YouSaid · the spoken record

Bijan Sabet

lines on the record: 117
first: 2017-04-10
most recent: 2017-04-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It's more. Well, Fred Wilson and Bretfeld are really involved raising a bunch of money and speaking up. But I think it's just shining a light on this issue and getting other folks involved. I think that one challenge I am hearing from folks is a bit of how do I help? How do I get involved? It seems like there's so many different. You get Sam Alton doing something.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I do. I think it's To be Well, that's right. And that's the part where I come back to before because, first of all, you should care as a citizen of this country or this planet. And then I think the other pieces CEO should remember that their employees look up to them. And if they feel like their employer is not going to speak up and represent whether it's transgender issues, women's rights issues, the environment, immigration, I think it's a missed opportunity for sure.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You do. I think it's coming falling back. Yeah, I do. I think it's just this was good for business immigration. But one of the CEOs told me, we can't complain about everything. I'm like, why not? Why can't you? You know, it was sort of we complain about Muslims. We're going to complain about transgender. Are we going to complain about the privacy stuff, whatever, whatever, or encryption or whatever it happens to be? And some of the more so, the social stuff, but they're like, well, we can't planned parenthood. Can we do that? It just goes on and on and on. And these are sort of, even though they're not tech issues, they're core to the tech constituency, which is interesting.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was pushing. I mean, a number of us were for sure. But I think that the opportunity is now for people to get involved. And I think we're seeing it. I do. But I think there has been this response that started out a little bit slow with our industry. But I think it's picking up.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, I think the whole Muslim band, you did see a bunch of VCs getting involved with fundraising for the ACLU and things like that.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Getting cowed. Right, essentially. So I think obsessing on the customer and your employees is going to really show us the right way to do it. Right.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Encourage and give them the license to actually speak up because you know people like Tim Cook actually care about these issues. But for some reason, I think they feel restricted in taking a point of view on this stuff. A little bit of fear, I think they feel like if they get alienated by this Trump administration that bad things will happen to their company. But what bad thing is going to happen to Apple? Right, right. Right.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They do well. Right. That's exactly right. I mean, the shareholder piece is really a second order bit in computer science. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's the part that we just need to kind of”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's an unusual thing to say. Tease that out a little bit, that idea. Because I agree with you. I think they're base, you know, if you talk about bases, are their employees and their customers. And that once they're true to their alleged values, they do well.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know how hard I was. Right. And I think that is the part that we need to really shine a light on because I think CEOs, even when they started getting involved, they started taking the position of like, hey, this immigration's banned because it's not good for. Business. And I think that's not what the employees are upset about. I think tech CEOs, we should just remind them that their customers and their employees matter more than their shareholders. That's an unusual thing.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. Well, look, I think, you know, as one example of this whole Muslim band, there was a response from the tech community. And I think on one hand, employees, I think, were pretty vocal. This walk out of Google and you had lots of employees caring, you know, the fundraising to the ACLU, a lot of it came from the tech community. So you had this massive outcry of like, hey, this is unacceptable behavior.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So talk about that because tech doesn't do that. It's always been famous for being non-political. I'll never forget Bill Gates telling me very early in Microsoft's career, we don't have a lobbyists. Now they have 412 of them. But, you know, being very much like that's not us, we're here making the world, we're changing the world. We don't need that stuff. They still have that sort of attitude, or maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's the case.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, you were very close. Yeah, I, but I don't know. I'm a bit of a bleeding heart. I marched in DC as an undergrad when for the first Kuwait war. I mean, so I have cared about this stuff. But I feel like... Right now, it's a time where people need to take a stand and step up.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then all of a sudden you realize that it wasn't campaign rhetoric. He meant what he said. And that hate and that fear that he was selling on the campaign was going to be. Was going to be policy. And then when that whole immigration that Muslim ban happened, I remember feeling like, okay, we've got to start getting organized. And I think that kind of started.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. I was not as shell shocked. Remember, we talked about it. I was like, I think we're at Phil's Coffee. Yeah, yeah. But I was definitely shell shocked. And then there was this kind of moment of like, well, give him time. Maybe that campaign rhetoric wasn't really the thing. And then you had other investors say it's serious, not literal. Yeah, that was Peter. Craziness. It wasn't investors. It was one person.