Benchmark, every mention
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every year anyone David Rosenthal 242Ben Gilbert 189Peter Fenton 25Dara Khosrowshahi 7Eric Vishria 6Chetan Puttagunta 6Mitch Lasky 3Jason Calacanis 3Brad Gerstner 3Sarah Tavel 1
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Benchmark comes up
Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire · Acquired
- ▶ 4:30:50 David Rosenthal To our friends Ravi Nandan at A-Twenty-Four, Chase Carey at Liberty Media and Fox, and to Mitch Lasky at Benchmark.
The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 4:29:34 David Rosenthal To Mitch Lasky, our friend Mitch Lasky, former partner at Benchmark, who helped me think through a whole bunch of the flywheel dynamics.
Vanguard: The communist capitalist who saved investors a trillion dollars (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 2:59:18 David Rosenthal So like the best investors in private markets think like Sequoia, Benchmark, et cetera, in the venture world, at least like, why would they ever give up their fees?
The NFL: How small-town teams became America's most valuable sports empire (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:41 Ben Gilbert The story is one of incredible cooperation, of belief in growing the pie over a century, and just like our benchmark episode, of communist capitalism at its finest.
Google Part III: The AI Company. Google is amazingly well-positioned... will they win in AI? (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 25:08 Ben Gilbert He and some, I think it was grad students, were in the process of starting a company, had term sheets from Benchmark and Sequoia.
- ▶ 2:52:17 Ben Gilbert As we talked about earlier, he does join Google through that crazy, please don't raise money from Benchmark and Sequoia and we'll just hire you instead.
- ▶ 4:05:24 Ben Gilbert Chaitan Putugunta, partner at Benchmark.
Meta (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 27:58 Ben Gilbert And Benchmark, right?
- ▶ 27:59 David Rosenthal Oh, Benchmark, too?
- ▶ 28:02 Ben Gilbert Which is what tied their hands and why they could not pursue an investment in Facebook.
- ▶ 28:19 Ben Gilbert They just, they had a competitive investment.
- ▶ 28:23 David Rosenthal I never even think about that because obviously Matt Kohler would go on to become a partner partner at Benchmark.
Renaissance Technologies (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:40:26 David Rosenthal I mean, great work if you can get it, but for context, the Sequoias, the benchmarks out there, they have obscene carry of 30%.
Hermès (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:54:56 David Rosenthal You think about a professional sports team, or, like, I think my mind goes to, like, the New England Patriots, you know, or, like, honestly, it goes to, like, Benchmark and Sequoia, like, the best venture capital firms out there.
Holiday Special 2023 (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:39:01 Ben Gilbert Benchmark's very good at that.
- ▶ 1:39:04 David Rosenthal Yes, they are.
Visa (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 3:11:33 David Rosenthal The two that jump out to me are, one, just like our NFL episode, just like our benchmark episodes, communist capitalism.
- ▶ 3:12:12 David Rosenthal Like with benchmark, it's five partners.
Nvidia Part III: The Dawn of the AI Era (2022-2023) (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 0:04 Ben Gilbert I went for the first time, what, two weeks ago, when I was down for meeting at Benchmark, and the nostalgia in there was just unbelievable.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi · Acquired
- ▶ 39:06 Dara Khosrowshahi Yeah, and also everything going on and what led to it, you know, the, the battle between Travis and Benchmark and all that stuff.
- ▶ 1:05:41 Dara Khosrowshahi Obviously Benchmark and Travis were in this power struggle, but there, there was this, um,
- ▶ 1:05:48 Dara Khosrowshahi Heavy feel like when you talk to the benchmark folks, there's this responsibility, which is this, this was one of the hits of the century.
- ▶ 1:06:03 Dara Khosrowshahi And benchmarks had a lot of good ones, but this, this one was a great one.
- ▶ 1:06:19 Dara Khosrowshahi So I think that was a very, very heavy weight, uh, on benchmark and, and some of the other startups, et cetera, which led to all events that ultimately led to like they're bringing in an unknown outsider like that.
- ▶ 1:07:27 Dara Khosrowshahi And, um, the, the issue that we had to deal with was one where Benchmark and Travis and, and the founders, they all had high vote shares.
- ▶ 1:08:58 Dara Khosrowshahi And in the end, we got everyone, including Travis, Benchmark, everyone agreed to essentially switch over high vote to low vote.
- ▶ 1:12:02 Ben Gilbert Their Series A was the next year, famously led by Benchmark, where Bill Gurley joined the board at quite the step up in valuation, sixty million dollars, so all those early angels got a ten-x even before Benchmark came in, which was…
Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins on The Art of Business in Gaming · Acquired
- ▶ 2:05 Ben Gilbert Mitch, of course, was a partner at Benchmark in the Fab Five era that we chronicled on our Benchmark episode.
