Episode 23: Barry Eggers, Co-Founder and Partner of Lightspeed Ventures

In this episode, we sit down with Barry Eggers, Co-Founder and Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

We are going to explore his journey from Silicon Valley’s early days, to leading one of the most influential venture firms. We dig into the founding of Lightspeed, starting the M&A practice at Cisco, the story of Snapchat, his investment strategy, the AI era, the one misconception young VCs should know, and EQ over IQ in investing. 

If you enjoy today’s episode please leave a 5 star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 

Chapters

• 0:30 Early Life In Silicon Valley & Intro to Technology
• 4:10 Starting Cisco's M&A Division & Moving to VC
• 9:25 The Founding Of Lightspeed Ventures
• 12:00 Attributes of Founders & Startups To Look For
• 15:50 Contrarian Betting in Venture Capital
• 19:00 EQ over IQ In Venture Investing
• 21:25 The Discovery of Snapchat
• 27:35 Why Snapchat Was So Important To Lightspeed
• 29:00 AI Bubble vs Dot.com Bubble
• 33:20 Most Exciting Industries To Invest In Now
• 35:45 Computing Demand & Power in AI Infrastructure
• 38:16 Great Mentor & Leader vs Any Other Successful Person
• 41:00 The Misconceptions Of Venture Capital
• 43:22 The Uncertainty Of AI Taking Over Jobs