Peter Reinhardt

Co-founder and CEO, Charm Industrial · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveinvestor@reinpk ↗LinkedIn ↗rein.pk ↗

Peter Reinhardt is the co-founder and former CEO of customer data platform Segment, which was acquired by Twilio for $3.2 billion in 2020. He currently serves as the co-founder and CEO of Charm Industrial, a carbon dioxide removal and clean-tech company.

13statements → 4claims → 4claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 3.92/5average certainty → 2.15/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 17said about them ↓

2 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

4 assertions · 1 opinion · 8 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved. 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 Peter 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

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson spent 18 months convincing Reinhardt to sell

“No, you know, it took Jeff about 18 months to convince me that it was the right thing to do.”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 19:26 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

50% certainty 4

83% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

259 words/min while actually speaking · 0.9 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Peter Reinhardt: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 24 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,284 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Peter Reinhardt is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. 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 75%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 25:40“Is that a sales process or is that customer discovery?” ▶ 16:34“How do you determine the information and advice to ingest versus which to reject?” ▶ 12:04“How do you prevent your mind actively jumping from a limited set of data points to a narrative that's fully baked out?”

when Peter pushed back ▶ 10:03“I think there's actually a little bit of a misnomer there that listening is somehow passive.” ▶ 15:10“I think I would describe it slightly differently. I think most problems actually have fairly obvious solutions if you have the necessary information in front of you.”

What they said13 What others said17 Episodes1

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

Opinion

The Airbnb myth of persisting without product-market fit is destructive

“Yeah, I think one of the most destructive myths in Silicon Valley is the Airbnb story and myth, because the story is basically that they hung on and didn't have product market fit, and then just eventually things started going well, and they didn't really chan…”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 6:19 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Founders must set aside their vision until they understand market demand

“But for the most part, like the world honestly couldn't care less what your vision is. It just doesn't care. And a business is about solving other people's problems. I think it's actually super important to set aside a vision until you actually understand what…”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 6:49 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Executives lacking humility have peaked in capacity and must be replaced

“I think if someone lacks humility, at least on some of those dimensions, yeah, they're not going to grow, so they're stagnant in their capacity, whatever that is. So to me, it's a huge warning sign, actually. If there's someone in the company or one of my dire…”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 18:38 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Assertion Supported

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson spent 18 months convincing Reinhardt to sell

“No, you know, it took Jeff about 18 months to convince me that it was the right thing to do.”

Insight

Startup acquisitions trigger an intense emotional rollercoaster of grief and relief

“An acquisition is a mix of every emotion, and then the question is, I mean, like literally, like you feel relief, you feel excitement, you feel sadness, you feel loss, like significant loss because you are losing control. Like every emotion under the sun I fel…”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 23:14 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Assertion Partly supported

Charm Industrial is now the world's largest carbon removal operator

“I helped start a company called Charm Industrial that is actually now the world's largest carbon removal operator, and so I hope we can get it to a gigaton of CO₂ per year kind of scale.”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 24:28 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Assertion Partly supported

Codecademy launched three days before YC Demo Day after 12 pivots

“They started and killed, like, 12 ideas over the course of Y Combinator, and then three days before Demo Day launched Codecademy, and got to 300 and something thousand signups in the 72 hours before they presented at Demo Day.”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 5:50 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Depth-first research builds superior mental models faster than surface learning

“I guess the way I approach things is very depth first. I think using a narrow curiosity to maximum benefit to just go insanely deep, In an area. So like, for example, if I have a meeting on diversity, equity, and inclusion, I'll go try to like read a few piece…”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 7:36 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Evaluate unfamiliar roles via output metrics or aggressive deep-dive learning

“Yeah, one way is to black box it and basically say, what is the outcome of great marketing? What's the outcome of great engineering? And measure the black box and not bother to inspect inside as to whether the box isn't, like, being done well internally, right…”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 8:49 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Reacting emotionally to unverified narratives causes major organizational errors

“Basically what happens is most people get a few facts, construct a narrative, and then respond emotionally to the narrative as opposed to the facts. And when you respond emotionally to the narrative or try to make a decision based on the narrative is when you …”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 12:53 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Treating stretch goals like baseline targets severely damages team morale

“Like, if someone sets a stretch goal and you hold them accountable as if it was a table stakes, I think you have to have some intuition and balance for the emotional aspect of what really was behind the written goal.”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 22:45 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Assertion Supported

Segment's Hacker News launch drove thousands of GitHub stars and signups

“We just went straight to the top of Hacker News, got hundreds of upvotes, thousands of stars on GitHub, thousands of email signups.”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 4:53 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

Insight

Deconstruct recent achievements to interview candidates for problem-solving speed

“Usually it's about asking one what the most impressive thing is that they have done recently, and then working back into their process for how it is that they figured out that that was the right thing to work on and how they figured out what the solution was.”

Peter Reinhardt Apr 22, 2021 ▶ 16:08 20VC: Segment Founder Peter Reinhardt on His Learning Process, How Great Leaders Listen and Encourage Debate within Their Organisation & How To Use Data Intelligently To Improve Decision-Making

The other half of the tape: Peter Reinhardt's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 16 times in 9 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Zhenya Loginov 4 Harry Stebbings 3 Pat Grady 2 Jack Altman 2 Ali Rowghani 2 Kevin Niparko 1 Jordan Van Horn 1 Joe Thomas 1

Statements about Peter Reinhardt, by other people (1)

Disclosure

Grady: Passing on Segment and Revolut Series A rounds were terrible mistakes

“I met both of them at the Series A, and both of them told me the entire story in like five or 10 minutes. And it was super clear. And at the end of the five or 10 minutes, I couldn't think of any questions to ask because they had already answered any question …”

Pat Grady Jul 8, 2024 ▶ 21:49 Pat Grady: Sequoia Partner on Investing Lessons from Doug Leone, Roelof Botha and Alfred Lin | E1174 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings