Sam Lessin on Why We’re Heading into a New Era of Venture

Erik is joined by Sam Lessin, General Partner at the early-stage VC firm Slow Ventures, essayist, and former VP of Product at Facebook. Make informed decision for high impact donations with GiveWell, which is offering Econ 102 listeners donation matching up to $100. To claim your match, go to www.givewell.org ➡️ pick “Podcast” enter "Upstream with Erik Torenberg" at checkout.
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RELATED PODCAST: @TurpentineVC
This conversation originally aired on Turpentine VC. For more interviews like this from top investors like Elad Gil, Sarah Tavel, and more, subscribe to @Turpentine or listen on podcast platforms: link.chtbl.com/TurpentineVC
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00:00) Episode Preview
(00:01:00) On Screenshot Essays, writing, and being OK with being wrong
(00:03:54) Sam’s thesis on the factory system of venture capital
(00:07:18) What does venture look like when the factory line is over?
(00:10:10 Sam’s bearishness on YC and a16z
(00:15:08) Sponsor: GiveWell | Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
(00:17:47) The future state of company building and venture
(00:19:16 On the fake unicorns in the past decade and what the next 10 years of unicorns might look like
(00:23:15) The biggest factors of luck in life and company building
(00:24:29) Sam’s thesis on constellation software
(00:28:01) Thoughts on the studio model of venture
(00:30:20) Team Shares and why that’s Sam’s most bullish investment
(00:33:06) Sponsors: Vanta
(00:34:31) Why Sam is bullish on crypto
(00:39:47) The different models of finance and investing in creators
(00:43:11) Sam’s advice for future investors in 2040
(00:46:16) Is the LP landscape going to change significantly?
(00:48:10) On consumer social
(00:50:20) On VC firms and indexing
(00:52:54) Lower variance founders
(00:57:16) Kardashians and the future of media / celebrity
(00:58:48) Sam on Balaji’s pro-tech and anti-journalist class
(00:59:50) What could have made Twitter a $100b company?
(1:02:17) How can we represent social capital on the internet?
(1:03:48) On the end of capitalism
(1:07:24) Slow Ventures today and where they expect to go in the future
Music license:
JSJPU8RWZM6CQBLL

[@UpstreamwithErikTorenberg]

Thanks to Sam Lessin for joining, and GiveWell, Oracle and Vanta for sponsoring. Timestamps are below. Get up to $100 donations matched at www.givewell.org ➡just pick “Podcast” enter "Upstream with Erik Torenberg" at checkout. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic, take a FREE test drive of OCI at oracle.com/upstream If you’re looking for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA compliance, head to Vanta and get $1000 off: www.vanta.com/upstream (00:01:00) On Screenshot Essays, writing, and being OK with being wrong (00:03:54) Sam’s thesis on the factory system of venture capital (00:07:18) What does venture look like when the factory line is over? (00:10:10 Sam’s bearishness on YC and a16z (00:15:08) Sponsor: GiveWell | Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (00:17:47) The future state of company building and venture (00:19:16 On the fake unicorns in the past decade and what the next 10 years of unicorns might look like (00:23:15) The biggest factors of luck in life and company building (00:24:29) Sam’s thesis on constellation software (00:28:01) Thoughts on the studio model of venture (00:30:20) Team Shares and why that’s Sam’s most bullish investment (00:33:06) Sponsors: Vanta (00:34:31) Why Sam is bullish on crypto (00:39:47) The different models of finance and investing in creators (00:43:11) Sam’s advice for future investors in 2040 (00:46:16) Is the LP landscape going to change significantly? (00:48:10) On consumer social (00:50:20) On VC firms and indexing (00:52:54) Lower variance founders (00:57:16) Kardashians and the future of media / celebrity (00:58:48) Sam on Balaji’s pro-tech and anti-journalist class (00:59:50) What could have made Twitter a $100b company? (1:02:17) How can we represent social capital on the internet? (1:03:48) On the end of capitalism (1:07:24) Slow Ventures today and where they expect to go in the future

[@georgekrax]

Nice talk! I think that the opinions and insights Sam shared are reasonable, and can agree to them