All Episodes

February 18, 2025 87 mins

In this episode of Turpentine VC, we're sharing Erik Torenberg's 2023 interview with Sarah Tavel and Eric Vishria from Benchmark, exploring the firm's unique minimalistic approach, commitment to deep founder partnerships, and their deliberate avoidance of platform teams.


— 


📰 Be notified early when Turpentine drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess  

🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse  


SPONSORS:

☁️ Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds and offers one consistent price. Oracle is offering to cut your cloud bill in half. See if your company qualifies at oracle.com/turpentine 


💥 Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/  and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.


LINKS:

Benchmark: https://www.benchmark.com/

Dopamine Nation: https://www.amazon.com/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence/dp/152474672X 


X / TWITTER:

@sarahtavel

@ericvishria

@eriktorenberg

@turpentinemedia


HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE:

  • Benchmark was founded in 1995 as an "internet era" firm, distinct from semiconductor era firms like Sequoia (1970s) and mobile era firms like Andreessen Horowitz (2009).
  • The firm operates with six equal partners who split economics equally and make just 1-2 investments per year each.
  • Benchmark intentionally maintains no platform team, believing direct GP involvement leads to better founder outcomes.
  • The firm's Monday meetings have no agenda to encourage open-ended curiosity and foster creative thinking.
  • During 2020-2021, Benchmark's investment pace was historically slower due to the challenges of building relationships over Zoom.
  • The firm is currently on pace for making the most new investments in a year than they have in the past decade.
  • Benchmark sees three distinct opportunities in AI: foundational models, vertical companies selling work, and incumbent product enhancement.
  • The firm succeeded in crypto by focusing on company-building founders (Chainalysis, So Rare) rather than token-based speculation.
  • Benchmark prioritizes "seeing the present clearly" over making big macro predictions about the future.
  • The partners view their lack of a platform team as both a constraint on deal flow and a feature that ensures deep GP involvement.
  • The firm deliberately maintains consistent fund sizes and focused strategy, unlike peers who have expanded into multiple products.
  • Healthcare investments focus on peripheral areas (nurse marketplaces, medical devices) rather than core healthcare delivery.
  • The partners still cold email and DM founders directly, with no junior staff intermediating relationships.
  • The firm's equal partnership model intentionally doesn't scale beyond a small number of partners to maintain quality of collaboration.
  • Benchmark measures success by investment multiples rather than total capital returned, focusing on being in "the few deals that matter."
Mark as Played

Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

United States of Kennedy
Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.