He Raised $800M Starting at 18 to Invest In Startups (Harry Stebbings, 20VC)

Wouter Teunissen (0:00)

Today's guest has built an 800 million dollar fund starting at 18 years old.

Harry Stebbings (0:04)

You don't get it. My job is very simple. I'm here to make as much money for my investors as possible.

Wouter Teunissen (0:10)

Starting from nothing, Harry has become a world class investor, invested in over 13 different billion dollar founders and created a multi-million dollar media empire with his podcast 20VC.

Harry Stebbings (0:20)

There's nothing I can ever think of other than winning.

Wouter Teunissen (0:25)

In this podcast, you'll see what it takes to build a multi-billion dollar startup.

Harry Stebbings (0:28)

I've interviewed pretty much every Decacorn founder there is, and all Decacorn founders share two traits, literally all of them. Number one is they have a superiority complex. It kind of is married with this deep inferiority complex within themselves, that they're not moving fast enough, they're not achieving what they should be, they should be pushing harder, they should be pushing more. And this is another thing that people kind of misunderstand. A billion dollars is not enough, 10 billion dollars is what you need.

Wouter Teunissen (0:53)

So where did this start? And how did you become one of the best investors in the world?

Harry Stebbings (0:56)

And then I fell in love with technology. This was the days when, do you remember the white MacBook where it was like the hard shell thick and the Apple light came on? It was-

Wouter Teunissen (1:07)

The sound.

Harry Stebbings (1:07)

Oh, it was beautiful. And we've lost this incredible product design, I feel, in a lot of the technology that we have today. And that was just so encapsulating for me and just beautiful. I fell in love with technology. And so I had these two loves, which was technology and finance. And then I saw the social network and I saw Peter Thiel invest in Facebook with Client Capital.

Wouter Teunissen (1:27)

Which is a very small scene in the movie.

Harry Stebbings (1:29)

No one remembers it. No one remembers it. Everyone was inspired to be an entrepreneur. I saw pain, continuous shit, and I was like, no, that's not for me. The little that I know, media is pretty much that. But I saw this scene and I was like, shit, I can blend finance and technology in one and be a venture capitalist. And in London at the time, this was in 2008

Wouter Teunissen (1:53)

You were 15 years old or so.

Harry Stebbings (1:55)

Poor 13

Wouter Teunissen (1:55)

You're 13, younger even.

Harry Stebbings (1:56)

Yeah, literally. That didn't exist. VC was so tiny. I mean, if you said VC in London then, it was completely unknown. And so I read everything I could on venture. I read Brad Feld, Roger Ehrenberg, David Hornick, Mark Suster, all of whom are really good friends actually now, which is really amazing. Funny thing, actually, I emailed all of them and all of them responded.

Wouter Teunissen (2:21)

Cold emails.

Harry Stebbings (2:21)

Yeah, cold emails. And we can get to that.

Wouter Teunissen (2:23)

We will.

Harry Stebbings (2:24)

And so I learned from them. And that was when there wasn't much venture content. So that was all there really was. And I remember I was very fat and I lost weight walking to college. I was kicked out of school for having bulimia. And yes, that school should deeply regret kicking me out because now I'm not giving you any donations. But I was walked to school every day to lose weight. And I listened to podcasts and there was none other than honestly, Marc Andreessen or Peter Thiel. And I was like, amazing people, huge respect, but there's so many more great people. I'm going to interview them and I'm going to start a business doing that.

Wouter Teunissen (3:01)

Can you talk to me about like at high school, you saw this really pretty girl, you decide to lose this weight. You have this self-esteem at the time. That's insanely tough. And we talked about nurture and nature a little bit. How has that impacted you until this day? And can you talk a little bit about that?

Harry Stebbings (3:15)

So I've interviewed pretty much every Dekikorn founder there is. And all Dekikorn founders share two traits, literally all of them. Number one is they have a superiority complex. They just inherent, and it sounds awfully arrogant, but they inherently believe that they are better, that they're more talented, that they're more capable, that they can do what others can't. And then it kind of is married with this deep inferiority complex within themselves, that they're not moving fast enough, they're not achieving what they should be, they should be pushing harder, they should be pushing more. And it's this deep masochism or sadism towards themselves, which is deeply psychologically scarring for yourself. But it drives you to be better and better, and I sadly have both in spades. And I think really it's just a lack of self love in any way.