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What podcasters are saying about Venture capital & startups
Summary
In the past 30 days, 30 speakers on 18 finance podcasts discussed Venture capital & startups in 43 views. Chorus has followed Venture capital & startups since September 16, 2026: 44 views from 31 speakers on 18 shows.
Who talks about it most
- Jason Lemkin · 4
- Naveen Rao · 3
- Hans Swildens · 3
- Jason Calacanis · 2
- Connor Love · 2
- Rory O'Driscoll · 2
- Harry Stebbings · 2
- Christian Munafo · 2
- Rajiv Patel-O'Connor · 2
- Will Ahmed · 1
The latest views
Newest first. Every quote is checked against the episode's transcript.
Will Ahmed · WHOOP
Secondary share brokers often claim shares they don't have and are mainly trying to create a market.
Ahmed says secondary brokers claim to hold shares from a specific holder at a stated price. In his view, they go around making those claims, but their real aim is to create a market for the shares rather than to complete a verified transaction. The point is based on his experience with such brokers, not on hard data.
“They claim they've got shares from someone at a price... And they go around saying that, but they're really just trying to create a market.”at 53:52
All-In Podcast: WHOOP CEO, Will Ahmed: 50B Hours of Health Data, a 4 Million Member Data Moat, & the FDA Fight ·
Jason Calacanis · LAUNCH
Secondary brokers pitching shares in private companies are mostly fishing, since they rarely follow through.
Calacanis, who says he sits on the board of a company worth a couple of billion dollars, describes brokers who approach him claiming to have shares. When he asks who is selling so he can coordinate with the CFO, they go quiet. He concludes that these approaches are fishing expeditions. He adds that this kind of secondary trading barely existed 10 to 15 years ago. His evidence is his own repeated experience rather than market data.
“I'm on the board of a company that's worth a couple billion dollars, and they come to me and I say, okay. Great. Who who is it with? ... And then crickets. And I'm like, they're fishing. It's always a fishing expedition.”at 54:07
All-In Podcast: WHOOP CEO, Will Ahmed: 50B Hours of Health Data, a 4 Million Member Data Moat, & the FDA Fight ·
Anna Macdonald · Hargreaves Lansdown
UK has VCT and EIS support but lacks late-stage capital, so scale-ups get bought by overseas investors.
Anna says the UK has a good VCT and EIS culture for backing early-stage firms, but is missing the extra step that takes companies from around £10m in value up to become future listed companies. She contrasts the founders' relief on sales up to £10m with the much larger sums in the US, saying it is not a game changer. The result is that UK companies are bought by overseas investors rather than growing into UK-listed firms.
“we've got good VCT and good EIS culture ... what we're still missing is that extra leg that takes those companies and moves them up to the next level and doesn't get them bought by overseas investors.”at 14:34
Merryn Talks Money: Has the UK Redefined What It Means to Be a High Earner? ·
Connor Love · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Physical-economy companies can now be among the world's most valuable, not just important for national safety.
Connor says American dynamism companies were always important to national safety and daily life. What changed is that they can now be among the largest companies in the world. Erin cites Palantir, Anduril and SpaceX as proof that you can build a very large business in these categories. She notes that most of the world's top ten most valuable companies are now hardware companies. This is why ambitious founders are now choosing to build in these hard, physical categories.
“the biggest thing that has changed in American dynamism land in the last few years is we always knew that the companies being built in this category were really important to the fabric of America... the biggest change is those companies weren't just the most important thing to us, now they can be the most valuable companies.”at 22:20
a16z Podcast: The Startups Rebuilding American Industry | The AD50 ·
Erin Price-Wright · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Engineers spinning out of Anduril, SpaceX and Tesla get captive customers, helping physical-world ecosystems grow.
Erin says a strong way to start a company is to have people who have worked on the manufacturing floor find a supply chain or engineering problem they care about. These founders, who learned the problem at companies like Anduril, SpaceX or Tesla, can build a company to solve it more broadly. Because they come from inside the ecosystem, they have automatic access to a captive customer base. She compares this to YC companies selling to each other, which she says is how Silicon Valley was built: friends are tolerant and willing to outsource work that is not existential to them. She finds this pattern encouraging in physical-world supply chains.
“the kind of lineage of founders that have sort of lived and breathed this on the manufacturing floor... I have, you know, automatic access to a customer base that's captive.”at 38:36
a16z Podcast: The Startups Rebuilding American Industry | The AD50 ·
Connor Love · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Capital markets have woken up to physical-world startups, committing hundreds of billions to trillions over a decade.
