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Lemkin: VCs Should Focus Almost Exclusively on Top Winners

Jason Lemkin · Eventbrite Sold for $500M, Databricks $5B Raise at $134B Valuation & Why SaaS is Like Japan · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Dec 4, 2025 · at 2:07

Jason Lemkin (SaaStr founder and SaaS investor) explains venture power law dynamics in the context of Thrive Capital doubling down on OpenAI.

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“There's like only a couple of deals that matter to VCs. So when you, you'll see a VC stay on a board for 20 years and you'll see them always hanging out with this one CEO and Thrive has a lot of winners, right? But this is a big winner, right? And so anything you can do to go deeper with those founders on your one or two winners, it's just, it's power law on steroids. It's power law with what you do with your week. It's power law with your deal flow. It's power law where you get, I mean, it's just, so I don't, Totally get who's giving each other how much equity, but I think it's a part about going as deep with your winner as humanly possible.”

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