20VC: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on Whether VCs Actually Provide Value or Not, Why Bedrock Does Not Have An Ownership Focus and The Difference Between Principles and Rules When Building a Firm or Company

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Geoff Lewis is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Bedrock, now with over $1BN in AUM, Bedrock invests in breakout technology companies that are incongruent with popular narratives. In the past, Geoff has backed some generational defining companies such as Wish, Lyft, Nubank, RigUp, Vercel, Anduril and many more. Prior to founding Bedrock, Geoff was a Partner @ Founders Fund.

In Today’s Episode with Geoff Lewis You Will Learn:

1.) How Geoff made his way into the world of venture with his joining Founders Fund? How his time with Founders Fund led to his co-founding Bedrock with Eric?

2.) Geoff Lewis: The Investor:

How does Geoff reflect on his own relationship to price? How does he determine when to pay up vs walk away?
How does Geoff approach the re-investment decision-making process? Where do most go wrong when it comes to allocating reserves?
What have been some of Geoff's biggest misses? How did they impact his investing mindset?
Why does Geoff not believe that ownership is as crucial as other VCs suggest?

3.) Bedrock: The Firm

What have been some of the biggest challenges in building Bedrock?
Where does Geoff believe many firms make core mistakes in firm building?
What are the differences between principles and rules? Why does Geoff believe all firms need to have principles?
How does Geoff approach internal talent building? What are the signals of people that will succeed in venture? How do they approach learning?

4.) The Market:

How does Geoff analyse the current state of the venture market?
Does Geoff agree with the notion of "play the game on the field"?
Why does Geoff think markups are BS and just VCs looking for external validation?
How has Geoff learned to isolate from the VC community and retain that purity of mindset working with great entrepreneurs?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Geoff Lewis

Geoff’s Favourite Book: Friedrich Nietzsche

Geoff’s Most Recent Investment: Praxis

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, the show state is a special one for me personally.
0:05.1	Now, I first met this guest in San Francisco over five years ago. Instantly, I thought he was incredibly special.
0:11.2	And I wanted to have him on the show then. Five years later, it's fair to say it took a wild convinced.
0:16.3	But we became great friends in the process. And so I'm so thrilled to welcome Jeff Lewis, co-founder and
0:21.1	managing partner at Bedrock. Now with over a billion in AUM, Bedrock invests in breakout technology
0:26.2	companies that are incongruent with popular narratives. In the past, Jeff has backed some
0:31.0	incredible defining companies such as Wish, Lyft, New Bank, Rig Up, and Jarrell, and many more. And prior to founding Bedrock,
0:39.7	Jeff was a partner at Founders Fund. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Garrett at Flock,
0:44.2	Juan at Rigup, Spencer and Eric at Bedrock and Brian at Founders Fund, a real team effort on the schedule
0:49.3	and it made such a difference. But before we dive into the show today, if you're a venture capitalist or corporate strategist, I want to tell you about Tagus. Tagas is the only company in the world that
0:58.4	aggregates qualitative information on private companies from Seed Stage to Pre-IPO. With
1:03.7	Tagas, you can access other VCs and founders' expert called transcripts from previous rounds to help
1:09.4	source fast-growing companies, create compelling
1:11.7	emails to get a founder's response, and diligence companies when a round is moving fast.
1:16.4	Tagas also provides the most flexible and highest-quality way to run your own expert calls.
1:21.3	With no upfront fees or call minimums, the ability to do 30-minute calls and simply paying
1:25.9	the expert's rate at an average cost of $300.
1:29.0	Tagas makes expert calls easy. Find out why a majority of the top venture funds are using
1:33.7	Tagus on a daily basis. Head over to tagas.co forward slash growth for your free trial.
1:39.2	Speaking of incredible resources Tagas provides, I've always been a big history man and so I want to
1:43.4	talk about Cooley, the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first
1:48.5	venture fund in Silicon Valley, Kuli is one of the most active law firms in advising both early
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.