Connor argues that the US has trillions of dollars of private capital in its capital markets, and that this capital naturally follows technology and production success. He contrasts the US with China because the US has no top-down industrial policy that directs money to chosen sectors. Money follows entrepreneurs and success, which he sees as a strength. The new element is that capital markets now treat the physical-world category as attractive. Venture firms, large banks and now private equity and large credit firms are all investing, which matters because physical systems like rockets and missiles need heavy capital. He expects this to fund things ahead of obvious demand and to keep going for a decade or more.
“the capital markets have woken up, and we're we're putting hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars, you know, towards this category for the next, you know, ten plus years.”at 43:34
a16z Podcast: The Startups Rebuilding American Industry | The AD50 ·
Jack Altman · Benchmark
Venture demand for AI code-adjacent startups is so intense that other good businesses now struggle to raise.
The code-adjacent AI wave has made venture demand in those spaces extremely strong, and LPs are doing well and funding it. Jack calls it one rational circus. The result is an opportunity-cost squeeze: investors can get a ridiculous ride in AI, so founders of solid non-AI businesses find it hard to raise capital.
“it's making it so that venture demand in these spaces is so obscene. And then LPs are obviously doing great and they're funding it.”at 18:54
Uncapped with Jack Altman: Benchmark Breakfast #1 | Jack and Ev ·
Jason Lemkin · SaaStr
Risk of backing Chinese-linked AI startups has risen after the DeepSeek ban and the Qwen data issue.
He says VCs would not have taken direct-investment risk in Asian open-weight startups two years ago, and that the Manus unwinding made such deals unlikely to be repeated. Recent events, including the US blocking DeepSeek and the Qwen data issue, are negatives that have raised the risk level a lot. He still backs the IC decisions, because growth is strong enough to justify the risk.
“the risk level didn't just go up in the last week. A lot. And these deep seek being blocked by the US government and this whole Quinn thing and dialing home... These are negatives.”at 32:27
20VC: 20VC: Anthropic Files S1 Ahead of $2TRN IPO | Instinct's Rumoured $30 Billion Fundraise | Microsoft Laysoff 27,000 While Meta Taps Equity Markets for $95 Billion Capex Spending Spree ·
Jason Lemkin · SaaStr
Mega-rounds for AI labs depend on capital pools that may not last; late-growth funding has a structural issue.
AI companies need enormous capital to pay for inference and compete, so even large rounds from sovereign funds like GIC are not a vanity raise. But the total pool of money for these companies is finite, and he does not know how big it is or when the merry-go-round will end. He calls this a structural issue in the late growth phase, although money currently feels infinite.
“I just don't know how much it is when that merry-go-round ends. We just have a structural issue in this late growth phase.”at 38:31
20VC: 20VC: Anthropic Files S1 Ahead of $2TRN IPO | Instinct's Rumoured $30 Billion Fundraise | Microsoft Laysoff 27,000 While Meta Taps Equity Markets for $95 Billion Capex Spending Spree ·
Rory O'Driscoll · Scale Venture Partners
Market shows wild appetite for proven executives with big ideas at high prices and little derisking.
A plethora of this week's deals involve proven executives with big opportunities and hairy technical challenges, such as Arda and Flapping Airplanes. Investors pay fairly high prices for them with relatively little derisking, because the executive is talented and the opportunity is huge if it works. In contrast, late-stage known companies are easier to price, since the outcome depends less on one person.
“There's just clearly a wild appetite for that at fairly high prices with relatively little derisking.”at 44:50
20VC: 20VC: Anthropic Files S1 Ahead of $2TRN IPO | Instinct's Rumoured $30 Billion Fundraise | Microsoft Laysoff 27,000 While Meta Taps Equity Markets for $95 Billion Capex Spending Spree ·
Bing Gordon · Kleiner Perkins
Tech cycles are faster and bigger than ever, with trillion-dollar companies now possible.
Gordon cites a shift in scale. In 2000 about five tech startups reached $1 billion in value, and in 2010 investors doubted more than five new unicorns would appear. Now there are trillion-dollar companies. He argues technology has reduced entropy, so scale that used to be hard, such as 30 million cable households in 2008, now comes easily. He takes this as evidence that cycles are both faster and bigger.
“I would say that the first thing is the cycles are faster than ever. On the next is they're bigger than ever.”at 36:01
Squawk Pod (CNBC Squawk Box): Anthropic’s IPO Details, Building ‘The Sims,’ & the World Bank 10/27/26 ·
Cliff Sosin · CAS Investment Partners
It is the best time to start a company, with cheap capital and AI tools letting startups go far fast.
