Jul 12, 2021 · 44m · 20vc
20VC: Jet.com's Marc Lore on How To Assess Human Potential and "The Resume Test", Why Chief People Officer Should be One of Your First Hires and Why We Need a New Type of Venture Capital
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In this episode of TwentyVC, host Harry Stebbings interviews serial entrepreneur and investor Marc Lore, who shares his frameworks for talent evaluation, startup funding through Vision Capital People, and the personal psychology required to navigate high-stakes entrepreneurship.
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 28.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.6 Guest teaching 4.3 Guest disagreement 2.2 Harry pushing back 3.9
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 40:28 Marc Lore rejects host's defense of stage-specific VCs
When Stebbings names elite stage-specific investors to counter Lore's critique of venture stage silos, Lore flatly rejects the counterargument stating it is not good enough to negate his point.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 27:54 Harry Stebbings challenges fund strategy with 'indigestion vs starvation'Stebbings directly attacks Lore's core fund strategy of giving massive early-stage checks by citing the classic venture industry principle that startups die of indigestion rather than starvation.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 22:10 Marc Lore outlines the Resume Test promotion velocity frameworkLore instructs Stebbings on how to objectively evaluate candidate excellence via promotion cadence and upward job leaps rather than relying on subjective interviews or reference calls.
Harry holds his own ▶ 40:09 Harry Stebbings names Josh Kopelman and Peter Fenton to defend stage specialistsStebbings demonstrates deep domain expertise by citing specific legendary venture capitalists at First Round and Benchmark to counter Lore's claim that stage-gated venture capital provides no distinct value.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marc Lore's Early Entrepreneurial Drive and Banking Departure | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Stebbings asks open-ended biographical questions about Lore's entry into entrepreneurship and his decision to quit banking. Lore explains his early drive and introduces his concept of operating in 'sixth gear.' Stebbings mostly listens with a brief follow-up on Lore's wife's reaction. | |
| Operating in Sixth Gear and Managing Personal Priorities | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | Stebbings demonstrates preparation by citing Lore's published 50 life lessons list and his 'How I Built This' interview regarding his father. Stebbings challenges Lore on how being in 'sixth gear' conflicts with making time for romance. Lore explains how trade-offs work in personal priorities. | |
| Overcoming Fear of Failure and Practicing Radical Trust | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Stebbings asks how wealth and reputation alter Lore's relationship to failure and fear. Lore educates Stebbings on separating core value risks from financial risks, advocating for extreme radical trust over cautious 'half-trusting.' | |
| Transparency, Personality Frameworks, and Managing Conflict | 3 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Stebbings pushes back against Lore's full-trust stance, noting his own cynical shift to starting employees at zero trust, and challenges the timing of radical transparency. Lore clarifies that transparency means open information sharing rather than blunt criticism, introducing Myers-Briggs as a tool. | |
| Why Chief People Officer Should Be an Early Executive Hire | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | Stebbings cites standard startup milestones (100+ employees for CPOs) to challenge Lore's claim that Chief People Officers should be first hires. Stebbings also brings up a public Twitter dispute where Lore disagreed with him on reference checks. Lore firmly defends why reference checking yields false confidence. | |
| The Resume Test and SPOTIC Personality Evaluation | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | Lore details his rigorous 'Resume Test' and SPOTIC framework, maintaining that candidate promotion velocity strictly screens out poor fits. Stebbings counters with a story of a bad employee who passed interview checks, but Lore dismisses the premise, asserting top candidates leave clear paper trails. | |
| Vision Capital People (VCP) Fund Strategy | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Stebbings directly challenges Lore's VCP fund model of taking 40-80% ownership and pouring massive capital early, invoking the adage that 'companies die of indigestion, not starvation.' Lore defends the strategy using Archer Aviation as a case study in buying world-class teams early. | |
| Building Strategic Assets and M&A Lessons from Jet.com | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Stebbings reveals insider knowledge from a conversation with NEA partner Tony, pointing out that Jet.com's sale was bumpy. Lore explains that strategic acquirers buy top talent and hard technology rather than customer bases. Stebbings also probes Lore on balancing unwavering vision with changing market dynamics. | |
| Quick-Fire Round: Thinking Time, Traditions, and Industry Trends | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | In the quick-fire round, Lore criticizes traditional VC stage fragmentation. Stebbings hits back by citing top tier stage-specialist investors like Josh Kopelman and Peter Fenton who add stage-specific value. Lore acknowledges the point but holds firm that the model remains frustrating for founders. |
Statements from this episode (25)
Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez Launched Vision Capital People with $50M
“Mark announced his new venture firm, Vision Capital People, with his co-founder, Alex Rodriguez, earlier this year, with fifty million dollars of Alex and Mark's own money”
Marc Lore Earned $500,000 Annually as Chief Risk Officer Before Quitting
“I was the chief risk officer for a bank. I was making a half a million bucks a year.”
Marc Lore Invested $390,000 in Life Savings to Launch First Startup
“I have 390,000 saved and putting it in. And he goes, all right, you've really lost your mind now, but you know what? You're all in. And I think you're going to make this work. So can I put 50 grand in as your first investor? And he did.”
