YouSaid · the spoken record

Sam Lessin

lines on the record: 134
first: 2026-01-15
most recent: 2026-01-15
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

“I'm basically just less look our venture of her is called slow venture is slow.co. I'm Sam Lesson. I'm kind of lesson everywhere, whether it's like Twitter or Instagram or whatever you used, or just lesson at Gmail is my last name is my email address. And I do read it. So I don't know. I appreciate you having me on. It's always fun to see you. It's been too long. And I don't know, come hang out in the poolhouse sometime.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not like a, I don't know, it's not all in or something. Think it ever will be. It's like way too niche, you know, like, but we have fun, you know, I would, I would happily do it with my friends if no one was listening. And then it's like, that's kind of wild that a bunch of people that we actually do care about find the pieces that are interesting. And it actually is helpful from a business perspective because you bullshit about something. And then some entrepreneur shows up as like, hey, by the way, here's a better idea. You're like, that's great.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's the funny thing about it, it serves our purposes way more than I actually expected to, which is we enjoy doing it, which is the most important part. We would do it if no one was listening. And weirdly, like, a lot of our friends and people we care about in the industry seem to pick up the pieces they like from it and like talk to us about it. So it's like a great conversation starter. So it's like weird. It's like, I don't like, it's not a huge podcast. It's big enough, but I actually think the thing that's been most surprising to me about it is that even though like we don't really have growth strategies and like we're not trying to blow it up and like we don't get paid for it, it's like weirdly useful is what I would say, you know, even the fact that it's like, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure if that's your experience too, but like, and I think your podcast is probably much larger than ours. But it's like weirdly listened to and useful by the people that we care about and is fun despite the fact that, you know.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, here's the thing I think people it's kind of a weird podcast in some ways because honestly, I don't think any of us are highly filtered and it's kind of just like talking to your friends for an hour a week, which I want to do. Like, I love the more is we don't live that close to them. So it's kind of fun to just like have that time set aside and then cut it up and post on the internet pretty raw.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We love our last days. We also, like, my wife and I are contrarians and hate everything by default, and the Morans think everything's amazing. So it kind of works from a dynamic perspective.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but I will say that I have hanging in my gym, which I love from the Facebook hackathon after the launch of Google+. This is going way back in history. They made great posters, which was Carthage Must Burn. And it was just like this great moment in work time when it was like, okay, game on, like Google's coming for us. And I had some of the most fun work experiences. We were working literally 24 hours. So, Carthage must burn. How about that?”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“UA actually can't, like, I just kind of like there's no way to sign up for it. If you send me an email, perfect. If you send me an email lesson at gmail, I'm fine with like, then you get, if I respond, you get automatically added. I basically just like, that's how I like people I'm interacting with get added. Or I'll just add you, but it's actually funny. There's not, oh, or you know you can do actually that will get you on it is if you go to wesson.comsion.com. I have my little like bot app that like includes like a little LLM that kind of is trained on my writing just because I was having fun building it. If you enter your email address there”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not enough men. I just don't have the liquidity. Like, I have hundred great women who wrote in being like, hey, this is what I'm looking for. This is who I am. You're like, you were an amazing person. And then like the four guys you write in are like, I want a 25 year old hot girlfriend. You're like, ah, this is not going to work. But June Day might have the liquidity to make it work.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good. I get it. If you're single, I tried with my newsletter at one point. I was like, oh, you know Honestly, the people who read my newsletter are pretty weird and specific. And so, hey, why don't I just like offer a matchmaking service where I'm like, okay, if you read my newsletter really, you're here, tell me who you are. I will build a little LLM and try to match these people. Didn't work for me because candidly, you know what happened? Way too many qualified women.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a little abstracted from that, but it's like the matching and the core thing is like based on it. And it's like, again, I'm like, I was like, wow, like this is good.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Implications of who you are. The fun part is I haven't obviously done dates on it, again, not for me, but I have pulled my profile from it. Like, wow, this is like shockingly good description of who I actually am. And so I think that's like a really fun business.