CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Try: AI strategy tariffs earnings guidance layoffs interest rates growth

Fred Wilson

Co-founder of Union Square Ventures, Union Square Ventures

Search every verified Fred Wilson interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures (USV), discussed the firm's recent $900 million fund raise, the largest in its history, in an October 2026 interview. He stated that USV does not need to underwrite investments targeting trillion-dollar outcomes, noting that many of the firm's largest winners have been in the $10 billion range and have produced strong returns. Wilson also commented on the evolving venture capital landscape, saying the business has become less collaborative than in the past and that firms now must "scrap and claw" into investment rounds. In a separate conversation with USV Investment Partner Nikhil Raman, Wilson reflected on his 40-year career in venture capital, recounting an early lesson from a founder who challenged him to work every job in the company for a week before giving advice. He also discussed his investment in a company developing small modular nuclear reactors, drawing parallels to the decentralization of computing and networks. Wilson expressed skepticism about the institutionalization of venture capital, suggesting that large firms managing $50 billion or $100 billion could make seed investments, which he said puts firms of any size at some level of risk.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I don't think a trillion is what we need to underwrite to at USV. I think if our biggest winners are in the single-digit billions given our fund size and our ownership, we can produce really really healthy returns for our partners. Yeah, there have been some outliers at 50 billion or 100 billion, but a lot of our biggest winners are in the $10 billion range and that's produced enormous returns for us.”

“The institutionalization of venture capital that Andre Horowitz, you know, really led um is a fundamental change to the business and one that I think, you know, is going to be long lasting. And I'm not convinced that any there's any size venture firm that isn't at some level at risk because there's nothing stopping, you know, a firm that manages, you know, 50 billion or 100 billion from making a seed investment. They”

“I grew up in a business that was a lot more collaborative than the one we're in today. And so, my natural instinct has always been syndicate investments, share investments, and then the venture capitalists that I share investments with will share them back with me. And that was the business that existed for, you know, most of the last 40 years. But now it's not really like that anymore. You got to kind of scrap and c”

“I don't think that it's a good thing for society that Mark Zuckerberg controls Facebook and Elon Musk controls Twitter. I don't think that like the most important media platforms of our lives are at least our generation's lives are controlled by a single human being. And so when Musk bought Twitter, I'm out. I don't want to feed that beast.”

Other executives at Union Square Ventures

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →