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Spencer Lazar

Co-Founder and CEO, Apply Stickers · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounderexecutive@slazar ↗LinkedIn ↗slazar.com ↗

Spencer Lazar is the co-founder and CEO of Apply Stickers. Previously, he was a partner at General Catalyst and an investor at Accel and Insight Venture Partners.

10statements → 7claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 4.1/5average certainty → 1.9/5average debate potential → 4.3/5argument clarity · the sources → 13said about them ↓

4 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 insight · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are 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 Spencer 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
Lightspeed's Snapchat Investment Originated From a Partner's Daughter Using the App
“I think it was at light speed, I think, where one of the partner's daughters was on Snapchat permanently, and he was asking her what it was, and that stemmed their investment.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 6:59 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
83% certainty 4
100% 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

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

4.3 / 5 directness 4.7 · coherence 4.6 · precision 4.2 · compression 3.6

redirected or did not address 1 of 17 assessed questions (6%). Watch them ▸

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? →

226 words/min while actually speaking · 86.4 um and uh per 1k words

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,426 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 ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10
setup questions received 75%

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

Assertion Supported
Lightspeed's Snapchat Investment Originated From a Partner's Daughter Using the App
“I think it was at light speed, I think, where one of the partner's daughters was on Snapchat permanently, and he was asking her what it was, and that stemmed their investment.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 6:59 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Prediction Held up
Spencer Lazar Refuses to Invest in Solo Founders
“I definitely am not interested in solo founders.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 11:04 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Prediction Partly held up
Spencer Lazar Predicted the First Apple Watch Would Fail
“So current version Not gonna fly, but very confident about future versions, including a front-facing camera, glucometer, you know, some form of mobile connectivity data connectivity, local processing, all those things I think if they're in place, it has a lot …”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 24:37 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Assertion Supported
Insight Venture Partners Recruited College Grads Exclusively for Deal Sourcing
“Insight Venture Partners who had a very particular model for how they built their sourcing team or their sort of deal origination team, if you will, which is that they basically recruited kids exclusively out of college from you know, somewhat notable schools …”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 2:27 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Insight
Storytelling Across Sales, Fundraising, and Recruiting Defines a Great CEO
“Storytelling is sales, storytelling is fundraising, storytelling is recruiting. Those are the things, the key things that a great CEO does, and you really have to do that well.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 11:39 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Spencer Lazar Predicted Edtech Returns and Demand Would Shift Significantly Upward
“I think the tide is really shifting and it's going to shift significantly.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 13:57 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Opinion
Campus Job Built Student Brand Equity Where LinkedIn Fell Short
“The company has really created a brand at A place in the hiring market where LinkedIn doesn't have a huge brand yet and we believe that the first job that, the first jobs even, that a student or a kid gets are really emotional and a powerful place to build a b…”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 25:32 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Assertion Supported
Insight Partners Employed 30 People on Its Junior Team in 2015
“Today, Insight has 30 people on their junior team.”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 5:58 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Peter Boyce Drove General Catalyst Deal Flow by Organizing Student Entrepreneurs
“And that's what my colleague Peter Boyce did who now works at GC and was really an organizer of young talent, young entrepreneurial energy, and you know, has really been a huge driving force of value for our firm because he's brought a lot of that with him and…”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 8:29 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners
Disclosure
General Catalyst Had Only Made One VR Investment by Mid-2015
“VR is not a place where we have made a ton of investments yet as a firm. We have one investment on the West Coast,”
Spencer Lazar Jun 29, 2015 ▶ 19:21 20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners

The other half of the tape: Spencer Lazar's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 13 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 12Adam Leibsohn 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
005110120152016episodesmentions
01120152016episodes it came up in
0050.510120152016episodesmentions per episode
2016 9 mentions in 1 episode
2015 4 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20 VC 049: VC is Getting Younger with Spencer Lazar @ General Catalyst Partners Jun 29, 2015 20m
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