[music]

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio,

news.

This [music] is Masters in Business with

Barry Rit Holtz on Bloomberg Radio.

>> This week on the podcast, what can I

say? Another banger. Bill Gurley of

Benchmark Capital, legendary VC, uh

early investor in Uber, Zillow, Open

Table, GrubHub, Next Door, the list,

Instagram, uh [music] just uh Twitter,

the the list just goes on and on and on.

What a fascinating career [music]

filled with insights not only about

venture investing, but about building a

career uh that you love. I I thought

this conversation was fascinating and I

think you will also. With no further

ado, my conversation with Benchmarks,

Bill Gurley, before we get into the

book, which I found very interesting and

and your whole career, let's start with

your background. You get a bachelor's in

computer science from the University of

Florida and then an MBA from UT Austin.

Yeah.

>> What was the original career plan? So, I

fell in love with computers at a young

age and many people that are get to

Silicon Valley, you hear that common

refrain. I had a Commodore Vic 20 that

would plug into your television and it

didn't have solid state memory. So, you

type programs in but when you turned it

off, they were done. You had to start

over. Um, anyway, I fell in love with

programming as many people do and just

amazed that you could [snorts] create

things, you know, and so that was my

undergrad degree. I worked for two and

ch two years and change at Compact

Computer Corporation um using those

skills and discovered that that wasn't

going to be my long-term path.

>> You said you were exceedingly bored at

what looked like on paper a dream job.

>> Yeah.

>> Explain. Well, um,

back then, Compact was was a leader in

the personal computer business, and we

would release one PC and then, and

usually around an Intel generation, you

would reach the next PC. And

>> see, kids today don't remember 38646,

Pentium. It was like a big deal.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And so, we started on the

third project that was a lot like the

second and a lot like the first. And I

asked myself a question. I don't know if

I realized I was doing it as as much

[clears throat] now as as much then as I

do now. I asked myself the question, is

this what I want to be doing 30 years

from now? And in any organization,

there's someone that's a lifer that you

can like ask yourself, is that what I

want? And there with no judgment towards

people that do that, but it became very

clear that that wasn't for me. And this

would be particularly interesting for

your audience because it's an investment

crowd. At at home at night, I had read

one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch

Lynch. Yeah.

>> And I had opened a Prodigy account,

which was this precursor to AOL, and I

was starting to get really interested in

stocks. I had bought the value line. You

remember this thing? Sure. It came the

big notebook with the one pages updates

and [laughter] the the three ring

binders and like a whole shelf of them

alphabetical

>> and and one thing I'd really encourage

people to think about is what are you

doing in your free time and maybe you

should is there a clue that that should

actually be what you do full-time and so

this thing was itching at me.

>> So first gig in finance was that

Deutsche Bank?

>> Uh no it was Credit Swiss First Boston.

So I while I was at the University of

Texas MBA program, I thought about

venture but it seemed very hard to get

towards. I like technology. I like

disruption. I like programming. Um and

um it seemed hard to get at. But at that

time when you get to business school,

some young adults like to pretend

they're financeers and so they read

Fortune, Forbes, the Wall Street

Journal, [clears throat] and the Atrium,

you know, as if and I would read the

tech articles and there was a team at

Goldman Sachs on the sell side there.

And the sell side I think was more kind

of held in higher regards back in those

days. And this team with Dan Benton and

Rick Sherlin and Goldman got quoted all

the time. And I said to myself,

>> you know, I really love my corporate

strategy class. I love technology. These

people get to opine on on it and are

treated as experts. So I went to I came

here to New York. I I knocked on doors

cold. I asked those partic that

particular team for a meeting. They let

me in. I'm a a freshman or a first year

at the University of Tech. They let me

in and I told all the other research

directors, I'll be in town meeting with

those guys.

>> Uhhuh.

>> And I got like 10 meetings uh doing

that. And one of those individuals was

Al Jackson and he gave me a shot. And I

can remember the first day of

orientation, there were like 40 new

people from NBA programs and we had to

go around and say our name in school and

it was what you'd expect. Columbia,

Wharton, Harvard, but I was university.

I was I was the man out for sure.

>> But I I I I'm so grateful to Al for

giving me that shot. The sellside

analyst job has one trait that is

remarkable which is you immediately get

to start talking to CEOs and CFOs and I

don't know of any other job where that

just happens right away right out of

school.

>> Yeah. So the access was amazing. I ended

up getting to cover the industry I

worked in uh the computer industry. I

got to know the team at Dell. We we I

very fortunate this story involves uh

our our mutual friend Mike Moeson.

>> Sure.

>> But because of something Mike taught me,

I got very bullish on Dell and it was

trading at six times earnings because

they had had some issues and uh so

>> I recall the big uh I think they had a

CFO that was doing some dump. had they

had they had an options f currency thing

that went wrong and their laptop caught

on fire and those both those things

happened at the same time and I I I'll

so Mr. Mobison had really gotten into

ROIC analysis at that time. One of the

first people to really get behind it and

he had me read this book valuation from

McKenzie and the Stern Stewart book.

>> And when I ran those ROIC calculations

on all the players, Dell was like it's

>> way above everybody,

>> way above everybody because they were

building to individual order. They

weren't building to inventory. The

balance sheet was not tied up at all.

They had a positive cash conversion

cycle. It was unbelievable.

>> You just had to weather the storm and on

the other side. But that means you're

buying something.

>> Well, we went we went strong by because

of this RIC differential that no one was

talking about. Michael kindly tweeted

about my book the other day and said he

taught us some things we didn't know

ourselves about our business. And it was

a great run. I mean, that really

launched my career cuz that stock went

up 100x.

>> Yeah, that was that's a home run. That's

a That's a venture-like return. Yes.

From a public company. How did you end

up at Deutsche Bank from CSFB?

>> Um, I had the same thing happen one

night. I was at Parker Avenue Plaza on

the 36th floor and I was there at like

10 p.m. as the young people do and I

walked around and the lifers were in the

corner offices and I stopped in front of

each of their offices and I said, "Is

this what I want to do the rest of my

life?" And that night when I walked

home, I knew it wasn't the sell side.

But I loved the the sell side. I had a

great run getting access to all those

people being here in New York working

like on Wall Street as a young person.

