Venture DifferentlyㅣAltos Ventures, Tae Yoon

Name: Venture DifferentlyㅣAltos Ventures, Tae Yoon
Duration: 14 min 38 s
Description: Since its founding in 1996 in Silicon Valley, Altos Ventures has pioneered a distinctive approach to venture capital, focusing on patient and pragmatic inves...

EO14:38Added Aug 31, 2026

Since its founding in 1996 in Silicon Valley, Altos Ventures has pioneered a distinctive approach to venture capital, focusing on patient and pragmatic inves...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

00:00there are three core principles that are
00:03really important elements of what Jack
00:05Todd he was regarded as the West Coast
00:07War buffit so the first thing is around
00:10the power law in any asset class there
00:12are only a small number of companies
00:15that drive all of the returns the second
00:16one is around compounding the
00:18compounding of value of these special
00:21assets happened in years 10 15 and 20
00:24not in years 1 2 and 3 and then the last
00:27idea is around this notion of a hedgeh
00:35talk my name is Tay I'm a partner at
00:38Altus Ventures so Altus is a venture
00:40capital firm that was started here in
00:42Silicon Valley in 1996 as a firm we are
00:46Global generalist Tech investor so it's
00:49a very wide and flexible mandate we
00:51really focus more on the orientation and
00:54alignment with the founders who we work
00:56with I actually think we are more like
00:58life cycle investors you can think of us
01:00as early stage investors typically
01:02leading series A's and after that
01:04initial investment we take a very
01:06long-term approach to company building
01:08and investing literally thinking in
01:10decades rather than years we love
01:12partnering with Founders who also have a
01:14similar mindset of building these
01:15durable businesses over a long period of
01:17time and we have a lot of flexibility
01:19and capacity to further support those
01:21businesses through additional
01:23Investments as time goes on there are
01:25many cases in our history where we would
01:27start very small and early with the
01:29particular company and then end up
01:31investing hundreds of millions of
01:33dollars in addition to the initial check
01:36along the entire journey of the
01:38companies I do spend a lot of time
01:40meeting and investing in software
01:41companies software happens to be a
01:43business model that is very Capital
01:46efficient it actually is also a very
01:48durable business because the world
01:50continues to get digitized and software
01:52is playing a very large part in helping
01:54with that digitization it actually meets
01:57our general criteria of long-term
02:00company building Capital efficiency
02:02pragmatic company building and software
02:05companies exhibit a lot of those
02:06characteristics that maybe makes it a
02:08really good fit with what we are doing
02:10uh at the broader
02:14level so in 1996 when the firm was
02:17started we had One Singular LP and the
02:20idea was to invest in SE stage very
02:24early stage startups and then feed them
02:26to the very well-known Silicon Valley
02:28BCS to come in and mark them up and lead
02:31the series a so ho and Han were
02:33classmates from Stanford GSB they
02:36started Altos back in 1996 I think in
02:39the early days when we thought we were
02:42good we were fairly smart enough to lots
02:44of interesting business ideas and we
02:47realized that as long as we got the
02:50founders of these companies to make a
02:52bit of progress on management hiring and
02:55potentially offer themselves up to a to
02:58be very open to getting a CEO into their
03:02companies as long as we got them
03:04prepared and we put that package
03:06together we took it to a the larger
03:09Venture funds they would mark up the
03:12price and invest in a high valuation
03:14they put the new CEO in then the bankers
03:17start showing up and the companies were
03:19ready to go public and it was literally
03:21like that during the bubble days of
03:23internet and so we obviously thought
03:25that was the formula for being a very
03:28good venture capitalist that worked
03:30until it didn't in 99 2000 many of these
03:34companies go public crazy high
03:35valuations everyone looks really smart
03:37and then literally all of our companies
03:39went to zero and I think that gave the
03:42team and the founders Insight that wow
03:44like the way we were doing it was just
03:46wrong there is no real value creation
03:48who cares about markups when the
03:49eventual number is zero so I think they
03:51went back to the drawing board and we're
03:54trying to get back to the fundamentals
03:55like why do we invest and who should we
03:59invest behind and how do you ultimately
04:01create value and build these durable
04:03businesses and I think that's when the
04:05Warren Buffett Charlie Munger thesis
04:08comes into play with the help of
04:09Professor Jack
04:13McDonald I actually met ho and Han back
04:16in 2015 when I was at Capital G Google's
04:19growth Equity Fund one of the partners
04:20who I worked closely with Jean France he
04:23and ho and Han were all classmates from
04:25Stanford GSB so through that
04:27relationship we looked at a few of Al's
04:29companies including toss and roadblocks
04:31ultimately couldn't get there on either
04:33of them uh which was a big mistake and
04:35then I just always felt like they were
04:36really good people and so we always
04:38stayed in touch and then when I went to
04:39Stanford for my own business school
04:41experience I took a class called the
04:43Investments class I was taught for 50
04:45years by this famous Professor Jack
04:47McDonald he was regarded as the West
04:49Coast Warren Buffett I was sitting in
04:51the classroom and ho and Anthony just
04:53walked in and I was like wow what are
04:54they doing here and it turned out that
04:56Jack was a very important figure and
04:58adviser to alter when alus got started
05:00there are three core principles that are
05:03really important elements of what
05:05taught so the first thing is around the
05:08power law so in any asset class there
05:11are only a small number of companies or
05:13assets that drive all of the returns if
05:16you look at the public markets you would
05:18look at companies like apple Google meta
05:21and so forth that have driven almost all
05:23the returns of the S&P 500 over the last
05:25several years this is even more
05:28Amplified and more true in the world of
05:30venture capital where only a small
05:32number of companies in every Vintage
05:34Drive all of the returns the second one
05:36is around compounding there's this
05:39really simple and classic example of
05:41should you take $1 million of cash up
05:43front or should you take a penny that
05:46doubles every single day until the end
05:48of the month and of course the answer is
05:49you should take the penny because it
05:50turns out that even in February when you
05:53have 28 days that Penny ends up becoming
05:55more than a million dollar at the end of
05:57the month if you're lucky enough and you
05:59are in a leap year and you have 29 days
06:02in that February that becomes 2.5
06:04million plus and then if you're super
06:06lucky and you're in a month like January
06:08with 31 days it's over $10 million at
06:11the end of the month and so we believe
06:14that a lot of the value that gets
06:16created for a startup and a company
06:18happens in those latter years when the
06:20base gets much bigger and the value
06:22keeps acur in a durable way so that's
06:25why we try to be extremely patient I
06:27think uh Roblox is probably the most
06:29well-known example of a company where we
06:31first partner with Dave and the team 16
06:34years ago when we LED around with a 1.5
06:37million doll investment and up to the
06:39pre-ipo Round We invested another
06:42hundreds of millions of dollars into the
06:43company and so we were of course a
06:46larger shareholder when the company went
06:47public and in some sense we view this
06:49still as an early stage company there is
06:52so much that the companies building and
06:54a lot of potential to further grow the
06:56business from here on in some sense We
06:59Believe in this notion of the infinite
07:01game and that's the game that we want to
07:03play which has no time bound because the
07:06compounding of value of these special
07:08assets happen in years 10 15 and 20 not
07:12in years 1 2 and 3 selfishly we want to
07:16generate wonderful returns and we should
07:18be super
07:20[Applause]
07:21patient and then the last idea is around
07:25this notion of a hedgehog there's this
07:26Jim Collins analogy from the book good
07:28to great about Hedgehog Founders versus
07:31Fox Founders we have a blog post on our
07:32website as well and Hedgehog Founders
07:34are people who are maniacally focused on
07:37trying to solve one problem and trying
07:39to do that really really really well
07:41foxes are extremely smart very cunning
07:44but they often have a lot of things
07:45going on they have a lot of projects
07:47they're quite distracted and for us we
07:49gravitate towards the Hedgehog Founders
07:52people who feel like this is their
07:54life's work and something that they want
07:55to endure through the ups and downs and
07:58we've experienced
07:59that those types of Founders are the
08:02ones who can endure the difficulties of
08:04a startup Journey no startup journey is
08:06linear and up to the right all the time
08:08there are a lot of challenges that come
08:10and being that Hedgehog founder we feel
08:12like is an important ingredient to
08:14building something great over a long
08:16period of time I think even within our
08:17team we have slightly different views on
08:20what a hedgehog founder means and how do
08:22you identify someone as a hedgehog
08:24versus a fox in some sense it's a
08:26spectrum so it's very difficult to say
08:28well you're a fox and you're a hedgehog
08:30it's a spectrum of how Hedgehog e are
08:33you versus how foxy are you I find some
08:36of the best Founders and often times
08:38they are these hedgehogs to have very
08:41strong opinions but loosely held so the
08:44strong opinions come from either an
08:47inherent connection to the industry or
08:49the problem that they're trying to solve
08:51and that was the Genesis of why they
08:53started the company to solve their own
08:54problems so there's one bucket of
08:56Founders who come in that category but
08:59then there are are other Founders who
09:00also become extremely entrenched into an
09:03industry or a problem through a lot of
09:06studying and a lot of conversations and
09:08more of a top- down approach to trying
09:10to figure out how do you solve this
09:12problem that I want to solve and in
09:14either case the best Founders seem to
09:16have at least a strong point of view on
09:17what the world should look like and I
09:19think that's very important because you
09:20have to be a Visionary to change the
09:22world or bring to the market a service
09:25that did not exist before at the same
09:27time what's really interesting about a
09:29lot of the Founders is that these
