Aneel Lakhani (@aneel, Venture Partner @crane_vc) talks about the modern state of Tech VC investing, the changing pace of investment horizons, portfolio thesis, and helping founders.

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SHOW NOTES:

  • Crane VC (homepage)
  • Aneel’s homepage

Topic 1 - Welcome back to the show. You’ve changed roles. Tell us about what you’re working on these days.

Topic 2 - You’ve worked at startups, been an advisor to startups, and an angel investor in the past. In 2022, what does a Venture Capitalist do? How has that evolved over the last 5 years?

Topic 3 - It not only seems like there is a lot more money flowing into startups, but a lot more early. Is there sort of a “homerun” mentality happening across the VC world, or is that just one of the headlines?

Topic 4 - How do you go about creating your investment thesis? Do you have a future horizon that you’re thinking about, or is it more about technology sectors, or founder personalities, etc.?

Topic 5 - How do you balance between investing in something completely new, and seeing something that is just a much better version of a current mousetrap?

Topic 6 - How involved do you get with the companies? How involved do you want to be? How much do the founders guide you vs. you guiding them?

Topic 7 - At the macro-level, what areas are you most interested in (investing) vs. just areas where you’re doing a lot of research (personal interests)?

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