Benchmark, every mention
443 scenes (2022), the whole family · ← back to Benchmark
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every year 2022 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
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.
- ▶ 57:43 Ben Gilbert So this is a question or are we just selling for benchmarks?
- ▶ 59:36 Ben Gilbert And if I had to sort of summarize why benchmark works, it seems like every, all the trade-offs are actually just thought through very clearly and tried to align them all so they sort of like, um, uh, they play well, amplify each other…
- ▶ 1:02:05 David Rosenthal oh, I'm not gonna call, I've got these other firms calling me, that's great, I'm gonna go with, but like, am I gonna call Benchmark?
- ▶ 1:04:24 Peter Fenton And the last two or three investments I've made were an example of the following, which is that there's, there was an angel in the ecosystem who saw a deal going down and they said, you know, you probably should talk to benchmark.
- ▶ 1:06:41 Ben Gilbert We were just at their office in San Francisco, actually right before we went to Benchmark and, uh, met with Wasim and got to get a little tour of, uh, everything going on at Pilot HQ right now, and, uh, they're just executing really well.
- ▶ 1:09:09 Chetan Puttagunta Um, I was sharing this note internally, which was that I found that a hundred percent of the investments that I've made as a benchmark partner were all sent to us
- ▶ 1:15:15 Ben Gilbert As you're evaluating mutual fit on an investment between the entrepreneur and benchmark,
- ▶ 1:15:36 Ben Gilbert It seems to me benchmark has shifted to become much more analytical over time.
- ▶ 1:18:47 David Rosenthal 10 years ago, Benchmark was making commitments when there was
- ▶ 1:23:18 Peter Fenton So, um, I do remember one attempt at a portfolio review a while back, and it was like the apex of failure at benchmark, and, you know, I think I have one of those in my portfolio now.
- ▶ 1:26:01 Peter Fenton As an LPM benchmark, I don't like, you know, there's a limit to where you're gonna take this idea.
- ▶ 1:27:11 David Rosenthal Benchmark.
- ▶ 1:28:56 David Rosenthal Oh, the Benchmark website.
- ▶ 1:30:01 David Rosenthal but, but, but literally that seems to be the model of like serve on a board with a benchmark partner.
- ▶ 1:30:33 Eric Vishria Um, you know, I think the story with Peter is like, he was repeatedly showing up competing for investments that benchmark before he was here.
- ▶ 1:32:01 Peter Fenton Would be benchmark.
- ▶ 1:32:12 Peter Fenton I, I left Stanford Business School embarrassed that I went there maybe at some level, um, and I, and I dreamed about getting a job at Benchmark, and Bruce canceled his meeting with me, and then I waited, and then, you know, another time he…
- ▶ 1:33:06 Peter Fenton And, you know, I said, what does that say about benchmark?
- ▶ 1:34:57 Peter Fenton So to get close to benchmark, get close to extraordinary.
- ▶ 1:36:49 Eric Vishria It didn't, it didn't, it wasn't intentional, um, at least for the part, when I joined Benchmark in 2014, at the end of the Fab Four era, or at the whatever, um, as, as you called it, um, you know, the partnership, the four, were…
- ▶ 1:38:06 Eric Vishria And I think this is just a, a big element of benchmark overall, which is the entrepreneurs lead the way and the markets lead the way.
- ▶ 1:39:33 Peter Fenton The issue that you're seeing at Benchmark today is sort of a question of, like, where's the equity value been created?
- ▶ 1:40:36 Peter Fenton We got Kohler to join the firm at the, still the beginning quarter of the social and the social over.
- ▶ 1:43:33 Chetan Puttagunta How many success stories are there in Venture, and even through Benchmark's history, of that market was dead, that market is done.
- ▶ 1:50:53 Chetan Puttagunta And then they were like, oh, we're both at benchmark exploring ideas.
- ▶ 1:52:14 Ben Gilbert And on the other hand, it's kind of the point of Benchmark that, like, it actually is just about you as humans and not about this, like, institution and strategy.
- ▶ 1:55:06 Peter Fenton Like if benchmark's anything, it's that we're available, we're flat, there's no arrogance, and it's, uh, you guys got to the central core of that, and that comes now really from Bob's history, and you know, they say this about our…
- ▶ 1:55:46 Peter Fenton To fuck up the benchmark culture, and we haven't done it yet, but we're trying.
- ▶ 1:56:26 David Rosenthal Thank you to the Benchmark Partnership, too, for inviting us doing this.
- ▶ 1:56:35 David Rosenthal They were great.
- ▶ 1:58:28 Ben Gilbert With that, listeners, thank you, or thanks to the very good people at Benchmark, and, uh, we'll see you next time.
ACQ Sessions: Jason Calacanis · Acquired
- ▶ 1:55:43 David Rosenthal We just did Benchmark.
- ▶ 1:55:46 Ben Gilbert The Fab Four era of Benchmark.
- ▶ 1:55:47 David Rosenthal The Fab Four era of Benchmark was truly something special.
- ▶ 1:55:55 Jason Calacanis It's, it's going to be Sequoia, Kleiner, Benchmark,
- ▶ 1:58:06 David Rosenthal August Capital, Benchmark Capital, Shasta Capital, all in this same building, and I think there's some space for rent in there.
- ▶ 2:02:22 Jason Calacanis I think, I don't think it's going to
- ▶ 2:02:26 Jason Calacanis I think in the arc, it will not be comparable to benchmark at Sequoia.
- ▶ 2:02:45 David Rosenthal I mean, having just done this benchmark episode, like the benchmark fund seven, one of, if not the best institutional size fund of all time.
Benchmark Part I · Acquired
- ▶ 0:15 Ben Gilbert It's a very anti-benchmark approach we're taking to this episode.
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