20VC: Phil Libin on Why The Concept of A Silicon Valley Style Startup Is Made To Benefit VCs, Why The Very Structure of Companies Is Outdated and Inefficient & What It Means To Build The Netflix of Product
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 26 October 2018
⏱️ 31 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Phil Libin is the Co-Founder & CEO @ All Turtles, the startup that believes they have a better way to make technology products, placing products first and companies later. Today they are building AI products in San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo. As for Phil, prior to All Turtles he was a Managing Director @ General Catalyst. Before that he spent 23 years founding different companies including founding Evernote, taking it from idea generation to productivity powerhouse raising over $160m in VC funding in the process, from some of the very best including Sequoia Capital. Phil is also an extremely successful angel with a portfolio including Gusto, TellApart and Binary Thumb just to name a few.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Phil made his way into the world of tech startups many years ago, how that led to his entering VC with General Catalyst and to now, founding All Turtles?
2.) How does Phil assess the state of Silicon Valley today? Why does Phil believe that Silicon Valley has been becoming increasingly redundant over the last 20 years? Why does Phil argue that the VC Silicon Valley model has been primarily effective at serving it's own needs? What needs to occur for this to change?
3.) Why does Phil argue that the balance of power between startups and incumbents is shifting for 5 core reasons? Why does Phil believe that the data incumbency argument with AI startups is largely overstated and a fear tactic? How does Phil believe people's attitude toward working for incumbents has been shifting over the last few years?
4.) Why does Phil believe that the concept of a "company" is fundamentally outdated? What is so broken about this model? What does Phil believe will be the model of the future for the world's best product creators? Why does the idea of a generalist VC in this model largely not make logical sense to Phil? What does Phil believe the future of VC is?
5.) Why does Phil believe that his time in VC has made him a better CEO than even his time in operations? What have been his core learnings? How has his operating mindset fundamentally shifted? Why does Phil argue the core role of the CEO is not management upscaling? Why does Phil argue it is wrong to assume the only mindset is growth?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Phil’s Fave Book: Clock of The Long Now
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Phil 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 | This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, at H. Stebbings, 1996 with two bees on |
| 0:05.1 | Instagram, and one episode we have in store for you today. We always ask our guests for contrarian |
| 0:09.6 | suggestions ahead of the episode, and this today is most certainly that, a second time guest |
| 0:14.2 | on the show, and I'm so excited to welcome back Phil Libin, co-founder and CEO at All Turtles. |
| 0:19.5 | The startup that believes they have a better way to make |
| 0:21.5 | technology products, placing products first and companies later. Today, they're building AI products |
| 0:26.6 | in San Francisco, Paris, and Tokyo. As for Phil, prior to All Turtles, he was a managing director |
| 0:31.6 | at General Catalyst. Before that, he spent 23 years founding different companies, including |
| 0:35.9 | Evernote, taking it from idea generation |
| 0:37.9 | to productivity powerhouse, now having raised over 160 million in BC funding in the process, |
| 0:43.1 | from some of the very best in the business, including Sequoia Capital, Phil's also an extremely |
| 0:47.2 | successful angel, with a portfolio including the lights of gusto, telepot, and binary thumb, just |
| 0:52.3 | to name a few. And I'd also want to say a huge thank you to the very wonderful Mr. Nico Bonatzl for some |
| 0:56.8 | fantastic questions suggestions today. |
| 0:58.8 | However, before we welcome Phil to the hot seat. |
| 1:01.0 | And I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex. |
| 1:03.0 | The first corporate card for startups, Brex founders Enrique M. Pedro built a payments business |
| 1:08.1 | in Brazil, but found themselves rejected for a corporate card |
| 1:10.9 | when they were in Y Combinator. They decided to build Brax with instant online sign-up, |
| 1:15.5 | no founder liability required, and limits 10 to 20 times higher than standard cards. Pretty |
| 1:20.4 | incredible, I know, and you can sign up for Brex today and get fees waived by entering |
| 1:24.9 | the code Harry during sign-up. Honestly, it really is such a special service. |
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