VC Partner Progression / Salary
All,
sorry if this has been asked before but just curious how VC career progression works. I see many individuals with 4-6 years of career experience who are now Partners at VC firms (think Sequoia, etc.). Is that Partner title equivalent to a PE Partner or is it more of a Senior Associate or VP level? Also interested in what comp looks like for these Partners. Thanks!
The title "partner" has become very convoluted. It all began with A16Z, which around 2010/11 starting labeling all their employees as Partners externally, from the junior most analyst up to Marc and Ben. They did this in on purpose to confuse entrepreneurs, who they thought wouldn't be able to tell who were the real decision makers (though if you can't honestly tell who the senior people at A16Z are, you probably don't deserve to be funded by them). This practice became more widespread throughout VC firms. In addition, most firms began inflating all their titles to compete for and retain talent. For example, back in the day, a principal was a fairly senior position, essentially a junior partner in training. Nowadays there are 27 year olds fresh out of b school who have principal titles. At Sequoia for example, which you mentioned, every investing employee is externally called a parter, but they are far from equal. Doug Leone or Roelof is at a very different level of responsibility & compensation than people fresh out of school.
A partner nowadays generally means one of various types: a non-partner (associate, analyst, principal), a junior partner (usually a check writer but not a full GP), general partner (full GP in the fund, check writer), and managing partner (one of the heads of the firm, owns the management company). Someone who is a general partner or managing partner will almost always label that on their bios/LinkedIn. You can assume anyone else is more junior. Comp will vary depending on these levels.
Thank you, great response, SB’d.
Do you have an idea of what the comp (base, bonus, carry, etc.) is at each of those levels you mentioned (or at least Associate, Analyst, Principal, Junior Partner)?
following
You can literally search for this. Surely there are a million posts on this forum about VC comp. And there are open salary surveys you can Google.
thanks, didn’t realize this info was so widely available. Appreciate it!
John Gannon blog has average salaries of $154K for senior associates and ~$200K for principals. Does that sound right? It sounds low to me, but maybe it doesn't include carry.
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