The Exchanges

Q And a lot of people in the seed stage of the funding cycle are getting concerned by the rise of crowdfunding and angel list. Uh, so do you see deal flow going to these crowdfunding sites, and is it something that you're potentially concerned about in the future?

A Uh, I'm not worried about it at all in the least bit. I mean, if you look at a lot of the seasoned entrepreneurs, yeah, I think there's, people keep talking about the automation of the world. Um, I do think that VC is still a relationship-driven business. You know, will there be portions of a two million dollar round? You know, for many times, we'll, we'll, we'll lead a seed round, and then we'll say, okay, let's say if two 50 open for angels, we can put it on AngelList after we've gotten everything else together to see if we can drum up some other Interesting relationships. Um, but, you know, I'm not really overly concerned about that. I think the great entrepreneurs are still going to go back to the folks they've done business with over the years, um, if they've done it successfully and, and still raise that way.

AI assessment note: “I'm not worried about it at all in the least bit.”

Q Okay. So, uh, let's go with add. What's the best investment advice you've received?

A This shit is really fucking hard and it takes a long time. So you gotta be patient. And the things that always seem like they're the best ones in your portfolio may eventually be the worst and the vice versa. So you gotta figure that out. You gotta ride through the times. And, and I think when things are going really, really well, that's when you challenge the foundries even more. And when things are shitty, that's where you kind of pick them off from the ground and maybe kind of cheer them on a little bit. So I call that my three CH is cheer, challenge, and chill. And you kind of do the opposite. Um, and you know, sometimes the worst ones can come out and, and create some value for you.

AI assessment note: “This shit is really fucking hard and it takes a long time. So you gotta”

Q Um, we also, you know, I've had these, these aren't needle movers for firms in any way though, are they? They're like, Get cash back in your life.

A It just, it just depends. I would say it just depends on the situation. Um, but if you have a product that people need and you're ahead of the curve and maybe you're not the best in sales and marketing, but you're really great at building, you can create some pretty good, valuable exits, right? Look at all the stuff that Palo Alto bought. A lot of those companies had two to three million dollars of AR getting sold for two, three, four hundred million dollars, right? So I would say that, you know, those are the discussions you have to have and you've got to be open. It also goes to not taking too much cash up front because that limits your ability to exit at those numbers. And the final thing I'd say is that we haven't talked about yet is private to privates. This is where, for example, like the airplane to air table situation, I think, you know, if you look at the numbers, um, I know there's a lot of debate online, but let's just assume that if they only spent half of the forty million, there was twenty million dollars of cash on the, on the, on the, on the balance sheet. So perhaps, uh, you know, the founders and investors Um, you know, made some, made some money on it, right? Maybe they took air table at a, I don't know what price it took it at, but maybe they took it at a, at a higher price, maybe inflated price that they would have to grow into. Maybe they distributed cash …

AI assessment note: “companies had two to three million dollars of AR getting sold for two, three, four hundred million”

Q What would you say to founders? What do you advise founders looking at this today going, oh gosh, you've given me three kinds of inception round. There's all these different options. Which one should I do?

A I think the founders, for the most part, come to us knowing kind of what they want as well. They kind of know, you know, the ones who are more confident about their abilities, who have been there, done that before, usually will probe around and start with the three to four million dollar round. And then sometimes what happens is they will get supersized by a large multi-stager. And then you need to make a decision. You know, we need to make a decision as do we want to, you know, co-lead in that one or not. And then, you know, as I said, there are other founders who come in like, In the WASM infrastructure space, no, it's very early. And we're like, look, we can write a check like tomorrow right now for a two million dollar round because there's not much we need to do, right? We know who you are. We know where you came from. We know you can build and then let's figure it out and you can get going right now without having to hassle and raise money and tell people what WASM is. They can go out and raise kind of that next round later. So it really depends on every situation. I don't try to tell anyone what to do. They already have an idea in their mind. And you kind of work with them as a, as a touch of the market to see how the market responds.

AI assessment note: “it really depends on every situation. I don't try to tell anyone what to do.”

Q What would you say to founders? What do you advise founders looking at this today going, oh gosh, you've given me three kinds of inception round. There's all these different options. Which one should I do?

