Join GGV’s Hans Tung and Jeff Richards for a live chat today at 3:30 EDT/12:30 PDT

The good ship Extra Crunch Live sails along today, bringing two noted venture capitalists aboard to discuss the world’s investing patterns, their own deals and much more.

Extra Crunch members can join the conversation with Hans Tung and Jeff Richards from GGV Capital at 3:30 p.m. EDT/12:30 p.m. PDT/7:30 p.m. GMT.

We’ll collect audience questions as we go, so buy an Extra Crunch trial now so you can participate. Of course, TechCrunch has a list of its own queries — GGV Capital invests globally, which means it has eyes and ears in a number of different markets. We’ll dig into how different markets are faring: Is China’s VC scene as slow as it seems? Is Europe bouncing back as we’ve been hearing? And what’s the current temperature here in the United States for Series A through C rounds?

With the stock market back to form, exits are hot again, which gives us a new set of topics to explore, including how GGV views M&A appetite today from a price perspective, and whether any of their later-stage companies are looking more closely at the IPO market.

TechCrunch’s Extra Crunch Live series has featured guests like investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, BLCK VC’s Sydney Sykes and Inspired Capital’s Alexa von Tobel, with more to come.

There are other pressing matters: The COVID-19 pandemic is re-accelerating domestically even as it abates abroad. And GGV spoke out against racism during the early days of protests after the killing of George Floyd, so we’ll ask about the venture capital industry and if its efforts to diversify itself will make more material progress this time.

Extra Crunch subscribers, hit the jump and add the event to your calendar. Zoom links and the rest of the goodies are down there as well. (We’ll also stream live on YouTube). If you aren’t an Extra Crunch subscriber, you can get a cheap trial here.

All set? Great. We’ll see you in a few hours.

Details

From napkin notes to term sheets: A chat with Inspired Capital’s Alexa von Tobel

The next iteration of fintech is upon us, according to Inspired Capital’s Alexandra von Tobel.

“Fintech 1.0 was very much, ‘Let’s take what already exists and let’s do it better,’” she said in a recent appearance on Extra Crunch Live. Consumers are shifting away from Chase Bank and migrating to no-fee trading platforms like Robinhood; instead of booking an appointment with a tax advisor, people are registering with TurboTax.

Von Tobel, who founded financial-planning service LearnVest before joining Inspired Capital, said fintech’s future involves bringing infrastructure and support into ecosystems created by services like Robinhood and Betterment. It’s one of the many sectors that her generalist firm, which closed a $200 million debut fund last year, is interested in.

Our hour-long chat included tips on how (and when) to pitch her, breaking into VC and using vulnerability as a competitive advantage. Don’t just take it from us: Watch or listen to the entire conversation after the jump, or read some of the highlights below.

4 months into lockdown, Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz sees ‘exciting signs of recovery’

Eventbrite is in the unique club that nobody wants to be in,” says CEO and co-founder Julia Hartz. “Which is the first affected and one of the most directly affected businesses of the COVID-19 era.”

Hartz, who co-founded the company with her husband Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage, joined ExtraCrunch Live recently to discuss moving forward when your core business isn’t just threatened, but wiped out completely.

“You never as a founder — at least I never — ever wondered what would happen if the whole basis of our mission was tested,” she said.

The events world was one of the first industries to feel the pandemic’s impacts and will likely be among the last to be restored. For Eventbrite, which was built on a core business of in-person events and event ticketing, it meant making swift decisions to stay afloat.

External data show some bright spots. According to an operational update from Eventbrite, paid ticket volume on its platform increased 33% in May compared to April 2020. Eventbrite is down 82% in paid tickets in May 2020 compared to the same month year ago.

“A massive market and industry dislocation and disruption. I mean, we’re a living example of that,” she said. “It’s not a victory lap. Certainly, we’re seeing some really exciting signs of recovery, but it’s still very sobering.”

Hartz offered founders at all levels advice on how to work on culture during a crisis and offered tips on communication and transparency.

