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Naval Ravikant on VCs that replace founders with “bozo CEOs”

January 14, 2025

“I really feel like as an investor, if you can’t back the founder until the founder is ready to give it up, then you probably shouldn’t be backing that founder. That’s just a personal opinion. And if the founder feels they still have to keep going, in a way, it’s their right.”

Naval continues:

“If you feel that the best businesses are built by the people who stick it out — who persevere. Then you only want to back the people who really will persevere. And then when you back them, you sort of make a moral compact with them that, ‘I’m going to back you through, good times and bad.’”

He also points out that smart founders are no longer giving VCs the power to fire them":

“That power is going away… At Venture Hacks, our tagline was: ‘Valuation is temporary, control is forever.’ And it was all about not fixating so much on the other pieces. Just make sure you keep control. If you have control, it’s your company. And the day you lose control, you’re no longer an entrepreneur, you’re an employee.”