YouSaid · the spoken record

Victor Lazarte

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2025-04-14
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2025-04-14
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  1. “And to be honest, this is a trick that I stole from Yuri Milner. So I was having breakfast with Yuri. And I asked him, like, hey, what makes you a good investor? And he was telling me like, oh, you know, when I met a founder, I asked him, like, hey, what's your day like? But it's not like, oh, what tell me two or three things? I don't know, what time you wake up? What is the first thing you do? And then walk through the entire day and then like what time you go to bed and what you do in bed, the choices that people make on their free time are the ones that really tell you who they are and for Pedro it's like, hey on my free time I love sitting in front of my computer tracking the packages that iOS that the iPhones send to servers because I really understand like how that architecture is done because if I pay enough attention I get a chance to like hack it like that's how he found like one of the one of the jailbreaks that back”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “They look for an entrepreneurs that they both have. And there's two traits that they rarely come together. So I like to invest in founders that they're very open-minded, but they're very disagreeable. Normally, like if someone is very open-minded, like, okay, you say something and like he wants to learn more and is very curious about what you're saying, like you make a whole argument, and then you start feeling, oh, okay, like I convince this person because it's just so interesting in what I have to say. But then by the end of the day, the person says, no, I actually think that the opposite is true. So this idea that I'm interested in what you have to say, but I have no problem disagreeing with you to the point that is going to upset you. And both Pedro and Brandon had that to like a very high degree. And the other thing is like, I think a great way to understand founders is like ask them how they spend their free time. I think if you understand how founders spend their free time, like you got a very deep window into who they are.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Go build something similar in the US. And so eventually he agreed to it. And so he moved to the US and he started Brex. And then when he started Brex, he's like, hey, can you invest on my seed ground and like, can you be my first board member? And I was like, yeah, of course. I'd love to do that. So I think our relationship came in from this shared distrust of investors and this idea that, hey, we're going to have each other's back. And the other part that I really enjoyed is like to me was so fun. spending time with this young kid that just loved business so much and frankly i don't think i would have i would have invested in mercore if i hadn't invested in brex because when i met the mercore guys you know at first glance like the businesses are so different but i met the mercor guys and like the company was doing a million dollars in annual revenue but brandon reminded me so much of the brax founders because you know like there's these two traits that”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yeah, so the way I met Pedro is so I was building my company in Brazil with bootstrap the business we eventually grew it over a billion users and there were very few people building technology companies in Brazil at the time and then Pedro he had a problem with an investor when he was 16 he created his first payments company in Brazil turns out that he signed a deal that he shouldn't have and he lost control of the company and the investors made it impossible for him to capture any value. So I spent a ton of time with him and like with lawyers and say, hey, how do we get out of this? And after and I had no shares, I was just like, man, I just, hey, this kid is so smart. This kid is so good. He deserves to succeed, right? So I really wanted him to succeed. And then after a while, like I was like, hey, man, I'm selling my mobile gaming company. We sell things in the US and the US is a much better market. You should just like let go of the company that you have.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Great people will help people find out, hey, I know you really well. And turns out that there's a hundred million people that I know really well. And I'm going to connect you guys, but it's going to function like very much in the way that a person introducing you to someone else's functions, which is like, you get this intro, but you have a common friend. So you know you have to behave well. Because if you don't behave well, it's like, hey, I'm going to tell you friends that you're an asshole and your AI friend is never going to introduce you to anyone anymore.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “That's where I disagree with a lot of people. I think we're always very afraid of technology. Like humans are always very afraid of what's coming next. I actually think it's going to be wonderful. People feel isolated and like being isolated is bad for a bunch of reasons because like you feel like you don't understand yourself like if you have a challenged, you have a hard time thinking about this challenge imagine you have this hyper capable friend that helps you understand yourself, like knows everything about you and whatever situation you have, it helps you like figure that out. So you feel supported. Like if you feel like you're never alone. Even more than that, like I think a lot of people say, oh, this is very dystopic because like once you have this AI friends, like you won't have like regular friends, I think this is very untrue because in the end like this is we still want to see people in person and your AI friend not only will help you like understand yourself, but it will help you connect.