Jason Lemkin
570 statements across 97 episodes · 152 bullish · 239 bearish · 15 people on the record · first statement Jul 1, 2015 by Jason Lemkin · said 324 times in 146 episodes since 2016 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Jason Lemkin's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Harry Stebbings (243), Eran Zinman (15), Ivan Mazour (6), Sam Blond (5), Nicolas Dessaigne (5), Garry Tan (5), Ishan Mukherjee (4), Byron Deeter (4)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 73 mentions in 24 episodes 3 per episode
- Aaron Levie: Everyone is Wrong; We'll Have More Developers in 5 Years · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- a16z, Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead? Do Margins Still Matter? Why We Are Not in an AI Bubble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Replit CEO: Why the SaaS Apocalypse is Justified & Why Coding Models are Plateauing | Amjad Masad · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Monday.com CEO on Is SaaS Dead: Will Everything Be Vibe Coded | Eran Zinman · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ElevenLabs: Building an AI Sales Machine & Why We Set a 20x Sales Quota · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- This is why I don't believe in sales quotas | Figma CRO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Town vs Instinct vs GrokBot | Why the AI Assistant Market Is Not a Bubble
- Anthropic's Fable Banned by US Government | Wix & Adobe Hit All-Time Lows | Mistral Raising at $20BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 16 more episodes that year, every mention in 2026 →
2025 49 mentions in 22 episodes 2 per episode
- BVP Partner, Byron Deeter: The Future of Venture - Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Eran Zinman, Co-Founder & Co-CEO @Monday.com: Going Upmarket, International and Multi-Product |E1247 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20Sales: How the Best Sales Teams Use AI to Win Enterprise Deals | Sales Teams Will Be Dramatically Smaller | How to Ramps Sales Reps Way Faster | Why Unpaid Design Partners are BS | Why this Generation of Sales is Soft with Ishan Mukherjee @ Rox
- 20Sales: From $2M ARR to $40M ARR: The Playbook | How to Use AI To Supercharge Your Sales Team | Why Pipeline Reviews are BS | The Sales Call Script that Closes 99% of Prospects and How to Hire the Best Sales Reps with Kyle Norton, CRO @ Owner
- Lovable CEO, Anton Osika: The State of Foundation Models, Grok vs OpenAI, and Replit vs Bolt · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
- 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong
- Matt Fitzpatrick: Who Wins the Data Labelling Race & Why Al Needs Forward-Deployed Engineers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 14 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 39 mentions in 18 episodes 2 per episode
- Adam Gross: Why Startups Doing Paid Under $100M ARR are not PLG | E1145 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sam Blond: Why Startups are Doing Outbound Wrong and How to Fix It | E1139 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Ara Mahdessian: ServiceTitan Would Not Be the Success if We Raised VC Earlier | E1175 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Brendon Cassidy: Why You Should Never Hire Someone You Do Not Know in Your First Five Hires | E1124 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Frankel, MP @Founder Collective: Investing Lessons from Seeding Coupang, Pillpack & Suno|E1214 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Schneider: Why the Worst VCs are "Seagull VCs" & VC Value Add - Is it Real? | E1200 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Larry Shurtz: How to Hire, Train & Retain the Best Vertical Teams | E1151 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 10 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 22 mentions in 14 episodes 2 per episode
- Nikhil Basu Trivedi: Why 99% of AI Investments Will Go Bust | E1057 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Tom Loverro: The Ultimate Startup Survival Guide for 2023 | 20VC #977 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Ed Sim: Why Seed Has Never Been More Competitive & Why Pricing Has Never Been Higher | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: NEW FORMAT: Harry Stebbings on Why Seed Pricing is as High as Ever, Why Series A is the Best Place to Invest Today, Why Growth Founders Need to Reshape Expectations, Why M&A Windows Remain Shut and When Will IPO Windows Crack Open
- Lori Jiménez: How to Increase Sales; Hiring Tips from Google; Best Way to Grow Sales Teams | E1043 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Homebrew’s Hunter Walk & Satya Patel: Why $100M is Not Enough to Execute a Seed Strategy | 20VC #972 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Guillaume Cabane: Why Your First Growth Hire Should Be a Former Founder | E1088 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Matthieu Rouif: The Story of PhotoRoom, Is This YC’s Most Capital Efficient Company? | E1074 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 6 more episodes that year, every mention in 2023 →
2022 7 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
- Maggie Hott: 3 Questions You Must Ask When Interviewing Sales Reps | 20VC #960 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Oliver Jay: How To Create and Execute a World-Class Sales Playbook | 20VC #889 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC Special: How To Fundraise Like a Pro: How to Size and Price a Round, How to Create FOMO and Urgency in a Fundraise, How to Structure Angel Allocations, The 7 Deadly Sins of Fundraising Decks, The 3 Signs a Potential Investor is Bad News
- Fivetran's Lauren Schwartz: Must-Ask Questions to Identify Potential Sales Talent | 20VC #939 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Mac the VC on the Journey from Homeless To Becoming A VC | Full Interview with Harry Stebbings · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: The Twilio Memo: Bessemer's Byron Deeter on How a $125K Initial Check Became Bessemer's Largest Position, What The Influx of Late-Stage Capital Means For Venture Today & Why The Incumbent Advantage Is Now An Incumbent Disadvantage
- 20VC: The Contentful Memo: Point Nine's Christoph Janz on The Cold Email That Led to a Unicorn Investment, How To Approach Market Sizing and Timing & The Pros and Cons of Pre-Emptive Rounds, When To Do Them vs When Not To?
- 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
2019 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
- 20VC: The Transition From Founder To CEO, How To Determine When To Stretch On Price in Venture & The Benefits of Attribution for Partnership Dynamics with Jeff Richards, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
- 20VC: The 3 Stages of Denial For Founders When Scaling, Why You Will Likely Be Unable To Hire Through Your Network & The Interview Question All Founders Must Ask with Olof Mathé, Founder & CEO @ Mixmax
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 7 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs
- 20VC: Why Follow-On Investments Are Always A Better Investment, Why Spray and Pray Investing Is Like The Stock Market & Why Startups Need A Board From Day One with Jerry Neumann
- 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Always Be Raising, How To Build Relationships with VCs In A Condensed Timeframe, Why The Founder To VC Relationship Is Not Like A Marriage with Dave Vasen, Founder & CEO @ Brightwheel
- 20VC: Why Founders Must Use VCs as a Barometer, How to Make Distributed Teams Work Successfully & The Biggest Mistake People Make Early In Their Career with Dylan Serota, Founder @ Terminal
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 32 mentions in 18 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: DFJ's Josh Stein on Why VCs Must Adapt To Their Founders, The Major Transition Points For Aaron Levie @ Box & Why SaaS Startups Are Growing At A Rate Never Seen Before
- 20VC: Evernote CEO on Why You Play For The Front of Your Jersey Not The Back, Why Success Is A Team Sport & Why Leadership Should Accept The Negative Consequences In All Situations
- 20VC: Why VCs Fundamentally Assess Founders The Wrong Way, Why VC Needs To Innovate On The Scouting Model & Why SAFE's and Convertible Notes Are The Future Of Investing with Elizabeth Yin, Founder & General Partner @ Hustle Fund
- 20VC: Explosion of First Time Funds, Only 1 Mega Fund Raised: What The Heck Happened in Q1 Venture Markets with Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures
- 20VC: Homebrew's Hunter Walk on Why There Is No Series A Crunch, How To Package Portfolio Companies For The Next Round & Why The Bridge Round Is Not Always A Negative Sign?
- 20VC: Betaworks' John Borthwick on Why The VC Model Is So Inefficient, Why Venture Fund Cycles Are Too Short & Why Frontier Tech Could Only Have Been Disappointing Over The Last Year
- 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective
- 20VC: The Fundamentals To Creating A Successful Venture Partnership & The Optimal Investment Decision Making Process with Ryan McIntyre, Co-Founder @ Foundry Group
- 10 more episodes that year, every mention in 2017 →
2016 82 mentions in 35 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Fundraising Is Also Business Development with Nicolas Dessaigne, Co-Founder & CEO @ Algolia
- 20 VC FF 029: VC vs Angel Funding & The Future of E-Commerce with Ivan Mazour, Founder @ Ometria
- 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
- 20VC: Lessons Learnt From Marc Benioff & Selling To Salesforce For $2.7bn, What Product Market Fit Really Looks Like & Why Pricing Is Startup's Biggest Problem with Scott Dorsey, Managing Partner @ HighAlpha
- 20VC: Qualtrics' Ryan Smith on Building A $Bn Company & Raising The Largest Series A Since 2008 From Sequoia & Accel
- 20VC: More $ Raised This Year Than The Past 15, War Chests Being Built & Decline In First Time Funds: So What The Heck Is Happening In Venture with Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures
- 20VC: Index's Ilya Fushman on The Key Lessons From Scaling Dropbox To 400m Users, Is Excessive Amounts Of Capital Driving Valuations Too High In The Valley & Why Venture Is Like Being On A Swim Team Not A Soccer Team
- 20VC: The Best Determinant Of Product Market Fit & Why Prior Experience Is Not Required For Founder Success with Neeraj Agrawal, General Partner @ Battery Ventures
- 27 more episodes that year, every mention in 2016 →
Everything said about Jason Lemkin, oldest first
Jul 1, 2015 positive
Jul 1, 2015 bullish
Lemkin: One enterprise customer signals repeatable SaaS growth, not an outlier
“If you have one, I'll bet that you can get 10 and then a hundred. As a founder, this is a bet that I'll make that other VCs won't. I will bet that one is not an outlier, that one is the future. But if it's zero, I'm not sure I'll take the bet.”
Jul 1, 2015 positive
Lemkin invested in Algolia at $5K MRR before Accel's $18M round
“I did, I invested in a search as a service company called Algolia about a year ago that Excel just put eighteen million into, and I did it, and I did a session with the CEO at Heavybit a couple weeks ago, and I invested I think at like five KMR, so pretty earl…”
Jul 1, 2015 negative
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 positive
Lemkin's SaaS investment thesis focuses on hiring VPs and standardized playbooks
“My investment thesis on all my investments is I'll help you find great VPs for these roles, sales, marketing, customer success, and even products sometimes, and then we'll just run the playbook. We're just going to run the same playbook.”
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 22, 2015 negative
Turner: B2B First Sales Do Not Guarantee Scalability
“I think in business-to-business software, that, that would be kind of a tough rule because we do see a lot of situations where a specific piece of software is developed for one customer with a pretty specific need, and that getting beyond that one customer to …”
Jan 8, 2016 positive
Apr 22, 2016 positive
Algolia Delayed Post-YC Series A to Take Small Investment From Jason Lemkin
“And so we finally decided not to raise any series A after weight combinator, but to take the risk to just raise a very small round to onboard new investors that we thought could provide a lot of value. That's when Jason Lemkin joined, joined us as an investor.”
Aug 8, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 bullish
Mar 20, 2017 neutral
Mar 20, 2017 positive
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 positive
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 neutral
Mar 20, 2017 negative
Lemkin: Mega-funds leading $700k seed rounds is suboptimal for founders
“In an ideal world, a ten billion dollar fund leading your 700,000 dollar round is suboptimal because that's nickels and dimes. It's pocket change. No one putting in a tiny amount of money is going to remotely care if they write off the investment.”
Mar 20, 2017 positive
Mar 20, 2017 neutral
Mar 20, 2017
Lemkin's first startup raised $9M on $2M pre-money with 5x liquidation preference
“In my first startup before Echo sign, there was so much drama the first time I raised money. But at the end of the day, I got the world's worst term sheet with the world's worst terms. It was nine, a nine million round on a two pre with a five X liquidation pr…”
Apr 3, 2017
Hunter Walk: Early-stage investors must back misunderstood companies
“So I'd say Lemkin is totally correct when you're playing in a space where the goalposts are well documented. But I think as an early stage investor, you also need to be willing to back companies that are going to be misunderstood for a long period of time and …”
May 1, 2017 neutral
Stebbings: Creators should choose immortal content platforms over ephemeral ones like Snapchat
“And then just with the content, fundamental to choose immortal content platforms, so Snapchat for content isn't really great unless you're looking to create connections. It dies and is not searchable. The likes of Jason Lemkin have done incredibly well with Qu…”
May 15, 2017
Apr 30, 2018 negative
Neumann rejects Jason Lemkin's view that VC is just packaging startups
“I don't look at it that way. If you say it that way, it makes it sound like you're trying to gild the lily, right? You're trying to sell them something that's not actually true. I do think that you need to know what the company needs to look like to raise more…”
Apr 20, 2020 bearish
M&A prices drop in downturns as acquirers prioritize cost-cutting
“Yeah, no question. Because if there's a limited set of buyers and a whole bunch of companies that want to be acquired and remember my mindset at the start of the podcast was people right now are not paid to innovate. They're not paid to innovate. They're paid …”
May 6, 2022 positive
Lemkin: All core portfolio positions maintain double-digit ownership
“When I look over my eight year history of investing, it's the ones with the double digit ownership that moved the needle. And for better or worse, when I've had my own fund, when I look at what the companies I'm sitting on today, obviously you regret ones you …”
May 6, 2022 neutral
May 6, 2022 negative
Lemkin: Pass on Founders Lacking 20-Year Commitment
“My rule is, and I've made this mistake since, don't invest. No matter how much you love, you can love them as humans. They can be doing very well. But if you don't have this crazy 20 year commitment to building something huge, it's hard to make money in ventur…”
May 6, 2022 bearish
Lemkin: The traditional $50M–$60M seed fund model no longer works
“Does the traditional 50, sixty million dollar seed fund work. I think it doesn't work unless you go with anything that has any proof, any social proof, anything privileged, it doesn't work. So you either have to find the less privileged where I think it works,…”
May 6, 2022
Lemkin: Board Meetings Serve as Essential Management Forcing Functions
“I think you can really only be so upset with them once or twice a year. Otherwise it's demoralizing and people quit. But if every six weeks your VP of sales, that's a little bit behind has to report, Harry, my plan for Q one was ten million. I'm at 8.4. Here's…”
May 6, 2022
May 6, 2022 bullish
May 6, 2022 neutral
Lemkin: 50 active startup founders will raise nine-figure venture funds
“There's too many founders that are going to raise nine-figure funds, While they're running their own startups, and it used to be a bad sign for the startup. How could you do anything other than run your own startup? But it doesn't matter what you and I think, …”
May 6, 2022
May 6, 2022
May 6, 2022
May 6, 2022
May 6, 2022 positive
May 6, 2022 negative
Lemkin: Founders Should Require Board Slides Instead of Notion Docs
“That's why I beg founders not to use notion and board meetings. I begged them to force everyone to make slides to spend the time because we all love notion and Coda. We just put our stuff in our Google docs. It's so efficient, isn't it? But not only did I thin…”
May 6, 2022 positive
Lemkin: When investors identify a winner, buy maximum available allocation
“When you meet a winner, you buy all the shares. Now, if you can buy a quarter of the company, you buy a quarter of the company. If you can buy two percent of the company, you buy two percent of the company. But you either buy all of them or none.”
May 25, 2022 negative
Early sales teams need collaboration over manufactured internal competition
“I think if you really need to rely on sort of like having people with the same cohort to drive competition, I think you may have hired the wrong people in my opinion, right? Because in that early stage, I'm actually trying to foster more than anything, a cultu…”
Nov 30, 2022 positive
Lemkin: Operator-VCs Should Only Invest in CEOs Better Than Themselves
“You have to invest in CEOs that were better than you. If you know the problem, if I know, if I'm a podcaster and I know Riverside or whatever the other versions are, and I look, Riverside's great. We're on it today. And you meet the CEO who I don't know, and h…”
Nov 30, 2022 positive
Nov 30, 2022 bullish
Nov 30, 2022 positive
Lemkin: New Operator-VCs Should Ignore Advice to Slow Down and Invest Aggressively
“Don't listen to the advice to slow it down, right? If you join a larger fund, their incentives are different than yours, right? You're new, the ball is set. They're just hoping, a large fund is hoping in the next two years you find one notion, that's all they …”
Nov 30, 2022 negative
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022
Lemkin: Would pass on early Algolia deal today over ownership
“First of all, I would have done the million at 15 in a heartbeat, right? And that would have been my bare minimum of investment, right? Because then I would have owned eight percent or something in the company. And no, I would have passed on it.”
Nov 30, 2022 negative
Lemkin: Would have built legendary funds with a co-founding partner
“I would have been a much better investor with a partner than as a solo GP. I'll say it with a hundred percent certainty, a hundred percent. Sorry. I would have been better. I'm going to do fine. Don't get me wrong. No, no, I will do well, but I could have had …”
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022 positive
Nov 30, 2022 neutral
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022 bullish
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022 negative
Nov 30, 2022 bullish
Lemkin: Algolia Investment Was Made Despite Unanimous Rejection From Partners
“Algolia, and again, this was the first venture investment I did when it was unanimously no, and I still did it, but the founders were clearly better than me. The traction was better than I had. The understanding of the problem was better than I had as a founde…”
Nov 30, 2022 positive
Nov 30, 2022 neutral
Nov 30, 2022
Nov 30, 2022 bearish
Jan 13, 2023
Jan 13, 2023 bullish
Lemkin: Startups over-cutting today will face severe pipeline shortages by year-end
“We're cutting too much and it's going to hurt everybody, not this week or even this quarter, but it's going to hurt. Everyone's going to not going to have enough pipeline at the end of the year when I think things will be better. I think things will be better …”
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Jan 13, 2023 bearish
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Jan 13, 2023 bullish
Lemkin: SaaS multiples will rise 20% to 40% by end of 2023
“And so I'm pretty bullish at the end of this year. I'm bullish that multiples will be Up somewhere between 20 and 40%, and I believe that will lead to a rush to deploy capital, but for founders, you have to understand that will never lead to a return of 2021.”
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Early-stage VCs waste time adjusting markups on growing startups
“If you're not growing, I think it makes sense to mark it down. If it's growing at a decent rate, I think if you're not Fidelity or a late stage investor, I think it's a waste of your time to mark up or mark down because I asked all my LPs this question. They s…”
Jan 13, 2023 bearish
Jan 13, 2023 bearish
Jan 13, 2023 bearish
Jan 13, 2023 bearish
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Startups unfundable today won't become fundable in a year-end recovery
“If you can'range any money at all today, like if you're unfundable, I don't think you're going to be fundable at the end of the year. Okay. If you're fundable today, but you don't like the metrics, you don't like the valuation, you double the end of this year …”
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Lemkin spent 24 months relearning that sociopath CEOs can build unicorns
“I've spent the last 24 months relearning the unicorn lessons. Re-learning that companies I thought would never be unicorns became unicorns. That sociopath CEOs became unicorns. That bullshit artists became unicorns. That folks that did not have an extremely st…”
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Tech workforce quality plummeted as companies hired "mainstream normal people"
“The quality plummeted as we hired mainstream normal people, the quality plummeted. Any leader will tell you this quietly. Any VP, Mark Benioff said it last week. Like they'll tell you the quality went down the last three years. Way down.”
Jan 13, 2023 bullish
Jan 13, 2023 negative
Mar 22, 2023 negative
Fillmann: Founders Should Hire Sales Reps Individually, Not in Competing Pairs
“If you want the environment where people perform at their best, you need safety. If you want safety, they have to know that you're trusting them, that you've got their back. And if you have two different people kind of competing in the same environment, I don'…”
Aug 9, 2023
Aug 9, 2023 bullish
Lemkin: Talkdesk reached $10B valuation despite $150M public comps at investment
“When I invested in talk desk, the best comp was five, nine, which is public today. They were worth a stunning hundred and fifty million dollars as a public company. So the comp was horrific, right? It was terrible. You know, we can look at, I think five nines …”
Aug 9, 2023 bullish
Aug 9, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Not building a large team at SaaStr was my biggest mistake
“I think my biggest mistake, and you're not making it, Harry I think the biggest mistake I've made, and this is just me, because, again, everyone's different. This is the complicated thing about ventures. Everyone has different strengths and sweetnesses. I thin…”
Aug 9, 2023 bearish
Lemkin: Current generation of tech knowledge workers will never work hard again
“I've changed my mind on the distributed world and distributed knowledge workers and everything, and I've just gotten a little jaded, and I just don't think most of the current generation of folks will ever work hard again.”
Aug 9, 2023
Aug 9, 2023 positive
Aug 9, 2023 bullish
Aug 9, 2023 negative
Aug 9, 2023 positive
Aug 9, 2023
Aug 9, 2023 bullish
Aug 9, 2023
Aug 9, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Only 50% of my pre-revenue repeat founder investments make money
“The only pre revenue ones I've done are these repeat founders. These two X that had big exits that I know personally. So I know them personally. There's no ethics issues. I don't have to do any diligence. Only half of them are, have are going to make money.”
Aug 11, 2023 positive
Aug 11, 2023 negative
Aug 11, 2023 negative
Aug 11, 2023 positive
Aug 11, 2023 neutral
Aug 11, 2023 bullish
Aug 11, 2023 bearish
Aug 11, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Seed founders are ignoring VC warnings and maintaining high valuation expectations
“I don't think any founders are listening to these terrific insights on Twitter, and I don't think that they are ratcheting back their valuation expectations, and I think very few are worried that when they do their seed at 30 post, that that will impact an A, …”
Aug 11, 2023 bearish
Aug 11, 2023 bullish
Aug 11, 2023 bearish
Lemkin: Classic high-ownership seed deals yielding multi-billion outcomes are dead
“And my bigger concern is that I think those are deadish in seed. Right. Owning one percent is, is still good. One percent of forty billion is good, but that's the classic seed that I think we're griping about. Like, can we do trade desks today?”
Aug 11, 2023 neutral
Aug 11, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Seed capital overabundance permanently ruined modern founders' respect for capital
“This farmification has changed the mentality of founders forever. Whether we're going back to forums or not, I don't think founders think the same way they used to. I don't think there's respect for capital.”
Aug 23, 2023
Aug 23, 2023 negative
Aug 23, 2023 negative
Jason Lemkin Refused Initial Pitch Meeting with monday.com Founders
“And I was on, you know, I did this catch up with the monday.com founders the other day and they showed me the pitch email they sent me. It was the worst ever when they were starting. It had a different name. It was terrible. It's like, We're thinking about doi…”
Aug 23, 2023 negative
Aug 23, 2023 neutral
Aug 23, 2023 negative
Aug 23, 2023
Aug 23, 2023 bullish
Aug 23, 2023
Lemkin: B2B Startups Cannot Skip 'Triple, Triple, Double, Double' Growth
“You can't have, whether the venture outcome is three hundred million or a billion or ten billion, you can't avoid triple, triple, double, double, at least in B to B. You can't avoid it. You can have a year gap. You literally can take a year off, but you can go…”
Aug 23, 2023 negative
Lemkin: VCs cannot do real work taking 50 founder meetings weekly
“I mean, you can't do 50 meetings a week, no matter what they say on the internet. You can't, you can show up with no work. You can show up with a cup of coffee. You can't really do the work for 50 founders a week, right? You can't really do 2000 meetings a yea…”
Aug 23, 2023 bullish
Lemkin: Saturated Software Markets Require Founders to Force Entry Through Salesmanship
“In B to B, you got to sell, man. No one needs another SAS product. We already have 11 payroll companies and 88 CRMs and 96 mark. We don't need one. So if you can't force your way into a market and Selling stock is sales.”
Sep 20, 2023 neutral
Lemkin: Investing at $30M seed valuations requires a 50% hit rate
“Half of mine, at least half have to be winners, real winners, at least half. That's the insane, to make that, I'll do the 30 post, right, the 20 post, I'll do it, but I have to believe there that with a relatively high degree of certainty, it will be successfu…”
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 negative
Lemkin: Multi-Billion Fund Refused 28 Board Meeting Requests for Top Startup
“I have one of my top investments right now, like, I mean, there's a few asterisks and downgrades, but there's nothing not to love, ok? Double digits in ARR, growing triple digits, A very multi-billion dollar fund led the pre-seed, right? Owns 15% of the compan…”
Sep 20, 2023 negative
Sep 20, 2023 bearish
Lemkin: Many unicorn founders will quiet quit under crushing valuations
“I, I'm, I think a lot of them will quiet quit. Like, I raised three hundred million and a billion. I can't see it, Eric. Like, I could see, great, there's a two hundred million dollar exit, and yeah, I'll get a carve out, and I'll make some money, but I can't …”
Sep 20, 2023 bullish
Sep 20, 2023 bullish
Sep 20, 2023 neutral
Sep 20, 2023 negative
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 bullish
Oct 11, 2023 bullish
Nov 3, 2023
Nov 3, 2023 neutral
Nov 3, 2023
Nov 3, 2023 bullish
Nov 3, 2023 neutral
Lemkin: Data shows operator VCs do not outperform professional venture investors
“I remember a few years ago, I forget whose analysis was, there was no advantage, like, to being an operators were no better than professional. That may not include pre-seed, right, or other things. But it wasn't, when I wrote this up a few years ago, that what…”
Nov 3, 2023
Lemkin: Founder-investors possess an innate ability to recognize superior talent
“That's the superpower that everyone on this on, on this podcast has, which is everyone knows who's better than them, right? That is one superpower that successful founders have that, that money investors, when I say they had, they don't even know what it means…”
Nov 3, 2023 bearish
Nov 3, 2023
Jason Lemkin: Startups with committed founders and customers never fail
“If the founders are truly still giving it a hundred percent for real. I mean, a real 100%. I'm I'll never be out for a variety of reasons. Also, I've never seen those ones actually fail if they're a hundred percent committed and they have any customers.”
Nov 3, 2023 neutral
Lemkin: Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins historically demanded 20% valuation discounts
“When I started in the old, old days, there were only two brands in venture. I knew of there was Sequoia and Kleiner, right? And you had to take a discount for both of them, right? You'd go out and you'd get your term sheet from somebody else, and then Kleiner …”
Jan 4, 2024 bearish
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Lemkin: SaaStr will never again invest in 'pretty good' founders
“I have changed my mind that there is any chance on planet Earth, any chance That a pretty good founder can produce good venture returns. I will never again invest. I only invest in founders that are much better than me. I will never invest in pretty good found…”
Jan 4, 2024 bearish
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Jan 4, 2024 bullish
Lemkin: Seed SaaS investing will stay vibrant with yearly 1,000x outcomes
“I think the vibrancy of seed is here to stay. There's too many folks that made money. There's too many folks that enjoy investing. There are too many LPs that are still going to search for that alpha. And there will, every year there's going to be thousand X o…”
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024 neutral
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024 neutral
Jan 4, 2024 positive
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Jan 4, 2024 bullish
Lemkin: PE-owned tech companies are actively seeking $20M+ ARR bolt-on acquisitions
“I have seen lots of tire kicking across my portfolio in the last six months. A lot of it, not just from public companies, but a lot of it from ex-public companies that are acquired by PE. They're all looking to bolt stuff on. They're all looking to bolt stuff …”
Jan 4, 2024
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Jan 4, 2024
Lemkin: All $200M+ revenue portfolio startups reached cash flow positivity
“And most of them, not all, I mean, I'm not talking about hundreds, so maybe most of the wrong word, I would say a bunch of them are on the bubble, and what I mean is, they're all cash flow positive now, all of them, everyone got cash flow positive, ok?”
Jan 4, 2024 bearish
Jan 4, 2024 positive
Jan 4, 2024 bearish
Jan 4, 2024 positive
Lemkin: Founders should accept preemptive inside rounds most of the time
“And I think founders should take inside, like, good inside rounds very seriously now because of the reason you said. This is different than a bridge, but if one of your investors really wants to step up at a higher price, Right? Just eight, six times out of 10…”
Jan 4, 2024 bearish
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Jan 4, 2024 bearish
Jan 4, 2024 negative
Jan 4, 2024
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024 neutral
May 27, 2024 neutral
Lemkin: Customer calls should only confirm VC conviction, not fix marginal deals
“I'm not looking for a customer call To turn a frown upside down. I'm not looking at to take a marginal investment. This is, I think what VCs used to do in the old days is they'd hope, right? I'm looking only for confirmation with customers.”
May 27, 2024 negative
Jason Lemkin Lost $5M on Startup That Fired Sales Team with $15M Banked
“And then this five million dollar company, one day they came into work and they fired their entire sales and marketing team. With fifteen million dollars in the bank, they fired everyone, just like Elon, but Elon's a better founder, fired a supercharger team. …”
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024 negative
May 27, 2024
Lemkin Shifts CTO Due Diligence Call to Second Meeting
“In the old days, I would do it late in the process. I would get to know the CO would talk to the customers, right? I would go deep and then at the very end, I'd be like, okay, I gotta talk to your CTO Harry to make sure that this is real. Now I immediately ski…”
May 27, 2024 neutral
Lemkin Confused RevenueCat's GMV With ARR When Investing
“I misunderstood. I confused their, basically their GMV with their ARR. I got it wrong. So I thought they were doing like 10,000 dollars a month in MRR, but they were doing managing 10,000 dollars a month in subscriptions and making like 30 dollars.”
