Inside AngelList: Kevin Laws

With Naval becoming the chairman and moving away from day to day running of AngelList, Laws has perhaps the toughest job in the startup investment world. For many, it’s difficult to even think of anyone else as the face of AngelList. It’s a challenge that Naval himself recognizes. Globally, AngelList moves about $175 million every year into startups, which is about 600-700 startups annually. And more than have of them use AngelList for their hiring too, according to Laws. “There is a misperception that we make it easier for startups to raise money. Not any more likely that you will get to “yes” if as a startup you’re using AngelList. That said, the time that you spend to get to the same answer you would have got any time…..that’s a lot less,” says Laws. “Same thing for hiring. The idea is to make that time much smaller proportion of the total time spent to get to a good match.” “The biggest challenge for us is that people think AngelList is a place where if they go, suddenly the startups get funded. That’s not quite the way it works.” So how do you spend your time? What does a typical week look for you? These are among the questions I ask Kevin to understand AngelList works on a daily basis.