20VC: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel on Why Chasing GMV Will Lead To The Wrong Direction, The 2 Crucial Tipping Points For Marketplace Adoption, Why UGC Plays Are Like Marketplaces & How To Determine Between Existential and Non-Existential Risk
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 11/23/2020
20VC: Inside Anduril's $20BN Army Contract & Why Anduril Must Go Public | Why 99% of Drone Companies Will Die | Why There is Never an Ethical Question of How Anduril Products are Used with Matthew Steckman, President @ Anduril
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Matthew Steckman is the President and Chief Business Officer of Anduril. Matt played a central role in securing the $20BN contract Anduril just won with the US military. Prior to Anduril, Matt served as Chief Revenue Officer for Zipline. Before Zipline, Matt held several leadership positions at Palantir. AGENDA: 3:45 — Anduril’s $20BN Army Contract Broken Down 6:30 — What Do Most Defense Founders Get Completely Wrong? 9:15 — Can You Build a Billion-Dollar Defense Company Without the US? 12:05 — Why Government Contracts Are Brutal (And Why Most Fail) 15:40 — How Does Anduril Predict...
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20Sales: Inside Figma's $1BN ARR Revenue Machine | Why We Do Not Have Customer Success or SDRs | Why I Do Not Believe in Sales Quotas with Shaunt Voskanian, CRO @ Figma
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Shaunt Voskanian is the CRO @ Figma, where he has scaled the sales machine to over $1BN in ARR and over 400 people. Prior to Figma, Shaunt was Senior VP of Global Sales at Datadog where he scaled the revenue org to $1BN in ARR. AGENDA: 04:33 - Are Great Sales Leaders Born or Trained? 06:55 - In a world of PLG, is sales less important than ever? 11:51 - Why does Shaunt not believe in traditional customer success teams? 14:31 - Does the role of the SDR survive in two years' time? 19:19 - When is the right time for sales to intercept in a PLG motion? 21:43 - How to Set Sales Quotas in...
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20VC: The Return of Travis Kalanick: Uber Would Be $1TRN Today With Him | NVIDIA Predicts $1TRN in Revenue: Everything You Need to Know From GTC | Anduril Lands $20BN Army Contract | Adobe CEO Shock Exit: The Dominos Falling
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 04:02 NVIDIA’s GTC: What You Need to Know 11:39 Meta’s 20% Layoffs & Atlassian Lets Go of 1,600 21:42 How to Test AI Fluency in Employees 30:59 Anduril Lands $20BN Army Contract 46:46 Travis Kalanick Returns With Atoms 49:55 If Travis Kalanick Ran Uber Today, Would it be $1TRN Company? 56:03 When is it Right to Replace Founders 01:04:24 Adobe CEO Exit Shock
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20VC: The 8 Moats of Enduring Software Companies: How to Analyse for Durability and Defensibility in a World of AI | Why Dropouts are "AI Maxing" the World & Remote Early-Stage Companies are Dying with Gokul Rajaram
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Gokul Rajaram is one of the greatest operators turned investors of the last 2 decades. He is trusted as the go to advisor for the greatest founders in the world. Today he serves as a Board Director at three public companies: Coinbase, Pinterest and The Trade Desk. Prior to Marathon (his firm), Gokul served on the executive team at DoorDash and Block. Before Block, he served as Product Director of Ads at Facebook. Earlier in his career, Gokul served as a Product Management Director for Google AdSense. Gokul is also a prolific angel investor, having invested in 700+ companies, including...
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20Growth: Inside Lovable's $400M ARR Growth Machine | How Lovable Does Product Launches | How Lovable Hacks Social To Make Posts Go Viral | How Lovable Makes Every Employee a Brand with Elena Verna
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Elena Verna is the Head of Growth at Lovable, one of the fastest growing companies in the world having hit $400M in ARR in just 18 months. Prior to Lovable, Elena was Head of Growth at both Dropbox and Miro. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why “Growth Is Now a Trust Problem” (Not a Marketing Problem) 06:10 – Is SEO Dying Because of AI Search? 07:00 – Did Lovable’s Growth Come From the Founder’s Personal Brand? 08:30 – Why Every Founder Should Push Employees to Be Marketers? 13:10 – Why Every Employee at Lovable Ships Code (Even Marketing) 21:20 – Why Paid Marketing in Year One Is a...
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20VC: Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins | The Ultimate Stock Picks: What to Buy | The Data Centre Arms Race: Is the Capex War Stalling | The Era of Public Company Deceleration is Dead
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 - ANTHROPIC VS. THE PENTAGON: The Billion Dollar Supply Chain War 07:11 - B2B PANIC: Why Leading Companies Are Losing Deals to OpenAI 12:19 - THE ANTHROPIC ENDGAME: Will Claude Eclipse ChatGPT? 17:39 - THE DATA CENTER ARMS RACE: Is the AI Hype Cycle Finally Dead? 24:43 - 24/7 PERSISTENT AI: Why You'll Soon Need Data Centers in Space 30:37 - THE DEATH OF THE JUNIOR: Why Entry-Level Jobs are Vanishing 41:55 - AGENT-LED GROWTH: The Secret Reason Startups are Exploding in 2026 46:58 - THE ERA OF GENTLE DECELERATION IS DEAD: Public Markets Turn Brutal 55:54 - FIGMA MAKE IS TERRIBLE?...
