Shadowing Practice: Quick Study: How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
My name is Elis Stravloff
2
and I'm a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business as well as the founder
3
and director of our venture capital initiative.
4
Unless you know where to look, you might not see it, but venture capitalists or VCs are probably having a major impact on your life every single day.
5
VCs are people who invest in small, risky, high -growth startups.
6
And they often invest in companies that are trying to change our world.
7
Think about Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Zoom, many other tech giants.
8
They were all funded by VCs back when they were very small companies.
9
My team and I tracked the successful COVID vaccines and found that about half are delivered by companies supported by venture capital.
10
And even though it's in the news a lot more during tech booms, this powerful sector of the economy predates the Internet.
11
My research shows that since the 1970s, the VC industry is behind about a third of all large publicly trade companies created in the United States.
12
So how do these influential people choose what ideas to fund?
13
Even many company founders seeking venture capital money don't really seem to understand the VC mindset, as I call it.
14
That's what my research set out to demystify.
15
My team and I found that the most important stage is what's referred to as deal selection.
16
Deal selection is after they've already identified a startup to consider, but before VCs decide whether to invest in it or not to invest.
17
During the deal selection process, VCs put every potential investment through something they call the deal funnel.
18
On average, a hundred startups go into the deal funnel and only one comes out.
19
Meaning that VCs invest in about one startup for each hundred that they consider.
20
The first part of the funnel is typically where VCs evaluate the business model and the setup idea.
21
Often VCs will say, well, the market is obviously too small, so therefore we don't have any interest.
22
If the startup passes that stage, then VCs will typically meet with the founding team to evaluate them.
23
Again, often enough VCs will say, well, the The business is interesting, but we are not impressed by the founding team.
24
That's another startup squeezed out of the narrowing funnel.
25
At the next stage, which relatively few deals reach, they'll bring this startup to their partners.
26
And then the partners will decide to proceed with very careful due diligence on only some of the deals.
27
On average, this entire process takes almost three months, and it's highly selective.
28
What we found was that the median venture capital firm considers about 400 deals a year and only invests in four.
29
That highly selective process benefits us all down the line.
30
For example, my research shows that without venture capitalists, companies like Zoom might not have been identified, created, funded or scaled up.
31
And of course, had Zoom not existed, our experience during the COVID pandemic would have been quite different.
32
VCs' rigorous decision -making process can increase the success rate of companies that change our lives.
33
So, how can a business idea make it through the deal funnel?
34
My team and I talked to almost 900 venture capitalists at over 700 firms, asking these questions, many of those for the first time.
35
We found that in order to try and minimize risk, VCs tend to concentrate on what I call the jockey rather than the horse.
36
The jockey is the founders and the early management team of a company.
37
In other words, the human element, the human capital.
38
The horse is everything else – the product, business model, market, technology.
39
Most VCs will not invest unless they have complete trust in that early management team that they can execute on the idea.
40
Even with the best horse, VCs figure that without a good jockey to ride it, it will not be winning the race.
41
Putting together those hundreds of surveys and conversations with venture capitalists, we've started to get a clearer picture of who they are and who they aren't.
42
It turns out that the VC mindset is very different from other financial investors.
43
They consider many more opportunities to start with.
44
Other investors will not have as wide deal funnel as venture capitalists.
45
VCs are also much more ready to take on risks, And they are much more likely to co -invest with other venture capitalists, so they're a part of a larger ecosystem.
46
Because of all these differences, VCs have to come up with their own financial strategies.
47
Because the standard financial models, like the ones we teach our MBA students here at Stanford, aren't really.. applicable that much to early -stage companies.
48
Concepts like net present value or discounted cash flow techniques just aren't that much in use,
49
since you can't predict future cash flows of an idea or forecast revenue without reliable data.
50
And the data for these startups just doesn't exist yet.
51
So, if you are not investing millions in startups, how does this all relate to you?
52
Well, we can all probably benefit from thinking a little bit more like VCs.
53
For example, people tend to be extremely risk -averse.
54
So are corporate decision -makers.
55
And when you invest, that actually might not be a bad idea, but when you are trying something new, either in your personal or professional life,
56
being willing to fail and staying flexible is beneficial.
57
That's what the VC mindset is all about.
58
VCs have a lot to teach us about doing plenty of research before making decisions, but also experimenting and keeping an open mind.
59
That's how you've been big in business.
60
And the same is true in life.
📺 Same Channel
C11
Alibaba's Ma Reflects On 12-Year Journey at China 2.0 Conference
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
View From The Top with Roelof Botha, Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Last Lecture Series: How to Live your Life at Full Power — Graham Weaver
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
Leading in a Time of Change: Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO, JP Morgan Chase
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
Stanford Leadership Forum 2026: Rewiring the Workforce in the Age of AI
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C15
How to Be Unforgettable
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
C127
Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques
Business EnglishInterview EnglishDaily Conversation
C11
Make Body Language Your Superpower
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
Oprah Winfrey: The Secret of My Success
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recommend Video
C1480 sentences
Everything Valuable from an MBA in 25 minutes
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
85 sentences
How Pitching Investors is Different Than Pitching Customers - Michael Seibel
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
C11
12 sentences
Rapid Engineering With AI
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
71 sentences
Financial English VV 51 - Company Finance and Startups (1) | Business English Vocabulary
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
235 sentences
Why You Could Be Right About Vietnam Potential But Still Not Making Any Money? - Tony Ngo | EP 02
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
635 sentences
Decision-Making and Entrepreneurial Performance: Evidence from a Field Experiment
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
111 sentences
Financial Analysis Fundamentals: How to Analyze Financial Statements Like a Pro Part 7 | CFI Course
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1124 sentences
What Makes People Successful? | Angela Duckworth
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C128 sentences
GATHERING IN THE DIGITAL ERA
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
345 sentences
CEO of Addepar Eric Poirier on Lesson from $6 Trillion in Assets
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
225 sentences
KC Sourcelink, Entrepreneurial Resources | Kauffman Foundation, Thom Ruhe | Top of Mind Episode 25
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
About This Lesson
You're practicing English with "Quick Study: How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.
Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.