EP261 - Benedict Evans Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) has been a VC, an operator, consultant and an investment banker.  His VC career includes a five year stint as partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He know lives in London, where he publishes an excellent weekly newsletter “What mattered in tech this week?“, a podcast “Another Podcast“, and some epic annual presentations, such as this years “The Great Unbundling.” You can find all things Benedict Evans at his website. He’s one of the most thoughtful people in the commerce industry, so we tried to cover a lot a ground in this broad ranging conversation. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Episode 261 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Wednesday April 21, 2021. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode a 261 being recorded on Wednesday April 21st 2021 that’s a lot of twenty ones I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:41] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners Jason this week on the show we have a really exciting guest he’s a renaissance man of sorts, he’s been a VC an operator a consultant and an investment banker. You and I love his annual Mega presentations that dig into various Tech Trends and he also has a awesome Weekly Newsletter that I highly recommend called What mattered and Tech this week. Listeners please welcome Benedict Evans to the Jason and Scot show. Jason: [1:12] Hey Benedict we are thrilled to have you, it’s and it’s a it’s creating a special occasion for us I rarely get to talk to Scott during daylight hours but but because of your time zone we’re talking in the middle of the day it’s fun. Benedict: [1:29] Cool well it’s good to hear you listen to the podcast so especially the ones about statistic so it’s always good to chat about this stuff. Jason: [1:36] You you are like one of eight listeners that enjoy my Deep – in statistics. Benedict: [1:42] Well it’s a former Equity analyst like I want to know what the number is I’m not happy with saying like so statista I want to know where is a number from and what is it what does it mean. Jason: [1:52] Yeah there’s there’s I feel like I thread this really fine line the overwhelming majority of people don’t want to be overwhelmed with the numbers and then the eight people that are interested in the numbers I’m always nervous are going to realize that my numbers are wrong so it does it seems like it’s a very narrow audience of like you know my mom that’s willing to to take my content exactly as is but enough about me Scott gave some of the highlights but can you walk us through your career a little bit Benedict and how you got an interest in all this stuff. Benedict: [2:19] Sure sir so I did a degree in history I went into Investment Banking as a sell-side equity analyst so, write research about mobile operators back when mobile networks were amazing and exciting Dynamic growth companies, and then I went and worked in strategy and BD in media and telecoms companies for a while and then as a consultant advising, media Telecom technology companies and then from 2014 to 2019 and a 2019, I work for Andreessen Horowitz which is a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley with sort of 15 billion dollars under management that invests in, people making new companies sometimes actually around e-commerce mostly around software to help other people do e-commerce but my other things say invested in instacart. [3:14] And then at the beginning of last year I decided to move back to London and do my own thing and so, instead of picking up some things I’d already been doing so I have a Weekly Newsletter with sort of Water by notes for the week and I have a website where I write