Marc Lore
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Wonder Group. On 3 shows, 6 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestor@MarcLore ↗LinkedIn ↗wonder.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Marc Lore co-founded Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com, and Jet.com, leading Walmart U.S. eCommerce as President and CEO from 2016 to 2021. He currently serves as the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Wonder Group and co-owns the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx.
3shows
6appearances
104statements
14resolved
8supported
2contradicted
57%fully supported
84said about them ↓ Everything Marc Lore said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Founders only reach maximum execution when they cannot afford to lose
“It's only when you have your life on the line and you can't afford to lose can you find the sixth gear. And when you're in that sixth gear, at least for me, It's like a out-of-body experience. It is like you don't have time to worry, think, be anxious, just ha…”
VCs rejected Quidsi's $100M funding round because Amazon was targeting them
“We had only raised 50,000,055 million dollars up until that point, which was pretty modest amount of money raised compared to today's standards, but we went out and we needed another hundred million to keep all the websites going and to really blow it out. We …”
Amazon told Quidsi's team to keep competing against them post-acquisition
“Like, Amazon didn't even, when they brought us in, say, hey, we want you guys to run the mom, baby, parent category within Amazon. They said, you know what, just keep doing what you're doing. Just continue to keep competing with us.”
Jet.com reached a $1B revenue run rate within 10 months of launching
“I mean, we got to a billion people Run rate in revenue within 10 months of the business launching, which was I think probably unprecedented at the time.”
Jet.com burned roughly $40 million per month after its launch
“We were burning about forty million a month.”
Lore killed $30M in revenue and 450 trucks to pivot Wonder
“Telling the board 450 trucks on the road and thirty million in revenue. We're going to take that to zero. We're selling the trucks. We'll take revenue to zero.”
Lore: Founders must ignore sunk costs and pivot toward superior opportunities
“You have to have the mentality that you start off a startup, and you're sort of digging for silver, but you gotta be on the lookout for gold all the time, and you might just see gold, and when you see it, you gotta go for it, and it doesn't matter what egg on …”
Lore: Wonder built 20 mobile restaurant chains that cook at customer doors
“Well, we've built now 20 restaurant chains across all different cuisines, and we put it on a mobile platform so that the restaurant actually comes to you, cooks right outside your door very fast in a high-speed convection oven, and brings the food piping hot t…”
Lore: Nearly 75% of Wonder customers place a repeat order within 60 days
“Close to three quarters of all the customers that try it will come back in the first 60 days.”
Lore: Wonder achieved over 70% household penetration in its first launch market
“In Westfield, the first town, we're over 70% household penetration.”
Marc Lore: Operating at maximum intensity on five hours of sleep fails
“If you want, in sixth gear, this idea of being in sixth gear and sleeping five hours a night, that doesn't work. You can't, you don't have enough energy to be in sixth gear for the remaining hours in the day.”
Marc Lore: Childhood-driven motivation cannot be replicated but can become an asset
“You can't tell somebody that doesn't have this unhealthy childhood to find that motivation. It's something that's unexplainable, but I think it's really healthy when it starts, and I think with therapy and time, I think it can morph into something that's healt…”
Marc Lore: Half-trusting people yields all downside and no upside
“I've found, and I'm very trusting, when you openly trust someone, really trust them, like where they can burn you, like put yourself in a place where they could burn you. They rarely do. Occasionally you might get burned, and that's part of one of the conseque…”
Marc Lore argues default trust yields high upside with only 2% failure rate
“I found that actually it is more like one 50. Like it's rare that you will get burned and you'll get better at associating with people that are less likely to burn you. But the upside is tremendous. Like I said, if you go halfway on trusting or three quarters,…”
Marc Lore: Reference checks almost never change hiring decisions
“It's very, very, very rare, and I talked to people about this, that you'll actually change your mind from a reference. Like, I want to hire this person, let me check the references, and then you're like, no, now I'm not going to hire the person. Or, I don't th…”
Marc Lore: Superstars make demonstrable jumps in level when changing companies
“When they leave the company that they're at, Superstars make demonstrable jumps in either title, level, type of company, and it's very clear.”
Marc Lore: I will never accept referral candidates without top-10% resumes
“Most people don't really understand what a superstar is, so I, for the most part, I will never take a recommendation unless the resume is Fits the description.”
Marc Lore: Walmart Acquired Jet.com for Talent and Tech, Not Customers
“When Walmart made the acquisition, that was a, probably the single biggest reason why they were interested in spending three billion dollars for Jet. It certainly wasn't the market penetration, the customers that they were buying. They were buying the team and…”
Marc Lore: VCP Provides $10M Checks for Hiring Top Talent
“That's what the VCP fund is all about, is like, no, we're going to give you ten million so you can hire the very best people in the world and give you the best possible shot Of making a big company”
Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez launch venture fund VCP
“Alex and I A-Rod just started a venture fund called VCP, Vision Capital People. We believe that there's a really big hole in the market for people with big visionary ideas to get a big infusion of capital early, like when they have nothing, so they can go out …”
Marc Lore: Incremental fundraising traps startups on a fragile tightrope
“I think a lot of startups, it's a little bit of chicken and egg. How do you get the capital unless you have the team? You can't hire the team until you have the capital. But you don't get enough capital until you prove it, and so you get a million bucks, then …”
Marc Lore: The 'beer test' is the worst hiring mistake
“Early in my career and I first started, you know, I just want to feel like I want to have a beer with this person. And I realized how wrong that is. And people make that mistake today. And it leads to all kinds of unconscious bias and things like that. It's th…”
Marc Lore backed a stealth mobile kitchen startup that cooks in driveways
“Well, what if you cooked in a mobile kitchen if the restaurant basically came to you and it cooked in your driveway? Hot, much faster because the trucks are already on the road. And so they're likely just minutes away. And so I made a pretty big bet on that co…”
The other half of the tape: Marc Lore's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 77 times in 23 episodes across the shows. 7 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Andy Dunn 20Sam Parr 18Christina Carbonell 9Harry Stebbings 7Ted Wang 6Guy Raz 4Davis Smith 4Shaan Puri 3
Statements about Marc Lore, by other people (7)
Alex Rodriguez: Eliminate mid-tier candidates immediately to avoid being tricked
“The tens and the fives are easy to recognize. The tens, you know, jump out of the page, and the fives are people you're probably not going to hire. The challenge is when you have the six and the sevens, and the six and the sevens have the gift of gab, and are …”
Marc Lore is the best entrepreneur on the East Coast
“Was Mark Laurie, who I think is the best entrepreneur on the East Coast.”
Parr: Marc Lore identified sizing returns as Walmart.com's top cost
“He said, he goes, the number one problem, the number one cost that our company has at wall, you know, walmart.com, the third or fourth or second most popular e-com website in the world. The number one thing is returns due to bad sizes.”
A Jet.com contest winner turned an $18K ad spend into $20M
“With, when Jet was growing or early on with Jet, they had a contest. I don't know if you've seen this article, but they had a contest about who can acquire the most customers for Jet. You become a marketer, you go spread the word, whoever, whoever does, whoeve…”
Dunn: Marc Lore is probably the East Coast's best e-commerce entrepreneur
“So probably the best third-party e-commerce entrepreneur on the East Coast.”
Marc Lore launched Diapers.com with a 30-page narrative business plan
“The business plan itself was, it was like a thirty-page narrative, and I'd never seen anything like it. It was so well thought out. It was insanely ambitious.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 38
My First Million 23
20VC 16
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 13 mentions in 1 episode
2023 11 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- Alex Rodriguez: From MVP to CEO; Business Lessons from Warren Buffett & Magic Johnson | E1010 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Davis Smith: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling Cotopaxi to $150M in Revenues | E1095 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- CEO Lessons: Bulls**t Mission Statements, Firing People & Saying ‘NO' (#505)
- This $3B Founder Is The Next Elon Musk (#499)
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 15 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2021 18 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
- Why You Shouldn't Be A Slave to a 40 Hour Work Week | My First Million #212
- Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, "How Much is Pomp Worth?", and More
- Why Today Is the Day to Ask For a Raise | My First Million #216
- How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, QVC for Mobile, and More
- Making Millions Improving Mobility & How to Beat LinkedIn | My First Million #184
- How to Have an Early Adopter Mindset, ConstitutionDAO, Optimizing Twitter Bios, and More
- How a $25 Million a Year Sweepstakes Business Works | My First Million #193
- How Vending Machines are Generating Millions & The Next Big Social App | My First Million #187
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 4 mentions in 1 episode
2019 8 mentions in 1 episode
2018 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: A Framework For Approaching Risk and How It Affects Portfolio Construction | Lessons and Advice From Working with Dropbox's Drew Houston | Why Being A Learning Animal Is The Most Important Factor For Success with Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy Ventures
- 20VC: Why Brands Can Have The Same Revenue Multiples As Enterprise Companies & The Right Way To Think About Amazon In Today's World of Commerce with Eurie Kim, General Partner @ Forerunner Ventures
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Marc's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder, Chairman & CEO, Wonder Group | 4 | 58 | 55% 6/11 | full record on How I Built This → |
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder, Chairman & CEO, Wonder Group | 1 | 24 | 0% 0/1 | full record on 20VC → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Founder, Chairman & CEO, Wonder Group | 1 | 22 | 100% 2/2 | full record on My First Million → |