20VC: Sam Lessin on Why Bots Will Change Business & The Internet Has Mostly Failed

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

🗓️ 25 May 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Lessin is a Partner at Slow Ventures who have made investments in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Mattermark, AngelList,Dropbox and many more. On top of this, Sam is also the Founder and Co-CEO at Fin, which is basically like Siri Echo or Google now except it actually works, truly a phenomenal product. Prior to Fin and Slow, Sam was VP of Product Management at Facebook following the acquisition of his company, Drop.io by Facebook in 2010. Sam is also an intern at The Information where he reports directly to the boss Jessica Lessin!

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Sam come to found Fin and what was his route into VC with Slow?

2.) What are the fundamental shifts that have occurred in the world of tech? How has this affected the wider tech and investing ecosystem?

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

4.) How can bots establish the same relationship and stickiness with the user as apps? In a world of bot domination where strong data sets is the ultimate weapon, are we not at a fundamental incumbency disadvantage? How can the platforms react to this?

5.) What will the effect of self driving cars be on society? How long before this was be possible? How does the sharing economy and capitalism survive in unison?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:

Sam’s Fave Book: The Three-Body Problem

Sam’s Fave Blog: The Information

Sam’s Most Recent Investment: Common

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

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Now what some of you don't know is that I, Harry Stebbings of the 20 minute VC am a little bit of a romantic,
0:05.5	and what we do not have enough of in tech is romance. So the next two shows feature husband and
0:11.0	wife pair rocking the world of tech, each with their own individual enterprises. And I have to say
0:16.2	a huge thank you to Matt Mazio at Lowcase for introducing me to our next two guests. So joining me today, I'm delighted to welcome Sam Lesson to the Hot Seat.
0:24.6	Now, Sam is a partner at Slow Ventures who've made investments in the likes of Facebook,
0:28.6	Twitter, Mattermark, Angel List, Dropbox, and many more.
0:32.6	And on top of this, Sam is also the founder and co-CEO at Finn,
0:36.6	which is basically like Siri or Echo or Google
0:39.6	now, except it actually works. Truly a phenomenal product, absolutely love it. Prior to Finn and Slow,
0:45.6	Sam was also a VP of product management at Facebook, following the acquisition of his company,
0:50.5	drop.io by Facebook in 2010. And if that was not enough, he's also an intern at the information
0:55.7	where he reports directly to the boss, Jessica Lesson, who we have on the show on Friday. And before
1:01.1	we meet Sam today, but staying on the theme of love, did you know that sea otters hold hands when
1:06.1	they sleep to stop each other drifting apart? Well, that would not be a problem if they just
1:10.2	bought a Lisa mattress.
1:11.6	I'm sure something about the layer of memory foam would perfectly support them, as it does me.
1:15.6	Or the cool latex light foam, which helps to keep the user cool at night.
1:19.6	Although, disclaimer, this has not been tested on otters.
1:22.6	And the otters could actually buy it from where they are,
1:24.6	as Lisa offer a fully online experience meaning you never
1:27.5	have to enter a showroom and head to Lisa.com forward slash VC and order the mattress and it will be
1:33.1	delivered to your door in a matter of days. Might be a bit tricky for not to come to think of it in that
	...

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