Anand Sanwal @asanwal Twitter profile

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Anand Sanwal

6 years

On April 17, 2017, my dad passed away For the last 13 months, I worked @CBinsights and also ran his chemical manufacturing biz in India It was acquired on June 1 Lessons, thank yous and observations here

How To Manage And Sell A Company In An Industry And A Country You Don’t Know

From tech in NYC to chemical manufacturing in Nasik (India), here's a guide that hopefully nobody ever needs.

www.cbinsights.com

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Guy in white shorts = VC-backed startup Guy in black shorts = bootstrapped, revenue-funded startup

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 months

This is a very on-brand Hacker News comment

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

Earlier today, I declined a $100M offer to acquire @CBinsights 1. See how it unfolded in these screenshots 2. A great reminder to never check or respond to Twitter DMs again cc: CBI board, investors & team

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

30 days

Group travel rule If someone else plans the whole trip, books everything, etc, and you don't like some element of it, you need to STFU

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 months

Andrew Carnegie's 23 traits of an attractive personality pretty timeless advice source: The Wisdom of Success

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 months

"If you're frenzied, it's you. It's not the job." Jamie Dimon on the role of a company versus where personal responsibility & accountability is needed

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 months

There isn't a single book that reads "Hey, I had this idea. I started it. Everything went great. The end."

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Pro tip: If you're a startup raising right now, don't emphasize your 4 day work week

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

Can someone forward this article to EVERYONE IN INDIA? Thx

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

Hubspot, @stripe and JP Morgan Chase all acquired similar companies recently Really?! Yup - Tech and financial services are looking to buy media companies and communities And this type of M&A is going to accelerate Why? In 6 letters, the answer is LTVCAC 🧵

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

Airtable is probably worth less than the total equity funding it has raised I'm not talking about the $11.7B valuation it raised at in December 2021 I'm talking about it being worth less than the ~$1.4B+ in financing it has raised Here's the math/data Airtable is on track for

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Your tweets did it. You saved the US economy. Great job guys. America owes you.

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

“Vacation with kids is often not vacation at all” - Aristotle

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

Breaking news: Successful startup has intense work environment. Is not for everyone.

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Thinking of changing my Twitter bio to include: Stripe alum YC founder Stanford grad Thiel Fellow 5 successful exits What else should I add to make me look smart & accomplished? Needn’t be true as people won’t check Lmk

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

What's the most unsexy, "boring" business you've ever seen that makes a crap ton of money? (riches in niches)

Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

What are the best TV shows, movies, documentaries about business, technology, markets, specific company histories?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

1/ Some signs to look for that suggest your startup equity won't be worth shit (note: there are probably exceptions but generally, these will steer you right)

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

RIP Gary from Chicago

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

PSA: 9.9 of 10 times, that big company person who says they want to work at a startup really doesn't. They think they do. They want to think they could. But they don't. And they can't.

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

All VC websites say they partner with exceptional founders There is a large untapped opportunity for a VC to come along that partners with average and perhaps mediocre founders Who will own this space? 🤔 #blueocean

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

Reference checks are not taken seriously enough A couple of years ago, I got religion on them Here are 8 reference call questions that get past BS and really help understand a candidate 🧵

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

9 months

Guy in white shorts = VC-backed startup Guy in black shorts = bootstrapped, revenue-funded startup

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

New startup model to build $10-25M revenue cos Here’s the constraints - never have >50 on the team - everyone takes profit distributions (eventually) - no outside capital - product quality + automation to keep < 50 Anyone building cos w/ headcount constraint? What ya think?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 month

UES NYC parent success formula Get kid into Trinity They get into Harvard They get job at Goldman They get into Stanford GSB They get a job at Blackstone What did I get wrong?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

9 months

Want to write great copy? Study this "1999 Toyota Corolla - Fine AF" Absolute masterclass Just read it Thank me later

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

$170M in revenue Awesome “They bootstrapped and turned down offers of VC funding. Before the sale, Park and Marino owned the vast majority of the biz, with the only other stockholders being employees to whom they had given equity grants”

