Sam Lessin
Partner at Slow Ventures. Founded Drop.io (acquired by Facebook, 2010), where he then served as VP Product until 2013. Co-host of the More or Less podcast with Dave Morin. Contact: lessin@gmail.com; slow.co.
Lessin’s thinking sits at the intersection of founder psychology, venture capital practice, and social dynamics. He is interested in the behavioural skills that determine outcomes in high-stakes relationship environments — what he frames as operating with a low heart rate.
Key positions
- Etiquette is a skill for showing up in any room with a low heart rate — calm, unhurried, not operating from scarcity.
- The most important foundation for social capital is an abundance mindset: approaching interactions to give value, not extract it.
- Seed investors who back companies branded as AI companies will lose money; the winners are companies using AI as a tool to build operationally defensible businesses.
- His investment thesis (the “Voight-Kampff test”): back companies so dependent on AI that they could not exist without it.