Founders - read this before raising money from Andreessen Horowitz.
I met Marc Andreessen (
@pmarca) at a cafe in San Francisco last week. I told him how cool it was that he is finally investing more in European startups, but I didn’t want to be a douche and pitch him right there or anything.
“Oh, like you’re doing now?” he said. I was taken aback, and all I could say was “huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” while doing a hand motion, pretending to close a cookie banner in front of my face.
“Ok, show me your deck” he finally said
It was my first time in Silicon Valley, so I was pretty nervous. I opened the deck and Marc asked if he could have a look. I said sure, he pulled it over to his side and started scrolling furiously.
After a while I noticed he wasn't looking at the deck anymore, he was in my Photos folder. I said "sorry, that's not the deck", but he just mumbled "I know" and kept scrolling.
When he found pictures of me and my wife in front of the European Parliament, he mumbled “oh fuck yeah” and copied them to his pendrive.
Couple minutes later, the waiter came by and he ordered a cappuccino. Waiter asked if I wanted anything and before I could answer he said "he's fine."
After his cappuccino arrived, he took one sip, made a disgusted face, slid it across the table and said "this one's yours." When the waiter came back he ordered another cappuccino. He did the face again and gave it to me. Couple minutes later I had four cappuccinos in front of me, and he was ordering a fifth.
When the bill came he pointed at me and said "he had all the cappuccinos." He paid for his own sparkling water in cash, exact change in coins, leaving no tip.
Suddenly, he left. Ten minutes later, the waiter came over with a sixth cappuccino and said "a gentleman called and ordered this for you."
Marc, if you're reading this - I don't need your money as I have raised a €45k EU grant instead. Please delete the photos of me and my wife though, as you're violating a GDPR Article 6.