09:31opinions are loosely held so they're
09:33strong but they're willing to change
09:36their views if they see something new or
09:38if they learn something new and that
09:40part is also really important in our
09:42view because you have to have the mental
09:46plasticity to figure out whether you're
09:48right or wrong about something and have
09:51the humbleness to admit when you're
09:53wrong that you have to course correct
09:55and so this is where the continuous
09:57learning mindset comes into play and the
10:00best Founders and the best Learners tend
10:02to have that characteristic I've been
10:05working with and partnering with a
10:07number of vertical Market software
10:08companies one company is called push
10:10press which is a gym management software
10:12company we first led the series a two
10:15and a half years ago what they're trying
10:16to do is to provide the best software to
10:20Independent gym owners across the US and
10:22across the world the founders were
10:24former CrossFit gym owners they had a
10:27paino of finding a software tool that
10:29work for their own gym so the founder
10:31who had a technical background just
10:33built a software tool for his own gym
10:35that ended up becoming push press now
10:37they have about 100 people at the
10:38company of which the majority were
10:40former gym owners or former Fitness uh
10:43professionals they live and breathe the
10:46category the industry that they serve
10:48and it shows in the way they approach
10:51customer support and the way they talk
10:52to their customers that's been a really
10:54fun Journey so far a lot of Founders
10:56would come and say we are looking for
10:59the next 10-year type of partner we're
11:01very serious about finding the right
11:02partner it's not about valuation oh and
11:05by the way we need a term sheet by
11:06tomorrow that's very hard for us because
11:09how do you get married after the first
11:11date and we view the partnership as a
11:13marriage and so we really appreciate
11:15having the time to get to know Founders
11:18and get to know each other and I think
11:20that is actually really important to
11:22building a very long-term and fruitful
11:24relationship because let's say you enter
11:27a relationship without having that
11:29alignment well in the first board
11:31meeting or that second date it's going
11:33to be very apparent that this is not a
11:34good fit and what's the point of that if
11:36the goal was to build a generational
11:38company for 10 plus
11:41years I have one definition or one
11:44analogy that I personally really like I
11:46was at my son's preschool and there was
11:48a teacher parent conference where the
11:51head of the school was giving a speech
11:53to the parents and she made this analogy
11:57of you parents know your child the best
12:01we teachers know children so if we
12:04partner well together it can be an
12:07extremely fruitful partnership and a
12:09symbiotic relationship and I was
12:11listening to that and I was like hm
12:14that's kind of like my job as an
12:16investor there is no way that we as
12:18investors and Venture capitalists would
12:20know a singular company more than a
12:24founder or the team that's working hard
12:25at it but we do see a lot of companies
12:28and we end up working with a lot of
12:30companies over the years and that
12:32pattern recognition or the sheer amount
12:34of data that you can aggregate of seeing
12:37the good ones the okay ones the bad ones
12:40the full gamut of company building
12:42allows us to hopefully provide guidance
12:44when it's needed for these businesses to
12:46avoid mistakes or accelerate their path
12:50to Greatness and so in some sense maybe
12:53I was thinking to myself a venture
12:55capitalist is like a preschool teacher
12:58where you're trying to be a helpful
13:01Steward but you should also be humble
13:03enough to know that there is so much
13:06more to that singular child or company
13:09than what you probably see so you have
13:11to respect that and work with the parent
13:13or the founder to understand it as much
13:16as you can and then with that context
13:18and the partnership you can provide the
13:20insights and the support to hopefully
13:22accelerate that path what we are trying
13:24to do is of course to not be average and
13:27hopefully add value and maybe the way to
13:29add value to a company's trajectory is
13:33increasing their odds of success again
13:35the success is still unclear whether you
13:38can succeed or not as a company as a
13:40founder or even as investors there's a
13:42lot of inputs that go into that eventual
13:45outcome which hopefully is great but
13:47there's luck and there's a lot of other
13:49circumstances that have to go your way
13:51for that to happen so then what is it
13:54that we can do well we can definitely
13:56control the inputs to getting there and
13:59hopefully the partnership with a venture
14:01capitalist or an investor is a strong
14:04partnership that allows the thinking to
14:07keep expanding and for the VC to help
14:10Steward and guide the company in a
14:12direction that increases the odd of
14:14success so I really like that framing of
14:17the role as
14:20well belus is a totalitarian state I
14:23wanted to be free the guy worked in it
14:26advised me if you get that job you will
14:28be free free you can get out of barus
14:30you won't be dependent on rules of the
14:32country where your parents are where
14:33your relatives are and and you looking
14:35to get free so that works that totally
14:37works