20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction | Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabailising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling

Victor Lazarte is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the mot renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Victor has led deals into the likes of HeyGen and Mercor. As an angel, he was the first investor and board member of Brex, and as a Founder he scaled Wildlife Studios, bootstrapping into the largest gaming company in LatAm, with about 4 billion downloads. 

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

04:10 Lessons Scaling Wildlife Studios to 4BN Downloads

04:49 Why Predicting the Future is Wrong When Starting a Company

07:11 Three Different Categories of Company in an AI World: Who Wins & Loses?

09:25 Why You Should Always Ask What a Founder Does in Their Free Time?

17:30 Two Traits That All the Best Founders Have?

23:17 Why If You Start a Company in SF You are 1,000x More Likely to be Successful?

35:30 Why Spreadsheet SaaS Investing is Dead

36:10 Why Replacing Humans is the Most Exciting Opportunity in AI

37:02 Why Knowledge Work Will Be Destroyed and What Happens Then?

37:30 Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US

38:59 China vs. US: The AI Race

42:33 Why All Students Today Should Study Computer Science

44:38 Why Portfolio Construction is BS

47:04 What Makes Peter Fenton One of the Best Ever

51:31 Why Duolingo Will Be One of the Most Valuable Companies in the World

01:00:17 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Predictions