Laura Chau of Canaan joins Nick to discuss Consumer Headwinds, Whether AI Revenue Catch up with Infra Spend, and Are Creative “Takeunders” the Solution to Lina Khan’s FTC Agenda. In this episode we cover:
- Consumer Investing and Churn
- Customer Acquisition and Data Challenges
- AI Investment Framework and Opportunities
- AI Infrastructure and Revenue Gap
- Google’s Agreement with Character.ai
- Non-AI Investment Areas and Founder Preferences
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0:18
Laura Chau joins us today from New York City. She’s a Partner at Canaan, an early-stage venture firm where she focuses broadly on consumer technology. Canaan has invested in companies including Instacart, The Real Real, Turo, Snyk, and Day One Therapeutics and Laura has led deals including MSCHF, Clutch, and more recently Nagish. Laura, welcome to the show!
0:40
Thanks for having me.
0:41
Absolutely. Would love to hear a bit about your background and your path to becoming a VC. So
0:46
I had never dreamed of being a VC. I actually knew nothing about tech growing up. My parents were refugees from Vietnam. We grew up in northern Florida. My dad was an academic. So for me, I thought I was going to be a doctor, an engineer, and those were kind of the only two paths that were available in my mind. But I went to Stanford for college, and just my mind was kind of open to startups and entrepreneurship. And I like to say I was kind of the queen of internships. And I’d say a couple of internships I’ve had in my lifetime have been some of the most catalytic or most impactful in my career. One of those was a company at the time called Water Cooler. It was basically building affinity groups on Facebook. It later became a large gaming company called Kabam that sold to Netmarble for nearly a billion dollars, and I was their first intern. I was, you know, reaching out to people on on like Zanga MySpace, all of these being like, Hey, if you like Grey’s Anatomy, you should join this group on Facebook. And I was, you know, it was 15 people above a dim sum restaurant, you know, on Castro Street in Mountain View. But I thought it was the coolest thing. And so that kind of got me really interested in tech and startups. And fast forward, maybe eight years later, as I was starting to think about transitioning from consulting, I really wanted to get back into startups, but was also starting to think about venture and Kabam had been incubated at Canaan, and so Kevin, the CEO, introduced me to Canaan. This is in 2014 and I joined the firm and have been here ever since,
2:26
amazing. And tell us a bit about the investment thesis and the approach at Canaan. So
2:31
we’re large early stage investors. I’ve been around for almost 40 years now, and we’re currently investing out of our 13th fund. It’s a six, $50 million fund dedicated to early stage. So seed Series A, a little bit of Series B. We like to lead and usually sit on boards with our companies, really long term investors through exit. In terms of what we invest in as a fund, we’re generalists, but individually, I’ll specialize. We have a dedicated team about a third of the fund that does biotech, and so that’s primarily therapeutics, including company formation, in those areas. And then we do a lot within Enterprise, SaaS, infrastructure, security, FinTech, proptech. I do a lot on our consumer tech side. And I say consumer tech very broadly. So it’s true consumer businesses, and then consumer enabled businesses that might be more prosumer or SMB SaaS in nature.
3:24
Amazing and is that are all the early stage investments in one fund? Are these separate funds? How is it structured?
3:30
Yeah, so all of our investments are out of a single vehicle, so seed and series A and sometimes Series B as well. That’s a smaller percentage of the fund. We do have a follow on vehicle where we’ll do some of the later stage pro rata out of some of those early deals, but we historically have kept them all in our single vehicle, and have seen a lot of success in doing that
3:53
awesome. So I’ve always known Canaan as like a West Coast firm, and actually worked on a deal with a Canaan partner, probably back in 2015 so it’s been some time, but you’re based in New York City. So when, when did the New York launch happen? How did that come again?
4:08
We’ve actually been in New York for a long time, and I’m going to get the date wrong, but I think we’ve had an office since 2010 or 2012 so actually quite early in New York relative to a lot of the West Coast firms, but we’ve actually always been bicoastal, so we’ve had offices in Connecticut and Menlo Park since 1987 the year we were founded. And each of those offices have kind of expanded from sand hill up to San Francisco as well, and then from Connecticut over to New York. I actually started with Canaan on the West Coast, and started there in 2014 and moved to New York in 2018 and you know, I love both coasts, but the New York ecosystem has really burdened in the last few years, and it’s been really exciting to see awesome,
4:54
wonderful. So I figured we’d start out with the macro, and we talk a little bit. Bit about exits. So, you know, it seems like the IPO window has been shut for some time. Of course, there’s been some notable companies that have trickled through and gone public, but Public Market multiples are down. You know, talk about how this has kind of affected the early stage ecosystem. And if you expect this capital crunch to abate soon, why or why not? Yeah,
5:25
so the public market side is one part of that capital crunch. I’d say the other part is that we’re still recovering from some of the really high priced rounds of 2020, 2021, and at that point we had companies raising it, 100x multiples 200x multiples off of, you know, 100k of ARR. And so what that means is that we still have companies that haven’t quite grown into those valuations and are maybe having trouble raising the next round period. And then that’s compounded by the fact that these public market multiples, which have come down, and also we’re always lower than some of these private market ones are making it really difficult for companies to kind of move to that next stage. I do think it is beginning to abate. And even though we had this whole cadre of companies that are caught in the middle, you’re seeing companies that have either readjusted their expectations and they’ve raised more modest rounds, sometimes down rounds, as well as companies that just have either kind of thrown in the towel or moved on. And then we’re also seeing a new group of seed series, a companies that are raising at more reasonable valuations, and that’s sort of resetting the market. The thing that I find maybe tricky for some of the companies that are in the market, and as I’ve been chatting with them, is that there still is a little bit of this investor psychology to deal with, where I’ve seen some really great companies with strong, arr good growth, maybe, you know, a couple million in revenue at the series A and they’re struggling to raise and you’ll hear these stories From a lot of founders, and I think what might be happening is that investors see these and they see maybe a sleepier asset, or kind of a more tired company, where for a couple of years they were figuring it out right, they had to go through a lot of turmoil to reset around foundations of unit Economics and profitability. Maybe their growth trajectory wasn’t as dynamic, and you’re comparing those to some of these companies that are just coming to market now and are kind of fresh. But I actually think these opportunities are are some of the best ones, if you can get over maybe some of that hangover that that exists in the market where, you know, they are really good assets. They have fixed all of the the fundamentals, they’ve demonstrated that they can operate through a lot of that difficulty and set themselves up for success. And if you’re willing to to kind of face that new reality, I think it’s a great opportunity to be investing nothing
7:56
like a crisis, right? I was, I was on, I think, reels the other day, and I saw Jensen speak, and he was talking about how, like the best founders are people that have suffered, like smart people. Everyone thinks, oh, invest in smart people, but it’s actually the suffering that kind of creates extraordinary humans and professionals. Absolutely. So let’s, let’s talk churn everyone’s favorite topic, right? We’ll keep, we’ll keep this podcast super negative. It seems like churn continues to climb across the board. You know, what are you seeing and how has that broadly affected the portfolio? Yeah,
8:31
it’s real. And again, I think that’s driven by a lot of the macro economy. We’re seeing companies that are they’re cutting their SaaS spend, for sure. And then also on the consumer side, consumers are being more prudent with their purchases, and so churn is a very real consideration for our portfolio companies. And when we’re looking at new investments, I’d say one of the biggest trends I’m seeing is just a really strong focus on customer success and retention across our portfolio and across companies in general. I’d say, you know, in 2020, 2021, there was this period where companies were just building for growth and just really trying to add new revenue, and had the luxury of saying, we’ll come back and address CS later, right? Like we’ll build out that function, we’ll invest there later. But right now, we’re just being incentivized to grow, and the market is responding in that way. But now I’m seeing a real focus on investing there and then for new investments. You know, I’d say we’re looking at businesses, certainly that are very oriented to kind of deep product market fit, strong defensibility, maybe regulatory or technical lock in that help minimize some of that churn. And then also, the benchmarks have changed, right? I think if you look at kind of net dollar retention, the benchmark for top quartile in 2022 2023 was closer to 140% I think now when you look at the 2024 benchmarks are closer to like 108 110 Percent, and so it’s significantly changed in terms of profile, but it’s across the board, just given the way that companies and consumers are reacting. I
10:10
mean, is this a temporary effect? You know, I just the headlines this morning. I was reading something from I think, Dan Primack about consumer investing and private equity is struggling, and venture is struggling, and some people are shutting down their funds. I mean, what do you expect for consumer investing in the coming years is this, you know, a typical cyclical thing that we’re seeing, and will it come back to a normal level? I
10:38
don’t have a crystal ball. I wish I did, but I do think a lot of it is cyclical, right? I think even just what we’ve been talking about, a lot of that is related to the macro, and so I think that is driving a lot of the changes. Obviously, there are a lot of variables and considerations in there, but I do think that this is a cycle. I don’t know how long it will last. But I think consumer investing, consumer businesses, consumer purchasing, is kind of a hallmark of the economy, and will continue to be a really interesting area to invest in. So, you know, from a my job perspective, I’m excited about kind of the the new group of companies that will start to merge.
11:22
So churn has been a problem. CAC also seems to be escalating. I feel like it’s one thing for early stage founders to have novel growth. You know, tactics and or strategies. Have you seen some unique novel approaches like at scale as well. I’m curious.
11:42
The at scale question is tricky. You see a lot of interesting subscale approaches, and typically, that’s how a lot of consumer businesses get started, too, right? I think is it? I think it’s the tinder story, for example, where they would go into college campuses and just like, make a big ruckus within a classroom and get everybody talking about Tinder and downloading the app. And it kind of started like wildfire within campuses that way, obviously not scalable in the long run, but an interesting way to kind of build hype around a product. So you see things like that, whether it’s in person, on Tiktok, you know, on social in different ways, but finding kind of a really durable, scalable acquisition path is actually one of the most difficult things about consumer right now, and actually one of the areas for investment that I think could be really interesting, just given where all of the paid social channels are in terms of saturation, where CACs are across the board? Yeah, yeah.
12:43
I tend to my observations and experience tend to be consistent with that. It seems like the subscale stuff is is really fun and unique. I just saw one on Twitter the other day. It’s sort of a AI custom agent startup that’s gone from zero to 4 million of ARR in eight months. And the founder was talking about how they used Upwork and companies posting jobs on Upwork, and they would respond to those jobs with, like, an automated AI based solution. And I thought that was pretty clever, but Well, yeah, yeah. Anyway, let’s move on. So you have experience in E commerce. I know that you actively invest in E commerce enablement. Talk to us about, you know, the white space in the category, what, what sub segments, what opportunities are still underserved in E commerce? Yeah,
13:30
so the area that we were just talking about is one that I’m actually really excited about. So customer acquisition, customer attention, customer identity, to the point we were just making paid acquisition social. It’s sky high in terms of cost today, and all of those channels are saturated. I think the days of, you know, a Warby Parker kind of launching and being able to buy leads or buy, you know, converted customers for $1 are long gone. You’re looking at, you know, 250, $300 for certain sectors. So that, coupled with like, Cookie deprecation, what’s happening around GDPR, all of the tricks, all of the channels that brands used to have in order to follow you around on the internet, learn about you, retarget you. They’re going away. And so what I’m excited about is kind of this new white space for compliant ways for brands to be able to identify their best customers and target them, but also to be able to serve up the best experiences for us as consumers. Right? I actually want to know how to find, you know, the right pair of shoes or the right thing without, you know, giving anyone all this access to my data online. But there are certain things that I would share if it’s going to make my experience better. So I think we’ve had kind of an early innings on this with, you know, companies like retention.com, and elevar as kind of the the initial entree. Sent here just with your first party pixels on your site, and kind of information in that regard. But I think there will be a future where it’s, maybe it’s a mix of consumers opting in to share their data and brands kind of owning some of that. There’s this idea of building, kind of as a zero party cookie, right where you’re basically rebuilding the cookie. It’s not tied to your browser or something like Google, but perhaps an entirely new platform that’s across across all browsers, across retailers and brands. And if I can opt into that and share, then I can have a much more personalized, much more customized experience. And all of these brands can can serve that up to me. I think the big question for innovation is, you know, how do you get consumers to want to opt in, and how do you make sure that experience is really, really good, so that it’s worth it, while still making sure that all of the privacy and compliance data concerns are addressed as well?
15:59
It’s a tricky one. There’s certainly historical precedent for consumers trading their time, you know, for money, in the form of panels and surveys and the Qualtrics of the world. I could definitely see some competing with non consumption here and a mass market potential for consumers to opt in and not have to do much extra work. It’s just kind of a question of, how much you know, will they get paid for that? Is it? Is it meaningful? Does it? Is it additive to their experience online, or does it start to feel oppressive and invasive?
16:32
That’s that’s the point, right? Like it has to be additive to your experience. It has to be a really amazing experience. It’s making your life better and easier, while also still not being too invasive. And the balance of what data is getting taken and how it’s being used is the million dollar, billion, trillion dollar question. Yeah,
16:50
100% so Laura, everyone’s chatting about the AI models, the data, the custom agents, etc. Do you have a framework for evaluating the landscape of AI opportunities? And if so, you know, in what areas are you most interested?
17:04
So I almost exclusively look at application layer. And the application layer is really, really, really crowded, which makes my my job difficult sometimes. So the things that I look for are one an interesting moat within some of these application layers. And that could be regulatory, it could be a distribution angle. It could be kind of the ecosystem that they’re building in, unsurprisingly, looking for a data advantage, right? And that’s not just a unique data set, but like a really large volume of data that will allow this application to really begin to build more of those moats around it over time. And then I actually like looking in smaller niches. I prefer to focus on owning a specific vertical, building out network effects within that, especially on the consumer side, rather than kind of a broad, more generalized approach. And there’s also kind of, you know, on the model side, that debate between llms and large models versus small models and building them for kind of more of a niche audience. When it comes to applications, for me, in terms of my investment focus, I actually think there’s a lot of opportunity to be building within some of these smaller verticals today, one of the things I think about is, you know, it has to be, it has to be a better UI experience. It has to be something that is, you know, can’t be built to be 80% as good by open AI, or using chat, DBT, right? All of those things that I talked about before. Around the moat, data advantage, the niche. It has to be differentiated in terms of the product too, first and foremost. But you know, some specific niches, healthcare, both on the consumer side and the B to B side, legal, I think isn’t one that everybody is talking about. But any of these areas that are a little bit more text based in nature, are getting the most traction, and what we’re seeing a lot of interesting things pop up over time. I’m really excited to see what happens more on the image and video generation side. It’s early, but as an early stage investor, I think that’s where there’s a lot of interesting opportunities. Are
19:16
there, like, as we look at, for instance, image data or video data, are there, like, eras of data repositories that, you know, have high integrity versus not? You know, as I think, when I was growing up, we had VHS, you know, cameras on my dad would come to a swim meet and, you know, take me, and I wonder when we got to certain phases of technological sophistication, from a image quality standpoint, and then also when, when we also reach certain levels of ubiquity, like where we’re just collecting massive amounts, like is, is that part of the value of the data set is like looking through these waves of of data quality? Quality and and size.
20:02
It’s, it’s a good question on data quality. I think the bigger issue is that there’s just not enough data from a video perspective today, period, right? I think we’re still, I mean, compared to text, at least, right? And text also is, it’s just much more uniform and structure in nature. So for any model, it’s much easier to understand and parse what you’re looking at, versus image or video. The type of data, the richness of it, on one hand, is a real benefit, but it’s also really hard to structure, really hard to make use of. And again, I think the bigger issue is we just don’t have enough volume of it today. Yeah,
20:42
even, like the historical security cameras of old, I know they used, they used to have those on loops, so they would delete a lot of it. So in theory, we should have, you know, the world pretty well covered with a lot of security cameras. But I bet a lot of that, that data is gone.
20:58
It’s a it’s an opportunity. So, you know, there’s
21:01
been a lot of press lately about the big gap between revenue expectations implied by the AI infrastructure build out in the actual revenue growth in the AI ecosystem. You know, David Kahn, over at Sequoia, estimated initially about $125 billion hole that needs to be filled for each year of CapEx at today’s level. So you know, Nvidia and all these companies were building all this AI infrastructure, but revenue really hasn’t caught up, right? And David’s figure is now up to 500 billion. Originally estimated at 125 now 500 So, Laura, are we building far too much supply side infrastructure for AI? And do you think demand, ie, revenue will ever catch up? Ever?
21:42
Yes, I think so.
21:45
Take a while.
21:46
The question of, are we building too much supply side infrastructure for the AI, I think it’s a little bit of a question of who and what are you solving for. You know, I think part of the way I think about the infrastructure we’re building is, you know, there’s the metaphor of building the plane while flying. We’re kind of building the runway while we’re taking off, but we don’t really quite know how much we need, what the length is, what the width is, what kind of surface we might need for the best takeoff, because we don’t fully know what the plane looks like, where we’re going and all of that, I do think that there’s a lot of infrastructure today that probably won’t get utilized efficiently, almost surely won’t get utilized efficiently, and that’s because so much is changing with the models that we have, with the applications that are getting built on top of it, and it’s hard to say where that’s going. I do think it’s a net positive for AI innovation to be investing so heavily in infrastructure. And a lot of these large tech companies that are, you know, in the news every day around their investments, have the balance sheets to be making these investments. And it’s, you know, it’s kind of like infrastructure for, you know, the public good in some ways, right? I do think it’s a net benefit, if you’re talking about, you know, the benefit, or trade off for investors. I think there will be some investors who who win here, but I think there will also be a number that, you know, maybe pick the wrong thing, but net, net, I think it’s a positive.
23:22
Well, we’ve got these huge tech companies that are throwing off cash, right? And what are they going to do? I mean, they’ve invested a lot in r, d, they’ve kind of maxed out to some degree. They’re not I mean, they could issue a dividend, they could do stock buybacks, or they could bolster their infrastructure for, you know, what most people think is, you know, that will become the constraint. You know, as more models spin up and more data sets,
23:51
I think, you know, with these large tech companies, they do still have the benefit of time for a while, and I think time will tell in terms of what is going to win, and they also have so many resources that they’ll be able to shift on the application side, the bet that they’re making is that we’ll figure out where the revenue is going to come from over time, and they’ll have the infrastructure to do it. I in general, I’m I’m bullish on that vision, but I hear all of the concerns and constraints on the investments that are being made today. Yeah, yeah.
24:26
What do you think of Google’s recent hiring and license license agreement with character.ai you know their founders, which is sort of this new concept. It’s more of a take under versus a takeover. Thoughts on that.
24:39
I think it’s fascinating for so many reasons. First, I think it’s demonstrative of the fact that we’re still really early in the innings of consumer AI, and with character in particular, look, the company had an incredible run up in terms of growth. It was one of the very early kind of consumer AI. Products out there focused on companionship and all that, it was like a really interesting, generative AI experience for a lot of people. Over time, retention became more of an issue, and I think this kind of license agreement from Google is interesting for a couple of reasons. One, it’s highlighting the fact that talent is still so paramount in terms of the moment we’re in within AI Right? Like they’re licensing the models, but they’re also reacquiring the founders who used to be at Google, who can really help build out maybe what will be the next revenue generating thing for Google to build on top of all of their infrastructure that they’re investing in, so that that highlight of just how early we still are is interesting to me. I also think it’s an interesting structure, and we’ve started to see it a few more times. Microsoft did it with inflection, Amazon with adapt. And it’s a structure that’s both giving some giving liquidity and an exit to VCs and early investors. It’s maybe skirting the line around some of the FTC and M and a you know, considerations that have been coming up in the past. And assuming you know these deals continue to be allowed, I think it will open up a lot of kind of pseudo M and A opportunity within AI, which you know so many of these businesses to the point we were making earlier, need a lot of resources, need distribution, and some of these tech giants are the place where it’s all happening.
26:35
I mean, it seems reasonable to say that this is a creative workaround to an acquisition Right? Like Lina Khan is out there, and she’s made her position known as head of the FTC. And you know it, it also seems like one of the primary casualties of her efforts is is little tech, so to speak. So like, you know, startups and kind of our arena, well, you know, she’s trying to prevent big tech from getting bigger, prevent monopolies from becoming more monopolistic, but at the same time, she’s preventing, you know, or the FTC broadly, maybe not Lena specifically, but the FTC is preventing a lot of acquisitions from from occurring. So I don’t know, how do we encourage MNA while keeping monopolies at bay. I know that you don’t have all the answers on this, but I’d love to get your thoughts.
27:28
It’s a great question. Do I think we need to be thoughtful about some of these big tech giants and monopolistic power and what that means for innovation and competition? Absolutely, I think we need to be careful and thoughtful, but at the same time, I do think that there will be companies that, you know, maybe get to subscale, but are really valuable technology that could benefit the broader ecosystem with more resources, with more distribution inside of a larger tech company. And I think that it’s again to the ecosystem’s benefit to be able to encourage that, whether it’s this licensing deal structure as kind of a creative workaround, we’ll see if that continues to be viewed positively. But I do think that we we need more opportunities that continue to positively reinforce some of this innovation. Great Laura,
28:23
in a world where funding and innovation all seems to be chasing AI, you know, what are the the non AI areas that you’re interested in right now?
28:33
I think some of the non AI areas are actually the most fun right now. Everybody’s so focused on AI and moving in that direction and finding the areas to look in the other way I think are really cool. And, you know, as our lives as consumers, I’ll focus on consumer become even more automated or supported by AI. And maybe it’s taking certain things off of our plate, right? Like, you know, scheduling or certain aspects of our work, maybe you end up with a little bit more free time. Maybe you end up with a little bit more opportunity to just, you know, fill it with fun things. Or maybe you’re just like, so interested in being out in the physical world, and, you know, being away from your computer, being away from your device, things that are, you know, I’ve been looking at a lot of marketplaces around coaching, for example. And so once you strip away all of these things that are kind of AI oriented, things like in person learning or like learning a sport and an instrument, things like that that still often need a human aspect, I think are really interesting opportunities. I’m also really interested in this idea of as work becomes a little bit more fragmented, and maybe you have more time to have a side hustle. What are the things that enable individuals to pursue that? Whether it’s a business in a box, things like for kind of on the travel agency side, you. See so many more people who, not just are creators, solopreneurs, but, you know, they have their day job and then they have their side hustle, or two or three, because work has changed so much, in part because of AI and other things. And so businesses that are starting to support that type of thing that is still very human, still maybe not AI oriented, I think are pretty cool, awesome.
30:21
Laura, if you had to choose between two options, a, a first time founder or B, a repeat founder who’s had a large successful exit, which are you more inclined to be excited about and take a meeting with?
30:35
I love the first time founders. So many people. We have a number of incredible repeat founders in our portfolio at Canaan, the repeat founders look they have incredible networks. They have the historical knowledge of building a company, what that looks like, and that is really, really valuable. And so I understand why there is often this kind of pattern matching to invest in these repeat founders, especially ones who have been really successful, but with the first time founders, oftentimes they have everything to lose, right? And they’re so obsessed with this idea or this company, and they are running through every single wall to make it happen. Can you build a network? Yes, like, can you find the operators around you, the advisors who have built it before maybe had success like a repeat founder, I think so. And so it’s that kind of motivation that I’ve always been really drawn to with founders. And most of the founders in my portfolio are are first time founders, and they just will run through every wall in front of them to make things happen.
31:42
What are some of the qualities you look for in founders? Well,
31:45
aside from that kind of just incessant drive, founders who are really good storytellers, I find to be really, really strong, and it’s storytelling for a few reasons, especially at the early stage one, I think the investing side, or kind of the fundraising side, is obvious, right? You have to go and tell that story to VCs to be able to raise the capital, get them excited before you know a company maybe even really exists. So the storytelling from that perspective is important. You’re also having to story tell to every single employee, right to join you like why should they join you? Especially if you’re a first time founder and don’t have that track record, you have to build the vision in front of them, get them excited, and then keep them excited to stay through all the ups and downs. And then you’re storytelling to your customers, whether that’s consumers or enterprises, and being able to tell that story really clearly, succinctly and in an exciting way, to get people to take a chance on you early on, that’s what I get excited about with founders,
32:49
Laura, if we could feature anyone here on the show, who do you think we should interview and what topic would you like to hear them speak about
32:55
you referenced him earlier. I would love to hear from Jensen Huang. Maybe it’s top of mind because of Nvidia earnings this week, but just the amount of change that company has gone through in such a short amount of time, not only would love to hear from him about his view of AI and infrastructure, but also how he’s managed that team, I think he has some really interesting management practices and how He’s also kind of managed culture through all that change.
33:23
Amazing, yeah, and most valuable company in the world now, I believe wild Laura, what book, article or video would you recommend to listeners?
33:34
You know, since my day is so full of tech news and everything else I love not I love fiction, and I just finished reading the over story, it won the Pulitzer Prize, I think, in 2023 and it’s, I think of it as naturalist history, kind of like or naturalist fiction, kind of like historical fiction, in that it’s all about trees and earth that has some of your tech Moments in there. But it just really highlights how impressive the natural world is, and reminds you that, you know, we as humans, and then any of this innovation around tech is just the smallest, smallest, smallest spec in terms of the history of the earth. And you know these trees, some of which have been around for a single tree for 1000 years or more. They’re probably going to outlast us as humans. So it’s fascinating,
34:26
Laura, do you have any habits, tactics or behaviors that are a force multiplier?
34:32
I would love to hear other habits and tactics that people have. You know, the thing that helps me the most is just having time in the morning, and I really try to protect it from calls and other things, so that I just have time to, you know, get some deep work done in the morning, or figure out, like, what are the things that I really need to do? It’s easy for me to get caught up and let me respond to these emails versus, you know, if I accomplish this one chunk. Thing today that’s actually going to move the needle. And to that point I made on, you know, there’s only a few decisions you make in your career as a venture capitalist that matter. You know, there’s only a few things that really, really matter, that you can do
35:14
each each day or each week. How much time do you carve out? Typically, I
35:19
try to have two hours. I know I don’t always follow it, but I try to do two hours.
35:25
Wonderful. And then finally, here, Laura, what’s the best way for listeners to connect with you and follow along with Canaan?
35:30
Add me on LinkedIn. Laura, Cho, C, H, A, U, and send me a note there. And then Canaan, all the social channels were on them, c, a, n, a, a n, and would love to hear from anyone, especially if you’re building something that you’re excited about.
35:44
Awesome. She is Laura Cho and the firm is Canaan. Laura. Thanks so much for the time today and all the insightful viewpoints. Really enjoyed it.
35:51
Thank you.
35:58
All right, that’ll wrap up today’s interview. If you enjoyed the episode or a previous one, let the guests know about it. Share your thoughts on social or shoot them an email. Let them know what particularly resonated with you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that some of the smartest folks in venture are willing to take the time and share their insights with us. If you feel the same, a compliment goes a long way. Okay, that’s a wrap for today. Until next time, remember to over, prepare, choose carefully and invest confidently. Thanks so much for listening.
