The Origins of the Benchmark Dinner

1. 0:00 – 0:13

   Why Benchmark has a dining room on the 19th floor

   1. BGBen Gilbert0:00

      Okay, so our first question is what are we doing here? Like, what are we at? And Peter, it feels like you would be the best person to explain this dinner tradition.

   2. SPSpeaker0:09

      Yeah.

   3. SPSpeaker0:09

      Why do we have a dining room in an office?

   4. SPSpeaker0:11

      [laughs] On the nineteenth floor.

   5. BGBen Gilbert0:12

      [laughs]

2. 0:13 – 0:59

   The Ben Franklin catalyst and the first experiment (2006/2007)

   1. SPSpeaker0:13

      When I joined Benchmark, there was great optimism between Bill and me about, you know, injecting new practices, new habits, new ideas into the firm. And Bill had just read the Ben Franklin, uh, biography, and Ben had four dinners, if I recall, a week, but they were, like, going deep on finance, then on, you know, chemistry, and then on life sciences. And, uh, and he took the catalyst to say, like, "Why aren't we doing dinners?" And anyway, we had this, like, playful, you know, experiment where we said, "Well, let's try a few of them." And we did a, a big dinner towards the end of the year in I think it was, like, two thousand and seven. Maybe two thousand and six. Two thousand and six. It was actually my first year. And, uh, it was amazing. Like, time stood still. And, and we realized, like-

3. 0:59 – 1:27

   The first memorable guest list and the post-dinner debrief ritual

   1. BGBen Gilbert0:59

      Just, just the partners, or?

   2. SPSpeaker1:00

      No, we had four outside guests, uh, Katharina Fake, uh, Mike McCue-

   3. SPSpeaker1:05

      Yep

   4. SPSpeaker1:05

      ... um, Gideon Yu, and Martin Mikos, if I'm not mistaken. And it was electric. And we came out of that... Bill had this habit, he'd always call me in the car after, like, "What'd you think of the dinner?" I'm like, "Ah, I think it was fun, but I wanna go to bed."

   5. BGBen Gilbert1:21

      [laughs]

   6. SPSpeaker1:21

      He's like, "Uh, uh."

   7. BGBen Gilbert1:21

      [laughs]

   8. SPSpeaker1:22

      And alcohol had been served. People were in a good-

   9. BGBen Gilbert1:24

      Like, it was his baby. He wanted to, like, keep working on the concept?

4. 1:27 – 1:58

   From strategy to habit: dinners as curiosity infrastructure

   1. SPSpeaker1:27

      Well, well, we, we danced with this idea. And so the concept that, that I came to is that firms are full of strategies that aren't coupled to reality. And if you look at a venture firm, eventually it's just a collection of habits. And this is stealing from William James, who I think was the greatest American thinker, um, that, you know, we are nothing but an amalgamation of our habits, and habits sow character, they sow everything. So the idea that we should be nurturing curiosity, which is the essential lifeblood of the firm, needed a habit.

5. 1:58 – 2:39

   Why dinner beats office meetings for “dynamic range”

   1. SPSpeaker1:58

      And, and, and Mondays, as much as they're an attempt at that, you sit around the office and you joke around, you try and d- dive into topics, they're, they're limited. And so the dynamic range of a dinner with, um, you know, uh, an open-ended, no agenda, wild explorations of the most bizarre things your partners might be curious about, and I've definitely got in a few, you know, rat holes th- with this group-

   2. BGBen Gilbert2:20

      [laughs]

   3. SPSpeaker2:20

      ... and they pulled me out. Uh, you know, it just became one of those things that honored the purpose of the firm, which is the sense of, like, constantly learning and, and activating our curiosity, but, um, you know, collective effervescence of a group that we could never get in a one-on-one dinner. Um, one of the challenges, which is being manifest right now, is that-

   4. BGBen Gilbert2:39

      [laughs]

6. 2:39 – 3:17

   Designing away hierarchy: the table problem and power dynamics

   1. SPSpeaker2:39

      ... in a table, you know, where there's a head of the table, you can get a dominant participant in the dinner conversation.

