20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Why Career VCs Have Advantages Most Under Appreciate, Why We Are In An Infrastructure Renaissance & What Makes The Best VC Partnership

Eric Vishria is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the world’s leading VC funds with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, eBay, WeWork, Yelp and many more revolutionary companies of the last decade. At Benchmark, Eric has led deals and sits on the board of the likes of Confluent, Amplitude, and Bugsnag. Prior to being in VC, Eric was the Founder & CEO @ Rockmelt, the startup that sought to re-imagine the browser for the way people use the web today, the company was ultimately acquired by Yahoo in 2013. Prior to Rockmelt Eric held numerous different roles including VP of Products @ HP and VP of Marketing @ Opsware.

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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Eric came to be one of the 5 GP’s at Benchmark following operational success with Rockmelt, HP and Opsware?

2.) Why does Eric believe the pendulum has swung too far to the operational route into VC? What are the under-appreciated benefits of career VCs and the perspective they bring? How does Eric expect the pendulum to swing in the coming years?

3.) What makes the best-performing venture partnerships? How does Benchmark think about partner composition and career pre-VC? How does Benchmark structure investment decision-making? Why do they favor advocacy over unanimity?

4.) What does Eric mean when he says we are at the beginning of an infrastructure renaissance? What opportunities does this create in the venture landscape? How does this lead Eric to consider the current state of the consumer landscape?

5.) How does Eric view multi-stage investing? Why does Eric and Benchmark favour stage specifity when it comes to investing? What are the dangers of larger stage funds investing in earlier rounds for optionality?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Eric’s Fave Book: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage To The Antarctic

Eric’s Most Recent Investment: Confluent 

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Eric on Twitter here!

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