The Exchanges

Q and so I wanted to make it happen then, and then when you, you know, did your recent activity, I was like, shit, we've got to make this show happen. So I want to start. AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it's coming for my job, too. This is a wake-up call. Can I just ask, what spawned this post? What was the reason slash catalyst for it then?

A This was boiling for, for a while, and I think that this is also echoing some of my team's thoughts about their futures as, as professionals, and for some reason, some of it might be also frustration of, of not seeing people Going through this wake up moment, and I really wanted to validate a lot of what people were, were thinking, um, between themselves or in, you know, in small groups, but, and be very blunt about it, but also offer, um, some directions, or at least thoughts about what you can do about it, and then have this as an invitation for a discussion. Which we did have after the, uh, the email, and this, this was surprisingly large. I, I've asked my, uh, my chief of staff to assign a room that can, that can hold, I don't know, 50 people, and I wrote an email saying, look, I'm, I'm gonna spend three hours sitting in that room with my laptop, just working, and if you want to have a conversation, I'm there, just come sit beside me, let's chat. And so, so we, we've scheduled that time, and I came to that room, and there were about 250 people just cramping in that room, and I wasn't prepared to give a lecture. The idea was that this would be a conversation, and it turned out into a, into what started with a brain dump on my part, and then, and then just having, having a conversation, which, which is pretty hard to do with 250 people.

AI assessment note: “frustration of, of not seeing people Going through this wake up moment”

Q Let's just push on that. Why is that a laughable question? Like, I think it's perfectly legitimate to try and stretch someone's thinking. You know, Sergey Brin was asked the other day, what will search in the internet look like in 2030? And he said, Quite understandably. I don't know. We're taking every year as it comes, but I don't think it's a bad question to try and stretch.

A No, I think it's a fair question. And I think it's a fair question that we should ask ourselves constantly, but also understanding that right now, and I told you we're in this, what I refer to as like this intermediate phase of technology where things are not Are not sorted out. There's the signal to noise is impossible. And, and then there is the question of will it get regulated? How would that change stuff? Um, will, will countries, governments actually take hold of it? What AI companies is doing right now that like the foundational companies, It's like privatizing the Manhattan Project. Ok? Alright, so imagine that they do build the atomic bomb. And now they're sitting and saying, ah, you know, I don't know, maybe we'll do it non, non-profit. Or maybe they'll say, oh, we'll license the atomic bomb to, do you see a government allowing this? Seriously? Seriously, think about that for a second. If you get to AI that cures the worst disease in the world, which actually is worth a lot of money, do you see government leaving this in private hands? If this could create the ultimate weapon? If this could be the, whatever, the ultimate solution for infinite food and energy. No way. Dude, no way. So we're pre all of this. So to try and extrapolate five years from now? Seriously?

AI assessment note: “So to try and extrapolate five years from now? Seriously?”

Q you're, you're a direct dude. I'm a direct dude. Um, my question to you is, we've seen Shegg Chegg be bluntly,, but he killed as a business by AI, And, you know, Fiverr is one that people say is very vulnerable, and I'm sure people, you know, talk about it in that same vulnerability. When you did the brain dump to people, what did you say in the brain dump?

A It was, again, very blunt. Um, and what I told the team is this. I said, in an ideal situation, my expectation of you is that each and every one of you, and it doesn't matter what you do, Is going to replace a hundred percent of what you do with automation. Now, maybe it's, it's impossible. Maybe you can't get to that number, but ideally that would be the number. And, and the obvious question is great. If I can automate a hundred percent of what I do, you don't need me. And my answer to that was actually, it's exactly the opposite. Because if you can automate a hundred percent of what you do, that means that now you have a hundred percent of your time free to figure out what are the things that you can do that cannot be automated. You can spend more time, you know, having non-linear thinking. You can You can work with me on strategy. And I actually said that this was, as, as I was writing this, um, it, it, it dawned on me that there's something very interesting about this process when you, when you understand how AI, uh, augments who we are and, and, and how we do things is that maybe in, in a, in a weird way, What's happening with AI is forcing us to rediscover our humanity. Because in many ways, if, if, if functions that we do as do seriously as robots, Can be automated. Then there's no reason for a human being to do it. But what makes you Harry special? What makes you specia…

AI assessment note: “what I told the team is this. I said, in an ideal situation”

Q Sorry, how does, how does that Come as a strategic opportunity, and why did you decide not to do it?

A Well, it is, I mean, if you look at the size of OnlyFans, you understand why this could be a strategic opportunity. Um, but, uh, we, we, we just, from, from a point of the, our values as, as founders, the values of our, Of our board. We decided that this was not the direction that we wanted to venture into. The reason why I'm saying that we could have done it is because this was, this was actually bubbling, uh, within the first versions of Fiverr organically. We didn't have a category for that, uh, obviously, but we, we started noticing that this was, this was happening behind the scenes. There were like, Uh, code words, um, that people, that people spread on social and said, oh, go to Fiverr, do a search for X. And what it actually means is what you think it means. And so, and we, we started seeing that in the system and we, we, we decided that, um, this was not a direction that we're gonna go down.

