David Beirne, every mention

Benchmark Part I · Acquired Sep 28, 2022 · 22 mentions

• ▶ 57:01 David Rosenthal They recruit the number one executive recruiter in all of Silicon Valley and technology, David Byrne from Ramsey Byrne and Associates.
• ▶ 57:26 David Rosenthal You can say many, many, many things about Dave, but you could never say that he doesn't have swagger and that he's not a hustler.
• ▶ 57:33 David Rosenthal So kind of like Bob, Dave also grew up pretty hard scrabble.
• ▶ 58:14 David Rosenthal Dave starts cold calling them and saying, we're Ramsey Byrne, the leading executive search firm in high technology.
• ▶ 58:50 David Rosenthal Dave gets his big break, and he gets through to John Doran.
• ▶ 59:26 David Rosenthal So David ends up doing the CEO searches for Netscape.
• ▶ 59:58 David Rosenthal I think Bruce flies out to Westchester and convinces Dave to leave all this behind.
• ▶ 1:00:10 David Rosenthal Yes, and the Benchmark partners convince him to come out and try his hand being an actual VC and to join Benchmark, and I'm sure they're thinking, and this is what plays out, they need a shot in the arm here for this firm, and boy is Dave…
• ▶ 1:00:28 David Rosenthal So I couldn't a hundred percent prove this, but I believe Dave's first deal is Webvan.
• ▶ 1:01:30 David Rosenthal So David Byrne arrived at Benchmark with ambitions to contribute to the partnership fast in any way he could.
• ▶ 1:02:02 David Rosenthal Well, shit, Bruce Dunleavy said when Dave told him his idea as the two sat in Dunleavy's office.
• ▶ 1:02:15 David Rosenthal He tossed it to Bern, explaining that he and the other partners lacked the balls to do it.
• ▶ 1:02:21 David Rosenthal Would Bern be willing to be the guy?
• ▶ 1:05:00 David Rosenthal And the benchmark partnership as a whole, but I think especially the, um, original four benchmark partners were the ones really pushing David to push Louie.
• ▶ 1:05:11 David Rosenthal David totally falls in love with Louie.
• ▶ 1:05:16 Ben Gilbert And it did feel like this was the sell to Dave.
• ▶ 1:06:20 David Rosenthal Moritz and Byrne join the board.
• ▶ 1:16:57 David Rosenthal Then they bring David in and David's like, I can bring in the management team.
• ▶ 1:22:36 David Rosenthal In September 1998, just a little over a year later, by which point in time the company, and with Benchmark and David Byrne, highly involved, has recruited Meg Whitman, the superstar Meg Whitman from Hasbro and
• ▶ 1:54:03 David Rosenthal Because David Byrne sort of was this, but like, it was sort of part of almost a, a reset.
• ▶ 2:02:01 David Rosenthal So when you do this, and they've done this before, of course, with David Byrne, but it was different.
• ▶ 2:31:43 David Rosenthal David Byrne and Andy Ratcliffe, and they had brought on another GP during that period, Alex Balkansky, in the 2005, 2006 fund they raised then, they all step back and they don't take tail economics, meaning they're out of the management…