"Turpentine VC" | Venture Capital and Investing · Erik Torenberg

E81: Inside Seven Seven Six with Alexis Ohanian [Classic Interview]

·54 min·3 clips

The first 776 product came from 35,000 contacts and 15,000 to 20,000 LinkedIn exports.

1. Turpentine VC E81 centers on Alexis Ohanian and 776, the venture firm he started after Reddit, Y Combinator, and Initialized Capital. 2. Alexis Ohanian is the guest and 776 partner, and Eric from Turpentine VC is the host asking how the firm works. 3. The episode asks what happens when a venture firm is run like a technology company with software, metrics, and public accountability. 4. Alexis says he left Initialized after a 50-50 split with Gary Tan and started 776 with Caitlin and Lizzie after his Reddit turnaround work. 5. He describes Reddit in 2014 as an 8 million a year revenue business and says four years later it was around 150 million with a billion dollar plus valuation. 6. Alexis says that experience taught him how to build a high-performing tech company and made him want a different vision for venture. 7. He frames 776’s North Star as applying product thinking, performance culture, and scoreboards to early-stage investing. 8. He says venture is unusual because most firms cannot say what their team did in a quarter, unlike sales or engineering teams. 9. Alexis argues that early-stage firms should track usage, response times, and founder support the way software companies track retention and conversion. 10. He says 776 made those metrics visible because founders deserve the same accountability that investors expect from them. 11. Alexis says the public site sevensevensix.com shows pitch meetings, intros, messages, and a live feed of founder support work. 12. He says founders can see the firm’s average and median response times inside the product, not just in a pitch deck. 13. Alexis says he even has his own personal statistics inside the system, including his average response time to founders. 14. He says high performers like feedback and clarity, which is why the scoreboard is useful inside the firm. 15. He describes the internal system as a way to measure time spent with founders, internal team members, third parties, and LPs. 16. Alexis says 776 also uses the data to revisit pitch judgments six months later and compare first impressions with later evidence. 17. The interview tone is direct and product-oriented, with Alexis repeatedly moving from philosophy to concrete features and numbers. 18. The format stays conversational and operational, with Eric pressing on the idea maze, Cerebro, founder tooling, and portfolio construction. 19. This episode should fit founders, operators, and investors who care about VC process, software, and accountability. 20. Skip it if you want only broad venture theory without product details or operational mechanics.

As heard by us

A sharp look at 776 as a tech-driven venture firm.

The episode frames 776 as something closer to a tech company than a classic venture firm, and that angle gives the discussion some bite. Alexis Ohanian is strongest when he gets into the mechanics: how the firm supports founders, how it makes its accountability visible, and why…

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Why you'd press play

If you want to see how 776 positions itself as a tech company that deploys venture capital, press play.

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