Happy Wednesday.
The current thing in tech and business is OpenAI announcing that it will shut down Sora.
Today’s lineupARC Prize Foundation Co-Founder Mike Knoop at 12:00 PM
Air Street Capital Founder & General Partner Nathan Benaich at 12:20 PM
SF Real Estate Deal Guy Rohin Dhar at 12:30 PM
The Book of Elon Author Eric Jorgenson at 1:00 PM
PEAK6 Investments Co-Founders & Managing Partners Jenny Just & Matt Hulsizer at 1:15 PM
The Benchmark Ship of Theseus
Image: AlamyEmil Michael is not ready to forgive Benchmark for the ousting of Travis Kalanick in 2017. Yesterday he posted:
And believe me, I get it. Travis is a generational entrepreneur, who was attacked 24/7 for years before being pushed out. Uber survived and sits at a $150B market cap, while Lyft has fallen to just $5B. That Uber won the capital war is a testament to the organization that Travis built while he was leading the company. At the same time, it’s easy to imagine Uber being much, much larger with him still at the helm and charging forward into autonomy.
The Kalanick-ouster steelman is very difficult. Basically it seems like the best explanation is that they just freaked out. Every partner was on the cusp of making a clean one billion dollars individually, and the prospect of their power law fund asset collapsing under the weight of an ever mounting pile of hit pieces was too nervewracking to bear. It’s not a strong steelman, and consequently, I don’t fault anyone for holding the ouster against those who perpetrated it a decade ago.
At the same time, Benchmark has become the Ship of Theseus.
In Greek mythology, Theseus, the mythical king of the city of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the Minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians would commemorate this by taking the craft on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. Over time, various of its timbers rotted and were replaced. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: If no pieces of the original remained in the current ship, was it still the Ship of Theseus? If it was no longer the same, when had it ceased existing as the original ship?
Kalanick resigned as Uber CEO on June 20, 2017, after investor pressure that included Benchmark. On that exact date, Benchmark’s equal GP roster was:
Bill Gurley
Eric Vishria
Matt Cohler
Mitch Lasky
Peter Fenton
Sarah Tavel
Today, the partnership has changed dramatically. The operating partnership today consists of:
Peter Fenton
Eric Vishria
Chetan Puttagunta
Everett “Ev” Randle
Jack Altman
So it’s not a full Ship of Theseus, but only one third of the 2017 partners remain. My question for those who remain reluctant to forgive Benchmark, is what happens after Peter and Eric leave, and the full Ship of Theseus is complete. Maybe you shift to focusing on the geopolitically confusing move of backing Manus, but in terms of the original Uber debacle, maybe it should be put to rest.
I know this will be contentious, I was already arguing with Jordi at breakfast about this, so tune into the show today to see us hash it out and let me know your arguments on either side.
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