Harry Stebbings's Recent LinkedIn Posts

This episode took me 8 years of convincing the guest to make it happen. I first met Jerry Murdock at the Connaught Hotel to discuss a company we were co-investing in. I was 21 and had just raised my first fund. Jerry, as the founder of Insight Partners, was one of the all-time greats, having led rounds into Twitter and managing $90BN for Insight. Today, after 8 years of friendship, I released our episode and have gone over it to condense my biggest learnings from the discussion. 🚀 7 Lessons from Building a $90BN AUM Machine: 1. The Shift from Assistants to Employees 🤖 We are moving beyond "copilots." Autonomous agents aren't just tools; they are becoming digital employees with identities, credentials, and the authority to make decisions. If you aren't building your software to be used by agents, you’re building for a shrinking market. 2. "Cursor is Obsolete" 💻 Native AI startups are already moving past current coding tools toward homemade autonomous agents that write code directly. In AI, you can’t think about yesterday; you have to build for where the puck is going. 3. The Rise of the "Claw Stack" 🏗️ Just as the LAMP stack fueled the 2004 web explosion, Jerry predicts a new "Claw Stack" for agents. This involves an orchestration layer that triages workflows—sending high-reasoning tasks to models like Claude and Gemini, while routing simpler tasks to cheaper open-source models like Llama. 4. ASIC Chips > General Compute? ⚡ NVIDIA is king today, but the future might belong to ASICs. As models become more specific to workloads, we’ll see models put directly onto cheaper, more tunable chips. This is why Meta is betting big on their own silicon—they’re preparing for the ASIC explosion. 5. Selling to Agents, Not Humans 💸 The buyer is changing. When agents start buying software, pricing must shift to consumption-based models. An agent doesn't care about a "seat license"; it cares about the compute and memory required to get the job done. 6. Intuition vs. Wishful Thinking 🧠 Jerry’s biggest misses? Confusing wishful thinking with intuition. He’s learned that the founders who make you feel "comfortable" are often the ones who let you down. The best founders are often socially challenged, obsessed, and possess a "sharp edge" that makes them win. 7. Money Has No Instructions ⚡ Money is simply energy. It doesn’t come with a manual. As an investor or founder, your job is to respect that energy—don't waste it on the "middle," use it to back the crazy ideas that have the power to change the world. (Link in Comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

The only podcast you have to listen to every week. No politics. Just tech. - Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins - OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round - Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR - Block's 40% Headcount Reduction: AI or Overhiring Spotify 👉 https://shorturl.at/VNzso Youtube 👉 https://lnkd.in/enqNR3cC Apple Podcasts 👉 https://shorturl.at/vxNea My 7 takeaways with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll 👇 1. Why It Was Naive of Dario to Try and Sell to the Government Rory argues Anthropic’s attempt to impose safety conditions on a $200M DoD contract fundamentally misunderstood power. The Pentagon’s priority is national defense, not a startup’s ethics. Expecting the military to take orders from "guys in California" is, according to Rory, "unrealistic, naive, and actually constitutionally wrong." 2. Why All Public B2B Software Companies Will Do Worse Than Projected Jason warns that public SaaS companies will struggle for the remainder of the year. Markets are re-rating growth lower as many firms have "lost the way to growth." Because Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is a lagging metric, Jason believes the underlying health of these businesses is "worse than it looks." 3. Public Companies Should Be Ashamed They Have Not Been Able to Extract Value From Agents The shift in spend toward LLMs has bypassed legacy software firms, a "Titanic-level disaster" Jason calls the "biggest own goal in our history." While startups ship agentic workflows in weeks, public CEOs settle for slow betas. Jason’s verdict: If your top 20 engineers can't clone a high-performing AI app, "you all deserve to be fired." 4. Why Companies of the Future Will Be So Much Smaller We are entering an era of permanently lower headcounts. Jason identifies "managers of managers" as the source of corporate bloat. Rory notes that while the "billion-dollar solo company" is a stretch, the trend toward high-IP, low-employee firms is accelerating as AI replaces middle-management functions. 5. Why the "Demo" Is Officially Dead In the age of AI coding tools, a polished demo can be built in 48 hours, providing "zero signal" of a company's viability. Competitive advantage has shifted away from writing code and toward vertical expertise, distribution, and network effects. 6. The Power of Labor vs. the Power of the State At AI labs, "labor" (rare researchers) holds immense leverage, forcing CEOs to "tap dance" to keep them. However, the State remains the ultimate power. While researchers can quit, the government holds a "monopoly on violence" and the authority to label a company a national supply chain risk. 7. The Sam Altman Premium vs. the Elon Musk Premium Following OpenAI’s $110B round, the trio compared executive impact. Rory argues the "Elon Premium" is significantly higher; while OpenAI might lose 25% of its value without Altman, Rory predicts Tesla would crash from $1T to $200B without Musk, given his role in driving complex engineering feats like FSD and robotics.

