The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 230 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 5 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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.”
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.”
Asparouhov: Benchmark cornered Travis Kalanick in a hotel room after mother's death
“Travis committed no crime and they, you know, sort of ousted him despite the fact that, you know, they actually didn't necessarily, you know, have the legal control to do so. They just cornered him in a hotel room, you know, two days after his mother had passe…”
Emil Michael: Benchmark Capital lost its nerve ousting Travis Kalanick from Uber
“I was taken out with Travis because benchmark capital lost their nerve.”
Tavel: Benchmark barely reserves capital for follow-on investments
“We don't think about reserves. Period. Barely. We're very oriented towards our initial investment, and in that moment, you know, we are more ownership sensitive than probably most other firms. But then after we invest, we are 100% aligned with whatever objecti…”
Emil Michael predicts Benchmark's fixed $435M fund model will fail
“That's why I think Benchmark ultimately is going to, is, has no innovation. Forget the reputation, which most entrepreneurs, if they do their deals, will find out about, but just not innovating stuck at four hundred thirty-five million for the next 10 years is…”
Lemkin: Benchmark's flat partnership model is optimized for profit, not discipline
“This is one of these things we manufacture, like how wonderful it is. Benchmark has a flat partnership. I mean, who cares, right? It's not disciplined. It's optimized to make the most money.”
Benchmark Lacks the Platform Resources of Multistage Funds
“I think Benchmark doesn't really have as many resources. Like these multistage funds have so many resources for founders.”
Randle: Benchmark missing early AI model providers was a complete failure
“No, it fucking sucks. It's terrible. It's a complete and utter failure on, on our part. And I think we, we'd all say that.”
Lemkin: Uber Leaders Are Justified in Hating Benchmark Capital
“I think the folks that hate benchmark from Uber, I think they deserve to hate benchmark.”
Randle: AI startup moats remain rooted in technology, not distribution
“I definitely disagree with that. I think the moat is still fundamentally in technology, not in, in distribution.”
Legora paused all sales for four months after $25M Series A
“I turned to Redpoint and to Benchmark, and I said, we're not going to sell for the next four months, because if we sell and we start onboarding all these great attorneys, they're not going to have the best experience. And they're going to think that the produc…”
O'Driscoll: Benchmark achieved 10% hit rate versus a16z's 2%
“Benchmark did something like 63 series A's and had a 10% hit rate across 15 years. Andreessen did a 454 series A's and had a two percent hit rate across the same period of time. Now in absolute numbers, they had 10 five billion hits and Benchmark had six.”
Green: A Benchmark-backed Silicon Valley version of SafeSend would've fetched $500M
“Had that deal, been backed by Benchmark, like Vishra or Fett, Peter Fett, and one of those guys, backed a Benchmark, doing a minority deal based in Silicon Valley, it would have been five hundred million dollars.”
Pishevar: Benchmark ousting Travis Kalanick was one of worst VC decisions ever
“I believe that it was, you know, one of the worst venture, ah, decisions ever.”
Asparouhov: Founders Fund outperformed Sequoia, a16z, and Benchmark with fewer debacles
“If I were to look over the past sort of five years, I think generally the Founders Fund decision making has led to Generally superior returns and also less gaffes in various ways, whether it's the, you know, sort of FTX type, you know, sort of fraud debacles, …”
Asparouhov: Uber would be a $1T company if Travis Kalanick remained CEO
“But perhaps those benchmark LPs would have made even more money if Travis was still CEO, And the future of self-driving cars lived within Uber rather than living within Google. And maybe Uber becomes a one trillion dollar company over the course of the 20 twen…”
Siroker: Top VC funds will break ownership minimums for hot startups
“Yeah, the best investors benchmark and recent, they will invest less than their supposed minimums for the right company.”
Gurley: Claims of Disrupting Traditional Venture Capital Have Been Proven False
“I think this whole notion that you're going to disrupt and fundamentally take over the business has just been proven false over and over again. AngelList is awesome, but it's not 20% of the industry, you know. Andreessen said, we're going to completely, you kn…”
Sandell: Benchmark would be in trouble without abundant downstream capital
“A firm like Benchmark would be frankly in real trouble if there wasn't enormous amounts of capital because they only do series A and series B deals and they hope other people are going to come along and carry their companies after them.”
Wand: Startup boards overweight top VCs' opinions based on brand, not merit
“Usually, if there is a partner from a top fund, there is a tendency to give overweight to his idea and decision point, where it's not substantiated by the merit of his idea, but just rather from the fact that he came from Sequoia, he came from Benchmark, he ca…”
Destin: Benchmark Gets Discounted Deal Pricing Due to Brand Prestige
“In fact, I bet you benchmark gets discounted pricing on most of what it does because they're benchmarked.”
Fenton: Early-stage VC returns are never determined by entry valuations
“I've never seen ever seen a venture investment from the early stage standpoint become bad because of valuations in the flip side. I've never seen one become great because of valuations going in.”
Stebbings: VR is an isolating experience that detracts from social togetherness
“I joined Mitch Lasky at Benchmarks of the World in being very anti-VR. It's some of the very best innovations of the last decade have been those that fundamentally bring people together. And VR for me is an isolated experience that detracts from a feeling of s…”
Randle: Benchmark partner says any pre-AI SaaS liquidity is top-decile performance
“There's a partner here at Benchmark that says any liquidity for pre-AI SaaS companies is top decile performance. Any liquidity at all.”