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, I'll pitch, you know, I'll pitch people on. This is a little self serving, but I will pitch people on June date. So, okay, I actually don't use this product because I'm happily married, but this is cool. And here's the basic idea is if you think about so much of AI right now, this goes back to like what businesses do you overhaul that are interesting that have AI implications but are not AI? Everyone's got this little virtual girlfriend, loneliness. You're going to chat with your friend. I'm like, whatever, fine. These guys came out. And what they do, they're like, look, if we're really trying to match up humans, like call it Tinder 2.0, what are the best sources of information to do that? Is their chat GPT histories? So this app is kind of built around the premise of distilling, you ask ChatGPT a structure prompt that they've designed. It pulls out an unbelievably good profile of who you are. And then you basically match with people based on what you're actually asking ChatGPT about.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I talked to, well, I'll tell you a funny story, which I talked to a founder who's in Midland, Texas, and was just kind of part of the show. And it's so classic and typical. He's like, all these Silicon Valley people now think they understand the energy industry because they watch Landman. He's like, so there's all he's like, I'm like, it's like wild. But I totally believe it. Because I know too many venture capitalists are like, oh, I now understand this because I watched Landman. And he's like, this is totally a thing. Yeah.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Incredible book, so is The Last Kings of Shanghai. If you know that one, like these are all amazing books, but they're longer and they're more stories. Just every one of the podcasts should go read Will Durant.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hours of investment to intellectual return. My one real answer right now would be that I could give you a thousand others from there are things like the banana king. Have you heard this one? Have you seen this one? Oh my God, this is so good. What's it called? It's the fish that ate the whale.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so let me pull up my list because I got to pull up my Kindle for this. One is I'm reading right now, I got to admit, I like to make fun of Mark Andreessen a lot, but he recommended a book called The Ancient City, which is fascinating. And so I'm in the middle of that right now. I'm really enjoying it. Man's search for meaning is great. I'm just going through. What have I read recently? You know, it's great area 51 in uncensored history, the top secret military base. Not very Aerodyite. Great book. And then I honestly think the one serious one I'll make a recommendation on is lessons from history is one of my favorite books ever. I would really, really, really recommend. It's a short read. But lessons from history by Alan Durant is like probably the most approachable non-obvious book I love.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I'm happy to be here. I love your work. It's good to be on your podcast. Happy to bullshit whenever. But no, we're good. Okay.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's like there's a whole set of companies that are implications of AI and how do you manage it and handle it as a society there's a lot to do there. There's a lot to do in cultural shifts from AI, right? There's all sorts of interesting trends to follow there. Like there's all sorts of businesses that will be disrupted. They're like non-AI businesses. They're businesses that will be disrupted interestingly. So I think there's a lot of opportunity. But again, I think there's a, I at least draw a distinction between if you're trying to be, I mean, certainly a foundation model company, but like any of these things that are like, we're going to win Cuz AI. I'm like, yeah, you're going to win because of something else, right? And AI is going to be a propellant to it.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Around the theme of the VoIC conf test from Great Blade Runner, which was the test they basically ran to the Are you a Real or Are You a Bot? Right? Like that's a huge problem. Turtle on the”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I won't invest in anything I would consider an AI startup. I'll invest in things that use AI, right? For me, I think I'm really interested in the cultural implications of AI or the new businesses that need to exist because it is a force in the world. So we've done a lot, whether it's sublime security or outtake, things like that that are basically”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've done so well as a country with Terra Nova. Like the US was amazing for so many years because we had the West. And if you were going to work hard, you could go west and you'd do great. And there was all this opportunity, a lot of opportunity. We've had reverberated, like, you know, my generation, your generation. We were blessed because we have the internet. The internet was digital Terra Nova. And we got to build fortunes and do amazing stuff and new work, be in this new world that was created. But it was effectively the same thing as a West all over again, right? And ever since then, whether it's mobile, which again, if you look at the math on it, everyone wants to be disruptive and terranova. Not really. It's just more internet, right? Or like crypto, which by the way, I think crypto is amazing. I think it's the closest thing to Terra Nova. But now the AI God narratives, every generation is desperate. With good reason, right? But the story is it has to be real, right? And I think unfortunately this time, this is a classic example of AI is a power.