May 27, 2024 negative
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024 positive
May 27, 2024 negative
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024 negative
May 27, 2024 neutral
May 27, 2024
May 27, 2024 negative
Lemkin Regrets Distributing $100M Exit Instead of Recycling Into Seed Fund
“I should have recycled all that money instead of distribute it. It was impactful to a seed fund, right? Cause it was a significant return. But it was so, it was early in the life cycle of the fund. And now I wish I had those tens of millions to put into the po…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024 neutral
Jun 3, 2024 bullish
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Lemkin: Shopify's Tobi Lütke is the ideal board member over founder-friendly VCs
“I think I'd pick Toby from Shopify. Cause I think he'd frigging kick my ass. We have too many founder friendly Yahoo. Great job. Harry's on boards. I I'm just so sick of it. Toby just seems like he just doesn't suffer fools. And maybe you don't want to work. M…”
Jun 3, 2024 bearish
Lemkin: SaaS incumbents see no revenue boost from AI features yet
“So far the evidence is no. So far it says the incumbents are gonna, they're gonna do great things with AI, great, great things. The product's gonna be much better, but it's not clear they're gonna get any revenue boost from it. No one's saying that none of the…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Lemkin: I have become a worse CEO over time due to impatience
“Because I'm not, I care much more. I care like 20 times more about my team than I used to. But I can't bullshit anymore. I can't tell people it's great. Great job. Great. I know we showed up on a Saturday and no one was here, but great job team. I can't, I'm t…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024
Lemkin: SaaS micro-brands get 50% free leads by $2M revenue
“Well, I actually find it happens by a couple million in revenue. You often will get half of your deals from not just inbound deals, but folks that heard about you. Folks that in your little niche that have not, not in the grand scheme of things, no one's heard…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Lemkin: SaaS founders who ignore AI are on a path to destruction
“If you resist this, you are going to get steamrolled because the customers expect it. They're looking for it. How they pay for it is a different question, but I see too many founders still hiding or running from AI or mocking it or making fun of it. And I thin…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024 neutral
Lemkin aggressively cut his venture portfolio valuations at year-end 2023
“At the end of 1231, I marked, I took a Big red marker, and I went overboard. I cut everything that needed to be cut. In fact, I just had a liquidity, I mean, an extremely minor liquidity event, and it's, you know, it's three times what I marked it down to in D…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Lemkin: Founders covering for mediocre VP performance in board meetings have quiet quit
“When you've acquiesced to having a mediocre management team, it's over. How are you ever going to regrow if you're with a mediocre management team? So when you start covering for a mediocre management team, I'm not saying fire them. That's a more nuanced topic…”
Jun 3, 2024
Jun 3, 2024 bullish
Lemkin: I would buy ZoomInfo stock because of founder Henry Schuck's commitment
“Generally speaking, when you have great founders that are committed, I'm a buyer, so I would buy. There's negative things, but like Henry's a great founder who's done this from scratch, basically bootstrapped all the way here, totally committed to the space, w…”
Jun 3, 2024 negative
Jun 3, 2024 positive
Jun 3, 2024
Jun 3, 2024 neutral
Jul 24, 2024
Jul 24, 2024 neutral
Jul 24, 2024 positive
Jul 24, 2024 bearish
Jul 24, 2024 negative
Jul 24, 2024 bullish
Feb 3, 2025 negative
Hyatt: Treating venture capital as a packaging industry is a losing strategy
“I hate that analogy deeply. Well, I to a certain extent- I understand it. I don't think it's good for startups and I don't think it's good for founders. And I also, maybe more importantly than just some kind of value judgment, I think it's a losing strategy wh…”
Apr 3, 2025 negative
Apr 3, 2025 neutral
Apr 3, 2025 bullish
Apr 3, 2025 negative
Lemkin: CoreWeave's late investors hold a 70% two-year stock buyback put option
“The last round investors. Obviously they weren't fully aligned on the price, right? And so there's structure and I don't think this is a bad thing. It's okay for late stage investors to be more conservative on price than founders. Like, and so they agreed on a…”
Apr 3, 2025
Apr 3, 2025 bearish
Apr 3, 2025 negative
Apr 17, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Acquirers in nine-figure deals aggressively circumvent VC preferences
“My limited visibility recently in M&A is that every acquirer is looking for ways to get around all the VC preference. It's aggressive. Like it was always true, but now it's like super aggressive. It's like, we just don't Even give a rat's ass in corp dev how t…”
Apr 17, 2025 neutral
O'Driscoll: Scale's portfolio companies bypass VC preferences in acqui-hires
“When I'm on the other side of the table and my late stage companies are trying to buy early stage companies, I do exactly the same thing. I don't give a shit about Jason and his bloody preference. I want to hire those five great engineers. Let's just give them…”
Apr 17, 2025 bullish
Apr 17, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: 80% of legacy SaaS VCs now exclusively invest in AI
“I would say 70 to 80% of the folks I grew up with that were SaaS investors are not, won't do those normal triple triple double doubles. You would, and you're, you are a top tier performer, but they're just, they're momentum investors. And they want to put two …”
Apr 17, 2025
Apr 17, 2025 neutral
Apr 17, 2025 positive
Apr 17, 2025 negative
Apr 17, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: A hundred corporate espionage and founder fraud cases will surface
“I think you're going to hear a hundred, just like fraud. Like every day now we pull up the media and there's another founder that stole thirty million from the investors and we shrug it off. Right. There's going to be a hundred of these in this environment.”
Apr 17, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Cloud VC offered nine-figure term sheets without speaking to founders
“Literally, I had two startups in my portfolio, two of them that a VC, all three of us know really about, one of the best cloud VCs, he offered them, I remember term sheets at high nine-figure valuations without talking to the founders, just immediately in late…”
Apr 17, 2025 positive
O'Driscoll: Megafunds with forgiving LPs should pursue late-stage investing over seed
“If you have access to capital that's large and forgiving, which is what these mega funds have, then you should play the big balls game. Cause you're exactly right. You don't do it. You have to do less work. If it works great, you make out the same as Jason who…”
Apr 24, 2025 negative
Apr 24, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Enterprise plays in SMB markets like Olo lack fundable TAM
“Olo is trying to do an, basically an enterprise play in an SMB market. That's really brutal, right? It's the same problem in anything in B to B e-commerce. If you're doing, if you're not doing some SMB in e-commerce, like, yeah, there's a few niche players, bu…”
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025
Lemkin: Private equity illiquidity causes far more strain for LPs than VC
“PE is the big problem. They're really the same thing. I mean, venture is a subset of PE, right? And the PE is so much bigger. And the fact that these deals are, did not go public in two to three years is the bigger stressor. Venture, venture, they don't love i…”
Apr 24, 2025
Lemkin: Venture capital is just a rounding error used to juice endowment returns
“Venture's a rounding error in most of most endowments, right? It's a subset, just like seed is a subset of venture. Venture's a subset of PE. It's not that important. It's just juice, right? It's just a way to juice your returns. P.E. Is where you put, deploy …”
Apr 24, 2025 negative
Lemkin: LPs miscalculated distribution planning during prolonged tech liquidity drought
“One, everyone got their distribution planning wrong, their cash planning wrong. That's what happened in the industry. This is even pre Trump, pre everything. This is conversations I had late last year with LPs is we just, we, we're cool with our paper returns.…”
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025 neutral
Apr 24, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Cursor, Bolt, and Windsurf struggled for years before exploding
“I mean, I know Cursor almost died, right? Bolt almost died, right? And then finally it hit for Cursor. I don't know the whole story of Windsurf. Even Windsurf was Codium before it, right? It wasn't even the same, like everyone talks about Windsurf. 90 days ago…”
Apr 24, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Solely focused on finding one massive $8B+ outlier outcome
“At a business model, I'm only in it for one big massive win. That's it. Everything I'm going to do for the next, next years. It's just for a wizard better. I don't care about anything else from a business model. I don't care. So I'm going to do the best I can …”
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025
Apr 24, 2025 positive
Apr 24, 2025 neutral
Apr 24, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Founders uncertain of IPO should cap valuations at $100M
“I tell every founder to stop at a hundred million valuation. If you're not sure you're gonna IPO, now you may get it wrong, right? But if your gut says, I don't, IPO, man, 50% of five hundred million, that's not me, don't raise that north of a hundred.”
May 1, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Current AI boom is a bigger gold rush than 2021
“I think we can talk about liquidity and all this, but I honestly think that today is a much bigger gold rush than 20, 21 or other times we get like, I've never seen such a goal because this gold rush goes all the way down to high school kids.”
May 1, 2025 positive
May 1, 2025 bullish
May 8, 2025 positive
O'Driscoll: Doubling late-stage winners beats grinding early ARR growth
“That double from there. So, so much easier than grunting it out from a million to five million in ARR. Jason, because you did it as a CEO to ten million in ARR. Then the shitty year where you only go to 16. Then you re-accelerate a little. Oh my God. And now y…”
May 8, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Refuses meetings with seed-stage founders seeking $100M valuations
“Whenever I get an email from a founder that has what appears to be those metrics, right? That on their seed, they're going to get ten million at a hundred, right? 1015. I just email them back. I'm like, I can't compete. I don't take the meeting.”
May 8, 2025 bearish
May 8, 2025 neutral
May 8, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Virtually all growth-scale tech CEOs currently have hiring freezes
“Every CI CEO I know that's at growth scale has that isn't windsurf has some version of a hiring freeze going on, right? Even no matter unless the growth is insane and it's all you can hire, but you got to get rid of somebody, right? It's all AI first. And so i…”
May 15, 2025 positive
Lemkin: 99% of People Should Stay Liquid in VTI Rather Than VC
“I think 99% of folks should only be in liquid investments, including people in tech. You should be as liquid as possible. It's just too stressful for the, like VTI is the perfect product for 99% of people. It's the perfect product. You cannot beat it.”