Rajaram: Benchmark made money on WeWork by investing early
“Even in V work benchmark made money. Genchmark made money at WeWork because they invested early enough.”
O'Driscoll: Small VC firms like Benchmark face higher generational transition risk
“It's harder to be someone like Benchmark, small and brilliant, and manage generational transition, which is why it's awesome that they do it, because the asset is the brains of four or five individual people.”
Randle: SaaS business models won't be as relevant over next decade
“And it's such a better intellectual exercise than trying to compare it to SAS, which is just a very, very different business. And it has a very different pricing and business model that, that isn't going to be as relevant, I think over the next 10 years.”
Randle: Benchmark does not strictly adhere to fixed 20% ownership targets
“I think sometimes people confuse the inputs for the outputs at benchmark where it's like, oh, like they have to have 20% ownership and they only want to invest at a hundred posts. All these things. And I think that's, that couldn't be further from the truth. W…”
Randle: Benchmark's top fund investments outperform all post-ChatGPT OpenAI rounds
“Out of our last fund, our five best investments in that last fund today held at LRP last round price are about a 60 X. We have two 30 X's and we have two 20 X's. Since ChatGPT was released, there isn't an open AI round that touches That return multiple and tha…”
Junestrand: Early-stage founders should trade higher dilution for top-tier VCs
“No, because I don't think I would have gotten benchmark at a 10% dilution. And I think the VC that you get in the beginning, at least as a first time founder, is quite important because you don't want to get people in your corner who are going to get you off t…”
Jason Lemkin: Benchmark is no longer in top VC conversations on X
“If you look on social media, benchmark isn't listed the way Andreessen and Sequoia was like it was a generation ago. It's just not, does it matter? Harry, Harry's built a big brand. He's concerned. It matters. You could argue both sides, but when the industry …”
Stebbings: Benchmark AI portfolio companies HeyGen, Sierra, and Fireworks hit $100M+ ARR
“McCaw over a hundred million in ARR. Hey Jen hitting a hundred million in ARR. Fireworks a hundred and forty million in ARR. Sierra with Brett Taylor over a hundred million in ARR.”
Stebbings: Benchmark led $75M round for Chinese AI startup Manus
“Manus raised seventy five million for its last valuation led by Benchmark. It's a Chinese company.”
Lazarte: Benchmark partners can do deals regardless of partnership vote outcome
“Typically, like, you bring the company in, everyone talks to the company, and then people vote, but it doesn't matter what the vote is, if you really want to do it, you can do it.”
Lazarte: Benchmark doubles board meetings for struggling startups instead of walking away
“A lot of venture capitalists would say, hey, like, just cut it loose, you know, like, forget about this thing. It's like, we should double the frequency of the board meetings. It's like, oh, okay. And it's because we're here for as long as the founder wants to…”
Lazarte: Ten trillion-dollar companies will be created in the next decade
“There's going to be 10 trillion dollar companies created in the next decade.”
Benchmark sued Travis Kalanick in Delaware court over Uber board seats
“About in early August They then sued in Delaware courts after they had already gotten rid of Travis. They then sued to get rid of him and his two board seats that he had gotten that he hadn't appointed yet. So three board seats. So they wanted, you know, effec…”
Delaware judge rejected Benchmark's effort to remove Uber board seats
“We make our arguments and the judge finds with us and rejects Benchmark's attempt to get rid of the three board seats.”
Vishria: Benchmark never considers portfolio construction or fund timing
“You know, I think one of the things that we maybe think about almost not at all Is almost never think about like fun cycle or fun timing or anything else. And we almost never think about or talk about portfolio construction or anything else.”
Sarah Tavel: AI enables software startups to sell completed work outcomes
“What AI enables is actually a very different unit of work that you sell, which is doing the work. And so you're almost a software company that looks like a services business. That is able to sell like the full work product that the outcome, as opposed to selli…”
Sarah Tavel: Non-seat-based AI models will disrupt traditional SaaS incumbents
“And this is very disruptive to incumbents because incumbents are used to thinking about selling per seat and pricing per seat based on the cost of the headcount. But if instead you're selling something that doesn't require a seat, that is like a very disruptiv…”
Gurley: Trying to call the market top is a VC's biggest mistake
“I think you have to invest as a venture capitalist over the cycle, like, over a 20 or thirty-year period, and the biggest mistake you could possibly make is trying to call the top, and so, unfortunately, I think, you know, have a little, I call it the Thelma a…”
Gurley: Benchmark practices stage discipline, not price discipline
“I think he's misinterpreting price discipline for stage discipline. So we have notably stayed focused on early stage investing, whereas most people have moved to multi-stage. I think that makes the impression look like that your price discipline because you're…”
Grimshaw: AI software will sell work and outcome SLAs rather than seats
“I think the way to encapsulate would be this idea of selling the work, not the software, and that we'll move from a paradigm where you might think of it as moving from what we see right now as a copilot and moving to what I think about as a control center, whe…”
Lemkin: Data shows operator VCs do not outperform professional venture investors
“I remember a few years ago, I forget whose analysis was, there was no advantage, like, to being an operators were no better than professional. That may not include pre-seed, right, or other things. But it wasn't, when I wrote this up a few years ago, that what…”