Like it gave me so much energy and

excitement. Like it's just it's a

different deal. Um if you're in it, it's

just a different deal. And but the but I

knew it was it was time and I started

looking around. I almost took a job with

Capital Group who in LA who who I still

hold in immense regard as an investment

organization. Um, and Frank Quatron

called me out of the blue and Frank had

was leaving Morgan Stanley. He is the

most notable high-tech investment banker

of all time.

>> And um, he sat down with me and we had a

very candid conversation. and he asked

me what I wanted to do long term and I

told him I said I've come to this

conclusion I don't want to be a sellside

site analyst anymore he said what do you

want to do and I said I think I want to

be a venture capitalist and he said this

almost sounds too good to be true he

says come to work for me for a while be

be a sellside a little bit longer I will

move you to Silicon Valley I'll put you

in the epicenter and I'll introduce you

to every venture capitalist that I know

and he knew them all

>> wow

>> um and Yeah, he was he was probably the

axe on tech IPOs. Certainly one of the

top three.

>> Yeah. And so I took that trade. Uh he

did everything he said. I only worked

for him for 13 months. So it all and in

that window we secured the mandate for

the uh lead left position on the on the

Amazon IPO

>> which which turned out to work out

pretty okay. And that's such a great

piece of of kind of IPO tech history. If

you no one could name who's lead left on

the Amazon IPO and and you can go find I

I do this frequently. Go look at the S1

and it's Deutsche Morgan Gruntfell lead

left.

>> Wow. So how did you transition from

working with Quatron at Deutsche Bank to

Benchmark if you're right in the heart

of Silicon Valley?

>> He did what he said. introduced me to

every VC. I was taking

>> So out of that list,

>> yeah, I'm taking quarterly meetings with

Benchmark where we're I'm they're

inviting me into their Monday meeting

and we're just chatting about where the

industry is going. Yeah, he really did

what he said and um

>> but why Benchmark as opposed to

SEOA Perkins dozens? Actually, my first

offer into venture came from Anne

Windimblad and I I I was so eager to get

into venture. When the offer came at

Hummer Windimblad, I said yes. And

>> um I didn't know what I didn't know. I

got involved in the organization. It was

structured like a very traditional firm

where the founders made more equity than

the young people. And and there was also

a bit of a power differential where you

know the person that got to dictate how

things went were the the the elder

statesmen

>> old school lawyer accountant.

>> They're all set up that way. Yeah. And

the benchmark guys had lived within

those frameworks and had decided to do

something crazy which was to create an

equal partnership where everyone um

makes the exact same amount of money and

everyone has the exact same power within

the organization for decision-m and

there's no leader. And um I can't tell

you like what it's like to have someone

from an organization like that reach out

to a young person and say come on and be

a part of this versus the traditional

one.

>> Be be a partner. Although I would

imagine the whole eat what you kill

ethos could be a little intimidating.

>> Well, but but but here's the thing. I

think at those hierarchical firms

there's an upper out mentality. So the

the people at the bottom live in

constant fear of what you're talking

about and they also get sharp elbow to

the side

>> at benchmark these founders were going

to split equally whatever I did and so

what I found um was the cultural uh

zeitgeist that came out of that

structure is one of immense help and

support. And so I immediately had four

mentors who had been doing this a lot

longer than I did who were in my corner

every single day. And then and then I

got to live through bringing other

people in. It's wonderful recruiting

tool to tell someone you're going to be

equal, but then you win when they win.

And you know those original benchmark

founders who did very well with their

eBay and Aribba investment in fund one

they all participated in the Uber

investment that I brought in the table

and today you know Eric Viser has got

cerebrus and I'm going to benefit from

that and it's it's a it is a culture

that I think is really great for

generational change and when I talk to

LPs about what I DP doesn't have much

they can control, right? They're trying

to decide and the window for how

successful a fund is moving from seven

years to 15. Like you're getting past I

mean like the time you're going to turn

around and analyze whether a investor is

any good or not, you're going to be

retiring. [laughter]

And so what you can study is do you

think the organization has elements that

will cause it to be able to succeed with

generational change? And and I think one

of the proudest things of just me

serving as part of it is that we were

able to move from a place where the

founders were the ones behind all the

winners to where the next generation

was. So when you joined Benchmark, I

think you were relatively I don't want

to say a unicorn, but there weren't a

whole lot of

um public market research folks in the

VC world then. Now it seems that it's a

little more common, but were were you a

little bit of a one-off when you joined?

I know a piece of history that's

probably not well known, but uh Ben

Rosen of Seven Rosen, who's not a brand

you hear much of anymore and and we're

involved in Compact. He was actually the

chairman of Compact. Um he was a he was

a semiconductor analyst in the 70s. So

he was the first one [laughter] and then

Yeah. And then after me and and kind of

it was kind of at the same time, Danny

Rhymer was was a sellside analyst, Mary

Mer was a sellside. So it there there

were it the weird thing about venture is

if you like pulled people on their

background prior to venture there's a

there's real diversity. There's like a

whole bunch of different pathways. Mike

Moritz was a writer.

>> Um but but

>> that's right. I recall that

>> there's a handful of us that came that

path.

>> Huh. Really interesting. Coming up, we

continue our conversation with

Benchmark's Bill Gurley discussing his

new book, Running Down a Dream: How to

Thrive in a Career You Actually Love.

I'm Barry Rholtz. You're listening to

Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

[music]

I'm Barry Rhaltz. You're listening to

Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

My extra special guest today [music] is

Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital. He has

a new book, Running Down a Dream: How to

Thrive in a Career You actually Love. Um

I love the uh Tom Petty title. What What

led you to start with that? I I put

together back when I was super active

writing blog posts. I would keep these

notes uh in digital form, but I would

start I'd probably start three or four

times as many pot or blog post as I

finished. And so if an idea popped in my

head, I'd just write notes down and see

if I went back to it. Um and

>> and that was a note.

>> Yeah. I I had read these three

biographies of people that were from

very different fields that all started

on the bottom rung and and became

remarkably successful in their field and

I noticed a through line between them

and I just wrote it down the same way I

would figure out how an internet

marketplace company might thrive like oh

do this this and this and um I got

invited one day back to my alma mada to

do a speech and at Texas Business School

and I asked if I could do this one And

and so then I developed it a little more

and I I put it out there. They put it on

YouTube and a few people noticed and uh

one of those was James Clear who wrote

Atomic Habits.

>> Sure.

