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
The Economics of Free Trade in the ‘Metaverse’ & Crypto Implications
Posted bySam Lessin
Imagine that with the ‘metaverse’ at some point we are going to get a variety of new digital ‘worlds’ ….imagine that those world will become compelling enough that they will compete with reality, and many people will choose to spend more and more of their leisure time (and invest their productivity / work time) in different metaverses of their choice. Now imagine (and this ...Slow Ventures
Software might want to ‘eat the world’ — but it turns out the world might not want to be eaten…
Posted bySam Lessin
If you had to pick one line to underpin the SaaS boom of the last decade years it is hard to beat Andreessen’s ‘Software is Eating The World’ — The 2011 line (I think) it is GREAT GREAT branding / justification for the tech boom we have lived through - the big funds, the multiples, etc. The thing is, on an abstract basis - it makes a lot of sense (which is part of why it is...Slow Ventures
Inflation Matters Because of Sticky Pricing…. But is Pricing Really Sticky Anymore? / where prices are actually ‘stuck’??
Posted bySam Lessin
When I took economics 10 nearly 20 years ago, I remember being shocked even then at the examples that people used of why inflation matters / how ‘sticky prices’ work — The example then was that if you owned a restaurant, and you had printed menus, the prices would be ‘sticky’ because the menus were already printed / you wouldn’t constantly reprice your dishes — so inflatio...Slow Ventures
Asset Bubble (Good for the Rich) vs Inflation / Price Bubble (Bad for the Poor)… the challenge of our time.
Posted bySam Lessin
A friend recently recommended to me an excellent book ‘the lords of easy money’ about the FED over the last ~15 years. I keep saying I wish I had read it a year ago…. One of the nice threads the book pulls on is the difference between price bubbles (which everyone agrees are bad) and asset price bubbles (which are a bit more complicated)…. The book discusses how differe...Slow Ventures
Pay to Play Rounds on Rise in VC & Seed Implications
Posted bySam Lessin
One thing that I am seeing a lot more of right now than ever before is 'pay to play' rounds where you basically get wiped out on earlier investments if you don't put money in again. I get the rationality of doing this. All is fair in love and war, and it isn't like this is brand new or anything, but for the last many years it was very very rare and only in ...Slow Ventures