*Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

**Amol Sarva** (0:05)
Hello, and welcome to In the Know. I'm Amol Sarva, welcome back. This series celebrates 30 years of New York Tech. It's called OGNY. This episode, I've got Fred Wilson. He founded Flatiron Partners in the 90s, and then Union Square Ventures. He says he's at least Hall of Fame. I think he is shortchanging himself. Let's hear some secrets and stick around at the end.
I was just killing time with my pal, Andrew. You will meet him again someday. Well, you got all the gear down there, so we helped ourselves to some swag. I was around the area, but I'll look it up. Yeah, you'll meet Andrew again someday. Fred, thank you. Please find out.

**Fred Wilson** (0:55)
Let me just send one text.

**Amol Sarva** (0:56)
Yeah, do all the texts you need.

**Fred Wilson** (0:58)
And then we can sit down.

**Amol Sarva** (1:00)
I'm recording, just FYI.

**Fred Wilson** (1:02)
You're recording now?

**Amol Sarva** (1:03)
Yeah, why not?

**Fred Wilson** (1:04)
Great.

**Amol Sarva** (1:05)
Miles Davis, when he walked into the studio, would say, when I'm in the parking lot, you better be recording. Really? As I mentioned last time we were together, I had you recording as well.

**Fred Wilson** (1:17)
Kombucha?

**Amol Sarva** (1:18)
I don't know. I bought a couple of things. I don't know what kind of health kick you're on.
I mean, maybe I could have brought you a salad. I'm not exactly sure of the right way to break the ice, but I thought if I brought you a few treats, you might be more at peace.

**Fred Wilson** (1:35)
I could maybe get talked into drinking kombucha.

**Amol Sarva** (1:37)
Yeah. There's not a lot of caffeine in kombucha. It's not a big deal. And actually, I didn't have a sip of this. This is one of your La Croix.

**Fred Wilson** (1:43)
Yeah. That's sort of my go-to move. But I think I might drink some kombucha.

**Amol Sarva** (1:48)
Okay. Yeah. Give it a try. You have some plans in the evening?

**Fred Wilson** (1:51)
I got to meet my wife.

**Amol Sarva** (1:52)
Well, I mean, that's a good thing to be doing. The way I'm planning to do this is like, I think I'm going to-

**Fred Wilson** (2:01)
Remind me what this is for.

**Amol Sarva** (2:06)
Well, I think on January 30th is this party that some of the New York people are organizing, and I'm sure you're part of it too. It's like the New York Tech OG party. Yeah. And on that occasion, and a little bit prompted by Borthwick, I was like, what a great excuse. Let me just get everyone on tape, and just the OGs that were there 30 years ago, 1995, and different start dates, but around that time. I don't know. Let's just talk about what happened. How did it get started, and what's going on, and where will it go? New York.

**Fred Wilson** (2:38)
Audio only.

**Amol Sarva** (2:39)
Yeah. It's only audio. There's too much overhead on video for me. You can see my humble style here. My sound dampening equipment is basically a couple of towels that I brought with me. Cool. Yeah. Oh, actually, I should pull that curtain. So anyway, I mean, I just-

**Fred Wilson** (2:53)
That does dampen the sound.

**Amol Sarva** (2:55)
Yeah.

**Fred Wilson** (2:55)
It's also doubled as what they call a mother's room. Do you know what that is?

**Amol Sarva** (2:58)
Sure. Of course.

**Fred Wilson** (2:59)
I guess you were in the business of providing work.

**Amol Sarva** (3:02)
Sure. Listen, my last company, before starting this venture fund, we had like 1,000 head count. We had every kind of headache. Here in venture world, your HR things are smaller.
And yeah, nursing, mother's room, whatever, we have those things too. So it is good to have those. I mean, because sometimes the mother's room is like a closet and everyone hates it and it's kind of perceived as unpleasant. But the sound in here, I think is good. Yeah. And when I stopped by the other day, and I will let people hear as the epilogue, what we talked about, it was all music stuff. Actually, that really inspired me because other folks have been talking to me about this 30 years of New York Tech, I've been kind of going through a procedural motion of 1995, what was happening in tech, you got your windows or the DVD was introduced then, blah, blah, blah. And in some ways, I would love to explore with you a different direction or pattern, which is more about your personal taste and development of that taste, and how you've kept that purity. So, I'm going to try to push that a little bit as we talk. I mean, if you're up for it.