AI assessment note: “from a point of the, our values as, as founders, the values of our, Of our board.”

Q you're, you're a direct dude. I'm a direct dude. Um, my question to you is, we've seen Shegg Chegg be bluntly,, but he killed as a business by AI, And, you know, Fiverr is one that people say is very vulnerable, and I'm sure people, you know, talk about it in that same vulnerability. When you did the brain dump to people, what did you say in the brain dump?

A It was, again, very blunt. Um, and what I told the team is this. I said, in an ideal situation, my expectation of you is that each and every one of you, and it doesn't matter what you do, Is going to replace a hundred percent of what you do with automation. Now, maybe it's, it's impossible. Maybe you can't get to that number, but ideally that would be the number. And, and the obvious question is great. If I can automate a hundred percent of what I do, you don't need me. And my answer to that was actually, it's exactly the opposite. Because if you can automate a hundred percent of what you do, that means that now you have a hundred percent of your time free to figure out what are the things that you can do that cannot be automated. You can spend more time, you know, having non-linear thinking. You can You can work with me on strategy. And I actually said that this was, as, as I was writing this, um, it, it, it dawned on me that there's something very interesting about this process when you, when you understand how AI, uh, augments who we are and, and, and how we do things is that maybe in, in a, in a weird way, What's happening with AI is forcing us to rediscover our humanity. Because in many ways, if, if, if functions that we do as do seriously as robots, Can be automated. Then there's no reason for a human being to do it. But what makes you Harry special? What makes you specia…

AI assessment note: “what I told the team is this. I said, in an ideal situation”

Q You know what I love about my job, honestly, is the fact that I admit to my woeful lack of experience in some respects, and you have 30 years. You, there, draw the analogy to the dot com. When you look at today and the dot com, where do you look at today and go, that's unsustainable and the sign of bubble-like times? Oh,

A Look, so I mentioned 40 new companies a day on my feed. There is no market for so many companies. And by the way, it started, it actually started, I don't know, eight or 10 years ago when I started talking about bubbles. Because when you look at markets and you look at the amount of companies that are actually competing for the same customer, for the same function or need, You realize that there's just too many companies for a market that cannot entertain that amount of companies. So I think that it was boiling to a point where the market needed to have a cleanup. And sometimes cleanups happen with a lot of companies go bust. And sometimes it happens through consolidation of saying, oh, there's whatever, there's five companies competing for a market that is very specific in cyber security. This is a market that can probably entertain one or two in that sub segment. Um, someone's going to win, which by definition is not going to leave that much for the rest, which means that there's going to be a cleanup either through consolidation or through companies going bust. Right now, what we're seeing is on steroids in what's, you know, I was, I was reflecting about this a while ago of saying, you know, when I started building my first company, the I was referring this as time to clone, ok? Meaning, um, you create something that is outstanding, you succeed, how fast would someone clone …

AI assessment note: “You realize that there's just too many companies for a market that cannot entertain”

Q there. You mentioned there about, um, finding humanity again. An inherent part of humanity is also vulnerability and fear, um, running from things that can kill us. I'm literally just came from a board 10 minutes ago where the CEO was like, my team is not embracing AI because they're, like, scared that it will replace them over time gradually. How do I, as a CEO, encourage adoption without fear?

A So that gets me to another point that was, that was super blunt. Look, when you think about high tech, um, the average age is very young. And You know, I've been, I've been building companies for almost 30 years. And when I started, when I started developing my career, um, it was very obvious that as a professional, you need to be up to date. You need to be able to be valuable. And in order to do that, you need to constantly upgrade yourself. But I think that what happened in the past 10, maybe 15 years was this notion that your Place of work has the responsibility to make you better. And my point to the team was, look guys, this is an aberration. This is like you're getting everything wrong. And let me tell you how things, uh, really are. Whose responsibility is it to make you a better person? Whose responsibility is to make you a better spouse? Whose responsibility is to make you a better dad? A better parent? And why do you think it's my responsibility to make you better as professionals? Fuck you. Seriously, if you're not going to take the time to make yourself valuable, to embrace reality in a good way, you're doomed. You're doomed. I'm not going to help you. I am not, it's not my responsibility. But I will tell you what I will do. I will help those who want to go through that process. Meaning if you want to help yourself, I'll be there for you. That's my vow. Okay. But if…

AI assessment note: “if you want to help yourself, I'll be there for you. That's my vow.”

Q in every single category that I invest in. Um, I just invested in an LLM optimization engine. Uh, we've both seen 30 of those. Um, how, don't laugh. How do you, we'll edit that out. Uh, my question is, how do you advise me as an investor then? To navigate and operate a new world where every category has 20, not two to three, like it was 10 years ago.

A Look, this, this goes down to, to maybe, again, a more fundamental view of what's happening with technology right now. Look, technology by itself doesn't give advantage to anyone when it's a hundred percent democratized. Okay. And, and here's the tricky part. The go to market of open AI in, what was it? November, 20, 22. Was as democratized as possible because they gave it for free. You can't, you can't be freer than free. And so what happened with that is, and this is what people don't get. And this is, and definitely they didn't get At launch or the year after, but they're realizing right now, they, everybody felt smarter. Oh, I can write incredible stuff. Oh, I can, you know, do research, uh, much faster. Yes, but so does everybody else. Meaning, yes, it's super powerful, but then it doesn't give you advantage because it's giving the same advantage to everyone, which makes everyone get back to ground zero. It is elevating the standard, but it is just picking up everyone to the starting line. And so, as you think about how to apply this to a VC thinking, it goes back to the oldest way of making judgments, which is Look at the people that are running the company, you know, because you make decisions based on people. Technology will evolve. Ideas will change. Companies will pivot. But who are the people that are running the show? How talented are they? How passionate are they t…

AI assessment note: “apply this to a VC thinking, it goes back to... Look at the people”

Q You're very vocal in a very refreshing way, in a very unguarded way. Do you feel the pressure to be vocal on AI, given your role? A lot, I think a lot of public CEOs feel the pressure to have an AI strategy. Do you feel the pressure to have an AI opinion?

A No, I, no, I wouldn't use the word pressure. I would say that I have a responsibility. It's not the same thing. The, um, garbage of once great companies that are now no longer with us is, is overflowing. Um, And a lot of the reasons why these companies are not around is because they, they couldn't sustain transformational waves. Compare this to surfing. That you, you, you have to start rowing to get a wave then, and then you can ride that wave. It used to be for seven, eight years. And then you need to prepare yourself to catch the next wave so that you can ride it. Um, today those waves are much shorter. Um, in, in distance between the attack waves, but, but it is the responsibility of a, of a, of a leader of a company To ensure that you're able to, um, to actually be opportunistic about each one of these transformational waves. And in some ways they force you to invent your act two and act three of a company. Most companies don't, don't, don't manage to go. Even the successful ones do not manage to go through the phase one of the company, even if they're a big company already. But there's always going to be a transformational wave. Um, and if you're unable to catch it and make the, use its energy to surf for, for a period of time, then you're going to lose it by definition. So you start, you know, getting left behind, waiting for the next wave or just going past.

AI assessment note: “No, I wouldn't use the word pressure. I would say that I have a responsibility.”

Q Sorry, how does, how does that Come as a strategic opportunity, and why did you decide not to do it?

A Well, it is, I mean, if you look at the size of OnlyFans, you understand why this could be a strategic opportunity. Um, but, uh, we, we, we just, from, from a point of the, our values as, as founders, the values of our, Of our board. We decided that this was not the direction that we wanted to venture into. The reason why I'm saying that we could have done it is because this was, this was actually bubbling, uh, within the first versions of Fiverr organically. We didn't have a category for that, uh, obviously, but we, we started noticing that this was, this was happening behind the scenes. There were like, Uh, code words, um, that people, that people spread on social and said, oh, go to Fiverr, do a search for X. And what it actually means is what you think it means. And so, and we, we started seeing that in the system and we, we, we decided that, um, this was not a direction that we're gonna go down.

AI assessment note: “from a point of the, our values as, as founders, the values of our board”

Q When are you happiest, and is life about happiness? I know it sounds weird, but Nick on the show said to me, I don't think life, from Revolut, I don't think life's about happiness. I think it's about success and winning, and that often leads to happiness. But it's not about happiness. When are you happy, and is it about that?

A Um, I think it's about, it's about meaning. When you look for meaning, when you pursue meaning, you are going to have a mixture of misery and happiness, by definition. But I think it's, I think that this is that, and as long as you're in your element, as long as you feel that you have, there is, there is a very deep meaning to what you do, then by definition, your core is going to be very happy. Your life might have, you know, swings because we don't control everything in our lives and, you know, the surrounding, our family, health, all of that. But I think that, generally speaking, I think meaning defines this for me more than, than the word happiness.

AI assessment note: “I think meaning defines this for me more than, than the word happiness.”

Q You know what I love about my job, honestly, is the fact that I admit to my woeful lack of experience in some respects, and you have 30 years. You, there, draw the analogy to the dot com. When you look at today and the dot com, where do you look at today and go, that's unsustainable and the sign of bubble-like times? Oh,

A Look, so I mentioned 40 new companies a day on my feed. There is no market for so many companies. And by the way, it started, it actually started, I don't know, eight or 10 years ago when I started talking about bubbles. Because when you look at markets and you look at the amount of companies that are actually competing for the same customer, for the same function or need, You realize that there's just too many companies for a market that cannot entertain that amount of companies. So I think that it was boiling to a point where the market needed to have a cleanup. And sometimes cleanups happen with a lot of companies go bust. And sometimes it happens through consolidation of saying, oh, there's whatever, there's five companies competing for a market that is very specific in cyber security. This is a market that can probably entertain one or two in that sub segment. Um, someone's going to win, which by definition is not going to leave that much for the rest, which means that there's going to be a cleanup either through consolidation or through companies going bust. Right now, what we're seeing is on steroids in what's, you know, I was, I was reflecting about this a while ago of saying, you know, when I started building my first company, the I was referring this as time to clone, ok? Meaning, um, you create something that is outstanding, you succeed, how fast would someone clone …

AI assessment note: “40 new companies a day on my feed. There is no market for so many companies.”

Q What do you think are the most interesting problems? Well,

A I, I think that, um, questions like, um, are we okay with the fact that, um, Truth is dead. Like that we can't even tell what's real and what's not. Are we okay by not being able to differentiate between things that are human and things that are not? You know, when are we being manipulated and not? Do we, but there's even a much, much greater and much more interesting question, which is, Are, how do we consider ourselves as human beings in our place in the world? My view is, I'll give you my view, my view is that humans, you, you and I, are the center of the universe. Everything evolves around us, acting from, from an assumption that we are in the center. Are we okay with losing that center? Because what's happening right now is going there. Because if, you know, if, if we continue to develop technology in, in, in, in a way that eventually is going to be unsupervised because it develops itself and we feed it because it's based on us, but it doesn't, it doesn't care about us because, you know, AI now is eating the world. It is. Learning from everything everyone ever created. It's mixing it. It's churning new results without even saying, you know, I've, I've just, uh, generated a, a nice podcast based on what I've learned from Harry. No, fuck Harry. Right? It's just generating stuff. So, my actual concern is that if this will go on over time, Then what's going to be our motivatio…

AI assessment note: “there's even a much, much greater and much more interesting question”

Q What do you think are the most interesting problems? Well,

A I, I think that, um, questions like, um, are we okay with the fact that, um, Truth is dead. Like that we can't even tell what's real and what's not. Are we okay by not being able to differentiate between things that are human and things that are not? You know, when are we being manipulated and not? Do we, but there's even a much, much greater and much more interesting question, which is, Are, how do we consider ourselves as human beings in our place in the world? My view is, I'll give you my view, my view is that humans, you, you and I, are the center of the universe. Everything evolves around us, acting from, from an assumption that we are in the center. Are we okay with losing that center? Because what's happening right now is going there. Because if, you know, if, if we continue to develop technology in, in, in, in a way that eventually is going to be unsupervised because it develops itself and we feed it because it's based on us, but it doesn't, it doesn't care about us because, you know, AI now is eating the world. It is. Learning from everything everyone ever created. It's mixing it. It's churning new results without even saying, you know, I've, I've just, uh, generated a, a nice podcast based on what I've learned from Harry. No, fuck Harry. Right? It's just generating stuff. So, my actual concern is that if this will go on over time, Then what's going to be our motivatio…

AI assessment note: “I think that, um, questions like, um, are we okay with the fact that, um, Truth is dead.”

Q When you have those CEO groups and conversations behind the scenes, is the consensus that AI is further along than people think, and we are moving towards more unemployment quicker, or is it that it is further away than we think, and not as close as people assume?

A I think most of them are just making the healthy assumption that we're closer to it and then further from it, because If it's, if it's further away, then great. Let's chill. It's fine. But if you assume that this is closer, then you, you, you at least think about the necessary, or you think about the implications, which I think is the healthier thing to do. I haven't seen companies go through massive layoffs. Um, I think companies that had fat in them, Started doing that, um, because they understand that it's very, and which is what I wrote in my email as well. I said, Look, um, before we figure out that we need more people, let's just make sure that we're extracting the most out of ourselves, out of our existing team. This was true five years ago, which, which is why, you know, if you run a lean company, not too lean, so you can actually be very, you can be aggressive, but lean enough so that there's, if, if you say, oh fuck, Like, I, I need to cut costs. There's like, you know, 50 people that you know are going to be the first. If you know this, you should say goodbye, you know. Um, but, but the message was, how do we maximize our capacity before we actually think about bringing more people? And if, if we think about bringing more people, These people need to be AI natives in whatever they do. I don't care if you're whatever, if you, or you're joining the legal department or …

AI assessment note: “most of them are just making the healthy assumption that we're closer to it”

Q You made the analogy to the dot com. Do you think we will have a, an AI bubble burst in the next few years? Or do you think the exponential advancement in the core technology means that we will, um, sustain excitement and financing?

A In terms of The amount of companies that are going to be around? Absolutely. Like, I don't know, like, 90, you know, 999 companies out of a thousand maybe is going to be around for a year, maybe two. It's going to be, it's going to be ruthless. And I've already explained why. I think there's just too many companies that are not introducing interesting advancements. And I think it's just, it's just opportunistic, which by the way, there's nothing wrong with being opportunistic, but the market can sustain it. I think that the market is going to start sorting itself out. So you're going to see much like we've seen before. You're going to see, I mean, we're, I was thinking about the.com. The.com also gave birth to Amazon, right? So it's like, So there are companies that have true value, true mission, um, and, and the patients who actually build that and, and, and, and staying true to your, you know, core reason to exist. It's going to be the same here. The market is going to arrange itself. There's going to be very, very large players that are going to be foundational players, which some, I think we know who they are or Have a good chance of being these companies. I mean, the Googles of the world, uh, you know, the Anthropics, the, the opening eyes, which I don't know what the play is going to be exactly, but it might be reduced to the equivalent of paying for CPU cycles. It's just…

AI assessment note: “In terms of The amount of companies that are going to be around? Absolutely.”

Q I'm so sorry. Can you help me understand why copyright is dead, and when so much of content and media is predicated on it? Just help me understand. I'm really naive.

A If you look at the arc of advancement of humanity, you know, Homo sapiens have been around for, what, like, 300,000 years. It was pretty linear for a long while. What changed the, the, the pace of advancement of humanity was the printing press, or the, the, uh, the, the printing machine. And Because it allowed for the distribution of knowledge, which made more people knowledgeable, which inspired them to create stuff, and then through press distribute it so that more people can enjoy it. Very close, maybe a hundred years, maybe less, after the Gutenberg, Uh, there was the 1710 act in the UK that was, that was called the, uh, the act for the advancement of learning or something, which was the basis of copyright, which said, To motivate people to create and share, we want to give them protection. One is their right for their, for their, uh, creation to bear their name. So the, you know, and, and then to commercialize this if they want. So one is a moral right. Right. And, and another is a commercial right. And this is how we advance because people wanted to both create stuff, but share it because they, they, they got the recognition, um, for doing this. And because it created connection because you knew who wrote this piece so you can get in touch with them. And maybe it nurtures new ideas and maybe there's forks and maybe there's, it inspires other people to do stuff. This was, …

AI assessment note: “which is why I say that essentially copyright is dead.”

Q Let's just push on that. Why is that a laughable question? Like, I think it's perfectly legitimate to try and stretch someone's thinking. You know, Sergey Brin was asked the other day, what will search in the internet look like in 2030? And he said, Quite understandably. I don't know. We're taking every year as it comes, but I don't think it's a bad question to try and stretch.

A No, I think it's a fair question. And I think it's a fair question that we should ask ourselves constantly, but also understanding that right now, and I told you we're in this, what I refer to as like this intermediate phase of technology where things are not Are not sorted out. There's the signal to noise is impossible. And, and then there is the question of will it get regulated? How would that change stuff? Um, will, will countries, governments actually take hold of it? What AI companies is doing right now that like the foundational companies, It's like privatizing the Manhattan Project. Ok? Alright, so imagine that they do build the atomic bomb. And now they're sitting and saying, ah, you know, I don't know, maybe we'll do it non, non-profit. Or maybe they'll say, oh, we'll license the atomic bomb to, do you see a government allowing this? Seriously? Seriously, think about that for a second. If you get to AI that cures the worst disease in the world, which actually is worth a lot of money, do you see government leaving this in private hands? If this could create the ultimate weapon? If this could be the, whatever, the ultimate solution for infinite food and energy. No way. Dude, no way. So we're pre all of this. So to try and extrapolate five years from now? Seriously?

AI assessment note: “So we're pre all of this. So to try and extrapolate five years from now?”

Q Which function has been most impacted in Fiverr by AI? Customer support?

