Founder Warns Entrepreneurs To Vet VCs Carefully Or Lose Company Control

@levelsio @travisk Rumor had it at the time that Benchmark wanted to kick him out (and succeeded doing so) because he would not take Uber public, but the fund wanted a return (and a CEO who would take Uber public)

Ofc not sure we'll know the "why." But yes, his investors removed him

@levelsio @travisk All charismatic, unconventional CEOs got kicked off at some point. Remember Steve Jobs?

If you disrupt too much, the big money will reject you naturally, because big money don’t care about innovation, improvement, disruption.

Big money cares about predictable profit.

@dragosroua @travisk You can legally protect yourself from getting kicked out

Zuck did that for example

@levelsio @travisk Elon learned that lesson twice and made sure it couldn’t happen again

It happens more often than you think the moment you take VC money and get a board. European created MySQL had this happen and Monty was removed from leadership. It happened at MariaDB when we took dumb money, and I left due to licensing changes. Licensing also affected redis, antirez now crushing it with ai. Docker, elastic, plenty of examples beyond Travis

@levelsio @travisk Which investors do you think kicked Travis out?

@levelsio @travisk I think getting a personal lawyer is always a great idea. We should learn a lesson from Eduardo Saverin’s story also

@levelsio @travisk sounds amazing until you realise what you sold. 40-50% of your stock and suddenly there are people in the room who will cut, fire and relocate without blinking. they do not care about what you built. they care about their return!

@levelsio @travisk When can indie founders invest in http://levels.vc ?

@levelsio @travisk VCs don’t fund your company they buy a leash. Bootstrappers keep the keys. Kalanick learned it the hard way; smart founders learn from him.🚀

@levelsio @travisk I agree.

I think @elonmusk is also trying to do something along those lines with SpaceX.

@levelsio @travisk glad we have @ericries n his message getting more n more popular n increasing awareness

check his recent interviews on youtube

@ChrisOlimpo @levelsio @travisk Bill Gurley from Benchmark

@levelsio @travisk Musk got kicked out of PayPal when he was on his honeymoon didn't he?

Imagine getting that call at that time 🤯

Absolute assholes