E4: Sam Lessin on Why Seed and the “Factory System” Era of Venture is Dead

This week Erik is joined by Sam Lessin, General Partner at the early-stage VC firm Slow Ventures, essayist, and former VP of Product at Facebook. Hear about why the factory system of venture capital is over, why the next generation of great businesses are going to be constellation software, and more, in this episode of Turpentine VC. If you’re looking to make fund administration easy and intuitive, check out: http://carta.com/turpentine

RELATED SHOWS:

If you like Turpentine VC, check out our show The Limited Partner with David Weisburd, where David talks to the investors behind the investors: https://www.podpage.com/the-limited-partner/ 

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00:00) Episode Preview

(00:01:22) On Screenshot Essays, writing, and being OK with being wrong

(00:04:04) Sam's thesis on the factory system of venture capital

(00:07:18) What does venture look like when the factory line is over?

(00:10:14) Sam's bearishness on YC and a16z

(00:12:36) What are the best firms going to look like in the future?

(00:15:36) Sponsor: Carta

(00:16:17) The future state of company building and venture

(00:17:52) On the fake unicorns in the past decade and what the next 10 years of unicorns might look like

(00:21:46) The biggest factors of luck in life and company building

(00:23:15) Sam's thesis on constellation software

(00:26:39) Thoughts on the studio model of venture

(00:28:38) ​​Team Shares and why that's Sam's most bullish investment

(00:31:49) Sponsors: Synpatic | Pesto Tech

(00:33:15) Why Sam is bullsih on crypto

(00:38:32) The different models of finance and investing in creators

(00:42:08) Sam's advice for future investors in 2040

(00:45:21) Is the LP landscape going to change significantly?

(00:46:55) On consumer social

(00:49:35) On VC firms and indexing

(00:52:17) Lower variance founders

(00:56:08) Kardashians and the future of media / celebrity

(00:57:42) Sam on Balaji's protech and anti-journalist class

(00:58:34) What could have made Twitter a $100b company?

(1:01:00) How can we represent social capital on the internet?

(1:02:41) On the end of capitalism

(1:05:38) Slow Ventures today and where they expect to go in the future

(1:07:26) Sponsor: Carta

X / TWITTER:

@lessin (Sam)

@eriktorenberg (Erik)

@slow (Slow Ventures)

@TurpentineVC

SPONSORS:

Carta is the world’s largest venture fund administrator. Carta’s software-based approach takes fund administration out of the spreadsheet and into 2023 and beyond with powerful solutions and intuitive interfaces, all on one platform. Their suite of products and expert services help funds at any stage with up-to-date insights and automated workflows to get them to that next level. Learn more at: carta.com/turpentine

Synaptic unifies over one hundred real-time company performance metrics across alternative datasets like user traffic, employee data, app downloads, product reviews, and more. It’s your all-in-one source for alternative data that helps you make better investment decisions. To learn how Synaptic can improve your sourcing, tracking, and due diligence, visit synaptic.com/turpentine

Pesto Tech is a hiring marketplace that makes finding great remote developers fast and easy. They use large language models to evaluate developers along dozens of parameters, including code quality, performance, and security. If you need to start hiring developers fast, all you have to do is answer 5 simple questions on their website: pesto.tech