May 15, 2025
May 15, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Gorgias AI Customer Support Automation Averages 20% Across 20,000 SMBs
“If you go into an app like gorgeous, where I'm on the board, where there's 20,000 customers using AI for SMB support, there's literally a slider and you can dial how much support AI you want from zero to a hundred. Okay. No matter what anybody says on X, And L…”
May 15, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: A Top VC Firm Will Give Sam Bankman-Fried $100M
“I don't think Rory or I would, I'll defer to Rory, but I think someone will fund him. He's smart as Rory, Rory said, like he showed the upside as well as the downside. I don't know if there's a lot of morality in the business. I think someone will give them ju…”
May 22, 2025
Lemkin: Two portfolio companies recently received $500M acquisition offers
“I've had two portfolio companies recently that got offers to buy them at five hundred million. Okay, now in isolation, that sounds great, okay? But these are very good companies, okay? This is not open AI. These are very good companies. One was just a smidge a…”
May 22, 2025 neutral
May 22, 2025
May 22, 2025 positive
May 22, 2025 neutral
May 29, 2025 negative
May 29, 2025 bullish
May 29, 2025 bearish
May 29, 2025
May 29, 2025 positive
Jun 5, 2025 negative
Jun 5, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Menlo Ventures will 10x to 15x its investment in Chime
“They said they did the Series B, right? So they did the Series B at 203 hundred. Maybe we can figure it out on the fly. They're going to, this will be a nine. There'll be some dilution. They'll 10 or 15 X their money, right? That'll be a fun returner or more t…”
Jun 5, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: The next generation will not use files or traditional software interfaces
“I think what I do know is that this generation will not use the Internet remotely like we do. They will not use lead contacts and opportunities. They will not use files. Files are disappearing overnight. Kids do not know what a file is. It does not matter. And…”
Jun 5, 2025 neutral
Jun 5, 2025 bearish
Jun 5, 2025 positive
Jun 12, 2025 negative
Lemkin: AI spending is actively cannibalizing legacy SaaS budgets
“If cursor did almost half a million, half a billion dollars in revenue in the same time, It sucked up an enormous amount of that dollar that would have gone to Okta and Salesforce, right? Five hundred million. That's a lot in that period of time, right? So AI …”
Jun 12, 2025
Jason Lemkin: Big venture returns require TAM explosions for top players
“I think the venture lesson, be visionary, but relentlessly honest about TAM. Because it's a TAM story at the end of the day. If you have a number one or number two player in the space and you see a TAM explosion happening, that's where you get a big lift, righ…”
Jun 12, 2025 neutral
Jun 12, 2025 positive
Jun 12, 2025 negative
Jun 12, 2025
Lemkin: 10x IPO oversubscription is not enough for a strong stock pop
“In my limited experience, like 10 X actually isn't enough because those are soft commitments and people put in over allocations to make sure they can get it, and you really want to be like, 30 X oversubscribed to pop hard, which I don't know if that's your, wh…”
Jun 12, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Tech talent should only join late-stage startups with tender offers
“If I was a top tier engineer or almost any, anyone that wanted to kind of have the comfort of a later stage company, I might only join someone with a perfected tender offer program. I mean, I wouldn't even bother for anything else.”
Jun 12, 2025 positive
Lemkin: VCs should fund every round up to $1B valuation in top seed winners
“What I personally would do would be to do every dollar up to a billion. That would be my version of it. In every winner. Ah, so if you do a seed investment and it turns out to be a winner, right? A top five percent deal, you do every round, A, B, C, D, E, unti…”
Jun 12, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Deep-pocketed VCs are oversubscribing rounds to monopolize follow-on allocation
“Currently in like in my little portfolio, the two hottest companies, and I put hot in quotes, That's what investors on the cap table with access to unlimited capital are based, like, wildly oversubscribed because they're trying to just put every single dollar …”
Jun 12, 2025
Jun 19, 2025
Lemkin: Investors should challenge founders to sell to test their conviction
“I tell all founders to sell now, by the way. I just, I, only as a challenge. I'm not saying you shouldn't take this fake offer, but this is my, this is what I, my life lesson. I tell you to take it. And then if you come back the next day and say what you just …”
Jun 19, 2025 negative
Jun 19, 2025 bullish
Jun 19, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Databricks recently held an analyst summit and is IPO-ready
“Literally the fact that this last week they had an analyst summit where they went through all their metrics, their revenue, their growth rate through through an entire group of investors and analysts says to me, they will decide one data file and it will just …”
Jun 26, 2025 bullish
Jun 26, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Trump Mobile smartphone will not release before September 2025
“It's impossible. There's no supply chain evidence of any phone in production. There haven't been any leaks of an actual phone in production. And there haven't been any leaks to sites of true product development other than a mock-up of a golden phone.”
Jun 26, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Harvey was indistinguishable from 11 other AI wrappers at seed
“If I'd met Harvey at the seed stage, I would have said this is great, but I don't know that I could have told the difference from the 11 other ones that were doing this amazingly as essentially, I hate the term, but as wrappers.”
Jun 26, 2025 bullish
Jul 3, 2025 positive
Jul 3, 2025 negative
Jul 3, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Portfolio companies in PE acquisition range receive zero PE inbound
“This is such a small number, it's barely useful, other than anecdotally, but I have two portfolio companies That are kind of in that intersection where, where a tech company and a PE buyer might buy them. Right. And they both got mediocre M&A offers recently. …”
Jul 3, 2025 negative
Jul 3, 2025 negative
Jul 3, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Melio's $2.5B acquisition multiple is intimidating for venture expectations
“I thought it was discouraging. What I mean is that Melio gets acquired for 2.5 billion... This is not the greatest multiple of all time, is it? That that that intimidates me that it's not a great multiple. I find it intimidating as an investor, actually, becau…”
Jul 3, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: 50% of Unicorn Capital Goes to $5B+ Companies
“Crunchbase did an article this week. There's no such thing as unicorns anymore, because forget about AI. Only the money goes to five billion and up. It's got to be five billion corns. Like, 50% of all the unicorn money is north of five billion.”
Jul 10, 2025
Jul 10, 2025 bearish
Jul 10, 2025 negative
Jul 10, 2025
Lemkin: Unprofitable high-multiple public companies must aggressively buy assets with stock
“If you have a public company trading at a crazy high, high multiple, right? 20 X revenues that has existential losses. You got to use your stock as your currency ASAP. You gotta buy everything you can that can address the bottom line or other challenges you ha…”
Jul 10, 2025 positive
Jul 10, 2025 bullish
Jul 10, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Retail investors should not have exposure to private assets
“To Terry's point, if Vanguard has 10 trillion, putting 10% of that into venture would move the needle, but I just don't think ordinary investors should be doing this stuff. I don't know. There's just I just, I, it's just part of greed. Too much greed.”
Jul 17, 2025 negative
Jul 17, 2025 neutral
Jul 17, 2025 negative
Jul 17, 2025 negative
Jul 17, 2025 bullish
Jul 17, 2025 bearish
Jul 17, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Anthropic and OpenAI face harsher safety backlash than Elon Musk
“Elon Musk can get away with this the most. Just because of who he is. Like, it's unacceptable to have a race, to release a racist model to the, like, there's, this is as unacceptable as it gets. But Sam Altman's going to be fried. Anthropic's going to be fried…”
Jul 17, 2025 bullish
Jul 24, 2025
Jul 24, 2025 neutral
Jul 24, 2025 negative
Jul 24, 2025 neutral
Lemkin caps seed entry valuations at $30 million max
“Even if you beat Andreessen, and Andreessen's offering 50, and you say, listen, the best I can do is 30, and I've done this multiple times, because 30 is the highest price I pay. It is, it's on my website, so there's multiple deals I've done where the price ha…”
Jul 31, 2025
Lemkin: Mature public tech companies are trapped by high margin expectations
“It is almost impossible for most public companies to actually spend the cash there they're generating. So Zuck's got a triple down here because he's getting also a hall pass. The market's saying it's okay to spend everything, right?”
Aug 7, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: VCs Will Not Waive Unearned Stock Compensation Triggers
“I'll bet you nickels to dollars that doesn't happen because founders are just signing up. I don't know what Brian you see at Sequoia, but founders are signing up for crazy stuff these days. They're signing up for massive stuff. And I don't think a lot of grouc…”
Aug 7, 2025 negative
Aug 7, 2025 positive
Lemkin: VCs should size funds smaller to enter carry mode faster
“Normal times you want to optimize your fund size to achieve the maximum carry you can in a given time, right? And then just go raise another, right? In an ideal world, you might even raise the fund a year, right? So you can get into carry mode as quickly as po…”
Aug 14, 2025 positive
Aug 14, 2025 bullish
Aug 14, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: AI will enable 20-to-40-person teams to build billion-dollar companies
“If you allow for some outsourcing agencies resources that come and go, I think we will see a bunch of 20, 30, 40 person, billion dollar companies because a core of engineers, a bunch of AIs making, and people are going to be like, you know what, dude, not, I d…”
Aug 14, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Success Rate Placing Veteran B2B Executives Dropped to 10%
“Listen, until maybe 18 months ago, if any seasoned B to B executive that I knew needed a job, ok, that I knew reasonably well, I'd get him a job by an email. I could reach out to someone, not even in my portfolio, extended network founders I met that I knew me…”
Aug 21, 2025 negative
Aug 21, 2025 neutral
Aug 21, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: Buyers will demand AI software from single vendors within 12 months
“We're already seeing this consolidation in e-commerce if we want to chat about where they're becoming one tool already. I think it's a real risk for all these cool ones. Like we just don't need five of them going to Rory's point. We may, Rippling's a good exam…”
Aug 21, 2025
Aug 21, 2025
Aug 21, 2025 positive
Aug 28, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Salesforce will redeploy 70% of SDR headcount into higher-value roles
“I think we'll redeploy. He'll, I think Salesforce, I don't know how many like entry-level SDR Salesforce has, but I bet you redeploy 70% of that headcount into enterprise reps or forward deployed engineers. That headcount just becomes more valued with agent fo…”
Aug 28, 2025 negative
Sep 11, 2025
Lemkin: Jailing Fraudulent Founders Is the Best Startup Governance Control
“I think the best control today would be if more founders that committed fraud went to jail. I just think if every month someone went to jail that completely lied, I know Roy disagrees, completely lied in a round, sent financials where they aggregated all their…”
Sep 11, 2025 neutral
Sep 18, 2025 neutral
Sep 18, 2025 negative
Sep 25, 2025 bullish
Sep 25, 2025
Sep 25, 2025 neutral
Sep 25, 2025 neutral
Jason Lemkin: Real founder-friendliness means writing checks when others won't
“Founder friendly is writing the check when no one else does. That's founder friendly. That founder friendly is when no one else is there at the board meeting anymore and you're there and you still have a W on the other side of it. That's founder friendly. Foun…”
Sep 25, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Wrote down all frothy portfolio holdings except one $300M ARR deal
“I wrote down everything. I guess a year and a half ago, whatever I get that I wrote every, everything that had a hint of froth. I have one deal. I'm still carrying myself, right? Because it's over three hundred million in revenue and growing. I'm holding it as…”
Sep 25, 2025 negative
Jason Lemkin: LPs bragging on LinkedIn signals peak market froth
“The frothiest sign is now LinkedIn LPs are bragging about their returns on LinkedIn LPs. When LPs are start bragging about their returns to me that that's the most, 20, 21 moment I've seen when LPs are LPs who are usually hide behind the wizard of Oz curtain a…”
Sep 25, 2025
Sep 25, 2025 positive
Lemkin: First Startup Would Have Failed Without H-1B Visa Holders
“My especially my first startup, which was hard. It had a material science component. It wouldn't have been possible without H-one B at least on its surface. Okay. I had H-one B. I ate two folks with H-one Bs on my, They were transfers, right? I didn't sponsor …”
Sep 25, 2025 positive
Sep 25, 2025 positive
Oct 2, 2025 positive
Oct 2, 2025 neutral
Oct 9, 2025 positive
Oct 9, 2025
Lemkin: SaaStr fund LPs have no legal rights to sell their stakes
“My LPs have no rights to sell at all. Like literally nothing. There's no exceptions for, you If you're struggling or if you're, or, it's just, I'm shocked because a lot of the stuff is LP friend. This one is absolute. You have no rights to sell.”
Oct 9, 2025 negative
Oct 9, 2025 negative
Oct 9, 2025 neutral
Oct 9, 2025 bullish
Oct 16, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Current AI Infrastructure Cannot Service Existing Market Demand
“I really do think we are not, I can see it myself. We're not remotely servicing the demand that exists today. Right? So how it gets paid for is a different question, but I think this is so different than the prior waves, where we just can't even service this d…”
Oct 16, 2025
Oct 16, 2025 bullish
Oct 16, 2025 negative
Oct 16, 2025 positive
Oct 16, 2025
Oct 30, 2025 positive
Oct 30, 2025 negative
Nov 6, 2025 positive
Lemkin: Kalshi is a safer long-term bet than Polymarket
“So based on my limited knowledge, I'm going Kalshi because I feel like it is a safer long-term bet than someone that is writing the current political vibes, which are all in favor of everything here. It just could, it was a lot different a couple of years ago,…”
Nov 6, 2025
Nov 6, 2025 negative
Jason Lemkin: Seed stage venture investing is currently at its worst
“And I think it's the worst for seed because Everyone each year wants to be a seed investor even more. It's the, everyone, you know, what, you know, Jake Paul, Jake Logan, whatever, which are the Jake's you know, it's not just the chain smokers anymore, and Jar…”
Nov 6, 2025 bullish
Nov 6, 2025 positive
Jason Lemkin: Series A is experiencing its best-ever deal funnel
“This is a, the best of times to be a Series A investor because there is just an explosion of seed AI startups. There's so many and they can't all get funded. And I know it's stressful. I know it's hard, but it is a gift that thousands of founders are in San Fr…”
Nov 6, 2025 negative
Nov 6, 2025
Nov 13, 2025 negative
Nov 13, 2025
Nov 13, 2025 bullish
Nov 13, 2025 negative
Nov 13, 2025 negative
Lemkin: The Best Fundraising Processes Do Not Require Traditional Data Rooms
“The optimal way to run it is for everyone already to want to invest for real without games before you open your data room. And the super optimal way doesn't even require a data room because they already, you don't even need a data room because they already wan…”
Nov 13, 2025
Nov 13, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Current Startup Fundraising Market Is the Most Binary in Our Lifetimes
“It's the most binary fundraising environment in our lifetimes, isn't it? You're either, you know, you're either YC, Neo, South Park Commons, got something, get funded, or who the hell's gonna find you in your pre-seed round, right? You either got, you know, yo…”
Nov 13, 2025 negative
Nov 20, 2025 neutral
Lemkin: Half of the $184B invested in VC in 2025 went to four companies
“They're estimated in a hundred eighty four billion in venture capital invested this year by their definition. Okay. The peak was 20, 21 of a hundred eighty three billion. So one more billion this year. Okay. But four of those half of the hundred eighty four bi…”
Nov 20, 2025 bearish
Lemkin: 900 late-stage unicorn startups generating nine-figure revenues will never go public
“And then we've got 900 unicorns that are never going to IPO. Poor guys. We have nine, we all have one or two in our portfolio that are at nine figures in revenue that are still growing and will never IPO. And there is no PE buyer for them.”
Nov 20, 2025 bullish
Nov 20, 2025 bullish
Nov 27, 2025
Nov 27, 2025
Jason Lemkin: Public software multiples jump sharply above 20% and 30% growth
“If you're growing less than 20% of a cherry pick basket, 5.1 X AR, Wix is lower. It's not in my basket. 20 to 30, 11.8 X AR. And then the 30% plus, which is Rubrik, Palantir and Figma, average 23.7 X AR, but Palantir and Rubrik push that up.”
Nov 27, 2025
Nov 27, 2025
Jason Lemkin: Portfolio firm sees 100% AI growth alongside flat legacy revenue
“And I was literally with a portfolio company. It's got. Forty-five million of AI revenue growing about a hundred percent. Okay. Now listen, that's not a lawful or, but it's pretty good. Okay. And then it's got fifty million of pre AI revenue growing zero.”
Nov 27, 2025 neutral
Nov 27, 2025
Jason Lemkin: Low-growth software companies are worth only 3x to 5x ARR
“Generally, once you descend into low growth and that's different for public companies and private companies, you're worth, I mean, if you're worth anything, you might be worth nothing as a startup, you're worth in the three to five X ARR range”
Dec 4, 2025 positive
Lemkin: Databases Possess High Defensibility Due to Customer Switching Costs
“Databases are a hard problem. Like you can only lose so much data. You can only have so many issues. You have to figure this out. And five years of investing in a database that everybody uses, it's, it ain't so easy to turn and leave your database.”
Dec 4, 2025 negative
Dec 4, 2025 negative
Dec 4, 2025 neutral
Dec 4, 2025 bearish
Dec 4, 2025 negative
Dec 11, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: VCs Must Bet on Software Companies Tripling ARR to $150M
“If this growth is durable, ok, if we're seeing signs that it's durable, if it has, if it really has a 170% NRR and 98% logo retention, And it's accelerating at one 50. This is just the bet you do. You don't pull your hair out or have to have lengthy dinners ab…”
Dec 11, 2025 negative
Lemkin: AI customer agents remain slow, setup-heavy, and prone to hallucinations
“I could, if you've used these products in the field, you can see on the one hand, they're amazing. On the other hand, they are slow. Okay. On the other hand, they are complicated to set up and ingest data. On the other hand, hallucinations are a minor issue, b…”
Dec 11, 2025 positive
Lemkin: Salesforce Agentforce takes 30 days to deploy and outperforms rivals
“We use Asian Force ourselves. It is great. I can talk to you how it really works. It takes about 30 days to train and deploy, and then you've got to keep going and upgrade and it's great. And it works just as well as the other agents. And in one way it works b…”
Dec 11, 2025 positive
Lemkin: Stair-Stepping Valuations in Hot Deals Efficiently Filters Oversubscribed VCs
“But it is, it does work in my limited experience because even if you do three rounds at the same day at 306 109 hundred or whatever it is, when you're oversubscribed, it's just a message to the new investors. The price is 900. It might be, the price might even…”
Dec 11, 2025
Dec 22, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Paid standalone AI co-pilots were B2B software's biggest 2025 failure
“The biggest failing of this year, we talked about, I want to say in twenties, going to Rory's point, it was the co-pilot. The co-pilot was the worst of all worlds. We're not going to put it in our base product. We're not going to make the core product better, …”
Dec 22, 2025 bullish
Dec 22, 2025 negative
Lemkin: Adobe's $5B 'AI-influenced revenue' metric is misleading vanity reporting
“The worst offender is Adobe, okay? Because Adobe announced they had five billion of quote, AI influenced revenue this year. That, listen, let, Let's be kind. It's, I'm sure it's true. I'm sure they're using Firefly and generating images with AI, but to me, it …”
Dec 22, 2025 bullish
Lemkin: Salesforce will be the biggest public tech stock beneficiary in 2026
“I think Salesforce might be the biggest beneficiary next year, and I'll tell you why, because it has, it is, like, you have to also, we go through the ones that declined the most this year, and you have to be honest, are they at least tapping into AI tailwinds…”
Jan 8, 2026 bearish
Jan 8, 2026
Jan 8, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Most of my best deals originated from cold emails
“Most of my best deals have been from cold inbounds and I have begun that journey by analyzing the in inbound, analyzing the intelligence and the quality of the founder, analyzing this. It's not an, and I've done multiple billion dollar exits from cold inbound.”
Jan 8, 2026 bearish
Jan 8, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: Aims to invest in one AI agent startup per quarter
“I've got to work on AI agents. That's where I get so much because of all this SaaS stuff, I get so much inbound on AI agents, whether it's GTM or otherwise, I got to pick the best thing I can once a quarter and just do that deal and just try to do a 50 X or a …”
Jan 8, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Workforce reskilling is a total delusion that never succeeds
“Reskill is a delusion. Reskill is something we say to make everybody feel better. Reskilling is like when you get, when you, they do layoffs and they bring you in the room and they give you a packet of jobs potentially. It's just to make people feel better. No…”
Jan 8, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Investing in part-time, non-executive chairman founders is flushing money
“I believe, and don't get me wrong, this particular deal may work, but in my life experience, You're just flushing your money down the toilet. When a great seat founder reaches out to you, I've got this one I want to do. And then you dig a little deeper. I'm th…”
Jan 8, 2026
Jan 8, 2026 positive
Jan 8, 2026 positive
Jan 8, 2026 positive
Jan 15, 2026 positive
Jan 15, 2026 neutral
Jan 15, 2026 bearish
Jan 15, 2026 bearish
Jan 15, 2026 negative
Jan 22, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Will Never Invest in Technical Startups Lacking Technical CEOs
“I'm super skeptical of technical companies where the CEO isn't One of the greatest technical visionaries in the industry. I'm just, I'll never do that investment again. I'll never do an investment again where, where, where it's not like Databricks are better a…”
Jan 22, 2026 bullish
Jan 22, 2026
Jan 29, 2026 neutral
Jan 29, 2026 positive
Jan 29, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: High inference costs will ruin mature mid-tier SaaS companies
“I worry this is the next final act is that you checked out, you did all the right things, right? You're not growing zero percent. Your customers don't hate you. You built an agent and the final nail in the coffin is we just can't afford the inference. We just …”
Jan 29, 2026 negative
Lemkin: B2B startups cannot cut AI inference costs and stay competitive
“The idea that you can use. Cheap models and cut back on your inference and still be competitive? That's the thing. Still be competitive with the hot Andreessen-funded company? Like, no chance you can be competitive without that inference.”
Jan 29, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: AI inference costs are replacing traditional sales and marketing budgets
“The other advantage that the new entrants have is that if you have the best agent and you have the kind of market demand we see, right, then you're for you, your inference costs are a marketing cost. The established players don't have that luxury. They're alre…”
Jan 29, 2026 bearish
Jan 29, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Venture capital is not an asset class because the bottom 75% underperforms
“The classic take in ventures, it's not really an asset class. It's a weird niche of PE. Yes, the top Your quartile, certainly the top decile perform, but the rest is a disaster. So it's not an asset class. If the bottom 75% isn't even worth getting out of bed …”
Jan 29, 2026 bearish
Jan 29, 2026 negative
Jan 29, 2026 bullish
Jan 29, 2026 bearish
Jan 29, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Salesforce employees call current AI era most stressful in company history
“And I don't see how even Salesforce is one of the few that can do it with its resources. And even there, it's stressful. If you talk to folks at Salesforce today, they'll tell you this is the most stressful time they've ever worked at Salesforce in history of …”
Feb 5, 2026 bearish
Feb 5, 2026 neutral
Feb 5, 2026 bearish
Feb 5, 2026 neutral
Feb 12, 2026 bearish
Feb 12, 2026 negative
Feb 12, 2026 neutral
Feb 12, 2026 bullish
Feb 19, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Distressed SaaS companies in 'hospice care' never recover
“If you've gone on to hospice care, does it really matter how long you stay in hospice? I mean, to the kid, to the employees, it does to the family, but everybody pretty much knows when that SAS company goes into hospice, it ain't coming out.”
Feb 19, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Fund sits at 4.5x, but non-AI startups are struggling
“When I look at my last fund, right, you know, and I see what's happening and it, the funds in good shape, whatever, 4.5 X. But honestly, like two companies are like, Massively benefiting from the current world and B to B massively benefit in accelerating. One …”
Feb 19, 2026 bearish
Feb 19, 2026 neutral
Feb 19, 2026 positive
Feb 19, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: AI agent vendors lack defensibility because customers rapidly switch products
“I'd actually don't think any of the agent vendors are safe from disruption because we will, even us, like everyone's promiscuous with agents. We will switch it. Like, this is so much better than what we had two weeks ago. We'll switch to the next one.”
Feb 26, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Software firms failing to own category AI agents will be maimed
“No, I think just people are going to be maimed even more than they think if they don't own the agents in your category. You've got to own the agents in your category. And whether those agents are owned by a startup, or whether some version of that agent can be…”
Feb 26, 2026 bullish
Feb 26, 2026 negative
Feb 26, 2026
Lemkin: AI agents will stop requiring custom setup within two years
“Every agent, here's the problem today, and this will change in the next two years. It is not true today. Every agent is essentially custom, ok? Every agent needs to be trained. Every agent needs to be onboarded. If you want it to be great, ok? Every agent need…”
Feb 26, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: AI-generated YouTube videos are utterly disruptive to Netflix
“And as of the last 45 days, you can watch an incredible short on YouTube that was entirely AI generated where you can watch Star Wars stories that are better than the crappy last three movies that are AI generated. That's utterly disruptive to Netflix.”
Feb 26, 2026 positive
Feb 26, 2026 negative
Lemkin: I will never host another LP Annual General Meeting
“I told my LPs and COVID I'm not doing this. I'm not doing any more AGMs. I'm not standing up there with like, here's the numbers. I'll go talk to you. Like I'll drop by your office, but I'm done with this performative. All day circus of an AGM. It's not that I…”
Feb 26, 2026 bullish
Mar 5, 2026 negative
Mar 9, 2026 negative
Mar 12, 2026 negative
Mar 12, 2026 negative
Mar 12, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Refuses to invest in Snowflake or MongoDB because they lack founders
“The only reason I ding Snowflake is, and this is no, I couldn't do better is it's not founder led. And it's just, that's my thesis today. Like I can't pick Mongo or I killed Mongo or Snowflake just on not being founder led.”
Mar 12, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Next-Gen AI CRMs Cannot Function With Workplace Privacy
“App is, this is becoming necessary core CRM functionality to record and manage every keystroke, every interaction, everything you type, everything you do, because otherwise you can't automate a CRM. Like, the next generation CRM just does not work if you have …”
Mar 12, 2026 bearish
Mar 19, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Prompt engineering is dead; ADE is the vital modern role
“The job today is not to screw around on ChatGPT and to be a prompt engineer. The job today is to bring the best AI and agent, agentic products into your organization and leverage all the hard work that the engineers have done building those products. That's yo…”
Mar 19, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: Meta and Atlassian layoffs are voluntary, not financially forced
“Neither of these companies has to lay off anybody. Okay. Atlassian has substantial free cashflow meta. I don't know. They're in the, their free cashflow is dip, but it's still like in the mid forties, right? They don't have to do this.”
Mar 19, 2026 bullish
Mar 19, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Top candidates must introduce one new AI tool monthly
“The answer in 2026 is what commercial AI tool have you brought into your organization this month? That's the test. Anyone that is on the bleeding edge that you would want to hire. Now there are so many great products in the market. Okay. There is no excuse in …”
Mar 19, 2026 bearish
Mar 19, 2026 bearish
Mar 19, 2026 positive
Mar 19, 2026 negative
Mar 19, 2026 positive
Mar 19, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Anyone who deployed enterprise software can deploy AI agents
“If in the last three to five years, you have successfully deployed a piece of enterprise software of any sort, you yourself, not some agency you hired, but if you have deployed it, you can deploy any agentic tool, any, and you can become the hero in your compa…”
Mar 19, 2026 bearish
Mar 26, 2026 bearish
Mar 26, 2026 bearish
Apr 2, 2026 neutral
Apr 9, 2026 bearish
Apr 9, 2026 bearish
Apr 9, 2026 bearish
Apr 9, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: Enterprise buyers historically gave software vendors one pass on security breaches
“In the old days, like through 20, 23 in our lifetimes, you always got to pass once as a vendor. Even for the worst breaches, the worst issues, unless your app was down for weeks, you'd get called into the CISO's office. You'd get yelled at. It was brutal, but …”
Apr 9, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: Low-ACV AI startups must build 5 distinct products to hit $1B ARR
“The reality is you have to go truly multi-product earlier in this type of situation. Not, not just a little feature, right? Not just a little enhancement. But you literally probably have to build five distinct products to get to that billion and not you know, …”
Apr 9, 2026 negative
Apr 16, 2026 bearish
Lemkin is ready to write off portfolio startups failing to adopt AI
“Like you know, I'm ready to move on to the new world and I'm almost, and I'm frankly ready to write off a lot of portfolio companies and a lot of public companies. It's time to move on guys. If you're not going to get there in April of 20, 26, then so be it. S…”
Apr 16, 2026 bearish
Apr 16, 2026 positive
Apr 16, 2026 negative
Apr 16, 2026 bearish
Apr 23, 2026 bearish
Apr 23, 2026 bearish
Apr 23, 2026 bullish
Apr 30, 2026 bullish
Apr 30, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Ryan Smith's Utah Jazz investment quadrupled, outpacing software returns
“When Ryan Smith sold Qualtrics, I think he made about a billion dollars. After 20 years or so and I believe that billion, most of it went back into the jazz, and it has quadrupled... He's up three billion on the jazz or something like that versus the 20 years …”
Apr 30, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: AI agents render Marketo, Outreach, and Salesloft worthless
“They're not going to recommend Marketo for your agent to do marketing automation, ok? In fact, it mocked Marketo outreach and sales loft as tools useless to agents. Ok, this API grid. They said there is no place in the, an agent will never send an email throug…”
Apr 30, 2026 negative
Apr 30, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: Stripe received sole A+ grade in agentic API benchmark
“Over, over the weekend my nine nine six project was I built an agentic API grader where we went, I just had Claude, OpenAI, and Gemini together take the top 120 APIs and grade which ones they thought were the best, which tools I thought, 11 Labs everything on …”
Apr 30, 2026 neutral
Apr 30, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Atlassian and Monday threatened as AI agents bypass project tools
“The public markets have the right idea, but the wrong direction. The public markets think vibe coding and Claude are their threat. No, the threat is what the agents pick. And actually, if you look at overall, the markets are, they almost get it right. They're …”
May 7, 2026
May 7, 2026 bullish
May 7, 2026
May 7, 2026 bullish
May 7, 2026 negative
Lemkin: AI has expanded the customer experience TAM by 50%, not 10x
“I'm not just a hundred percent convinced the CX market, as big as it is, four hundred billion, whatever you want to call it. I'm not convinced it's grown 10 X because of AI. I believe it's grown a bit. I believe it might've grown 50%.”
May 14, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Founders should accept buyouts unless they refuse $1 billion
“That's why I tell all founders to take the offer. I tell all founders to take it. The opposite of VCs, take it. It's, it is an intensity test. And if they push back and say, no, a billion is not enough. Great. Then go for it. But if they're not sure you may no…”
May 14, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Fireside chats and speakers are dead at tech conferences
“So I'll have to see, but we won't do, we'll never do Unless I'm forced to, I mean, if, you know, I do it for Sam Altman, but otherwise I'm not gonna do, there's, the firesides are dead and speakers are dead. There's just no point when podcasts are better.”
May 14, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Public markets fear terminal value is zero for decelerating SaaS
“But I think even though the SaaS apocalypse is behind us I think for many, there is still a worry, the terminal value is zero. I don't think that fear has gone away. If you're, if you keep decelerating, While budget is accelerating everywhere around you.”
May 14, 2026 negative
May 14, 2026 negative
May 21, 2026 bullish
May 21, 2026
May 21, 2026 neutral
May 28, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: $2M Revenue Per Employee Is New Normal For Scaling Startups
“I think two million per employee is going to become the new normal as you scale. And that will mean that your high performers can make two to three times what they used to make, just like an anthropic because you just don't need as many people and you're going…”
May 28, 2026 bearish
Jun 11, 2026 bearish
Jun 11, 2026 bearish
Jun 25, 2026 negative
Lemkin: LLM-driven migration tools are destroying traditional B2B software moats
“It's a moat destroyer when LLMs will lift you from one vendor to the other, and I, you know, I don't even, like, I literally was doing a pitch this week, and the founder was going on and on about their moats, and I immediately didn't want to invest. Like, I ju…”
Jun 25, 2026 bearish
Jun 25, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Will only invest in startups working in-office six days weekly
“I want small high paid teams that work in the office over six days a week. That's I'm not interested in investing in anything else. I'm just not interested. And it's not because I don't have empathy. It's because they're gonna fail.”
Jul 2, 2026 negative
Jul 2, 2026 bearish
Lemkin refuses to invest in Chamath's 8090 without full-time commitment
“So I, I'm out. If literally Chamath drops everything, but 80, 90, everything. And I see the sweat from his brow and I see all, and I see that cause the dude's fit and he's looking good. Right. He just had, A massive, the massive largest win of his career as an…”
Jul 2, 2026 bearish
Jul 2, 2026 negative
Jul 2, 2026 positive
Jul 2, 2026 bearish
Jul 9, 2026
Jul 9, 2026 negative
Jul 9, 2026 positive
Lemkin: Selling 5% Equity to Corporate Partners Creates Disproportionate Alignment
“What I've learned from my portfolio and I think you guys will agree is it creates an out an unexpectedly large amount of alignment. You get, you sell five percent of your company to a hundred billion dollar partner. It don't matter to Rory's point. It just don…”
Jul 9, 2026 positive
Lemkin: OpenAI and Anthropic have eliminated equity vesting cliffs
“Well, now that they're, now that there aren't even vesting schedules at Open Ananthropic, those issues have been solved. Right? A lot of startups don't have vesting schedules for top employees, right? It doesn't mean you vest into all your stock, right? Sorry,…”
Jul 16, 2026 negative
Jul 16, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Faking affiliate attribution is standard practice across startups
“Doing basically what everyone in your industry does, doing scammy affiliate marketing when it's basically part of your thing. I mean, startups cut corners, right? It's not, this isn't Delvesque, but everyone cuts a corner. When everyone in your industry is sli…”
Jul 16, 2026 bearish
Jul 16, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Startups with talent momentum shouldn't announce hot funding rounds
“The most in my career today, there are the most reasons to not announce, if you can get away with it, to not announce a hot round. Right. If you've already got enough, if you've already got enough going on to attract talent, right, for recruiting especially if…”
Jul 16, 2026
Jul 16, 2026 neutral
Lemkin: Enterprise budget caps will force adoption of cheaper AI models
“As every organization goes from burn all the tokens you want, baby, to budgets, However you do it, whether it's automated, whether it's manual, whether it's picking a dropdown, everyone's going to have to have a cheaper model.”
Jul 16, 2026 bearish
Jul 16, 2026 negative
Jul 23, 2026
Jul 23, 2026 negative
Lemkin: Series B VCs now need seed-level picking skills to survive
“I think the real pressure is, it means anything below that growth stage, you better be a damn good picker. Because it used to be when Rory and I met, Series B, even into Series A, you actually didn't have to be a good picker. You just had to be good at math an…”
Jul 23, 2026
Lemkin: Ideal startup sale timing is right before market recognizes commoditization
“And the perfect outcome is to sell the moment it becomes commoditized, but before everyone fully realizes it, that's when they'll give you the money, but that's before the value decrease rather than it creates in it.”
Jul 29, 2026 bearish
Lemkin: Founders quitting solid startups for shiny trends always regret it
“Most of the founders I've worked with over my career that have done that, that have quit something pretty good to do the shiny penny they're not all Ilya. They've all, it's all been a net negative. All, all the times I've seen it, the ones that quit with somet…”
Jul 29, 2026 negative
Jul 29, 2026 negative
Jul 29, 2026 positive
Aug 12, 2026 bearish
Lemkin's team churned off Canva and Notion due to AI agents
“My, me having churned, and Amelia having churned, we churned just not because, this is a tough one, Canva and Notion, both we churned, not because they're not great apps, we just no longer had any need for them in the agentic area, just no need. Canva and Noti…”
Aug 12, 2026 neutral
Lemkin's lifetime exits split evenly on holding versus taking early secondaries
“And I literally just did this analysis across my whole lifetime of all the things I've been involved with, personal, angel, venture, who should have sold, and who should have sold early or taken than secondary. And for me, it broke roughly fifty-fifty.”
Aug 12, 2026 negative
Seed models must assume 75% dilution and 4x effective entry prices
“When I started, my model was I'm actually paying twice my entry price. That's how I model. Now it's four X. Now I'm playing, now I'm paying, I'm going to suffer 75% dilution, and it's not, and that really means my entry price is four X what it looks like on, b…”
Aug 12, 2026 bearish
Any startup investment not run by a founder will be a zero
“Any investment I've made that is not run by a founder is a zero. It's going to be a zero in this age. It's going to be a zero. I look across, now you, we have different portfolios, but the ones I have that are not run by founders, whether they're at twenty mil…”
Aug 12, 2026 negative
Aug 12, 2026 bearish
Canva is currently worth only $12 billion in public market value
“I'd say it's probably worth twelve billion right now. 20% growth at four billion ARR in the current public markets and not decelerating. There's some sort of rule of 40 number that's better, but I'd say it's worth about twelve billion.”
Aug 20, 2026 positive
Lemkin: SaaStr runs Salesforce headless using an internal AI revenue agent
“So we run Salesforce entirely headless. Yeah. Okay. So we have our own agent, our own AI VP of revenue. It runs Salesforce under the hood. Pro is it makes Salesforce much more powerful than it ever was. Like I didn't log into Salesforce for seven years. Now I …”
Aug 27, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: Workers Will Threaten to Quit Without Continuous AI Agents
“Next year, there's going to be backlash. I can see it in my best portfolio companies where we can't go back anymore. We can't live. We can't go back in time. And I need my 10 sub agents running 24 hours a day to do my job or I quit.”
Aug 27, 2026 bearish
Aug 27, 2026 bearish
Sep 3, 2026 bearish
Most European Point-Solution Startups Will Fail in the US Market
“And that's why your European startups, most of them are going to fail at least in the U S because they can't do much more with more, right? They're going to fail. Their little point solutions are just going to disappear in six months. We don't need those littl…”
Sep 3, 2026 bullish
Sep 3, 2026 neutral
Sep 10, 2026 bullish
Lemkin: Fable 5.1 is a step function comparable to an S-tier CTO
“Fable five for me was that for just for me was that step function where all of a sudden we could solve big problems together the way you'd like to with like your best CTO, like if you've ever worked with a five out of five or like an S tier CTO where you could…”
Sep 10, 2026 bullish
Sep 10, 2026 negative
Sep 10, 2026 bearish
Sep 10, 2026 positive