>> And

um I I don't I don't want to make this

sound too too mushy, but like at some

point um I decided that it was time to

declare victory and hang up my boots in

venture. And it was a decision. It

wasn't like the other decisions. I I

spent 25 years in venture capital. I

loved every minute of it. It was my

dream job, but I wanted to start doing

other things. And there's a great book

by Arthur Brooks, Strength to Strength,

that talks about people that reach that

stage in life. And it really spoke to me

and I decided to push this book out. And

two people had really gotten behind me

and pushed me to do that. Um, one of

them was Tony Fidel who invented the

iPod and was head of engineering on the

iPhone.

>> I knew I recognized that name.

>> He has a book called Build. He also

started Nest. And yes, he told me that

it was the best thing that he'd ever

done. And that's kind of hard to

believe. And then I was talking to Danny

Meyer last night, uh, the famous New

York restaurant tour and founder of

Shake Shack, and he said the same thing.

He said he said the book setting the

table was more rewarding for him than

anything he had done. And I asked him

why is that? And he told a story. This

is a very long answer. I'm sorry. He

told a story about being in Africa at a

hotel and what one of the local workers

in this restaurant we were in, he was in

told him, "Look at how I'm doing the

eggs." And it was a technique out of his

book setting the table.

>> Oh, really? And the reach, his argument

was the reach that he could get in

sharing what he knew via a book, you

know, was exponential compared to what

he could do just opening another

restaurant. And that was power. Anyway,

once again, it sounds maybe a little too

too mushy or sad. Not at all.

>> But if I'd have written a book about

being a VC or an investor, there's only

a handful of people it might have

touched. And I felt very compelled to

share this because I thought it could

have a bigger much bigger reach because

it's not just about a care. It could be

applied to a career in investing, but

it's a it's a much broader book about

doing what you love.

>> So, so let's talk about some of the

items from the book. Starting with

there's a stat. I think it's in the the

introduction. It's not even in the first

chapter. Six in 10 people say they'd do

something differently if they could

start over. That that's a horrifying

statistic.

>> We Well, we were studying this Gallup

poll that said like 53% of people were

are quiet quitting at work. They're not

engaged or don't consider themselves

engaged at work. And I think other

people have echoed those types of

thoughts. And um we we on a whim we I

was working with a co-writer and

researcher. We did a a Survey Monkey

survey and asked this question. If you

could start over again, would you do

something different? That one came out

seven and 10. We hired we hired Wharton

to do an official academic review and

that one came out six and 10. There's a

book by Daniel Pink about regrets called

The Power of Regrets. And he says that

the

>> regrets of inaction, the stone unturned,

the path not taken way in our brain. We

ruminate far more on those than regrets

of action. So we we let ourselves off

the hook for making mistakes. We're

pretty good at at getting past them and

moving on. But the thing we never tried,

it really eats at us.

>> The I forget the name of the book. They

interviewed a bunch of 90-year-old

people talking about their life regrets.

And it's never the commissions or

errors. It's always the things they

never did cuz in your mind you imagine

an entire different pathway. And and

that's the that's the regret.

>> And one of one of the catchphrases we

use in the book which came from my

partner Kevin Harvey is life is a use it

or lose it proposition.

>> For sure. Absolutely. For sure. So the

idea of career regret, you lay out a

variety of principles to avoid it.

Starting with obsessive curiosity. Dive

into that. Tell us about obsessive

curiosity. all of the people that we

studied and and went we expanded it from

the the presentation I gave at the

school and and and probably read a 100

biographies but but every single one of

these people are obsessive learners in

their field and and you you and I are

both I already mentioned but you and I

are both uh both friends and a fan of

Michael Moeson and and I don't think

there's a human that reads more books on

finance than Mike

>> it's a race between him and Warren

Buffett. Yes. And and he fully

synthesizes them. You know, one cheat

code if you want [snorts] to chase a

dream job in investing is you could just

start by reading Michael's books because

he's read all the other books and it'd

be a great place to start. But um I

>> I literally have a couple of chapters in

here based on his work.

>> Yes. that that because it's he's just so

seinal in in so many ways

>> and and and and in the book you you'll

see examples of of Danny Meyer the

restaurant tour Bob Dylan you know the

folk singer there's this part we

uncovered you know most I I'm sorry that

the the new movie missed this but you

you get more of it if you go back to the

Scorsesei documentary um some people

called him a music expeditionary

so he studied

music at a level. No one would know

this, like if they just listened to

Dylan, but he is obsessive about

learning about the art. And they early

on they called him a mimic because he he

was able to to kind of parrot every

other artist that he studied. And even

today, you know, he did a podcast for a

while where he went through like

histories of music. His his his newer

book goes through 50 songs that he

thinks changed the world. like this this

this study element um is just inherent

in so many of these people and what I

love about first of all I think it it is

a defining factor of success are you

does does continuous learning in your

field come easy to you and it's a great

test of whether you're pointing in the

right direction or not because if it

feels grindy to do that that you're not

in the right place you need to try some

other things

>> you're going to laugh I I every morning

I take a quick look at a bunch of

headlines and run through. And I saw

something this morning that said there's

a high correlation between people who

read books and longevity. So all these

uh folks chasing down, you know, blood

treatments and all these longevity

things, it turns out just read a couple

of books a month, you'll extend your

lifespan.

>> How about that?

>> Yeah. Really, really interesting. So,

you you mentioned Danny Meyer, you

mentioned Bob Dylan. I uh Sam Hanky, the

coach, is another one. What when I first

got the book, I'm always a little

nervous when I get a book and I'm like,

"Oh, this is going to be preachy and

tedious." But it wasn't. It's

interesting and narrative driven. What

led you to the storytelling format of

all these people's life experiences as

opposed to the more traditional? Your

listeners can't tell because we're not

on video, but I'm smiling, grinning ear

to ear, and I'm so glad you noticed

that.

>> Oh, very it's it bleeps off the page.

>> So, there was there was um quite a bit

of intention in that. So, um

just as when I was when I was a computer

scientist, I was at home trading stocks.

as a as an investor, I developed on the

side somehow, I guess, through this act

of reading, just a super appreciation

for really well-written non-fiction. And

there's actually there's two

>> back of the book. You have chapters on

it on all your favorite books.

>> There's a there's a book called The New

Journalism and a follow-up called The

New Journalism. And the Tom Wolf put

together the first one. The the second

one is writers people would know more

today. Um that studied the craft of

great non-fiction writing. Like that's

what that book's about. And it covers

Lewis and Crackour and Gladwell and all

the books that have done extremely well.