Founders, I am sorry but press/media do not care about your $3M seed round. Don’t bother trying to convince them. They don’t care. Focus on finding PMF, making customers love your product, building a personal brand (which you own and control) and creating value. #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

An entire generation of mid-level managers is about to lose their jobs. Spoke to a CRO of a hot Series B startup yesterday: “We don’t have the knowledge internally to implement AI and agents into our process.” Toast. You are toast. That is unacceptable. Everyone can learn. There is zero excuse for the above. This is not about age. Young people are more inclined to be "AI-first" but if you do not become AI-fluent, you will lose your company or your job. #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

For anyone with a dream that feels impossibly far away. I started 20VC from a bedroom in London, as an 18 year old with no money and no VC contacts. I wrote three names of three VCs I dreamt of having on 20VC. Last night, I ticked another of the three off the list with Marc Andreessen joining 20VC. 10 years and 3,000 episodes led to that show. Never give up, be unwaveringly persistent and dreams do happen. 18 year old Harry would be immensely proud to see the below. 👇 #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

So I am getting in trouble these days. I got bored of the softball interviews that predicate the VC space. So I started asking hardball questions. The questions you want to know but no one asks: - Why is Accel not in any of the foundation model companies? Miss or deliberate? - Why did Accel not sell in hype rounds for Snyk and Miro?  - How does Accel do 5x net on a $4BN growth fund? So if you want a real discussion with a fantastic investing mind that does not allow for chest thumping and self congratulations, then check out this masterclass of a discussion…. with Miles Clements Spotify 👉 https://shorturl.at/5UTND Youtube 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZUE_qxr Apple Podcasts 👉 https://shorturl.at/Ey9Ye 1. How Do You Respond to the Notion That Cursor Is Dying? Data confirms Cursor is thriving by pivoting from a simple IDE into a comprehensive agent-led platform. Agent usage now doubles standard "Tab" features, with 90% of users engaging daily. With 15x growth and cloud agents handling 35% of merged pull requests, the product is accelerating rather than fading. 2. Were Cursor Wrong to Pursue Building Their Own Models? Building proprietary models is a strategic move toward specialization over general-purpose utility. Cursor develops models for professional engineers rather than general tasks like poetry, creating a distinct "specialist" advantage. 3. Go for Singles, and the Doubles Will Take Care of Themselves Accel co-founder Arthur Patterson warns against "overswinging" at the Series A by fixating solely on $100 billion exits. Investors who obsess over massive home runs often fail to master the fundamental craft of the business. Success stems from disciplined strategies and deep founder relationships, letting the outliers emerge naturally. 4. The Durability of Value in AI Verticals Evaluating AI requires balancing "time to value" against the "durability" of that value. Coding is the premier vertical because it offers immediate 10x productivity gains that compound as teams integrate the tool. This differs from "vibe coding" apps that provide quick results but lack the long-term staying power needed to survive. 5. The Marginal Ease of ARR Accumulation Miles emphasizes the "marginal ease of ARR accumulation": the downstream levers that allow growth to become increasingly efficient over time. Investors must look beyond "anomaly quarters" to understand a company's underlying business physics. High-quality growth should reflect deep usage intensity rather than just aggressive marketing spend. 6. Why the "Who Will Win" Framing Is Too Narrow The venture world often oversimplifies markets into winner-take-all binaries. In reality, most categories are not monopolies; even the most successful companies, like AWS, typically capture around 35% market share. AI tools are frequently market-expansionary, bringing new cohorts of users online rather than just cannibalizing competitors.

