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 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
Ironically, Search is Gmail’s Achilles Heel & the wedge (with AI) to build a great next generation email client
Posted bySam Lessin
Everyone is salivating ATM about the idea of GPT competing with google search / giving GOOG competition ‘for the first time in 20 years’ — maybe… > But what I am personally more excited for / waiting for is for someone to seriously challenge gmail (which for me is a way higher lock-in product than google search)… with AI. All the startup attempts to dethrone gmail come ...Slow Ventures
‘AI Ethics’ Is The Most Dangerous Part of 2023 AI… It is the same as the ‘content moderation in social networks’ issue, just on steroids
Posted byLion Lessin
THE DIGITAL FREE SPEECH CONTEXT The usual argument for ‘free speech’ on social networks usually takes the form of a ‘rights’ based discussion. People who believe in free speech, believe in free speech because it is a ‘fundamental human right’, full stop. I think this is a pretty basic way of making the case / you can argue almost anything is a ‘human right’ if you want, a...The Hallmark of Our Era: Increasing Volatility…. And a Tendency Towards Disequilibrium.
Posted bySam Lessin
The single meta-theme of our century is that the world is getting dramatically more volatile. > We are all taught the 101 lesson of a tendency towards equilibrium… but the 201 lesson is that when the friction in the world drops to zero, and powerful platforms exist that create a frictionless world and insta-scale, what you get is a tendency toward ~unstable~ disequilib...Slow Ventures
The End of “Industrial” Seed VC… (and return to the cottage industry it always was)
Posted bySam Lessin
Historically the idea of seed venture capital (and ‘angle investors’ before them), was to fund ideas that were so early, so crazy, and so un-developed that no legitimate financier would ever trade hard American dollars for the ‘equity’ they had to offer conjured from thin air and a dream. This was generally a hard way to make money for many reasons… (a) It was hard to raise...Slow Ventures
Musk, Twitter, and Tesla - Influencer Power Works Both On The Way Up… and The Way Down.
Posted bySam Lessin
One of the most important trends in culture and business is the relative rise in power of influencer cults (and the relative decline in power of traditional brands)… 1. With frictionless reach of the internet individuals have been able to directly connect with fans and build cults on a level never before see in history / without any intermediation from traditional companie...Slow Ventures