Peter Fenton & Victor Lazarte - Purpose and Partnership

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy, and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning, at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:02)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO and founding partner of PositiveSum, and the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions, and do not reflect the opinion of PositiveSum or O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of PositiveSum or O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:34)
My guests this week are Peter Fenton and Victor Lazarte.
Peter and Victor are both general partners at Benchmark Capital. Of the six equal partners at the story venture firm, Peter is the longest serving and Victor is the newest, having spent the past decade founding and building Wildlife Studios into one of the biggest independent mobile gaming companies in the world. Peter has been a board member at Wildlife for the past four years and has a remarkable track record of tech investing over his two decades at Benchmark.
In our discussion, we talk about the core motivators behind great entrepreneurs, Benchmark's unique operating philosophy, and what it's like to transition from builder to investor. Please enjoy this conversation with Peter Fenton and Victor Lazarte.
Gentlemen, this is gonna be so much fun. I don't think I've done a group one like this in a while, and it's one of my favorite things to do. And Victor, I think it's the first time that you're doing one of these, which is my honor for sure. Since you're new to Benchmark, I thought a fun, interesting opening topic would be what is most surprising to you about the partnership, the style of investing, really anything about the team or the firm relative to your expectations coming in so far. I know it's just been a few months, but I'm still interested.

**Victor Lazarte** (3:46)
I've been curious about Benchmark for a long time. I'm originally from Brazil and I started my company there.
Eventually, many years after starting the company, I ended up raising my Series A from Benchmark. Like initially made me curious. Growing up in Brazil, I was curious about all great venture capital firms. And the thing that was interesting to me is there's like a small number of firms that are involved with a lot of the great outcomes. I was always thinking like there must be a formula, like there must be a playbook. And when I joined Benchmark, I think the thing that surprised me the most is the lack of structure. A lot of what we do is around conversation. We don't do memos.