We also chatted about how open consumers are to paying for virtual events, how the company curates and moderates political events and how Eventbrite plans to address racial injustice beyond, in Hartz’s words, “episodic outrage.”

We pulled out a couple of highlights for you to peruse.

How she sees events changing in the next 18 months

Structurally, events are pivoting to in-person. So it’s not just pivoting online. A good example is the Beanstalk Music Festival in Colorado, a two-day music festival that pivoted to an in-person drive-in night concert. They were wildly successful in selling tickets to this new format.

It was a testament to the strength of their community and the pent-up demand to get together and listen to great music. But what we’re seeing beyond sort of those really creative uses of new types of space and venues that are outdoors are smaller events. Classes, workshops, seminars, small meetups are starting to come back. I think that as creators start to think about how to bring their community back in person, there’s a huge element of trust that exists in this new world.

We’re helping our creators establish that trust and be very upfront about what their event goers and attendees can expect in that moment as you bring yourself together in-person again.

When she knew the business would be materially impacted  —  and what she did next

BLCK VC co-founder Sydney Sykes talks specific actions firms can take to be more inclusive

BLCK VC is on a mission to double the number of Black venture capitalists out there by 2024. The reason behind it shouldn’t need explaining — only 2% of all partner-level VCs are Black, and 81% of VC firms don’t have a single Black partner. It’s no surprise then, that the startup ecosystem that is built underneath the VC community is sadly and drastically homogeneous.

We sat down with BLCK VC co-founder and co-chair Sydney Sykes on an episode of Extra Crunch Live to talk about the ongoing protests, the state of the VC industry with regard to diversity and inclusion, and actionable insights and strategies around how we can be more inclusive across all facets of the tech ecosystem.

Because we believe this is a critical conversation to have and engage with, we’ve made this episode and the complete Q&A free.

Below, you’ll find a lightly edited transcript of highlights from the conversation, as well as a YouTube video of the entire chat. You’ll also find the video from BLCK VC’s “We Won’t Wait” day of action, as well as a list of resources focused on anti-racism education.

On whether tech companies’ energy in this moment will be sustained to foster long-lasting change:

You’re seeing all these tech companies saying ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and all these companies are donating. The truth is, in my mind, donating and posting statements doesn’t change the way your company works. It doesn’t change the way the industry works. So, when I hear those statements, that’s the part where I’m jaded and where I feel pessimistic and feel that things won’t change. Where I feel really optimistic is I’m seeing these employees at tech companies, and I’m seeing citizens saying, ‘No, you can’t just say Black Lives Matter. You need to actually live this.’

There’s a recognition now from the bottom up, a real grassroots effort to say, ‘you need to change what you’ve been doing because it hasn’t worked.’ I think these companies have been and they will need to continue to react to what their employees and what their customers are saying. So, I am more optimistic than I’ve ever been. That being said, I am still a black woman in America and I do not think that what’s going on right now will cure racism in any way. I’m optimistic, though, that things will be better in the future. In a month from now compared to where things were a month ago, how much better? We’ll have to wait and see. But I’m excited to see what the changes will be.

On creating and fostering change from within versus outside of an organization:

I first got interested in venture late in college. I was scrolling through the different pages of different VC firms, just black and white photos of white male investors. I felt that, just by being in this industry, just by joining a venture firm as an investor as a black woman, that I was initiating change and that I was making a difference. For me, I personally felt like the best way that I can cause action and that I can cause changes was from being on the inside. I don’t think that’s the right choice for everyone. I also don’t think that the onus should always be on people of color to put themselves in uncomfortable positions because they don’t think that those industries, those companies, will change without them being there. So I think it’s a balance.

On the one hand, you have boycotts that have worked in the past. That’s total abstinence. That’s total removal from a system that’s unjust. And on the other hand, you have people who are inside and they also are driving change in the environment.