And there is a through line in there

that storytelling is something that

people really love to read. Morgan Hel

was on this podcast called Why We Write

and he went on and on about that

technique and I had discovered it as

well. And so my coowriter actually um

does most of his work for the Atlantic.

And so every the book's divided into two

two halves. There's there's a profiles

and there's principles. And if you look

at the table of contents, we all we

interle them, which was a uh technique I

I borrowed actually from Michael Dell's

book um where he interled two stories in

the same book. Um and the idea there was

there was two things behind that. One, I

thought the book would be more readable

if if it did that. A lot of the books

that are the cornerstones of the career

category like Designing Your Life and

What Color Is Your Parachute are

structured more like a textbook, right?

>> And I I just felt that the

>> if [snorts] it were more readable, it

would be more approachable and more

consumable for more people. And then I

also, and this goes back to what Morgan

How was pushing, reading the stories is

is I think puts it in your memory a

little bit better than just reading a

principle alone. Oh, we are geared to

remember narratives as opposed to data

or you know dry uh principles and you

know the intentionality behind telling

stories

makes it very readable as opposed to

let's be honest you know what color is

your parachute it's been in print for I

don't know 57 years

>> yeah forever

>> still in the top 10 in the category

>> but it's kind of a slog to ply through

it's like reading a textbook and and

when when is the

So, so I have a couple more questions

about the book I got to uh to to bring

up.

>> The book seems to be very much a bit of

a push back to modern hustle culture.

Was that on purpose or was it really,

hey, you know, it's not a grind if

you're really enjoying it and you should

listen to your own body's signals that

I'm really hating this, but I'm grinding

it out. one one one

um fortunate thing in putting this book

together is and and I think this is

really just easier in the modern world.

We were able to connect with some like

true amazing leaders in this field. So

we ended up talking to Adam Grant and

Daniel Pink and Angela Duckworth and and

people that have really made it a name

for themselves in this field. We

stumbled across a podcast Angela

Duckworth had done recently where she

was looking back 10 years after on grit,

the book. And the original thesis of

grit was you need passion and

perseverance. And

>> she said if she were going to rewrite

it, she would maybe instead of 50/50 say

2/3 one-ird passion. And her fear was

that we've taught young adults how to

grind. like we've and and and I feel

that the evolution of the college

metriculation conveyor belt has been

negative. I feel like it's it's become a

arms race that to get these kids into

the hardest schools. The schools aren't

expanding capacity, so they just keep

getting harder and harder to get into.

And the kids get taught to fill their

schedule with with with programming so

that that resume can be perfect. And

they're not given the time to really

explore and find. And many people don't

really know what their dream job is. And

some of them might not find it till

they're 30 or 40. And that's okay, too.

But we've pushed and pushed and pushed.

And many of them have risen to the

occasion of doing all that work. but

they graduate from college exhausted.

>> You you describe this whole section step

off the conveyor belt. Um I was just

watching something about Norway is this

tiny little country yet it dominates the

Winter Olympics despite lots of other

cold weather countries and their secret

is all these kids are encouraged to join

sports as kids. But unlike here, there's

no there's no trophies. There's no

competition. It's do what you want. Do

for as long as you want, as long as it's

interesting. And every one of their

medalists say, "Yeah, I I I was a slalom

skier till I was 14 and then I switched

to whatever, but I had the background."

And it was it was great. There was no

pressure. You could do what you want. It

turns out letting kids play is a great

strategy. And and I'm not the first one

to like make that point. And there's a

chapter in Coddling of the American Mind

titled the decline of play. And I do

wonder if it's harder to find your

obsession and find this thing that

you're totally fascinated with if you're

stuck in this this game that uh not one

of your own making. And you know, it's

funny. The phone, which is always within

reach, means that you're never bored.

But boredom is [music] what leads to

creative output. And I'm wondering what

this generation is going to look like

down the road.

>> Well, hopefully some of them will be

able to get a hold of this book and and

and [laughter]

find their way to a better place.

>> Coming up, we continue our conversation

with Benchmark's Bill Gurley talking

about the state of venture capital

today. I'm Barry Rholz. You're listening

to Masters [music] in Business.

[music]

I'm Barry Rholz. You're listening to

Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

My extra special guest this week is Bill

Gurley. his new book, Running Down a

Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You

Actually Love, is out today. Uh he's

also uh a member of Benchmark Capital,

uh a legendary venture firm. Let's talk

a little bit about some of my favorite

benchmark investments that I seem to use

constantly. I think it's ironic. We're

recording this the day after this giant

blizzard hit New York. The trains aren't

running. The buses aren't running. I

took an Uber here. So, kind of full

circle, you're the guy who who brought

Uber uh to the public attention, funded

it and and walked it through the IBO.

Zillow I use all the time. Open table I

have to use a few times a week. Um tell

us about these giant consumerf facing

companies that became wildly successful.

So um I stumbled upon and this actually

will involve Mike Moesson again. Um him

and I uh were working together in the

research department at CSFB and we

became enamored we became bookshares

like and that's been true for 30 years

but we became enamored with this book

complexity by Mitchell Waldrip about the

rise of the Santa Fe Institute

>> which I know he's involved with.

>> Yeah, I am as well. So we're we're both

on the board. Um and Bill Miller of leg

mason's a long time involvement more

Carl Kawaja from Capital Group just

joined the board. So there's a there's a

handful of investors that get a lot out

of it. But there were the the original

book um highlighted this guy named Brian

Arthur and Brian had done work on what

he called increasing returns and they

published his one of his pieces in

Harvard Business Review. It was

ironically um co-written by Cormick

McCarthy, but no one knew it at the time

[laughter]

and that's come out since then. Anyway,

increasing returns was this argument

that if if you have the right pieces in

place, your your company will accelerate

towards winner take all. And um

when I read that and I started looking

at what was capable with the internet

and possible um this notion really was

prominent in my mind and I can remember

I think the first one of those that we

invested in was Open Table and I

remember my partners pushing back and

saying selling computer hardware to a

restaurant is a crappy business and you

know SMBs how we ever scale it and the

idea was well if you got more uh if you

got all the restaurants on the consumers

would only want to go there and if you

got all the consumers on the restaurants

would feel obligated to be in that

place. So you know there's no reason to

have multiple of these things and um

that was the thesis when we made the

original bet. Um it wasn't straight up

we lived through the dot burst and had

to grow after that but um it did play

out that way and uh the network effects

were present and then from there I

started thinking about what other

industries would that apply to and

that's what led to all these other

things. So, Open Table leads to Uber

leads to Zillow. Is that the

progression?

