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Jan 23, 2017 · 22m · 20vc

20VC: Greylock's John Lilly on How Greylock Continues To Invest In The Next Big Markets, The Importance Of Building Tribes & Why There will Be Another Boom In Mobile

John Lilly · 14m spoken Harry Stebbings · 6m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this episode of The 20 Minute VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Greylock partner John Lilly on building long-term professional networks, his transition from operator to venture capitalist, and key investment opportunities across mobile, consumer platforms, and productivity software.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 31.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Harry as informed peer 2.6 Guest teaching 4.8 Guest disagreement 1.4 Harry pushing back 0.8
05100:0010:0020:002:24–7:08 · Harry as informed peer 2/10 Welcome & John Lilly's Career Background Harry Stebbings asks background questions about John Lilly's transition into venture capital and building professional tribes. Lilly shares foundational career advice he received at Stanford regarding long-term network building.7:09–11:13 · Harry as informed peer 2/10 Mobile Plateau and the Potential Secondary Boom Lilly educates the host on technology adoption curves, citing Asymco data and comparing current mobile app fatigue with historical PC/Mac growth plateaus in the 1990s.11:13–13:22 · Harry as informed peer 5/10 Consumer Market Dynamics & Macro Venture Environment Stebbings demonstrates industry expertise by citing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn thesis and asking whether major tech behemoths force market consolidation. Lilly politely pushes back against Wilson's premise, pointing to successful counterexamples like Musical.ly, Discord, and Medium.13:22–16:43 · Harry as informed peer 2/10 The Rise of Next-Generation Productivity Tools Lilly provides an insightful breakdown of productivity tools, explaining how Microsoft lost its distribution advantage and using a 'dancing bear' analogy to reframe Google Apps' early success.16:44–20:00 · Harry as informed peer 2/10 Quick Fire Round In a rapid-fire round, Lilly provides concise perspectives on decision-making, mentorship, and VC challenges, while offering a mild disagreement on the popular belief that VR and AR will converge.2:24–7:08 · Guest teaching 3/10 Welcome & John Lilly's Career Background Harry Stebbings asks background questions about John Lilly's transition into venture capital and building professional tribes. Lilly shares foundational career advice he received at Stanford regarding long-term network building.7:09–11:13 · Guest teaching 6/10 Mobile Plateau and the Potential Secondary Boom Lilly educates the host on technology adoption curves, citing Asymco data and comparing current mobile app fatigue with historical PC/Mac growth plateaus in the 1990s.11:13–13:22 · Guest teaching 5/10 Consumer Market Dynamics & Macro Venture Environment Stebbings demonstrates industry expertise by citing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn thesis and asking whether major tech behemoths force market consolidation. Lilly politely pushes back against Wilson's premise, pointing to successful counterexamples like Musical.ly, Discord, and Medium.13:22–16:43 · Guest teaching 7/10 The Rise of Next-Generation Productivity Tools Lilly provides an insightful breakdown of productivity tools, explaining how Microsoft lost its distribution advantage and using a 'dancing bear' analogy to reframe Google Apps' early success.16:44–20:00 · Guest teaching 3/10 Quick Fire Round In a rapid-fire round, Lilly provides concise perspectives on decision-making, mentorship, and VC challenges, while offering a mild disagreement on the popular belief that VR and AR will converge.2:24–7:08 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Welcome & John Lilly's Career Background Harry Stebbings asks background questions about John Lilly's transition into venture capital and building professional tribes. Lilly shares foundational career advice he received at Stanford regarding long-term network building.7:09–11:13 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Mobile Plateau and the Potential Secondary Boom Lilly educates the host on technology adoption curves, citing Asymco data and comparing current mobile app fatigue with historical PC/Mac growth plateaus in the 1990s.11:13–13:22 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Consumer Market Dynamics & Macro Venture Environment Stebbings demonstrates industry expertise by citing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn thesis and asking whether major tech behemoths force market consolidation. Lilly politely pushes back against Wilson's premise, pointing to successful counterexamples like Musical.ly, Discord, and Medium.13:22–16:43 · Guest disagreement 2/10 The Rise of Next-Generation Productivity Tools Lilly provides an insightful breakdown of productivity tools, explaining how Microsoft lost its distribution advantage and using a 'dancing bear' analogy to reframe Google Apps' early success.16:44–20:00 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Quick Fire Round In a rapid-fire round, Lilly provides concise perspectives on decision-making, mentorship, and VC challenges, while offering a mild disagreement on the popular belief that VR and AR will converge.2:24–7:08 · Harry pushing back 1/10 Welcome & John Lilly's Career Background Harry Stebbings asks background questions about John Lilly's transition into venture capital and building professional tribes. Lilly shares foundational career advice he received at Stanford regarding long-term network building.7:09–11:13 · Harry pushing back 0/10 Mobile Plateau and the Potential Secondary Boom Lilly educates the host on technology adoption curves, citing Asymco data and comparing current mobile app fatigue with historical PC/Mac growth plateaus in the 1990s.11:13–13:22 · Harry pushing back 3/10 Consumer Market Dynamics & Macro Venture Environment Stebbings demonstrates industry expertise by citing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn thesis and asking whether major tech behemoths force market consolidation. Lilly politely pushes back against Wilson's premise, pointing to successful counterexamples like Musical.ly, Discord, and Medium.13:22–16:43 · Harry pushing back 0/10 The Rise of Next-Generation Productivity Tools Lilly provides an insightful breakdown of productivity tools, explaining how Microsoft lost its distribution advantage and using a 'dancing bear' analogy to reframe Google Apps' early success.16:44–20:00 · Harry pushing back 0/10 Quick Fire Round In a rapid-fire round, Lilly provides concise perspectives on decision-making, mentorship, and VC challenges, while offering a mild disagreement on the popular belief that VR and AR will converge.

speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Harry 88.9% · guest 11.1%0:00 · Harry 88.9% · guest 11.1%3:00 · Harry 10.3% · guest 89.7%3:00 · Harry 10.3% · guest 89.7%6:00 · Harry 26.3% · guest 73.7%6:00 · Harry 26.3% · guest 73.7%9:00 · Harry 14.4% · guest 85.6%9:00 · Harry 14.4% · guest 85.6%12:00 · Harry 11.6% · guest 88.4%12:00 · Harry 11.6% · guest 88.4%15:00 · Harry 8% · guest 92%15:00 · Harry 8% · guest 92%18:00 · Harry 37.7% · guest 62.3%18:00 · Harry 37.7% · guest 62.3%21:00 · Harry 100% · guest 0%21:00 · Harry 100% · guest 0%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:38 Dismissing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn

Lilly directly rejects the premise of Fred Wilson's consumer downturn thesis, offering counterexamples of recent consumer wins like Musical.ly and Medium.

 Hardest push from Harry ▶ 11:13 Challenging consumer market potential

Stebbings challenges Lilly's optimism regarding mobile by framing the market as dominated by consolidation and citing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn view.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 15:35 The dancing bear analogy for cloud software

Lilly reframes Google Apps' historical advantage using a vivid 'dancing bear' analogy, explaining that its early success was due to web availability rather than superior design.

 Harry holds his own ▶ 11:13 Citing industry consensus and market leaders

Stebbings showcases strong sector knowledge by referencing market consolidation theories, major platforms like Snapchat, and Fred Wilson's macro analysis.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicHarry as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementHarry pushing backWhy
Welcome & John Lilly's Career Background 2301 Harry Stebbings asks background questions about John Lilly's transition into venture capital and building professional tribes. Lilly shares foundational career advice he received at Stanford regarding long-term network building.
Mobile Plateau and the Potential Secondary Boom 2600 Lilly educates the host on technology adoption curves, citing Asymco data and comparing current mobile app fatigue with historical PC/Mac growth plateaus in the 1990s.
Consumer Market Dynamics & Macro Venture Environment 5533 Stebbings demonstrates industry expertise by citing Fred Wilson's consumer downturn thesis and asking whether major tech behemoths force market consolidation. Lilly politely pushes back against Wilson's premise, pointing to successful counterexamples like Musical.ly, Discord, and Medium.
The Rise of Next-Generation Productivity Tools 2720 Lilly provides an insightful breakdown of productivity tools, explaining how Microsoft lost its distribution advantage and using a 'dancing bear' analogy to reframe Google Apps' early success.
Quick Fire Round 2320 In a rapid-fire round, Lilly provides concise perspectives on decision-making, mentorship, and VC challenges, while offering a mild disagreement on the popular belief that VR and AR will converge.

Statements from this episode (9)

Assertion Supported
Lilly: Mozilla had 12 employees and 5M users when he joined
“I went to Mozilla, and it was maybe 12, 12 employees, and I, you know, maybe five million users, and I worked on that for a long time, and built that up to be, you know, helped build that up to be quite a lot larger”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 3:26
Assertion Partly supported
Lilly: Median US mobile user installs zero new apps per month
“The median number of installs by a user in America on mobile per month of a new app is zero.”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 7:50
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lilly: Mobile market will experience a secondary growth boom
“As you get, see more and more technology and mobile phones diffuse into how everybody works and how everybody lives, we'll start to see new use cases and we'll start to see a secondary boom.”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 10:45
Prediction Not checkable as stated
John Lilly disagrees with Fred Wilson's consumer tech downturn thesis
“I mean, I don't know exactly what Fred's been talking about consumer downturn, but I don't, I think there's plenty of space. So, I think most people didn't think there was space for Snapchat a couple years ago. Now, now people do. You used to look at Musical.l…”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 11:38
Prediction Not checkable as stated
John Lilly: Low capital requirements create permanent seed investing ecosystem
“Like, I think what I would say is that we've created a sort of a permanent seed and angel investing environment, and because companies are getting created more and more with, like, less capital, with low capital requirements to get started I think we'll contin…”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 12:59
Disclosure
John Lilly consistently makes exactly two venture investments per year
“I did two investments this year, I had two investments last year, I had two the year before, so I've been pretty consistent.”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 13:23
Opinion
Lilly: Microsoft has completely lost its software distribution advantage
“Microsoft has completely lost the distribution advantage, because people don't really create as much as a higher percentage of their material anymore on, on Windows machines.”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 14:50
Opinion
John Lilly argues Google Apps succeeded despite being a mediocre product
“I feel like the office, the Google office suite is not a great product, but it's amazing because it's on the web.”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 16:21
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lilly: Virtual reality and augmented reality will not merge over time
“Oh, yeah, I don't think so. I think a lot of people think they will. Good odds that I'm wrong, but I really think they're just different use cases. I think that the idea that you're putting on a headset to get away from the world is quite different than AR, wh…”
John Lilly Jan 23, 2017 ▶ 18:31
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