A I think the founders, for the most part, come to us knowing kind of what they want as well. They kind of know, you know, the ones who are more confident about their abilities, who have been there, done that before, usually will probe around and start with the three to four million dollar round. And then sometimes what happens is they will get supersized by a large multi-stager. And then you need to make a decision. You know, we need to make a decision as do we want to, you know, co-lead in that one or not. And then, you know, as I said, there are other founders who come in like, In the WASM infrastructure space, no, it's very early. And we're like, look, we can write a check like tomorrow right now for a two million dollar round because there's not much we need to do, right? We know who you are. We know where you came from. We know you can build and then let's figure it out and you can get going right now without having to hassle and raise money and tell people what WASM is. They can go out and raise kind of that next round later. So it really depends on every situation. I don't try to tell anyone what to do. They already have an idea in their mind. And you kind of work with them as a, as a touch of the market to see how the market responds.

AI assessment note: “I don't try to tell anyone what to do. They already have an idea”

Q Okay. So, uh, let's go with add. What's the best investment advice you've received?

A This shit is really fucking hard and it takes a long time. So you gotta be patient. And the things that always seem like they're the best ones in your portfolio may eventually be the worst and the vice versa. So you gotta figure that out. You gotta ride through the times. And, and I think when things are going really, really well, that's when you challenge the foundries even more. And when things are shitty, that's where you kind of pick them off from the ground and maybe kind of cheer them on a little bit. So I call that my three CH is cheer, challenge, and chill. And you kind of do the opposite. Um, and you know, sometimes the worst ones can come out and, and create some value for you.

AI assessment note: “This shit is really fucking hard and it takes a long time. So you gotta be patient.”

Q So I think M&A is going to go to shit. Um, I think anything sub a billion is not meaningful enough for M&A teams and corp dev teams to actually engage with. And I think anything over a billion is going to be incredibly arduous to get over the line from a regulatory perspective. Do you agree or am I overly negative?

A I think we're going to see a lot more M and A's, uh, kind of coming ahead right now. And, and I'll tell you the kinds we'll see, right? All right. Well, let's look at it. There's been a lot of companies and there's what thousand plus unicorns out there right now. Not all of them will go public. Many of them are overvalued right now. And guess what? They're probably some growth investors sitting around saying you may have five to seven years of runway, but. If I can get my money out right now, um, on the tech stack on the stack right now, get my money back and investors, by the way, You know, down the stack, we'll get their money back. And by the way, founders will probably make money. Let's just, let's just say if there's an opportunity to go do that, that would be a brilliant opportunity for people to, um, maybe exit out, take their one X and they can go reinvest it somewhere else. And I'm talking to lots of growth investors who are kind of looking at saying, yeah, I mean, you know what, if I can get one X out after a few years and actually reinvest that stuff into something else at a better price or, or do something. So I, I think that the realization of holding onto.

AI assessment note: “I think we're going to see a lot more M and A's”

Q Would that have gone through today, do you think?

A Fuck no. No way. And by the way, it had nothing to do with anything other than they, they hated Zuckerberg, right? I mean, really, customer was a business to business software thing, and you had Ireland to go through, you had the EU to go through, you had the US to go through, right? So, so that was a, you know, reportedly, according to Bloomberg, over a billion dollar exit. But the point is, is that, let's say those go away, and in a world that you have 300 to four hundred million dollar exits, the world where Palo Alto repeatedly buys companies from one 50 to six hundred million dollars. How much money can a capital, can a company take in order for investors to make money? What does that mean for late stage investors? Jim, I'd love to know kind of how you thinking about it. How do you choose which are the ones that are going to be the three billion dollar companies? Cause please tell me so I know where I can be setting down the plank. You know, how, how does that happen?

AI assessment note: “Fuck no. No way.”

Q Can I ask you guys just a blunt question? If my biggest mistake was not selling positions that I really should have done, what were your biggest mistakes that you reflect back on?

A I would, I literally just had my annual meeting in November. And, you know, as I said, we have an early stage, you know, we have the inception fund and we have an opportunity fund where you back the truck up in the winters. And I would probably say that, um, we're very ownership focused. We love ownership. Uh, we always want to lean in the pro ratas, but ownership matters to an extent, right? So everything's not always going up into the right. And I had the same prior realization that you do Harry is that, um, maybe we could have sold some a little bit down, sold a little down kind of on the way up. Uh, instead of leaning in 1000%, right? I mean, and so, you know, those are the balances that you have to kind of look at over time.

AI assessment note: “I had the same prior realization... maybe we could have sold some a little bit down”

Q Can you just help me understand? You mentioned you touched on the three types that you see in terms of the rounds. Can you just touch on them so we have an understanding of those?

A This is what I'm seeing across the board. This is even what Sequoia and Greylock are talking about. And in my opinion, an inception round means you're engaging with founders well before they incorporate. You're helping them battle test and iterate in those ideas. You're helping them pre-sell some of their initial hires. And when they incorporate, you're leading those rounds upon company formation. So the founders don't have to dick around trying to raise money for months. And they don't have to dick around looking for six people. They come out of the gates on incorporation with six people and money, and they're ready to go. So you save a shitload of time. And it's been happening for a very long time. And the three counts of rounds I see at inception, um, are basically this. And by the way, this is not incubating a company. That's not a scalable model. And that's, unless that's all you do. And there's some firms that do that really well. It's pre-accelerator, uh, because an accelerator, you've got to be incorporated to join so you can give them your equity and it's pre-pre-seed. And the reason I'm saying it's pre-pre-seed is because as pre-seed has gotten institutionalized, a lot of these firms Want to actually see a little more product at the door or are taking a little less risky bets around that. To be honest with you, that's what happens when you take institutional capital. …

AI assessment note: “the point is the three rounds are, there's a discovery round”

Q I do think people Don't anticipate levels of dilution enough. I've been in this game, sadly, long enough to know that dilution really hurts and your 15% entry turns into nine percent on exit, often a little bit more sometimes. My, my point being, do you have any lessons, observations from the impacts of dilution and just what it actually ultimately means when it comes to cash back?

A Yeah, well, capital efficiency matters, um, you know, period, right? So that's number one. Um, and, and to that point, Um, you will never find both start, for example, finding companies where, you know, they're raising 20 or thirty million dollars, and two thirds of that money goes to NVIDIA. Because, you know, if my LPs went to actually invest in NVIDIA, they can invest in NVIDIA. They don't have to take haircuts from fees for me to do that, right? So that's number one. So those aren't capital efficient businesses in my mind, and they're, they're lower margin businesses. Number two is, is this is also why, Harry, we created the opportunity funds. So our opportunity fund right now is almost the same size as our core fund. So our strategy is to inception invest. Um, it's to continue supporting the best founders as they, as they keep growing to maintain that ownership. And then, you know, once it, after it hits the series B, we're still able to maintain that ownership and our board seats, um, as the best ones go.

AI assessment note: “we created the opportunity funds... to continue supporting the best founders as they keep growing to maintain that ownership”

Q Can you just help me understand? You mentioned you touched on the three types that you see in terms of the rounds. Can you just touch on them so we have an understanding of those?

A This is what I'm seeing across the board. This is even what Sequoia and Greylock are talking about. And in my opinion, an inception round means you're engaging with founders well before they incorporate. You're helping them battle test and iterate in those ideas. You're helping them pre-sell some of their initial hires. And when they incorporate, you're leading those rounds upon company formation. So the founders don't have to dick around trying to raise money for months. And they don't have to dick around looking for six people. They come out of the gates on incorporation with six people and money, and they're ready to go. So you save a shitload of time. And it's been happening for a very long time. And the three counts of rounds I see at inception, um, are basically this. And by the way, this is not incubating a company. That's not a scalable model. And that's, unless that's all you do. And there's some firms that do that really well. It's pre-accelerator, uh, because an accelerator, you've got to be incorporated to join so you can give them your equity and it's pre-pre-seed. And the reason I'm saying it's pre-pre-seed is because as pre-seed has gotten institutionalized, a lot of these firms Want to actually see a little more product at the door or are taking a little less risky bets around that. To be honest with you, that's what happens when you take institutional capital. …

AI assessment note: “the point is the three rounds are, there's a discovery round”

Q Can I ask you guys just a blunt question? If my biggest mistake was not selling positions that I really should have done, what were your biggest mistakes that you reflect back on?

A I would, I literally just had my annual meeting in November. And, you know, as I said, we have an early stage, you know, we have the inception fund and we have an opportunity fund where you back the truck up in the winters. And I would probably say that, um, we're very ownership focused. We love ownership. Uh, we always want to lean in the pro ratas, but ownership matters to an extent, right? So everything's not always going up into the right. And I had the same prior realization that you do Harry is that, um, maybe we could have sold some a little bit down, sold a little down kind of on the way up. Uh, instead of leaning in 1000%, right? I mean, and so, you know, those are the balances that you have to kind of look at over time.

AI assessment note: “maybe we could have sold some a little bit down, sold a little down”

Q Two final ones and they're associated. What's your biggest investing win and how did that impact your mindset and what's your biggest loss or mistake and how did that impact your mindset?

A Yeah. So I'll give you this. So my biggest win to date and, and when I'll call a realization was kind of leading the round in inception with, um, customer with a K, uh, and, uh, that was like, I don't know, eight or nine pre I think. And we're like, basically wouldn't let the founders out of the room. When did he give Brad and Jeremy the check right there? Like, hold on, let me incorporate first. Let me get my A-III-B election filed. And by the way, in the enterprise space, I had already been the first investor in LivePerson, which was one of the first hosted chats back in the day. So I was that first check-in and that went public. I did GoToMeeting, which had GoToAssist and we sold that to Citrix. And then eventually, I did six hundred million of AR. So I knew the space cold. And this was their third startup, right? This was one of the ones where you're in the room, you meet them, you got the energy, you're like, yeah, fuck yeah, you gotta do this, right? So fast forward, there's some tough times. What we learned in that process was that someone going after an incumbent at that point in time was Zendesk. You know, it takes longer. You know why? Because no matter how visionary your product is, and they're, they basically built a data architecture that said, hey, instead of having each Uh, interaction be a ticket, whether it's email or chat or whatever, they're all different tic…

AI assessment note: “So my biggest win to date and, and when I'll call a realization was”

Q agree with you. So if we just take the kind of years to pre-seed, the thing that worries me most is you have, and I'm seeing this so much, you have person leave stripe or leave open AI or hugging face, and they raise 20 on a hundred. And that's happening more and more. Can you just help me understand? Why do you think that's happening more and more now?

A Yeah. Well, look, I gotta be honest with you. It's, It's gotten really hard to venture. I mean, people raised way too much capital over the last three or four years, uh, and everyone kept raising funds, uh, year after year after year. And the spigot dried out last year, all the big multi-stage firms with a billion dollar plus funds stopped investing in growth. And the data is there. And if you look at the peak, I think the peak was Q four, 20, 21, that about two hundred billion dollars was invested. Most recently it was seventy three billion in the last quarter. Right? 200 to seventy three billion. So that's a massive drop. And let's talk about it. Looking at the Instacart IPO, who made money Harry in that Instacart IPO at pricing?

AI assessment note: “It's gotten really hard to venture. I mean, people raised way too much capital”

Q Were you unwavering when doing that? When you have three, at some point you must go, Jesus, this is taking longer than we thought.

A Uh, we did. There was a company Jesus moment. I remember with Guy, um, after we did in the first seed round and like, we're getting traction, but downloads don't equal revenue, right? This was in 2016, 20 17. However, he's like, yeah, I got some enterprise customers here. I don't know if I want to do it. I might, I might create this new bridge between, uh, the enterprise and my cloud. And it's going to be this thing called an agent broker that I'm going to create and thinking I can charge 50 K. And he goes, I don't know how long it'll take. He did it. It took a few days. He built it out, signed a few customers like, boom, here you go. Right? So if you are actively involved and engaged on the board from the very beginning as well, and you have a very concentrated portfolio, you see signals. And the signals that we see may not be the signals an outsider sees. And once again, the important part is if Guy went out trying to raise capital from someone else and I didn't have enough capital to give to him, he would have gone out of business. Okay. So that's where you have to kind of come in. You've got to know the founder. And yeah, do we get all the bets right, Harry? Hell no. We don't get them all right. But if one or two of them work, you know, within the model. So all I'm saying is that the fund size Actually can be larger. And I don't think it should be a billion dollars. And I t…

AI assessment note: “Uh, we did. There was a company Jesus moment.”

Q founders that are going out to raise and they're like, ah, shit, that's a really compressed price. Like two 75. I thought we were more at the 500. Are you saying it's a new world? Take it. Or are you saying, hey, take another five, ten million from us. And push it out 10 to 20 months or 18 months, whatever that is, and the markets might be different then.

A Yeah. So I have a couple of thoughts. One is, is that when the markets are pretty hot, we got ahead of it and got a lot of our companies funded with a lot of capital. So, you know, I think the bigger challenge we might have is that there are some companies that have too much capital. We had to work with them to get more efficient. For the ones going from, um, you know, seed to A or kind of A to B, I was doing the math. I think we got a 15 next rounds done, uh, from our last annual meeting from a year ago to now. So we did get a lot of rounds done in the, in the heat of the market. We even got a crypto infrastructure round done in an up around a ten million dollar A round done, uh, in this market. Uh, that founder, founding team, by the way, happened to go from zero to 1.4 million of ARR from a standing start in 16 months. But the point is, is that the best founders now aren't As we tell them, let's not worry about what the best price is because the best price could once again, set you up for performance issues down the line, a lot of talent. We want you to get the best partner who believes in your business in the longer term, uh, at a fair price. I think the days of founders being obsessed about the highest price possible, I think for the most part are over. Um, and I think the smarter founders want to actually, you know, get fair prices, you know, above average prices. But the…

AI assessment note: “let's not worry about what the best price is because the best price could once again, set you up for performance issues”

Q Two final ones and they're associated. What's your biggest investing win and how did that impact your mindset and what's your biggest loss or mistake and how did that impact your mindset?

A Yeah. So I'll give you this. So my biggest win to date and, and when I'll call a realization was kind of leading the round in inception with, um, customer with a K, uh, and, uh, that was like, I don't know, eight or nine pre I think. And we're like, basically wouldn't let the founders out of the room. When did he give Brad and Jeremy the check right there? Like, hold on, let me incorporate first. Let me get my A-III-B election filed. And by the way, in the enterprise space, I had already been the first investor in LivePerson, which was one of the first hosted chats back in the day. So I was that first check-in and that went public. I did GoToMeeting, which had GoToAssist and we sold that to Citrix. And then eventually, I did six hundred million of AR. So I knew the space cold. And this was their third startup, right? This was one of the ones where you're in the room, you meet them, you got the energy, you're like, yeah, fuck yeah, you gotta do this, right? So fast forward, there's some tough times. What we learned in that process was that someone going after an incumbent at that point in time was Zendesk. You know, it takes longer. You know why? Because no matter how visionary your product is, and they're, they basically built a data architecture that said, hey, instead of having each Uh, interaction be a ticket, whether it's email or chat or whatever, they're all different tic…

AI assessment note: “my biggest win to date and, and when I'll call a realization was kind of leading”

Q agree with you. So if we just take the kind of years to pre-seed, the thing that worries me most is you have, and I'm seeing this so much, you have person leave stripe or leave open AI or hugging face, and they raise 20 on a hundred. And that's happening more and more. Can you just help me understand? Why do you think that's happening more and more now?

A Yeah. Well, look, I gotta be honest with you. It's, It's gotten really hard to venture. I mean, people raised way too much capital over the last three or four years, uh, and everyone kept raising funds, uh, year after year after year. And the spigot dried out last year, all the big multi-stage firms with a billion dollar plus funds stopped investing in growth. And the data is there. And if you look at the peak, I think the peak was Q four, 20, 21, that about two hundred billion dollars was invested. Most recently it was seventy three billion in the last quarter. Right? 200 to seventy three billion. So that's a massive drop. And let's talk about it. Looking at the Instacart IPO, who made money Harry in that Instacart IPO at pricing?

AI assessment note: “all the big multi-stage firms with a billion dollar plus funds stopped investing in growth”

Q year. I think the closest one to running out of cash is 18 months. Everyone's just kicking it down the road, so I, I don't think this is the year of mortality, and I push back strongly. When you look at yours, do you have a generation of, like, you know, series of companies dying in 24, or are you in the similar boat, in which case, twenty-twenty-four won't be?

A Well, I, I think the question really is, is, um, what is dying relatively? Um, just because you have 24 or 36 months of cash doesn't mean you have a business. And I think that, I think Gem and you had mentioned earlier too, like kind of on one of the tweets is, um, you know, this is a year that boards and founders should have honest conversations, right? And I think that there are going to be a lot of boards that just don't have that conversation. And the honest conversation is going to be, Hey, if I keep doing what I'm doing, And founder in particular, what does my business look like three years from now? A, do I have a business? Um, and B, you know, can I grow into that valuation ever? And if I can't, if I can never grow into that valuation, then should I keep doing what I'm doing? Right. And then if I have to go out and raise capital at one fifth, the last price, maybe that's the best thing. Cause we think that they can eventually build a real good business down the line and whatnot. But I think those conversations are not being had and they must be, they must be, Made now. Like, there's no reason to wait three or four years from now if you know that you're only going to be worth one third, which are going to be at a multiple instead of a hundred X at 10 X or 12 X Ford, which is going to be a really good multiple. So just have it now. Why wait?

AI assessment note: “I think the question really is, is, um, what is dying relatively?”

Q year. I think the closest one to running out of cash is 18 months. Everyone's just kicking it down the road, so I, I don't think this is the year of mortality, and I push back strongly. When you look at yours, do you have a generation of, like, you know, series of companies dying in 24, or are you in the similar boat, in which case, twenty-twenty-four won't be?

A Well, I, I think the question really is, is, um, what is dying relatively? Um, just because you have 24 or 36 months of cash doesn't mean you have a business. And I think that, I think Gem and you had mentioned earlier too, like kind of on one of the tweets is, um, you know, this is a year that boards and founders should have honest conversations, right? And I think that there are going to be a lot of boards that just don't have that conversation. And the honest conversation is going to be, Hey, if I keep doing what I'm doing, And founder in particular, what does my business look like three years from now? A, do I have a business? Um, and B, you know, can I grow into that valuation ever? And if I can't, if I can never grow into that valuation, then should I keep doing what I'm doing? Right. And then if I have to go out and raise capital at one fifth, the last price, maybe that's the best thing. Cause we think that they can eventually build a real good business down the line and whatnot. But I think those conversations are not being had and they must be, they must be, Made now. Like, there's no reason to wait three or four years from now if you know that you're only going to be worth one third, which are going to be at a multiple instead of a hundred X at 10 X or 12 X Ford, which is going to be a really good multiple. So just have it now. Why wait?

AI assessment note: “Well, I, I think the question really is, is, um, what is dying relatively?”

Q Ed, we're seeing like macro not looking great. We're seeing interest rates potentially going higher. We're seeing global conflict. I mean, the world is not in great shape. And we're talking about kind of 20 on a hundred seed rounds. Is seed immortal to macro externalities or will this Shake down to the seed markets eventually, do you think?

A I don't even know what the fuck a 20 on a hundred post is anymore, frankly. I mean, that's just, I think at the end of the day, dude, it comes down to being disciplined. Right. And I mean, I don't know. I think that there's some lessons that haven't been learned and I'll just, I'll go on my rant. I mean, I think this whole AI thing, frankly, I think AI is the most transformational thing that we've, that we're ever going to see in a long time. However, I still think it's really fucking hard to make money there. This is a place I, I totally agree that where data notes matter. I think incumbents, anyone could take a API call to open AI and test things out. I mean, if I can look at Adobe, they've done an amazing job kind of going after that space. So I think chasing anything with a dot AI in their domain or an AI thing, I think is insane. However, I do think there's some opportunities there, but I'm not going to be funding these things at a hundred posts. That's what's regularly happening now. I'd love to hear your thoughts here. You're probably seeing a ton of AI, LLM, next-gen stuff. And I just think that this is just like I saw in the internet bubble. Everything had a .com on it back in it, because I saw that. I lived through that shit. And we're gonna see the same thing. There are gonna be some massive companies built, no doubt, but it's not getting built to chasing a portfolio…

AI assessment note: “this is just like I saw in the internet bubble”

Q Ed, we're seeing like macro not looking great. We're seeing interest rates potentially going higher. We're seeing global conflict. I mean, the world is not in great shape. And we're talking about kind of 20 on a hundred seed rounds. Is seed immortal to macro externalities or will this Shake down to the seed markets eventually, do you think?

A I don't even know what the fuck a 20 on a hundred post is anymore, frankly. I mean, that's just, I think at the end of the day, dude, it comes down to being disciplined. Right. And I mean, I don't know. I think that there's some lessons that haven't been learned and I'll just, I'll go on my rant. I mean, I think this whole AI thing, frankly, I think AI is the most transformational thing that we've, that we're ever going to see in a long time. However, I still think it's really fucking hard to make money there. This is a place I, I totally agree that where data notes matter. I think incumbents, anyone could take a API call to open AI and test things out. I mean, if I can look at Adobe, they've done an amazing job kind of going after that space. So I think chasing anything with a dot AI in their domain or an AI thing, I think is insane. However, I do think there's some opportunities there, but I'm not going to be funding these things at a hundred posts. That's what's regularly happening now. I'd love to hear your thoughts here. You're probably seeing a ton of AI, LLM, next-gen stuff. And I just think that this is just like I saw in the internet bubble. Everything had a .com on it back in it, because I saw that. I lived through that shit. And we're gonna see the same thing. There are gonna be some massive companies built, no doubt, but it's not getting built to chasing a portfolio…

AI assessment note: “I'll just, I'll go on my rant.”