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Jeff Seibert

Co-Founder & CEO, Digits · 3 appearances on the record, plus 1 compilation re-air.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveinvestorengineer@jeffseibert ↗LinkedIn ↗jeffseibert.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Jeff Seibert co-founded Crashlytics, which was acquired by Twitter, and Increo, which was acquired by Box. He previously served as Twitter's Head of Consumer Product and later co-founded Digits, an AI-native accounting and finance platform.

95statements → 47claims → 8claims resolved → 88%fully supported → 3.8/5average certainty → 2.34/5average debate potential → 4.6/5argument clarity · the sources → 36said about them ↓

7 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 6 not yet assessed 32 not checkable as stated how the 47 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

22 predictions · 25 assertions · 13 opinions · 23 insights · 10 disclosures · 2 what ifs · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 47 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 9 are resolved, 6 are not yet assessed, and 32 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Jeff argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up
Seibert: On-device iPhone LLMs will make OpenAI obsolete within five years
“I bet Apple can and will, and so if you project forward five years, if they get to the point where they can run a sufficiently large LLM on your iPhone, then OpenAI is out of the picture. Don't even need to hit their servers. It's just on your phone.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 24, 2023 ▶ 23:48 The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Seibert: Twitter acquires an average of one to two companies a month
“Twitter on average acquires one to two companies a month. They have for years.”
Jeff Seibert Jan 29, 2016 ▶ 15:53 20 VC FF 032: Jeff Seibert on Lessons From Being Acquired By Twitter & Box and Now Leading Twitter's Consumer Product

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
83% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.6 / 5 directness 4.8 · coherence 4.9 · precision 4.5 · compression 4.2

answered every one of 48 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

246 words/min while actually speaking · 11.4 um and uh per 1k words · 6.2 false starts per 1k · 16.6% of pauses land inside a clause

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 12,503 words across 2 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 4 rated episodes:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2.3/10
setup questions received 57%

Everything Jeff Seibert said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: AI will be commoditized quickly without disrupting existing software pricing
“So this may be just me, but I very much see AI as a tool, not a product. And so it's a technology. It's like your database. It's like Memcash back in the day, and so because of that, I don't think it'll change how people price in specific industries. Like, if …”
Jeff Seibert Nov 24, 2023 ▶ 17:36 The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: On-device Apple LLMs could make OpenAI obsolete within five years
“I bet Apple can and will. And so if you project forward five years, if they get to the point where they can run a sufficiently large LLM on your iPhone, then OpenAI is out of the picture. You don't even need to hit their servers. It's just on your phone.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 29:40 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2033
Seibert predicts runaway climate change is less than ten years away
“Runaway climate change is less than 10 years out.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 54:25 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: AI will boost productivity rather than replace human jobs
“Ah, so I would say actually, on a good light, AI won't replace many jobs, I think, actually. It'll drive productivity, not replacement, and it'll be like other technologies that have come out, like phones didn't replace people, now you just use them and you ca…”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 56:38 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: Foundational AI models will inevitably be commoditized
“I certainly think we will, and this may not be a popular position, Obviously, opening eyes, charging ahead, sort of leading the way right now. I think the market forces at work mean there's just immense energy to have an open source equivalent. Meta appears to…”
Jeff Seibert Nov 24, 2023 ▶ 2:12 The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Held up
Seibert: On-device iPhone LLMs will make OpenAI obsolete within five years
“I bet Apple can and will, and so if you project forward five years, if they get to the point where they can run a sufficiently large LLM on your iPhone, then OpenAI is out of the picture. Don't even need to hit their servers. It's just on your phone.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 24, 2023 ▶ 23:48 The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Seibert: Google delayed Gemini to Q1 due to poor performance
“They've just punted Gemini into Q one, which tells me it's not doing very well.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 24, 2023 ▶ 27:33 The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Seibert: Google is the most vulnerable tech incumbent to AI disruption
“I think Google's by far the most vulnerable.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 40:12 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2028
Seibert: OpenAI will evolve into an infrastructure platform like AWS
“I view OpenAI probably evolving more into an infrastructure company like AWS.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 0:05 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: Apple's custom silicon provides a massive advantage for on-device AI
“What very few people I think are paying attention to is Apple, because again, they control the silicon. Imagine they're able to pioneer small models that run on device, and then they do custom silicon to make them run. The performance could be outlandish.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 0:12 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Seibert: Elon Musk moving fast at Twitter beats standing still
“Agree or disagree with some of Elon's decisions, but he is moving quickly in a direction. That is way better than sort of standing still.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 4:44 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Seibert: The vast majority of startup founders are bad at running companies
“The vast majority of founders are simply bad at running companies. And I'm sorry, but it's true.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 5:30 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Seibert: Founders attempting a pivot need 12 months of cash runway
“You need at least a year of cash left, because if you don't have a year of cash, you're not going to have time to see this pivot through. And so it's really like founder grit and enough cash. If those aren't there, return your capital.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 14:20 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Seibert: Great founders build true alignment rather than 'disagree and commit'
“I will not disagree and commit. I think this is the hallmark of great founders is you need to be able to convince your team and have the trust of your team to go all in on a new direction.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 16:46 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: Large language models will inevitably become commoditized
“I certainly think we will. And this may not be a popular position. Obviously, opening eyes, charging ahead, sort of leading the way right now. I think the market forces at work I mean, there's just immense energy to have an open source equivalent. Meta appears…”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 21:31 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2028
Seibert: Open-source LLMs will become the 'Android' to OpenAI's 'Apple'
“So the closed may win in terms of having the most advanced model, but I think the Apple versus Android comparison is exactly accurate. So you're going to have something proprietary that might be best because it can be fully vertically integrated. They have, th…”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 22:21 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: AI startups that are thin wrappers will get killed
“Startups are gonna get killed because they're very thin wrappers.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 26:13 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Seibert: In 5 years, AI wrappers will look like MySQL forms
“It's really important to me that people view this as a technology. It is like your MySQL database. MySQL was very popular 20 years ago, right? Like it was super cool what it could do. And it's still cool, but if you try to go raise money on you've built a form…”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 26:45 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Seibert: Horizontal AI wrappers OpenAI will solve are bad investments
“If you're working on a use case that's pretty horizontal, that like OpenAI is going to need to solve within five years in order to scale. That's not a great investment, and that's not a good use of your time as a founder.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 28:21 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Seibert: Startup book values from 2020-2021 are far from reality
“A lot of them are basically holding at their 20, 21 valuation whenever the last round they raised was, and it's nowhere close to the reality.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 43:14 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Seibert: Secondary market data shows startups trading down 80%
“I do get data from the secondary markets, and so I can see with some of them like where they're trading versus where their last preferred round was, and it's a bloodbath. It's like down 80% for many of them.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 43:22 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Seibert finds secondary pre-IPO share sales more lucrative than post-IPO exits
“I've actually had more success selling on the secondary market pre IPO than I have had actually waiting the whole time.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 44:36 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Seibert: Twitter's biggest past internal issue was leadership indecision
“And this was one of the biggest challenges Twitter faced internally back in the day was just complete indecision from leadership.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 59:32 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Seibert: Emotional attachment to a problem is a founder superpower
“I think it's so much easier to build something that you personally feel than have to sort of try to interpret other people's thoughts and beliefs about it. So no, I would not be worried about getting too emotionally involved. I think that's a superpower.”
Jeff Seibert Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 3:48 Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Show 24statements(71 left)

