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The better I get at investing in and helping companies, the result is more founders who are excited to work with me and more of my wonderful limited partners insisting I take piles of their loot to keep it all going.
Chris Sacca
The old economy with careers and benefits and pensions is gone. There are scary implications to that.
You can't necessarily tell when watching at home, but those pitches are usually an hour long each, and many are emotional, hilarious, and inspiring.
I think our election proved to us that 'billionaire' is an incredibly magical word in our language in that people just defer to it. Donald Trump is not a billionaire, but he knew it was vital for him to be perceived as one.
Ride-sharing is one of the biggest math problems that's ever been approached, that's ever been attempted to be solved.
When I first agreed to do 'Shark Tank', they asked me to wear a suit, and I was just like, 'No. I can't. It'll end my career.'
My biggest concern is the abundance of public doubt and misunderstanding when it comes to Twitter's vision and the near future for the service.
A deep appreciation for politics comes from empathy for our fellow human beings and their diverse paths through life.
One of my rules for investing is, I don't invest in a deal where I don't think I have an unfair advantage and where I don't think I can personally impact the outcome.
American computer science grads often have very little exposure to the human condition. They've rarely had manual labor or service jobs. They grow up in a bubble of privilege lulled into thinking this country is a true meritocracy.
In social settings, under the guise of joking, being collegial, flirting, or having a good time, I undoubtedly caused some women to question themselves, retreat, feel alone, and worry they can't be their authentic selves.
Facebook is who you used to know; Twitter is who you want to know and things you want to know more about.
The United States... is the greatest nation on Earth, and I believe there are things that make us special - and one is this grand democratic experiment.
There I was - 20 years old, living in Ireland, and I'd never heard the word 'venture capitalist.' But I'd said that I wanted a job that involved a lot of negotiation, a lot of yelling at people on the phone, and for it to be high-risk, high-reward.
I think there wouldn't be a Net neutrality debate in this country if we really had a competitive environment for access.
It is very hip to be an angel investor now. There used to be a dozen, two dozen guys at these demo days writing checks. Now there are hundreds.
I've learned that it's often the less obvious, yet pervasive and questionable, everyday behaviors of men in our industry that collectively make it inhospitable for women.
Startup investing is one of my things, but it is not my everything.
Twitter can afford to build the wrong things. However, Twitter cannot afford to build the right things too slowly.
I really do see the sharks evolving their perspective. In the early days of the show, if you brough them an app, they would've turned their noses up. But now they know how indispensable those apps are, even to their own traditional businesses.
Live Twitter can be built right into the main Twitter app, but it should certainly have its own tab so we can concentrate on the live experience free of distraction.
When someone comes in with a product they want in Bed Bath & Beyond, that's way out of my comfort zone.
If Twitter genuinely wants users to buy things at scale, they have to give us a chance to consider the offers and make a decision in a matter of minutes/hours/days, not just seconds.
Planet colonization is not a short term concern of mine. The physical limitations of space travel render it low on the list for me.
I have learned a ton about inventory, co-packing, wholesaling, end caps. All these concepts are easy to breeze by in what I do for a living or assume that there is a marketing manager or specialist in one of our companies that handles that.
The idea that there is a meritocracy where anyone from any background really might have the social and economic mobility to rise to the top in Silicon Valley, those are antithetical to a lot of the principles that the Trump administration apparently stands for.
I've yet to see an example of somebody standing up to Donald Trump and suggesting policy initiatives and him embracing them yet. It's not happening at scale.
I may be the only shark who hasn't been on QVC, but I have learned a lot from those folks about what it takes to get a product on store shelves.
All broadcasts on Periscope need to be archived for playback permanently, unless the broadcaster chooses to delete the recording. So many treasured moments have been shared on Periscope only to vanish a day later.
George Winston piano albums have been my go-to since junior high.
For most people, tweeting is scary.
The Sharks step right on each other's questions, and if I ever did that in Silicon Valley, I would be considered a pariah. I literally had to learn how to interrupt.
The day after Donald Trump was elected, Chinese business leaders, including the heads of Baidu, stood up and gave a speech saying, 'Come to China and build your company now.' The cognitive dissonance of that was amazing for some of us to think we might be losing our leadership role in building companies.
In the earlier years of my career, I made my own attempts to fit in and be accepted as one of the tribe of Sand Hill Road guys.
Buckminster Fuller - he never lost faith in the goodness of humanity.
When you're fundraising for a venture fund, you're supposed to not talk.
One rule we have at my house is, be proud of what we invest in.
How can you build something for someone else if you don't have enough familiarity with them to imagine the world through their eyes?
They are desperate for surrogates to get behind Trump, and they can't find anyone who has actually had genuine success who is willing to stand behind him. That is because he is all smoke and mirrors. We know he doesn't have all the money he claims he has.
The only way I know to be awesome at startups is to be obsessively focused and pegged to the floor of the deep end, gasping for air.
Uber has an information advantage, a computational advantage. There's massive structural advantages to the player who's smartest about how to deploy cars, where to deploy cars, how to adjust pricing dynamics, how to ensure supply of drivers - the party that understands best the behavior of riders.
'Shark Tank' has been a sincere joy. As our traditional venture-backed companies get bigger, the investing side tends to get more political and complicated. 'Shark Tank' takes me back to my early days working with ambitious founders in their earliest and scrappiest days. The show reminds me of what I deeply love about this business.
Work at a place like Google for awhile: if you do an interview and you say all the right things, no one really cares. But the day you say the wrong sentence, it's attributed to 'Senior Google Executive', and the stock moves, and everybody hates you.
I spent a lot of time learning how to define myself internally rather than externally. I learned how to care less about external validation. I think that's given me a renewed confidence in speaking out loud. I kind of don't care what people think about me. I feel a lot more confident in saying what I believe.
I have definitely refocused Lowercase Capital on later-stage deals and my existing portfolio.
I want broadband to grow, more mobile devices available, particularly in underprivileged communities. I want STEM education to go ahead and fund the next generation of engineers.
A great idea can't succeed without a great operator. But rarely can a great operator squeak by with a bad idea. So, as pithy as it sounds to say 'It's all about the people', I only invest when I think I have found the right team for the right business.
For most people, Twitter is too hard to use.
When I think about Trump and the GOP, the blood really is on their hands.
I believe there is no natural ceiling on the revenue Twitter can generate. I also believe that Twitter's reach can become more pervasive and its impact on the world more meaningful.
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