Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2029
Motamedi: Current Series B VC vintage overall will not perform well
“Again, Harry, I come back to, unless you're betting that public market multiples are going to re-expand, or that the growth durability of these assets is a lot stronger than what we've seen in the past, the vintage writ large is not going to perform. It does n…”
Opinion
Saam Motamedi: Most venture capitalists are not helpful
“And our view is most people in Metro Capital are not helpful.”
Opinion
Saam Motamedi: AI investing is in a crazier bubble than peak ZIRP
“The short answer is yes, we are in a In an exuberant bubble. I think we may not even fully appreciate in how big of a bubble we're in, and what's happening, I could argue, is even crazier than what was happening in peak 2021, 2022 zero interest rate period.”
Opinion
Motamedi: Right now is the best time in years to invest in SaaS
“I couldn't disagree more. I sincerely believe it is the best time in a long time to be building SaaS companies and investing in SaaS.”
Opinion
Motamedi: Venture capital signaling risk is total bullshit
“I think it's total bullshit.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Saam Motamedi: Seed rounds frequently hit $100M+ post-money valuations
“It's not unusual for us to see seed rounds for companies that are just getting started being priced in the many tens of millions of dollars, even a hundred million dollar plus post money ranges.”
Opinion
Saam Motamedi: Series B market is frothier than peak 2021
“I think the series B market may be even frothier than it was in 21.”
Insight
Motamedi: 100x-200x AI multiples make no sense without unprecedented growth persistence
“Now you're investing at a hundred to 200 times revenue when public names are trading at the best public names are trading at 15 to 20 times. That dislocation does not make sense to me unless you believe that these companies fundamentally have much more persist…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Greylock refuses to invest in fast-growing startups lacking retention
“And if we don't like the answers to those questions, it doesn't matter if the company's gone zero to twenty million in six months, we're not going to invest.”
Opinion
Motamedi: AI application layer investing is no different from traditional software
“I don't think it is. And I think this is like one of the biggest misnomers in the venture zeitgeist where”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Motamedi: OpenAI will compete ruthlessly in pure code generation
“I think coding is a foundational capability. And I think if you just take kind of Pure code generation. I would bet very strongly that OpenAI is going to compete ruthlessly on that.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2029
Motamedi: Focused AI applications will yield many large public companies
“Like, I think there's going to be many, many large companies, public companies built that will be focused applications On top of these large model capabilities, but that's where we're focused.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Motamedi: Foundation models with tightly coupled applications will generate strong venture returns
“On the other hand, we do think there are some applications where you need to own the model because the model needs to be tied to the application. Whether it's a personal agent, as an example, you referenced inflection. And for those, we actually do believe mon…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Motamedi: Long-term value creation for standalone AI API services is doubtful
“I think if you're just building like, you know, An API service. I'm more skeptical. I think there's a lot of value this year, next year. I'm skeptical how it plays out.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2034
Motamedi: Sales reps won't use Salesforce's interface in 10 years
“And I would argue in 10 years, sales reps won't even know what the Salesforce UI looks like because the interface to the underlying system of record has changed.”
Insight
Motamedi: VCs shouldn't pass on elite founding teams over early-stage valuations
“So when you find one of those teams, I really don't believe you should be passing on price in those ranges. Because whether you do it at 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, if that company goes on to get to a hundred million plus of ARR with high growth, you're going to be ve…”
Disclosure
Motamedi: Greylock's Biggest Seed Misses Came From Disliking Iconic Founders' Ideas
“Our biggest mistakes where we have not, you know, pursued the investment has been where we've met someone truly iconic and we did not like the idea. And by the way, Harry, often we're right. Often two years later, the founder is working on something different,…”
Insight
Motamedi: Don't overthink market dynamics when backing iconic repeat founders
“And when you have the opportunity to work with someone like that, you don't overthink the dynamics around the market because he for sure understands it better than you do.”
Insight
Motamedi: Moving up the application stack protects focused AI models
“If you can start with a better focused model and then very quickly move up the stack into the application layer, it's actually a very good strategy.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Motamedi: OpenAI model competition will not disrupt ElevenLabs due to workflow moats
“It might compete on the model layer, but I don't think it will matter for 11 labs because I think they built really fantastic workflow around it.”
Insight
Motamedi: Uncompetitive VCs Fail Slowly Due to Lagging Signals
“And if you're wired that way, I think it doesn't matter if you're 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old, 50 years old. But I think if you're not wired that way, you're dead. And it takes a while to notice, given the lagging nature of our business.”
Assertion Supported
Motamedi: Google Trends for AI prosumer apps show rapid drop-off
“Take your favorite, you know, AI prosumer application that's going really fast and just go run the Google trend graph on it. For many of them, you'll see an amazing peak. And then also it really quickly comes down.”
Assertion Supported
First-gen AI writing apps have seen growth metrics crash
“And by the way, Harry, like again, it's early, but we're seeing some of the first generation AI apps that two years ago, everybody was talking about writing assistance and the rest that had unbelievable growth metrics. You know, now come down quite a bit and r…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Motamedi: Dismissing AI startups as 'wrappers' will age like early SaaS critiques
“I think we're going to look back on this discourse a few years from now, and it's going to feel very similar.”