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think in all those cases, these were young founders, and I think the two things I learned. This whole notion of pattern matching with VCs and all that stuff, I really kind of learned that that can be counterproductive. I think what works great for one company, these are unique places with unique founders and unique cultures. And I think the thing, I learned two things. One is that each company has to do it their way. And to be patient. Tumblr, yes, we had a great exit for over a billion dollars or whatever, but it was seven years. I mean, it was not like a YouTube situation or an Instagram situation. And I think you've got to be patient with these things. I think it's too easy in this environment to kind of expect kind of a Uber like thing or an Instagram thing overnight.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, I think I've evolved, but I think VCs have a role to help support the management team and help them kind of get through it. And I think the thing that Foursquare did was I think they could have sold the company and they decided to really grind through it and figure out a business model and they did it.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, look, I think when a company, you know, unlike what I think a lot of people don't realize, these companies rarely go up and to the right. These are hard to get startups going. And Foursquare, I think the hardest part was they had this massive early success. Raise lots of money because the company was so promising and growing. And then when things became leveled off, I think that's when you suddenly have a moment that you've got to deal with the hard issues. Suddenly you're not growing as fast as you were. You've got employees, shareholders, this whole industry staring at you. And it's hard. It's really challenging for any management team or entrepreneur to really deal with that.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They still have it, but. Kind of had a life for people. Which should they have done? Like when you talk about getting scary, you have all these companies that were at junctures You know, talk a little bit about that idea of junctures, difficult junctures where things happen.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I remember you could be the mayor of places. I think people still love that stuff. They still have it. But it was that whole games part of Foursquare was a big part of it. And I think that kind of had a life for people.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was like a competing thing for people's attention. And there were more products being launched that weren't directly competitors, but kind of occupied a different space. And I just think it just became harder.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everywhere. I think the competitive landscape for Fourscore just got harder. I think that Instagram wasn't a competitor directly, but indirectly it was because suddenly people were posting photos of like having a cappuccino at this Restaurant, and all of a sudden that whole location thing was kind of”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Theory. Yeah, I mean, the Foursquare I felt like was the most unique product to really get a handle on navigating a city and finding things out. I mean, Yelp never did it for me. I felt like, you know, the Yelp thing where it's like people you don't know are telling you whether you should go eat it that sushi place wasn't really compelling for me. And Foursquare, it was about your friends telling you what was...”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I give a lot of credit to Dennis and Jeff and the team over there. I mean, they've really not only stabilized it, but it's growing very nicely. The business model's working. Team is doing great. So I think Foursquare is really an exciting company right now.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely in a very good place. There were some scary moments of that company for sure where it looked like we were in real trouble.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm an outsider. Look, I hope that the company stays independent. I really do. I think it can. It's got plenty of money, by the way. It's got billions of dollars. And it has this amazing brand. People love it. Especially present.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was the original sin. I did too. I did too. And I think, look, Facebook is an extraordinary company. I think Twitter is still a very unique thing. I don't think it's Snapchat's growth changes the Twitter value prop for users or experience. I mean, I just think it's a different thing. And, you know, that it's just totally different.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I was super glad. And I guess the reason I'm bringing that story up is that if you had told me then. That this company would have hundreds of millions of users, this amazing brand and worth today maybe it's worth 11 billion or something, I would have been ecstatic. Right, right. The issue, I think, is about expectations. I think people”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then we all decided we're going to sleep on it. And the next day, Ev, I think he's published the letter that he sent to me and Fred and Jack. But he woke up and said, I don't want to sell it. And that was it”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Significant amount for the company, we should pay attention to it. And I asked Ev what do you think we should sell it for? He says, well, if the offers 500, I'll take it seriously. So I told Dan, 500 will take it seriously. He said, we'll offer 500.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, I didn't want to sell it. Oh, but you haven't understand it. Well, at that time, Ev and the board felt like we should go figure this out. You know, if Facebook really wants to buy the company, It felt like you know we had raised a little bit of money. We had a small user base at the time. I mean, it was a few million active users. So it was kind of like if they're willing to pay.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, look, there are times where, you know, there's been countless times we could have sold the company. Right. You know, I mean, I remember six months after I joined the board, Facebook, you know, Dan Rose and I had an understanding selling company for $500 million. $500 million. I wrote that store. And then Evo woke up and said, I don't want to sell the company, and we didn't sell the company. And I was forever grateful. But he was the largest share.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, I joined the board at that time. I left in 11. The company was going through a process to gear up for a public offering. And Spark is still a small shareholder in the company. We were the largest. And the Sabbath household is still an investor.