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

When someone's thought leadership volume increases suddenly, they're looking for a new job

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 years

From the "it ain't talking shit if you can back it up" school of living is this 2016 letter from TopTal CEO to potential investors

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Lord, give me the confidence of a founder who just raised a $2m seed round from a tier 2 VC

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

Prediction: In 3 years, this is what air travel will look like due to the Apple Vision Pro Agree or disagree?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

8 years

Such a good line

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

Ok - doing some market research for my next startup How fast do you really need your groceries?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 months

I operated my dad's business in India after his sudden death Was an absolutely brutal place to do business Heard this wisdom from a non-Indian last night who built and ran a biz in India INDIA = I'm Never Doing It Again Amen 😂

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 years

I had no idea VCs were also experts about coronavirus and pandemics What don't these guys know? #impressive

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Most company culture principles are basically this level of drivel #chatGPT did this in 2 seconds You're welcome

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 years

Dear VCs - here's an example of a great outreach email from a junior VC Note: this intern will go far

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

To: My fellow data/info-biz nerds This is a great summary and another reason why proprietary quantitative or qualitative data & insights are going to be so powerful in this generative AI / LLM future h/t @joeobrien513

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

Alright, some napkin math analysis that suggests @flexport 's current valuation might actually be 80+% lower Yup - not the $8 billion valuation it last raised at in 2022 But more on the order of $1.41 to $1.58 billion Ouch … but why? It’s a combo of the company being priced

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 months

OpenAI vs Anthropic

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

A tweet is currently selling for $267k What the f^ck is happening?!!!!!

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 months

Remember when VCs pushed for keeping politics out of the workplace?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

VC on Twitter: "Who are the most promising early-stage companies in __________?" VC to their LPs: "We have unrivaled proprietary dealflow"

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

22 days

Tried my hand at startup advisory work earlier this yr (early-stage) Didn't like it Advice mostly boiled down to same 5 things 1. Narrow focus & increase quality 2. Optimize for speed 3. Don't hire until it hurts 4. Talk to customers a lot 5. If unsure abt teammate, move on

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

We bootstrapped @cbinsights by first building a totally different business It involved hedge funds, too big too fail banks and $100,000 PDFs For nerds interested in data and information services businesses, you might enjoy this

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

VC is a crazy game "When founders get diluted below double-digit ownership, they begin to see themselves as employees, not owners and that is bad for the company, the team & investors. For some founders, they start to feel that way at below 20% or 15%"

What Happens When A Founder Is Fully Vested?

Let’s say you are the founder and CEO of a startup and you have now been at it for four years. The company is doing great, you’ve raised several rounds of financing, you have a product in the market...

avc.com

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 years

Still amazed at how many deal makers (VCs, M&A folks, corporate VCs) don't do double opt-in intros They should teach you this in day 1 of dealmaking school

Email Introduction: Always Use the Double-Opt In Intro

Single opt-in intros are lazy and disrespectful and make you a terrible person. Good people do double opt-in intros.

www.cbinsights.com

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

Your startup has more than 5 people Here's 18 things you can do in 2022 to screw it up Want your startup to end 2022 weaker than when you started? Follow these tips 🧵 (ya, I know)

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Lol at all the VCs who did undisciplined deals with crazy valuations now lecturing startups about discipline (Note: not talking about any VCs I personally know. Just the other ones)

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

What are your top 5 podcasts? - MFM - All-In - People v Algorithms - Hard Fork - Limited Supply - Mktg Against the Grain - Colin & Samir - Flagrant (only on YT) That's actually 8 Who do you like?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 months

When Sam Altman is less busy, he should write a book on negotiating Absolute assassin as a deal maker

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

Certainly hoping data is not the new oil

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Unpopular opinion I think founders speaking at / keynoting conferences is generally a huge waste of time Good for ego but branding/biz dev value is meh Used to speak at lots of events and should have just spent that time generating content which pays dividends forever WDYT?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 years

