Investor Stories 483: Best LP Questions from David Ulevich, Eric Ries, and Larry Cheng: Mission, Partnership Culture, and Enduring Institutions (Ulevitch, Ries, Cheng)

**Nick Moran** (0:00)
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Now, on to the episode.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:24)
Welcome to the podcast about venture capital, where investors and founders alike can learn how VCs make decisions and reach conviction. Your host is Nick Moran and this is The Full Ratchet.

**Nick Moran** (0:40)
Welcome back to TFR. On today's special segment, we ask guests to share the best question they've ever been asked by an allocator. Here's the segment called Best LP Question.
On today's special segment, we have David Ulevich, GP of Andreessen Horowitz, American Dynamism. David, what's the best question a founder or LP has asked you?

**David Ulevitch** (1:06)
I think the best question is generally one of the questions we often ask them, which is like, why are you doing this? Why is this an important thing to work on? Why do you spend your time this way? You sold your company for a bunch of money.
In my case, why keep working? Why keep doing this? I think that's probably the best question. I think the worst question I get from LPs is, why don't Catherine and I go do our own firm? Why don't we break off and go do our own firm? And why be part of Andreessen Horowitz when we work at a 650 or something person firm? It's as much of a corporation as any venture firm probably has ever been. I think that's the worst question because it just says to me that they don't understand how our firm works. We're a very small team that has the resources of a huge organization. And in terms of why do I do this, I think it's the highest and best use of my time. I don't want to start another company. I'd rather work with great entrepreneurs. It feels both really important and a huge opportunity and a necessity for our country. I believe in our way of life. I want it to continue. I believe in America as the world superpower, dominant superpower and ideally exclusive superpower. I believe in America as the world police. And I think we're at a technology transformation moment where if we don't lean on superior technology as our defining edge and capability, we are at very, very serious risk of losing that historically dominant position. Well said.

**Nick Moran** (2:26)
On today's special segment, we have Eric Ries, founder of The Long-Term Stock Exchange and author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible. Eric, if you could sit down with any person living or dead and ask them one question about how to build an institution that survives its own success, who would it be and what would you ask?

**Eric Ries** (2:46)
You want to talk to anybody living or dead. You want to talk to someone who's built something that truly has endured. You want to talk to the founders of the Catholic Church. You want to ask a Roman emperor what they realize.
The level of influence of our university, there's all these institutions that have endured for a really long time, that we take for granted and we don't see ourselves as capable of doing that same thing. Because it's like, well, you've already got one, so we don't need to make a new one. So yeah, I would want to meet people like that. Almost not because I admire them so much, maybe Marcus Aurelius is an awesome guy, or maybe not, it's hard to tell. But just for me, even just to humanize them and be like, what was this person really like? I think for a lot of times, I see this because I tell a lot of these famous stories and I bring characters out of history often to teach in my own work. And part of the job is just to demystify them, for us to see ourselves in them. Like yes, even telling the Nova Nerdist story, like Nova Nerdist is this huge big company, so people will tell me like, why don't you tell me more startup stories? And I'm like, I did tell you a startup story. It was just August and Marie, and they made this lab, but their MVP took three months. Like, you can't see them that way anymore, because you know how the story ended. But if we insist only on stories that we don't know the ending to, then we can never learn anything.

**Nick Moran** (4:10)
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