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The Power Law

Venture Capital and the Art of Disruption

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The Power Law

By: Sebastian Mallaby
Narrated by: Will Damron
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

It is no exaggeration to say that venture capital has been central to the greatest legal creation of wealth anywhere and has enabled much of the world we live in, yet we know surprisingly little about this strange tribe of financiers.

In The Power Law, Sebastian Mallaby turns his unprecedented access to the industry's central players into a riveting, character-driven account of venture capital and the world it has made. Most of the tech start-ups funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists fail, but a very few hits succeed at such a scale that they will more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives venture capital, and the wider tech sector.

Mallaby make sense of the seeming randomness of success in venture capital, an industry that supposedly relies on gut instinct and personality rather than spreadsheets and data. We learn the unvarnished truth about some of the most iconic hits and infamous disasters in Silicon Valley history - from the comedy of errors that was the birth of Apple to the avalanche of venture money that fostered hubris at WeWork and Uber. And he shows how the power law now echoes around the world.

©2022 Sebastian Mallaby (P)2022 Penguin Audio Banks & Banking Corporate & Public Finance Economic History Economics Law Banking Silicon Valley Money Taxation

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The book does an incredible job of synthesising the 1000s of VC deals completed over the last 5 decades, creating a compelling narrative of the entire VC industry.

Brilliant, far-reaching history of VC

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Incredible book. If you ever pitched or tried to woo VCs this a book you must read. It will explain why when you have a wrong background, wrong age, didn’t know right people and most importantly you are not in US, China or India will have very slim chance VCs will ever speak to you. Plus you can read / listen hear how VCs decide their bets and how they operate. It’s a an intriguing book that gave lot answers about things you didn’t know how to ask.

Must read for everyone in tech!

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Super interesting. The birth of the industry to modern day. The US is the heart of finance.

Adventure Capital

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Great geographical and historical context into the VC landscape. As a person of colour, one hopes when the story is told in decades to come, it reads slightly different

Informative

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I finished The Power Law today and think it’s one of my favourite books of the year so far. Really interesting and enlightening. The insights into how integral to the growth and development of some of the world’s biggest tech companies is linked to the backing of a few VC firms is pretty mind blowing. The author clearly explains the developments in VC and how investments are chosen and tracking through the interactions between VCs and founders. A good book and it inspired me to dig into VC history and VC companies a lot more.

One of my favourite books of the year so far.

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So glad they picked Damron to narrate. Really suited the book. Only criticism I have of this fascinating book is its over focus on Sequoia. Otherwise this is a great investment of your time.

Great insight to VC

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If you’re looking for an insider look into VC’s history & worldview this is the book for it. Thoroughly enjoyed it and opened my apetite to go down the rabbit hole for more on the subject.

How Venture Capitalists shape the world into a better place

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I found this interesting from start to finish. It gives a great overview of venture capital and the how's and whys we have ended up with the current setup of venture funding. I'd highly recommend this book.

Excellent engaging book

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Sebastian Mallaby delivers a high class history of the rise of VC with expert narrative underpinned by many case studies of company’s and industry’s that have benefited from VC.

From Apple to Uber the VC model has evolved over time. Whilst it is far from perfect, in its essence it remains the most powerful way to disrupt a market and drive change through innovation, creating significant value and positive externalities.

A tour de force of the rise of VC

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I really loved this book. Yes its full of the greed of capitalists, then these people lost some and won some, If you listened to this via the App it was no doubt born out of tech investments. Something more governments should do, it would be of course with the taxpayers money - controversial..!!

Its just betting, but with $Millions

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