- ▶ 2:18 Ben Gilbert So we are joined by Mitch and Blake Robbins, Benchmark's current principal, who has also come up on previous episodes.
- ▶ 2:47 David Rosenthal Uh, we did it at Benchmark's Woodside office at, it turns out, they have another triangle table.
- ▶ 2:54 David Rosenthal So we have now recorded acquired episodes at both of the famous Benchmark dinner tables.
- ▶ 4:16 Mitch Lasky Well, I think after I retired from benchmark a couple of years ago, retired from active investing, obviously the glide path out of venture is kind of a long glide path.
- ▶ 58:13 David Rosenthal That still must, that must have been relatively early in your career at Benchmark.
- ▶ 58:18 Mitch Lasky Um, but yeah, it was probably, uh, you know, within, within the first couple of years that I had been, that I was at Benchmark.
- ▶ 1:00:41 Mitch Lasky However, I would not have done them at benchmark.
- ▶ 2:00:22 Ben Gilbert Yeah, we're at benchmark, and I can see like, 15 founders lying outside with decks.
- ▶ 2:14:23 Ben Gilbert We got a lot of feedback on the first benchmark episode that we talked about this cool shape and you couldn't actually see it, so made sure to get that.
- ▶ 2:14:35 David Rosenthal Also, huge thank you to Mitch, to Blake, and to Benchmark for hosting us and doing this together.
Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast) · Acquired
- ▶ 2:08:51 David Senra No, what you guys said on your benchmark dinner episode, I think was, like, you know, uh, there's a few podcasters, I was having this conversation with Sam yesterday, it's like, there's a few podcasters that, like, they know what they're…
- ▶ 2:46:09 Ben Gilbert Like if LVMH, Benchmark,
Holiday Special 2022 · Acquired
- ▶ 35:45 David Rosenthal Benchmark.
- ▶ 35:47 Ben Gilbert Benchmark.
- ▶ 35:48 David Rosenthal Benchmark was super cool.
- ▶ 36:52 David Rosenthal But what we did with Benchmark, that's something that only we can uniquely do.
- ▶ 38:12 Ben Gilbert And I think like the lean into the upsides thing for us is if you're doing a super high velocity show, benchmarks probably not going to feel like you're giving them a unique spotlight in a way to do something like that.
- ▶ 39:10 David Rosenthal There's an element, in the case of the Benchmark episodes, it actually was all pre-planned in advance that we were gonna do the episode Just Us, and then we were gonna do the dinner with them.
- ▶ 41:45 David Rosenthal We talked a minute ago about trade-offs when we were talking about the benchmark two-parter.
- ▶ 47:04 David Rosenthal The benchmark dinner, although it wasn't a live public event, the amount of production effort that we had.
- ▶ 1:01:38 David Rosenthal And so thus, the subsequent episodes, Benchmark, Enron.
- ▶ 1:01:42 Ben Gilbert Like the two Benchmark episodes were both way higher than the 100,000 that we were at before Amazon.
- ▶ 1:01:56 David Rosenthal I don't think it's a reflection on, you know, the Benchmark episodes.
- ▶ 1:23:26 Ben Gilbert Like, you know, what if we had Eric Vishria just like hanging out next to you on the couch, and we weren't talking about Benchmark, but Eric was just like chiming in on a lot of this stuff and sharing his ideas.
- ▶ 1:24:01 David Rosenthal We, we, um, you know, we, oh my gosh, that was, uh, the whole benchmark career is amazing.
- ▶ 1:26:15 David Rosenthal This is becoming much like the benchmark dinner that we recorded everything, obviously, before dinner, because we didn't want to eat dinner before we went out.
Stratechery (with Ben Thompson) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:55:15 Ben Gilbert But the other great acquired merch that dropped a couple of weeks ago is the benchmark tee that in the benchmark style, of course, says there's always room at the top.
Enron · Acquired
- ▶ 3:31:21 Ben Gilbert You can also get a there is always room at the top benchmark inspired shirt at acquired.fm slash store.
Qualcomm · Acquired
- ▶ 7:07 David Rosenthal That is written and said by none other than Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital for this almost unknown book.
- ▶ 1:38:12 David Rosenthal In the year 2000, after this sale, the height of the tech bubble, you know, uh, this is like, on the benchmark episodes, we're talking about eBay, eboys, benchmarks making billions of dollars, Yahoo's going nuts, like it's the, it's the…
Benchmark Part II: The Dinner · Acquired
- ▶ 1:13 Ben Gilbert Last episode, we told the four-hour story of Benchmark, the legendary venture capital firm that stayed small while all their competitors ballooned in size.
- ▶ 1:23 Ben Gilbert At the end of the episode, we mentioned that their partner meeting had this dinner at the end of it, where the five equal partners of Benchmark sit down for an open-ended discussion, sometimes with a special guest.