Marc Lore: Founders Must Invest Enough Personal Capital to Feel Life-or-Death Pressure
“I wouldn't recommend putting your life savings in. But I would recommend putting enough money in so that you feel like it's life or death, because that's the only way to get into what I call the sixth gear.”
Marc Lore: Operating at maximum intensity on five hours of sleep fails
“If you want, in sixth gear, this idea of being in sixth gear and sleeping five hours a night, that doesn't work. You can't, you don't have enough energy to be in sixth gear for the remaining hours in the day.”
Marc Lore: Childhood-driven motivation cannot be replicated but can become an asset
“You can't tell somebody that doesn't have this unhealthy childhood to find that motivation. It's something that's unexplainable, but I think it's really healthy when it starts, and I think with therapy and time, I think it can morph into something that's healt…”
Marc Lore: Never take risks on core values, only with capital
“I don't think you take risk on values. So I think you need to be really grounded, know what your values are, what your core values, and never deviate, and even live them when they're hard. I think that Sometimes it's hard, but that means you're living your val…”
Marc Lore: Half-trusting people yields all downside and no upside
“I've found, and I'm very trusting, when you openly trust someone, really trust them, like where they can burn you, like put yourself in a place where they could burn you. They rarely do. Occasionally you might get burned, and that's part of one of the conseque…”
Marc Lore argues default trust yields high upside with only 2% failure rate
“I found that actually it is more like one 50. Like it's rare that you will get burned and you'll get better at associating with people that are less likely to burn you. But the upside is tremendous. Like I said, if you go halfway on trusting or three quarters,…”
Marc Lore tracks Myers-Briggs personality types for all friends and colleagues
“I'm a big fan of Myers-Briggs personality test. There's 16 personalities. I try and know the personality type of all my friends, family, and anyone, colleagues, because I think understanding the personality type is like kind of the first, you know, the beginni…”
Marc Lore: Founders Cannot Successfully Manage HR on the Side
“If you think that, or the CEO or the founder of a company thinks that they can found the company, do the capital, do the vision, do all the parts of the business, and on the side with their pinky, do like the chief people stuff. That's not gonna work. You're n…”
Marc Lore: Reference checks almost never change hiring decisions
“It's very, very, very rare, and I talked to people about this, that you'll actually change your mind from a reference. Like, I want to hire this person, let me check the references, and then you're like, no, now I'm not going to hire the person. Or, I don't th…”
Marc Lore refuses to meet candidates before resume screening
“I won't interview somebody, or I don't even want to meet them. I don't want to see them until they passed the resume test”
Marc Lore: Superstars make demonstrable jumps in level when changing companies
“When they leave the company that they're at, Superstars make demonstrable jumps in either title, level, type of company, and it's very clear.”
Marc Lore: Candidates with top-10% resumes and SPOTIC traits are hired on the spot
“And if I find a top 10% resume with spotty traits, home run, and then I hire them on the spot. I don't need to do any references at that point. They've already proven on their resume and do the values that they're amazing.”
Marc Lore: I will never accept referral candidates without top-10% resumes
“Most people don't really understand what a superstar is, so I, for the most part, I will never take a recommendation unless the resume is Fits the description.”
Marc Lore targets a $500M fund concentrated in 15 companies
“Yeah, it would be, you know, more like 15 investments. How do you put ten million seed in a company, and then the company winds up, let's say you own 40% for ten million, and then the company winds up doing a fifty million dollar round that you lead to keep yo…”
Marc Lore: Hiring top market talent guarantees strategic acquisition interest
“I find if you've got the very best people in the world in a certain segment of the market, it's always going to be really valuable and interesting to a strategic.”
Marc Lore invested $15M total into Archer Aviation before $1B SPAC
“I gave them five million and helped them raise the fifty million, the same kind of Same kind of thing. I kicked off the fifty million dollar round with 10, and that all came together, and they had sixty million dollars. They had the best team in the world. The…”
Marc Lore: Walmart Acquired Jet.com for Talent and Tech, Not Customers
“When Walmart made the acquisition, that was a, probably the single biggest reason why they were interested in spending three billion dollars for Jet. It certainly wasn't the market penetration, the customers that they were buying. They were buying the team and…”
Marc Lore: VCP Provides $10M Checks for Hiring Top Talent
“That's what the VCP fund is all about, is like, no, we're going to give you ten million so you can hire the very best people in the world and give you the best possible shot Of making a big company”
Lore: Most founders cannot state a clear 10-year vision in three sentences
“I don't think people spend enough time on the vision. They'll say, like, if you ask somebody, what is your vision? 10 to 15 years, where do you want to be? It's rare that somebody will be able to, like, recite a, like, really tight three to five sentences of e…”
Lore: Stage-specific VC value-add is overdone and causes conflict
“I think it's a little overdone, this idea that, like, they help in a different way, the C or the A. When I think about my best investors, because they came in all the rounds, I treat them all like they're just great. They're sounding boards, they open doors, t…”