I think there’s no right answer to how you drive change. If you are listened to and you have a voice, you need to speak up in the way that’s most powerful. So in the case of Alexis Ohanian, if he leaves, and him leaving is him raising his voice, that’s a powerful way to use your voice. There’s also a powerful way to use your voice from the inside. But at the same time, if he’s been speaking up all along and nothing’s changed, then maybe him leaving is speaking even louder, and maybe that is one approach. If you can’t make change from the inside, why should you waste your time there? Why not go somewhere else where you can actually drive change?

On the importance of tracking diversity numbers within VC firms:

It’s really important for people within firms, existing GPs and investors, to be aware of how big the issue is. If you don’t write it down, you don’t have to recognize what you’re missing and what is lacking. I’m not optimistic that, in the next couple of years as firms start writing down their data, that they will suddenly be representative of the U.S. population, or that they will be recognizing the value. But I also think it’s a bit of a snowball effect. If you get more diverse talent in the door or in the network, or at least on the radar, then you’re thinking about diversity more when you do your investment, when you host your events, when you’re expanding what the ecosystem looks like, even though it’s not going to change right away.

Frankly, a lot of the firms that reach out to us are already aware of and understand, to some extent, institutional racism. They understand implicit bias, and they understand that they are missing talent. It’s true that those are not the people or the firms who need the most help.

But when we do get firms who are willing to engage with us, or when we get in contact with firms that aren’t diverse or don’t have any diverse investors, it’s about talking about the value that diversity adds. In study after study, we see that businesses, investors and companies are better when they are more diverse, that their company will be better if they have that diversity. It’s just shown time and time again.

So even if you think your portfolio is as good as it could be, or your investor is as good as they could be, it’s probably not true. I also like to highlight the fact that it’s about having an informed perspective.

Your investors, the people you’re speaking with, the people you’re making investment decisions with, that perspective is only as informed as it is diverse. So if you don’t have diversity on that investment committee, making decisions about sending out those dollars, then you’re lacking a perspective and you’re missing information.

On best practices around tracking D&I:

On the VC firm side of things I recommend tracking top-level employees. What percent of your high-level employees represent diverse backgrounds, gender, LGBTQ and all that kind of data. Then, I also recommend tracking that at the seniority level, so associates, controllers, partners, GPs. How many of those people have diverse backgrounds. Then, beyond that, I think it’s also important to track your pipeline. How many of your candidates coming in are from diverse backgrounds or different schools. All those metrics are important, as well, because then you can see where the pipeline is falling short. When you host events, what do your speaker series look like? Do your panelists all look just like you?

I also think, on the entrepreneur side of things, it’s really important to look at the dollar amount spent. How many dollars are going towards founders from different backgrounds, rather than the number of diverse founders you’re investing in.

And lastly, and this is more of an intangible thing, but where are you going to find the entrepreneurs you’re investing in. Are they recommendations from other investors? Are they reaching out to you via cold calls and emails? Are you going to different colleges and universities and inviting them to your pitch days? So there’s also some pipeline tracking work that can be done there that is really important.

On increasing the number of Black partners at traditionally white VC firms versus encouraging Black VCs to start their own firms:

There are two approaches.

The first is the idea that these very large, predominantly white firms control a very large amount of the assets that are distributed in venture capital; $80 billion+ a year, and I’m sure a very large portion of that comes from the top 10 firms. So, it’s very difficult to parallel the amount of dollars being invested by the largest firms by starting up a brand new fund.

I also think it’s really important to have these Black-led VC firms that invest, without being beholden to any GPs above them. They have a very valuable perspective. We need both.

We need Black investors starting their own fund, starting their own firms, and investing in founders they believe in, whether they’re Black or not or brown or not. We also need people at the largest funds, making sure that the very, very large amount of wealth creation and job creation is being implemented and invested in a way that reflects the diversity of our country and reflects the perspectives of Black investors.

