Lemkin: Doubts recovery on recent AI portfolio investments with negative margins
Jason Lemkin · DeepSeek Raises at $50B | The Rise of Open Source vs OpenAI & Anthropic | OpenAI Builds Own Chip · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jun 25, 2026 · at 51:18
Jason Lemkin (SaaS investor and SaaStr founder) discloses that recent investments in AI startups with negative gross margins may not generate positive VC returns.
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“I'm sure all three of us are sitting on a portfolio company investment we made in the last 12 to 15 months. Where inference was the marketing strategy and the gross margins were negative. And we're sitting here today and we're like companies doing okay, but I'm not sure we're going to get right side up on that investment. We're all sitting with a couple of investments like that.”
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