Asked whether it is the best time to start companies, Sosin agrees. Capital markets will fund highly experimental projects at fairly low cost of capital, and AI tools let a company started without legacy baggage go very far very fast. He also notes that AI makes running a company easier, since you can do much more with far fewer people. He adds a caveat: if something is easy for you, it is easy for everyone else, so a startup needs a wedge, such as lock-in or proprietary data, to create enduring value. He says the best outcomes often look like they make no sense at first.
“it's the best time to start a company until tomorrow.”at 45:09
Invest Like The Best: Cliff Sosin - Owning the Complements to Intelligence - [Invest Like the Best, EP.497] ·
Ed Elson · Prof G Media
The AI bubble is unpriced in private markets, and AI startup funding is getting harder to raise
Elson argues that VCs love the technology and the founders and do not care about $1.5T or $2T valuations, so private AI pricing ignores the risk. He expects Anthropic and OpenAI to face much more discerning investors once they go public, which will be a rude awakening. Meta's 10-Q warned that raising capital had become an increasingly challenging environment, and founders he knows say the vibes have shifted. A billion-dollar round was easy a month ago but is not now, and capital is more hesitant even if not drying up.
“The only place where I think that the bubble is not being acknowledged and is not being properly priced is in the private markets.”at 1:01:32
Prof G Markets: The $3.5T Bailout: Elon's Plan To Merge Tesla And SpaceX ·
Aaron Levie · Box
AI won't fundamentally change distribution; startups still need audiences and go-to-market machines.
Levie hedges that he may be wrong in five years, but he does not think AI disrupts the distribution model of tech. New channels, such as an OpenAI app store, will appear, but the basics stay the same. Consumer companies must go viral, and enterprise companies must build a go-to-market engine, with product-led growth plus a sales motion where the audience is technical. A great agent does not sell itself: startups get drowned out by thousands of others and need to own a community on LinkedIn, X and Reddit. A viral stunt is not distribution.
“possibly very wrong in five years from now. I don't think distribution changes that much.”at 30:27
a16z Podcast: The New Startup Playbook | Box CEO Aaron Levie ·
Naveen Rao · Unconventional AI
Startups take the big technical risks, while big AI labs do incremental work and buy startups once they show promise.
Big AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google cannot afford big risks yet. Startups pursuing deeper paradigms, such as those led by LeCun and Fei-Fei Li, take those bets. Big companies then build the incremental improvements and buy the startups when they prove promising. Rao compares this to drug development.
“Like, all the big risks are taken by startups, and all the incremental stuff is done by big companies. The big companies buy the startups when they show promise.”at 35:01
20VC: 20VC: Why Robotics Will be 100x Bigger than Coding Agents | Inference Will Be a $10TRN Market: What No One Sees | Why Software Investors are F***** Today with Naveen Rao, Unconventional ·
Naveen Rao · Unconventional AI
With trillion-dollar TAMs, entry price is almost irrelevant, and traditional VCs wrongly call these deals overpriced.
Rao says that when the addressable market is trillions of dollars, the price paid for a stake matters little. Value-focused VCs see these companies as overpriced. Stebbings adds that LPs lag in valuing this, and Rao says they will shift once big firms show the same trend.
“guys, when we're talking about trillion plus dollar TAMs, the price is almost irrelevant.”at 55:12
20VC: 20VC: Why Robotics Will be 100x Bigger than Coding Agents | Inference Will Be a $10TRN Market: What No One Sees | Why Software Investors are F***** Today with Naveen Rao, Unconventional ·
Naveen Rao · Unconventional AI
For deep-tech startups, market validation is the wrong metric; technical progress is what investors should track.
Market validation suits products serving a clear purpose in SaaS. For deep technical problems, such as curing cancer, the market is obviously there, so investors only need to validate progress on the technical problem. Rao says investors are split between those investing heavily regardless of valuation and those who see that as undisciplined, and he thinks the second camp is wrong.
“you don't need to validate the market. You just need to validate the progress on the technical problem.”at 57:31
20VC: 20VC: Why Robotics Will be 100x Bigger than Coding Agents | Inference Will Be a $10TRN Market: What No One Sees | Why Software Investors are F***** Today with Naveen Rao, Unconventional ·
Roxanne Varza · Station F
Europe's startup funding gap is in late-stage growth capital, exits and foreign acquirers, not early-stage money.
Varza, director of the Station F incubator, argues that Europe's early-stage ecosystem is well served, with funding gaps filled. The real gaps are late-stage: scaling, growth capital and exits. She blames fragmented capital markets across countries, and says the local leaders in each country don't reach US scale. Acquisition culture is picking up, but most acquirers still come from abroad, and she says this needs correcting.