On separate funds dedicated to investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs, like the ones from SoftBank and a16z:

We always used to hear and still do sometimes hear the term ‘pipeline issue,’ which has always been a euphemism in the past to say that there’s not enough Black talent out there, which is just not true. There is a pipeline issue and it’s that these firms don’t have diverse pipelines because they don’t have diverse personal networks, and they haven’t tried to build out their networks. They tend to invest in people like them, and they tend to talk to people that look like them. That is the pipeline. I don’t know how these firms will change.

You mentioned SoftBank. There are a couple of funds right now dedicated to investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs, and I think any dollars put towards Black founders is a good thing. I’m having a hard time understanding the need for a separate fund to invest in diverse founders. If you have not been investing in diverse founders, how will a separate pile of money change anything? I don’t know. So you have to look at it and ask what is the issue? Why haven’t you been investing in diverse founders?

Do you think they don’t have good enough companies? That they don’t have enough good talent? They don’t have enough experience? I know none of those things are true. The approach I recommend is, above everything, change your pipeline. If it’s not working, change it. Go out there and meet founders, meet investors who are investing in diverse companies in a way that you haven’t. There are firms out there that are doing that. And if you feel like you can’t do that right away, then how about bringing in diverse scouts and giving them the money to invest? There are plenty of great Black founders, CEOs, investors, angel investors who would be wonderful scouts who can invest on a firm’s behalf and really put those dollars out there. That will instantaneously change things.

If you feel like you can’t do that, put your money into the funds that are actually doing it right now. Precursor is a great example. There are quite a few other funds that have been able to find incredible, diverse talent. Backstage Capital is another. There are quite a few of them. If you can’t do any of those things, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think you’re trying.

On recommendations for aspiring Black investors who feel disillusioned or locked out of the VC community:

Don’t stop trying. You will not always get a response, but send cold emails, try to find the connections, a friend-of-a-friend in your network, and try to build up a network in venture. I know it’s difficult, but keep trying. I also recommend working with entrepreneurs to learn what that aspect of the job is like that will help you build up a skill set. So if there are any entrepreneurs around you, ask how you can work on a project with them, or interview them. There are a lot of accelerators and incubators that will offer opportunities for you to shadow or intern with them. That’s a really good approach and there can be more jobs on that side.

Truthfully, a lot of the jobs in venture go to somebody who comes from investment banking. That’s not the only approach, but being in the investment banking system or the startup ecosystem are helpful ways to get around venture capitalists that are a bit more accessible than the venture industry itself. It is a challenging road. The best approach for you is just trying to expand your network and putting your feet to the ground and
being proactive about it.

On firms that are waking up to this issue and want to make changes but are scared of coming off as opportunistic or performative:

Performative allyism is a problem.

You’re saying something that you don’t live. That is the only problem with all of this. If you live it, it’s not performative. It’s actual, if you genuinely believe what you say, what you put on social media, what you talk about. If you want to start recruiting in diverse ways, that won’t look opportunistic or performative. You will look enlightened. And maybe that’s a dramatic turn, but it’ll look like you finally understand. I don’t think any firm should be afraid to take action, especially on diversifying their networks.

Now, where you come into a risky space is when you start to think about the dollars you invest and the hiring you do as an act of, you know, good PR, or as an act of charity. There are incredible Black entrepreneurs out there and you should be investing in them because they will improve your portfolio. They will introduce you to even better investors. They will give you better opportunities to improve your funds. You should invest in hiring black investors because they will expand your network, they will provide you opportunities to think about problems in a different way. They will provide a different perspective and a different opinion, and they will be some of your best investors and investments. If you are hiring them, and you are not giving them the power to invest dollars, if you’re not giving them the opportunity to speak up and share their voice, that is performative. That is not helpful. It will not change lives, it will not change racism, it will not change the shape of this industry, and it will not make your portfolio and your firm better.

On the progress that’s been made in the past several years:

One great example is Elliott Robinson. He’s on our founding BLCK VC board, and now a GP at Bessemer. He is very well listened to in the VC community, not just in the Black VC community. I think that is a sign of progress. He has check-writing power.

