Matt Cohler

Venture investor whose framing of the VC job recurs in Kyle’s writing on historical futurism and markets. Kyle describes him as “a partner at Benchmark” and quotes him repeatedly: “Our job is not to see the future, it’s to see the present very clearly.” In a Quora AMA, Cohler elaborated that “noticing the present first” applies to surfacing new investment opportunities — but once an investor is actually working with a company, the critical skill becomes “to be able to see around corners… not to predict the future many years out, but to have the experience, pattern-recognition and judgment to know what’s coming next.”

Kyle uses this two-step — see the present clearly, then see around corners — as a launchpad in Historical Futurism (Essay), arguing that turning the next corner is “something ants can do too,” and that meaningful influence on the future requires the ability to zoom out. The same Cohler quote anchors an earlier essay, Markets, Markets, and Markets.

Context: Matt Cohler is a longtime general partner at the venture firm Benchmark, and was an early executive at LinkedIn and Facebook before joining the firm. The “notice the present” line dates to a 2012 interview about his investing philosophy.

Where this appears

• Historical Futurism - Research — research notes for the futurism essay where Cohler’s “see the present clearly / see around corners” framing is developed
• Historical Futurism (Essay) — Cohler quoted as the foil for Kyle’s argument that real futurism requires zooming out beyond the next corner
• Markets, Markets, and Markets — the same Cohler quote, sourced from a Jon Oberheide share, anchors Kyle’s earlier take on the investor’s job re: the future