20VC: 8VC’s Joe Lonsdale on How To Foster Contrarian Thinking Within Venture Partnerships, Why The Best VCs Are Company Builders & Why It Is Not Possible To Build Multi-Billion Dollar Companies and Have Worklife Balance
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joe Lonsdale is a General Partner @ 8VC and in the past has invested in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus, Oscar and Guardant Health. As a result, in both 2016 and 2017, Joe was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas List. Prior to 8VC, Joe co-founded Palantir, one of the world's most impactful multi-billion dollar software companies. Joe also co-founded and serves as Chairman @ Addepar, which has over $1.8 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform. If that was not enough, Joe is also a founder of Affinity, Anduin and Esper.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Joe made his way into the world of tech and startups, came to co-found Palantir and Addepar and how that led to his founding 8VC? How does Joe
believe the study of history makes one a better investor?
2.) Why does Joe believe that the best VCs are company builders? How does Joe think about, evaluate and put into action the incubator model? How does Joe respond to LPs that suggest it is a distraction? How does voting for incubations differ for investment voting?
3.) What does contrarian thinking really mean to Joe? What does Joe do to specifically engender contrarian thinking in the 8VC partnership? What is the relationship between contrarianism and political correctness? How does Joe think about the dangers of woke culture today?
4.) How does Joe advise founders to think through cash burn and runway today? What is going to happen to companies that sacrified growth for gross margin in 1 year? How does Joe advise founders on the balance of sticking to your vision and mission vs knowing when to give up?
5.) Why does Joe think it is important to not just start new companies but new cities also? Despite the insane cost of living, why does Joe believe the Valley has given rise to the insane levels of innovation it has done? Will the dominance of the valley remain over the next decade?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Joe’s Fave Book: How Innovation Works, A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus
Joe’s Most Recent Investment: Beacon
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and if you'd like to submit guests or questions for the show, you can on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with two bees. |
| 0:08.9 | But to the show today, and I'm not sure I've ever had such an efficient or productive guest on the show before. |
| 0:13.8 | What this individual does with one human hour is just insane when you look at all that he's achieved. |
| 0:18.3 | And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Joe Lonsdale, general partner at 8VC. |
| 0:22.4 | In the past, Joe's invested in many notable companies, including the likes of Wish, |
| 0:26.5 | Oculus, Oscar and Garden Health, to name a few. |
| 0:29.5 | As a result, in both 2016 and 2017, Joe was the youngest member of the Forbes 100 Midas list. |
| 0:35.9 | And prior to 8VC, Joe co-founded Palantir, one of the |
| 0:39.0 | world's most impactful multi-billion dollar software companies. Joe also co-founded and serves as chairman |
| 0:44.2 | at Adapar, which has over $1.8 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform. |
| 0:49.4 | And if that wasn't enough, Joe is also founder of Affinity, Anjuin and Esper, to name a few. I do also have to say a |
| 0:55.1 | huge thanks to Kimmy and Drew at 8VC for some fantastic question suggestions today. I really did, |
| 1:00.1 | so appreciate that. But before we move into the show today, I want to take a moment to mention |
| 1:04.2 | HelloSign, a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on |
| 1:08.7 | user experience. HelloSign is an effortless e-signature |
| 1:11.8 | solution used by millions to securely send and request legally valid digital signatures and agreements. |
| 1:18.3 | They raised a total of 16 million in funding and recently got acquired by Dropbox for an |
| 1:22.7 | impressive $230 million. Check out HelloSign.com forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and |
| 1:29.9 | founders who value fast, secure and simple e-signatures. And speaking of incredible solutions to complex |
| 1:35.9 | problems, the team over at Pendo, the product cloud company, is expanding rapidly throughout |
| 1:40.5 | Europe and recently released a version of their product, which is designed and priced specifically for startups. So no matter whether you're an operator or an investor in Europe |
| 1:48.7 | or the US, Pendo has you and your portfolio's product covered, showing you how your product |
... |
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