Disqus - Latest Comments for sethlevine

Re: Composition Shop and the Revitalization of Downtown Longmont

sethlevine — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 08:48:48 -0000

😃

Re: Valuation Policies Are A Mess

sethlevine — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 21:42:49 -0000

That would certainly be convenient. However, most auditors won't accept that for purposes of 820 valuations.... Yes, I know that doesn't make sense (since the IRS accepts it) but it's just how the system works.

Re: SVB and The Tyranny of the Commons

sethlevine — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 16:50:49 -0000

Yes AND I think it's also worth thinking about the overall advice you're getting from advisors (VCs and others) - it's it measured and based on fact, or hysterical and reactionary. Too many were in the latter camp over the course of several days of the crisis. Founders deserved better.

Re: SVB and The Tyranny of the Commons

sethlevine — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 10:22:36 -0000

There have been a few versions of this ("founders pledge," "diversity pledge," etc. I'm not sure how successful they've been as each has been a pretty small minority of investors actually signing. Our industry (and the people in it) don't exactly love to be told what to do explicitly. And as we saw in this crisis where many companies that had an agreement with SVB to keep their money on deposit there, broke that clause in a panic to get money out, there's only limited value in written agreements in times of crisis. But written or not, it was clear what we could have done as an industry. That said, for much of the weekend that followed, those of us who kept our money in looked like we were on the losing end, and those that jumped to take their money out were happy that they had (the Fed took days to decide to back all deposits).

Re: Barbara Jean (Ellison) Eakman

sethlevine — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 17:05:37 -0000

♥️

Re: Book: The New Builders

sethlevine — Tue, 04 May 2021 14:25:05 -0000

Thank you Brad! We are excited to have as many people as possible read the book (and understand why this topic is so critical to our economic future).

Re: Run With Me To Help Prevent Youth Suicide

sethlevine — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 12:09:21 -0000

This is great Brad. Is there a way to "sponsor" your run?

Re: RIP Len Fassler

sethlevine — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 12:09:08 -0000

A wonderful remembrance Brad. Thank you for sharing.

Re: One Thing at a Time

sethlevine — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 16:29:54 -0000

Hi Shyam. Thanks for your note - I'm glad this touched a good chord!

Re: One Thing at a Time

sethlevine — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:43:06 -0000

Thanks Jasmine. I'm glad this was helpful!

Re: One Thing at a Time

sethlevine — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:41:47 -0000

Hey Glen. Thanks for these additional resources - fantastic!

Re: Trump’s Legacy of Racism

sethlevine — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 15:11:00 -0000

Thanks for your comments Kinazium. I agree with your points above. But still hard to stomach that 70M people believe Trump is the right conduit for their concerns. I thought this article I came across on Medium summed it up well: https://medium.com/the-apei....

Re: What’s a Fair 409A Discount?

sethlevine — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 15:28:15 -0000

that's right zemes. i think i was moving too quickly in the last response. the question is the per share price. the relative discount between the preferred per share price vs the common price.

Re: VC Fund Returns Are More Skewed Than You Think

sethlevine — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:44:50 -0000

Agreed. Except for your venture board members, of course! ;-)

Re: RIP Larry Nelson

sethlevine — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 20:36:52 -0000

Great remembrance, Brad. Larry and Pat were fixtures around Colorado’s tech events for years. Always smiling, always with a story to share. So sorry that he’s gone.

Re: The Real Story Of America Is About Small

sethlevine — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 15:35:04 -0000

Thanks Andrew. Our book is full of stories of entrepreneurs that we use to highlight and punctuate key trends that many not be aware of in our entrepreneurial economy (our broader entrepreneurial economy - the 99%, as you accurately describe them). We do have a handful of ideas that we highlight (many of them already in action, but at a smaller scale than what’s needed). But you’ll have to wait for the book for those!

Re: Work Lessons from the Pandemic

sethlevine — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 09:14:30 -0000

Teamsnap (which has always had a mixed in office/remote team) told me once that when they have a meeting, if one person is remote, everyone is remote. Even if that means people are sitting at the desks 10 feet from another participant. That way everyone is on the same medium. Totally makes sense and maps to what you describe above. I have some thoughts about Zoom specific to board meetings that I'll post at some point as well. I think remote meetings should be different than in person meetings (this is true for all types of meetings, not just board meetings). We're still figuring that out and there's a lot of headroom for better meetings when we stop trying to replicate the in person experience on Zoom...

