Jason Lemkin: PluralSight S*** the Bed & The Next IPO Candidates | E1160

Jason Lemkin is one of the OG SaaS investors with all of his first five investments turning into unicorns with Pipedrive, Algolia, Talkdesk, Salesloft and RevenueCat all in his portfolio. SaaStr is the largest global community in SaaS and he has taught a generation the fundamentals of SaaS on saastr.com.
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In Our First Ever Episode of This Week in SaaS:
1. PluralSight Goes to Zero:
WTF happened to PluralSight? How did it go from $3.5BN to $0?
Will this have a wider impact on the willingness of PE to buy tech companies?
Who are the next contenders to go from hero to zero? Zendesk? Anaplan?
Will this generation of PE funds be let off by their LPs for a poor vintage?
2. Salesforce’s Worst Stock Market Drop Since 2004 + Mongo Takes a 23% Hit:
Why did Salesforce lose $50BN of market cap in a single day?
Is the same true for MongoDB taking a 23% hit in one day?
What does it mean when the new normal is these once hyper-growth companies now growing only 6% per annum?
3. The Settlers into Slow Growth:
Why does Jason believe that Dropbox and Box have both settled into a world of slow growth?
What happens to Twilio from here in a world post Jeff Lawson?
What happens to Retool from this point on?
Would Jason be a buyer of Notion at $10BN?
4. Venture Capital is Broken:
Why does Jason believe that we need to see a relation of public multiples for the math in venture capital to work again?
Why does Jason believe that the way we mark portfolios with TVPI leads to corrupt and bad behaviour?
How does Jason think we will solve the problem of liquidity with IPOs being shut, M&A being out of the window and now PE being a doubt as the source of buyers?
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#20vc #harrystebbings #jasonlemkin #saastr #saas #founder #ceo #venturecapital #startup #salesforce #pluralsight #mongodb #dropbox #twilio #notion

[@20VC]

Subscribe to the 20VC KZbin channel for more great interviews: www.youtube.com/@20VC?sub_confirmation=1

[@brendoncassidy1316]

Best analysis on the state of the state in the tech/VC/startup universe I’ve seen in 3 years And it isn’t close

[@Jasonlk]

Thanks!

[@effectuators6680]

Thanks Harry and Jason, what a session, please, please do this regularly if not weekly please do fortnightly or monthly, totally brilliant. You covered so many topics and reinforced so many concepts that you both talk about. Well done!

[@antonioCsilveira]

Great episode. Totally agree on the liquidity topic, with the current regulatory environment the options for acquisitions is extremely limited. So the option is to IPO, but then there are several challenges of being a small cap public company.

[@Jasonlk]

Smaller IPOs do produce employee liquidity which is good, but aren’t a total answer. VCs can’t usually sell because there isn’t enough float, and market cap isn’t high enough to do impactful M&A

[@Drackomass]

We are so spoilt two Jason eps in a week.

[@Jasonlk]

It’s too much but still this was a good one!

[@TheStalec]

Nice channel love this kind of content

[@Hastingsnow]

Thank you!

[@BBVCorvettec62005]

Crazy to hear Jason still talk so highly about TalkDesk…

[@Jasonlk]

Always supporting!

[@sachinshajan8066]

This is perfect analysis

[@Ruslan_0990]

"I shouldn't , I shouldn't, I shouldn't have worried about it" 🗿

[@Ruslan_0990]

"Just hide, it just ignore it" 😂

[@billybund4833]

Never heard someone describe Twilio as an iconic company 😂

[@avisrivastava4140]

getting this weekly feels undeserved I'd pay good money fr

[@Jasonlk]

Really ended up being a great one!

[@brunosaint-felix5928]

Guys, you seriously need to make a difference between the enterprise value of the PluralSight deal and the equity that Vista put in… this is seriously misleading: the value of PluralSight’s equity might be zero but it doesn’t mean that the enterprise value is nil - the value has just all gone to the debt holders

[@Jasonlk]

Good point. It's still a big write off but point taken

[@alexwoxst]

A real mob boss would never wear shorts

[@Jasonlk]

I saw it as a total flex and power move

[@Jasonlk]

Also we filmed this on a Saturday afternoon …

[@bryanenglish7841]

Russ Hanneman is real

[@mauserdan]

Can you please wear pants next time?

[@FengFamily-u2c]

The legs are so distracting