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.
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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
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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
Want to build the next twitter? Go all in on AI with bots while Twitter pointlessly fights them…
Posted bySam Lessin
AI is going to make big business who already have distribution bigger and more powerful. It is going to accelerate the political and legal havvock tech brings to the real world… but it isn’t a startup or VC opportunity - because it slots too easily into existing company patterns and powers without disrupting existing demand or distribution at all. - The AI cloud provider ...Slow Ventures
“Who Do You Want To Follow YOU” /// the future of AI oriented social networks is going to invert the historical ‘follow’ model
Posted bySam Lessin
For nearly 20 years, every time you sign up for a new social network, the first thing the app does in the ‘NUX’ (new user experience) is try to help you find people (and groups) to ‘follow’ ... This is always the first step for 2 reasons — - The first obvious one, is that the network needs to know what you like to find you the content that is going to engage you / to fi...Slow Ventures
Should a Company Be Allowed To Buy Its Own Currency?
Posted bySam Lessin
I think we can all probably agree that FTX holding FTT on its balance sheet as its major asset was a … problem… but what about the broader case of companies buying back their own equity? The historical reason that you want to own a share of a business is because you are entitled to a share of the profits, which you get in the form of dividends…. The problem is, this connec...Slow Ventures
To All Those Who Think Generative AI opens up new opportunities for startups, look at the stock price of Buzzfeed in the last 2 days.
Posted bySam Lessin
I love watching Buzzfeed’s stock because I think it is hilarious. And nothing is more hilarious than the 307% increase lift it got this week when Jonah announced that they would be using OpenAI to auto-generate listicles. Now, to be clear, I think this is a perfectly good idea for them / the right direction to go in. Their content is precisely the type of engagement-orie...Slow Ventures
One thing AI will definitely do kill the public web (finally)
Posted bySam Lessin
There are many many things advocates are claiming that AI will accomplish that it will not… but sadly one thing I think it will do in short order is put the final ~nail in the coffin of the open public web~. ### Slow Death: The public web has been dying for a long time Sadly, the open and public web has been dying a slow death for a very very long time (sad because I al...Slow Ventures
