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ryan smith

T2 · manager / operator

Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002, bootstrapped to $36M revenue, raised Series A from Sequoia/Accel in 2012, took company public in 2018, sold to SAP for $8B in 2019, spun out and re-IPOed in 2021, then took private again with Silver Lake. Now runs $1B Halo Fund investing at intersection of sports, entertainment, and AI applications. Owns Utah Jazz NBA team.

10 calls·10 names·80% bull·last heard 2 months ago·Kleiner Perkins
track record

no scored calls yet — needs a stated position or a categorical verdict, with a matured window vs SPY

top calls

highest conviction · one per company
1sthigh conviction
$QUALTRICSQualtricsposition

Ryan Smith details Qualtrics valuation discipline: priced Series A at $2.5B vs $4B offers, IPOed at 30x after SAP acquisition

Smith emphasizes pricing rounds below maximum to avoid cap table bombs; Qualtrics raised at 25x, IPOed at 30x while publics traded at 15x, then dropped to $7B market cap despite hitting every quarter — proving valuation discipline matters more than peak pricing.

Kleiner Perkins2026-06→
2ndhigh conviction
$HALO-FUNDHalo Fundposition

Ryan Smith's $1B Halo Fund deployed $300M in 9 months across 8 bets at intersection of experience (F1, WME, Filevine)

Halo Fund targets founders who can navigate multi-cycle reinvention (like Qualtrics' four rebirths); invests at intersection of sports, entertainment, and AI applications where experience moats compound; eight bets placed in first nine months.

Kleiner Perkins2026-06→
3rdhigh conviction
$SAPSAP

SAP acquired Qualtrics for $8B to own the CMO after owning the CIO; Bill McDermott viewed Ryan as founder blood for customer space

SAP's strategy was to acquire Qualtrics to expand from CIO ownership to CMO ownership in the customer experience space; McDermott saw Ryan as younger founder version to drive this, and the deal happened mid-IPO roadshow when SAP board approved on a Sunday.

Kleiner Perkins2026-06→

most discussed · click a bar to filter

recurring themes

10 total
$SAP
···
SAP
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
SAP acquired Qualtrics for $8B to own the CMO after owning the CIO; Bill McDermott viewed Ryan as founder blood for customer space
SAP's strategy was to acquire Qualtrics to expand from CIO ownership to CMO ownership in the customer experience space; McDermott saw Ryan as younger founder version to drive this, and the deal happened mid-IPO roadshow when SAP board approved on a Sunday.
"They were like trying to really go off and almost like I wouldn't say go after CRM, but like go go go in the the customer space really, you know, own and the way they think about…"
37:00
$NOW
···
ServiceNow
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
Bill McDermott at ServiceNow is an execution freak; never bet against him — he'll reboot from ground up with two-year head start
McDermott is one of the best CEOs ever; incumbents like ServiceNow are watching AI disruption closely and have the resources and hunger to reboot faster than first-time founders because they've seen cycles before.
"I would never bet against Bill McDermott at Service Now ever. Bill's going to love this... if the only thing they've got to do is reboot from the ground up, but these guys have a…"
17:35
$CRM
···
Salesforce
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
Salesforce growth model is pure math: 20% growth requires 20% more sales reps or 2x productivity; Benioff acquires or hires
At scale, B2B software growth reduces to sales capacity math — either add reps or double productivity; AI tools may finally break this constraint by raising engineer/sales productivity from 15 to 50 points per game.
"If you look at the growth of Salesforce, it's been pretty straightforward. or like Benny off either acquires or something or if he wants to grow at 20% he's got to increase the sa…"
2:03
$QUALTRICS
Qualtrics
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago· position
Ryan Smith details Qualtrics valuation discipline: priced Series A at $2.5B vs $4B offers, IPOed at 30x after SAP acquisition
Smith emphasizes pricing rounds below maximum to avoid cap table bombs; Qualtrics raised at 25x, IPOed at 30x while publics traded at 15x, then dropped to $7B market cap despite hitting every quarter — proving valuation discipline matters more than peak pricing.
"Every single time we raised money, we had the ability to go at least 40% higher. We sold at like 25x. We IPOed two years later out of SAP at like 30x. We hit every single quarter…"
0:00
$TEAM
···
Atlassian
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
Atlassian dropped from $140B to $18B market cap on AI fear; Mike Cannon-Brookes is a beast who knows scale better than any AI founder
Public markets irrationally punished Atlassian on AI disruption fears despite $7B revenue and $2B cash flow; Mike Cannon-Brookes is an elite operator who will navigate the AI transition better than new entrants because he knows scale and has resources.
"I would put Mike Cannon Brooks up against any freaking AI founder on the planet. He's an engineer. He is a business person. Like holy cow he knows how to run scale. So the public…"
10:35
$SILVER-LAKE
Silver Lake
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
Egon Durban (Silver Lake) led Qualtrics take-private from SAP; only firm with Dell/VMware experience for complex carve-outs
Silver Lake's unique expertise in complex public-to-private carve-outs (Dell, VMware) made them the only partner capable of spinning Qualtrics out of SAP; Egon Durban drove the process and brought operational discipline.
"Egon Duran absolute beast came in and was like hey you know he's like this is cool. Um got into SAP and you know we're a year and a half in. Um they owned all the stock so there w…"
56:30
$MSFT
···
Microsoft
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
Microsoft using balance sheet monopolistically: buying revenue not companies, outspending SaaS rivals like Dodgers in baseball
Hyperscalers are deploying balance sheets as competitive moats — not acquiring companies but using capital to separate on revenue, creating structural advantage that new entrants cannot match; during COVID Microsoft fought every SaaS CEO simultaneously.
"They're basically buying not companies. They're buying they're they're almost using that as a monopolistic practice where we're using our balance sheet to separate from a revenue…"
16:15
$HALO-FUND
Halo Fund
HIGHryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago· position
Ryan Smith's $1B Halo Fund deployed $300M in 9 months across 8 bets at intersection of experience (F1, WME, Filevine)
Halo Fund targets founders who can navigate multi-cycle reinvention (like Qualtrics' four rebirths); invests at intersection of sports, entertainment, and AI applications where experience moats compound; eight bets placed in first nine months.
"We're nine months in. We placed $300 million and um we made eight bets and it's at the intersection of experience which is anywhere from F1 to WME Endeavor to Filevine on the lega…"
61:50
$ANTHROPIC
Anthropic
MEDryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago
Anthropic grew from $1B to $9B revenue — lab-level growth sets the pace for AI application layer expectations
Frontier model companies are achieving unprecedented revenue scale (1x to 9x in short period), creating a growth benchmark that distorts private market valuations for application-layer AI companies trying to match that velocity.
"Let's just work backwards from where this growth is like primarily starting from which is the labs. Like Anthropic grew from 1 to9 billion dollars."
10:19
$FILEVINE
Filevine
MEDryan smith·Kleiner Perkins·2 months ago· position
Filevine (legal AI) hitting numbers with insane growth; Ryan Smith invested via Halo Fund, sees same model as Qualtrics 2014 customer success
Filevine is executing the high-touch customer success model Qualtrics pioneered in 2014 — pairing elite human consultants with AI product — which creates stickiness at enterprise scale; Ryan invested and advises founder on the long path to IPO.
"I'm invested in one Filevine. I'm watching them hit their numbers in December and it's it's a Harvey competitor... my conversation with the founder is very much, okay, I get all o…"
52:35