20VC: Evernote's Phil Libin on The Pros and Cons Of Moving To VC, The Future For Bots & Having Marc Benioff & Reid Hoffman As Mentors

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

🗓️ 4 January 2017

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Phil Libin is Managing Director @ General Catalyst and Founder and Executive Chairman @ Evernote. At Evernote, Phil took the company from idea generation to productivity powerhouse allowing millions of users around the world to remember everything and in the meantime, providing Evernote with over $160m in VC funding from some of the very best including Sequoia Capital. Now in the world of VC, Phil has a particularly fondness towards all things bots, a theme we discuss heavily today. Phil has also made several angel investments in the likes of Gusto, TellApart and Binary Thumb just to name a few.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Phil made his way from Founder @ Evernote to Managing Director @ General Catalyst?

2.) Niko Bonatsos, Managing Director @ General Catalyst asks: What were your biggest takeaways from your time with Evernote that lend to you being a better investor? What are the biggest surprises about the move into VC?

3.) Why have we seen an explosion of hype and excitement around the bot space over the past year? What was the catalyst for the rise of the bot?

4.) Why are we not there yet with bots? Should all be conversational? How does the infancy of messaging platforms affect the rise of bots? What unsolved technical challenges remain?

5.) Will the transition to bots and conversational interfaces represent a major point of disruption or more of an evolution in the interface paradigm?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Phil’s Fave Blog: The Economist

Phil’s Fave Book: The Three Body Problem

Phil’s Most Recent Investment: Sunflower Labs

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Phil on Twitter here!

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

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H. Debbings on Snapchat and found writing some
0:05.1	hopefully intelligent things on MahitoVC.com. Now the show always promises to bring you interviews with some of the
0:11.0	biggest names and titans of the industry. And this interview today is testament to that commitment,
0:15.6	as we welcome an industry heavyweight to the hot seat. So joining me today, I'm thrilled to welcome
0:19.7	Phil Libbyn. Now, Phil is managing director, General Catalyst, and found an executive chairman at Evernote. At Evernote,
0:26.4	Phil took the company from idea generation to productivity powerhouse, allowing millions of
0:30.9	users around the world to remember everything. And in the meantime, providing Evernote with over
0:34.9	$160 million in VC funding from some of the very best,
0:38.5	including Sequoia Capital. Now, in the world of VC, Phil has a particular fondness towards
0:42.8	all things boss, a theme we discuss heavily in the show today. Phil has also made several
0:47.1	angel investments in the lights of gusto, telaparte, and binary thumb, just to name a few. I'd also
0:52.4	like to say a huge thank you to Phil's partner,
0:54.4	Nico Bonatzos, at General Catalyst today, for the intro to Phil without which the show would
0:58.3	not have been possible. But speaking of New Year and New Year's resolutions, sleep is one of
1:02.8	mine, and that's where Simba hybrid comes in. It's the most advanced mattress in the world,
1:07.2	with a unique combination of 2,500 conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam.
1:12.6	It offers the perfect support for two people, a mattress that responds to you and your partner's
1:16.9	sleeping patterns, and it's delivered for free with a 100-night sleep trial and free returns
1:21.8	and a 10-year guarantee.
1:23.1	So simply start your free trial at simba sleep.com.
1:26.4	Another target in mind for the new year is
1:27.8	productivity, and there's no better for that than Serious Insight, the plugin for sales
	...

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