StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Ben Einstein

President & COO, Ten Percent Happier · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

investorfounderexecutiveoperator@BenEinstein ↗LinkedIn ↗bolt.io ↗

He co-founded and served as General Partner at Bolt, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in hardware and software startups. He later became President and Chief Operating Officer at meditation platform Ten Percent Happier.

14statements → 3claims → 1claims resolved → 3.86/5average certainty → 2.36/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 1said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 2 assertions · 3 opinions · 8 insights · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Ben argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Einstein: Dropcam achieved a 35% attach rate on its $10/month subscription
“And then they, you know, I think Dropcam had about a 35% tax rate on a 10 dollar a month service.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 13:45 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.8 · coherence 4.8 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 12 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

245 words/min while actually speaking · 36.3 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 4,467 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 65%

Everything Ben Einstein said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Einstein: Hiring software armies is a death sentence for incumbent hardware firms
“So I think most of the big companies are really struggling with this and, you know, having to hire armies and armies of software people To sort of help augment their existing product line is, is usually a sort of death sentence for many of these big companies,…”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 13:00 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Opinion
Einstein: Jawbone failed to match Fitbit due to unfocused brand positioning
“Jawbone really built a horizontal, you know, Bluetooth business, right? So all their products have Bluetooth, they build speakers, they have headsets, they have they have the up tracker, the, you know, the sort of Fitbit clone. Fitbit is laser focused on a bra…”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 18:53 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Hardware startups fail due to founder inexperience, not inherent difficulty
“And so the big, Problem with hardware being quote unquote hard is, is not the inherent nature of hardware. It's the fact that most people that are in the startup community have never done it before. And so they don't know what to look for when they're trying t…”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 5:01 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Opinion
Einstein: Crowdfunding and 3D printing are minor drivers of hardware boom
“The press loves to call attention to, I think these sort of sexy, cool trends things like crowdfunding and three printing and that kind of stuff, which I actually, I think is actually a very small part of the story.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 5:42 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Growing hardware startups must focus on supply chain over manufacturing
“Really what actually happens with most hardware companies now, their core focus as they grow is actually less about hardcore manufacturing and molding and quality control. And it's more about gaining expertise in your own supply chain.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 7:47 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Hardware is a Trojan horse for software in new environments
“So really hardware is this really great Trojan horse to get software into places that it can't currently exist.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 11:29 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Assertion Supported
Einstein: Dropcam achieved a 35% attach rate on its $10/month subscription
“And then they, you know, I think Dropcam had about a 35% tax rate on a 10 dollar a month service.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 13:45 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Contract manufacturing benefits far outweigh supply chain friction
“The cost benefit analysis of not having to deal with, you know, hiring and firing workers and people stealing stuff and you know, all the capex you need in order to build it and yada, yada, yada is totally worth it. Versus the supply chain management issues th…”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 7:30 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Einstein: Hardware-enabled services will yield the most consumer hardware devices
“There's a category, which is probably the most interesting and we'll see the most devices, especially in the consumer space, which we call sort of hardware enabled services.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 16:12 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Hardware products must be designed around recurring revenue strategy
“You redesigned a product based on how you're going to monetize its recurring revenue going forward.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 17:21 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Brand is the most critical element for consumer hardware companies
“Yeah, a hundred percent agree with you when it comes to consumer products, that brand is, it's actually the most important thing. And it's a little bit of a red herring because brand encompasses so much of what a company is. You know, it's really, I think peop…”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 17:57 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Early hardware prototyping should prioritize speed over quality
“Always build more build more than you ever think. Definitely caring less about quality and more about speed, and especially in the beginning and using those prototypes to actually talk to humans about how they would use them which is a very important part of p…”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 23:03 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Insight
Einstein: Debt terms with manufacturers determine consumer hardware success
“Having good lines of credit and credit terms with your manufacturing partners is, can be the difference between success and failure for many, Consumer hardware companies.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 23:37 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Einstein: Young VCs wait seven to ten years for objective feedback
“And we basically get no objective feedback as a young VC for, you know, seven to 10 years.”
Ben Einstein Aug 17, 2016 ▶ 24:36 20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Everything Is Hard" with Ben Einstein, Founder & General Partner @ Bolt VC

The other half of the tape: Ben Einstein's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011112016episodesmentions
0112016episodes it came up in
000.50.5112016episodesmentions per episode
2016 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Why Hardware Is Actually Software Wrapped In Plastic & "Of Course Hardware Is Hard, Aug 17, 2016 20m
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