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like they're too capital. If they work, they're too capital intensive. Like, seed investing does not work in highly capital intensive businesses. So that's not going to happen. Two, they're fundamentally commoditizing in all sorts of ways. It's very unclear what the lock-in or value is on any of these things, right? And so it's just like the whole dynamic is off. And the thing is, people are desperate right now for things to believe in. Like if you think about the history.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Away from things that are AI companies. Because even if you look smart for the moment, you're playing a dangerous game of get out before the narrative collapses”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Investment right the way the number is baked out even at a $500 billion market cap when all is said and done the seed investors have made something like 25 times their money that's insane right if you think about it like that's basically the worst it's like a middling at best seed investment for like the company that is defining the moment and the reason is because these things are so capital consumptive so if you're trying to deploy a hundred billion dollars the market is fragmented you know people want to dream a dream people like want religion they want belief like there's a bunch of reasons why you can like squint and justify you know what if the storytelling of elon allows spacex which by the way i love i think space is an awesome company but if all of a sudden that actually can be worth 1.4 trillion dollars to the public market guess what the money plowers are going to do great with all this narrative driven uh religion is what i would put it but if you're a disciplined seed investor i guess my country would take would be run”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the venture capital, the seed venture capitalists who invest in companies that are branded as AI companies are going to lose an impossibly large amount of money in the coming years. And that doesn't mean that I don't think you should be using AI to build things. I actually think you absolutely should. It's kind of like not using AI in your startup is the equivalent of not using the cloud in like 2010 or like not using the internet in like 2000. It would be insane. Like, of course, you're going to use these tools. But there's a difference between a great business that you're using AI to supercharge or make better or just a piece of infrastructure. That's not an AI business. This is the business, right? And I'm very into those versus like all of these companies that come out whether that say we are the AI blank. I just think they're all going to zero. Even my kind of argument is from a seed perspective is like, look, is open AI a good investment or not to terrible seed.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, both, actually. The vibe coding thing, this is exactly what vibe coding is good for is like this is like, you know, cursor and digital ocean and cloudflare will get you a long way in terms of just like building this stuff on the fly. And so I built the first version of this myself end to end, but then vibe coding also doesn't really scale. And so the reality is after a certain point, I had some friends who were great engineers just take it and like up level in a few ways that I honestly ran out of time to work on.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you can make your own. So, like, for me, I actually am looking at this now. There's actually one thing that got messed up on this we need to change. But yeah, the idea is you basically get an email, digest once a day, and it's continuously updated, like, what's going on in the world? And you pipe your own newsletters into it. So it's like whatever you actually trust and pay attention to.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, look, I'm by default pretty skeptical of most AI applications. I will say the thing that I've had the most fun with AI and I find great is it actually is partially where the cartoons for this came from is I built a little personal news aggregator called letter meme that basically takes all the newsletters I don't have time to read and turns them into daily cartoons like so I have a grid of like what's going on in the world a front page in cartoons and I actually love it it's like the best way I get an overview because there's all these smart newsletters you don't have time to read any of them so I pipe them all in except a newsletter”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The funny thing is, this stuff, the etiquette story is obviously pretty fun. And so people like Morning Brew just like keep making videos about this. And like, there's this whole etiquette thing going on. And I'm like, oh my God, I've done some pretty good investments in my life, built some cool products. Am I going to be ultimately remembered as like the etiquette guy? That's kind of hilarious.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's so much other stuff. I mean, again, I go back to this whole thing, which is like, you know, these are all fun tips. I love the cartoones. We iterated them a bunch. We have more to do. We're having a lot of fun with this, and I think it is providing a lot of value to people, which is great. That's kind of my goal is to both have fun and actually provide value and help people. That intersection is great. There's a thousand other tips. And so, for the biggest thing for me is when you have more or think of them, send them to us because there'll be a second version of the book and then a third. And like, I actually really want to cite the people who contribute to it. We're going to do one. We're certainly doing one in New York and a few other places. And, you know, it'd be fun.