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.
Articles
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
AI Will Not Change Investment Banking Foot Binding Culture At All…
Posted bySam Lessin
When I was right out of college now almost 20 years ago, I went to work for Bain and company… the most hardcore of my friends went to work for Goldman or Morgan — and I didn’t see those folks again for 2-3 years. Why? Because they were at the office insane hours. To be clear, they weren’t actually working insane hours generally, but the cultural expectations were that y...Slow Ventures
will the upper crust of twitter society align with musk?
Posted bySam Lessin
so - the real losers with thread's success will be the top .01% of twitter users / the cult leaders who either built or were gifted fiefdoms of distribution over the years. -- but who aren't so important that their social capital translates easily to new platforms (like tay tay) I am super curious how this user base will align in the coming days/ months... I think...Slow Ventures
Prediction: Threads is going to be far more 'Middle Class' than Twitter's top-heavy Cult Orientation
Posted bySam Lessin
2 mornings in - I think what we are stating to see is that threads is going to be a far more 'middle class' platform than twitter, which is really very top heavy 'strong man' distribution tool with a few people having tons and tons of followers they can reach and retweet their stuff at scale. What this practically means: You are going to see way more people...Slow Ventures
Elon's Private Company Public Square vs. Public Company Threads
Posted bySam Lessin
In general, I am not a huge fan of the public markets and I actually really like the model of private, tightly held companies. This is especially true in media (social or traditional), where (a) you frequently need strong owners to protect the mission and platform against frequently powerful and angry external interests and (b) brands grow slowly and methodically... To me, ...Slow Ventures
10 Morning Reflections on The Successful Threads Launch: Turns out you can indeed transplant a pig heart into a monkey and bootstrap a new app even in our ‘algorithmic’ world.
Posted bySam Lessin
IT HUNTS: - Congrats to the whole meta team… well timed, well executed, great app. The fact that about 25% of my IG followers are ~12 hours later now on threads is amazing. - Yes, you can transplant a pig heart into a monkey and bootstrap a new app, and you don’t even need to ask for apple contact book access: If the question yesterday was ‘are hand built graphs of relat...Slow Ventures