I get a lot of grief for only getting 1%-3% ownership (will increase to 5%-10% next fund), but I assume I can get away w 13.5x less ownership since I’m a 13.5x smaller fund & I don’t need to bank on a decacorn cus I’m not in cos diluting 85%+ from investment (i hope !?)

Met a legendary VC who 45x’ed his $135m fund 2 today Wrote 75 checks which let him hit 3 decacorns, but also had ~10% ownership Think the math works as a 50 co “access” fund w flat $100k checks. Barbell the portfolio between 1st check in @ founding & consensus seed bets by t1’s

I'm much more excited by spaces where AI creates net new opportunities (dev infra, energy, data center technology, model observability, data plays) or industries where AI is increasing gross margins from <30% to 80%+ (insurance, healthcare, services, bizops, etc)

Feels like traditional B2B SaaS cos are uninvestable now, even with AI bolted on. They just don't grow fast enough compared to other cos I could invest the same dollar in & there are unlimited substitutes in the market. Good cos, but VC isn't the right funding vehicle for them.

Oh, I worded this like an illiterate. I meant that I invested in a founder whose last company has raised over $100m. Not that I invested in a company that raised $100m this round. Still only a pre-seed/seed stage investor!

My fav founder to invest in is someone who was previously very or semi-successful & is now being unfairly maligned They start the newco w a Texas sized chip on their shoulder, hire the best people, & crush it Just signed a SAFE for <redacted> who raised over $100m at <redacted>

The impressive part is he actually nailed the exact problem VCs would have with underwriting Fion (they don’t know the market) & also explained how to address that, but I didn’t listen to him for another month Could’ve raised way more than 4m if I’d fixed how I talk about market

I was really bad at fundraising in ‘21 so I DMed every VC & founder I could asking for help to fix my pitch @EverettRandle was 1/3 ppl who responded out of 200. It was very thorough & I am grateful that he took the time to help a nobody founder like me. I think he’s a good guy!

Every 20/21 crypto founder I meet genuinely sounds like they drank the Kool Aid & believes in what they built but they’re so disillusioned by the fact that they didn’t go for the “quick rug” option I like to tell them I never meet the guys who did cus they’re in jail or Dubai 😂

I was 21 at the tail end of the last cycle and not plugged into the top startup circles so I can’t be 100% sure, but several founders of top cos have called me in the last week to say they’re leaving & want help shaping the narrative. Makes me think the local top is 3-6 mos out?

This is obviously tongue-in-cheek. DPI is the only thing that matters (I don’t have much), but a lot of people have mentioned this to me & I just think if you consistently do hard work & focus on the inputs, venture is something you can repeatedly succeed in vs being a founder

One of my LPs told me that my tweets were reverential towards founders but made VC sound too easy As a founder, I spent my 21st bday in a hospital when my heart stopped from stress Now, I get paid to respond to texts & drink Martinis at the Rosewood while my IRR looks like this

Why isn’t Databricks for X w/ Agents just Databricks? A lot of these cos use agents to pull out the data instead of developing traditional data pipelines. This makes it easier for agents to take actions where the data is being generated. This is the future of vertical AI SaaS

All the best AI cos do the same thing for diff verticals: 1. Centralize data from disparate sources (ERP, email, internal DB, etc) 2. Make it queryable using natural language 3. Transform it so agents can automate vertical specific workflows $10T in Agentic Databricks for X

Very grateful for @BenRathi_ Might be by far the best cold DM I sent all year & I raised a whole fund over the last 6 months by cold DMing people… Everyone go send him your best growth deals or something!

If you’re building an energy co and want to test it in the real world, DM me (I am at a conference & will be slow today) or just check this out for more information: https://t.co/9F8JlRe23Z The coolest part of my job is getting to say things like “Moldova asked me to post this."

Just got off a call w a senior advisor to the Moldovan Energy Ministry, asked me to post: They're looking for hardware & software startups across the energy stack that want to develop & test new tech/biz models in the real world + they lift all regulatory restrictions for 7 yrs!

The best part of my job is getting to work w people like Art who show me what consistent focus & hard work can do in a short period of time At the start of the year, Brex had ~20 publicly traded cos using them. In 10 mos, they’ve grown to power over 250 public cos Rocketship 🚀

I never intended to be a “public figure” again after I Tweeted my way to SF in 2020 It wasn’t until the election last year that I realized being able to shape the narrative on X *would* translate to the real world My goal when I started posting on Thanksgiving was to make the

@based16z moved to Palo Alto and @chan_akireddy is moving too so it might be back actually