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Where you're going, right? So, humans have this intense need to feel seen and understood, and this is very adaptive. We're at a point where AI is able to do that for you. Like AI is able to help you shape like, okay, what is your personal narrative? Like, I have a very strong belief.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Yeah. I think Social is definitely positive. And like a first instant interacted with my wife, I met my wife like three years ago and I first interacted with her like through Instagram. We had like friends in common. So I started following her and like commenting on her stories. Maybe her relationship wouldn't have happened because of Instagram and she's the biggest source of joy in my life. So incredibly, incredibly grateful that these things exist. But I think this thing just scratches the surface. Like I think the way Instagram is set up, like it does not help you connect nowhere near the way it would be able to, right? When you think about why is it adaptive to have friends? And a lot of it is like, okay, we need to have a story that helps us understand what's happening with us, right? Like we create our own internal narrative. And when you have a friend, you explain your narratives to your friends and your friends comments on your narrative and helps you shape it. And that makes you better able to understand yourself.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Able to have a digital friend, and I think that would be fantastic. I think you look at the studies and like religious people on average are happier than non-religious people. A lot of the difference is explained because religions people, like they have the stronger ties with the community, but also religious people, they have a relationship with God. So like God is this friend that you never see, like you talk to God, but like God doesn't talk back. And so to me, like that's a existence that proves that you can have this entity that you never see that is an important relationship to you that makes you that much happier.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I wouldn't even make a larger claim. And the claim is, what do people want? And in the end, people just want to be happy. And there's a lot of study on what makes someone happy, right? And turns out that wealth makes people happier, like the more material wealth you have, the happier you are. But it's actually, it's not like a linear relationship. It's like block linear. So you get to like 75,000 dollars a year for a US household, like you start to taper off. So making people wealthier actually does not affect their happiness that much. And then what does technology do? Like technology helps us be more productive, which is like, hey, it makes us wealthier and it makes us achieve the goals that we want better, right? So it makes us more productive. But research shows that the biggest predictor of your happiness is like the quality and depth of your relationships, right? And technology has not attacked that. The really cool thing now is.”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And then there's a third category, which is businesses that weren't possible before, but now are possible because the agent interface is the right one. But on that topic, I think social networking, and like we now have software that makes us more efficient at connecting with our friends, you know, like have WhatsApp and you have like Facebook and Instagram, what does an agents for that look like? What's an agent for your social life?”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Mobile apps and then like business interacts with like with mobile apps and now the really cool thing that we have is agents and this is just starting but the smartest businesses they realize that the way customers will interact with the businesses it's as if they were able to talk to the business owner like they talk to this to this thing that feels like a person that knows everything about the business and is able to like solve anything you want and sell you anything you want so this agents right like i think some of the incumbents will reinvent themselves to have like an agent interface but whenever you have a shift like a ui shift of this magnitude a lot of the businesses like the donut and so i think there's an opportunity to recreate a lot of the successful business of today in an agent format so i think there's three categories like there's the category of incumbents that will adapt does the category of incumbents that will not adapt and then startups will just recreate those businesses but on an agent first frame”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, are like good things that are inspired by it, right? When you look at the history of the best companies, like the most impactful companies, like Facebook was not the first social network when Zuck built Facebook, that was MySpace and Friendster before it. But you could see that there were things in that direction that were working. And so the thing that I'm most excited right now, like the thing that, frankly, the company most love to work on is an AI companion. In a few years, we're going to look back and we're going to say that character AI was friends there. And what I mean by that is there's going to be a company that's going to be very important and we'll look back and we'll say character AI was the precursor of that. And the reason I believe that is before the internet, the way businesses interacted with people was like through physical branches. And then you have the internet and business interactive websites. And then in 2010, you had...”

    2025-04-14 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source