StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

MercadoLibre

also referred to as: mercado libre

22 statements across 7 episodes · 7 bullish · 4 bearish · 7 people on the record · first statement Mar 18, 2021 by Simon Borrero · said 83 times in 15 episodes since 2021 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (46), Marcos Galperin (11), Nicolas Szekasy (9), Fernando Fanton (5), Marcelo Claure (3), Imran Khan (3), Sheel Mohnot (2), Simon Borrero (1)

tap a year for its mentions
0040380520212022202320242025episodesmentions
03520212022202320242025episodes it came up in
007.52.515520212022202320242025episodesmentions per episode
2025 5 mentions in 1 episode
2024 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2023 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
2022 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2021 61 mentions in 5 episodes 12 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about MercadoLibre, oldest first

Mar 18, 2021 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Mar 2026
Borrero: Latin America will produce many $100B tech companies
“It has shown that in Latin America, there's going to be a lot of other hundred billion dollar companies”
Simon Borrero Mar 18, 2021 ▶ 20:47 20VC: Rappi Founder Simón Borrero on Growth vs Profitability, Capital Efficiency, Raising $1.7Bn as a LATAM Company and Why Uber Eats Did More To Help Than To Hurt Rappi
May 7, 2021
Insight
Failed concepts usually stem from flawed execution rather than bad ideas
“Make sure that we iterate several times before we conclude that it is not the right idea, because often it's a right idea, but it's a wrong implementation or the wrong execution.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 11:36 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021
Disclosure
MercadoLibre rejected a $230M buyout offer on $6M revenue in 2001
“The first one was in 2001. I think we had like six million dollars of revenues, and we declined an offer for two hundred and thirty million dollars, which valuation was probably an incredibly rich offer.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 23:04 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021
Assertion Partly supported
Central banks coordinated a massive liquidity intervention on MercadoLibre's IPO day
“The day that we IPO'd in August of 2007, that same day was the first time since nine 11 that the Federal Reserve, the Japanese Central Bank and the European Central Bank had to intervene in the markets in a coordinated fashion to provide liquidity.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 14:04 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021
Disclosure
eBay agreed to acquire all of MercadoLibre before walking away
“Later on, at a much higher valuation, we did agree To sell. This was with eBay. At the time, eBay was a 20% owner of Mercado Libre, and they wanted to acquire the remaining 80%. And then, after we had agreed, they decided to walk away, which was pretty traumat…”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 23:23 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021
Insight
Successful tech companies must vertically integrate to stay competitive on cost
“Initially you start in one layer of the stack, but once you have become very successful in that layer, it's very likely that you will want to integrate one way or And maybe the other way, as we're doing in fintech, because you need to become more efficient. Th…”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 26:57 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021
Insight
Market crashes eliminate narrative-driven startups and strengthen real executors
“These things, they clear the market of many competitors and of many companies that have a great story, but they are not really delivering, and they actually help the companies that are delivering.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 16:43 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021
Assertion Supported
MercadoLibre stock crashed from $80 to $8 during the 2008 financial crisis
“Initially I was priced at 18. Initially, our stock went all the way up to 80. But a few months later, as the financial crisis intensified, it came all the way down to eight dollars”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 14:25 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021 neutral
Prediction Held up
Marcos Galperin expects to step down as MercadoLibre CEO within five years
“So I was saying earlier, I think the next five years and the chapter of success for me would entail maybe transitioning out of my role to, I don't know, to a chairman role or something like that, and being able to see Mercado Libre with the same entrepreneuria…”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 30:54 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021 neutral
Assertion Supported
MercadoLibre grew 30-40% annually for 20 years without a hockey stick
“We never had that hockey stick growth moment until maybe now with COVID. But we were always growing at 30 to 40% for 20 years, but we never grew 700% from one year to the next.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 11:13 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
May 7, 2021 bullish
Prediction Held up
MercadoLibre will reach 30,000 employees by the end of 2021
“We have a technology team of almost 8000 people, and this year we're going to end up with 30,000 employees.”
