Byron Deeter
Partner, Bessemer Venture PartnersBytes · Investor, Bessemer Venture Partners. On 3 shows, 11 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
He is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners focusing on SaaS investments. He has led investments in companies including ServiceTitan, Twilio, Box, DocuSign, and SendGrid.
3shows
11appearances
195statements
76resolved
63supported
6contradicted
83%fully supported
106said about them ↓ Everything Byron Deeter said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Deeter: Bessemer is evaluating nuclear fusion investments accelerated by AI
“We're looking at, you know, fusion investments now that I think will be supported and accelerated by AI.”
Deeter: Marketing and Sales Matter Less in the AI Economy Than PLG
“Marketing and sales have less of a role in this new economy than they did before, and that these products in many ways are selling themselves, and product-led growth and innovation is the unlock for This, you know, supernova and shooting star aspirational grow…”
Deeter: Mark Leslie's Sales Learning Curve Model Is Obsolete in AI
“The sales learning curve that Mark Leslie talks about when we backed him, you know, decades ago in Veritas is no longer applicable because you just can't possibly throw the bodies at a zero to 100 growth curve inside of two years.”
Deeter: Passed on Tesla Over Roadster Unit Economics
“One of the most famous and most painful for me was Tesla early on. It's on my anti-portfolio. If you go to the Bessemer website, we have a page dedicated to our screw ups, and that's one of mine. And it was because I couldn't fundamentally see how the unit eco…”
Deeter: Secondary liquidity for venture investors is healthy as companies stay private longer
“This is a change in my view. I'll confess that I was pretty hard lined against this, not for founders and teams. I always feel that taking some pressure off of them is good, but I didn't love it when our co-investors were looking for liquidity. Early in busine…”
Bessemer Cloud 100 List Reaches $1 Trillion Aggregate Private Value
“We're over a trillion dollars In private market cap now among just the top 100 cloud AI companies right now which is just a astronomical number to consider.”
Deeter: Bessemer created 'Century Team' to re-underwrite top portfolio companies
“And we've actually added people and processes to make sure that we don't get subject to this kind of mental inertia where we invite in, you know, another partner to look at it and our best deals were constantly saying, You know, okay, we have the century team,…”
Bessemer unlikely to pursue evergreen structures or asset management roll-ups
“We're seeing, you know, other firms adding asset management businesses and debt products and roll-ups and doing all sorts of things. You know, there's some kernels in there that we agree with. There's a lot in there we probably aren't going to pursue.”
Deeter: Canva and other private cloud companies will cross $1B ARR
“There are private cloud companies that now have line of sight, or in Canva's case and a few others, will be crossing the billion dollar ARR mark while still private.”
Tech Incumbents Face an Incumbent Disadvantage Against Lean Startups
“When realizing that this notion of an incumbent advantage, I firmly believe now is an incumbent disadvantage. It is really hard to beat a focused, you know, lean team with their head down going after a problem set.”
Shopify Remains One of Stripe's Largest Customers Instead of Building In-House
“They're certainly one of Stripe's largest customers, if not the largest, and yet it's a great relationship. And at any point, of course, Shopify could have brought that in house.”
New Communication Channels Layer on Older Ones Rather Than Replacing Them
“What you find is that these new channels don't replace each other. So Video and push notifications and things. They don't replace SMS, so you don't have the situation where the SMS market plateaus, or the email market with the synchronization, you know, where …”
Hiring a Big-Company CRO Too Early Disadvantages Early-Stage Startups
“And so hiring the big company CRO at that point is not only overkill, but it probably sets you up at a disadvantage because they're going to be disconnected. They're going to be layering in other execs. They're going to be working on process when really you ne…”
Venture Capital Will Bifurcate Into Regional Seed Firms and Global Platforms
“I do believe that the world is going to skew to a bimodal curve where there's going to be Super stage or regional firms. I put you in that bucket where you are going to be a fantastic early stage European partner for seed stage firms, and we look forward to co…”
Cloud Companies Will Absorb Multiple Compression Through Strong Revenue Growth
“These companies are growing at north of 40% on the public side, and on the private side, usually growing 80 to a hundred percent plus for the best companies, and so you can absorb some multiple compression and still compound value and be a win for everyone inv…”
Twilio Built Software Layers to Avoid Becoming a Commoditized Infrastructure Pipe
“The commoditization of communications or the migration of their larger customers. So I think you asked a very insightful question along the way, which I probably didn't give enough due to, which is we worried about that very heavily. And so part of our Preempt…”
Deeter: Cloud will become dominant delivery model for all software in 3 years
“And we do believe that within the next three years, cloud will become the dominant delivery model for all of software in this enabled cloud first world.”
Deeter: Startups with fundraising momentum should prioritize speed over greed
“If you've got discussions underway and enough momentum to complete it, hit it hard and try to like finish immediately. And don't worry about optimizing price or valuation or terms bluntly, just get it done and think of that as speed over greed.”
Deeter: Investors will treat downturn quarters as a wash for funded startups
“The other thing though, for those of you operating businesses that are already funded and are thinking through plans is that you're going to get a hall pass on the next few quarters in, in terms of the numbers. Now that doesn't help you if you're in a fundrais…”
Deeter: The 2020 market crash is the fastest 30% decline in history
“This by contrast is the fastest 30% plus decline by the broad market in history. I mean, this beats the great depression, the oh, wait, the dot com, et cetera.”
Deeter: Bessemer takes zero courtesy meetings during downturn
“So we are taking no courtesy meetings right now or over the next several weeks. Any meeting we take, we legitimately think is interesting and could be an investment full stop.”
Deeter: Tech M&A will be extremely active and outpace IPOs in 2020
“I think the M&A market is going to be extremely active later this year and open much more aggressively than the IPO market will.”
Bessemer data shows tech foundings are evenly spread while exits cluster
“And we've actually empirically modeled this. If you look at founding dates of the great companies that we think of across tech, and it's amazingly even across cycles, what you tend to see those that exits do cluster.”
The other half of the tape: Byron Deeter's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 101 times in 39 episodes across the shows. 5 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 30Jason Lemkin 26Ara Mahdessian 23David Cohen 3Anna Khan 3Rachel Carlson 2Hans Tung 2Tooey Courtemanche 1
Statements about Byron Deeter, by other people (5)
Lemkin: An active VC can lead at most five investments simultaneously
“How many active investments can you be number one in? And it might be five. Like the traditional, the old school metric for board seats was, it was supposed to be 10, ok, but when you started to run the place, it would be 20. Ok, if you go back and talk, when …”
Rathmann refused Zoom partner meetings with Bessemer and Coatue
“Byron would tell you, and I think Thomas from KOTU as well as, you know, as we were going through the partner meeting process, it was, you know, they're sending a zoom link over and saying, Hey, you know, just zoom in at this time. And that'll be that. And I s…”
Deeter has 14 billion-dollar investments including eight IPOs
“14 won four of Byron's investments are valued above one billion dollars, including eight IPOs and counting.”
Major telecom carriers launched API side projects during Twilio's early years
“And actually it's during the period of time Byron was talking about almost every major carrier did have an API program, believe it or not, but it were like small side project.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 87
the Official SaaStr Podcast 14
2026 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- Anthropic's Raise & What It Means for Potential IPO? Mag7: Google & Amazon Up, Meta & Microsoft Down · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Will Open-Source Threaten Anthropic's Business & Do Margins Matter in a World of AI | Matt Murphy
- How Agents Will Steal Your Customers. Plus: The $10K App Our Agent Replaced and the $14 Migration
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 13 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
- Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Peter Thiel and Softbank Sell NVIDIA - Why? & Why VC Will Hit $1TRN and The Opening of Retail · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- The Impact of H1B Visas on Startups in the US & NVIDIA Invests $100BN Into OpenAI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- What Happens When AI Kills Your SaaS Growth? Live Q&A with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin
- OpenAI’s $10BN Secondary Sale, Ramp Hits $1BN ARR & Brex Hits $700M · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- From Startup to $11B: ServiceTitan's CRO Breaks Down Their Sales Playbook
- AI, M&A, and the Future of SaaS: Lessons from Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, Co-Founder and Chair
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
2024 31 mentions in 4 episodes 8 per episode
- Ara Mahdessian: ServiceTitan Would Not Be the Success if We Raised VC Earlier | E1175 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Advice Every SaaS Founder Needs to Know to Scale to $100m with Sam Blond and Jason Lemkin
- Adam Fisher: Why Small Markets are Better Than Big Markets | E1106 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jason Lemkin: Predictions for 2024 - What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups? | E1099 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 17 mentions in 10 episodes 2 per episode
- Jason Lemkin & Rick Zullo: How "Mark to Market" Corrupted Venture Capital | E1052 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jason Lemkin: Every VC has a FRAUD in their portfolio; The IPO market is about to EXPLODE | E1046 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- What SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin Really Thinks About AI, Sales & Lead Gen In 2024
- DEBATE: State of Seed Investing w/ Jason Lemkin, Sam Lessin, Frank Rotman & Harry Stebbings | E1047 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Is AI the Only Thing in SaaS that Anyone Cares About Anymore? AMA Part 1 w/ SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin
- Tooey Courtemanche: From Construction Worker to Billionaire CEO | E1090 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Scott Farquhar: Founding Atlassian; How We Scaled to a $50B Valuation; The 4 Jobs of a CEO | E1070 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Is the VC Model Broken? Jason Lemkin, Mike Maples, Eric Paley & Harry Stebbings Debate | E1062 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 2 more episodes that year, every mention in 2023 →
2022 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
- Jason Lemkin: Cold Email Tips; Why Only 15% of Founders Listen to their VCs | 20VC #954 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: Why the Traditional Seed Fund Model No Longer Works, Why Multi-Stage Funds Investing at Seed Bring Signaling Risk but also Less Pressure, The One Criteria All Potential Sales Hires Need to Have and The Clear Signs of 10x Sales Hires with Jason Lemki
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Twilio's Jeff Lawson on What It Takes To Create a Tribe, How To Create Anti-Fragile Organisations Through Decentralised Decision-Making and Why Values Are Nice But Principles Are Better
- Scaling a Successful SaaS Sales Team w/ 20VC Founder Harry Stebbings and SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin
- 20VC: Why Bundling Does Not Work, How The Best Founders Analyse Unit Economics, Why The Way We Approach Mental Health in Venture and Startups is Wrong with Nigel Morris, Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ QED Investors
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 8 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Why Few Firms Are Doing True Early Stage Investing Today, Why Founders Should Spend Time with Analysts When Raising & The Rise of Pre-Empting Rounds and How To Know When To Engage vs Wait with Anna Khan, General Partner @ CRV
- 20VC: Raising $105m in Just 13 Months Over 3 Separate Rounds, The 5 Core Ways VCs Can Add Value & How Founders Can and Should Fully Leverage Their Cap Table with Kurt Rathmann, Founder & CEO @ ScaleFactor
- How to Win the Talent War with Elisa Steele, CEO at Namely
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 12 mentions in 3 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: Guild Education's Rachel Carlson on The Benefits of Scaling Startups Outside of Silicon Valley, Why Mission and Margin Are So Tightly Integrated & Why Mums Are The Most Under-Utilised Asset In The Economy
- 20VC: Techstars Founder David Cohen on Why Seed Investing Is A Different Asset Class To Venture, What Makes The Best And The Worst Board Members & Why Every Company Has To Have A Pessimist In The Room
- 20VC: Matrix's Ilya Sukhar on How The Seed Ecosystem Could Be Optimised, Why The Bar For The Break-Out Series A Has Risen & The Art of Effective Referencing
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode
2017 6 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Bessemer's Jeremy Levine on Why We Are In A Fallow Period For Consumer, Why It Is Bogus That Operational VCs Can Add More Value & 2 Golden Rules To Always Tell Entrepreneurs Pre-Investment
- 20VC: Bessemer's Ethan Kurzweil on How To View Pattern Recognition and Deal With The Anti-Portfolio, The Next Frontier In Developer Focussed Businesses & Why eSports Is Interesting Again
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Byron's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners | 4 | 98 | 77% 23/30 | full record on 20VC → |
| SAASTRLEDGER | Partner, Bessemer Venture PartnersBytes | 6 | 82 | 89% 40/45 | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |
 MASTERS OF SCALELEDGER | Investor, Bessemer Venture Partners | 1 | 15 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Masters of Scale → |