Tomasz Tunguz
Founder & General Partner, Theory Ventures. On 4 shows, 9 appearances, plus 5 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorauthoranalyst@ttunguz ↗LinkedIn ↗tomtunguz.com ↗
Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner at Theory Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in AI and data software. He previously spent 14 years as a General Partner at Redpoint Ventures and co-authored the book Winning with Data.
4shows
9appearances
178statements
46resolved
23supported
9contradicted
50%fully supported
70said about them ↓ Everything Tomasz Tunguz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Tunguz: Nvidia revenue concentration is 10x worse than Lucent during dot-com bubble
“So Nvidia, two customers for Nvidia represent more than 40% of revenues. Four percent represent more than 50% of revenues. I went back and looked at the dot-com era, the networking companies. NVIDIA is 10 times more concentrated in terms of revenue than Lucent…”
Most major software companies will eventually integrate a Web3 database
“And so there's this asymptotic cost curve that will come down, and at some point, our belief is that most major software companies will actually have a Web three database as part of their stack.”
Tunguz: DeSantis will win the Republican primary over Trump
“I don't think so. I think, I bet DeSantis wins. I think it will be tough for him to circumnavigate all the legal troubles, and I wonder if the RNC doesn't get involved.”
Tunguz: AI coding progress is no longer on a steep improvement path
“Coding is no longer on this extremely steep improvement path.”
Tomasz Tunguz: Next market correction will be fast and brutal
“I think we're at a point where if there's some wobble, the magnitude of the correction will be fast and brutal.”
Tunguz: Agentic coding product-market fit ranks second only to search
“Look, I think product market fit for agent decoding is probably the best of any use case aside from search.”
Tunguz: AI app gross margins will expand as inference costs drop 95%
“And when we were looking like a typical software companies, probably at 75% gross margin. Yeah. AI software application companies are like a zero to 30%, and now their single biggest cost has been reduced by 95% overnight, and they didn't have to do a thing.”
Tunguz predicts AI startup margins and multiples will match classic SaaS
“Before they used to have Challenging gross margins. And now they'll probably look the same as SaaS companies, which means you have pretty significant multiple and valuation expansion.”
Tunguz: Software startups tripling growth without AI are a hard sell
“If you're tripling, doubling without AI, it's a hard sell.”
Tunguz: AI is in a "Groupon era" where GTM outpaces product differentiation
“It's a Groupon era for AI where one company takes off and then there are 15 to 20 others because you're wrapping the API, you have a lot of capability out of the gate, and then long-term product differentiation probably matters less than go-to-market execution…”
Tunguz: Enterprise app counts will flatline while total software spend rises
“And so I think maybe what we see is application count stays flat or maybe even decreases, but the total amount of software spending increases because it's capturing some fraction of that labor spend.”
Tunguz: AI agents will deliver significant enterprise ROI by 2026
“And I think in twenty-twenty-five, going back to your first question, we'll make some pretty material advances there, where the predictability is much better, and that will lead into, I think, twenty-twenty-six, where we'll start to see pretty significant ROI …”
Tunguz: AI inference costs will drop by another 1,000x
“I think you've seen a thousand X reduction in overall inference costs in the last three years. I think we'll probably see another thousand X reduction.”
Tunguz: Small language models will dominate enterprise AI adoption
“So I think we'll start to see particularly the enterprise small language models dominate.”
Tunguz: The $250B annual search marketing market is up for grabs
“There's two hundred fifty billion in search engine marketing spend every year, and so all of that is now totally up for grabs.”
Tunguz: Theory Ventures invests in data, AI, and blockchains as modern databases
“Every software company, every product that will be built for a user that's That on a computer will have data as its fundamental building blocks, and so we invest in data systems, databases, visualization. We invest in AI, both at the infrastructure and the app…”
Tunguz: In Q1 2024, Ethereum was world's most profitable software entity
“Ethereum in the first quarter of 24 produced on a percentage basis is the most profitable software company in the world. And on a aggregate dollars basis, six largest producer of cash, it's worth seven snowflakes put together. It's three hundred fifty billion …”
Tunguz: The 20-year SaaS go-to-market playbook no longer applies
“The playbook that we've built over the last 20 years, basically no longer applies. And we need to re-instrument and re-determine what this new world looks like.”
Tunguz: Series A ticket size valuations increased 42% over two years
“In fact, valuations at Series A ticket sizes have increased 42% in the last two years.”
Tunguz: AI agent startups struggle in mid-market compared to PLG and enterprise
“We see most AI agentic software companies, people who are selling software that replaces labor, they either sell at the bottom, PLG, bottoms up, or they sell at the very top. Mid-market is much harder.”
Tunguz: Founders expect valuations to match 2022 and 2023 levels
“They expect their valuations to be the same as in 2023 and the same as in 2022.”
Tunguz: SaaS survey shows AI has no impact on ARR growth
“AI today has no impact on conversion rate, has no impact on ARR growth, even though people who buy AI perceive it as a meaningful contributor to their overall efficiency gains.”
AI focus creates pricing arbitrage in non-AI startup categories
“There's probably some pricing arbitrage in other categories where people aren't paying attention.”
