Sam Lessin
GP Slow Ventures. Intern The Information
Subscriber since 2013
About
Sam is currently an intern at The Information and a General Partner at Slow Ventures. He has co-founded two companies, Fin and drop.io (acquired by Facebook in 2010). Between 2010 and 2014 he was a VP of product management at Facebook, where he managed the People, Places, and Things product group and the Identity product group. Sam started his career at Bain and Company, and attended Harvard ('05). In his spare time Sam enjoys skiing and kite-surfing. He is married to Jessica Lessin, founder of The Information.
Open to
Looking to invest in startups / private companies
I have been an early investor in many notable companies and projects including (solana, venmo, birchbox, makerbot, teamshares, tonkean, blockdaemon, airtable, etc.) At slow we look to back ideally things that are a bit crazy but important.
Looking to hire team members
TI is very much looking for engineers, product, design folks. Slow doesn't really have many opportunities but always open to hearing from folks.
Topics
Markets
StartupsGoogleAmazonAppleNetflixVenture CapitalVcSemiconductorsCryptocurrencyCloudAsiaAndreessen HorowitzAirbnbEntertainmentElon MuskFacebookMark ZuckerbergSequoia CapitalSingapore Economic Development BoardEnterpriseSilicon Valley Bank (SVB)PolicyUber/LyftAmazon Web ServicesAIAutonomous VehiclesCryptoVenture-CapitalOpenAIBainE CommerceModest ProposalsFTXSvbMeta PlatformsMedia/TelecomSBFVenture CapitalStartupsSaasIdentityBitcoinLawCryptocurrencyHuman CapitalMarketsCrazy People
StartupsGoogleAmazonAppleNetflixVenture CapitalVcSemiconductorsCryptocurrencyCloudAsiaAndreessen HorowitzAirbnbEntertainmentElon MuskFacebookMark ZuckerbergSequoia CapitalSingapore Economic Development BoardEnterpriseSilicon Valley Bank (SVB)PolicyUber/LyftAmazon Web ServicesAIAutonomous VehiclesCryptoVenture-CapitalOpenAIBainE CommerceModest ProposalsFTXSvbMeta PlatformsMedia/TelecomSBFVenture CapitalStartupsSaasIdentityBitcoinLawCryptocurrencyHuman CapitalMarketsCrazy PeopleSkills
FinanceFundraisingProduct ManagementData AnalysisSqlMicrosoft WordWritingHiringPrivacy IssuesStartups
Weekend
Favorite Vacation Spot
British ColumbiaHawaiiCape CodJackson Hole
Favorite Sports to Play
TennisSkiingSurfingFoilingKitesurfing
Favorite Sports to Watch
Mma
Favorite Books
The HobbitThe Biggest BluffSnowcrashDuneThe Hero With A Thousand FacesBusiness AdventuresThe Three Body Problem
Favorite TV Shows / Movies
Game Of ThronesCasino RoyaleCurb Your EnthusiasmIt's Always Sunny In PhiladelphiaFor All MankindLetterkennySuccessionCaddyshackBlazing SaddlesZoolander
Forum Posts
<< ChatGPT >> IDENTITY is our only defense (and we are screwed)
Posted bySam Lessin
> For the last century we have had the luxury of being able to rely on photos, video and audio for a recorded understanding of truth. But for most of human history, trust and truth were far more complicated. World events couldn’t be directly observed… so identity and trust were everything — with ChatGPT it really feels like we are ‘ending’ our brief utopian century of tru...Slow Ventures
Elon on News Micropayments… The Greatest Hits of JR PM Mistakes Continues - Not Understanding News Economics.
Posted bySam Lessin
I actually love the idea that Elon is bringing some financial discipline to the internet / cutting the bloat… but his product ideas and insights are just awful - scary bad - the most recent one I happened upon is his take on news micropayments (here we go again) // Slow Ventures
The ‘Three Beers’ Test for Product Management & ‘Explain it to me as though I were a Golden Retriever” for Investing…
Posted bySam Lessin
When I lead product management teams, I always used to say to people - when you are designing interfaces assume that the ‘user’ is three beers deep and trying to use the app (if you lack imagination and need to drink three beers to test it, go for it) — but all users are effectively ‘drunk’ because (a) they are very distracted / doing 15 things at once (b) the average IQ of ...Slow Ventures
The Next Crypto Wave: Will Be Real World Hard Assets On-Chain, Not This Stuff..
Posted bySam Lessin
Since the sky is falling, it is only right to start talking about what is going to have to happen to propel the next crypto wave. The answer is real world hard assets on chain (fundamentally creating value through liquidity and unleashing real DeFi…)… but before we get to that, let me shit on everything else that it ‘won’t be’ next time: > THE THINGS IT WON’T BE: ####...Slow Ventures
Ten companies to build now in 'AI' / Generative AI
Posted bySam Lessin
As I have written about before, I think this era of Generative AI is interesting tech - but in general is not going to pan out as a major moment of important company building (vs. some good incremental optimization tools for large platforms) - that said, if I was FORCED to build a generative AI company right now, here is where I would broadly be looking for opportunities tha...Slow Ventures