I also like to see the movement of white allies stepping down from boards to make space for Black advisors to be on an independent board. That’s hugely important. It’s an important trend to keep continuing because board seats are an incredible source of influence and wealth and are very important to diversify.

I also am excited to see the groundswell of support from white allies from tech company employees, standing up and saying, ‘we just want to stand for your policies, we won’t stand for policies that don’t promote Black investors or Black employees at the same rate as their white counterparts, and we won’t stand for policies that support initiatives that promote institutional racism.’ I think that is all very empowering. Oh, I’m curious to see how this movement keeps going. I’m very hopeful. I think there is a tension and there’s action, and there is an excitement that I’ve never seen. I think we just need to try and keep moving that forward.

Following, you’ll find a list of resources for anti-racist education in the tech and VC industry and more broadly. This list is by no means comprehensive but is a great place to start.

On bias in tech:

Tech orgs focused on racial equality:

Reading List:

Movies:

TV Shows:

Join us for a live Q&A with Plaid CEO Zach Perret June 18th at 10 am PT/1 pm ET

  • Extra Crunch Live, TechCrunch’s chat series for Extra Crunch members, is tacking towards founders after bringing on a host of investors: on Thursday, June 18, Plaid CEO Zach Perret will join us for a conversation.
  • Plaid, known for APIs that connect fintech applications with users’ bank accounts, came to prominence in late 2018 when it closed a massive $250 million Series C. The round — TechCrunch’s coverage from the time is here — brought the value of the company to $2.65 billion on a post-money basis.

Payments and credit giant Visa bought Plaid earlier this year for $5.3 billion, a neat doubling from its preceding valuation, and a price that was an even greater multiple of its valuation at the time of its Series B and earlier rounds.

Plaid is at the epicenter of a few trends, including fintech’s recent savings and investing boom and the recent VC rush to fund API-focused startups.

So, our conversation will cover a good amount of ground, including fintech trends, selling a company instead of taking it public, the power of APIs and more. But because this is Extra Crunch Live, we want to hear from you as well. As always, we’ll keep an eye on the Q&A portion of the Zoom and will work in your notes as we go.

Extra Crunch subscribers, hit the jump to add the event to your calendar and save the Zoom link. YouTube information to come. If you aren’t part of Extra Crunch yet, you can get an inexpensive trial here.

See you all there!

Details

Aaron Levie: ‘We have way too many manual processes in businesses’

Box CEO Aaron Levie has been working to change the software world for 15 years, but the pandemic has accelerated the move to cloud services much faster than anyone imagined. As he pointed out yesterday in an Extra Crunch Live interview, who would have thought three months ago that businesses like yoga and cooking classes would have moved online — but here we are.

Levie says we are just beginning to see the range of what’s possible because circumstances are forcing us to move to the cloud much faster than most businesses probably would have without the pandemic acting as a change agent.

“Overall, what we’re going to see is that anything that can become digital probably will be in a much more accelerated way than we’ve ever seen before,” Levie said.

Fellow TechCrunch reporter Jon Shieber and I spent an hour chatting with Levie about how digital transformation is accelerating in general, how Box is coping with that internally and externally, his advice for founders in an economic crisis and what life might be like when we return to our offices.

Our interview was broadcast on YouTube and we have included the embed below.


Just a note that Extra Crunch Live is our new virtual speaker series for Extra Crunch members. Folks can ask their own questions live during the chat, with past and future guests like Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, GGV’s Hans Tung and Jeff Richards, Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz and many, many more. You can check out the schedule here. If you’d like to submit a question during a live chat, please join Extra Crunch.


On digital transformation

The way that we think about digital transformation is that much of the world has a whole bunch of processes and ways of working — ways of communicating and ways of collaborating where if those business processes or that way we worked were able to be done in digital forms or in the cloud, you’d actually be more productive, more secure and you’d be able to serve your customers better. You’d be able to automate more business processes.

We think we’re [in] an environment that anything that can be digitized probably will be. Certainly as this pandemic has reinforced, we have way too many manual processes in businesses. We have way too slow ways of working together and collaborating. And we know that we’re going to move more and more of that to digital platforms.