>> Absolutely.

>> Huh? Cuz cuz you know, it's hard to

argue that

>> those three are pretty indispensable.

Yeah. Uh what about uh others that stand

out? Next Door, GrubHub, what else is in

that group?

>> Um yeah, and Stitch Fix,

you know, did really well. Uh I um and

and then the you know also the firm you

know while I was there invested in

Twitter and Snapchat and so many

different companies that uh in the in

the social space Instagram [laughter] I

don't know how we did them all. Um well

you didn't do them all cuz you have

first of all VCs in general do something

that I'm very much enthralled with.

They're kind of proud of their failures,

which the rest of finance is sort of

terrified of. The idea that, hey, we

invested in this, it went to zero. Uh,

we skipped this, we missed this. A lot

of VCs on their websites have, hey,

here's what we blew. Here's what didn't

work out. And you very famously miss

Google. Yes. What were the lessons from

that experience? Well, the I think the

biggest takeaway which leads to um what

you just described, Barry, is that when

you miss a big winner, it it's it's very

asymmetric to the the the

counterfactual, right? If we invest $12

million and it goes to zero, you lose

one time your money. If you fail to

invest $12 million in Google, you miss

out on

>> a 1000x,000x.

And so, um, over the years at Benchmark,

I would tell you that I don't recall

very many discussions at all about, oh,

that one went to zero. You're, you know,

let's study why that happened. You

orient my my partner Bruce came up with

this phrase, what could go right. You

orient yourself towards the failure

being missing out on a huge winner. And

so we changed how we how the kind of

things that we studied as failure that

you want to correct.

>> How different is that an experience and

a process from making investments in

existing legacy public companies? Well,

I don't think you have the potential for

the thousandx as often and so you're not

going to and the thousandx can can uh

can make up for, you know, eight losses

that you never heard of. And so it just

forces you if you're in that big game

hunting uh mindset to really really

focus on could this work as opposed to

could it fail and only be obsessed about

that part. you you mentioned it makes

>> and I think it's different I think

because and because we are oriented to

absorb failure at a level that you can't

do in the public market.

>> So So you mentioned it's one and 10 is

is it that much or is it closer to one

or two in a 100?

>> I mean for the for the big big outliers

of course it's what you're saying but

but one in a 100 could return the fund.

>> Uhhuh.

>> You know but you got to find that one. I

mean think about that. That's a really

weird dynamic to be out there doing.

>> So, so I'm legally obligated to ask you

about AI and artificial intelligence.

>> How do you look at this sector? What do

you think is going to happen?

>> By the way, one last thing before we go

to AI, I think that the venture industry

is constantly evolving and the today's

venture industry looks nothing like what

I practice, which looks nothing like

what the the generation before me saw.

They're they it's gotten in way more

competitive and the best investors have

become aware of power laws where these

big winners go on forever and they

become these these trillion dollar

companies and as a result they're very

comfortable now betting it forward and

so we have you know firms like Thrive

and CO2 and Alimter are willing to put

big big checks into private companies in

a way they never would have in the past

making the bet that that compounding law

is going to keep playing out. So

everything's changed.

>> So that raises a really interesting

issue. Benchmark has stayed kind of

small, early nimble while a lot of other

VCs really beefed up. Um what what is it

about avoiding becoming a mega fund,

chasing latestage growth that was so

appealing to you guys? So, so one, I I

do think we've we've reached the point

of kind of the industrialization of the

venture capital world and these funds

are and these assets under management

are starting to parallel large PE firms.

And I think one um it's very hard to

stay focused on the artisan craft of

identifying early opportunities if

you're running this thing that has to

look after it's hard to it's hard to get

excited about a $7 million investment if

you're managing billions and writing

$500 million checks and and you're

earning by the way a management fee and

a venture carry on the 500. Why would

you like you just get oriented

differently? Um and um and second, I

think it'll be very difficult for those

firms that get that big to have irr that

that is anything other than than uh

industry at best.

>> So you've been pretty loud about

valuation discipline and and the risk of

having a high burn rate. Is that a

function of looking at earlier stage

companies or is it just simply an

analyst discipline of of looking?

>> I think it's the latter. I think it's

reading all those books like studying

Buffett Graham and Dodd like like I

brought to the venture capital industry

a study of investing history that most

VCs never have. Um and uh I think it was

differentiating for me. Um some people

call me like the VC cynic, but that's

okay.

>> So So you're I would think I think of

you as an elder statesman in the VC

community, but you're hinting at

something. I'm going to ask explicitly.

What rules have too many venture

capitalists not learned that you think

would behoove them and their firm to go

back to some basics and and you know

focus in on that'll help both their

returns, their LPs and and their funded

companies. The thing I would say to

answer that, Barry, is that the um it's

always going to Howard Marx wrote this

great piece a long time ago who

highlighted that the way you make really

good money is to have contrarian

non-conensus like predictions that are

right versus wrong. And right now and

AI, you know, these big waves create so

much wealth that I think for a moment

when the waves happen, you have to move

past that and and realize that um the

wave could be so big that you can just

plow in. But eventually Howard's going

to be right and eventually the market is

is going to become oversaturated.

There's this great book by Carlotta

Perez where she says that bubbles always

follow real waves because you attract

speculators and charlatans and all this

and people would want you to say if

you're if you're if you're use the word

bubble you don't believe in AI but it's

the opposite. I believe that it's real

and that's why it's attracting the

charlatans and eventually we'll go over

the top. We always do. A

>> every new technology comes with this

void of people that are deeply imshed in

it, knowledgeable and articulate. And so

there's just a rush to fill that

>> they get rich quick. And when people are

getting rich quick, fools rush in. I

>> I love the Bill Bernstein quote. We we

use the word guru because it's too

difficult to spell charlatan. [laughter]

And and it's really very much true. So,

let's stick with the concept of variant

perspective. Another phrase I really

like and part of the job of being both

contrarian and right. What do you think

is a non-consensus view you're willing

to articulate today that's going to look

obvious 10 years from now, but right now

very non-conensus? Um, I would the thing

that pops in my head just because people

have been talking about it the past few

days. I think this um this paper that

came out yesterday is just completely

over the top. And the notion that every

tech company in the world needs to have

their terminal value set to zero is

[laughter] probably not true.

