Phineas Barnes's guest appearances

Phineas Barnes

Square One: Conversations with the Best in Business

Megan Quinn

Kyle Samani

David Tisch

Keith Rabois

Erik Torenberg

Andrew Yang

Erik Voorhees

Jordan Fisher

Andy Rachleff

Brad Feld

Anthony Pompliano

Rahul Vohra

Jonathan Hsu

Jack Altman

Phin Barnes

OwlTail

There's a lot of noise in the venture ecosystem today on differentiation. When I think of a venture firm that defines differentiation, I think of First Round Capital. This week I chatted with Phin Barnes, General Partner at First Round, on a whole host of topics. Phin brings a unique operating background to the table - he spent six years helping to scale AND 1 Basketball from $15 million to over $225 million in revenue. - and has scaled this experience to a number of fantastic companies. In this conversation we discussed:  - Intentionality and why the best Founders have it (specifically he referenced Notion, Modern Fertility, Steady, Clearbit) - Initially working for free for First Round Capital with no intent to ever become a Partner - The importance of moving slow and challenging the cult of speed - Success being found in moments of discontinuity vs. continuity - Compensation for judgement vs. time - Tech enabled businesses vs. pure play software businesses (e.g. Peloton, WeWork) - Pattern recognition as a code for intellectual laziness  - Measuring learning on a "per dollar" basis - Why diversity isn't talked about enough and how he wants to change that 

There's a lot of noise in the venture ecosystem today on differentiation. When I think of a venture firm that defines differentiation, I think of First Round Capital. This week I chatted with Phin Barnes, General Partner at First Round, on a whole host of topics. Phin brings a unique operating background to the table - he spent six years helping to scale AND 1 Basketball from $15 million to over $225 million in revenue. - and has scaled this experience to a number of fantastic companies. In this conversation we discussed:  - Intentionality and why the best Founders have it (specifically he referenced Notion, Modern Fertility, Steady, Clearbit) - Initially working for free for First Round Capital with no intent to ever become a Partner - The importance of moving slow and challenging the cult of speed - Success being found in moments of discontinuity vs. continuity - Compensation for judgement vs. time - Tech enabled businesses vs. pure play software businesses (e.g. Peloton, WeWork) - Pattern recognition as a code for intellectual laziness  - Measuring learning on a "per dollar" basis - Why diversity isn't talked about enough and how he wants to change that

42: Phin Barnes, General Partner at First Round Capital