Peter Fenton and Victor Lazarte are General Partners at Benchmark. We cover Benchmark's unique investing playbook, why drive is such a major tailwind for success, and the dislocating effect of megacap tech's dominance on markets.
Principles & Lessons:
1) Embrace an Unstructured Approach to Spot the Extraordinary. Victor describes Benchmark's minimal framework – “We don't do memos; we don't have a sourcing process” – as a surprising, powerful way to find unique founders. He notes that “frameworks prevent you from seeing outliers,” so the partnership emphasizes open, unstructured conversations over formal checklists. This style encourages deeper connections and allows them “to be present and see what's in front of you” rather than follow rigid formulas.
2) Accept the Ephemeral Nature of the Firm. Peter calls Benchmark “ephemeral,” saying, “I can’t imagine a world where there’s a Benchmark in 30 to 50 years.” Because there’s no plan for perpetuity, the partners avoid building a franchise around themselves. Instead, they concentrate on “their central life’s work, which is partnering with entrepreneurs,” unburdened by bureaucracy or brand preservation. By dropping the ego-driven impulse to sustain the firm forever, they focus on serving founders right now.
3) The “Generative Drive” Outlasts Mere Winning. Peter references insights from Paul Conti to distinguish three motivational drives: aggression (winning at all costs), pleasure (personal enjoyment), and generative (creating or serving). He highlights that founders who blend healthy aggressiveness with a “generative drive” often build the most enduring companies. “The biggest successes,” says Peter, “preserve that creative generative capacity rather than chasing only money or victory.”
4) Sustainable Partnerships Require Trust and Shared Vulnerability. Both partners emphasize that genuine board relationships form around “deep concern” for a founder’s mental well-being. Victor points to how Peter spent the most time with Wildlife “when we were doing worse,” and Peter emphasizes that “if you’re not starting with how someone is really doing, you risk them going off into a ditch.” This requires open vulnerability rather than transactional check-ins, preventing a founder’s isolation at critical moments.
5) Constrain Capital So That Relationships Aren’t Bought. Although Benchmark could raise far bigger funds, they deliberately keep fund sizes near $500 million. Peter explains, “We preserve the ability to earn relationships instead of buying them.” This fosters small ownership stakes, frequent under-pro-rata strategies, and a structural discipline that ensures “we focus on that founder relationship, not our capital base.” The goal is high-quality “atomic” interactions over scaling an investing franchise.
6) Keep Founder Ambition Alive Amid Daily Friction. Victor says that a top board job is “amplifying the founder’s ambition,” citing how entrepreneurs frequently get bogged down by operational details and can lose the original boldness. He recalls, “A great board dynamic is when your board asks, ‘what would it take to be 10x bigger?’ and pushes you back into dreamer mentality.” By forcing founders to reimagine boundaries, the board acts as an ambition-safeguard.
7) Learn to Navigate Hard Pivots and Potential Founder Turnover. Peter acknowledges that in the toughest situations, “there are no single sources of truth.” When a founder or strategy fails, “it’s profoundly difficult,” but the guiding principle is returning to the company’s purpose and customer needs. He says, “We come back to the mission, so no one invests their ego in winning a power struggle,” and tries to keep everyone aligned on serving users, not indulging personal agendas.
8) AI’s Distribution Disruption Opens New Spaces. While large incumbents loom, Peter believes new distribution upsets are the real chance for massive startups. “There will be over a million developers building on large language models,” he says, which fosters a fresh wave of consumer and enterprise breakthroughs. Both see more “explosive creativity” – from next-gen consumer apps that transform messaging to enterprise “buying work, not software” – and remain convinced “the next $10 billion outcome starts with a founder forging an original path.”
Transcript