Re: What’s a Fair 409A Discount?

sethlevine — Tue, 18 Aug 2020 12:43:24 -0000

It's the latter. 36% is the average % of the preferred price. Does that make sense?

Re: Venture Outcomes are Even More Skewed Than You Think

sethlevine — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 13:56:41 -0000

Take a look at indy.vc and what Bryce Roberts is doing. Somewhat different investment model than traditional VC and it has more of the profile you're talking about (lower loss ratio, interesting investment structures, etc). You really need to believe that the loss ratio will be different if you are to create a model where you don't have an expectation for a few massive winners (that's more of a PE style model but they can control for downside through both stage of entry combined with structure).

Re: Board Diversity / Network Diversity

sethlevine — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 12:07:09 -0000

Very well put!

Re: Board Diversity / Network Diversity

sethlevine — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 11:31:09 -0000

On the first point, there's no daylight because running a business indefinitely after taking venture money is incongruent. It's one of the reasons why many (most) companies should not take venture (more thoughts on that here: https://www.sethlevine.com/....

But to your point we do see plenty of CEOs get to a point where they feel like their business is better off with a new CEO (thinking like a shareholder, which is completely appropriate).

Foundry isn't diverse as a firm. We were started by 4 white males and have not expanded much since then. We have one female investment partner and our CFO is a woman. We have no racial diversity on the team.

Not something I'm proud of but that's exactly where we are and there's no sense sugar coating it or trying to justify it.

Venture firms are pretty static. It's a hard challenge although we are thinking about ways to address it internally. More broadly we're actively working on diversifying our networks and working with our portfolio companies and underlying venture funds on initiatives to diversify as well.

I don't think the answer is to solely focus inward. If venture does that, change will be slow. It's not a dynamic industry and at firms like Foundry where we have no associates or analysts (positions that turn over more regularly), that will result in very slow change. We are in a position to accelerate change much more broadly across the ~ 70 companies in the portfolio and 35 funds in our GP network. Addressing this in the portfolio in my view is modeling important behavior.

Re: Vacation in the time of Covid

sethlevine — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 10:22:00 -0000

Feel better. Sounds like you have it under control, which is great.

Tybee sounds fantastic (spend a Thanksgiving there about 10 years ago, which was wonderful).

Stay safe. I hope you feel better soon.

Re: Vacation in the time of Covid

sethlevine — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 15:28:14 -0000

Thanks Elizabeth. I can't seem to quit Twitter, but I've found I've been gravitating away from it and from other new platforms - everyone is just too angry and the news doesn't help. I feel informed...don't need it in my face 24/7.

We've found more frequent walks/breaks are really helpful as well. Esp as the days blend together!

Re: Different vs. More

sethlevine — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 10:10:20 -0000

Interesting question. I hadn't thought about it from that perspective, but I think it absolutely applies. Covid and quarantine has put this into sharp focus. We've been forced to approach our work very differently and (at least for me) the result - after quite a bit of experimentation - has been a series of really positive changes to my work flow and how I've organized my life and work. I'm sure others have experienced the same. I've been reflecting on this quite a bit recently and am actually trying to be very deliberate about the things I'm doing differently (including the way I'm approaching my work) that I want to hold on to. I'm starting to catalogue these - I'd recommend everyone do the same. I'll post on that towards the fall. Thx for your comment!

Re: Functional Versus Strategic Meetings on Zoom

sethlevine — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 14:42:01 -0000

Really appreciate your thoughts here and particularly agree with your final statement - there will be far fewer face-to-face meetings coming out of this and we're all going to need to get better at running and participating in virtual meetings. That will include changing the way we think about pre-meeting work (as you point out with the Bezos example), how we structure meetings and their agendas, and also how we approach participating in these virtual meetings (not only our own prep work but also how we've set up our environment to minimize distractions and stay focused, where we position our cameras, etc.). And, as you point out, we'll benefit from simply doing it more (and making mistakes along the way).