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The Twenty Minute VCIAC CEO Joey Levin: Why Value Investing is BS; The Most Insane Element of SPACs | 20VC #982
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
IAC CEO Joey Levin On Markets, SPAC Madness, And Real Value Creation
- Joey Levin, CEO of IAC and Angi, discusses career longevity, leadership, and building enduring businesses through hard work, clear opinions, and simplification. He challenges the traditional notion of “value investing,” arguing that true value lies in future potential, not low multiples, and explains why SPACs were structurally flawed for real companies. Levin dissects the impact of an entitled, bailout-conditioned generation, distorted private valuations, and the current market reset on operators and investors. He also reflects on personal topics like money, parenting, and persistence, sharing how family frugality and values-driven decision-making shape his leadership today.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasHard work plus real opinions accelerate careers inside large organizations.
Levin attributes his rise at IAC to doing the work to deeply understand businesses (e.g., reading every filing and transcript) and being willing to take clear positions—even if they’re sometimes wrong—because opinions make you stand out and drive decisions.
“Value investing” is about future value, not cheap multiples.
He rejects the narrow definition of value investing as just buying low-multiple stocks; paying seemingly high multiples (like Sequoia did for Figma) can be true value investing if the long-term potential justifies the price.
To be greedy when others are fearful, you must pre-build capital.
Levin notes that everyone talks about buying in downturns, but you can only do it if you deliberately preserved cash and avoided overextending in boom times; IAC keeps over $1B and no parent-level debt precisely for this flexibility.
Simplification is the most powerful lever for value creation and margin.
He frames businesses as paid to simplify something for customers; removing steps in funnels, clarifying pricing, and sharpening messaging all increase conversion and justify margin, while overextending product scope and TAM obsessions destroy focus.
Clear, specific company values help separate real opportunities from distractions.
Generic values like “integrity” don’t guide tradeoffs; Angi’s value of “build lifelong customers” tangibly changes product roadmaps and forces uncomfortable but healthy debates about short-term wins versus long-term trust.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesYou build a company for as long as it takes you to build a company… and then in that critical moment, you give somebody else who doesn't know your company at all a free option on effectively selling that company to the public for three months. That is completely insane.
— Joey Levin
Value investing also can be buying something at a very high multiple, but that there's value there because of what you believe in the growth and the future.
— Joey Levin
Simplifying is our margin in all of our business. That's what entitles you to margin.
— Joey Levin
Money is round. Sometimes it rolls towards you, sometimes it rolls away from you.
— Joey Levin (quoting a friend)
We know that adversity builds these important features, and all we do as parents is spend all our life making sure our children avoid adversity at every possible turn.
— Joey Levin
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