>> I love the barbell. Either AI is a

bubble that is not going to do anything

for us or it's going to be so effective

everybody's going to lose their job.

Yes. Isn't there anything in the middle?

Hey, maybe this is a useful

>> Buffett's the one that said be be

fearful when others and greedy and

greedy when others are fearful. So if if

AI fear is the topic of the day, the

contrarian thing to do would be to try

and figure out where what price points

you believe represent true value. And

I'm not I'm not saying we're there yet,

but but hey, we stocks since the ZERP

period, high-tech stocks have been

rather expensive from a PE standpoint

for what, seven years now. They're on

sale all of a sudden. Buffett says you

want to be a net buyer. So, this should

we should all be excited. So,

>> you know, people don't I heard last year

that that the Magnificent Seven, all

this market concentration is going to

kill us. And yet last year only two of

the seven beat the S&P 500. So this sale

process started a year ago and then so

far this year it's pretty clear the

rally is broadening out. It's going to

other stocks. We continue to see sort of

a rotating selloff as these AI fears hit

different companies. It's going to be

really interesting to see what's going

to get cheap and attractive and fear

driven going forward.

>> Yes, I agree. That's where you should be

looking.

>> Before I get to my favorite questions, I

have one other sort of non- consensus

question to ask you. What do you think

people are either not talking about or

thinking about that they really should

be? What What topic is getting

overlooked, but should really be much

more front and center than it is?

>> Everything but AI. I mean, I've never

been in a scenario where everyone's so

allin on this one thing. And um it is

important. I think the best way to

protect yourself against AI disruption

is to run at it and and be the person in

your field that knows the most about it.

But boy, everything else is just not

being discussed.

>> Everything else.

>> So So let's jump to our speed round, our

favorite questions. We'll plow through

this. Tell us about your early mentors

who helped shape your career.

>> Well, I already mentioned Mobison. It

was kind of more of a peer, but still I

was so lucky. Um, Al Jackson gave me

that first job on Wall Street. Um, when

I showed up there, there was a gentleman

named Charlie Wolf. I don't know if you

ever met him.

>> Of course, Charlie Wolf. Charlie Wolf

was one of the few guys bullish on Apple

when the first IMAX came out and the

iPod and the street did not understand

Apple and he's the only guy who did

>> and and and Charlie was a force of

nature. People loved him. He was a

professor simultaneous professor at

Columbia and sellside analyst on the

street and and I got to hang out with

him.

>> That's a name I haven't heard in a

while. I love his work. Yeah.

Unfortunately, um you mentioned a lot of

books. There's a whole chapter at the

back about various books you and other

people recommend.

>> Yeah.

>> What are you reading currently? What

What's interesting?

>> I'm reading a unre I have an early

unreleased copy of of David Epstein's

new book called Inside the Box.

>> He did Range, right?

>> He did Range, which I adored. I adored

Range and uh um anyway, Inside the Box,

where he's talking about how constraints

drive creativity and it's really been

what I love is when a book makes me

think differently and about other

things. And I've already he and I have

already started to have a text thread

about taking it even further beyond what

his intention was, which is awesome.

>> That description immediately makes me

think of the scene from North by

Northwest. I don't know if he mentions

this in the book, having not seen it.

>> Yeah.

>> The the Hollywood MPAA code did not

allow

uh movies to show a man and a woman

getting into bed. So, it's um Carrie

Grant and I forgot which leading lady is

the woman and they're on a train and

they're not allowed to both be seen in

bed and then cut to the image of the

long train driving into a tunnel. all

the subtlety of a sledgehammer. That was

fine. But the two of them sitting on

that's the constraint that forced

Hitchcock to say, "Oh, you're not going

to let me do this. Hold my beer."

>> And I had mentioned earlier Tony Fidel,

he would tell me that Steve Jobs for the

iPhone, he didn't come in and dictate

every little thing, but he would say, "I

want it this thin." And by just saying

that rather than how thin can you make

it,

>> right? It forces people to think

creatively about and and you you come up

you come up with more ideation and

innovation than without the constraint.

>> Huh. Really really interesting. Uh what

are you streaming these days? What

what's keeping you interested?

>> I just watched Plurabus and I

>> My wife just started it without me and

I'm How'd you like it?

>> I loved it. I really did.

>> That's in the queue.

>> She she she um was so good on Better

Call and but this is her shining. She

already won the Emmy for it, but uh but

the the implic there's some implications

from AI are for AI that are really

clever.

>> Well, I'll it's definitely on my list to

check out. So, so my next two questions

are kind of answered in the book. So

that I ask everybody so essentially

it'll be a summation. [laughter]

What sort of advice would you give to a

recent college grad interest in the

career in either venture capital or

finance? Well, in finance, um, this is

going to be so redundant. I apologize. I

would tell him to go read Michael

Moeson's five books because Mike has

read every single Mike's the most read

financial mind that I know of. And he

synthesized everything he read in those

books. And so it would be like starting

on first base. I I mean on second base.

I I talk about in the book that you

should study the history of your field.

And [clears throat] if studying the

history of your field's uninteresting,

once again, I think you're not in the

right place. [laughter]

So that that would be it. Like start

with the masters, Graham and Dodd, and

read the Buffett letters. Like like it's

all out there. It's so wonderful.

There's never been a better time to

learn in the history of the world

because it's all available. I I'm I'm so

surprised um more people don't talk

about the success equation because the

idea of the impact of luck and he talks

about uh investing business and sports.

We underestimate luck tremendously and

it's such a great book.

>> But you can but you can improve your

luck and we have a

>> increase the surface area of luck is the

phrase that always sticks out

>> and and there's a there's a principle in

the book called go to the epicenter

where we recommend if you can at all go

practice where everyone else is

practicing precisely to impact that

equation. And our final question, what

do you know about the world of venture

investing today? Might have been useful

25 years ago when you were first

starting.

>> It probably goes into the thing we

already drilled into like like had I

[laughter] had I been more open-minded

to the question, what could go right and

and pursued the Google investment. Maybe

I retire earlier. Maybe we're not

talking about the book.

>> I have a feeling you would not have

retired early. You would have kept going

because you seemed to really love what

you did.

>> I did. No doubt. So, uh, Bill, thank you

so much for doing this in

>> Can I leave you one last thing? Yeah,

absolutely. Um, the book was written for

the the hero that would make this

journey, but there are people in every

hero's life that act as advisors and

counselors. There's parents and there's

a whole bunch of people that shape your

career process. I think they're going to

get a lot out of this book even though

it's not written to them because I think

there is this overwhelming

uh well-intentioned instinct to put the

economic stability of a child's life at

the front.

