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
Even as an ardent free market capitalist, I am starting to question the higher education system.
Posted bySam Lessin
Capitalism is very very good at 1-5 year problems… and very very bad at 10+ year challenges (see environment) The question of higher education - how young people spend ~four years and what they learn in that time… it seems like the problem is just mismatched with what free market capitalism is good at. This is at least part of how we end up with massive gaps of skilled wo...Slow Ventures
Why The Internet allows you to charge more for commodity stuff… and how long that hack will last.
Posted bySam Lessin
Pre-internet if you wanted to buy something (grill tools), you went to a local retailer (hardware store), and compared the products they carried by picking them up / feeling them, and then selecting based on product quality and price. The internet expanded the local ‘inventory’ to effectively infinity, and frictionless commerce exerted a ton of positive pricing power BUT th...Slow Ventures
Some Math Questions for Yvon Chouinard, the Founder of Patagonia re Giving Away The Company …
Posted bySam Lessin
Yvon Chouinard the founder of Patagonia seems like a really bad-ass guy, and the move of giving away the entire company, worth $3B to a charitable foundation focused on climate is pretty baller…. But I do have some math questions for him beyond the headline to understand why this move actually makes sense from an impact perspective. > 1) Is giving away $3B for just $100M...Slow Ventures
Any probability times infinity is infinity: Why the biggest capital allocation mistakes happen when the apparent ‘prize’ for winning is too big…
Posted bySam Lessin
Early stage capital allocation really just comes down to two variables. (1) The probability of success, and (2) the ‘value’ of something if successful. If you look at the biggest misses / misallocations of capital (Wework, one-hour delivery, self driving cars, parts of crypto, etc.) it never has to do with the ‘probability of success’ side of the equation, and it always ...Slow Ventures
Toms Shoes for Corporate Health Insurance…
Posted bySam Lessin
Recently some corporate employees have been pointing out that it is ‘unfair’ that paternity / maternity leave exists for employees that have babies, but if you don’t have kids you don’t get any benefit / time off…. Regardless of what you think of that argument (let’s not touch that one directly right now) — the other place the same pattern tends to play out is in insurance...Slow Ventures