20VC: Most Downloaded Episode of 2017: Peter Fenton, General Partner @ Benchmark

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
Welcome back to The Twenty Minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings. For an inside look into how I celebrate Christmas, you can find me on Snapchat at hstebbings with two Bs. It'd be fantastic to see you there. And on the theme of Christmas, the schedule for the show will be slightly effective for the Christmas period. Following this week's episodes, the show will return to normal on Wednesday the 3rd of January, and we will be back with a bang with killer episodes from Sam Altman, Dick Costolo, and Snapchat investor, Jeremy Liu at Lightspeed, just to name a few. However, to the final week before Christmas, and I wanted to do a really special week this week on the show, and so we're going to be doing the Twenty Minute VC Awards Week with the two most downloaded VC episodes today and on Wednesday, and then on Friday we'll be having the most downloaded Founders Friday episode. So to the most downloaded VC episode of 2018 with over 350,000 downloads and my all-time favorite, I do have to say, drum roll, please.
Peter Fenton, general partner at 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. Peter himself sits or has sat on the board of Twitter, previous guest Cockroach, Optimizely, New Relic and Zendesk, just to name a few. Prior to Benchmark, Peter was a managing partner at Accel and due to Peter's astonishing success, he's been named to Forbes Midas list for many consecutive years with the last list placing Peter as number three in the world. I do also want to say a huge personal thank you to Peter. I so appreciate all his support and all he has done for me. It really does mean so much and this episode would not have been possible without the kind introduction from Jonathan Abrams from Nuzzle. I really do so appreciate that. But before we dive into the show's stay, the heart of any good company is its people. That's why Namely brings employees together on the HR platform that everyone loves to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely is the all-in-one platform that helps companies manage HR, payroll, benefits and more. Their mission? To help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.namely.com today. And speaking of transforming a space, that's exactly what Eero can do. Eero is the world's best-reviewed Wi-Fi. A system of Eero and Eero beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable Wi-Fi. So despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh Wi-Fi in every nook and cranny of your home, yes, backyard included, and no more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs or buffering right out of the box. And Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out at eero.com. But I'm now thrilled to hand over to the most downloaded episode of 2017 with over 350,000 downloads, Peter Fenton, General Partner at Benchmark.
You have now arrived at your destination.
Well, Peter, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Huge thanks to Jonathan at Nuzzle for the intro, but thank you so much for joining me today, Peter.

**Peter Fenton** (2:57)
Thank you for inviting me. It's truly a pleasure. This is a great historical capturing of the current state of our industry, so I'm grateful to be able to contribute a little piece.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:07)
Well, thank you so much, but I'd love to get started today by discussing a bit about you and how you made your foray into the wonderful world of venture capital in a nicely three to four minutes.

**Peter Fenton** (3:17)
Well, I was born in the Silicon Valley, and my dad had been a startup CEO for the bulk of my childhood. Through that, I had a window into just the opportunity and really, I think, maybe best ever potential enablement of humanity, of entrepreneurship. And to do that in the information technology world, to me, seemed like something I had to do. It felt like a bus, a calling, if you will. And the question was more around what form. And my dad had explained to me that there were these people on his board that he both simultaneously respected and hated. So they were the investors. And at the time, this is in the late 70s to mid 80s, the venture industry was very much in its beginnings. And there was a mixture of people who had some operating experience, but it was just as likely you'd run into someone who had a financial investor background. And through that, I got a lens into just the overall ecosystem, the different constituents, obviously investors, venture capitalists, operators, and I channeled that curiosity into my undergrad education where I was mostly learning about what I loved and where my motivations were. And those motivations, as my dad had pointed out, were really defined by curiosity. And in that regard, he felt and counseled me that balance of the curiosity that I was demonstrating, and I'd studied any topic that came up, I was always diving in trying to learn in a way that was sort of reckless abandon. And it was his point of view, and I think, ultimately something I felt very deeply that a career that could nurture and feed off that curiosity would allow me to achieve whatever I could do in this world. And combined with that, I think there's this other dimension, which I guess it was part of my character is that there's a competitive spirit, I think, which is part of who I am. And one of my current partners, Kevin Harvey, likes to say that we're defined in our business and the venture business by hyper curiosity and hyper competitiveness. And I think those are positive ways of resting what are arguably are two very deficient traits for a operating CEO focus and, you know, collegiality can be very defining as a great CEO set of character traits. So in that regard, so I felt that, you know, as I got into asking questions about my career, I had this sense of resonance for lack of a better term in international ways, because I didn't really know what the venture business was in my very early twenties. So by I'd say 23, 24, I was absolutely focused on getting into the venture business. And it was probably the best advice I had received during that period of time was from a then practicing venture capitalist. And I had thought, well, do I need to go work in an operating company, demonstrate my chops as an entrepreneur before I can work and collaborate with entrepreneurs as an investor and as a partner. And this venture capitalist said, there's no substitute for being great in the venture business than practicing it. And if I view this as a 20 to 30 year career, the sooner I got started, the better. And for the first five years, I may not know what I'm doing, but I'll probably realize in 15 years that I still don't know what I'm doing.