The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: Benchmark General Partner, Miles Grimshaw on The Five Pillars of Venture Capital, Why Data Can Be a Trap When Early-Stage Investing, Investing Lessons from Missing Figma and Plaid & The New Business Model for AI & Why Co-Pilot is an Incumbent Strate

Listen Later

Miles Grimshaw is a General Partner @ Benchmark, widely considered one of the best venture capital firms in history. Prior to joining the Benchmark Partnership, Miles was a General Partner @ Thrive Capital where he led investments in Airtable, Monzo, Lattice, Github, Segment, Slack and Benchling to name a few.

In Today's Episode with Miles Grimshaw We Discuss:

1. Straight into VC From University: From Yale to Thrive

  • How did Miles come to land a role with Josh Kushner and Thrive right out of Yale?
  • What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from working with Josh @ Thrive for 8 years?
  • What does Miles know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?

2. The Pillars of Venture Capital: Sourcing, Selecting, Servicing:

  • What does Miles believe are the 5 core pillars of successful venture capital?
  • 1-5, what is his strongest and what is his weakest?
  • Does Miles really believe that VCs add value today?
  • What are the most clear ways that Miles have seen VCs destroy value in portfolio companies?

3. Investment Decision Making: From Github to Segment:

  • What is the single most important question that Miles has to answer to say yes to an investment?
  • How does Miles think about both market sizing risk and market timing risk?
  • What have been Miles' biggest hits? What did he learn from making those investments?
  • What have been Miles' biggest misses? What did he learn from missing Figma and Plaid?
  • What have been 1-2 of Miles's biggest lessons so far from working with Bill Gurley and Peter Fenton?

4. AI: What Happens Next:

  • Does Miles believe we are in an AI bubble today? How does he assess the landscape?
  • Why does Miles believe that the "Co-Pilot" strategy is an incumbent strategy?
  • Where does Miles believe the value will accrue; the application layer or the infrastructure layer?
  • What does Miles mean when he says the future is in "selling the work and not the software"?
  • What business model disruption and adoption disruption does Miles believe AI will enable?
  • Why does Miles believe that the analogy of AI to the rise of mobile is wrong?

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The PitchBy Harry Stebbings
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4

4.4

470 ratings

More shows like The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

View all
This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis

This Week in Startups

1,270 Listeners

a16z Podcast by Andreessen Horowitz

a16z Podcast

1,012 Listeners

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors by SaaStr

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

172 Listeners

Founders by David Senra

Founders

1,880 Listeners

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy by Colossus | Investing & Business Podcasts

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

2,290 Listeners

Equity by TechCrunch, Mary Ann Azevedo, Kell, Theresa Loconsolo, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Devin Coldewey, Margaux MacColl

Equity

342 Listeners

Masters of Scale by WaitWhat

Masters of Scale

3,978 Listeners

Y Combinator Startup Podcast by Y Combinator

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

212 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

8,761 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

123 Listeners

The Ben & Marc Show by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz

The Ben & Marc Show

130 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

444 Listeners

AI + a16z by a16z

AI + a16z

30 Listeners

Lightcone Podcast by Y Combinator

Lightcone Podcast

21 Listeners

Training Data by Sequoia Capital

Training Data

36 Listeners