Fenton: Every 2–3 years a $100B company is founded regardless of cycles
Peter Fenton · Benchmark Part II: The Dinner · Acquired · Oct 17, 2022 · at 46:45
Benchmark GP Peter Fenton discusses early-stage market dynamics and why market cycles do not alter the cadence of generational company formation.
0:00 / 0:14exact quote · 14.2s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We have faith that every year, some number above zero companies will be founded that are going to be worth more than ten billion dollars, and then about every two or three years, a company's going to be found out it's going to be worth more than a hundred billion, and it seems to be independent of the cycle.”
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 Peter Fenton
Fenton: Late-stage investing dilutes venture fund return multiples
“If we start, all we're doing, we're investing more money in late stages. We're lowering our returns. That's all we're doing because our commitment is fixed. It's not like we're going to be more committed. So we're, you could say we're getting more cash on cash…”
Fenton: Benchmark probably won't be around in 30 years
“Benchmark probably isn't going to be around in 30 years.”
Fenton: Docker's valuation plummeted from $1.5B to zero, stranding Benchmark
“So last time I did an all hands meeting at Docker was three years ago, and there were 60 employees that, that we'd spun out of the prior company, and the valuation was zero. So we'd gone from over a 1,000,000,004, 1,000,005 to zero, and I was working with some…”
Fenton: A VC's true customer is the founder's purpose, not the founder
“Our customer isn't, it's not the founder. We say it is, but it's really the purpose of the founder, and it turns out that purpose, if that's the customer, One of us may be deviating from that, and we can keep each other accountable, and that happens internally…”