Year in Review | 2021's Impact on Entrepreneurship

Hi everyone. Welcome to Grey Matter, the podcast from Greylock, where we share stories from company builders and business leaders. I'm Heather Mack, head of Editorial at Greylock. Today we're sharing our thoughts on the past year and looking forward to the next Greylock. Investors and specialists provide thoughts on topics ranging from the companies and technology they're most excited to work with to the FOMO they have over sectors they haven't yet dug into. They also share personal learnings from yet another year of the pandemic, as well as what's giving them hope for the coming year. Spoiler Alert. There's a lot of talk about Web3 to our audience. Thanks for listening to gray matter throughout 2021. We hope you find the stories as inspiring and educational as we do. If you aren't already a subscriber, you can sign up for Gray matter at Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, my name is Reid Hoffman. I work with founders operating in networks of human interaction ranging from social interaction to marketplaces to Web3. This year something new that I learned was how large scale AI models for language generalize to coding. In 2022 I predict that OpenAI's codecs and Microsoft's copilot will be visibly on path to amplifying potentially every developer. Something that makes me hopeful is how technology can solve every major world problem. Climate change through cheap energy, carbon capture and geoengineering, health and disease through MRNA genetics and precision medicine, education through software and artificial intelligence, supply chain grid problems through autonomous vehicles like Aurora. When I reflect upon 2021, one of my regrets, FOMO, if you will, is NFTs. In 2014 I gave a speech at Davos about how there will be one or more global cryptocurrencies good for the world, and that one or more of those will be derived from the patterns of Bitcoin. And then wrote an article in Wired UK in 2015 on the exact same theme. The creativity palette of NFTs appeals to me. Like for example, should we do NFTs of the masters of Scale episodes, the trump card games that I made, or the bitcoin rap battle? Obviously as a venture investor and as a technologist, how do you create the marketplaces? How do you evolve NFTs into a palette for the creative economy and creators? All of these things super interesting, but we seeing the early glimmers of this the kernels, the seedlings right now already beating the grow into potentially interesting forests. My theme song for 2021 is Eminem's 8 Miles because it captures the, this fact of you having a moment in technology, a choice, an ability to kind of think, okay, now is the time where you can make a difference, shifting from this possible less utopic outcome to this more utopic outcome. And with technology, we're in this acceleration about how we create the future and that the technology enables us to do that. And so thinking a little bit like each moment, like, like this is the moment, this is the moment where you, you take the shot, you don't waste the shot, you know, could easily say Hamilton, you know, do not waste my shot. As well as another theme song for 2021. In 2022 I'm going to focus on both Web3 together with NFTs and a new infrastructure of an open Internet of value and artificial intelligence. Both of course separately because they have enormous development in each pattern, but also of course, occasionally together. In 2021, one of the things that I was most working on in addition to venture and investing and my portfolio companies was how do we regain a sense of techno optimism, not techno utopianism. Not everything that built with technology necessarily is the right thing for humanity, is the right thing for sapiens, but, but how you can in fact shape it so that it is. And how do we get back towards building that future that we all want? If you think about, for example, science fiction, so little of it in video form, so little of it in movies and TV and even in writing is still in that utopian what could we build? What is the future that we are building towards? And I think that's a great failure of our imaginations, a great failure of what is actually in fact possible. And so part of the reason why to play forward is to shape that great future humanity, that great future society that we would want to shape. And that techno optimism is both something that I was working on a lot in 2021 and will intensify in 2022. And in 2022, my first trip, hopefully post pandemic, you know, releases is to go to the South Pole. It's, it's, it's the closest perhaps to experiencing another planet with the safety of this one.