>> Sure.

>> And [music] I'm not sure it's the right

answer.

>> Coming up, we continue our conversation

with Benchmarks Bill Gurley. I'm Barry

Rholz. You're listening to Masters

[music] in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

>> [music]

>> I'm Barry Rit Holtz. You're listening to

Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

My extra special guest today [music] is

Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital. So,

Benchmark has really put together an

extraordinary track record. Uber, Open

Table, Zillow, Stitch Fix, eBay. Go down

the list. What is it about Benchmark's

model that was so unique and and really

produced better outcomes than so many

VCs have over the years? Yeah, I I

really and I have to give the credit to

the founders because they're the ones

that that put this structure together,

but this equal partnership structure has

a cultural dynamic that um encourages

immense amount of support from the

partnership without I I certainly didn't

have a fear of failure or anything like

that. Um and also a element of peer

pressure. So the pressure is not a

pressure of of do this or you're out.

It's a pressure of my partner's putting

up these wins and I'm sharing equally. I

need to do that myself. And so it's more

the way maybe someone on a sports team

might do well and encourage other people

on the team to do well as well. And for

me, and I won't say that this is

necessarily true for everybody else, for

me, that culture was a perfect fit. I

enjoy having the camaraderie and the

support of other people. I don't I

wouldn't enjoy being a solo GP and

making decisions on my own. Um, there's

some great work that's been done on on

group dynamics and group analysis. And

one of the really clever things is the

group tends to know the weaknesses of

the individual better than the

individual themselves. And if you're

aware of that, you can use that to help

help your group decision-making. So I I

just adored every bit of it. I I love

that they're um the the firm is is

tilted towards thinking about the work

as a craft or an artisan. And

[clears throat] I find that to be true

of almost everyone I profile in the

book. If you care about nuance and

detail, it's typically because you're

treating the art of what you do in in a

craftlike fashion.

>> Really interesting.

>> And yeah, and and I think that that

that's what what what Benchmark does.

>> Venture capital as a team sport. Do you

do you want to draw any parallels to

playing ball? Anything [laughter] that

that comes into that? Well, I I just I

mean I I think it could go beyond, you

know, playing ball, but do you create a

team culture

>> that that where greatness is going to be

expected and an output? And

>> I bring that up because you mention uh

Sam Hanky in the book.

>> Yeah. I I think that's the best coaches

try and foster that it's not just about

your individual performance

>> and and it's hard but and and people um

I think should be more fascinated with

what Bezos did at Amazon and Elon has

done across multiple companies because

the individual everyone knows that Bezos

and Elon are innovative and independent

thinkers and contrarians.

But how do they scale a company to

hundreds of thousands of people? How do

you take that mindset and put systems in

place where it's propagated all the way

down? And I don't think enough work has

gone into figuring out what they do. I I

give you another interesting example.

>> Sure. Satcha and Adele have probably led

the the either the first probably from a

market cap creation standpoint the best

turnaround of all time.

>> No doubt about that. Absolutely true. I

I mean maybe Steve Jobs 20 years

earlier.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Those two but they ask

that one almost went down to the to the

to the to the studs if you will on the

>> remod. If Gates didn't save Apple that

would would have been it. They would

have been done. So Steve was starting

with more bare metal. Satcha had to turn

this bigger ship. Yes. And he claims

what he did is he told everyone we're

going to go from being a know-it-all um

to a to a learnit all culture. And man,

if if if that one huristic is what was

the key to this, like kudos to him. I

mean, and what what what a what a

miraculously simple insight. And and

then, you know, kudos to him on making

it effective like like pushing it

through the organ. I bet they had to

push a lot of people out, too.

>> Well, if you look at the culture between

him and Bill Gates, the gap Balmer very

different personality, very different

approach.

>> Yeah. Uh you can make the case that

Nadella was the anti-balmer and uh you

know uh during during Steve's reign it

it wasn't great returns although a lot

of people didn't have great returns in

the 2000s so it's a little little bit of

both. Um I I have another question. I've

I kind of suspect I know the answer.

Okay.

>> So So you've spent decades not only

picking business models but founders,

boards, addressable markets. What what's

the single hardest question you wrestle

with um aside from what could go right?

>> The I'd say the thing that pops in my

mind, Barry, is this notion of TAM,

total addressable market, and the I

think the investor community gets really

stuck on that one and are not

open-minded enough about what's

possible, especially if the technology

becomes disruptive. There's a there's a

famous uh interplay between me and this

professor at at NYU around Uber. He

published this piece that said Uber

would never be worth more than $4

billion. And I wrote one of my favorite

blog posts ever titled How to Miss by a

Mile where [laughter]

I took apart his analysis and um tried

to h well I had a little I had an unfair

advantage. He he said that the market

Uber was attacking was the taxi market

and he used that as the thesis for his

analysis. I already knew in San

Francisco that Uber was 20x bigger than

the taxi market. He didn't [laughter]

know that. So once you have that piece

of knowledge, it's kind of an unfair

game. Um but but it gets at like like

the product became so much better than

what the taxi market offered you and it

immediately became uh you know and and

and I think in the long run will be a

replacement for car ownership which

could allow for many many years of

growth

>> especially if self-driving taxis be

become a thing but by the way huge

disadvantage analyzing Uber in New York

City in the early 2010s cuz it was a

monopoly. Taxes were a

>> monopoly. Not only that, in in the in

the report of his, which a summary

version got public, but I found the

background version, he admits that he

had never ridden Uber and only taken

taxis. So, I think being in New York

gave you the exact wrong mindset.

>> The first time you get into an Uber,

you're like, damn it, I wish I was an

early investor. I remember I remember

being a beta tester of Google and

sending an email and saying, "Hey, can I

invest in this company?" They're like,

"We're good." And then the first time I

got into an Uber, it's like, "Oh, this

makes perfect sense on your phone. It's

mobile. It knows where you are. It knows

where." It was so obvious after the

fact.

>> And credit to Dar for taking it from 40

billion to he touched 200. So that's 200

billion versus four is is a that's what

that's what like a a close-minded TAM

analysis would get you that you get you

way off. [laughter]

>> So I'm legally obligated to ask you

about artificial intelligence. How are

you looking at the opportunities uh in

this space? I kind of think we address

that. Do I really need to ask that?

