The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft and one of the greatest CEOs of our time. Satya has been at the company for an astonishing 34 years. When he joined, Microsoft had a market cap of $23.5BN. 22 years later, the company was worth $300BN. At this point, Satya took the reins as CEO. Under his leadership, he has taken it from $300BN to $3.9TRN. 
AGENDA: 
03:08 Should We Assume Every AI Model Is Compromised?
04:13 How Do We Stop AI Agents From Causing Harm?
06:15 Can We Trust an AI Model's Chain of Thought?
07:05 Is China's Lead in Open-Source AI a Safety Risk?
08:28 Will Open or Closed Models Win the Next Two Years?
10:08 Why Should Every Company Own Its Intelligence?
12:12 Will Every Company Become AI Native?
13:22 Are We Entering an AI Implementation Economy?
15:10 Do You Need to Own the Entire AI Stack to Win?
16:49 Can the World Support $100 Billion AI Training Runs?
18:34 Can AI Radically Accelerate Global Economic Growth?
19:39 Will AI Transform Sales, Finance and Marketing Like Coding?
Quickfire round 
What have you changed your mind on most in the last 12 months?

What looks crazy today but will be incredibly common in 5 years?

What's the exercise routine given the travel schedule?

Favorite cheat meal on a rest day?

What are you most excited for in the next 10 years?

AGENDA:
05:00 Will we run out of energy?
19:00 Will specialised chips threaten NVIDIA's dominance?
26:00 Can we trust AI agents more than humans?
31:00 Will data companies become commodities?
36:00 What comes after transformers?
41:00 Are software investors f****** in a world of infra and compute?
52:00 How big will the inference market be in 10 years?
53:00 Could robotics be 100x bigger than coding agents?
59:00 Why are coding agents the most overrated AI investment?

AGENDA: 
04:20 Billion-Dollar Bets or Nothing: Why VCs Are Rejecting Fast-Growing Startups
13:20 CoreWeave Sell-Off Sparks Fears of Cracks in AI Boom
18:50 Anthropic's IPO Valuation Could Fall From $2 TRN to $1.5 TRN
32:10 Modal Raises $750M at a $15.75B Valuation as Inference Booms
35:50 Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Have Startup Valuations Lost Touch?
42:15 Berkshire Hathaway Doubles Down on Bending Spoons
45:05 37signals' Profit Machine Challenges the Venture Capital Model
49:20 General Atlantic Eyes an IPO; Harvard's Endowment Hits $68B
54:15 Elon's Flying Roadster and $10B SpaceX Share Giveaway

Sameer Dholakia is a Partner @ Bessemer, the first that has just raised $5.75BN across a $1.75BN seed fund and $4BN growth fund. Sameer has led investments into the likes of Anthropic, Fireworks and Legora to name a few. Prior to venture, Sameer was the CEO of SendGrid, taking it from $30M in ARR to over $200M. 
AGENDA: 
04:55 Why This Is a Supercycle Like Never Before
07:40 Why We Backed Anthropic to Compete With the Hyperscalers
10:05 Why Anthropic Was One of Bessemer's Most Contentious Deals
11:05 Why Open Models Don't Destroy the Market for Closed Models
16:45 Does Price Matter in AI—and Which Metric Really Determines Value?
19:45 How Much Should Consumer Businesses Be Discounted for Their Revenue Quality?
20:20 Why Today's Gross Margins Matter Less Than You Think
23:00 Competition Hasn't Changed—but the Capital Behind It Has
24:00 Why Capital Is a Moat Today
25:55 Is "Triple, Triple, Double, Double" Dead?
28:00 Can You Still Succeed With a Small Seed Fund?
29:45 Who Wins and Who Loses in the Future of Venture Capital?
32:15 Why Founders Shouldn't Hate Being an "Option Bet"
34:35 Why Signalling Risk Doesn't Worry Me
51:55 Why Companies Will Stay Private Longer—and Why the IPO Window Could Reopen by 2028
56:00 How Should Retail Investors Participate in Venture Capital?
57:25 How Fireworks Could Become a $250 Billion Business
01:02:35 Why Bessemer Is Confident It Can Deliver 5x Returns on $5.75 Billion

Harrison Chase is the co-founder and CEO of LangChain, which helps developers build, test and deploy AI agents.
Backed by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and IVP, LangChain has announced approximately $160 million in funding with the last round at a $1.25BN valuation. The company works with 35% of the Fortune 500, has surpassed one billion open-source downloads and processes over one billion events daily through LangSmith.
AGENDA:
04:10 Why Is It Still So Hard to Build AI Agents?
08:50 Will the Model Labs Eat the Agent Stack?
16:25 Is Model Routing a Real Business or a Commodity?
25:45 Why Has No One Solved AI Memory?
35:45 Why Are AI Bills Exploding as Tokens Get Cheaper?
43:25 Should Companies Be Afraid of Chinese AI Models?
46:20 Where Would Harrison Not Be Investing Today?
53:05 Should Founders Take a Discount for Benchmark and Sequoia?
57:35 OpenAI at $1.5T or Anthropic at $2T: Which Would You Buy?