Hi, my name is Christine Kim and I joined Greylock at the end of 2020 and have been investing in crypto web 3 and the decentralized web. 2021 has given me a glimpse at how rapidly the world is changing. There are so many categories within Web3 that really took off this year. NFTs play to earn gaming daos, social tokens, whether you measure VC funding, valuations developer contribution or number of active users. We are seeing record activity in crypto and it's very exciting. The crypto industry has experienced this snowball effect of innovation from early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum to the emergence of Defi. I think now we're at a point where people have really woken up and started to recognize how wide the applications of crypto have become, from music to gaming and collectibles. Another way to frame this is that the years leading up to now have mostly been about building foundational infrastructure like Ethereum, mining exchanges and wallets. And now that some of that infrastructure has matured, we're starting to see some really exciting developments at the application and user interface layer, which is an area that I'm particularly excited about as an investor. Crypto has really grown up a lot in 2021. One of our portfolio companies, Coinbase, went public this year and and we're starting to see more growth investing opportunities as the sector matures as well. At the same time, it's still super early. The industry has been around for less than a decade. I think of crypto similarly to early Internet, mobile or cloud eras and believe blockchain will be a defining technology in the next decade of innovation. As an example of how early it is, there are 10 million decentralized finance users, which is a drop in the bucket amongst the nearly 5 billion Internet users for 2022 and beyond. There's a number of areas I'm following. I think we will continue to be enamored by NFTs and collectibles. There are many new gaming projects set to launch, and I think we're just at the beginning of a DAO era. There is so much vibrancy and passion within these communities, but it's still very early when it comes to tooling to support DAO operations. There's still a lot of opportunity when it comes to crypto infrastructure. Scalability, security, insurance, DevOps are all areas that are of critical importance. And lastly, I'm most excited about onboarding the next 1 billion users onto crypto. As those of us who have red pilled continue to fall deeper down the rabbit hole, there's an increasing gap between the crypto literate and illiterate. I'm extremely excited about education, onboarding, frictionless experiences that help institutions and mainstream users adopt crypto. The best companies will marry the learnings from Web2, for example, all the slick consumer experiences we have grown to love with the decentralized principles of web3. Outside of crypto, 2021 has been a Year of Continued Resilience I started this job in the middle of the pandemic and several months went by before I met my team in person. We are still investing in founders that we haven't met in person and the remote first nature of work has allowed us to meet even more teams across more GEOs. We still have a ways to go in this pandemic, but I'm hopeful that we are moving on to better times soon. In 2022, I'm looking forward to all the gathering, dancing, hugging and human connections we'll be able to have when it's safe.

Hi, my name is David Z and I work with founders operating in consumer technology, in particular in gaming, media and social platforms. This year, something new that I learned was to always expect the unexpected again. Despite having worked in venture for over two decades and been an operator for over a decade before that, this year has reminded me that you can never underestimate uncertainty. In 2022, I predict that once again we will be chested in our resilience and our adaptability in the face of extreme uncertainty. But I also predict that we'll be amazed by the innovation and pace of change that is driven by technology. And this is what makes me so hopeful for 2022 and beyond the innovation and great capacity of entrepreneurs to keep building and change the world around us despite what it throws at them. In 2022, one area outside of work I plan to spend more time learning about is strategic impact philanthropy. The last two years have really brought home how dependent we are on the health of our planet and one another. So here's to wishing everyone a wonderful end to 2021 and an inspiring 2022. Hi, my name is Ashim Chandna. I work with founders who want to build the next generation of enterprise companies. This year something new that I learned was that I may never again need to buy another suit and tie. In 2022, I predict that cryptocurrencies will continue to gain more interest, and not just from investors, but also from regulators. Something that makes me hopeful is that artificial intelligence is finally coming to Healthcare. In 2022, I'm exploring where the largest and most overlooked business opportunities might lie around blockchain. This week I'm traveling to India to see my parents. It's my first time back there in two years.

Hi, my name is Elisa Schreiber. I am the Marketing partner at Greylock. I work across our entire portfolio to help founders share their stories. This year I learned how to buy an nft. I saw a project that I really connected with, and it inspired me to dig in and participate in 2021. The world of Web3 seemed to explode all at once, and it's been wildly exciting to be at the forefront of what is likely the next tectonic shift in technology. I don't like to make predictions, but I will say that I expect Web3 to accelerate in 2022. We will likely see a reduction in friction that is currently associated with participating. It will only get easier and more accessible to build, create, transact and participate. The thing that makes me most hopeful is the vaccine for COVID 19. Two years ago barely anyone had heard of COVID 19 and now 24 months later, more than half the world's population has gotten at least one dose. The rate at which we could create a vaccine, produce and distribute it, and get it into arms around the globe is nothing short of breatht. In my opinion, the vaccine writ large represents the best of humanity. There is still a long way to go toward ending the pandemic, but the progress we made in less than two years makes me incredibly hopeful.

