20VC: Postmates Founder Basti Lehmann on How the Uber Deal Went Down and How a $2.65BN Deal Turned into $5BN, Why Great VCs Add No Value and VC Value Add is BS Marketing & Why The Biggest Companies in History Will be Born Today and Replace Incumbents

Basti Lehmann is the co-founder and former CEO of Postmates, the on-demand delivery service that raised over $900M from the likes of Tiger Global, Founders Fund, Spark Capital and Andreesen Horowitz. Following Uber’s $2.65BN acquisition in 2020, Basti founded TipTop, a platform for fast tech sales which Marc Andreesen led the $20M seed round for.

In Today’s Episode with Basti Lehmann We Discuss:

1. From US Immigrant to Billion Dollar Founder

• How did Basti start his career hacking AT&T?

• How did early hardships shape Basti’s work ethic?

• What were Basti’s biggest challenges building Postmates?

2. Lessons from Raising $900M

• How did Basti raise $20M from Marc Andreesen?

• How does Basti select which VCs to work with?

• Why does Basti think 99% of VCs are sheep?

• Why does Basti think great VCs add no value?

• Why does Basti think having to educate investors is a massive red flag?

3. Selling Postmates for $2.65BN

• Why did Basti sell Postmates to Uber? How did the acquisition happen?

• Was there anything Basti would have done differently?

• What does Basti think makes Dara Khosrowshahi a great CEO?

• What is Basti’s biggest advice to founders on acquisitions?

4. Future of AI: Startups or Incumbents?

• What does Basti think is the biggest challenge of LLMs today?

• Why does Basti think inference computing will be the future of AI?

• Why does Basti think incumbents can be replaced?

• Why does Basti think the biggest companies are being born today?