Jul 10, 2017 · 24m · 20vc
20VC: Benchmark's Mitch Lasky on The Snapchat Journey From Series A to IPO, Why Small Is Beautiful In Venture Partnerships & Why Venture Is Very Much Like Hollywood
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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 Benchmark General Partner Mitch Lasky about Benchmark's unique equal partnership culture, the structural similarities between venture capital and Hollywood, and key investment perspectives spanning Snapchat, esports, VR/AR, and interactive media.
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 34.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.7 Guest teaching 4.8 Guest disagreement 2.2 Harry pushing back 1.5
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:25 Dismissing Headset AR as Star Trek Cosplay
Mitch forcefully rejects the hype surrounding Magic Leap and headset AR, dismissively mocking users walking around looking like they are participating in Star Trek cosplay.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 21:20 Joking Rejection of Tottenham SupporterHarry playfully refuses the guest's framing and jokingly declares the interview over after discovering Mitch supports Tottenham while Harry supports Chelsea.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:20 Venture Capital's Structural Similarities to HollywoodMitch educates Harry on VC dynamics by drawing direct parallels to Hollywood economics, invoking William Golding's 'nobody knows anything' rule and explaining hit-driven gravity.
Harry holds his own ▶ 11:50 Defining the Social Isolation of VR vs ARHarry demonstrates his own industry expertise by framing a sharp distinction between VR fundamentally secluding users from society and AR integrating seamlessly into social interactions.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Podcast Audio Transition | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Harry introduces Mitch and asks about Benchmark's unique partnership structure compared to firms like Founders Fund. Mitch explains Benchmark's advocacy decision-making model and humbly details his early steep learning curve in VC. | |
| The Structural Similarities Between Venture Capital and Hollywood | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | Mitch elaborates on why venture capital mirrors Hollywood, citing William Golding's 'nobody knows anything' principle, hit-driven economics, and the rising PR hype machine. Harry largely listens and agrees with Mitch's breakdown. | |
| Investment Perspectives on Virtual Reality vs. Augmented Reality | 5 | 6 | 4 | 3 | Mitch takes a contrarian stance on VR hype and dismisses visor-based AR like Magic Leap. Harry hits back with an insightful analysis comparing VR's social isolation to AR's social integration. | |
| Esports Investment Opportunities and Market Realities | 4 | 6 | 4 | 2 | Mitch challenges the valuation hype around professional esports teams and defines secondary epiphenomena in emerging markets. Harry brings external perspective through a listener question from Clint at Crosscut. | |
| Snapchat's Journey, Evan Spiegel's Leadership, and Benchmark Culture | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Mitch gives an insider perspective on working with Evan Spiegel and Benchmark's low-key, humble celebration culture after the Snapchat IPO. Harry asks thoughtful questions about maintaining motivation at the peak of success. | |
| Quickfire Round: Books, Football Rivalries, and Outpost Games | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | In a rapid question round, Mitch discusses early Hollywood business books and partner diversity before discovering a football rivalry with Harry. Harry jokingly threatens to end the interview over Mitch's support for Tottenham. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Lasky: Operator background and hubris are classic failure vectors in VC
“I think all of those are sort of classic failure vectors for coming to the venture business. I think, you know, all the people with that background a lot of times come in with a lot of hubris.”
Lasky: Small partnership model is essential for effective VC decision-making
“I think there's a sort of small is beautiful approach that really works. You know, we can have one conversation. There's an enormous amount of mutual respect and admiration, and so, you know, it allows, I think, for good decision-making. There's a lot of trust…”
Lasky: VC Mega-Hits Generate Orders of Magnitude More Value Than Good Outcomes
“The value of hits like Facebook and Google in the venture business or the Star Wars movies or the Marvel franchise in the, in Hollywood create sort of orders of magnitude more gravity in our business than even good or very good results with other companies.”
Lasky: VCs Overvalue Historical Pattern Matching Over Non-Continuous Innovation
“Both share a tendency to overvalue Professional experience and sort of historical pattern matching potentially over taking chances on really non-continuous innovation.”
Lasky: Venture Capital Has Become an Over-Hyped PR Machine Like Hollywood
“Even the pre-internet bubble days. VCs were kind of shadow warriors. They were in the background. They were enablers. They were not really the center of attention. And I think increasingly, firms have brought a kind of Hollywood-like public relations and hype …”
Lasky avoids VR application startups due to long market trough
“So I've stayed away from investing in, in the application space, primarily because the development teams are really expensive and you'd have to kind of keep them funded through what could be a fairly long trough, maybe three, you know, three to five years.”
Lasky is short Magic Leap, favoring cell phones for AR
“I would say I'm quite short the approach of the magic leaps of the world that sort of require a visor and maybe for an industrial application, but are you really going to walk around the city looking like you're doing Star Trek cosplay, you know, just so that …”
Lasky: Professional esports teams are raising capital at astonishing valuations
“I'm less interested in sort of the professional team approach, the cloud nines, the mortals, who are raising money at the moment at astonishing valuations.”
Lasky: Esports will remain a niche until television narrative problems are solved
“I don't just for a lot of reasons, I mean, I think until they solve the television problem, it's going to be very, very difficult. You know, so much of our experience of, I don't want to call them real sports, but of traditional sports is, is mediated by 2030,…”
Benchmark: Snapchat was 12 people in a dining room at Series A
“When we invested in the Series A, the company was essentially a dozen people camping out in the dining room of Evan's dad's house in Los Angeles.”
Lasky: Benchmark held no champagne celebration following Snapchat's IPO
“I came back from New York after the Snapchat IPO. I was in New York for the pricing and to see the stock open on, on the New York stock exchange floor. And I flew back from, it was on a Thursday on, came back on, on Monday to the partners meeting. And our cele…”
Lasky: Benchmark partners will retire within the next decade
“Well, I think we have an opportunity as the current group of partners comes to the, in the next decade or so, comes to the end of their careers to really reinvigorate the firm with youth, and I think an increasing awareness of diversity.”