E81: Inside Seven Seven Six with Alexis Ohanian [Classic Interview]

This week, we’re re-releasing Erik Torenberg’s interview with Alexis Ohanian. Alexis discusses his journey from co-founding Reddit to creating the venture firm Seven Seven Six, detailing its unique approach of using software to enhance venture capital operations and founder support, transparency, and accountability— 📰 Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess  🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse  —SPONSORS:☁️Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds and offers one consistent price. Oracle is offering to cut your cloud bill in half. See if your company qualifies at oracle.com/turpentine 💥 Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/  and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.—LINKS:Seven Seven Six: https://sevensevensix.com/ —X / TWITTER:@alexisohanian@sevensevensix@eriktorenberg@TurpentineVC—HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE: Alexis Ohanian co-founded Reddit in 2005, helped lead its turnaround in 2014, and started Seven Seven Six venture firm in 2020 after splitting from Initialized Capital. Seven Seven Six operates as "a tech company that deploys venture capital," applying tech company principles to venture investing. Traditional venture capital lacks internal metrics and accountability systems that are standard in other industries. Cerebro is Seven Seven Six's software platform that tracks all firm activities and provides founders with direct access to the team's network. Seven Seven Six displays real-time metrics publicly on their website, including tasks completed, pitch meetings organized, and response times to founders. Partners' response times to founders are tracked and made visible to create accountability. The "Amplify" feature lets founders draft social content for Seven Seven Six's high-follower channels to gain distribution. Every employee at Seven Seven Six receives carry to align incentives across the organization. Seven Seven Six focuses on pre-seed to Series A investments with a fund size around $400M. The firm has never lost a term sheet despite not always offering the highest valuation. Seven Seven Six is exploring "Agora IRL" - reimagined physical spaces for their community as an alternative to traditional co-working models. Alexis believes many "zombie VC funds" will disappear as the industry evolves in a higher interest rate environment. Seven Seven Six registered as an investment advisor for greater operational rigor. Traditional accelerator models may be less relevant today as founders have more resources available than in the past. Alexis questions the viability of extremely large early-stage funds in the current economic environment.