Scott Kupor: Navigating the VC and Startup Governance Landscape in 2024.

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

(0:00) Intro.

(1:36) About this podcast's sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.

(2:23) Start of interview.

(3:33) On the collapse of SVB and its impact to Silicon Valley and the VC industry.

(9:05) On the state of private markets. *Reference to Aileen Lee's post on Unicorn update (2013-2024).

(14:35) How VCs are approaching tough conversations on shutdowns, downrounds and/or recaps in this down market cycle. *Reference to Scott's book Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It (2019).

(19:10) On the evolution of secondary markets (including founders taking secondaries) and the idea of staying private for longer ("SPL").

(24:15) On startup compensation practices (stock option vesting schedules, RSUs).

(26:21) On a16z's expansion to NYC (~80 employees) and internationally to London.

(28:52) On geopolitics challenges, including China.

(31:06) On the crypto industry (Web3) and its regulatory challenges.

(34:37) On AI as an investment thesis.

(35:30) On some of the novel corporate governance structures used by some leading AI companies (PBCs, LTBTs, etc). On the OpenAI board crisis.

(38:37) Fraud in private markets.

(41:44) On ESG and DEI in the venture-backed startup market. *Reference to a16z Cultural Leadership Fund and Talent x Opportunity (TXO). How LPs think about this, both in the US and abroad.

(44:45) On California as a tech hub and some of its "exodus".

(46:35) Corporate governance matters for late stage companies, independent directors and "overboarding" in the VC context.

Scott Kupor is an investing partner focused on growth-stage companies building in the bio and healthcare industries, manages the firm’s investor relations team, and is responsible for the firm’s growth initiatives.

You can follow Scott on social media at:

Twitter (X): @skupor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottkupor/

You can follow Evan on social media at:

Twitter: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

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Patreon: patreon.com/BoardroomGovernancePod

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License