The other half of the tape: Jeff Seibert's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 34 times in 16 episodes on 20VC. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 33Wayne Chang 1

Statements about Jeff Seibert, by other people (2)

Assertion Supported
Twitter Acquired Crashlytics for Nine Figures Before Selling to Google
“Prior to Digits, Wayne and Jeff co-founded Crashlytics, which was acquired by Twitter for a nine-figure sum in January, and then acquired from Twitter by Google in 2017.”
Harry Stebbings May 1, 2020 ▶ 0:43 20VC: Framework For Hiring The Best Talent 100% Remotely, Raising $32M From Benchmark and GV Pre-Launch and How To Think Through Capital Efficiency and Runway Today with Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang, Co-Founders @ Digits
Assertion Supported
Digits Raised Over $32M From Benchmark, GV, and Angel Founders
“To date, Wayne and Jeff have raised over thirty-two million dollars for Digits, from some of the best in the business, including Peter Fenton at Benchmark, and Jess Verrilli at GV, and then also the most incredible base of angels, with the founders from Box, G…”
Harry Stebbings May 1, 2020 ▶ 0:28 20VC: Framework For Hiring The Best Talent 100% Remotely, Raising $32M From Benchmark and GV Pre-Launch and How To Think Through Capital Efficiency and Runway Today with Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang, Co-Founders @ Digits

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0084158201620172018201920202021episodesmentions
048201620172018201920202021episodes it came up in
003468201620172018201920202021episodesmentions per episode
2021 8 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2020 14 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 6 mentions in 1 episode
2016 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode

Appearances (4)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
The Ultimate AI Roundtable: What Happens Now in AI, Why Google are Vulnerable | E1085 · 20 compilation Nov 24, 2023 2m
Jeff Seibert: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play | E1085 · 20VC with Harry Steb Nov 22, 2023 36m
20VC: Framework For Hiring The Best Talent 100% Remotely, Raising $32M From Benchmark and May 1, 2020 15m
20 VC FF 032: Jeff Seibert on Lessons From Being Acquired By Twitter & Box and Now Leading Jan 29, 2016 20m
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