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I had never seen a product that had this combination of fun and utility. I felt like, and that was the special part for me, like, you know, Google has utility, but it's not fun. And then there were plenty of things to do online that were fun, but didn't have utility. And I felt like Twitter was this first powerful experience that combined the two in a way that I hadn't seen before. And then plus the founders are so compelling and all that combined, I just needed to figure out how to become an investor.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Saw something there. I met Twitter through Andy Rubin. Andy introduced me. You know, Ev was at Google and I got connected to Biz first. I joined as a user first and just became addicted like all of us did. And I just really want to meet the team. And so Andy, introduced me to Biz first and then Ev and then Jack. And then I kept groveling to be an investor and they finally said yes. And you were very.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a great question. I'm amazed David's still there. It just shows that he has a love affair with Tumblr, and he's put up with all the craziness and reorgs and Yahoo and now Oath. Oath. Oath. So he's still there. I hope that Tim really understands that they've built something special over there.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think at the time it just felt like, you know, David was the majority shareholder. And, you know, I was on the board and we felt like this was something that, you know, we could either sell now or raise another round. We hadn't really proven the business model yet, but we felt like given the size of the user base, it didn't feel far-fetched to think that we could build a profitable. It's actually hard”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, we could have raised another round. You know, Marissa paid $1.1 billion and felt like that was quite compelling. But I don't think we would have been a perfectly good company.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Tumblr allowed people to express themselves fully in a very creative way. And it really, I think, caught on with the New York creatives and then it just spread from there. And I think the simplicity of it was also part of the magic. Because before that, you can use stale blogging products that existed and people kind of started those and then they would leave those. And Tumblr, I think it was just so easy and so beautiful that it just kept growing and growing and growing. So I guess the only thing I would be able to kind of maybe add on is I don't think it tumbled. I mean, I think it was a great company.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tons of that kind of stuff. That's right. Yeah, I mean, what David, I think, was David's brilliant. He has this unique personality where capability where he was artist plus he's technical. So he could think of something and then build it on the weekend.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, Tumblr, I felt like was this amazing product that kind of allowed people to be fully self-expressive on the internet. And you've done it.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I think that what we kind of would tell entrepreneurs is that we had a different attitude when it came to working with founders. We wanted to think, we were obsessing about consumers. So when I met David Carp when he was 19, we were already obsessed about consumer and media. It wasn't like we had to learn about why this was important or interesting. So I think our focus on this area was the thing that set us apart.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not in Boston. You know, Todd Dagris came. He was the co founder from Battery. He had a great track record at Battery. And so the three of us launched Spark One in July of 05, 12 years ago.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Recently, and so we felt like we want to start a firm that was, you know, we would only invest in things that we actually cared about, not necessarily that things would be only good investments.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it was a few things. You know, we had this view that we wanted to invest in things we were passionate about. And, you know, most VCs at the time had this kind of diversification strategy where they had somebody who was the enterprise guy, somebody who was the consumer guy, somebody was the telecom guy. They were all guys, by the way. Yeah, I know that.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they hired me as an EIR. So I joined Charles River at that time when I moved out there, and I became really close to this new partner over there named Santo. And Santo and I became like, you know, we were like peanut butter and chocolate. And by 04 We decided we wanted to start our own firm. And”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't have a plan No, not at all. And at that time, it was pretty tough. But I knew a few folks in Boston, not many, one was this guy named Micah Hearn, who was the VP of HR at Apple. He had moved back to Boston, and he was Recruiting partner at Charles Robert Ventures”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did. And then, you know, in that 10 years, you know, the company was sold. We sold it in 01. And so I got here in 91 and this place was a bit of a morgue. When I left in 01, it was also a bit, you know, challenging times. But along the way, I met this amazing person. I got married. And she was from the East Coast. And after the whole Moxie thing, she said, hey, I want to go back to Boston. And I said, I'll come with you.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. And you had on Quincy recently. I listened to that podcast, and Quincy was our lead investor. So that was where I first met when I first met him.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He absolutely was. But anyway, Moxie, we wanted to build a server for the home that would distribute audio, video, internet content throughout your house. We raised $60 million in our Series A in 99. Without any product or anything. And then we spent it. And learned a lot of lessons. And I met Peter Curry, you know, Danny Reimer and Peter were investors in our company. The bar still.”
2017-04-10 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT