meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: Bessemer's Ethan Kurzweil on How To View Pattern Recognition and Deal With The Anti-Portfolio, The Next Frontier In Developer Focussed Businesses & Why eSports Is Interesting Again

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

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ethan Kurzweil is a Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the world leading venture funds with prior investments including the likes of Skype, LinkedIn, Yelp and Pinterest just to name a few. As for Ethan, he focuses on consumer facing technology and developer platforms having made investments in the likes of Twitch, Periscope and Dropcam on the consumer side and Twilio, Intercom and SendGrid on the developer platform side, just to name a few from his outstanding portfolio.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ethan made his entrance into the world of venture and came to be a partner @ Bessemer?

2.) What was the developer roadmap that Ethan established a couple of years ago? Why was it controversial at the time? How have we seen this play out and come into fruition? What is the next frontier in developer focussed businesses?

3.) Ethan has previously said, 'history does not repeat itself but it does rhyme'. How does Ethan view pattern recognition? How does Ethan look to avoid biases and escape the echo chamber of Silicon Valley?

4.) How does Ethan see the world of eSports evolving? From an investment perspective, where does the equity value creation lie; the brands being built or the core underlying technology?

5.) Bessemer publishes their anti-portfolio, why is this? What does one need to take away when assessing the opportunities they have missed? How can one build a process of self-reflection around the anti-portfolio?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Ethan’s Fave Book: The Namesake

Ethan’s Fave Blog: Nuzzel

Ethan's Most Recent Investment: Periscope Data

As always you can follow HarryThe Twenty Minute VC and Ethan on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must.

Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H Stebbings with 2Bs on Snapchat.

0:04.9

All ads get a personal message from me.

0:06.8

But we're back today to this feature week with one of the world's leading venture funds, Bessemer Venture Partners.

0:11.5

The team that back the likes of Pinterest, Yelp, LinkedIn and Skype, just to name a few.

0:16.0

And if you haven't listened to our episode with Bessemer's New York partner, Jeremy Levine,

0:19.6

from Monday, then that really is a must.

0:21.5

And today we're switching coast and heading to the West Coast to be joined by Ethan Kurzweil,

0:25.7

partner at Bessemer, where he focuses on consumer-facing technology and developer platforms,

0:30.3

having made investments in the likes of Twitch, Periscope and Dropcam on the consumer side,

0:34.9

and Twilio Intercom and SendGrid on the developer platform side,

0:38.4

just to name a few from his outstanding portfolio. I do also want to say a big thank you to both

0:42.4

Byron Dita and Jeremy Levine for the intro today to Ethan, without which this episode would

0:47.1

not have been possible. But before we dive into today's show, very few pieces of software are a must

0:51.9

for the majority of VCs I have on the show, but E-shares most certainly is.

0:56.1

E-shares is the number one cap table management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations and liquidity, all in one place.

1:03.9

And e-shares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers, including the lights of Squarespace, Kickstarter and DoorDash, just to name a few.

1:12.7

So try out the must-have service of the industry and head over to eshares inc.com.

1:17.2

It really is a must.

1:18.4

And once you have all the paperwork tied down with e-sharees, you can now engage with your employees.

1:22.7

And that's where Fond comes in.

1:24.3

Fond is the employee engagement suite with three core products. Rewards,

1:28.8

a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones. Perks, a premium corporate discounts

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

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.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.