I have interviewed 100 of the best growth leaders over the past 5 years. None has impressed me as much as Elena Verna, Head of Growth at Lovable. Elena scaled Lovable's growth engine from $0 to $400M in ARR in just 2 years. Today I released our episode with Elena and have gone over it to condense my biggest lessons from the discussion. 🚀 8 Lessons on Building a $400M ARR Growth Machine: 1. Growth Is No Longer a Distribution Problem. It’s a Trust Problem. When anyone can build software with AI, functionality stops being the moat. Trust becomes the moat. The question customers ask is simple: “Do I trust this team to keep evolving the product?” 2. Your Product Is Now Your Most Important Channel The best acquisition channel in 2026 is the product itself. If users love the experience, they share it, talk about it and bring others in. Marketing becomes amplification of product delight. 3. Founder & Employee Socials Are the Most Underrated Growth Channel Most companies treat social like an intern posting memes. The real opportunity is employees building in public. When engineers, PMs and founders share what they are building, it builds trust and distribution simultaneously. 4. Paid Growth Too Early Is a Death Trap If you haven’t figured out organic demand yet, paid ads will simply burn cash faster. Until product-market fit is clear and funnels are optimized, paid growth is often just lighting money on fire. 5. CAC:LTV Is a Fantasy for Most Startups Most companies don’t actually know their LTV. Unless you’ve been operating for years, it’s guesswork. The metric that matters instead: payback period. How quickly do you get your cash back? 6. Community Should Be Built Around Superusers, Not Support Tickets Most “communities” become complaint forums. The right way: identify your early power users and make them ambassadors. Let them pull others in through enthusiasm, not customer service. 7. Don’t Lock Monetization into Subscriptions Many AI products are bursty. People build intensely for a period, then slow down. Allowing top-ups or usage-based purchases alongside subscriptions can dramatically increase revenue and retention. 8. The Best Growth Strategy Is Relentless Shipping Lovable ships improvements daily and major launches every 1–2 months. Constant product evolution keeps the company top-of-mind and continuously re-engages users. (Links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

I am always asked what is the one AI tool I couldn’t live without. Wispr Flow. (I am sadly not an investor). 1. Helps me write so much faster.  2. Because of the ease, I write much better emails.  3. In London where phone theft is as common as an Anthropic funding round, it keeps my head up and my phone safe. I tried the others. They weren’t as good, also for names, Wispr is awesome. Correcting nuances to name spelling easily. 10/10. Try Wispr Flow yourself at https://wisprflow.ai/ #Sponsored

Most podcasts are BS because they are fluffy and lack substance.  This is the densest, most insightful episode you will listen to this year. Gokul Rajaram breaks down the 8 defensible moats you need for your company to be successful in a world of AI. 1. Data (Proprietary and inaccessible) 2. Workflow (Deeply embedded operations) 3. Regulatory (Licenses and contracts) 4. Distribution (Exclusive proprietary channels) 5. Ecosystem (Third-party platform reliance) 6. Network (Marketplace liquidity density) 7. Physical (Infrastructure and atoms) 8. Scale (Low cost through volume) (Links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

The biggest misconception people have of 20VC: I started the podcast and then moved into investing. No. I loved investing since I was a very young. I thought venture was increasingly commoditised. I realised you had to be different. I thought attention was the currency of the future. Blending media and investing was the most obvious route. We leverage media to be the best investors. Simple. #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

I am going to get in trouble for this but I am so fed up with a segment of VCs that go to every event, they pontificate about things they know nothing about and they forget, we are here to drive the highest return multiple for our LPs. That is it. Our job is to make as much money for our LPs as possible. There is no better money maker or realist than Mitchell Green. In a world of fluffy VCs who are all so "founder aligned", Mitchell is an OG. I released our episode with Mitchell today and condensed my top 8 lessons from the discussion. 1. Buying is Glamorous, Selling is the Job Most VCs focus on the entry price, Mitchell is obsessive about liquidity. He argues that "DPI is math," while marks are just opinions. His firm constantly re-underwrites positions, asking: "What is the probability this can double in the next 18 months?" 2. Don’t Count Out China in the AI War Mitchell believes ByteDance is currently the most advanced AI company in the world. He bets China will win the AI war due to their massive power resources, science-focused culture, and an uncanny ability to engineer things much cheaper than Americans. 3. If There are No Earnings, There is No Floor The "SaaS Apocalypse" has shown that many software stocks lack a bottom. Mitchell’s rule is simple: if a company doesn't have earnings or EBITDA, there is no floor. He advises buying great businesses on multiples of fundamental earnings, not just revenue. 4. The "Growth at All Costs" Era is Dead Wood There is a massive amount of "living dead" companies in venture right now with 60–80% gross dollar retention. Mitchell’s North Star is Gross Dollar Retention: 90% is good, 95% is great, and 98% is world-class. Without these numbers, you’re just churning through cash to fill a leaky bucket. 5. There are 50% Too Many VCs Mitchell doesn't mince words: 50–70% of people in the venture industry probably add negative value to companies. He warns founders to avoid "knuckleheads" who act like experts but have never run a business. 6. The Best Value-Add is Being a "Switchboard" Investors shouldn't pretend to know how to run a company if they haven't. Instead, they should act as a connector—bringing in sales leaders or entrepreneurs who have actually scaled from 20M to 200M. 7. Beware the "Growth Tax" of Leverage Incumbents like Walmart thrived during the e-commerce boom because they weren't levered and could innovate. Today, any company—tech or manufacturing—with massive debt is hamstrung. They can't innovate because they are too busy making interest payments. 8. The Next 10 Years Will Be the Best Time to Invest While Mitchell expects a "really bad downturn," he is incredibly excited. He believes the best companies will be created over the next 2–5 years as the "productivity boom" of AI meets a more disciplined market. (Links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

Founders, when a VC is not chasing you, they don’t want the deal. It’s that simple. Move on. Don’t bother chasing them. Don’t bother asking for feedback. They won’t be honest, they don’t want a debate or to upset you. #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

Every quarter I send an LP update: Everyone does this through mailing lists. Do not do this. I spend 4-6 hours individually sending personalised emails to each LP. Over 85 emails personally sent every time. Response rate is 95% compared to 15% on a mass update list. Do the unscalable things to build trust and relationships. #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

Honestly, I am one of the most obsessed and committed people. There is very little I would not do or sacrifice to win. When I meet a founder who makes me feel like I am not committed enough; I have to invest in them. I remember flying to Munich with Paul Bonnet to meet Vladimir Keil for the first time and I felt this. From the overarching focus and intensity. The clarity of thought. To the little things like the gong to celebrate revenue milestones. He and the team were just so obviously exceptional. Like so obvious. I meet a founder like Vlad once every couple of years. Meetings like this remind you why I feel so lucky to do what we do. Thrilled to work with Seema Amble, Bryan Kim, Mario Götze on this one and time to make the next $100BN European beast! And yes, everyone at Team 20VC got tattoos to show our commitment! #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

If you want to start a company but don’t have “the idea”. 1. Find a large incumbent that is weak and outdated. 2. Find a segment of customers that is not their core target market. 3. Understand what that customer segment wants but the incumbent can’t provide them without harming the product for their core customer base. 4. Create the standalone product serving those features only, to that underserved base. If your 100% unwavering focus is someone else’s side project, your chances of winning; skyrocket. Follow on Instagram @hstebbings1996 for more on finding “that idea” and taking the first steps. #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