Dear media peeps If @WeWork has a spectacularly terrible IPO, it will have zero impact on broader tech or unicorns or startup funding or really anything Thx

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

“People rarely see the small steps when they’re looking for enormous outcomes, but deserving enormous outcomes is mostly the result of a series of small steps that culminate into something visible.“

The Surprising Power of The Long Game

In everything we do, we play the long or the short game. The short game is easy, pleasurable, and offers visible and immediate benefits. But it almost never leads to success. Here's how to play the...

fs.blog

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 years

So capital-as-a-weapon doesn't work in: - startups - politics Any other domains?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

How much customer interest founders expect they'll get from the TechCrunch article on their $2.5M seed round

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

2018 startup founder’s toolkit 1. Must have read Radical Candor 2. Swear by intermittent fasting 3. Be doing something in AI What’d I miss?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 months

My next startup...sort of Except it's not a startup Along with a few others, I'm working on building a 6th to 12th grade School of Entrepreneuring. And so I wanted to share some of my 'wet clay' thoughts on how we're thinking about this as I know there are a lot of smart

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

Is there a Glassdoor for tech cos to evaluate and see ratings of advisors/service providers like lawyers, bankers, accountants?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

IMO, the top 3 🇮🇹 Italy 🇮🇳 India 🇯🇵 Japan Who you got?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Would this be illegal? 1. Organize a few hundred thousand folks to simultaneously cancel their subscriptions to a Netflix, Disney, etc 2. Short the stock I know it's not easy to do but curious if illegal? Don't you dare reply to this saying it's a perfect use case for a DAO

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Why do kids learn about sedimentary vs igneous vs metamorphic rocks in school? Genuinely curious the value school systems believe this type of information provides

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

Robinhood got 600k signups (as of yday) for their checking/savings aka cash management account This was fantastic marketing They had to change the copy today but only after they’d derived most of the value from the launch Well played by their team

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

When a founder shares revenue w/ media, here's how to decode: "7 figures of revenue" >>> revenue is $980k "millions in revenue" >>> revenue is $2 million "tens of millions in revenue" >>> revenue is $10.05M "close year with $100M ARR" >>> ARR is $70 million

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

7/ Early stage founders (Seed/Series A) lecturing others on how to build a business vs actually talking about their business Personal brand building founders trying to be 'gurus' are almost always a total dumpster fire

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 years

This is the best most genius use of AI I've seen to date h/t @NikMilanovic

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

9 months

"What makes great products is not process. It's content." 1 minute of wisdom by Steve Jobs

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

8 years

So good. Someone sent a cover letter in the format of our newsletter.

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

Best email in a while cc @CBinsights crew

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

When people at big co say "I'm on a small team. It's like working in a startup inside a large organization" I'm like

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

10 months

Periodic reminder that when folks say "It's like working at a startup in a big company", they have no idea what it's like to actually work at a startup

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

The intense drama about SVB has died down But the implications on the pvt markets will be felt in coming weeks & months They will be big for VCs, PE and startups We’ll dig into what the data says here First stop - Let’s dig into how debt was being used to prop up valuations

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

"Valuation is temporary. Control is forever." Not discussed nearly enough in the unicorn boom. Wonder how many founders work for their investors now? Prob works if you’re consistently going up & to the right. Prob not ideal when you hit a bump quote by @naval via @lpolovets

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

8 years

68 things not to do in your SaaS company. Learn from @cbinsights screwups my presentation from #SaaStrAnnual

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

4/ Mid- to later-stage company and the about us page is all about their investors That's ok at the early stages but eventually you gotta build some shit for customers If you're bragging about your investors at Series B, C, the actual biz model is fundraising

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 years

What essay or article have you read that has had a significant impact on how you think about business, markets, entrepreneurship and/or technology?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 months

🐐When our AGI overlords arrive, @harrymack is the only 1 whose job will be safe Absolutely unbelievable skills Don't know him? Watch this. I guarantee you will be blown away (and probably smile)

