Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Lazarte: Board members should amplify founder ambition, not focus on governance

Victor Lazarte · Benchmark GP, Victor Lazarte: The 3 Traits All the Best Founders Have · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Apr 14, 2025 · at 58:05

Benchmark General Partner Victor Lazarte contrasts legacy board oversight with modern venture capital board membership focused on upside maximization.

0:00 / 0:35exact quote · 35.1s
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“It turns out that it's more important to, like, maximize the upside than it is to manage your losses, right? So, and the way this changes the role of a board member is, you're not that concerned, it's like, oh, like, some of your investments, like, are gonna lose money, and, like, your role is not governance, like, your role is not there to say, hey, like, founder, like, you can do this, or you can, no, no. Your role is to, like, maximize what the founder wants to do. So it goes from, like, oversight to, like, catalyzing, like, to amplifying the founder's ambition.”

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