 d
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Marc Rowan
2
thin
5 May 2025 – 22 May 2025
+1054 d
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David Tepper
1
thin
18 Sep 2025 – 18 Sep 2025
+1190 d
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Howard Marks
2
thin
23 Feb 2026 – 2 Mar 2026
+1348 d
The chronologysourced and dated, oldest first
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Bill Gurley
Gurley argues marketing-heavy companies rent customers and should trade at lower multiples than organic-growth companies.
“I don't see any reason why a company that's heavy on marketing will get the same kind of multiple as someone with an organic customer base.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley calls late-stage private investments the least informed in history, with less disclosure than pink sheet stocks.
“These these might be these might be the least informed investment actions in in our history.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley states most acquisitions are $20-70 million, but venture backing raises expectations to $150 million or more.
“The number one type of acquisition that the big companies like to do is twenty to seventy million dollars and the minute you take venture, they help you raise the B and all of a sudden everyone's expectation is it's got to be 150 or more or we're not saying yes.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley calculates that owning 80% of a $30 million exit yields $24 million for the entrepreneur.
“And so if you have a killer product that might elicit a $30,000,000 exit and you can bootstrap and hustle your way and own 80% of it, you know, 80% of 30,000,000 is $24,000,000.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley says late-stage private market is the frothiest since the late '90s despite down IPOs.
“I would say on a couple of fronts, the late stage private market continues to be the most frothy thing I've seen since the late '90s.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner argues AWS, GCP and Azure enable software companies to scale faster than previous generations like Salesforce.
“But the fact of the matter is because of AWS, GCP and Azure, software companies are scaling faster”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner reports Altimeter's software index expanded from 11x to 14.5x and internet index from 23x to 33x.
“I feel obliged to do that. We started the year in our gross software index at 11 times. Now we're at about 14 and a half times two year forward.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner reports software multiples expanded from 11x to 14.5x and internet from 23x to 33x in 2020.
“We started the year in our gross software index at 11 times. Now we're at about 14 and a half times two year forward.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner argues 2020 multiple expansion mirrors 2018 contraction when Nasdaq fell 25% without earnings misses.
“If you look at the multiple expansion that's occurred, it's almost the identical mirror image of the multiple contraction that occurred in the fall of twenty eighteen.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner argues markets correctly priced digital transformation arc despite initial concerns after 50% bounce in May.
“What it has been slow in pricing in is how dramatically different the arc will be for many of these digital businesses. I remember having conversations with Rich and many others in May.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley notes Lemonade, Unity, and Palantir are down 60% but still trade at 20 times sales.
“I was looking at some of the stocks that are outliers on price to sales and lemonade, unity and Palantir, which have come in 60% are still at 20 times over sales.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley cites twelve-year bull run and extreme SaaS multiples as major IPO incentives.
“Add into that a roaring, screaming public market that's been on a bull run for, what, twelve years? And multiples in the public markets, especially in, the SaaS world that are out of this world.”
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Gavin Baker
Baker estimates average tech growth stocks under $100B market cap are down 40-65% from all-time highs.
“I would say probably the average tech or consumer oriented growth stock that's below a $100,000,000,000 in market cap is probably somewhere between 40 and 65 percent off its all time high.”
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Gavin Baker
Baker argues AI has changed cybersecurity economics, enabling companies to exceed $20B valuations for the first time.
“That's why for the first time ever, for a long time, I forget the exact numbers, but you never had a cybersecurity outcome over 20,000,000,000.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner predicts most IPOs in the next twelve months will price below their last private round.
“majority of companies that come public in the next twelve months are going out below their last”
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Stanley Druckenmiller
Druckenmiller notes many good companies have been derated 70% without fundamental changes.
“A lot of very good companies have been de rated 70% without a whole lot of change in fundamentals.”
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Bill Gurley
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.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner says IPO investors today demand significantly higher returns than 2021 deals as margin of safety.
“anybody who does an IPO today, okay, is going to demand a, you know, a rate of return into that offering that is a significant margin of safety relative to all deals that were done in 2021.”
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Bill Gurley
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,”
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“But, like, the the level of the value that they deliver to the world, if you talk to anyone there, they truly believe it'll be tens of trillions if not hundreds of trillions of dollars.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley criticizes founders obsessed with clearing their last round valuation when raising new capital.
“Yeah. People get overly, focused on this last round valuation thing. Like, it is I can't tell you how many founders I've had a conversation with where it's clear the number one objective in their function about the next financing is to clear the bar of the last round. And it just shouldn't matter that much.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley criticizes board members for relying on price-to-revenue multiples, calling it one of the most naive valuation methods.
“I might point them to my one of my favorite blog posts, keys to the 10x revenue club, because Silicon Valley mostly lives on price to revenue multiples.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner argues normalized valuations mean 2024 won't match easy returns of early 2023.
“So that's the big thing. The world is normalized. Multiples have normalized. It's not gonna be as easy as it was at the start of '23.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley asks what percentage of 1,400 pre-LLM private unicorns could raise up rounds today.
“What percentage of those could raise an up round right now? Yeah. What is the number?”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley says private companies with weak metrics aren't better off than public ones; staying private is self-deception.
“If you're private at a 100,000,000 revenue with a 10% growth rate, it's not like you're better off. Like like, you're just fooling yourself.”
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Marc Rowan
Rowan argues equity prices are not low, with average PE in mid-twenties versus historical 16.
“I do not believe prices are low. They are lower, but we're still talking about an average PE as a reference in the mid twenties versus 16 over time.”
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Marc Rowan
Rowan argues extreme valuations in top stocks reflected money flows, not fundamentals.
“We had one stock which was larger than the market cap of every stock exchange in the world other than Japan. That was not necessarily fundamentals. That was money flow.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley states there are approximately a thousand private companies valued over a billion dollars pre-LLM.
“There's somewhere around a thousand. So these are a thousand private companies that have raised money over a billion dollars.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley identifies approximately 1,000 private companies valued over $1 billion pre-LLM era.
“So these are a thousand private companies that have raised money over a billion dollars. And Chad GBD told me it was $12.50. NBCA says 900. Let's just say it's near a thousand.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner says Anthropic raising $5B at $170B valuation on $5B revenue, unprecedented venture scale.
“I think that Iconic is going to lead a $5,000,000,000 round into Anthropic at $170,000,000,000 In the case of Anthropic, it's, you know, 170,000,000,000 on rumored $5,000,000,000 in revenue.”
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Dylan Patel
Patel questions xAI's valuation exceeding Anthropic's despite lacking a leading model, crediting infrastructure execution over product.
“They haven't released a leading edge model, and yet their evaluation's higher than Anthropic today. At least Anthropic's racing, It's Elon, A, and B, they've tackled a problem creatively”
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David Tepper
Tepper says Chinese stocks trade at low teens multiples versus US, making them relatively interesting.
“I mean, I think the move has been good, the earnings unlike here are still relatively low. I mean, you're, you know, you're talking, you know, low teens versus where we are.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner argues NVIDIA at 23-24x forward earnings and Mag Seven at 25-30x are not bubble valuations.
“That is not the stuff that bubbles are made of. Right? I think the rest of the mag seven all trades somewhere between twenty five and thirty times, maybe met is at 21 times earnings.”
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Brad Gerstner
Gerstner says software multiples fell from 17x forward revenue in 2021 to 4.2x today, a generational low.
“We're almost 17 times forward revenue. Today, we're at at about 4.2 times. So we're at a generational low in terms of the the multiple for software.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley cites AI company jumping from $100K seed valuation to $300M Series A with $10M raised.
“I heard just this week about a company that did a seed at a 100 pre and is doing their a for 10,000,000 at 300 pre.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley cites AI company going from $100M seed to $300M Series A valuation, diluting investor ownership.
“So that venture investor that's doing 10 at 300 pre is getting, you know, you know, a tiny percent of this company relative to what people used to get.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley notes OpenAI is being funded at $300-500 billion pre-money valuation by proven multi-decade investors.
“They clearly like, you're not funding something at 300,000,000,000 pre, 400, 500,000,000,000 pre if you don't already believe that.”
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Howard Marks
Marks says 2023-2025 is the seventh best three-year period for the S&P 500 in a century, signaling elevated optimism.
“The period, twenty three four five is for the S and P 500 is, I think, the seventh best three year period out of the last 100. Seventh out of a 100.”
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Howard Marks
Marks notes the last three years rank among the top six in S&P 500 history.
“The S and P 500 stock index has been around for about a century. There have been ninety seven or ninety eight three year periods by definition.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley found Dell trading at six times earnings after laptop fire and option hedging problems.
“It was trading at six times earnings. Their laptop had caught on fire, and they had this option hedging strategy gone awry Uh-huh.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley reports 98% of VCs focus solely on AI and non-AI company valuations halved in five weeks.
“98% of venture capitalists are only looking at AI and they're AI all day long, they don't wanna see another business and and and in the past five weeks, the valuations on the non AI companies have been cut in half”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley claims 98% of VCs focus only on AI and non-AI valuations were cut in half in five weeks.
“98% of venture capitalists are only looking at AI and they're AI all day long, they don't wanna see another business and and and in the past five weeks, the valuations on the non AI companies have been cut in half and so that mentality is gonna be reinforced even more and so there's just no oxygen.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley says non-AI company valuations have been cut in half in past five weeks due to VC focus on AI.
“in the past five weeks, the valuations on the non AI companies have been cut in half and so that mentality is gonna be reinforced even more and so there's just no oxygen.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley states winning companies now raise $400-500 million minimum before considering going public.
“Today, every company that is being identified as a winner is ingesting 400 or $500,000,000 minimum before they even think about going public, if they're ever gonna think about that.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley says most VCs are so focused on AI that non-AI companies can't raise money at any valuation.
“So you really have this massive black, white, have, have not situation where the AI companies are raising money at crazy valuations and the non AI companies can't raise money at any valuation.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley warns that high valuations represent discounted future expectations, creating risk for founders.
“The other thing that founders should always realize that they unfortunately, especially young ones, don't understand. Valuations represent discounted future expectations.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley warns that higher valuations create higher expectations where slight missteps put companies underwater.
“Valuations represent discounted future expectations. So the higher the valuation you take, the more is expected of you and the slight misstep and you could be way underneath.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley explains private cap tables are structured to only go up, unlike public stocks.
“private one last thing. Yeah. Sorry. Private cap tables are not structured very well to go down.”
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Bill Gurley
Gurley says Uber in San Francisco was 20 times bigger than the taxi market, proving TAM conservatism wrong.
“By the time I wrote that, I already knew that Uber in San Francisco was 20 x bigger than the taxi market in San Francisco.”
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Where they overlapsame programme, same subject
- CNBC Television also carries Bill Gurley, Brad Gerstner and David Tepper on this subject, at different times.
- Invest Like the Best also carries Bill Gurley, Brad Gerstner and Gavin Baker on this subject, at different times.
- BG2 Pod also carries Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner on this subject, at different times.