Gurley admits pattern recognition decays; anti-small-business bias from Intuit caused VCs to miss HubSpot, Shopify, Twilio.
“And so you develop this anti small business mindset, which keeps you out of HubSpot and Shopify and Twilio.”
Gurley says missing Google at 25 employees was his biggest career mistake, not failed investments.
“I had Larry and Sergei present to the partnership when there were 25 employees at Google and we failed to chase the deal.”
“They had 25 employees at the time, to tell you how early it was. And they presented and we failed to chase that.”
“Well, biggest mistake I made in my career is when I was three years into the venture capital business, I met Larry and Sergey at their office with 25 employees.”
Gurley reveals he met Larry and Sergey when Google had 25 employees but Benchmark failed to invest.
“I met Larry and Sergey at their office with 25 employees. They pitched Benchmark, and we failed to invest”