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
Securing The ‘Media’ Home Front For a New Age of Warfare... expanded thoughts
Posted bySam Lessin
Recent events make it clear that we are in a dangerous post-globalization era of International competition and proxy-wars … if not outright great-nation conflict. Ukraine is a proxy war, let’s hope Israel doesn’t become a full blown one, let’s hope that China moving up their documented timeline to be ready to invade Taiwan is just sword rattling, but best to take folks at t...Slow Ventures
Tiktok Needs To Go, Now.
Posted bySam Lessin
We made a big mistake to not ban Tiktok when Trump opened the issue in 2020. He was right, it was / is a major national security threat, and making an exception to our ban on foreign ownership of "media" just because the content was UGC was / is nonsense…. Media is media. Far too many smart people focused on their hatred of the messenger and missed that the m...Slow Ventures
The NYT issues an Editor’s Note explaining their Gaza hospital and says they are ‘continue to examine procedures around breaking news’ not enough. They need to publicly document their editorial process and be held to it.
Posted bySam Lessin
The NYT issued an Editors’ note about their Gaza Hospital Coverage. Of course they didn’t apologize or admit they were actually ‘wrong’ — but this is as close as they culturally every would have possibly come. What is telling however, is how they said in the closing graph ‘Newsroom leaders continue to examine procedures around the invest breaking new events — including for...Slow Ventures
What Congress Needs to Ask The New York Times; And What New Rules We Might Need for Mass Media
Posted bySam Lessin
The New York Times rushed front-page mistake about the hospital explosion in Gaza is really as a bad as it gets. They wanted clicks, they did terrible journalism, and recklessly published bold headlines with major political implications with immediately put lives at risk at the absolute worst possible time. Their bad reporting created a situation that could have easily spu...Slow Ventures
Defining Who You Trust To Do Business With...
Posted bySam Lessin
One thing I really believe is that in life it is very important to do business with people who you believe in and deeply deeply trust. I think a big part of my personal massive priority / emphasis on this is from my experience in startups and early stage venture capital over the last 20+ years contracts are lightweight and low friction on purpose to speed innovation and k...Slow Ventures