Episode Details

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Wilson Sonsini

Today's show:

Spinouts are everywhere right now, and most founders get the cap table wrong. Jason sits down with Becki DeGraw, partner at Wilson Sonsini, to break down how to do it right, starting with his 80/20 rule for splitting the new cap table and why letting the old company keep too much of it kills your ability to raise.

Becki also covers the legal side: who owns the IP, non-competes between the two companies, and the trap founders fall into when they're still on the old board. PLUS, the one question every Series A investor will ask.

Guests:

Becki DeGraw on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-degraw-639bbb62/

Wilson Sonsini: https://www.wsgr.com/en/

Relevant Links:

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) — **https://www.wsgr.com/**

Becki DeGraw — https://www.wsgr.com/en/people/becki-degraw.html

Waymo — Jason's headline example of a big-company spinout — https://waymo.com/

Expedia's 1999 Microsoft spinout — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Expedia-com-American-company

Nvidia's ~$20B deal for Groq's asset— https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.html

Timestamps:

0:00 What a spinout actually is

0:50 Becki: the real "why" behind spinouts

2:24 IP licenses and the "acquihire" workaround

3:09 University spinouts

4:41 Google/Waymo and Microsoft/Expedia: spinouts at scale

5:03 Jason's 80/20 rule and the unicorn test

6:06 The broken cap table problem

6:36 Licensing deals as an M&A workaround

8:44 Exclusive licenses, full assignments, and license-backs

11:07 "What if Google spun out YouTube"

12:31 Groq–Nvidia, capital gains vs. income

13:23 Confidentiality, customer lists, and fiduciary duty traps

15:16 Get the paper done BEFORE you start the new thing

15:56 "It's a divorce," — and the employees are the kids

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