- ▶ 1:36 Ben Gilbert Well, we were talking with the Benchmark partners about that last episode,
- ▶ 1:39 Ben Gilbert And they invited us to be their guest for one of these dinners, and for the first time ever, record it, even on video.
- ▶ 1:50 Ben Gilbert We got to ask them about a lot of the open questions we had about the future of balancing those out there consumer investments with their B to B portfolio, how they think about making sure that they see that next world-changing company,…
- ▶ 7:02 Peter Fenton When I joined Benchmark,
- ▶ 11:28 Chetan Puttagunta Um, you know, sort of coming from, from the outside and then being part of benchmark, like the one conversation element of everything that we do on Monday is so powerful because
- ▶ 12:32 Sarah Tavel Great perks, especially for somebody who's come from another venture firm to benchmark.
- ▶ 15:06 Chetan Puttagunta And I think you all mentioned it on your podcast, which is that when you talk to benchmark partners, it feels like we don't have some hard stop.
- ▶ 18:05 Ben Gilbert Hey, it's benchmark.
- ▶ 18:30 Chetan Puttagunta You both have investigated the venture industry so much that sort of like all the stories that are told at Benchmark are all about the group.
- ▶ 19:43 David Rosenthal Well, because it's the line that, uh, a bunch of other DPs said about benchmark when it was getting started was that's communist capitalism, and it's gonna trend, it's gonna end up like communism.
- ▶ 20:46 Eric Vishria What, what's our job at benchmark?
- ▶ 20:50 Eric Vishria Like this is, this is V three or whatever benchmark.
- ▶ 23:25 Peter Fenton You know, I'm gonna leave the firm in a better place than I joined.
- ▶ 23:52 Peter Fenton Of, it's the currency of our, of our firm.
- ▶ 23:56 Peter Fenton And if we look up towards that, we can all recognize that benchmark probably isn't going to be around in 30 years.
- ▶ 24:04 Peter Fenton And Bruce said to me, you don't need to keep me like benchmark.
- ▶ 24:12 David Rosenthal I mean, they didn't name the firm benchmark though.
- ▶ 24:47 David Rosenthal Founding a benchmark as we talked about in great detail.
- ▶ 24:49 Peter Fenton And so we want no part of this firm to become the incumbent.
- ▶ 25:07 Peter Fenton Because there's a day where you realize, I will not give to the firm more than I take, and in the case of everyone who's left this firm, and I've never seen this in the history of investing, you study all these firms, every single partner…
- ▶ 25:45 David Rosenthal One thing I'm curious, uh, what is the relationship of past benchmark partners to this group?
- ▶ 26:50 Ben Gilbert And for listeners who don't know, because I didn't know until Chathan just showed us, uh, the benchmark partners, none of you have offices.
- ▶ 36:43 Peter Fenton I think one of the words that's sort of vital to any durable founder benchmark partner relationship is vulnerability.
- ▶ 39:16 Peter Fenton Um, what was different with benchmark?
- ▶ 42:07 David Rosenthal So Peter, the story you just told of like when things are not going right, the benchmark approach, I'm actually really curious when things are going right.
- ▶ 42:37 Ben Gilbert Wasn't in response to benchmarks.
- ▶ 42:49 Ben Gilbert That was like a benchmark stayed so true to their thing.
- ▶ 42:58 David Rosenthal There's benchmark, and then there's a class of firm that actually we're making a strategic decision.
- ▶ 48:15 Peter Fenton And when it works, it sets the pace in the industry.
- ▶ 48:45 David Rosenthal If you guys had a billion dollar opportunity fund stapled to benchmark with the same team, you would for sure have good returns.
- ▶ 51:14 Eric Vishria I didn't join benchmark until 2014, so 2008.
- ▶ 52:02 Peter Fenton And the benchmark fund, of course, again, the purpose is not, we don't show up and say, let's drive returns.
- ▶ 52:27 Peter Fenton We're a toy.
- ▶ 54:01 Peter Fenton But for this, for the super majority of my investment in benchmark, I'm paying limited partner rates and management fees.
- ▶ 54:32 David Rosenthal That the longer tenure you have as a benchmark GP, the worse your economic deal gets.
- ▶ 55:14 Peter Fenton You cannot get allocation to the benchmark funds.
- ▶ 55:56 David Rosenthal I think one of the most persuasive things that we heard in our research for part one about maintaining the model is we definitely talk to entrepreneurs in the current benchmark portfolio who believe that
- ▶ 56:10 David Rosenthal Aggregate in the long run, they took less dilution by having benchmark invest and you guys not having your growth fund and having to put more money into them, uh, then they would have had you or whatever early stage firm they had taken…
- ▶ 57:03 Ben Gilbert They go out and they raise at market rates, but then there is a benchmark brand.
- ▶ 57:08 Ben Gilbert So like option C is take benchmarks money, and I think, and you guys probably are sure of this, your companies tend to go raise better series Bs at higher valuations with more certainty than your average series A funded startup.
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