O'Driscoll: AI startups with poor margins historically raised capital successfully
“The objective reality is that's not what was happening. In other words, companies with tough gross margin profiles and hyper growth have been getting funded and frankly have been able to improve their gross margins and pull it off. And you can, the foundation,…”
O'Driscoll: Margin-negative AI startups face bankruptcy when growth decelerates
“And now you're just in a shitty gross margin profile business, which will go bankrupt. Because when things slow down, no one says, hey, let's do an acquisition of an adjacent gross margin negative thing, and it's gonna be fun.”
Rory: EDA software tools account for 13% of engineering budget per engineer
“The EDA software market, which is the most automated. Market today in terms of tools relative to engineering spend is roughly 13%. So for every engineer you hire, you allocate 13% for EDA.”
Rory: Benchmark recruits proven GPs with equal partnership over internal promotion
“I think it was a clever move by a very shrewd firm. I think it's been their MO for 1520 years, which is we have a very compelling offering to make to NEGP. We'll make you broadly, we'll make you equal in a very successful partnership with a lot of autonomy. An…”
O'Driscoll: VC funds should be judged solely by annual exit ownership
“The only fair way to measure things is, did you end up owning a lot, have a big ownership in big exits? And then you measure that for the year in which it happens. You don't try and account for other years, and then it's at least objective.”
O'Driscoll: Venture capital liquidity in 2025 will be significantly higher
“Look, there's no doubt that liquidity this year is gonna be way up on the last couple of years.”
O'Driscoll: Personal portfolio allocation is 75% equities and almost zero bonds
“And I'm with Jason, I'm about 75% equity, mildly terrified, you know, almost nothing in bonds and then rest in short-term and weird stuff.”
O'Driscoll: Almost everything that could be done in SaaS has been done
“Anything that could have been done 20 years ago in SAS probably has been done. So I'm not rooting around in SAS land looking for a good deal, right?”