The other half of the tape: Tomasz Tunguz's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 67 times in 34 episodes across the shows. 3 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 20Jason Lemkin 12Eric Ver Ploeg 6Moisey Uretsky 5Jordan Tigani 3Scott Dorsey 2Molly Alter 2Mark Suster 2
Statements about Tomasz Tunguz, by other people (3)
Lemkin: SaaStr LinkedIn Poll Found Only 2% Make AI SDRs Work
“Tomas Tungas came and said he did this survey and no one could get them to work. I didn't have an opinion, but I did it on our LinkedIn poll. We had 3000 folks. Only two percent folks said they get the AISD work.”
Zima: Omni raised from former Looker board members at First Round and Redpoint
“We have 20 folks on the dot. It's 16 in product and engineering, so very heavy on the build side. And that was intentional because we were fortunate to be able to raise a good amount of capital actually from two former Looker board members at a pair of VC firm…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 55
the Official SaaStr Podcast 9
the MAD Podcast 3
2026 2 mentions in 1 episode
2025 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- How LP Deployment to Venture Will Change in 2025 & Are Endowment Funds in Trouble? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- SpaceX Valued at $800BN & Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Price & Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- AI, Sales + GTM in 2026: This Changes Everything with Jason Lemkin and Owner CRO Kyle Norton
- SaaS + AI: It’s Time to Move Much Faster with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
2024 9 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- The Death of Big Data and Why It’s Time To Think Small | Jordan Tigani, CEO, MotherDuck
- Jason Lemkin: PluralSight S*** the Bed & The Next IPO Candidates | E1160 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- From Outbound to Channel Partnerships: Your Burning Sales Questions Answered by Jason Lemkin
- What Really Matters in SaaS in 2025 with Jason Lemkin and Dave Kellogg
- Delian Asparouhov: Inside the Walls of Founders Fund: What the World Does Not See | E1183 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Forget the SaaS Gloom and Doom. Just Build. with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 6 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
- Emad Mostaque: These 5 Companies Will Win the AI War; Why We Need National Data Sets | E1015 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Vince Hankes: Why We Put $300M into OpenAI; Sam Altman's Pitch; Lessons from Josh Kushner | E1009 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jason Lemkin: Every VC has a FRAUD in their portfolio; The IPO market is about to EXPLODE | E1046 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- SaaStr CRO Confidential: Sam Blond + Omni Founder Colin Zima on the Power of Leveraging Your Network
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 2 mentions in 1 episode
2020 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: The Implications of a Biden vs a Trump Administration on Venture and Startups, How The Rise of Rolling Funds, SPACs and Solo Capitalists Will Impact Venture & What We Can Do To Swing the Race Pendulum in VC with Barry Eggers, Founding Partner @ Ligh
- Founder Confidential: The Top Things No One Really Tells You About Scaling
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 5 mentions in 1 episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Why It Is Good Company Funding Has Been Down 6 Quarters In A Row, Why Unanimity Does Not Work In VC Decision-Making & Why It Is Dangerous To Be A Spreadsheet Investor with Scott Raney, Partner @ Redpoint Ventures
- 20VC: Bessemer's Ethan Kurzweil on How To View Pattern Recognition and Deal With The Anti-Portfolio, The Next Frontier In Developer Focussed Businesses & Why eSports Is Interesting Again
- 20VC: Why Move Fast and Break Things Is Not Right, How To Instil Radical Candor In Your Organisation & What Founders Must Ask For From Their Investors with Jason Brown, Founder & CEO @ Tally
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 15 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: How You Can Learn To Be A Great Business Leader & Why All Successful Business Must Be Loved or Needed with Moisey Uretsky, Founder @ Digital Ocean
- 20VC: Lessons Learnt From Marc Benioff & Selling To Salesforce For $2.7bn, What Product Market Fit Really Looks Like & Why Pricing Is Startup's Biggest Problem with Scott Dorsey, Managing Partner @ HighAlpha
- 20VC: What Makes A Great marketplace Founder, The Key Metrics Marketplace Success Is Centred On & 3 Ways To Prove To Investors You Are A Domain Expert with Karthik Sridharan, Founder & CEO @ Kinnek
- 20VC: Do VC's Really Hustle Enough? The Takeaways From Watching Twitter Scale From 30 to 2,500 & Why Chris Sacca Is Like Yoda with Ryan Sarver, Partner @ Redpoint
- 20 VC FF 029: VC vs Angel Funding & The Future of E-Commerce with Ivan Mazour, Founder @ Ometria
- 20VC: Will LPs Replace GPs with Chris Douvos, Managing Director @ VIA
- 20VC FF: Hiten Shah on VC Funded vs Bootstrapped Businesses and How He Decides Which Startups To Advise
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
2015 9 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
- 20 VC 070: Do Investors in California Outperform The Rest of The World with Eric ver Ploeg @ Recursive Capital
- 20 VC 085: Mark Suster @ Upfront Ventures on Being A Super Entrepreneur Driven VC
- 20 VC 093: Where Is The Micro VC Market Going with Samir Kaji @ First Republic Bank
- every mention in 2015, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Tomasz's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & General Partner, Theory Ventures | 4 +4 | 66 | 43% 9/21 | full record on 20VC → |
| MADLEDGER | Founder & General Partner, Theory Ventures | 1 | 43 | 43% 6/14 | full record on the MAD Podcast → |
| SAASTRLEDGER | Founder & General Partner, Theory Ventures | 3 +1 | 48 | 60% 3/5 | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |
 SOURCERYLEDGER | Founder & General Partner, Theory Ventures | 1 | 21 | 83% 5/6 | full record on Sourcery → |