Joelle built the AI lab at Meta She worked and learnt from Zuck She is one of the leading minds in AI What everyone thinks they know about AI but get wrong 👇 - Why Scaling Laws Will Continue - Why You Can’t Buy Success in AI with Talent Acquisitions - Future of Synthetic Data & What It Means for Models - Why AI Coding is Akin to Image Generation in 2015 Spotify 👉 https://lnkd.in/eNffYVib Youtube 👉 https://lnkd.in/eryxWJcP Apple Podcasts 👉 https://lnkd.in/erkaptcE My 5 takeaways with Joelle Pineau 👇 1. What Is the Right Barometer for if AI Is Successful? - Can most of your employees do 10x their work with AI vs. on their own? - Humans and AI have complimentary abilities. - To flat out replace a portion of your workforce is unrealistic. 2. The Importance of Open Source AI - Close-sourcing everything has been a deep mistake. - We need ideas to circulate to advance the research of AI. 3. AI Superstars Does Not Work to Build a Team - Having a bunch of AI superstars in a room does not make them more productive. - They need an execution machine, they need the social glue. - I’m a big believer in building diverse teams with complimentary talents. 4. What Is the Future of the Data Supply Market for the Likes of Mercor and Surge?  - The human-AI partnership is not a phase. - The balance of outputs will shift; humans will provide complementary direction. - Some firms may not exist in 5 years but human-guided training is here to stay. 5. WTF Happens When We Have a World With So Much AI Generated Code  - With so much AI generated code, the bottleneck isn’t creation: it is selection. - We’ll need editorial mechanisms to choose valuable, safe, purposeful code. #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #entrepreneur #startup #ai #20VC

Five red flags early stage founders should be wary of when they meet VCs. 1. VCs that focus on financial models. At seed, they are poetry. 2. VCs that ask about “exit strategy”. À la poubelle. 3. VCs that need to know who else is investing. Do you have that little conviction? Argh. 4. VCs that need you to have a co-founder. WTF. 5. VCs that massively haggle on tiny price changes in the round. Imagine what they will be like to work with if they s*** the bed when the post money valuation increases by 500K. Follow @hstebbings1996 on IG for more fundraising advice. 🚀 #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

I am looking for a new Executive Assistant. This is not an easy job. You will work directly with me. You will be my right hand on everything from managing 20VC funds to running 20VC media company and everything in between. It is intense. It is hardwork. It will also be the most rewarding, educational and fun job. I can teach skills, I can teach almost anything. What I cannot teach is commitment to excellence and commitment to winning. If this is interesting to you, then mail me harry@20vc.com. If this has offended you in any way, I really do not mind either. I do not particularly care what people think. #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

One of the most concerning signs for me when investing in a founder is if they do not know the history of their space. You need to know who has tried this before? What approach did they take? Why did it not work? What did they do that they should not have done? What did they not do that they should have done? Bonus: Speak to the people and learn first hand from their experiences. The best founders are students of the failed history of their space. #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

The world of sales is changing faster than ever. If you do not have a PLG or freemium motion, you will be left behind. But you have to layer on top of that PLG motion an enterprise motion. No one has done this better than Shaunt Voskanian, CRO Figma. Shaunt has built an enterprise sales team from nothing to $1BN in ARR. Today I released our episode with him and have gone over it to condense my biggest lessons from the discussion. 🚀 6 Lessons on Building a $1BN ARR Machine: 1. Ditch the Traditional SDR/CS Model Figma operates without traditional Customer Success or SDR teams. Shaunt believes that the best sales teams are those with radical focus and specialization as early as possible. By isolating the self-serve and product-led growth (PLG) motions to specific segments like SMB, you allow your strategic reps to focus on high-value, sales-led expansion. 2. Quotas are "Made Up." Shaunt argues that many leaders use quotas as a false sense of comfort for planning. Instead, quotas should be used as a philosophy to determine the work to be done and how to reward it. For example, at Figma, Enterprise reps might have a quota of only 3x to 4x their OTE because the work is highly strategic and difficult, and they want to reward that effort aggressively. 3. Move from Curious to Prescriptive While curiosity is essential, top-tier enterprise sellers must be prescriptive. Customers are busy and want insights—they want to be taught what your best customers are doing that they haven't figured out yet. Building a champion today requires educating them and bringing a point of view that makes their team more effective. 4. Every Rep Must Own Their Own Pipeline Full stop: AEs must be responsible for their own pipeline generation. Even in a PLG-heavy business like Figma, the sales team’s job is majority outbound expansion into existing accounts. You cannot rely on an SDR "crutch" if you want to maintain a high-performance culture. 5. Hire "Deal Experience" Over "Industry Experience" If forced to choose, Shaunt prioritizes the person who has managed complex, multi-stakeholder, long-cycle deals over someone who just knows the industry. Smart people can learn a new industry landscape relatively quickly, but the confidence and skill required to navigate an enterprise EBS (Executive Business Sponsor) takes years to master. 6. The "Lone Wolf" is Okay, the "Bad Apple" is Not There is a place for the high-performing "lone wolf" who just wants to make money and be successful, provided they don't poison the culture. However, you can never move fast enough to remove a "bad apple" who is malicious or negative. If a rep lacks the will to show up and work hard, Shaunt has zero patience. Huge thanks to Dylan Field and Andrew Reed for helping to make this one happen. (link in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