Hi, my name is Corinne Riley and I'm an investor on Greylock's enterprise team focused on early stage SaaS and B2B fintech. 2021 was a year all about community on so many different levels. Communities were a staple in both our personal and professional lives as a place where we meet new people, learn together, and find joy in our day to day. I continue to see enterprise companies building strong and valuable communities for their users and being able to create a thriving business in return. In the last year we've seen the title of Head of Community and Chief Community Officer become a normalized and much sought after role. Seeing this led me to write what was my first blog post at Greylock, Community Led the Product Led Growth Expansion pack. I think our understanding and excitement of how communities are created and nurtured is expanding daily, particularly as we start to think about communities in Web3. We've continued to invest in companies still in stealth that are predicated on the idea of community as moat and intend to continue doing so in 2022. 2021 was also the year for Castles in the Cloud. This was an interactive project spearheaded by Jerry Chen where we showed how startups go up against the big three cloud vendors by mapping all 513 cloud services from AWS, Azure and GCP. In a world where the big three cloud providers seem pretty much impenetrable with the scale of $80 billion in total revenue in 2020 and over 50% year over year, growth. We tried to identify the areas where we saw opportunities for startups and and how startups can avoid the clouds and find white space. For 2022 and beyond, I plan to continue to focus on two zones. First is B2B FinTech. We are still so early in enabling businesses to truly own both their own financial stack and the way they transact with end users. 2021 saw massive innovation in payments technology, banking infrastructure and embedded lending and I'm excited to continue our work next year with companies that sit within the flow of funds as well as software and infrastructure that enable said fintech products. My second area of focus will continue to be the customer engagement cycle, meaning improving the way we iterate between building product and driving a better customer experience. A loop which has grown smaller, particularly in product led companies. The way we sell enterprise products continues to change and a modern customer engagement stack is being built around this. For 2022, I'm excited to see everyone again and to enjoy the best part of VC which is spending time with smart people who want to change the world.