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I don't like, you know, yes, I think that's really true. It's, I mean, there's even a point like there are lots of scenarios where I think an Irish goodbye is the best goodbye, where you just kind of disappear. Like any large group setting, I think is great. Maybe you think one person on the way out of the host, right? But like. You know, I am leaving now, right? Like, let me kind of say about it, everyone, and hug everyone. It's too much. It's too much.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Should stand where people leave the table, right? Not ridiculously. By the way, you should stand with the table, stand and shake hands. Don't be sitting when you're shaking hands. It's just what you do, right? And like it shows that you're aware of it. Follow up with gratitude. Like you should send people thank you notes. Even if they shouldn't be long, they shouldn't be ridiculous, but like we met, I got something out of it. Thank you for taking your time is like always appreciated is what I would say. Obviously, there's stuff like don't take calls, et cetera. Like this is kind of like the kind of obvious stuff in terms of exiting and how you think about it. Like even if someone, if someone rings you, right and you're like, and the meeting's over and you're overtime, you're like, I got to pick up this call. You hit the button that says, I'm calling you right back and then walk away. Don't just pick up the phone and like wave. You know, is what I would say. Yeah. And I think like there's stuff like that I would just keep in mind.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is actually the easiest way And this, by the way, is from my partner Kevin Collard. But the easiest way to come off badly is to not offer, to put your coffee cup in the kitchen, right? And like, honestly, we do this. Because if you think about it, we work for LPs, limited partners, right? Like, that's who we raise money from and then deploy it from. And my partner, Kevin, even more than me, has this thing, which is he is maniacal about this, which is no matter who's in the room, if we're with an LP, you take the coffee, you take the diet Coke, even if you know full well someone's going to come in and clean it out for you, and you make a point of asking where we can put it or putting it on the side table, et cetera, and acknowledging that there is a mess.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Zoom calls and you'll be on a call and like the closets open. And I'm like, it's not a big deal, but like Do you see your own self picture here? Like, can you just close your closet? I don't want to see your shirts, you know, like that type of stuff, I think, goes further than people realize.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really, really communicate. Yeah. For meetings, virtual ones, camera on. Like, again, I say this as someone who sometimes violates this, right? I violate it knowingly. I violate it knowing what it costs me. But you really should have your camera on, right? And again, like you should dress appropriately for a video call. You should have an appropriate background. If you have your bed in your background, it should be nicely made. You know what I mean? Like in some ways, it's like doing the easy stuff is the key. In some ways, and I go a step further, I actually, this is less a hard rule. I actually really don't love virtual backgrounds for the same reason. I'm like, look, I'm not going to judge you if you're your bedroom, if you're a startup founder. It's fine, but I would like to see that your bed is made. Or like I'll give you another one that's classic that I see with founders all the time. Close your closet. Like people will get on.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Love it. It is a great description. I always describe it as like, imagine the modem crash from when we were kids on a 14.4. You know, like that old modem crash. Like, that's what small talk is. It's a modem crash. We're trying to hit the wavelengths, you know, et cetera.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Weather is nice, or how is your weekend, or like something that kind of cuts the air a little bit, and then you kind of flip into business is like a good thing, even though it like feels transparent is still useful, right? Is what I would say to kind of like, and again, it's almost a signal of like, I am here for business, but I am like a normal person and like I'm willing to have like a you're like signaling like oh, I know that we should start with a normal conversation if that makes sense right I don't know if you saw this”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, again, we've talked about arriving a little bit early. You should do that. Don't arrive up too early. Like, you shouldn't, again, like if you're an hour early, walk around the block. It's fine to walk around the block. You don't want to sit in someone's office. Because then all of a sudden it feels like this person's been here a long time. Like this people feels like even though they're not scheduled, like we're leaving them hanging, you're six coffees deep with the receptionists. Like, you don't want that, right? So I think you want to be like 10 to 15 minutes early. You do not want to be much earlier than that. We talked about meeting other convenience. I do think it's fine to start with a little bit of small talk, right? You know, there are times it's not or times people running behind, but like the pleasantry of like.