whbk
Joined 13 years ago
Joined 13 years ago
Expect all manner of Hot New Things coming from their PR dept over the next couple quarters.
Postmates, on the other hand, has absolutely disastrous support and consistently laughable "resolutions" as the parent comment noted. Postmates is one of those things that felt like magic the first time I used it in the early days when they were the only game in town, but they just got so surpassed by competitors to the point where I hate it. Their "taxes+fees" are ridiculous for an inferior product. UberEats gives me a flat $4.99 plus taxes that actually reflect legitimate taxes. Postmates, on the other hand, is a minimum of $3.99, often more, plus maybe it's surging, plus the "taxes and fees" is often some obscene amount (Tacolicious seems to have a $4-5 "fee" on Postmates), oh and if you're treating yourself to a small fast food order there will be another $2 "small order fee."
The last straw for me was when they started adding "walking" postmates, who would literally walk an order from ~40 minutes away when I'm paying them $10-ish to deliver it. Then when I complained and (half-jokingly) suggested they give people paying $10 for delivery the option to not have a walking postmate deliver it because my food was extremely cold, I got the typical Postmates support brush-off. Utter joke of a service.
Yes, I am Mad On The Internet.
This is how reporters know a firm is raising another fund (beyond just expecting them to every 2 years). The amount/percentage of the total fund that the partners pay in themselves varies by firm and fund.
Here's the records from Benchmark's Fund 7
Partners put up $80mm of their own cash, in a vehicle named Benchmark Founders' Fund VII, L.P.: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1507661/000150766111...
They then raised $425mm from LPs through a vehicle named Benchmark Capital Partners VII, L.P.: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1507669/000150766911...
So the Benchmark partners have 16% of that particular fund, though keep in mind VC funds have different economics than just a straight up equity split. 16% is pretty high compared to some other firms I've reviewed, but I admittedly haven't taken the time to sample widely.
Remember, he was already "on leave" - whether he was honoring it or not. By public accounts, he wasn't. So the board said "ok, he's not going to change, let's remove him." My argument is they should've given him a couple weeks and then sat him down and had the "the well has broken, we need a new face for the good of the company, please support this" talk. Instead, they blindsided him at a hotel that he'd flown to halfway across the country to try to help the company (recruiting a COO) while his father's still severely injured. Had they done it in a more humane way, they might have been able to secure more cooperation in the long-term, and they could've begun to quietly get their ducks in a row during that 2-3 week grace period before giving him the ultimatum. Instead, they executed it at a moment of maximum weakness for him, which got the job done in the moment but set themselves up for him to go scorched earth in the long-term, undermining the whole exercise. Again, I do think they needed to fire him, but they'd bought a bit of time with him "going on leave" and I think it might have been more effective had they leveraged it rather than going for the immediate KO.
Perhaps we would've ended up here regardless, but maybe not.
I think the passenger rape records issue was the straw that broke the camel's back and he had to go, but I don't think it needed to be done the way it was. Sure, there's a decent argument that he only has one speed and would be meddling regardless (as he supposedly was while he was supposed to be "on leave"), but doing it the way they did made Travis lashing out once he'd had a bit of time to process it an absolute 100% certainty.
As a last hurrah before getting back to startups I traveled to one big live festival..played terrible in the $10k main event due to poor sleep after travel and got 3-outed just before the money after playing great in a satellite to the $25k. It's one thing to miss the money after playing great for ~5 hours in a $500 tournament from the comfort of your own home...consistently walking away -$15k+ in the hole after expenses for days worth of effort? No thanks.