The 12-month window

In a recent episode of “No Priors” — the excellent podcast co-hosted by AI investors Sarah Guo and Elad Gil — Gil made a point about exit timing that’s undoubtedly familiar to founders who’ve spent time with him but seems particularly useful in this moment of go-go dealmaking.

For most companies, Gil said, there’s roughly a 12-month period where the business is at its peak value, “and then it crashes out.” The companies that capture generational returns are often the ones where someone spies that moment instead of assuming the good times will get even better. Lotus, AOL, and Mark Cuban’s Broadcast.com all sold at or near the top, and all are held up by Gil as outfits that foresaw what was coming and smartly pulled the ripcord.