In some cases, it’s simple, like moving to being able to do video conferences and being able to collaborate virtually. Some of it will become more advanced. How do I begin to automate things like client onboarding processes or doing research in a life sciences organization or delivering telemedicine digitally, but overall, what we’re going to see is that anything that can become digital probably will be in a much more accelerated way than we’ve ever seen before.

How the pandemic is driving change faster

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg shares his COVID-19 strategy and tactics

This week, Verizon Communications CEO Hans Vestberg joined us for an episode of Extra Crunch Live.

Vestberg is leading the company through the midst of one its biggest rollouts to date with the push into 5G connectivity. In our discussion, he spoke about how he’s managing the organization during this global crisis, his thoughts on work from home and acquisition strategy, and the ways in which 5G will change the way we work and live.

(Disclosure: Verizon Communications is TechCrunch’s parent company.)

Extra Crunch members can check out a partial transcript of the conversation (edited for length and clarity) or watch it in its entirety via YouTube video below.


Extra Crunch Live features some of the brightest minds in tech and VC, including Aileen Lee, Roelof Botha, Kirsten Green and Mark Cuban. Upcoming episodes will include Aaron Levie from Box, GGV’s Hans Tung and Jeff Richards, Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz and others. Extra Crunch members can submit questions to speakers in real time, so please sign up here if you haven’t already.


His initial reaction to news of the lockdown

We’re a large company with 135,000 employees in 70 different countries around the globe. So, of course, we had an early warning when it started actually in Asia. We have employees in Asia, so we got the feeling that this could be really serious. It was early in the first week of February, we moved to the highest emergency or crisis level in the company. That means that we go to a certain crisis mode on how we organized and how we galvanized the company.

That’s usually put into place every time there is a big national disaster because you need to split between people taking care of the crisis and people taking care of running the business. So we were very early on with that. In the beginning of February, we started the emergency crisis operations center that was taking care of employee questions and prioritization of important things. At the same time, we continued to run the business. That was the first thing we did very early on.

Upcoming Extra Crunch Live episodes include discussions with Aaron Levie from Box, GGV’s Hans Tung and Jeff Richards, and Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz.

The other thing we did very early on is that we understood that this was something unprecedented. I mean, you have been in crisis before. I mean, I’ve been in the telecom crisis, and we’ve been in the banking crisis when everything just went boom. This is something totally different. You cannot use any of your historical experience when it comes to this pandemic, which actually impacts each and every one of us when it comes to health. So I was honest, and thought that they’re going to be a lot of questions. We decided very early on to run our noon live webcast to our employees. We are on our… I think it’s the 11th week, where at noon every day, we run the webcast for all our employees. That was two of the first things we did.

We didn’t think we were going to run for 11 weeks on the new live webcast, but we have done it because we see there’s a very good tool to communicate with all our employees.

Extra Crunch Live: Join Initialized’s Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan for a live Q&A on Tuesday at 2pm EDT/11am PDT

Extra Crunch Live is on fire, and the hits keep rolling! Next week, we’ll sit down with Initialized’s Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan. You can catch the chat live on Tuesday, June 2 at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT.

Alexis Ohanian is the founder and former CEO of Reddit, and his investment portfolio includes Flexport, Ro and Papa. Garry Tan has invested in Instacart and Coinbase, to name a couple, and also has a background in entrepreneurship, having founded Posterous and Posthaven. Previously, Tan was a partner at Y Combinator for four years.

For those of you who aren’t caught up, Extra Crunch Live is a virtual speaker series that connects Extra Crunch members with the brightest minds in tech and VC where the audience has a chance to ask direct questions.

We’ll talk to Ohanian and Tan about how they’re advising their portfolio companies through the pandemic. Which startups should hunker and conserve cash, and which ones should sprint and advance? Is there a middle ground, and if so, what does it look like?

