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Ben Horowitz cosigned the Databricks co-founders in 2013, when they were Berkeley academics. " When I met with them, they were like, 'We need to raise $200,000.'" "I said, 'I'm not gonna write you a check for $200,000. I'll write you a check for $10 million.'" "You need to...

145,492 Aufrufe • vor 3 Tagen •via X (Twitter)

16 Kommentare

Profilbild von a16z
a16zvor 3 Tagen

w/ @lennysan on Lenny's Podcast (Sep 2025)

Profilbild von Max Bern
Max Bernvor 3 Tagen

Asked for 200k and he said "here's $10m become a company." Not sure if that'd scare or excite me.

Profilbild von richard
richardvor 3 Tagen

w story

Profilbild von NotaDEV
NotaDEVvor 3 Tagen

most of us are still waiting on the 200k, let alone the 50x version

Profilbild von Abhishek kothari
Abhishek kotharivor 3 Tagen

Wild that the investor had to talk the founders into a bigger swing. What did he see in the Databricks team that they hadn’t seen in themselves yet?

Profilbild von Youth
Youthvor 3 Tagen

The scarce skill after the capability jump is still falsification, not more drafts.

Profilbild von sofi e,
sofi e,vor 3 Tagen

Thanks for sharing this

Profilbild von Larry Pu
Larry Puvor 3 Tagen

Raising too little money could extremely limit the runway, which can result in failure of company. Investors know that

Profilbild von Bobby
Bobbyvor 3 Tagen

Semper Fidelis

Profilbild von Gustavo Hernandez
Gustavo Hernandezvor 3 Tagen

@DanielleFong I hope this happen to us @Kavanahio

Profilbild von why
whyvor 3 Tagen

That’s a wild gap between the check they asked for and the one he wrote. A very early bet on the team.

Profilbild von Gary Drucker, CIC
Gary Drucker, CICvor 3 Tagen

Two Berkeley academics starting a company need a general liability insurance policy first. A 10 million dollar check without a certificate of insurance is a claim waiting to happen. I would have called them the same day.

Profilbild von Rob Meder
Rob Medervor 3 Tagen

that was smart. really smart.

Profilbild von Ivan Damnjanovic
Ivan Damnjanovicvor 3 Tagen

Databricks is pretty good, but I haven't seen their roadmap?

Profilbild von Crio Songo
Crio Songovor 3 Tagen

That's the top-tier investor's vision, this bet totally paid off for a16z.

Profilbild von ࣪˖ sophie m.
࣪˖ sophie m.vor 3 Tagen

Totally agree with this

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