"Attention is the currency of the future". If you have a mega platform and are willing to write collaborative checks, you will crush the next decade of venture capital. Jake Paul and Geoffrey Woo will outperform 99% of VCs in the coming years. - Invested in Ramp Seed round, now valued at $32B. - Invested in Chronosphere seed round, acquired for $3.35B in November. - Invested in Anduril $8.48B series E, now valued at $40BN. - Invested in Olipop $200M series B, now valued at $1.85B. - Invested in Cognition.ai $2B series B, now valued at $10.2B. For those who can effectively leverage distribution, the next decade will be extremely lucrative. 🔥 🔥 episode to come shortly. Stay tuned....

Following their $20BN army contract, last week, I recorded a show with the President of Anduril, Matthew Steckman. Honestly, I expected him to be tight-lipped and not open up at all. I was so WRONG. This is the most open Anduril Industries and Matt have ever been. 7 Lessons on Building the Next Mega Prime👇 1. WTF Does the $20BN Government Contract Entail This $20 billion deal functions like a "credit card limit" rather than a guaranteed payout. It streamlines the historically arduous procurement process by consolidating repeatable steps into one master agreement. This effectively cuts through the friction, making it significantly easier for the government to access commercial-grade gear at scale. 2. Single Biggest Challenge of Working With the Government The core difficulty is the rarity of massive wins; while Anduril expects to execute roughly 600 contracts this year, only about 20 will be of material revenue size. This creates a high-stakes environment where they must constantly bridge gaps between major deals while managing the risks of highly concentrated revenue sources. 3. How Anduril Will Develop a New Product New development uses small "tiger teams" to build quick demonstrators based on market signals. They employ a "lily pad" strategy: jumping between contracts to validate tech until a government "singular champion" secures a large-scale program win. 4. The Biggest Bet That Paid off for Anduril? Missiles. The Barracuda missile family succeeded by prioritizing low-cost, mass-producible systems over traditional aerospace techniques. By designing airframes to be built like bathtubs, Anduril leverages commercial manufacturers to handle "elasticity of demand," scaling production up or down based on the unpredictable flow of global warfare. 5. Is There Ever an Ethical Question to How Your Products Are Used? The company’s moral compass is anchored in the rules set by democratically elected governments. For those in national security, trust in these institutions is non-negotiable; if a founder fundamentally lacks that faith, they aren't built for the defense industry. 6. What Makes the Anduril Team Successful? Success comes from an "inside-outside" blend of brilliant technologists bringing commercial "entropy" and industry veterans who deeply understand procurement. This is held together by a founding team that has remained intact since day one, relying on personal bonds that survive extreme business stress. 7. What Does Anduril Need to Improve Before They Go Public? To IPO, Anduril must move more of its 20 core products up the "product J-curve" from loss-making development to profitable rate production. They aim to compress the industry-standard 7–10 year timeline down to 3–5 years to ensure the business is ready for the scrutiny of public markets. (links in comments) #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