   2. BGBen Gilbert2:47

      [laughs]

   3. SPSpeaker2:47

      But the problem with the table is that you either have a rectangular, uh, structure which carries power structure embedded in it, um, or you have a circular table which atomizes the group. And so I'd seen this table, uh, The Seven, by Jean-Marie Massaud, who's a French designer, and, um, I ran with the idea. Something that would be organic, that could expand and collapse, but most essentially destruct or deconstruct power centers and, and create a non-hierarchical construct with intimacy.

7. 3:17 – 3:33

   The custom table build—and its unexpected ripple effects

   1. SPSpeaker3:17

      But this table ends up being, um, Ole Lundberg designed it. We gave him... I gave him a hand sketch and, and he ran with it. And, uh, it's, um, allowed Ole's lifestyle to meaningfully upgrade because-

   2. BGBen Gilbert3:28

      [laughs]

   3. SPSpeaker3:28

      [laughs]

   4. SPSpeaker3:28

      ... the number of people with means that have sat at this table have decided they need a table just like this, uh, so-

8. 3:33 – 4:23

   The dinner as a “spotlight” gift—and the caliber of guests

   1. BGBen Gilbert3:33

      Well, and the people you have at this table, just for listeners who don't understand the gravity of this dinner, it tends not to just be the five partners. You have f- pretty esteemed guests come to these.

   2. SPSpeaker3:43

      It's the spotlight of attention, which is the biggest gift you can give to another human being, on an individual. And more often than not, it's somebody that we haven't worked with or invested in. And, uh, I think you guys might have mentioned this in the podcast, that, uh, we've had dinners with people like, um, Dylan Field, and oh, you come away, you're swept off your feet. You're like, "Why? This is why we exist, to serve people like that." Um, Tobi from Shopify. Um, you know, Jeff Bezos has been, um... We travel to Jeff. [laughs]

   3. BGBen Gilbert4:13

      [laughs]

   4. SPSpeaker4:13

      [laughs]

   5. SPSpeaker4:13

      Do you bring the table?

   6. SPSpeaker4:15

      Unfortunately, it's not portable. [laughs]

   7. BGBen Gilbert4:16

      Medina side, Seattle side? Where? [laughs] In LA?

   8. SPSpeaker4:20

      We, we, we've been in L... We have been in LA. We've been in Seattle.

   9. BGBen Gilbert4:22

      Yeah.

9. 4:23 – 5:11

   One conversation only: no sidebars, total group alignment

   1. SPSpeaker4:23

      And I think you can tell just from... You can see the ethos of the firm in the structure of the table, too, which is that you can't have a sidebar conversation at this table-

   2. BGBen Gilbert4:31

      Right

   3. SPSpeaker4:31

      ... because everybody else can hear it. And so it's all one conversation. And that, um, you know, sort of coming from, from the outside and then being part of Benchmark, like, the one conversation element of everything that we do on Monday is so powerful, because we're all tuned in on whatever's being discussed, and sometimes it's not great news, sometimes it's good news, sometimes it's tough news. Whatever it is, getting the whole group tuned in I think is, like, the, is the essential power of this structure, and I really like the table for that. [laughs]

   4. BGBen Gilbert5:10

      [laughs]

10. 5:11 – 6:02

    Contrasting venture norms: no pre-selling, no hallway lobbying

    1. DRDavid Rosenthal5:11

       I mean, I remember, I'll, I'll never forget early in my venture career when I was a venture capitalist, uh, I remember an older partner taking me aside and saying, like, "If you wanna bring something up at the partner meeting, you need to have had a side conversation with everybody else before you bring it up at the table."

    2. BGBen Gilbert5:27

       Right. Which is so funny-

    3. DRDavid Rosenthal5:28

       It's like-

    4. BGBen Gilbert5:28

       ... 'cause Bruce, when we were talking to Bruce Dunlevie, he was like, "Our one rule was no pre-selling a deal."

    5. DRDavid Rosenthal5:33

       Right.

    6. BGBen Gilbert5:33

       Like, you can't walk around the hallway and say, like, "Hey, I'm super excited about this one later. Like, if you... You know, y- I think you'll be excited, too. Like, vote for it." [laughs]

    7. DRDavid Rosenthal5:42

       [laughs]

    8. SPSpeaker5:44

       Who got the truth? Hmm. Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth? Who got the truth now? Hmm.

Episode duration: 6:03