Consumer internet: get rich or die tryin’?

Great companies can be built serving consumers or enterprises. But there’s a different risk-reward return profile. I recently took a step back to look at the data along with my colleagues and awesome thought partners Kate Walker, Alexandra Sukin, and Jeremy Levine. We reviewed all the VC-backed public listings on the NYSE & Nasdaq worth >$1B…More

A trillion dollar opportunity

Google is the front page of the Internet. The Internet is a central hub for knowledge, information, and economic activity. And Google is its biggest gatekeeper. It is where a lot of my online life starts. I am a chronic googler. I search anything and everything that pops into my hyperactive mind. My search history…More

Thank you, Jeremy Levine

Ten years ago, I landed a college internship at Bessemer. That led to a full time job and launched my career as a venture capitalist. As I look back, I can’t imagine where I would be without people taking bets on me – from founders that said “yes” and bet on me as a young,…More

Valuing early stage companies

When presenting a term sheet, I am often asked, “how did you come up with this valuation?” I have heard VCs answer that question ambiguously by proclaiming that “valuing early stage startups is more art than science.” In my opinion, that is akin to admitting that you put your finger in the air and conjure…More

Is generative AI the next platform shift?

The global economy was once fueled by industrialization. Today it’s fueled by knowledge and information. Major technological advances and platform shifts have accelerated this transition—in the 1990s it was the Internet. The 2000s brought the era of cloud computing. The 2010s gave rise to smartphone ubiquity. What were once emergent platforms went on to broaden…More

Loss ratios in VC

Loss aversion and FOMO are powerful forces that drive VC behavior. The pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other. Both are dangerous. Companies measure dollar and logo churn rates. VCs do the same with dollar and “logo” (aka investment count) losses. Losses are part of business. According to Cambridge Associates, 20% dollar losses…More

My investment in Rupa Health

My friend Tara Viswanathan was desperate to find a treatment for her mom’s chronic skin condition. World-class doctors and dermatologists were stumped. So Tara turned to specialty testing and root cause medicine for answers. Root cause medicine is the practice of understanding the root cause of illness rather than simply slapping on band-aids or prescribing pills…More

Why meat is like a PalmPilot

I am fond of Peter Thiel’s interview question: “what is one thing you believe that most others don’t?” One of my own answers to this question is that within the next few decades, meat as we know it will be obsolete. Most of this country will be plant based or eating meat that is grown…More

Distribution and conversion models for consumer startups

This is a piece I co-authored with Alexandra Sukin and originally posted on the Bessemer blog. We often describe breakout consumer internet businesses as earthquakes that occur out of nowhere, and are so powerful they feel like forces of nature and movements that are bigger than the brands themselves. But what powers the tectonic shifts that create…More

Roadmap Update: Remote Work

I first published my remote work roadmap (below) just three months before the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the U.S. It was inspired by over a year of research that led to my conviction that remote and distributed work was inevitable. Removing geography as a constraint to team building would be transformative. It felt like I…More