A The area that is going through the, the, the, the most fundamental disruption is actually marketing. If you think about coding and you think about, you know, how, um, developers are actually using AI. It's really interesting, but, but when you look at the, the fundamental function of, of all the types of co-piloting, what a lot of them are doing is actually what developers hated doing, which is copy pasting from open source. Looking for a library, then reading the, you know, the repo notes, and then, you know, figuring out if you want to use it as is, or you want to go through it and look for security holes, or you want to fork it and build something off of it. Like, it, you know, it's like doing research on Google, following blue links, you know, copy pasting stuff from different websites and putting a document. Who likes to do this? It's robotic. Um, I think in marketing it's a whole different thing. Because A, there's no, there is no AI at the level that we have in programming in marketing, so we need to figure out how to use AI without actually screwing up or giving it too much freedom, because essentially right now we're at least still marketing to human beings, and so whatever is being produced, it will be consumed by a human eye. Or, or ears. And, and therefore, there is a much deeper sense of understanding human behavior when you do marketing, and I think that this is w…

AI assessment note: “The area that is going through the, the, the, the most fundamental disruption is actually marketing.”

Q in every single category that I invest in. Um, I just invested in an LLM optimization engine. Uh, we've both seen 30 of those. Um, how, don't laugh. How do you, we'll edit that out. Uh, my question is, how do you advise me as an investor then? To navigate and operate a new world where every category has 20, not two to three, like it was 10 years ago.

A Look, this, this goes down to, to maybe, again, a more fundamental view of what's happening with technology right now. Look, technology by itself doesn't give advantage to anyone when it's a hundred percent democratized. Okay. And, and here's the tricky part. The go to market of open AI in, what was it? November, 20, 22. Was as democratized as possible because they gave it for free. You can't, you can't be freer than free. And so what happened with that is, and this is what people don't get. And this is, and definitely they didn't get At launch or the year after, but they're realizing right now, they, everybody felt smarter. Oh, I can write incredible stuff. Oh, I can, you know, do research, uh, much faster. Yes, but so does everybody else. Meaning, yes, it's super powerful, but then it doesn't give you advantage because it's giving the same advantage to everyone, which makes everyone get back to ground zero. It is elevating the standard, but it is just picking up everyone to the starting line. And so, as you think about how to apply this to a VC thinking, it goes back to the oldest way of making judgments, which is Look at the people that are running the company, you know, because you make decisions based on people. Technology will evolve. Ideas will change. Companies will pivot. But who are the people that are running the show? How talented are they? How passionate are they t…

AI assessment note: “it goes back to the oldest way of making judgments, which is Look at the people”

Q You made the analogy to the dot com. Do you think we will have a, an AI bubble burst in the next few years? Or do you think the exponential advancement in the core technology means that we will, um, sustain excitement and financing?

A In terms of The amount of companies that are going to be around? Absolutely. Like, I don't know, like, 90, you know, 999 companies out of a thousand maybe is going to be around for a year, maybe two. It's going to be, it's going to be ruthless. And I've already explained why. I think there's just too many companies that are not introducing interesting advancements. And I think it's just, it's just opportunistic, which by the way, there's nothing wrong with being opportunistic, but the market can sustain it. I think that the market is going to start sorting itself out. So you're going to see much like we've seen before. You're going to see, I mean, we're, I was thinking about the.com. The.com also gave birth to Amazon, right? So it's like, So there are companies that have true value, true mission, um, and, and the patients who actually build that and, and, and, and staying true to your, you know, core reason to exist. It's going to be the same here. The market is going to arrange itself. There's going to be very, very large players that are going to be foundational players, which some, I think we know who they are or Have a good chance of being these companies. I mean, the Googles of the world, uh, you know, the Anthropics, the, the opening eyes, which I don't know what the play is going to be exactly, but it might be reduced to the equivalent of paying for CPU cycles. It's just…

AI assessment note: “In terms of The amount of companies that are going to be around? Absolutely.”

Q Which function has been most impacted in Fiverr by AI? Customer support?

A The area that is going through the, the, the, the most fundamental disruption is actually marketing. If you think about coding and you think about, you know, how, um, developers are actually using AI. It's really interesting, but, but when you look at the, the fundamental function of, of all the types of co-piloting, what a lot of them are doing is actually what developers hated doing, which is copy pasting from open source. Looking for a library, then reading the, you know, the repo notes, and then, you know, figuring out if you want to use it as is, or you want to go through it and look for security holes, or you want to fork it and build something off of it. Like, it, you know, it's like doing research on Google, following blue links, you know, copy pasting stuff from different websites and putting a document. Who likes to do this? It's robotic. Um, I think in marketing it's a whole different thing. Because A, there's no, there is no AI at the level that we have in programming in marketing, so we need to figure out how to use AI without actually screwing up or giving it too much freedom, because essentially right now we're at least still marketing to human beings, and so whatever is being produced, it will be consumed by a human eye. Or, or ears. And, and therefore, there is a much deeper sense of understanding human behavior when you do marketing, and I think that this is w…

AI assessment note: “most fundamental disruption is actually marketing.”

Q Do you not so identify with your company that it is a part of you? Like I would have a very hard intellectual wrestle if I, if I realized that I wasn't, but dude, I, I started this when I was 17. I'm now 28. To, to not be 20 VC would be very difficult for me.

