founders share – On X, startup founders have traded “pitch horror” stories—especially VCs falling asleep during meetings, term sheets arriving after dozing off, and deals later evaporating through ghosting. The conversation also spilled into name-dropped clashes involving Clou
A pitch meeting is supposed to be the moment when everyone is awake, focused, and trying to read the room. Instead, for many founders crowding into the same corner of X this week, the room has become something else entirely.
Greg Isenberg—startup podcaster. newsletter writer. and founder of Late Checkout Studio. a holding company whose previous ventures include a company acquired by WeWork—set the tone with a story that ricocheted fast. Isenberg wrote that he was once pitching in a board room at a “top 3 VC firm” for a $15M Series A. He said there were 12 people in the meeting, and one GP “fully fell asleep.”.
“One of the GPs fully fell asleep. Out cold for 30+ minutes. Nobody acknowledged it. Everyone just kept going,” Isenberg shared on X.
Sleep, it turned out, wasn’t just a one-off punchline. Founders described VCs drifting off in a way that went beyond drowsy—“zonked,” as the thread framed it—sometimes even when the meeting was for major money.
Zynga founder Mark Pincus added his own version. He wrote, “I looked at my friend who set up the meeting and asked if i should keep presenting and she said yes. It was ‘weekend at bernies’ meets Silicon Valley.”
The most unsettling part for many readers wasn’t only that it happened. It was that falling asleep didn’t always stop the process. Multiple founders reported getting term sheets from partners who’d dozed off during the pitch.
Liz Wessel wrote that. in 2015. she pitched a partnership for her Series A to a room where one partner—described by her as a “famous Midas lister”—fell asleep while another “couldn’t stop scowling.” Wessel said the call came two hours after the IC. and that they were sending a term sheet over. She also wrote that her team didn’t take the money, and that the VC was shocked.
Arianna Simpson, a former a16z partner, put it more sharply: “Are VCs ok?? Narcolepsy appears to be running rampant.”
The thread also made room for other kinds of disappearing acts—term sheets signed and then pulled at the last minute. or outright ghosting. Founders described VCs who didn’t wire the money and still later acted as if everything were normal. even treating them like portfolio companies. In one account. a VC allegedly asked for company updates or to serve as a reference. and even wanted “a share of the post-acquisition proceeds.”.
Travis Kalanick, the Uber co-founder known for being relentless, told a story of his own kind of escalation. He said he discovered a VC was trying to ghost the meeting and leave the building. Kalanick wrote that he followed the VC to his car and pitched from the passenger’s seat.
Even so, not every founder painted the same picture. Some said they’d never had anything but great experiences with VCs. and a few even shared love stories about specific investors. Pincus summed up the mood from the other side. saying. “I f*cking love this moment. when founders no longer have to be afraid to call out VCs for dumb behavior.”.
The conversation didn’t stay limited to nap jokes. The stories that landed hardest came from Cloudflare founder Matthew Prince.
Prince wrote that a Sequoia partner passed on Cloudflare because the partner “didn’t think a woman could lead a security infrastructure company.” Prince identified Cloudflare’s co-founder and COO as Michelle Zatlyn. He also noted that Cloudflare is now an $87 billion market cap company, with expected annual revenue of $2.8 billion in 2026.
Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire replied that he’s always admired Zatlyn and asked Prince to “spill the name of the partner who said that.” Prince responded with a tease: “Maybe over a drink one day. But I bet you have a good guess already.”
Prince then added another story involving Vinod Khosla. He wrote that Khosla offered to invest and. in Prince’s recollection. suggested that Prince “fire” his co-founders and take their stock. Prince wrote that he thought the charitable read was a test of his character. but he said he was so offended that they never spoke again—“Literally blocked his number.”.
Prince also added nuance about Khosla: “He’s extremely smart/clever. Has been an incredible investor — can’t argue with his track record. Just not the personality I’d choose to work with.”
Prince’s posts came with a reminder about the fragility of memory. He noted that recollections can vary and that the thread doesn’t know what Khosla actually said, meant, or remembers.
Still, the openness about one of the Valley’s most powerful VCs made people lean in. Many commenters treated Prince’s account as evidence of having “FU” money, and Prince, the thread notes, is a billionaire these days.
Not every named story cast every investor as a villain. Prince described a meeting he thought would be routine: he said he’d lined up a simple meet-and-greet on a Monday with Marc Andreessen. co-founder of venture firm a16z. Instead, Andreessen showed up with his whole investment team, ready to be wowed. Prince said he didn’t impress and added, “I framed the rejection letter they sent,” referring to the outcome.
Other founders also described meetings involving Andreessen and his firm.
Some of the thread’s funniest entries came from Julie Fredrickson. a founder-turned-investor. who wrote that she received a call from a VC associate before arriving at a firm’s office. The call warned her about a rock formation visible outside the window that. she said. was shaped like male genitalia—apparently unbeknownst to the investors inside. Fredrickson wrote, “The firm will forever in my mind be Dickrock Ventures.”.
As the thread widened, founders also shared incidents involving international VCs, and some VCs even described what it feels like when they pitch limited partner investors.
Taken together. the posts made the fundraising process feel less like a polished ritual and more like a power dynamic that can tilt hard—sometimes with naps. sometimes with last-minute reversals. sometimes with blunt judgments about leadership and who belongs. Isenberg captured that shared understanding when he wrote. “If you’re raising right now. just know: every founder has a story like this. The process is weird. The power dynamic is weird.”.
A second lesson lingered in the quieter details: if Andreessen agrees to meet, it means business.
venture capital startup fundraising pitch meetings term sheets ghosting cybersecurity startups Cloudflare Matthew Prince Michelle Zatlyn Sequoia Vinod Khosla a16z Travis Kalanick Mark Pincus