E18: Avlok Kohli, CEO of AngelList on How He Turned AngelList into a $4 Billion Dollar Company

Avlok Kohli, CEO of AngelList sits down with David Weisburd and Erik Torenberg to discuss how he grew AngelList into a $4B dollar company.

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(0:00) Introduction of Avlok Kohli and discussion on entrepreneurial traits (1:39) Traits sought in founders and rationality of rejecting acquisition offers (4:08) Elon Musk's approach to maximizing impact and founder vs operator mentality (10:33) Balancing empathy and decisiveness in leadership (13:21) Sponsor: Badaav Insurance Group (14:11) Views on MBAs and the importance of emerging managers in the market (19:18) Adapting AngelList's GP product for larger funds and institutional LPs (21:22) The most popular AngelList products for GPs and optimal asset allocation (24:48) Balancing product philosophies and handling product failures at AngelList (31:07) Decision making in leadership, with examples from Square and Elon Musk (34:04) Building a business culture, managing turnover, and proprietary data insights (38:22) Learnings from AngelList's dataset for deal selection (41:37) Metrics for evaluating skill in generating alpha and AngelList's fund of funds strategy (43:38) Naval Ravikant's business strategy, superpower, and product-driven approach (46:41) Customer-driven product development vs. internal innovation at AngelList (48:39) Future vision, product roadmap, and upcoming initiatives for AngelList (50:47) Avlok Kohli on customer feedback and engagement (51:31) Closing remarks by David Weisburd and outro