Steve Blank

Adjunct Professor, Stanford University · 1 appearance on the record.

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academicauthorfounderoperator@sgblank ↗LinkedIn ↗steveblank.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Steve Blank is an educator and entrepreneur who developed the Customer Development methodology that helped launch the Lean Startup movement. Over his career, he worked at or co-founded eight Silicon Valley startups, including E.piphany, and authored foundational business books including The Four Steps to the Epiphany.

12statements → 2claims → 0claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 3.25/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 11said about them ↓

2 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 1 assertion · 4 opinions · 6 insights · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 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 Steve argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

252 words/min while actually speaking · 1.3 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Steve Blank: 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 5,502 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Steve Blank 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 ▾ 5/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 5/10

setup questions received 25%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 7:38“Because deal volume is barely down, pricing is barely down, public markets are Actually very high and resilient. What am I not seeing? And how do you think about this dislocation?” ▶ 8:48“How do you think about that being technology inflection point versus macroeconomic conditions, and are we different today? How do you think about that?” ▶ 30:34“I'm so interested by that one, because it's like, is the priority the fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders, or is it the moral conscious and responsibility to the improveme…”

when Steve pushed back ▶ 15:30“Yeah. Number one is business people who use that analogy. I'm not sure too many of them have been in the fight. If you lose in a wartime, it's measured and killed in action. And if…” ▶ 34:24“Yeah, so I think that theory was probably wrong when first articulated, but certainly is laughable now.”

What they said12 What others said11 Episodes1

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

Opinion

Steve Blank: The startup ecosystem is a giant Ponzi scheme

“The startup ecosystem is actually, and I mean it half facetiously, a giant Ponzi scheme.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 26:25 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Opinion

Steve Blank: Facebook is the most likely entity to destroy democracy

“But of all the things that are probably going to destroy a democracy, it happens to be Facebook.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 30:04 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Opinion

Blank: Ben Horowitz's wartime CEO analogy is flawed and inappropriate

“Business people who use that analogy. I'm not sure too many of them have been in the fight. If you lose in a wartime, it's measured and killed in action. And if you lose in business, it's maybe you lose your corner office. So I'm not sure that's the right anal…”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 15:31 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Insight

Blank: Venture-backed startups should take government PPP funds to survive

“Your job is to have your company survive, and if taking that money will do that, then for gosh sake, take the money and have the other discussions later after you're a successful company.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 23:33 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Steve Blank: Sales leaders will never allow initial in-person meetings again

“If I'm in sales, there is no possible way, or if I'm the VP of sales or CEO, if there's no possible way, I'm ever going to let a salesperson again do a first meeting in person.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 10:47 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Insight

Steve Blank: Incremental layoffs destroy employee morale and productivity

“The biggest mistake that I've seen time and again that people make is not making the cuts, but basically cutting a bit at a time, and while that seems well, we'll see how it's going, and we'll cut five percent, and then three weeks later, you realize, ah, we o…”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 21:57 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Opinion

Steve Blank: The invisible hand now picks everybody else's pockets

“The invisible hand is actually today the invisible hand of the people who have their hands in everybody else's pockets.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 35:00 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Insight

Blank: Startups search for business models while large companies execute them

“Large companies, existing companies Execute known business models, which is a fancy word for saying they know their customers, know their competitors, no pricing, no channel. They know all this stuff, but startups were doing something quite different. Startups…”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 5:07 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Steve Blank: Stock market and real economy have never been so disconnected

“There's never been a period where the economy and the stock market have been so out of sync.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 7:52 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Insight

Blank: Video calls fail because over half of meeting communication is nonverbal

“At least half, if not more, of most meetings are based on nonverbal cues that you pick up from facial expressions, from body language, from other cues that video conferencing apps just currently don't have.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 10:14 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Insight

Blank: Startup survival in a crisis depends on CEO decision speed

“What I've seen is that the companies that are going to survive and then thrive in the recovery are driven by CEOs who could assess rapidly, come up with rapid strategies, and then take action and seize the opportunities, or else you just kind of have what's go…”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 12:33 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

Insight

Steve Blank: Board duties focus on strategy over tactical details

“The board's role, I think, is, besides hiring and firing the CEO, is validating strategic direction for the company And providing some insights to the CEO that they might be missing.”

Steve Blank Jul 20, 2020 ▶ 25:42 20VC: Steve Blank on Why The Startup Ecosystem is Partially A Ponzi Scheme, 3 Things That Determine Startup Survival in a COVID World & Facebook: Platform vs Publisher and Where Does Their Responsibility Lie?

The other half of the tape: Steve Blank's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 11 times in 7 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Ann Miura-Ko 3 Mike Maples 2 Jonathan Abrams 2 Harry Stebbings 2 Marty Cagan 1 Mar Hershenson 1