Secrets of Sand Hill Road
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david &
Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor

Edition
ISBN 9780753553978

Reviews

Photo of Jb
Jb@jbr1992
2 stars
Mar 1, 2024

Nothing "secret" here, all stuff you can find on the internet for free.

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linda@lkt
4 stars
Sep 5, 2022

I finally finished, but it probably took me four months lol. And overall, I think it is worth for the explanation of the term sheet alone (like what a lot of other reviews have said). It definitely reads more like “Basics of Sand Hill Road” rather than “Secrets of Sand Hill Road.” There were two details that I really loved: - Kupor defaults to the female pronoun (she/her) for all of his descriptions of venture capitalists and founders/CEOs. It was a small gesture, but I appreciated it so much. Grateful that he has three daughters and kept them in mind when he was writing this book. - Kupor’s legal background; I loved reading about things like entire fairness (evaluation of fair process and fair price) for board members under the Business Judgement Rule. I also loved reading about In Re Trados, Carsanaro v. Bloodhound Technologies, and Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. I’ve also heard about mergers and acquisitions from afar, but Kupor brought them to life. I’m definitely still super confused career wise, but I think it might be pretty interesting to be a startup lawyer. I digress, but I feel that there is a lot of unnecessary antagonism toward the finance industry. Investment bankers play such a key role in underwriting IPOs. They work directly with institutional investors, create an orderly trading environment, and work post-IPO to help with M&A advice, follow up financings, debt issuances, and other capital markets issues. I felt the same way after reading Stephen Schwarzman’s autobiography. Leveraged buyouts can help revitalize companies, leading to increased efficiency for the company and returns for the investor. I know I’m being brainwashed, so I might as well as read Barbarians at the Gate to get rid of my rose-tinted glasses.

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Donald@riversofeurope
3 stars
Feb 25, 2022

What is venture capital? What's going on with finance in general? Finance: that mystery underlying and shaping so much of our world, opaque, endless, a swarm of incongruities. Enter Scott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the most prominent Silicon Valley VC fund. Ignore the click-bait title. This is not a book about secrets and tricks; it's a clear-headed account of venture capital from an insider, with a general overview of other financial asset classes (hedge funds, etc) thrown in for good measure. (Dante writes in De Monarchia of "veritates occultas et utiles;" this book offers only veritates utiles.) Kupor has a legal background, so he walks you through a term sheet section by section and talks through major cases concerning corporate governance. There's even a complete sample term sheet as an appendix. Before reading this book I knew next to nothing about any of this stuff; it turns out it's really interesting! I would like to read a book like this but about investment banking or hedge funds. If you know of such a book, please do recommend it to me.

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Pierre@pst
3 stars
Apr 4, 2024
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Heiki Riesenkampf@hrk
2 stars
Dec 18, 2023
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Harsh Patel@theharshpat
5 stars
Sep 13, 2023
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Alexandra Vo@ph_anh
4 stars
Apr 23, 2023
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Drew Spartz@drewspartz
4 stars
Jan 26, 2023
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Magnus Hambleton@mangoham
5 stars
Oct 6, 2022
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Lin@linsanity
4 stars
Aug 12, 2022
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Alexander Lobov@alexlobov
4 stars
Jun 10, 2022
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Ryan Maher@ryanmaher
4 stars
Jun 5, 2022
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Cherie Yang@cherieyang
4 stars
Dec 29, 2021
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Nish Bhat@nish
5 stars
Dec 29, 2021
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Adam French@adamfrench
5 stars
Oct 5, 2021
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Christian Beck@cmbeck
4 stars
Sep 26, 2021