Investing in Trillion-Dollar Outcomes with Ben Ling of Bling Capital | Founding the Fund 1

Description

In this bonus episode of The Room Podcast, we speak with Ben Ling, Founder and General Partner of Bling Capital, an early-stage venture firm that has backed companies including Airtable, Lyft, Square, Palantir, and many others. Before becoming a full-time investor, Ben held leadership roles at Google, Facebook, and YouTube, where he helped build products at massive scale and gained a front-row seat to some of the most important technology platforms of the last two decades. In this rendition of Founding the fund, Ben shares lessons from moving between operating and investing, what he learned working alongside leaders like Vinod Khosla and Marissa Mayer, and why distribution often matters more than product. We also discuss how Ben built Bling Capital around founder experience, why seed investing has structural advantages over multi-stage funds, how venture investors should think about trillion-dollar outcomes instead of billion-dollar outcomes, and the framework he uses to evaluate both founders and aspiring fund managers. Learn more about Ben on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminling And Bling Capital on their website - https://blingcap.com (06:12) Ben Ling's upbringing between Taiwan and the United States (07:03) Did Ben always know he wanted to become a founder? (07:51) Lessons from Google, Facebook, and YouTube on scaling products (10:45) Why Ben started angel investing (12:30) What is the modern equivalent of being the "platform insider"? (13:35) Why Ben joined Khosla Ventures (16:24) Angel investing versus institutional venture capital (18:25) Developing conviction as an investor writing larger checks (22:42) Lessons learned from working with Vinod Khosla (25:21) Why Ben started Bling Capital (28:10) Building a founder-first venture firm (30:51) The first founder and LP who backed Bling Capital (33:24) Maintaining investment conviction through market cycles (34:32) Building the team at Bling Capital (36:00) What Ben looks for when hiring investors (38:07) How Bling Capital has evolved over time (