Partners at VC funds are employed (funded) by limited partners (LPs). LPs are typically institutional cash and tend to be conservative. A26Z's LPs and potential LPs would not be pleased if they saw a video of Ben giving a talk wearing his "No Bitch Ass Ness" t-shirt.
Not so much. Have you read many of Ben's Blog articles or spent much time with Ben in person? If you had, a "No Bitch Ass Ness" t-shirt would be considered entirely appropriate dress for Ben. My guess is that he just instinctively is conservative about cameras, and being recorded. Probably the result of all the discovery he's gone through over the years as an executive and CEO at various companies.
I'm guessing he was just open and honest to all of the founders and sometimes being open when you run a huge VC firm is a risky challenge. So not recording it means he can offer insights without a clip of it going on TechCrunch.
Maybe not controversial but just talking about portfolio companies or commenting on them directly can be risky when you have a big fund and LP's to deal with.
Agreed but there's a difference between being on video and someone writing about your talk. Some people just don't like the pressure of a talk being recorded and prefer people to write about the general talk if they want to write about it.