“The gaps, I think, still are mainly in late stage. I think we service early stage very, very well... I do think a lot of the acquirers still come from abroad.”at 37:55
Bloomberg Wall Street Week: Money Floods Politics, Compute Meets Community, Europe’s AI Player, Argentina’s Two Economies ·
Ben Horowitz · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Some VCs buying old companies to cut costs with AI show few ideas; building new things is more exciting.
Horowitz says AI lets firms cut costs, such as reducing accountants or lawyers, and that some venture capital firms now plan to buy old companies and cut their costs. For his firm this has never been interesting, because if that is the whole idea, the firm has very few ideas. He finds building something the world has never seen before much more exciting, and says a third path, rethinking a successful product around a new platform as Amazon did with Alexa, is also interesting.
“there's actually venture capital firms that now are like, okay, we're going to go buy old companies and cut their costs. And that's never been that interesting to us because we're like, okay, if that's your idea, you have very few ideas.”at 46:29
a16z Podcast: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Why Amazon Is Investing $220 Billion in AI ·
Marc Andreessen · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Startup formation will skyrocket because AI makes it far easier for individuals to found companies.
Andreessen argues that because individuals adopt AI more easily than institutions, many of them will see that it is now easier than ever to start their own business. He says startup formation is already rising, and says a16z is seeing it directly. The argument is that AI tools lower the cost of founding a company, so formation should accelerate.
“I think startup formation is gonna skyrocket from here because these ... By the way, it already is.”at 23:02
a16z Podcast: The Frontier Ideas a16z Wants to Fund | Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz & Chris Dixon ·
Jason Lemkin · SaaStr
Large funds need billion-dollar positions, so seed investors at high entry prices struggle to make money.
Jason argues that today's multi-billion dollar funds need billion-dollar positions in nearly every company to produce returns. Mid-sized outcomes like a $2B company do not suffice, since reaching a billion-dollar position requires major ownership that founders rarely give up. He adds that seed funds entering at $50-100M valuations cannot make money, and that top-decile companies used to earn an automatic term sheet but no longer do.
“But you gotta have billion dollar positions in everything in Big Boy Venture today. Its billion dollar positions are nothing. There's no point in investing otherwise with large funds.”at 0:00
20VC: 20VC: Trillion or Bust: The New VC Game | Coreweave Sell-Off Creates Panic | Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Revenue Multiples Out of Control | General Atlantic Eyes IPO & Modal Raises $750M at $15.75B ·
Harry Stebbings · 20VC
Venture capital is concentrating in a few names, leaving most companies unfundable, worse than ever before.
Harry says venture is broken because he keeps meeting companies that fit a profile of strong growth and profitability but cannot raise money. He cites a $20M ARR company growing 600-700% and profitable, yet VCs are not interested. He ties this to capital concentrating in fewer and fewer names, leaving everything else wholly unfundable, which he has not seen more of before in venture. Jason and Rory agree that strong-looking companies in the mid-tier struggle to raise.
“I'm seeing that more and more with this concentration of capital going to fewer and fewer names and everything else being wholly unfundable, which more so than I've seen ever in venture before.”at 5:47
20VC: 20VC: Trillion or Bust: The New VC Game | Coreweave Sell-Off Creates Panic | Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Revenue Multiples Out of Control | General Atlantic Eyes IPO & Modal Raises $750M at $15.75B ·
Rory O'Driscoll · Scale Venture Partners
Late-stage investors now capture the value, so early-stage returns are inverted versus growth-stage returns.
Rory argues that in a rational capital world, early-stage venture should earn a higher return multiple than growth investing, or no one would do it. He thinks the last five years are clearly inverted. He cites the combined market cap of SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI rising from about $4 trillion to about $5 trillion over three years. He says that created over $4 trillion of value in late-stage businesses, and if the next year brings another run of similar growth, late-stage bets alone are what matter.
“the return multiple from early stage investing should be higher than growth, just logically over an extended period of time... I think the last five years are gonna be clearly inverted.”at 12:28
20VC: 20VC: Trillion or Bust: The New VC Game | Coreweave Sell-Off Creates Panic | Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Revenue Multiples Out of Control | General Atlantic Eyes IPO & Modal Raises $750M at $15.75B ·
Jason Lemkin · SaaStr
Private revenue multiples are disconnected from public comps and will likely correct.
