Rory O'Driscoll is a General Partner at Scale Venture Partners. He is analyzing Waymo's $16 billion funding round at a $110 billion valuation by breaking down Tesla's market capitalization.
“Tesla trades at 1.2 trillion plus or minus. It's got a hundred million dollar flat car business with declining profitability. Let's value that at two X revenues. That's two hundred billion. So that leaves you a trillion left, right? Trillion from the 1.2 trillion valuation. There's only two assets that give you that self drive. And Optimus. For lack of any information, split it. Fifty-fifty. Half self-drive, half Optimus. Tesla's self-drive opportunity, which has zero commercial revenue, 20 cars driving around Austin, still having way more stops than humans based on the latest data, is valued in the public markets at effectively five hundred billion dollars. You're getting an actual functioning program, albeit with a more expensive cost structure and maybe not the right long term solution. For a hundred billion, it's cheap.”
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More from Rory O'Driscoll
AssertionOpen · timeframe Dec 2031
O'Driscoll: Nearly all 2020–2021 venture investments will yield 1x or less
“Because if you think everything in 20, 21 was either priced wrong and makes a one X or early and just totally wrong and makes, you know, less than one X, let's just say, right? Other than a few companies that were the early precursors of AI”
O'Driscoll: AI reverse acqui-hires are regulatory shams leaving dead target companies
“We actually, in both of those cases, that's a pure pretense to get the government off of us, right? Everyone knows both of these companies are toast because in the case of Scale AI, in theory, Meta owns 50% of it, and in theory, their business is selling to ev…”
Rory O'DriscollSep 11, 2025▶ 18:00OpenAI’s $10BN Secondary Sale, Ramp Hits $1BN ARR & Brex Hits $700M · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionHeld up
O'Driscoll: OpenAI misses next year's revenue target by 40% if growth matches Google
“If all OpenAI is, Is just as good as Google, then it's going to miss its number next year by about 40%.”
Rory O'DriscollJun 5, 2025▶ 47:06Is DPI The Only Thing That Matters? with Sam Lessin, Jason Lemkin & Rory O’Driscoll · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
O'Driscoll: Displacing Overeducated Young Elites Triggers Major Political Instability
“You can have dispossessed urban poor forever, and nothing happens, but if you piss off the twenty-something-year-old middle class, the overeducated elites, they tend to cause trouble.”
Rory O'DriscollMar 12, 2026▶ 0:38Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins? | The Data Center Arms Race | The Ultimate Stock Picks · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionHeld up
O'Driscoll: Oracle will lay off 20k to 30k employees over AI capex strain
“The only person that's even struggling slightly to cover their nut is Oracle, right? Because they had the weakest balance sheet and the least compelling use case, which is why at some point they're going to throw 20 or 30,000 people over the side to make the P…”
Rory O'DriscollMar 12, 2026▶ 23:30Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins? | The Data Center Arms Race | The Ultimate Stock Picks · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionOpen · timeframe Nov 2026
O'Driscoll: Anthropic Will Pass OpenAI in Scale and Profitability Shortly
“Within a couple of quarters, Anthropic will be visibly and obviously ahead. Profitable, growing more quickly, and bigger.”
Rory O'DriscollMay 28, 2026▶ 0:14OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | Layoffs at Cloudflare & ClickUp | OpenRouter & Polsia Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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