Office Hours with Spencer Rascoff

Bill Gurley: Venture Capitalist and General Partner at Benchmark

The companies within Bill Gurley's investment portfolio have some clear similarities: great user-generated content, a reliance on the network effect and a "power to the people" mentality, meaning they put consumers first. But companies don't succeed solely because of their business model or mission - they also need strong leadership. According to Bill, great leaders tend to be unafraid, innately curious and bold. He looks for these qualities in the founder pitching the investment opportunity because - while the idea is important - it's the person who is going to execute it. In this episode, Bill references his 2012 essay, "The Dangerous Seduction of the Lifetime Value (LTV) Formula." You can read it in its entirety here.

Spencer Rascoff is a New York Times bestselling author who co-founded four tech companies, invested in over 50, and was CEO of Zillow for a decade. His first start-up, Hotwire, sold to Expedia for $685 million, and his second start-up, Zillow, is now a real estate colossus, worth around $10 billion dollars. Now, he’s cofounded dot.LA, a media company covering the cutting-edge LA tech scene. Hear Spencer speak with CEOs, start-up founders, venture capitalists, and prominent thought leaders about how to manage, how to lead, and how to win in business.