O'Driscoll: Defense tech venture returns will suffer from market consolidation
Rory O'Driscoll · Anthropic's $30T Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO | Why Customer Service & Robotics are Overinflated · Aug 27, 2026 · at 1:20:52
Rory O'Driscoll (Scale Venture Partners) discusses which sectors will yield disappointing venture returns.
“I think an area where, despite it being amazing for America and important for the world, I think the venture returns of the March might be tough will be defense, not because we don't need all these products, but because I think there's an element of that business That you have to have account control, and I think the two or three largest companies like Andwell will end up doing a bunch of scooping up over the next two decades because, and because I think the likely, unlike tech where a single product can kill it, I think in these markets, I think it's a portfolio of products that it takes to survive the interaction with the Pentagon and just have enough diversification to make it.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →