Show Notes
Oren Zeev runs one of the most successful venture firms in the world. The catch: he has no partners, no associates, holds no investment committee, writes no memos, and has no office.
He's a solo GP managing $2.7 billion across 11 funds, an early backer of Audible, Houzz, Chegg, Tipalti, and Navan, where a relationship that started with a $50k check became a stake worth more than a billion dollars.
We get into why most partners add negative value, the days his calendar is empty enough to surf on a Tuesday, why he's never shown an LP a single slide in 11 funds, why diversification is a lie, his fund that had only five companies, how Navan went from a $90M run rate to zero in a month (and survived), the cross-fund investing everyone tells him not to do, the DPI stand that cost him LP's, the Yozma Program that built Israel's startup economy, and the 30-minute meeting that turned into his first fund.
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Timestamps: (0:00) Running $2.7B with no team or partners (1:58) How one person can beat a team (4:43) Omission beats commission: why committees miss (7:13) What really fills a partnership's day (9:23) The returns business, not the production business (10:58) A week in his nearly empty calendar (16:49) The mistakes new solo GP's make (19:34) Eleven funds, zero slides (22:09) No thesis (24:28) Why diversification doesn't work (27:14) The fund with only five companies (30:44) TripActions insight: everyone hates their travel software (34:59) Paying employees to spend less (37:34) COVID: $90M run rate to zero (39:24) How Navan survived (41:34) A $100M round with no way to price it 44:29) Keeping the team: the real test of leadership (46:04) What Oren looks for in founders (50:39) Cross-fund investing, and "trust me, bro" (53:59) Always his own biggest LP (55:14) The DPI stand that cost him LP's (58:54) Decart, and the Anthropic deal (1:03:54) Inside the 30-year rise of Israel's tech ecosystem (1:07:19) The Yozma program that built an industry (1:11:59) Why Israelis build now instead of selling early (1:14:39) Moving to the Valley in the 2002 nuclear winter (1:17:19) Audible, and why the first home run matters (1:19:29) Leaving Apax, and going solo (1:22:04) Peter Thiel and a fund raised in 30 minutes (1:24:24) The second fund: 48 hours, still no deck (1:25:49) ICON: helping Israeli founders crack the Valley (1:30:29) The leader he admires most: Anwar Sadat
Referenced: Zeev Ventures: https://www.zeevventures.com/ Navan: https://navan.com/ Mercury Interactive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Interactive ICON: https://www.iconsv.org/ Yozma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yozma
Follow Oren Twitter: https://x.com/orenzeev LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ozeev
Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
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