A But, but if you, maybe yes, but at the same time, if, if your contribution to the success of the company is not maximized, I don't know. It's like, I know I, I have, I have a rule. Uh, if I wake up five days in a row saying, ah, fuck, no, then I'm done. Now I'm done. And it never happened. You can have a day. Maybe you can have two. But like, if you have them in a row, that's a bad sign. And sometimes, I mean, if you're not, if you like, sometimes you fall out of love. Sometimes you lose your energy. Sometimes you, you, life calls you to, you know, attend to other things. And if that's the case, yes, it's maybe you consider this to be your baby, but dude, it's time to move on. And find someone who's, who's, uh, who's gonna do justice with, with, with your baby in your creation. Uh, it is a hard, it is a hard exercise, but I think it's worth doing, um, at least once a year.

AI assessment note: “maybe you consider this to be your baby, but dude, it's time to move on”

Q You're very vocal in a very refreshing way, in a very unguarded way. Do you feel the pressure to be vocal on AI, given your role? A lot, I think a lot of public CEOs feel the pressure to have an AI strategy. Do you feel the pressure to have an AI opinion?

A No, I, no, I wouldn't use the word pressure. I would say that I have a responsibility. It's not the same thing. The, um, garbage of once great companies that are now no longer with us is, is overflowing. Um, And a lot of the reasons why these companies are not around is because they, they couldn't sustain transformational waves. Compare this to surfing. That you, you, you have to start rowing to get a wave then, and then you can ride that wave. It used to be for seven, eight years. And then you need to prepare yourself to catch the next wave so that you can ride it. Um, today those waves are much shorter. Um, in, in distance between the attack waves, but, but it is the responsibility of a, of a, of a leader of a company To ensure that you're able to, um, to actually be opportunistic about each one of these transformational waves. And in some ways they force you to invent your act two and act three of a company. Most companies don't, don't, don't manage to go. Even the successful ones do not manage to go through the phase one of the company, even if they're a big company already. But there's always going to be a transformational wave. Um, and if you're unable to catch it and make the, use its energy to surf for, for a period of time, then you're going to lose it by definition. So you start, you know, getting left behind, waiting for the next wave or just going past.

AI assessment note: “No, I wouldn't use the word pressure. I would say that I have a responsibility.”

Q there. You mentioned there about, um, finding humanity again. An inherent part of humanity is also vulnerability and fear, um, running from things that can kill us. I'm literally just came from a board 10 minutes ago where the CEO was like, my team is not embracing AI because they're, like, scared that it will replace them over time gradually. How do I, as a CEO, encourage adoption without fear?

A So that gets me to another point that was, that was super blunt. Look, when you think about high tech, um, the average age is very young. And You know, I've been, I've been building companies for almost 30 years. And when I started, when I started developing my career, um, it was very obvious that as a professional, you need to be up to date. You need to be able to be valuable. And in order to do that, you need to constantly upgrade yourself. But I think that what happened in the past 10, maybe 15 years was this notion that your Place of work has the responsibility to make you better. And my point to the team was, look guys, this is an aberration. This is like you're getting everything wrong. And let me tell you how things, uh, really are. Whose responsibility is it to make you a better person? Whose responsibility is to make you a better spouse? Whose responsibility is to make you a better dad? A better parent? And why do you think it's my responsibility to make you better as professionals? Fuck you. Seriously, if you're not going to take the time to make yourself valuable, to embrace reality in a good way, you're doomed. You're doomed. I'm not going to help you. I am not, it's not my responsibility. But I will tell you what I will do. I will help those who want to go through that process. Meaning if you want to help yourself, I'll be there for you. That's my vow. Okay. But if…

AI assessment note: “Meaning if you want to help yourself, I'll be there for you.”

Q I'm so sorry. Can you help me understand why copyright is dead, and when so much of content and media is predicated on it? Just help me understand. I'm really naive.

A If you look at the arc of advancement of humanity, you know, Homo sapiens have been around for, what, like, 300,000 years. It was pretty linear for a long while. What changed the, the, the pace of advancement of humanity was the printing press, or the, the, uh, the, the printing machine. And Because it allowed for the distribution of knowledge, which made more people knowledgeable, which inspired them to create stuff, and then through press distribute it so that more people can enjoy it. Very close, maybe a hundred years, maybe less, after the Gutenberg, Uh, there was the 1710 act in the UK that was, that was called the, uh, the act for the advancement of learning or something, which was the basis of copyright, which said, To motivate people to create and share, we want to give them protection. One is their right for their, for their, uh, creation to bear their name. So the, you know, and, and then to commercialize this if they want. So one is a moral right. Right. And, and another is a commercial right. And this is how we advance because people wanted to both create stuff, but share it because they, they, they got the recognition, um, for doing this. And because it created connection because you knew who wrote this piece so you can get in touch with them. And maybe it nurtures new ideas and maybe there's forks and maybe there's, it inspires other people to do stuff. This was, …

AI assessment note: “what happened with AI is it jumped over the hoop of, you know, attributing”

Q Do you not so identify with your company that it is a part of you? Like I would have a very hard intellectual wrestle if I, if I realized that I wasn't, but dude, I, I started this when I was 17. I'm now 28. To, to not be 20 VC would be very difficult for me.

A But, but if you, maybe yes, but at the same time, if, if your contribution to the success of the company is not maximized, I don't know. It's like, I know I, I have, I have a rule. Uh, if I wake up five days in a row saying, ah, fuck, no, then I'm done. Now I'm done. And it never happened. You can have a day. Maybe you can have two. But like, if you have them in a row, that's a bad sign. And sometimes, I mean, if you're not, if you like, sometimes you fall out of love. Sometimes you lose your energy. Sometimes you, you, life calls you to, you know, attend to other things. And if that's the case, yes, it's maybe you consider this to be your baby, but dude, it's time to move on. And find someone who's, who's, uh, who's gonna do justice with, with, with your baby in your creation. Uh, it is a hard, it is a hard exercise, but I think it's worth doing, um, at least once a year.

AI assessment note: “if you consider this to be your baby, but dude, it's time to move on.”

Q They were successful, so they'd be thrilled, no?

A Ah, yeah, but it's a public company. And I don't know if telling the story would, uh, would, would do well, but this was, I mean, this was, this was a company, this was seed stage. Um, it was a tough market. It was a, it was a tough nut to crack. Um, the, the company had internal things between, you know, between the founders. I mean, all the, all the, all the tough, tough stuff. And, and I said, you know, it's, it's, I mean, there's so many reasons why this company needs to die, but it didn't. I mean, people, I think, um, I think one of the investors of Etsy, um, talked about them in the same way. He said, you know why I invested in this? And I said, no, why? He said, because this company, you know, should have died at least seven times and it didn't. And this, this to me speaks for the strength of the company and the strength of the team behind it. And, and so this was the same story with, with this company. I mean, this, I mean, I, I, I, at some point I also lost a little bit of connection with the company, um, which is, which is fine. And, and then I realized that they were going public, and I was like, the fuck? Seriously? And, and I think that this is, this is probably the best investment I've ever, ever, ever made. The multiples were like in the, in the 50. Like, like crazy, crazy story. It's all about the people.

AI assessment note: “Ah, yeah, but it's a public company.”

Q In a way that, you know, when you compare 15 years of Fiverr, how does today feel in context?

A Look, my, you know, my, my dad was a, was a very senior executive at the, at, at, at the semiconductor business. The beauty about that business for many, many years was that it had Moore's law. Great. So you can extrapolate, like, unless it breaks, you can extrapolate and say, I know exactly what's going to happen in 10 years to the power of computing and the size of chips. Period. I, we can reminisce about those times and miss them, but it's not the case. So right now the cadence is super fast. People that ask me, oh, uh, what do you think, uh, what do you think the business is going to look like in five years? I start laughing. It's a laughable question. Um, you can have grand general ideas, but people that ask you to describe it are just out of touch with what we're seeing. I think that because of a lot of changes.

AI assessment note: “So right now the cadence is super fast.”

Q When is more worse than better unit economics? And what I mean by that is HubSpot said recently that actually they're producing so much code They can't put it into production, and there's too many features to release, and it's just too much. When is more actually worse than trimming and having better unit econ?

A The fact that you can generate more doesn't actually mean that you can just generate more, which is why I never, when I talk with my team about the concept of moving fast, I never use the term speed. I always use the term velocity. Speed is just the speed of movement. Velocity is speed plus direction. So, so speed is not enough. You need to, you need, you need energy in a certain direction. If you're unable to push the code that you generate, it means that you didn't solve your infrastructure to be able to do this. So it means that your priority is incorrect because you don't solve the things that the bottlenecks that are actually keeping you from moving fast. So take the same energy and instead of building infinite amount of things, try to figure out how can I entertain That many ideas. So solve your infrastructure first, then start building like crazy. Plus, you're probably building stupid things. Stop doing that as well. Um, when going back to this conversation that I had with, with, with the team, this meeting with 200 people, 250 people in, in a, in a cramped room, one of the things that I told them is, like, I'm, I'm thinking Um, as I'm thinking about velocity, I'm, I'm thinking, um, of how do we read, like, the, the interpretation of it, the, or the, the, the result of it is just reducing the cost of failure. Because, because essentially, look, all companies, all compani…

AI assessment note: “Speed is just the speed of movement. Velocity is speed plus direction.”