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

9 months

🔥 💣 I’ve decided to “fire” myself after 14 years as CEO of @CBinsights I'll still be working 180% at CBI but now in the role of Founder & Executive Chairman. In this role, my focus shifts to customer conversations, product, content & partnerships. One area I'll be spending

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

“Lifestyle business”

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 years

You say "partnership" I hear "you got no money"

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

6 months

Generative AI company revenue multiples • @OpenAI 18.1x • @AnthropicAI 20.5x • @AI21Labs 28x • @glean 56.4x • MosaicML 65x (acq by Databricks) • @perplexity_ai 65x • @harvey__ai 71.5x • @cohere 100x • @huggingface 150x OpenAI a bargain? :)

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 months

"Make your requirements less dumb" "Don't optimize the thing that should not exist" 5-step product development process by @elonmusk

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 months

AI and jobs Klarna CEO is shrinking number of employees by 20% per year and has stopped recruitment

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 months

Elon Musk is the best business builder of this generation (perhaps ever) I wish he'd share more about business building This video of him is great My favorite parts * "Make your requirements less dumb" * Name people, not departments * "Don't optimize something that should not

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Name a startup (not your own) that you admire. And why? Mine: @AngelList Why: Product shipping velocity

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 months

We bootstrapped @cbinsights by first building a different business involving hedge funds, too big to fail banks, and $100,000 PDFs. Data and information services nerds, you might enjoy this. Backstory ▪️ My first day of freedom from big company employment: Jan 1, 2008. ▪️ Bad

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

5 months

Your startup is a wrapper on GPT-4? OpenAI is "going to steamroll you" per Sam Altman

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

5 yo son: what does famous mean? Me: someone or something known by a lot of people S: ok. So like wheels are famous. Me: huh? S: everyone knows what a wheel is Me: please eat your breakfast Anyone got a good way to explain “famous” to a 5 yo?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 months

"At HBS...." "When I was at Stanford..." If someone finds a way to drop this in the first 3 sentences of every conversation and is 30+ yrs old, what conclusion, if any, should be drawn?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

4 years

We just announced our first M&A transaction @CBinsights acquired Dow Jones VentureSource assets which gives us a ton of data on valuations, mgmt teams and service providers Excited to get this data in the hands of our clients More surprises soon :)

Our First Acquisition: CB Insights Acquires VentureSource Data from Dow Jones | CB Insights Research

CB Insights has acquired the data assets of VentureSource, a comprehensive portfolio relating to venture capital markets, from Dow Jones.

www.cbinsights.com

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 years

8/ Founders that rush into raising $ to build a co in a hot space to become player no 10 These folks aren't actually motivated by the problem they're solving. They just see an opportunity for a quick flip They'll get bored when the momentum dies and then they'll pivot to web3

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Reports now saying that Google will be bankrupt by the end of March Life comes at you fast Innovator's Dilemma Satya is such a badass. F'n legendary CEO. I love Bing #ChatGPT

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

Curios -- Why do VCs get a 1x liquidation preference when investing? Is the idea this aligns incentives in some way? Given VCs makes their money on the outliers and it is called "venture" capital, why do VCs get this protection? "It's industry standard" is not an answer

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

yday tech investor: "I'm a fan of free markets." today tech investor: "A bail out of SVB makes sense."

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

2 years

"Big companies are slow" In < 3 months... * Microsoft relaunched and rearchitected parts of Bing to integrate chatGPT * They integrated it into Edge browser * Did a mktg launch event that put Google on their heals Insanely killer execution Is your startup running this fast?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 years

Wonder how many VCs called this a lifestyle business?

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

7 years

Proud to announce my new online class where I will teach ppl to click an unsubscribe link in a newsletter instead of replying "unsubscribe"

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

3 months

This is one of the many things that makes 🇺🇸 great

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Anand Sanwal

@asanwal

1 year

Upon reflection, the fact that startups were raising VC $ and then turning around and investing those $ into other startups was one of the wilder things during peak market craziness Examples: * @stripe did 21 investments in 2021 * @coinbase / Coinbase Ventures did 138

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