>> I can. You want me to?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Yeah. So, look, the it I think

there are people in the venture

community that would tell you this is

the biggest disruption wave they've ever

seen. And

>> [snorts]

>> um there's no doubt that venture does

extremely well around these

dislocations. And there's great books

like the innovators dilemma that talk

about why, but the mobile wave, the PC

wave, the client server wave, all these

things birthed really big companies,

some of them doing the exact same thing.

So there were there were four companies

in the CRM space before Salesforce came

along, but the SAS wave allowed them to

steal all that that market cap that was

in those companies. And so

>> is that a case of second mouse gets the

cheese?

>> No, I just think it's that that these

waves if are are it's very hard for an

incumbent to be at the front of the

wave. It's kind of different here with

AI because there's certainly an

obsession within the Mag 7 about AI and

what it might do to them. But anyway,

VCs tend to do extremely well when these

waves come and so they're everyone's all

in. Um and um look, it's very

disruptive. It's very different than

anything we've seen before. I would

encourage people once again to to really

dive in and ask yourself no matter what

field you're in, what is what is AI

capable of here and and and to be that

person in your organization that has the

answer to that question.

>> You know, it's fascinating that all of

the big hyperscalers are spending tens

of billions, hundreds of billions

building out these systems. Apple's

writing a check to Google to put Gemini

into Siri, which was early and terrible.

Now it's late and terrible. I'm hoping

Gemini, which has been really good,

turns Siri into something useful. How do

you think of that sort of approach of

saying it's cheaper to buy than bills?

>> I I will tell you I have a couple

different answers to this which I think

are quite interesting. The first of all

the mag 7 formerly were creating I don't

know three 400 billion in cash flow and

>> two trillion in revenue almost 400

billion in profits.

>> Yeah. But now that almost all of that

has been exhausted into capex and Mike

and Moan and I would have long arguments

about like what what that meant from a

valuation perspect. He he he he sloughs

it off and says they can stop tomorrow.

So, and then the the cash flow will come

back. I'm fair.

>> I I argue if you're trying to build a

DCF now all of a sudden you have to make

a decision about whether that would

happen or not and whether there's a

return on this capex investment. But but

the the second thing I wanted to say is

I have found over the years maybe this

is another contrarian thing that not

enough that big companies think there's

some kind of safety net in making an

investor in a new disruptor and and and

so here we have Microsoft and Google and

you know doing and and and Amazon making

investments in these foundational model

companies and it's not clear to me that

that is actually a good hedge because I

think both of those companies, open

anthropic, now have escape velocity. I

don't think they're dependent on the

partner anymore. [snorts] And it

hearkens back in my brain to IBM letting

Microsoft put the OS inside the PC.

>> And we sell hardware. What What good is

uh software going to be? All right, one

last quote. You said there's a mess

coming from zombie unicorns that all

have stale marks in private portfolios.

I'm a huge fan of Cliff Asess's uh

volatility laundering, all the private

uh ownership that that doesn't get

updated or marked to market. What does

that reckoning look like when these

marks finally show up in the real

economy? So, this is probably a

three-hour conversation [laughter]

that I will try and do in a very short

form. Um, there is a very famous

investor or or I'd call him an endowment

manager named David Swinson,

>> of course, Yale model.

>> That is the Yale model. And David said

that everyone should be more invested in

privates and and and and famously had

returns that were spectacular.

>> But as someone who's a historian in my

space that was 40 years ago when

>> 35 no one was doing it was a white

space.

>> So I think I think

>> great valuations great opportunities. I

think the Swinsson mimic effect has now

played out and I think personally that

most of the endowments and foundations

in the US are overinvested in private

both PE and venture. Um, and I think

that the way the industry structured,

and this would require longer

conversation, there's no incentive for

the operators inside of the endowments

or foundations to get the paper marks

right. And there's [clears throat] no

incentive for the GPS to get the paper

marks, right? And based on talking to

people that do this for a living every

day, I suspect both the venture papers

and the PE papermarks and the real

estate papermarks are all too high.

>> Nonsense. If we had had a liquidity run,

like if an endowment tax had happened,

you you might get to that sooner. I

think we're going to it's going to take

forever to unwind. You ask kind of like

when's the day of reckoning? I don't

even know.

>> So, I read over the past few months,

Harvard and Yale are both trying to

sell. They did some secondary,

>> right? So, they're doing some,

right? And now you see the whole issue

with Blue Owl uh with some marks and and

uh Boaz Weinstein making an offer to to

buy assets at a substantially discounted

price. Are these oneoffs or is this

perhaps

>> I think that's maybe the first signs of

this correcting. But I I once again

there's no the the only thing that could

really lead to a faster correction if

there was a liquidity crisis within the

endowment.

>> And we briefly saw a threat of that when

the president threatened to correct

>> start taxing endowments and and other

things.

>> There's other articles you can find

about debt products inside of

foundations which hint at the fact that

you're not getting liquidity from your

privates and you don't want to get

overallocated in them. So you have to

borrow money. So yeah, well all all

uh crisis um financial crisis at the

underlying is is leverage and debt. Um

the other thing that to me was a big

warning sign. I'm curious as to your

thoughts. The whole democratization and

hey we're going to move private credit

and private equity to people's 401ks.

That to me smells like someone rang a

bell.

>> I I'm I'm so with you on that, Barry.

And I think you're going to watch the

same thing happen with with venture

because as I what I talked about earlier

where they're trying to keep these

companies private forever. They're going

to have the same liquidity problem and I

think they're going to run out of money

because they've gotten these things so

big. So watch for someone to lobby to

put their 401k into a large venture firm

as

>> early already began and um you know it's

it's going to be an issue. I fear the

Swinson thing is going to have this,

like you said, when he did it, he was

the only one doing it and it was

contrarian back to the Howard Marx

thing,

>> right?

>> The fact that everyone followed him and

the the time it's going to take for that

to play out and get fixed is [music]

forever. Thank you, Bill, for being so

generous with your time. I've been

speaking with Bill Gurley of Benchmark

Capital and author of the book Running

Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career

You Actually Love. If you enjoy this

conversation, well, be sure and check

out any of the 600 and change we've done

over the past [music] 12 years. You can

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your favorite podcasts. I would be

remiss if I didn't thank the crack staff

that helps me produce these

conversations each week. Alexis Noriega

is my audio producer. Anna Luke is my

podcast.

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