Opinion certainty 5/5 debate potential 5/5

Pishevar names Benchmark as the most overhyped VC firm

Shervin Pishevar · Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jan 13, 2025 · at 1:19:57

Shervin Pishevar, who famously clashed with Benchmark during the board battle over Travis Kalanick's ouster from Uber, names Benchmark when asked which fund is most overhyped.

0:00 / 0:06
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Benchmark.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Shervin Pishevar

Opinion
Pishevar: Bill Gurley was the wrong VC on Uber's board
“We had the wrong venture capitalists on the board. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it was Bill Gurley at Benchmark.”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 0:17 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Pishevar: Bill Gurley hired PIs and met weekly to oust Travis Kalanick
“We found out in our investigation that he hired Some private investigators had weekly meetings about how do we get rid of Travis.”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 0:24 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Pishevar: Benchmark Hired Private Investigators Against Naval Ravikant
“There's a history of VCs who have done this type of thing and in Benchmark's case, they did it against Naval. They hired private investigators and Naval Ravikant. He had a company called eGroups, and he got thrown out of it.”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 57:39 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Pishevar: Fusion GPS gave a fake police report to Fast Company
“We found out an investigation that two weeks after I won the case founding Partner of Fusion GPS was sitting at a cafe in DC with a reporter from Fast Company with a memory stick and a fake police report from London about me. And they gave it to the reporter.”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 44:23 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
What-if
Pishevar: Uber would be worth $1T if Travis Kalanick stayed
“I believe if Travis and Emil had stayed at Uber, Uber would be a trillion-dollar company by now.”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 48:33 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Pishevar: Holder's investigation report found no personal wrongdoing by Kalanick
“And the report, by the way, didn't find anything wrong that, you know, Travis did, or I did, or there was nothing, nothing in there about, you know, him, you know, directly and the recommendation was like to go hire a Sheryl Sandberg, like a chief operating of…”
Shervin Pishevar Jan 13, 2025 ▶ 39:29 Shervin Pishevar: What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | E1245 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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.