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20VC: Inside Accel's $4BN Growth Investing Machine | Cursor is Dead is Total BS: Here is Why | What Missing Rippling and ElevenLabs Taught Us | Are $2BN-$10BN IPOs Dead | Why Now is a Great Time to be Thoma Bravo with Miles Clements
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Miles Clements is a Partner @ Accel where he helps to lead their growth fund. At Accel, Miles has led or invested in Atlassian, Cursor, Linear, and more. AGENDA: 03:38 Where is True Alpha and Value in a World of AI 05:10 Why it is Total BS that Cursor is Dead 07:55 Why Cursor Were Not Wrong to Build Their Own Models 09:38 What is the Upside When Investing in Cursor at $27BN? 15:12 Do Sub $10BN Outcomes Even Matter to a Fund the Size of Accel? 17:07 Losing ServiceTitan: Investing Lesson Learned… 19:55 Missing Rippling: What We Learned 27:20 What is Accel’s Win Rate 30:22...
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20VC: Why the SaaS Apocalypse is BS | Why China Will Win the AI War | Why 50% of VCs Should Not Exist and are Tourists | Why Stock-Based Comp is the Hidden Sin of the Valley with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Mitchell Green is a legendary growth equity investor and the Founder and Managing Partner of Lead Edge Capital, a firm with over $5 billion in assets under management. Known as a relentless "money maker", Mitchell has led investments in the likes of Bytedance, Toast, Procore, Duo Security and more. AGENDA: 0:00 The SaaS Apocalypse: Why Incumbents Aren't Going to Zero 05:50 "Dead Money": Why Public Software Estimates Were Too High 08:15 Leverage is the Enemy: Lessons from the 1999 Retail Crash 11:50 The Truth About Growth Equity: Zeroes vs. 10X Returns 15:40 Mainframes to AI: Why Oracle and SAP...
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20VC: Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins | OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round | Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR | Block's 40% Headcount Reduction: AI or Overhiring
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 04:13 Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins 13:54 Was Sam Altman Wrong to Take the Deal 24:28 OpenAI’s $110BN Mega Round: The Breakdown 28:22 Who Has a Bigger Valuation Premium: Sam Altman or Elon Musk 34:38 Why We Got the SaaS Apocalypse Wrong? 43:24 Why Salesforce Could be the Best Buy in Public Markets 47:46 Block Lays Off 40% of Team: AI or Overhiring 01:00:16 Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR… so not Dead? 01:18:15 How to Pick Winners in AI?
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20VC: Monday.com CEO on Is SaaS Dead: Will Everything Be Vibe Coded | Will Systems of Record Become Valueless Databases in an Agentic World | Will LLMs Own the Value in the Application Layer with Eran Zinman
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Monday has been hit harder than almost any other public SaaS company. With $1.3BN in ARR, the company is valued at just $3.8BN; a more than 60% fall since IPO. Today, Eran Zinman, Monday’s CEO joins Harry Stebbings in the hotseat to walkthrough six of the biggest threats to Monday’s business; what is real, what is not and what are the unknowns. AGENDA: 05:47 Six Threats Monday Faces Today 07:04 Threat #1: Vibe Coding: Will Companies Vibe Code Everything 11:24 Threat #2: Will OpenAI and Anthropic Own the Application Layer 13:52 Threat #3: Will Agents Turn Monday and...
info_outlineSarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, WeWork, Snapchat, StitchFix, eBay and many more. As for Sarah, prior to joining Benchmark, she was a General Partner at another globally renowned firm, Greylock, where she led deals in Sonder and Gixo. Pre-Greylock, Sarah was the first PM @ Pinterest where she led three acquisitions, launched Pinterest internationally, and was responsible for closing their $100m Series C financing.
20VC: Benchmark's Sarah Tavel on Why Chasing GMV Will Lead To The Wrong Direction, The 2 Crucial Tipping Points For Marketplace Adoption, Why UGC Plays Are Like Marketplaces & How To Determine Between Existential and Non-Existential Risk
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Sarah made her way from being the first PM at Pinterest to being a General Partner at one of the world's leading venture firms, Benchmark?
2.) What does Sarah mean when she says, "the small things are not the big things"? How does Sarah determine between existential vs non-existential risk? How does this impact the type of board member Sarah is? How has Sarah seen the best board members engage? Who are they?
3.) Why does Sarah believe that in marketplaces, chasing GMV will lead you in the wrong direction? How does Sarah think about good vs great when it comes to 1.) Average order values? 2.) Repeat purchase rates. 3.) NPS? 4.) Net revenue retention? How should they change with time?
4.) In marketplaces, what is a tipping point? What are the 2 crucial tipping points to be aware of? How can marketplaces ensure demand brings further demand? What can they determine from how demand engages with different suppliers? How does Sarah feel about feedback systems?
5.) Why does Sarah believe that UGC plays are like marketplaces? What lessons can be drawn from TikTok to suggest this? How does Sarah think about her biggest lessons when analysing the growth of DoorDash? What do many not see that is important to recognise?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Sarah’s Favourite Book: Pachinko: The New York Times Bestseller
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