We’ll also discuss their outlook on economic recovery and opportunities that allow entrepreneurs to capitalize on the speed at which the world is changing. Which sectors are piquing their interest? Is Initialized going to invest aggressively in this ecosystem or be more risk-averse than usual? What’s it like doing deals over Zoom or Google Meet?

Extra Crunch members are encouraged to drop their questions in the Q&A chat for Ohanian and Tan. We’ll get to as many of them as possible, so please click here to join.

You can find the full details for our discussion below the break.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be chatting with GGV’s Hans Tung, Eventbrite’s Julia Hartz, Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra and Plaid’s Zach Perret. You can check out the full schedule here. Members also have access to the complete backlog of Extra Crunch Live episodes, which include chats with Kirsten Green, Roelof Botha, Mark Cuban and Aileen Lee.

See you there!

Steve Case and Clara Sieg on how the COVID-19 crisis differs from the dot-com bust

Steve Case and Clara Sieg of Revolution recently spoke on TechCrunch’s new series, Extra Crunch Live. Throughout the hour-long chat, we touched on numerous subjects, including how diverse founders can take advantage during this downturn and how remote work may lead to growth outside Silicon Valley. The pair have a unique vantage point, with Steve Case, co-founder and former CEO of AOL turned VC, and Clara Sieg, a Stanford-educated VC heading up Revolution’s Silicon Valley office.

Together, Case and Sieg laid out how the current crisis is different from the dot-com bust of the late nineties. Because of the differences, their outlook is bullish on the tech sector’s ability to pull through.

And for everyone who couldn’t join us live, the full video replay is embedded below. (You can get access here if you need it.)

Case said that during the run-up to the dot-com bust, it was a different environment.

“When we got started at AOL, which was back in 1985, the Internet didn’t exist yet,” Case said. “I think 3% of people were online or online an hour a week. And it took us a decade to get going. By the year 2000, which is sort of the peak of AOL’s success, we had about half of all the U.S. internet traffic, and the market value soared. That’s when suddenly, when any company with a dot-com name was getting funded. Many were going public without even having much in the way of revenues. That’s not we’re dealing with now.”

Extra Crunch Live: Discuss work and raising cash in a downturn with Revolution’s Steve Case and Clara Sieg at 12pm PT/3pm ET

This afternoon, we’re chatting with Steve Case and Clara Sieg of Revolution as part of our new interview series, Extra Crunch Live.

Topping our agenda, we will talk about jobs — in Silicon Valley, on the coasts and in the heartland. The technology sector is suffering through a contraction caused by the COVID-19 global health crisis, and layoffs are hitting nearly every company.

We hope you’ll join the conversation. During our hour-long chat, Extra Crunch members can submit questions directly in the Zoom Q&A.

Steve Case has a unique vantage point. He co-founded AOL and steered the company through the first dot-com bubble, where AOL emerged as a dominant force. Later, during the 2008 economic crisis, Case led investments with his then-new firm Revolution.

Likewise, Clara Sieg has managed Revolution’s Silicon Valley efforts for the last eight years and can directly speak to the current upheaval. While at Revolution, she helped the firm raise two significant funds, including its $450 million Growth fund and its first institutional fund of $200 million.

Together, Case and Sieg are well-qualified to offer advice on negotiating the current climate.

Since its inception, Revolution has strived to invest in startups in and out of Silicon Valley. With the COVID-19 crisis, this model is relevant more than ever. We’re curious to hear the pair’s take on companies experimenting with permanent work-from-home policies and what this means for real estate prices in hubs like San Francisco and New York. Do they think the pandemic will create a lasting effect on the technology sector’s workforce?

This chat is the latest in our ongoing series of discussions with notable investors, entrepreneurs and technologists. Previously, TechCrunch staff sat down (virtually, of course) with Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee and Ted Wang, Sequoia’s Roelof Botha and Mark Cuban, to name a few.

Join us today at 3:00 p.m. EDT. It’s going to be a good time.

Details are below for Extra Crunch subscribers. If you need a pass, you can get an inexpensive trial here.

Details

Here’s the information you’ll need: