Brett Berson

Partner, First Round Capital · 53 appearances on the record.

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investorhost@brettberson ↗LinkedIn ↗firstround.com ↗

Brett Berson joined venture firm First Round Capital as an intern in 2008 and became a partner in 2016. He leads early-stage investments and hosts the firm's In Depth podcast, interviewing startup founders and operators on management tactics and company scaling.

5statements → 1claims → 0claims resolved → 3/5average certainty → 2.4/5average debate potential → 1said about them ↓

1 not checkable as stated how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 1 opinion · 3 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Brett argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Brett Berson on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Brett Berson said on In Depth that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Berson: Modeling startup cultures after Google caused net damage to the ecosystem
“I'd also argue that a lot of people trying to model their orgs and culture after Google has probably created More damage to our ecosystem than sort of positive outcomes.”
Brett Berson Aug 17, 2023 ▶ 41:09 How to supercharge your engineering org | Kellan Elliott-McCrea (Adobe, Dropbox)
Insight
Zero-to-one product builders should personally close the first $1M in revenue
“I think a lot of the best zero to one product people Should be forced to get the first million dollars in revenue for the thing, not just build the widget and have the sales team bring it to market.”
Brett Berson Dec 5, 2024 ▶ 43:44 How Figma taps into taste, simplicity, and storytelling | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO)
Insight
Berson: Low rental payouts prevent peer-to-peer car sharing from scaling
“Even though someone has an asset that is not being utilized, it's hard to pay them enough to get them to actually move and care and give someone their keys and let someone take the car because they're getting nine dollars an hour or 15 dollars a day or 45 doll…”
Brett Berson May 30, 2024 ▶ 53:42 How to build and scale winning marketplaces | Casey Winters (Eventbrite, Pinterest, Grubhub)
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Berson: Looker never missed a quarterly target across First Round's history
“Is I think in, in the history of first round across 450 businesses, it's the only company that didn't miss a number all the way through sort of massive exit or sort of somewhat directionally, that's the case.”
Brett Berson Oct 12, 2023 ▶ 48:44 How to leverage intuition, customer support, and raw effort | Colin Zima (Omni & Looker)
Insight
Berson: Most people confuse category creation with category redefinition
“I think that a lot of people like the idea of category creation because they think it gives them a chance to kind of be the monopolist or the category king. But I think one, to your point, it's very hard. And two, most people confuse category creation with try…”
Brett Berson Aug 10, 2023 ▶ 18:26 The Zero to One B2B marketing playbook | Alex Kracov (Lattice, Dock)

The other half of the tape: Brett Berson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on In Depth. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Josh Koppelman 1