The BIGGEST news in tech this week 👇: - NVIDIA Predicts $1TRN in Revenue: Everything You Need to Know From GTC - The Return of Travis Kalanick: Uber Would Be $1TRN Today With Him - Anduril Lands $20B Army Contract - Adobe CEO Shock Exit: Just the Start of CEO Exits The only podcast you have to listen to every week. No politics. Just tech. My 6 takeaways with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll 1. The One Question to Determine if You Want to Hire Someone in the World of AI The definitive test in 2026 for any candidate is: "What commercial AI tool have you brought into your organization this month?". There is no longer an excuse in any role—sales, marketing, or engineering—to not have introduced at least one tool per month. You want hires who are at the bleeding edge. 2. You Have to Hire Agentic Deployment Expert. Prompt engineering is a dead role; companies now require Agentic Deployment Experts (ADEs). An ADE is someone who identifies, deploys, and trains agentic products to replace brute-force human tasks. In 2026, winning with AI agents does not require technical skills, but rather the ability to deploy and iterate on software effectively. 3. Congratulations Anduril, You Are Now a New Prime! The $20 billion Army contract marks Anduril’s transition into a "prime supplier," consolidating over 120 separate procurement actions into one enterprise deal. Their Lattice software connectivity system is becoming the default for making disparate hardware systems talk to each other autonomously. In modern conflict, systems must connect in real-time because there are only milliseconds to respond to threats. 4. Uber Would Be Worth $1TN Today if Travis Was Still CEO While Uber is a successful $160B company, its valuation could be $1T today if Travis Kalanick had remained CEO. His hyper-aggressiveness, which led to his earlier downfall, is perfectly suited for the current era. By dominating food delivery and pushing autonomy five years earlier, the company could have reached a trillion-dollar scale. 5. Why You Need Three Big Winners to Make Seed Fund Math Work Seed funds now require three massive winners per fund to make the power law math successful. Because seed entry points have been productized at $60M+ post-money, a manager needs 30% of their investments to be true winners to return 5x. With higher concentration risk and dilution, outcomes must be significantly larger than $1B to justify the math. 6. The Adobe Risk: When Workflows Change, Moats Evaporate Adobe faces significant disruption because AI is reinventing the fundamental way creators work. While "sticky" software like Intuit remains durable for fixed requirements like taxes, AI allows a total shift in creative workflows that bypasses traditional pixel-by-pixel editing. The CEO stepping down without a successor suggests a lack of confidence during this difficult transition. (links in comments) #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

The only podcast you have to listen to every week. No politics. Just tech.  - Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins - The Data Centre Arms Race: Is the Capex War Stalling - The Era of Public Company Deceleration is Dead - The Ultimate Stock Picks: What to Buy Spotify 👉 https://lnkd.in/eGNN_Mxa Youtube 👉 https://lnkd.in/eue9dsPp Apple Podcasts 👉 https://shorturl.at/p7ETJ My 7 takeaways with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll 👇 1. The "Supply Chain Risk" Weaponization The Department of Defense’s designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk is a massive escalation. While the immediate loss is a $200 million contract, the real "blast radius" is the potential to freeze the company out of the broader B2B economy. 2. Ambiguity is a B2B Deal Killer In enterprise sales, risk doesn't have to be certain to be fatal: it only has to be ambiguous. Anthropic’s already seeing deals cut in half or stalling because prospects fear government exposure. Competitors like OpenAI are reportedly capitalizing on this by positioning themselves as the "no-problem" alternative. 3. The Death of the Junior Employee We are entering a "world of the middle of the bell curve" regarding experience. Companies no longer want to spend 3–6 months training juniors when AI tools can provide instant, senior-level productivity. This isn't just a theory; Computer Science and Math graduates from solid state schools are already seeing "zero jobs" as companies stop hiring entry level jobs. 4. 24/7 Persistent AI is the Real Compute Driver Most people are currently using AI for episodic tasks (chatting, coding for an hour). But the next frontier is 24/7 persistent AI agents that watch, listen, and run in the background of your entire life. Moving from one agent to 50 agents running in parallel 24 hours a day will require orders of magnitude more compute than we have today. 5. The End of "Gentle Deceleration" In the public markets, the era of managing a polite, high-margin slowdown is dead. Investors are now brutally punishing any company that isn't actively re-accelerating. If you aren't showing CloudFlare-level acceleration or better, the public markets have effectively abandoned you. 6. Built-in Distribution vs. Product Velocity Wix is a fascinating lab experiment for the AI age. They have 6.1 million customers to cross-sell to, which helped their new AI product, Base 44, hit $100 million ARR. However, if that $100M doesn’t exponentially compound to $600M+ quickly, it won't be enough to offset the 1-2% decline in their core legacy business. 7. "Agent-Led Growth" is the New PLG The startups seeing "lines out the door" right now are the ones offering wholesale human replacement.. Founders should be building agents that are 90% better than humans in specific categories like GTM or support. When they can deliver that, the "budget magically comes out of nowhere".

17 years ago my mother was diagnosed with MS. She was told she would be in a wheelchair within 5 years. Today, she walks a marathon with me every Sunday (see today’s below), is the world’s best grandmother and is a professional Pilates instructor. So two reminders for you today: 1. You are so much more capable than even you think. Do not give up. You got this. 2. Call your parents, today. One day, you won’t have the luxury and at that moment there is nothing you wouldn’t do to have the chance to speak to them again. To all the mothers out there. Not all heroes wear capes but you are our heroes! #Founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

Monday.com was once valued at $15BN. Today with $1.3BN in ARR and $1.5BN in cash, Monday is valued at just $3.8BN. A 70% decline. One of the hardest hit public SaaS companies. Today I sat down with monday.com CEO, Eran Zinman, to ask the really hard questions that no one is asking. Spotify 👉 https://lnkd.in/eWdHaRyn Youtube 👉 https://lnkd.in/eKw_HHbs Apple Podcasts 👉 https://shorturl.at/TNpmA I condensed my takeaways from the conversation below. 👇 1. There Is a Big Difference Between Vibe Coding and Building Software. Vibe coding is impressive, but a massive gap exists between generating a UI and building deep, functional software for an organization . Creating an interface is easy, yet the engineering required for enterprise-grade tools is far more difficult. This initial simplicity often masks the true complexity of software development. 2. Why Vibe Coding Will Not Disrupt Software Companies Maintaining and adapting software over time is significantly harder than most realize . Because software is a minor expense for businesses, dedicating teams to custom "vibe coding" creates high costs that distract from core operations . These long-term maintenance and financial hurdles prevent vibe coding from disrupting established software companies. 3. Will OpenAI and Anthropic Capture Much of the Value in the Application Layer Model companies may capture some value, but their total dominance is likely overestimated. History shows that AWS sparked a software boom rather than monopolizing it; LLMs will likely remain the infrastructure for a wave of new apps . Enterprise sales demand high-touch "hand-holding" that is not the primary focus of LLM providers. 4.The TAM of Software is Exploding The total addressable market for software is expected to grow 100x as it shifts from simple tracking to actually performing work. This evolution will make software exponentially more valuable as companies capture this value during their AI transitions. This represents a software market opportunity unlike anything seen before. 5. We Will Spend Much More on Software and Much Less on Headcount: Is Jack Dorsey Correct? Organizations typically spend 60-70% of their budget on headcount and only 7-8% on software. As AI dominates, CEOs will flip this ratio, scaling through marginal technology costs instead of expensive hiring. This shift drives massive efficiency by prioritizing high-value software over traditional headcount growth. 6. How Monday Is Using AI to Become More Efficient Monday replaced 100 SDRs with AI agents, cutting callback times from 24 hours to three minutes while boosting conversion. Customer support is now AI-driven, and the R&D team utilizes tools like Cursor and Claude to accelerate output. By pushing AI across every cylinder, they are maximizing operational efficiency to stay at the industry’s forefront. #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup