00:47:22 · Molly O'Shea
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00:49:08 · Molly O'Shea, Ev Randle
[00:49:08] S1: So as we wrap up, I have like a couple more questions, but one of the things when I was doing research on you all was super interesting was like how diverse your portfolio is, especially in the AI mix. Like you've Star Cloud, Yeah. Data centers in space, named in the SpaceX, S One. Then you have Cerebras, that just went public. Sierra, Langchaine, Legora, Fireworks, which we talked about a bit. [00:49:34] S0: Mercur. [00:49:34] S1: Vanus. [00:49:35] S0: Vanus. [00:49:35] S1: Mercur. Yeah. Mercur. Interesting. I just listened to his podcast with Harry Stebbings and I was really surprised about the positive things that are going on there after the data breach. [00:49:45] S0: He cleared a lot of air. [00:49:46] S1: Good for him, honestly. HeyGen, Gumloop that we talked about and Ekza. So because of this whole mix and like there has been, you know, you guys have a concentrated strategy, like how do you, how do you come up with a portfolio of this type? They're all very mature. They're all doing really well. Like what is, I guess like what is the magic between all of that
00:50:07 · Ev Randle
[00:50:07] S0: Yeah, the I think, so when I was coming in, I was kind of in the, like before I joined Benchmark, I was like, wow, they've done such an amazing job thematically. Like they have like the vertical AI winner in Legora, They have the horizontal AI winner in Sierra. They have a data infrastructure play in Legora. They have a developer play in LangChain. They have a prosumer play in Heijen, and you can kind of keep going and keep going know, over all the data centers in Star Cloud. And then I got in, then I joined, and I realized, oh wow, there was literally no thought of like, oh, this is the category that we're going into. It was truly kind of what we talked about before, it was all founder out. It was all based on the founder, and yes, they resonate with the idea that the founder was pitching? Yes, but there was zero thought to oh, this is going to be a big category. It was just this is an unbelievable entrepreneur that is going to put their energy to an idea that they've convinced us is really, really interesting, but even in some of those cases, some of these companies were pivots, and so there was no way that we were super smart to know that some of these companies were going to be in big categories because they weren't even the categories that we invested in. And again, think that's sort of the benefit of Benchmark is we don't invest in categories, we invest in people. When Chetan invested in Star Cloud, it was like weeks, like we closed the investment weeks before Elon started like, you know, professing his love and bullishness on Overworld Datacenter.
00:51:44 · Molly O'Shea, Ev Randle
[00:51:44] S1: You guys have the partner meeting, you're like, wow, look at that. [00:51:48] S0: We were definitely, I think Elon, I forget which platform he was on, but he did like a long interview with somebody, and know, like half the interview was on Orbital Data Centers, and we started sending it around our group chat. We're like, oh man, this about, this space is about to get really hot, and it was so ironic because it was like, again, there's so many things, it's such a heated debate of like, are orbital data centers the future, are they gonna be too hard to pull off? And that, we obviously discussed both sides when we were talking about the investment, but the investment was about the people. It was about Philip and the team that he had built, and it's like wow, are, one, they already had a GPU working in space, so they had proven out their metal and they were the only company that had a GPU in space, so there was already some things that we saw in their traction, but it was based on the people. I think when you focus and you have your strategy around that, like again, great entrepreneurs are always in style, and they always pull rabbits out of hats, and they end up being magnetized and drawn towards where are these really massive categories, and they often end up pioneering them. [00:52:54] S1: Wow. Okay, so as we close out, I have to ask our Brex question. [00:52:57] S0: Of course.
00:52:57 · Ev Randle, Molly O'Shea
[00:52:57] S0: Of course. [00:52:59] S1: Brex is all about performance. If you didn't know that, now you know. Spending smarter, moving faster. But an element of performance that I think is very valuable is who you surround yourself with. You've been at so many legendary funds at this point. You've been surrounded by the top investors over and over again, but I'm really curious from your standpoint, like, who has been kind of like a mentor to you? Like, who do you keep, like, as a guiding figure for you as you continue to, like, evolve and grow in your career?
00:53:27 · Ev Randle
[00:53:27] S0: Yeah. I I mean, I I wake up every day and I, like, pinch myself because I I've just been so unbelievably lucky and fortunate to, as you said, work with a lot of the people that have, defined the history of venture capital and growth investing, and not only have they been extremely good at their job, but basically every single one of them has been a wonderful person. I feel like I learn something different from every single one of them, and so if you take a Napoleon Tau who is a GP at Founders Fund who runs the growth investing practice at Founders Fund, I I learned a ton about investing with him, but the most important thing that I learned from Napoleon was his focus on family and work, and he had a very simple life. He do podcasts. He doesn't network. He doesn't try to spend a bunch of time with other investors. He goes to work. He works really, really hard, and then he spends time with his family, and it's like this beautiful, simple life, and he loves both spending time with his family and working with the Founders Fund team. And it was something that made me realize, wow, and just helped me prioritize just my time and how I think about the important things in my life. I think another one now is I mean, currently Eric Vishri, I think, just an incredible role model and leader within Benchmark. Think he is someone who, obviously, you look at his he's number three on the Midas list this year. If you look at his results, he's best of the best. He is a Mount Rushmore venture capitalist at this point. But you spend an hour or two hours, however long, with him, and he is just an extremely kind, hardworking, completely normal person, where it's it's clear that he's unbelievably smart, but he's almost unassuming in like, he's not trying to prove anything to you. He's not trying to make you feel small or make you feel like he's the smartest person in the room. He's worked really hard, he works really smart, and he just brings like a kindness and like a normalcy to his conversations and his workings with his entrepreneurs and his partners in this room that motivates me and inspires me to do more of the same, where it's like there's not some alchemy to doing this job really, really well if you work hard and you kind of know the direction that you need to go, you're a great partner to entrepreneurs, and you work really hard for them.