Lemkin points to public SaaS comps such as HubSpot, Monday and Klaviyo trading near 2x revenue, and Braze, once the best exit in its category at 6x, now near 3x. He argues that the rounds being done, for example Anduril at about 40x revenue, are disconnected from where public markets would value them. He calls that disconnect almost certainly true, and says a public-market correction, or lower exit multiples, would be needed to reconcile them.
“If the multiples are disconnected from where they will land, the multiples, and that's just venture... I think that's almost certainly true. The multiples are disconnected.”at 39:39
20VC: 20VC: Trillion or Bust: The New VC Game | Coreweave Sell-Off Creates Panic | Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Revenue Multiples Out of Control | General Atlantic Eyes IPO & Modal Raises $750M at $15.75B ·
Harry Stebbings · 20VC
Venture is about to heat up as SpaceX cash flows back to LPs and recycles into startups.
Stebbings says LPs are receiving cash now from SpaceX and are seeing Anthropic on the horizon, with OpenAI hoped for in Q1 or Q2. He expects that cash to recycle back into the venture ecosystem, with LPs committing more capital. The result, in his view, is a hotter venture market.
“And I think the venture market's about to get a lot hotter, by the way, because a lot of people are starting to get cash back now from SpaceX.”at 53:04
20VC: 20VC: Trillion or Bust: The New VC Game | Coreweave Sell-Off Creates Panic | Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Revenue Multiples Out of Control | General Atlantic Eyes IPO & Modal Raises $750M at $15.75B ·
Christian Munafo · VanEck
Private AI valuations are skyrocketing, but many are priced to perfection and warrant caution.
Valuations of inference clouds in the private market are skyrocketing, and private market moves can be a tell, though sometimes they blow up and don't become durable trends. One AI company was valued at close to $25 billion before releasing its model. Many assets are priced to perfection, which gives the team indigestion, so they remain very cautious even though the AI trade is booming.
“in the private market, what we're seeing is the valuations of these inference clouds just skyrocketing.”at 20:25
Thoughtful Money: The Big Squeeze: High Bond Yields Now Becoming A Problem For Stocks | Jan van Eck ·
Christian Munafo · VanEck
About 90% of venture returns came from 5% of managers, so value is concentrating.
Roughly 90% of venture returns over the past few decades were generated by 5% of managers. Of about 3,000 VC managers active over the past couple of decades, less than 1% consistently put up more than 3x returns. Christian reads this as increasing value concentration at both the asset and manager levels. This makes it hard for first-time fund managers to raise capital, since investors favor incumbents.
“roughly 90% of venture returns over the past few decades has been generated by 5% of the managers.”at 35:24
Thoughtful Money: The Big Squeeze: High Bond Yields Now Becoming A Problem For Stocks | Jan van Eck ·
Jan van Eck · VanEck
Private-market AI trade is less disciplined than public markets, with both feet on the gas.
Jan says he has no hard metric but believes there is more discipline in public markets than in private markets, where the AI trade has both feet on the gas. He says he dislikes using the word bubble, that this could change, and that there is less discipline in private markets, which will keep changing. The evidence is his judgment rather than data.
“there's more discipline in the public markets, I think, in a way than in the private markets right now.”at 39:38
Thoughtful Money: The Big Squeeze: High Bond Yields Now Becoming A Problem For Stocks | Jan van Eck ·
Eric Schmidt · Relativity Space
Europe's venture industry is too small, and labor laws above 20 employees block startup formation.
Schmidt says Europe's venture industry is too small and has too many barriers to starting companies. He says Europe has more software workers than software companies, which points to a capital formation problem and difficulty scaling from local software to global platforms. He proposed to President Macron that companies with zero to 20 employees be exempt from labor laws other than health and safety, so that many small bets could be generated.
“The venture industry is too small in Europe. There are too many barriers to starting... For a company that's between zero employees and 20, the only laws that apply are health and safety.”at 28:17
In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen: Eric Schmidt: The Age of Agents, Superintelligence, and Why Europe Is Falling Behind ·
Arthur Cheong · DeFiance Capital
Late-stage crypto and AI rounds offer about 50x upside in 1-2 years, with little competition.
Arthur says late-stage deal activity is sparse, and everyone got burned, so C-stage is a lot of opportunity right now. Founder quality is hard to find, and AI is pulling good founders away, so investors underwrite a lot of risk. He argues that crypto and AI can deliver about a 50x uplift in one to two years at the C stage, which he says few other industries can match.
“I think C stage is a lot of opportunity right now because everyone got so burned... you can get the 50x uplift pretty fast. I think you can get it in one to two year if you've done the C stage”at 27:56
Forward Guidance: Where Is The Crypto Alpha Hiding This Cycle? ·
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