Marcos Galperin May 7, 2021 ▶ 6:46 20VC: MercadoLibre Founder Marcos Galperin on Optimising Decision-Making, Effective Resource Allocation, Growth vs Profitability, Fundraising Strategies and more on the Journey To Build a $72Bn Market Cap Company
Aug 16, 2021
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MercadoLibre Faced 100 Regional Competitors at Dot-Com Peak
“We had the most extraordinary roller coaster journey with something like a hundred competitors in the region doing exactly what we were doing at the peak of the bubble in early 2000.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 3:30 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Aug 16, 2021 negative
Assertion Supported
MercadoLibre stock fell 90% post-IPO during 2008 crash
“I think our stock price, we had been public for a few months, went down 90%.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 7:55 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Aug 16, 2021 positive
Assertion Partly supported
MercadoLibre had 30% EBITDA margins and zero debt in 2008
“But by the end of that year, we were in great shape. The business was always very solid. Our stock had gone down, but we were making money. We had 30% EBITDA margins. We were doubling our business year over year. We had no debt.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 8:05 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Aug 16, 2021 bullish
Assertion Partly supported
MercadoLibre bought back stock at $7-$8 after IPO at $18
“We started a program to buy back stock. It was amazing. We were buying stock, I think, at a price something like below 10 dollars, something like seven, eight dollars per share, and we had an IPO at 18.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 8:20 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Aug 16, 2021 negative
Disclosure
Out-of-Touch MercadoLibre Board Members Inspired the Founding of Kaszek
“Part of us being motivated to start Kasek with Hernan was that we had board members at Mercado Libre who were members of the banks or these financial institutions, and they were really great guys and really smart guys and well-intended, but they had no idea of…”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 24:44 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Aug 16, 2021
Assertion Partly supported
MercadoLibre IPO'd in 2007 Retaining Half Its 2000 Venture Capital
“We took the company public on Nasdaq in 2007. I was the CFO, so I led the charge there. We did that with half of the capital we had raised in 2000, still in the bank, and we had a very profitable business.”
Nicolas Szekasy Aug 16, 2021 ▶ 4:49 20VC LATAM: LATAM's Largest Fund, Kaszek Ventures on Scaling from $100M to $1BN, Why Capital is not a Source of Moat & Why LATAM is More Than Copycat Companies with Nicolas Szekasy, Co-Founder @ Kaszek Ventures
Aug 30, 2021 negative
Disclosure
Claure regrets SoftBank missing major MercadoLibre investment in 2018
“So MercadoLibre, in July, 2018, the value was significantly less, and I didn't push mass enough for us to make an enormous play with MercadoLibre, because I didn't truly understand investing back then.”
Marcelo Claure Aug 30, 2021 ▶ 33:26 20VC: Marcelo Claure, CEO of Softbank Group International on Lessons From Investing $1BN Per Week with Masa Son, How Softbank Could Have Up To 8 Companies Go Public in LATAM Alone Next Year & How Softbank Analyse Both Deal Pricing and Competition Today
Apr 15, 2022 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dubugras: Mercado Libre's board never discusses share prices or public markets
“And I haven't heard in the mailing board, one discussion about the markets, one discussion about investors and the share price. It's all Product and strategy. Product and strategy. Product and strategy.”
Henrique Dubugras Apr 15, 2022 ▶ 24:51 20VC: Brex's Henrique Dubugras on Advice from Evan Spiegel and Eric Schmidt on CEOship, The Biggest Hiring Mistakes When Scaling, What Everyone Gets Wrong with Product Messaging and When is the Right Time to Launch Secondary Products
Nov 27, 2024 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Hommels: Lee Fixel Led Tiger Global's Top Emerging Market Deals in His Twenties
“So, when he was at Tiger, so he was in MercadoLibre, he was in Yandex, he was in Flipkart, and it basically, it was A one man show on the plane, starting there was 28, 29.”
Klaus Hommels Nov 27, 2024 ▶ 1:03:54 Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 27, 2025 negative
Opinion
Fanton: LATAM Tech Worker Energy Is 2-3x The European Average
“If you pick somebody in Rappi or iFood or MercadoLibre, the energy and the passion of those people is, in my experience, two, three X is no more of what I see in, in the average here in Europe, right?”
Fernando Fanton Jul 27, 2025 ▶ 55:46 20Product: Should We Kill the PM Role Entirely | How Does Product Design Change Most in a World of AI | How Do Monzo Build Product Today: What Works, What Does Not | Why Most Product Sucks and What Makes Truly Great Product
Jul 27, 2025 bullish
Disclosure
Fanton: Achieved 40x Return On $50K Mercado Libre Investment Over 14 Years
“I remember I bought 1415, 50,000 dollars or something, or I know some number, not a small number, and I kept it and it's 40 times until today.”
Fernando Fanton Jul 27, 2025 ▶ 48:41 20Product: Should We Kill the PM Role Entirely | How Does Product Design Change Most in a World of AI | How Do Monzo Build Product Today: What Works, What Does Not | Why Most Product Sucks and What Makes Truly Great Product
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more