Hi, my name is David Thacker. I'm on our consumer investment team here at Greylock and I work with founders across a variety of different areas including marketplaces, the future of work, gaming, fintech and crypto and blockchain. This year I learned quite a bit more about blockchain and crypto and web 3. And you know, for the last many years I've dabbled in cryptocurrencies like many retail investors, but had never really until this year thought deeply about how Web3 and the decentralized web has the potential to change just about every aspect of the economy. So I went pretty deep, learning quite a bit about DAOs, NFTs, different protocols, whether it's layer one or layer two, but all the components that make up what we're calling Web3 today. My prediction for 2022 for this next year is I think we're going to continue to see a trend which has started to play out really in the second half of this year, which is I'm seeing some of the best technical talent in the industry and the best entrepreneurs going into the blockchain and crypto space. I think for many years now crypto and blockchain has been on the fringes and only really the true believer entrepreneurs have been going there to start companies. But I think something certainly shifted this year. I think part of it was coinbase, having a very successful IPO and becoming a very large company. I think that really legitimized the space. But what we're seeing today is, of course, not only more venture funds and more venture dollars going into crypto and blockchain, but the best talent going as well. And so when I meet great teams leaving Google or leading Facebook to start companies, more often than not, they're starting companies in the Web3 area. So I think there's a lot of excitement about this going forward. And so I would expect to see an increased amount of entrepreneurial activity in the Web three blockchain areas. What makes me feel really hopeful about the future is just the optimism and the ambitions of the entrepreneurs that I meet almost every day. And what you're seeing today is entrepreneurs taking on really big problems with really inspiring visions and missions to make the world a much better place, changing everything about how we live, how we play, how we work. The technology components and the building blocks are there. Everything over the last decade that's been built out, from cloud technologies to AI to mobile technologies, I think there's a lot of ingredients there that entrepreneurs can assemble to take on really big companies. You know, part of the reason this has been surprising for me is the recession that has been created by the pandemic. You know, in typical times in past recessions, we've seen people shy away from entrepreneurships. People feel like they should be at, you know, big companies, the safety of big companies. But what we've seen during this pandemic is, is there's never been a better time to start a company. And so the quality of the entrepreneurs and the quality of their ideas has. Has never been higher. And. And so this makes me really hopeful for our future because the entrepreneurs of today are building the innovations of tomorrow. I think we'll look back, say, 10 years from now. When we look back at this time during the pandemic, we'll see that this was a period of time when some of the biggest and most important and most iconic tech companies were started. You know, this year, I had fear of missing out, or fomo, really, about things going back in person and, you know, having a lot of things that were virtual during the first year of the pandemic, starting to go back to in person, whether it be conferences or meetings between investors and founders. And there was a fear that I wasn't doing enough in person meetings. But what I think has happened is there have been some permanent shifts in the way we work, and a lot of the activities, whether it be board meetings, whether it be pitches and entrepreneurs pitching investors, those have moved. Or conferences, those things have moved to a virtual status. And a lot of those activities will be virtual going forward. Now, some activities that come back in person. I have gone to some conferences this year. I have met with my founders, and I have been pitched in person. But I think the types of activities that we're willing to do in person, the bar is much higher now because it's so easy to do things virtually, and it's so effective. The tools and technologies, things like Zoom and Google Meet, are so good and only getting better every year. So I definitely had a fear that everything was going to go back in person. I was missing out from that because I was still doing so much virtually. But what it turns out is that a lot of what's happening virtually is really here to stay. One of the places I plan to spend more time learning about in 22 is I'm going to spend a lot more time looking at networks of people, whether it be professional networks, whether it be communication networks, whether it be other types of networks in the blockchain space, such as decentralized autonomous organizations. I think what really fascinates me is the tools that allow people to come together, to create, to communicate, to collaborate more effectively. I think this idea of networks is really powerful in helping people come together to accomplish some greater goal. And so that's one area I'll be spending more time on in 2022. So where do I plan to travel once the pandemic restrictions are lifted? Well, you know, during the pandemic, one of the benefits of the pandemic for me has been I've done a lot more local traveling. The United States is an amazing country and a very diverse country with a lot of natural resources and beauty. And so during the pandemic, out of necessity or a limitation because of the restrictions, you know, I've done a number of driving trips and have explored places like Yellowstone national park, the Grand Tetons, Acadia national park in Maine. And so, you know, it's been great to be outside. It's been great to explore America. My goal for my next trip, I've traveled to 48 states in the United States. There's only two states I haven't traveled to. That's North Dakota and South Dakota. Both states are known for their friendly people and for their natural beauty. And so I'm excited to go to those sometime in 2022 and really look forward to visiting those places.

Hi, this is Jerry Chen. I work with partners focused in cloud, big data, and SaaS companies, mostly around the enterprise software world. 2021 was an amazing year, and I'd say my realization in 2021. And my predictions for 2022 are all the same theme. It's just these areas of technology are bigger than we always thought and they start to blur into each other. Consumer software, enterprise software, crypto, all these technologies will start to blur. So I would say crypto and defi will blur. I say cloud and edge or decentralized computing will blur together. Increasingly, every vertical, every consumer experience is a software tech company. So, you know, I was surprised during 2020, 2021, during the pandemic and the recovery, how technology touched everything from health care to food delivery to Enterprise SaaS. And I think all these markets, from, you know, the metaverse to gaming to media to, you know, like I say, cryptocurrencies and NFTs, all this stuff will increasingly blur in 2022. That is not separate, just take markets like we talked about in the past, but really one giant market, you know. Other thoughts about 2021 I think one of the questions my my best and worst tweet of 2021 and I don't tweet much except for random thoughts around the warriors, my advices of the day, but I would say one of the pieces of work I tweeted about in 2021 was this project called Castles in the Cloud. It's greylock.com castles where me and the team looked at how Amazon, Google and Azure are winning the cloud and we had a whole tweet storm about how to beat the big cloud vendors. If you're a scrappy startup and it's the start of a project, there'll be more tweet storms and more blogs about that topic, more podcasts soon. So, you know, watch that space from every IPO to every, you know, weird crypto NFT drop gives you a little fomo. You wouldn't be fecesy if that didn't get you. But you also want to be a venture capitalist if you can understand, you know, the motivations behind all these new companies, all these new stocks and motivate you to go out and find the next great founder. So yes, lots of fomo. But I look at every element FOMO in the past year's motivation for 2022 and then, you know, where do I want to go? Post travel. I mean, I think during COVID I've gone to see my family a bunch of times. I've gone a couple warm locations like the beaches of Mexico at least once. Plan to do some more traveling to beaches or national parks soon in 2022. And I'm just looking to get out and see some friends. Finally, outside VCs and startups, what has held my attention the most the past year? I think like a lot of folks, I vacillate whatever's trending on the top of my feed from the sports of the day. But right now I'm obsessed with HBO succession, so I'm consuming every podcast and every blog about what's going on that TV show. I think it was Ted Lasso before that. I'm not unique in terms of my desire to consume content, so looking forward to the rest of that season and looking forward to seeing all of you guys in person over Zoom soon. Happy New year and happy 2022.

Hi, my name is Lee Haney and I work with enterprise startups on go to Market and customer development Greylock this year I learned how much I can increasingly run my life from my phone, which is a bit scary. And specifically, I've been super impressed by my app, connected home sprinkler and main water supply monitoring systems and helping me waste less and understand where my water is going. Over the coming year, I expect that cryptography will begin to enter household conversations as it intertwines with more and more of our lives. I'm just waiting for my mom to ask me about whether she should invest in cryptocurrencies. I have a lot of hope for the future, especially when I see my 14 year old niece thriving in her freshman year of high school. I'm not at all worried about the next generations taking on the mantle from us. This past year, I ritualistically annoyed my wife every Friday morning by playing the song Friday by Retan and Nightcrawlers to celebrate the impending weekend outside of startup land. This past year I've been most focused on getting ready for the birth of my first child, a boy, in early 2022. The first travel I'm planning once life returns fully to normal will be to go on a road trip food tour of the American south, transiting from Atlanta to New Orleans through Nashville, Memphis and everywhere in between. Hello, my name is Glenn Evans. I work with our companies and founders on all things recruiting and talent at Greylock. This year, something that I was reminded of was how critical quality and fit are when hiring for your team, especially in the earliest days. And no matter how tempting it is based on pressure to hire in this competitive market, fit should never be ignored in favor of quality alone. Making sure the candidate fits from a motivation and skills standpoint in addition to the quality will lead companies to win more often. In 2022, I predict that companies and founders who have learned from this competitive landscape to attract, hire and retain great talent will begin to invest in recruiting and HR sooner and more effectively than in years past, treat them as strategic partners, and will have a much greater chance of success as a result. Looking ahead Something that makes me hopeful is more time in person with my team at Greylock, and as I reflect on 2021 and my attention outside of work, I've been very grateful to be able to spend more time with my three sons during this time when they actually still want to hang out with their dad. Hi, my name is Seth Rosenberg. I work with founders operating in fintech and crypto, mostly based in New York. This year, something new that I learned was spaced repetition. Learning is an effective tool for memorizing all 100 questions on the American Citizenship Test, and I also became an American Citizen this year. In 2022, I predict that some of the hype from Web3 will cool, which will be really healthy for the ecosystem. Something that makes me hopeful is there's never been a better time for creative people to find their audience and build and in the process find freedom. In 2022, I'm excited to explore more applications for zone knowledge, proofs and truly digitally native consumer investment platforms outside of the VCN startup world. I'm excited to continue to explore one of my personal passions, which is mental health. I actually spent the last two and a half years volunteering at the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Hotline, answering phone calls, and I'm working with my sister to see if there's ways where we can tell some of those stories more broadly.

That concludes this episode of Gray Matter. If you liked what you hear and want to find more interviews with company builders, please subscribe to Gray Matter on Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find all of our content at our website greylock. Com Blog, and you can follow us on Twitter at greylockvc. I'm Heather Mack and thanks for listening.