Every mention by year

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Appearances (53)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
The most expensive mistake in outsourcing your tech stack | Jay Parikh (EVP CoreAI, Micros Aug 27, 2026 7m
Go hard early: How lessons from Verkada shaped this AI-native IT platform | Jake Stauch (S Oct 23, 2025 13m
From Chrome extension to $5B platform | Postman’s journey | Abhinav Asthana (Co-founder & Aug 28, 2025 1s
How Canva leveraged unconventional growth levers to grow to $42B | Cameron Adams (Co-found Aug 20, 2025 7m
Inside the ex-YC partner’s $15B self driving car company | Qasar Younis Aug 1, 2025 6m
What Braintrust got right about product-market fit | Ankur Goyal (Founder and CEO) Jul 24, 2025 6m
How Wes Kao coaches founders to influence, lead, and get what they want | (Co-founder of May 22, 2025 12m
Scrappy tactics and a huge post-COVID pivot | Adam Guild (Co-founder and CEO of Owner) Mar 27, 2025 8m
What makes (or breaks) executive hires | A deep dive with Eeke de Milliano (Stripe) Mar 6, 2025 12m
Inside Guideline's mission to modernize 401(k)s | Kevin Busque (Co-founder and CEO) Feb 20, 2025 12m
Inside Braze’s blitz to $500M in CARR | Building broad, going global, and outfoxing the co Feb 6, 2025 7m
Clay's unconventional path to $1.25B: Rethinking GTM, pricing, and enterprise sales | Varu Jan 23, 2025 8m
Building a $4B data platform: Inside dbt Labs' unconventional path | Tristan Handy (Founde Dec 19, 2024 9m
How Figma taps into taste, simplicity, and storytelling | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO) Dec 5, 2024 15m
Shifting Career Altitudes: Insights from a CPO That's Led Nearly Every Function | Anneka G Oct 10, 2024 11m
How to find & pull startup growth levers | Matt Lerner (Founder of SYSTM, Author of Growth Sep 26, 2024 11m
How to find — and keep — product-market fit | Bob Moore (Crossbeam, RJMetrics, Stitch Data Sep 19, 2024 8m
Rebooting Intercom: Eoghan McCabe on Defying Silicon Valley Orthodoxy | Co-founder & CEO Sep 5, 2024 8m
Inside marketing at Stripe, OpenAI and Retool | Krithika Muthukumar (VP of Marketing at Op Aug 1, 2024 10m
Developing technical taste: A guide for next-gen engineers | Sam Schillace (Microsoft, Goo Jun 6, 2024 8m
How to build and scale winning marketplaces | Casey Winters (Eventbrite, Pinterest, Grubhu May 30, 2024 11m
Lessons from Sentry on scaling DevTools and finding product market fit (again) | Milin Des May 16, 2024 9m
How to be effective up and down the org chart | Matt MacInnis (Rippling, Inkling, Apple) Apr 25, 2024 8m
Building products that delight customers | Adam Nash (Daffy, Wealthfront, LinkedIn, eBay, Apr 4, 2024 5m
A masterclass in founder conviction | Eilon Reshef (Co-founder and CPO at Gong) Mar 28, 2024 33s
Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybu Mar 21, 2024 14m
Scaling and selling AI products for enterprise | May Habib (Co-founder and CEO of Writer) Feb 29, 2024 33s
The secret lever Replit pulled to scale ahead of its competition | Amjad Masad (Co-founder Feb 15, 2024 33s
Lessons from Gusto & Square on Finding Your Product Wedge | Michael Cieri Feb 8, 2024 11m
A customer success masterclass | How to build and scale a CS org | Stephanie Berner (Linke Feb 1, 2024 9m
The human side of world-class engineering leadership | Michael Lopp (Apple, Palantir, Slac Jan 25, 2024 8m
A product-market-fit masterclass | Kareem Amin (Clay) Jan 18, 2024 32s
Inside Figma’s early days: How to build a world-class sales org | Kyle Parrish (VP of Sale Jan 11, 2024 8m
The new PLG playbook | Arming the next generation of product-led companies | Oliver Jay (A Jan 4, 2024 10m
Mastering modern entrepreneurship | Steve Blank (Author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany) Dec 21, 2023 8m
Winning with open and closed source products | Neha Narkhede (Co-founder at Confluent and Dec 8, 2023 11m
The Bard blueprint | Creating value, shipping fast, and advancing AI | Jack Krawczyk (Goog Nov 30, 2023 13m
A masterclass in engineering leadership from Carta, Stripe, and Uber | Will Larson (CTO at Nov 16, 2023 9m
How goal-setting and planning is different for AI products | Anastasis Germanidis (Runway) Nov 9, 2023 32s
How Vercel found extreme product-market fit by focusing on simplification | Guillermo Rauc Nov 2, 2023 32s
The business of growing and monetizing an open source product | Ashley Kramer (GitLab CMO/ Oct 26, 2023 11m
How to leverage intuition, customer support, and raw effort | Colin Zima (Omni & Looker) Oct 12, 2023 10m
Contrarian takes on growth, hiring, and fundraising | Wade Foster (Co-founder & CEO at Zap Oct 5, 2023 11m
How young outsiders changed the shipping industry | Laura Behrens Wu (Shippo) Sep 28, 2023 26s
AI Hot Takes and Unusual Twitter Fundraising Strategies with Dan Siroker (Rewind AI) Sep 14, 2023 25s
A guide to building product in a post-LLM world | Ryan Glasgow and Kevin Mandich from Spri Sep 7, 2023 12m
An org-design masterclass from a Square GM | Saumil Mehta Aug 31, 2023 8m
How to supercharge your engineering org | Kellan Elliott-McCrea (Adobe, Dropbox) Aug 17, 2023 13m
The Zero to One B2B marketing playbook | Alex Kracov (Lattice, Dock) Aug 10, 2023 11m
Lessons from Loom on product strategy and organizational leadership | Anique Drumright (CO Aug 3, 2023 13m
Lessons from Slack on decision making, product-led growth, and taking big swings | Noah De Jul 13, 2023 10m
Lessons in leadership | Scaling an org and tactical management advice | Jack Altman (Latti Jul 6, 2023 12m
Lessons from Stripe on adding new products | Tara Seshan (Watershed, Stripe) Jun 22, 2023 8m
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