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, for me, it was more just like the way to check the spelling of someone's name is not to put them in the two field ever.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I have some unbelievably funny faux pas from my history with CCBCC two lines. One of the worst etiquette slash mistakes I ever made, never, ever, ever put someone you're talking about who's not on an email in the two line to check the spelling of their name and then hit send. That's a bad idea, right? So whatever you're doing, that's not even an etiquette thing. That's just like a being smart.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the whole thing about etiquette it's all this invisible stuff You don't need to spend like all in some ways the whole story of doing this well is it should not occupy 80% of your brain, right? What you're saying is I've got this, we're on the same wavelength, my heart rate is low, I'm doing it properly, and I'm doing it with like intuitively almost, right? Which is a hard ask, right? Because what we're basically saying is like these are unknown things, but intuitively you should just know them. And that is actually what you're signaling is like you can trust me because intuitively there's this well of knowledge and cultural connection and whatever that we can share effectively.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're not expected to be the first response. Again, you can break this rule. Like, there are times to break it, there's a subtlety to it, but it wasn't really sent to you, right? Like, and so there was a whole language to who you send to and who you see in the order that, again, it's very subtle, but is worth understanding.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is really to Kevin, and like, I'm on it. Like, if you see an email sent to many, many, many people almost by definition, it's not that important, right? Is almost the way I would put it. And so you have to be really careful with management of that. I think even the Hooty Sent to and who do you CC, there's a language to that, that like from an etiquette perspective to understand, right? And like, I do think people sometimes miss that. Like the CC line is very, very valuable. It means, hey, you should have a copy of this. This is not really to you. I'm not expecting an immediate response, right? I even think there's even a subtlety like who responds then. Like if you send an email to 10 people CC'd to the whole nine yards, you know, there is a subtle etiquette to like. You respond, like, if you are the fifth CC on an email”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm the first person in the two, right? Candidly, I mildly pay more attention to it than when I'm the fifth, right? Because in my head, I'm like, okay, well, like.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To mind you really sending this to, you know what I mean? It's almost the way I think, and like who's kind of included? So, if I look at an email.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I do think you kind of want to think about, you know, there is a connotation to who you send it to and who you CC and the order in which people know I don't want to like overstate this, but put differently, it's like if you're sending an email and the first person on the email is the assistant and the fourth person on the email is the CEO, you've probably done it wrong.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And again, it's like if you choose to use those, you are going way out on a limb, right? That people are going to be receptive to that and not be like, this is a person who spent a lot of their time customizing their emoji pack when they probably should be doing something more interesting.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally. I don't say, like, look, I mean, there's a whole spicy for a second. Know how I feel about people who have like invested too much in their emojis, right? So you get people who have like changed the colors of their emojis from the default or whatever. I'm not saying not to do it. I'm just saying it's quite a statement is my view that you've invested in your emoji pack or like using special emoji people haven't seen before or like it's like again it's a subtlety and you got to understand the room and like the culture and like what you're responding to But I do think that people read more into that than people want to be read into it.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I think text is different. I think people might have slightly different takes on this. And so I wouldn't say anything I'm saying here is dogmatic, but I'm just saying that like, again, emojis are not highly legible to most people. They can mean lots of different things. They use their cultural connotation to them and like. Would say that they're kind of harder to read than just a well worded simple to the point email. And I think you just want to come across as like a literate to the point simple clear person.”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think emojis from my perspective is quite a step of familiarity, if that makes sense. If you from a business context, look, if someone sends you a smiley face, you can respond with it. Like you can kind of like match, again, it goes back to this matching vocabulary and language. Like I'm not saying you should be totally cut and dry, but it's kind of, I would say, emojis almost feel like jokes to me, which is like tell them at your own risk and they're probably not worth it, you know?”
2026-01-15 · Lenny's Podcast · How to show up in any room with a low heart rate: Silicon Valley’s missing etiquette playbook | Sam Lessin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source