“ OpenAI and Anthropic will have to create their own chips”

“ AI is going to cause massive labor shortages.”

“ I would be surprised if in five years Nvidia wasn't worth $10 trillion”

The best podcast episodes are opinionated, gritty and go against everything you thought you knew.

This is that and more and my 7 takeaways with @JonathanRoss321 👇

Spotify 👉 open.spotify.com/episode/414cZK…
Youtube 👉 youtu.be/VfIK5LFGnlk
Apple Podcasts 👉 podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/20v…

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:10) Analyzing the Current Market Landscape
(03:33) Why the Hyperscalers Have to Keep Spending Recklessly on AI
(12:35) Why OpenAI and Anthropic Will Have to Build Their Own Chips
(18:14) OpenAI and Anthropic Will be $5BN Companies: The Bull Case
(28:20) Why China is Behind the US in AI and Deepseek is More Expensive to Run
(34:37) How Europe Could Compete in AI and Why the US is More Risk Averse Than Europe
(37:21) Why We Have to Have Nuclear Energy and How to Bring it Back
(48:16) Deflationary Pressures and New Job Markets
(51:54) The Future of Vibe Coding
(53:40) Why AI Companies Should Strive to Have Low Margins
(58:46) S&P 7000, Mag 7 & Market Choppiness
(01:06:44) Why OpenAI and Anthropic are so Undervalued
(01:13:35) The Chip Market in 5 Years
(01:21:51) Quick-Fire Round: Biggest Fear, Nvidia: $10TRN, Zuck Buying AI: Work or Not 1. Why the Hyperscalers Have to Keep Spending Recklessly on AI

No one is 100% convinced that in 10 years AI won’t be able to do their job.

That is how the hyperscalers feel.

The alternative to spending like crazy is to risk being completely locked out of their business.

Can the hyperscalers achieve revenue before Wall St loses patience @altcap @petergostev @steeve @tanayj

Duolingo is a fricking machine.

At $24BN market cap it has proven to the world you can build a mega business in consumer subscription.

But it nearly never existed because it was almost unfundable in the early days.

🧠 Built in Pittsburgh.
💰 No revenue for 5 years.
🗑 Every Valley fund passed unless they moved to SF.

Now? @severinhacker & @LuisvonAhn have built the most efficient/sticky consumer growth machine in tech.

The product is so sticky, users email customer support from Mt. Everest to pause their streak.

My 7 Key Takeaways 👇 1. Duolingo Would’ve Died in Europe

We didn’t have any revenue for the first five years.

No European VC would have invested.

Would you say the same @maccaw @jbrowder1 @immad @joshbuckley @kozerafilip thoughts?

“We did not raise $1.5BN. That's revenue. That is also 1/3 of OpenAI’s revenue.

We might be the best thing that has ever happened to NVIDIA.

They can keep the high margin training business, we can take the low margin inference business.”

This is such a fire discussion with @JonathanRoss321 who comes out swinging.

My 8 key takeaways👇 1. Why NVIDIA Will Be Used for Training and Groq for Inference

They will sell every single GPU they make for training.

40% of their market is inference right now.

If we deploy inference chips at a much lower cost, the same number of GPUs will be sold because more inference = more training.

Do you think Groq will be able to take the inference business from NVIDIA @GavinSBaker @altcap @ClementDelangue ?

There are so many tropes & rules in startups that are just fricking BS.

1. Competitive markets are bad. No, it means there are customers.
2. You shouldn’t overpay people. Yes you should. You can expect more from them.
3. Not everyone needs to create a brand. Yes you fricking do, it helps with hiring & customer acquisition.

This is the playbook @GuillaumeMbh used to bootstrap lempire to a $30M ARR business & $150M valuation in just 6 years.

My 6 key takeaways 👇 1. Founders Biggest Mistake Is They Are Afraid to Sell

People are afraid of rejection, they like to hide behind processes & product roadmaps.

They need to find their unique selling point even if they think their product is not ready.

It will require a lot of trial & error.

What is your biggest advice to a young Founder who is afraid to sell @maggie_hott @killcreek?

Everything we are taught about company building is BS.

💼 Hire top execs

🫵 Delegate a lot

💪 Empower and align

It is all s***.

This from the man who turned down $12BN from Microsoft to build the now $14.5BN @Discord.

My top 6 lessons with @jasoncitron 👇 1. The Unlock for a $10BN Company: Ask for Product Feedback

We posted links on gaming subreddits and asked for feedback.

People tried it out & we got 50 new users from one post.

We used this playbook for several months & it started to snowball from there.

What are your single biggest tips for scaling to your first 1,000 users @nikitabier @akothari @karrisaarinen?

Let’s be honest, most venture podcasts are fricking hollow.

This one has more bangers than a Taylor Swift Eras tour.

⚠️ Why venture is now just a Ponzi scheme

🏦 Why VCs have been reduced to bankers

🗑️ How the big funds kill startups

My 7 lessons from @nchirls 👇 1. The Only Way to Make Money at Seed

Invest in something no one cares about.

Those are not $25M post.

It is one single most important lesson I’ve learned over the last 13 years.

Love your thoughts on this @jasonlk @lessin

When @reidhoffman @eladgil @gradypb @saranormous recommend the same person to have on 20VC, you know it’s gonna be good.

@saammotamedi did not hold back here:

🔥Why now is frothier than 2021?
💩Why most AI apps have BS revenue?
💰Can you even make money at series B today?

My top lessons 👇 1. It is A Bubble and Most Will Lose Their Money

AI companies are raising with valuations 200x their revenue.

The most valuable company today is CrowdStrike & they are only trading at 20x.

This dislocation does not make any sense.

Love your thoughts on this @jasonlk @ttunguz

Navigating the world of investing in this wave of AI is HARD. Today we sit down with @sarahtavel to discuss:

💽 Will foundation models be commoditised?

📲 Where is there value in the application layer?

🔓 Open vs closed: Which will be dominant?

My top 7 takeaways 👇 1. Will Foundation Models Commoditise?

There is a tremendous amount of investment to progress these models.

Each successive model will get more & more expensive to train.

This suggests a world where we will get an oligopoly

Ramp famously has a day count on how many days they’ve been in business.

Today is day 1873 & they have:

💰$7.65 billion valuation
💵 Over $1 billion raised
💳 1% SMB spend on Ramp cards

“They are the fastest execution machine in the world.”

My top 6 takeaways with @rabois and @eglyman 👇 1. How Ramp is the Fastest Executing Company on the Planet

Time is the most limited asset in early stage startups.

We count our days at Ramp & do a calendar audit.

This forces us to think about what creates the most leverage & prioritise those.

This is a show unlike any other we’ve done before…

@bryan_johnson is the man at war with death.

🌡️ Spends $2m a year reversing his biological age

💸 Founder of @osfund, personally investing $100m into genomics & synthetic biology

💰 Sold Braintree to Paypal for $800M

My 8 key takeaways 👇 1. We Are Not Capable of Managing Our Own Affairs

The human race is not qualified to manage our affairs.

We make bad decisions that lessen our lives.

Only an inferior type of intelligence would inflict harm upon itself.

So @rabois has founded or invested in a unicorn every single year, for the last 23 years straight.

What makes the best, the best?

Today we sit down with Keith and @mike_sheb @Traba_Work to discuss:

- An olympian mindset to work

- Why remote does not work

Top 10 Lessons👇 1. What is Required at Traba:

Monday-Thursday: 12 hours in office.

Friday: 10 hours in office.

Reachable outside of hours and on weekends.

No side projects.

To win, you need to have an Olympian mindset.

Databricks is a monster:

💰 $43BN valuation

💸 Reported $1.9BN EOY 2023 revenues

🔔 Over 50% of Fortune 500 as clients

I sat down with their SVP Product @meyerwork and these were my top 7 lessons: 1/7 - The importance of reality distortion in #startups:
Every great leader is bending reality, creating things that seem impossible, and enrolling people in that vision.

Seed pricing is worse than it has ever been.

Multi-stage funds are paying up like never before.

WTF happens from here.

This is an absolute banger with @edsim on the three types of seed round today, pricing, growth rounds, M&A and so much more...

Top 7 Lessons: 👇 1. Three Types of Seed Round:

Discovery: $2M or less. First-time founder exploring new market.

Classic: $3-5M. Median age; 2.7 years. Lean time, operate with constraints.

Jumbo: $6M-$10M. Serial founder. Large existing market. Multi-stage funds want to supersize it.

WTF is really happening at seed?

This discussion with @lessin @jasonlk @fintechjunkie has more value than a Sequoia China portfolio!

Here are my 7 biggest takeaways: 👇 1. The Seed Model is Broken:

The idea that you can put a company and founder on a factory line and reliably produce billion-dollar companies is dead.

Allbirds, Lyft, Robinhood; they are not worth that much and have been decimated post IPO.

The model did not work.

The 5 Biggest Mistakes Venture Firms Make with Marketing: 1. They lose all personality.

"So proud, so thrilled, honoured to partner".

Brands need to make people feel. Do not be bland.

You have to resonate; good or bad, people have to feel something.

Do not be corporate and lose all personality.

8 Crucial Mistakes 99% of People Make When Creating Content: 👇🧵 1.) Platform Selection:

They choose a platform (writing, podcasting, Twitter) because it is hot. Not what they love and where they are naturally best.

Choose what is natural in the tough times. If you do not love it, you will stop.

15 Lessons from Scaling 20VC to 125M Downloads: 1. Persistence:

Always remember @Jason taught me early on:

"Show up every day. Keep showing up. This is a game of who can survive the longest. Don't quit."

It took 300 episodes and 18 months before we even had 1,000 plays per show.

Persistence is everything. Be patient.

6 years ago today I recorded the first-ever 20VC with @guykawasaki.

I was 18, had about $50 to my name and knew no one in venture.

Today the show is 2,500 episodes in with 80M+ downloads.

Thread on the biggest lessons learned along the way 👇👇 1.) Most fail not through poor execution but by failing to start at all.

You will always be embarrassed by your V1. Just start.

I recorded 20VC episode 1 in my family kitchen with a $20 mic and never having spoken to a VC before.