Venture Stories

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. On this episode Erik is joined by Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and angel investor Dustin Dolginow (@dolginow).The trio discuss the past, present and future of scout programs. They start out by talking about Sequoia’s creation of the scout program nearly ten years ago and why it was considered a “loss leader” for the firm, meaning that it generated goodwill and created a network, but the return on the deals was not actually very good. The three of them discuss some of the potential pitfalls of the scout program, whether it can create good returns on its own, and the similarities and differences of Village’s Network Leader program to existing scout programs.Both Dustin and Parker have worked at AngelList, and the two discuss why AngelList’s model, which Parker calls a “1099 VC model.” They talk about how and when we might see a recreation of the consensus decision-mak