Does the venture capital industry's secrecy enable recurring covert misconduct by VCs against founders?

Tom Blomfield · May 13, 2024

One investor's standard practice is to come in enthusiastic with a big allocation request and then, at the last second, invent a problem with the numbers to squeeze 20-30% off the round price

Another investor told him this was that person's habitual pattern, matching what happened three days before their term sheet signing

53:34 20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Tom Blomfield · May 13, 2024

Investors who renegotiate on founders at the last minute deserve to be blacklisted permanently

It's not acceptable to treat founders that way; the Monzo board rightly refused to work with him even after Tom left

55:08 20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Shervin Pishevar · Jan 13, 2025

Benchmark ran the same playbook against Naval Ravikant, hiring private investigators to get him thrown out of e-groups, and this pattern has recurred at Benchmark and other funds and needs to stop

There is a history of VCs using investigators and smear tactics against founders

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David Tisch · Feb 27, 2023

Venture's biggest needed change is a way for founders to safely and publicly expose predatory VC behavior so it gets policed out

He has seen actual harmful intent — including a VC trying to personally bankrupt a founder — and such actors need to be exposed

53:02 Founders need a safe public mechanism to expose predatory vcs so the industry polices them out

Harry Stebbings · May 13, 2024

An investor taking $10m of a $100m round has no ability to squeeze the price down 20-30%, because they lack control of the round

You'd need ball control over the round to move price, which a small participant doesn't have without carving out a separate deal

54:56 Small check investors lack leverage to squeeze price

Shervin Pishevar · Jan 13, 2025

Venture capital is far too secretive an industry, and founders and investors are too afraid to talk about VCs behaving unjustly toward founders

Stories like what really happened at Uber only surface after years of private investigation, which lets bad actors keep operating

46:01 Silence and fear let vc misconduct persist unchecked